h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

This year's Geoguessr World Championship final is absolutely incredible

https://youtu.be/BU6rXYv726I?t=30917

Happy 50th Anniversary to The Muppet Show! Jim Henson's groundbreaking puppet variety show began airing on the United Kingdom's ATV Network on this date in 1976 ahead of its US debut later that month.

*** New blog post ***

The second post of my tour around Zeeland in the Spring of this year:

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2026/09/ive-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt.html

The 2026 Ig Nobel Prize winners were introduced at the 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, in Zurich, Switzerland, on September 3, 2026. Each winner has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. #IgNobel https://improbable.com/2026/09/03/the-2026-ig-nobel-prize-winners-are-announced/

Published today! Our article in Math Horizons about how Robert and I lied to players for three years in our game Digit Party, and how we used integer linear programming to stop.

This is, quite possibly, the most entertaining interview i have ever encountered. You simply *must * read it. It keeps getting better with every question.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/b-c-swimmer-crosses-strait-of-georgia-under-nine-hours-9.7316260

My blog has now had over 2 million hits, so let's celebrate with a Belgian burger.

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2026/08/build-belgian-burger-flemish-style.html

https://improbable.com/2026/08/25/fungi-fungi-fungi-at-this-years-ig-ig-ig/ https://improbable.com/2026/08/25/fungi-fungi-fungi-at-this-years-ig-ig-ig/

"611.9 MiB of database against 644.4 MiB of ELF files. The whole userland, as one queryable file, is _smaller_ than the files it came from. The b-tree cost that doubled a single `hello` amortises to nearly nothing across 1,123 objects and is roughly 6% over the actual program bytes."

From "Your executable is a SQLite database:" https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/23/your-executable-is-a-sqlite-database

A very few more tickets became available for the 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony (which will happen on Thursday, September 3, in #Zurich, Switzerland). Grab ‘em while you can. #IgNobel https://eventfrog.ch/de/p/wissenschaft-und-technik/the-36th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony-7446575553581194400.html

harden your system against LLM-driven remote attackers by adding the following to your .profile:

PS1='C:\>'

🫈JUST LAUNCHED🦕
If you’re into weird creatures and word puzzles then we have the PERFECT thing for you
https://vole.wtf/cryptic-cryptid-crossword/

When I talked about post boxes at #SotM 2019 in Heidelberg (https://media.ccc.de/v/sotm2019-2488-lightning-talks-vii#t=427) I didnt have time to mention plaques on post boxes.

I've just come across a charming example at Knockdrome, Jura in Scotland: a plaque dedicated to a Starling which raised several clutches of young in the hamlet's post box.

I've updated #OpenStreetMap accordingly https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1800549257/history

Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin.

if you still needed a reason to switch to the fox, here you have it 😉

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3212428/firefox-is-now-the-last-major-browser-that-still-supports-ublock-origin.html

#firefox #uBlockOrigin #technology #browser

All the concerns that make me a boring civil servant

https://www.johnpe.art/2026/08/17/all-the-concerns-that-make-me-a-boring-civil-servant/

#blogging #policy #CivilService

The UK Web Archive has deleted ~50% of their published git repositories. This is not a joke, but I am laughing.

↔️ NEW THING ↕️
See a different Wikipedia article for every browser width × height combo, with over 7.2 million possible results! https://vole.wtf/widthipedia/