I've been trying Kagi Search for the last couple of weeks; my trial has now ended and I've decided to subscribe. Here's why... There was a lot of chatter about Kagi over on the fediverse recently. Some good, some bad. I'd heard of Kagi before and I know a few people who use it; o … | Continue reading
I've added a feature where you can click a button and visit a random post. I wasn't able to find this documented with Kirby, so thought I'd share how I did it in case is helps others. I thought I'd add a random post button to my search page. It's more for fun than anything else; … | Continue reading
After renovating the Garage, it's still very cold in there, thanks to Welsh winters. I have a small electric heater, but it wasn't good enough, so I upgraded. Back in early January, while off work for the Christmas break, I decided it was a good time to service one of my motorbik … | Continue reading
I love RSS. My RSS feed reader is the page I visit most on web, I think. So it's very frustrating when folks update their site, but don't redirect their RSS feed - please remember to do it, people. My RSS feed reader of choice is Miniflux, which has a great progressive web app (P … | Continue reading
So Christmas has come and gone in a flash. There was much eating, drinking and merriment, but what impact did that have on my *Fat Boy at 40* challenge? Just before Christmas, I let you know that I was making great progress and had managed to drop my weight from 110.9kg to 102.9k … | Continue reading
Let's Make the IndieWeb Easier by Giles Turnbull Giles thinks we need more options for independent online publishing than WordPress, and they should be *extremely* simple to use. Read Post → I completely agree with Giles on this. Here … | Continue reading
I saw a post on Mastodon recently asking about folk's opinions on Marriage. I replied, but thought I'd write my thoughts out here in a longer form. Here's the post as it appeared on Mastodon (thanks to Mastopoet for creating the screenshot): Personally, I think marriage is overra … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Elspeth Beard Genre: Non-fiction Published: 2017-07-06 Pages: 407 🧐 My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars) In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three and halfway through her architecture studies, Elspeth Beard … | Continue reading
When Will I Stop Blogging? by Matt Birchler Matt asks “Here’s an uncomfortable question: when do I stop blogging?” Read Post → This is something I was thinking about a few days ago actually, and something I’ve kinda noodled in the pas … | Continue reading
Last night I read Manu's post, "Yet another year of living without" where he talks about giving stuff up for an entire year. I've decided to do something similar. In his post, Manu mentions a previous challenge where he gave up different things for a month at a time. That's what … | Continue reading
I've been a biker for a long time...20 years this year, actually. While having one of my many email conversations recently, a reader asked me to write about the motorbikes I've owned over the years. I thought that was a great idea, so here they are... Having sat down and worked i … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy Published: 2020-07-15 Pages: 0 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) Hailed by the Los Angeles Times Magazine as “the greatest epic in the history of comic … | Continue reading
I love motorbikes, but back in October 2016 I had a head-on collision with a van, which I caught on video. Here's the story... It's Wednesday the 26th October 2016, I have the day off work, it's a nice day (for Autumn) so I decide to go out on my bike for the day. My wife was goi … | Continue reading
So I've been at this whole FatBoy thing since August. As a quick recap, I don't want to be fat when I hit 40, in August 2024, so I'm trying to fix it. When last I updated you, I was at 106.4kg (234lbs), felling good and making progress. So here's where I'm at as of this last Mond … | Continue reading
Lots of people on Mastodon have been losing their shit over Threads joining the fediverse, so I wanted to give my opinion on this whole shit show. The fediverse is awash with calls to block Threads at an instance level. As co-admin of Fosstodon, I've been asked on many occasions … | Continue reading
In a moment of madness I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I decided to sign up for Threads. Problem is, I don’t have an Instagram account (I didn't realise one was required). …and so, still wanting to sign up and test it out, I signed up for Instagram. I entered a d … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Ian M. Banks Genre: Sci-Fi Published: 2008-09-08 Pages: 545 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very sta … | Continue reading
The next step in the reonvations at home, is the garage (my workshop). Difference being this time, is that I did it myself. Since spending all our savings on the first stage of the renovations during our first year at the smallholding, the next step was to renovate the garage. Ho … | Continue reading
PenPals by Brandon Brandon talks about a number of connections he’s made over the years from having PenPals. Read Post → I read this post and thought it was chock full of lovely stories from Brandons past (and present) with his PenPal … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Kaleb Cooper Genre: Non-fiction / comedy Published: 2022-10-13 Pages: 224 🧐 My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 stars) Chipping Norton's celebrity farmer Kaleb Cooper has strong views on lots of things: sheep ('s … | Continue reading
I'm ashamed to say that I contributed to badger cruelty, and I feel horrendous because of it. This post contains details that some people my find upsettings (I know I did). A few weeks ago I started wet shaving again, and when buying my little shaving kit, I purchased a "badger b … | Continue reading
Since deciding to start the whole PenPal thing, I wanted a way of managing those posts from within my CMS. This is how I did it... When I first started emailing Jarrod Blundy, I threw together a custom post type for these PenPal posts, but it was clunky and awkward. Since I inten … | Continue reading
If you haven't read it already, here's the first edition of mine and Jarrod's conversation. Our relationship continues to blossom and we're having an interesting conversation about all kinds of topics. Here's this week's email: From: Kev Quirk To: Jarrod Blundy Subject … | Continue reading
When was the last time you saw a piece of tech that left you utterly astonished? Tech is great; it's one of the great loves of my life. It's constantly improving and there's always something new to learn, but when was the last time tech blew your mind? The first time I sent an em … | Continue reading
I just realised that I forgot to give the update for this month's Fat Boy at 40. I'll keep this brief as I don't have much time... Things are still going well. I'm continuing to lose weight and feel good. What's more, friends and family are starting to notice now too. Here's the … | Continue reading
I needed a new headshot for work, as I was pissed in my old one. But instead of getting a photographer, I asked AI to do it for me instead. A while back I decided I needed a new headshot, as the one I currently use everywhere is from a night out with friends where I'm actually li … | Continue reading
This is the first of my Pen Pals, and as I said in my last post, I'll be getting to know Jarrod Blundy for this month. Below is the first exchange we had in this process. Hope you enjoy... From: Kev Quirk To: Jarrod Blundy Subject: Letters - November Hey Jarrod, Really glad you … | Continue reading
I want to get to know you better. So I've decided to start a new mini-project where one of you become my Pen Pal for the month. I've made a number of friends from blogging, but I'd like to take it one step further. Inspired by Jarrod Blundy, I'd like to start a Pen Pal project wh … | Continue reading
All the cool kids are doing these lists of their default app for the end of 2023. I'm not a cool kid, but thought I'd jump on the bandwagon regardless. This seems to be a bit of fun that's doing the rounds of bloggers everywhere. Rob Knight is even maintaining a list of people wh … | Continue reading
On Subscriptions by Manu Moreale Manu talks about some of the subscriptions he has to online services, and in particular streaming services. It's an interesting read, and I thought I'd respond. Read Post → Manu ends his post with the … | Continue reading
Other People's Enthusiasm by Jack Baty Jack talks about how the enthusiasm of others can influence his decisions about trying new things. Read Post → I hear you, Jack. I really do. Here's how it tends to go with me: I hear about a new … | Continue reading
I've been thinking about a return to wet shaving for a while now, so recently took the plunge and had my first wet shave for 15 years. I haven't had a wet shave since I was in the Army, and I left the Army in 2009. Since then, I've always used a beard trimmer and simply trimmed m … | Continue reading
I wanted to make a small change to the CSS on this site, but wasn't sure how to do it, so I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me. What I wanted to do was remove the more-links page from this site and replace it with a simple drop-down on the nav menu. I had a fair idea of how … | Continue reading
Matt Birchler recently posted some of his favourite fonts to Mastodon, so I thought I'd share some of my own favourites here. Beautiful typography is something that's very important to me, I've even gone as so far as having my website torn apart by a professional typographer. It' … | Continue reading
I recently found this minisite about using plaintext for your email. While I agree that plaintext should be the default, this site takes things way too far and frankly, misses the mark. I can't remember where I came across useplaintext.email - I think someone linked to it on Mast … | Continue reading
According to my iPhone Screen Time, I'm way under the average in terms of usage, but I still think I use my phone too much. There's been a number of times lately where I've realised I'm spending too much time on my phone. Well, actually I don't realise; it's usually my wife shout … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Dennis E. Taylor Genre: Sci-fi / Fantasy Published: 2023-01-26 Pages: 350 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) The Yellowstone super-eruption has put an end to modern civilization. As cities and countries … | Continue reading
Blogs, Gardens, and Thinking Aloud in Public by Bix Frankonis In this post, Bix ruminates on blogging vs digital gardens, vs the polish a “blog” is expected to have. Read Post → Bix talks about digital gardens vs the traditional blog. … | Continue reading
Today marks the 1st anniversary of us moving into our 2.5 acre smallholding in Wales, but how has the first year gone? Here's a retrospective... I can't believe it's been a year already - it's gone so quick, but I do feed like we've achieved a lot. Pretty much all of our savings … | Continue reading
Blogging for the Hell of it by Whiona We don't need blogging niches, or "thought leaders"; we need more people just to blog for the hell of it. Read Post → I think Whiona hits the nail squarely on the head with this one. Writing a blo … | Continue reading
I've been lucky enough to make a number of friends off the back of this blog (and also their blogs). This is a bit of a feel good post about how social media isn't the only way to meet new people. I've talked at length about my challenges with social media/microblogging vs tradit … | Continue reading
I was recently talking to Jatan Mehta about microblogging vs traditional blogging, and what should go where. I thought it was an interesting conversation, so decided to share my opinions here too. I've written about my love/hate relationship with social media in the past, and how … | Continue reading
CMS Filesize Comparison by Eddie Dale People probably disagree with the usefulness of a blunt size-comparison between CMS'es. But I find it a great indication of complexity vs simplicity, tendencies of bloat, load times. Read Post → … | Continue reading
A couple of days ago, I was reading Manu's latest edition of People and Blog, in which he interviewed Andrea Contino. During the interview, Andrea linked to this post by Matt (who owns another blog that I regularly read and recommend you do too). Anyway, Matt's post is about not … | Continue reading
It's been a little over a month since I mentioned the Fat Boy at 40 thing (me wanting to lose some weight), so I thought it was hide time provided an update... So I've been tracking my weight, BMI and blood pressure over the last 6 weeks. The good news is that my weight has gone … | Continue reading
Yes, that's right dear reader, this site has gone through yet another change - it's now based on Kirby and I think I've finally found my blogging utopia. Most regular readers will know that I struggle to stick with a single blogging platform. This is because I'm always on the hun … | Continue reading
This evening, while my wife was putting the kids to bed, she asked me if I'd go and check on the chickens as it was getting dark. Being the dutiful husband that I am, I trotted off up the field to make sure they were all settled down for the evening and that they were safe. While … | Continue reading
I absolutely hate the word "thing". Like, serious, what value does that work have? It adds nothing to a conversation and should be erased from the dictionary. Picture the scene, dear reader; I'm in one room, and my kids are in another. Then, out of nowhere, one of them shouts: Da … | Continue reading