flurries of latent creativity

Cheap turpentine

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 20:00:00 -0700

“When art critics get together they talk about form and structure and meaning. When artists get together, they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” — attributed to Pablo Picasso

Community is a product decision

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0700

I’ve learned over the years that shipping fast compounds exponentially only if you’re also learning fast. Otherwise, you’re just pushing volume (and many mistakes) into production, celebrating the wrong kind of momentum.

Dreamer – why we built it!

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0700

Dreamer is the name of the platform and company I started with Hugo, Nicholas and others a little over a year ago. The company was lovingly christened /dev/agents in homage to Stripe while we contemplated our real name.

Coding agents have crossed a chasm

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 12:20:00 -0700

Coding agents have crossed a chasm Somewhere in the last few months, something fundamental shifted for me with autonomous AI coding agents. They’ve gone from a “hey this is pretty neat” curiosity to something I genuinely can’t imagine working without.

picowx – An APRS powered RPi Pico-W eInk Weather Station

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 12:20:00 -0700

This project began as a quick hack to make use of the cool Pimoroni Inky Pack. I was quickly nerd-sniped into exploring the depths of micropython and power optimization on the Pico.

Situational awareness and kindlegen

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 12:20:00 -0700

On June 4th Leopold Aschenbrenner dropped a 165 page PDF – “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead” – a comprehensive essay series exploring the future trajectory of artificial intelligence, particularly focusing on the development and implications of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

More Advent of Code optimization

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 12:20:00 -0700

Warning, if you plan to complete Advent of Code 2023, this post contains spoilers so don’t read it until you’re done. My last post on Advent of Code spurred a bunch of discussion which inspired me to optimize my 2023 solutions in python even further.

Advent of code 2023 in under a second in python (ish!)

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:20:00 -0700

Warning, if you plan to complete Advent of Code 2023, this post contains spoilers so don’t read it until you’re done. This was my second year completing Advent of Code live during December.

Irish stew

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0800

Irish stew There are many recipes for irish stew on the Internet, but not a single one that comes close to the stew my mum makes. This is her recipe.

Lamb al asador

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 12:20:00 -0700

Lamb al asador is a classic Patagonian method of barbecue with a whole lamb flayed and hung on an asado cross over an open fire. I had the good fortune to be able to eat lamb al asador in Chile in early 2020 (pre lockdown!

Advent of code

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 12:20:00 -0700

The contest Advent of Code is an advent calendar of programming puzzles made by Eric Wastl. It’s been going since 2015 and really gained popularity in 2020. I’d heard about AOC peripherally (is… peripheral hearing a thing?

TOTP tokens on my wrist with the smartest dumb watch.

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 12:20:00 -0700

I recently took delivery of a new replacement logic board for the ubiquitous classic Casio F-91W from Sensor Watch. The F-91W needs no introduction. It’s probably the most popular quartz watch in the world with something like 90 million total units sold.

Stable diffusion on an M1 Mac

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 12:20:00 -0700

As you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve been kindof obsessed with the text-to-image GPT models OpenAI released as DALL-E recently. I’ve enjoyed generating art and even collaborating with DALL-E to riff on paintings I’ve made myself.

Pita bread

Sun, 05 Jun 2022 12:16:19 -0800

Yeast-leavened round flatbreads baked from wheat flour, common in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and neighboring areas. Ingredients 500g strong white bread flour (plus a little more for dusting) 360g lukewarm water 3 tsp instant dry yeast 1 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Steps Bloom the yeast in the water and sugar, 10 mins.

Okonomiyaki

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 12:16:19 -0800

Delicious Japanese savory pancake. Okonomiyaki Ingredients 3 tbsp vegetable oil 100g green cabbage, finely sliced 2 rashers smoked streaky bacon 100g plain flour 4 large eggs 300 ml milk kewpie mayonnaise tonkatsu sauce 1 nori sheet 2 scallions bonito flakes Steps Fry the cabbage and bacon in 1 tbsp oil.

Kālua pork, cooked in an imu.

Sun, 29 May 2022 23:20:00 -0700

If you’ve ever enjoyed a Luau in Hawaii, chances are that the pièce de résistance was delicious melt-in-the-mouth Kālua Pork which is often served as the centrepiece of the Luau feast.

Olive and Rosemary Focaccia

Sun, 01 May 2022 12:16:19 -0800

Olive and rosemary focaccia Ingredients 7 grams (1 envelope) active dry yeast 625g bread flour 2 1/2 cups lukewarm water 2 tsp honey or caster sugar 5 tsp salt for dough 2 tsp flaky sea salt 8 tbsp extra virgin olive oil bunch fresh rosemary 10 fresh olives Steps Bloom the yeast (10 mins) in the water plus honey or sugar.

Aloo Gobi

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 12:16:19 -0800

Aloo Gobi Indian spiced potatoes and cauliflower. Ingredients 2 potatoes 1 whole cauliflower 1 onion 2 diced tomatoes 1 tsp turmeric 1 tbsp minced ginger 3 cloves minced garlic 1 minced serrano chile 2 tsp cumin seeds 1 tbsp garam masala 2 tbsp chopped coriander / cilantro 1 tsp red chili powder salt to taste oil Steps Break the caulflower into small florets (~6 cm in diameter) Chop the potatoes into 1cm cubes Fry the cauliflower pieces with salt and turmeric ~3 mins Add the potato and fry a further 7 - 8 mins Set aside potatoes and cauliflower Fry the garlic and ginger paste until aromatic, add the onion, serrano chile and half the cilantro and fry until the onion starts to turn translucent Add the tomatoes, chili powder, garam masala and cumin seeds Cook covered for ~5 mins Return the potato and cauliflower mix to the pan Cook a further 13-15 mins, add a little water if needed, until the potatoes are soft.

Brioche burger buns

Sat, 29 Jan 2022 12:16:19 -0800

Brioche burger buns Ingredients 7g active dry yeast 1 tsp sugar (to bloom the yeast) 50g water (lukewarm) 80g milk (lukewarm) 300g all purpose flour 1 large egg for the dough 1 egg for brushing 45g sugar for the dough 100g butter (room temp) 5g salt sesame seeds Steps Combine the water, milk and tsp of sugar with the yeast and allow to bloom 10 mins.

The joy of building a ray tracer, for fun, in Rust.

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 23:20:00 -0700

TLDR? You can find the code and a bunch of examples on GitHub at dps/rust-raytracer.

Over the holiday break, I decided to learn Rust. Rust is a modern systems programming language which has a really interesting type system. The type system can catch broad classes of common programming mistakes - e.g. ensuring memory is accessed safely - at compile time while generating tight, performant machine code. I’ve heard a lot about Rust from friends and colleagues over the past several years. Their most frequent descriptions in the early days were “esoteric” and “puzzling” but during 2021 it’s been increasingly common to hear gushing praise for the language.

About

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 12:00:00 -0700

I’m David Singleton. This is my personal website / blog. You can find my professional profile on LinkedIn. I grew up in Belfast, spent more than a decade in England and now live in San Francisco, CA.

Probabilistic Spreadsheet

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 11:00:00 -0700

I’ve had an idea kicking around at the back of my mind for years and finally spent a few hours over the last couple of weekends building it. It’s a probabilistic spreadsheet.

Jellyfish clouds

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 11:00:00 -0700

I saw these amazing jellyfish clouds at sunset over Sea Ranch, CA last week. Their shape - with solid bodies and flowing tentacles - together with the beautiful sunset colors (each photo is completely unfiltered) really grabbed me.

Radiohead - Live at the Astoria (May 1994)

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0800

😍🎸 Vintage Radiohead concert - Live at the Astoria (May 1994).

I made a spreadsheet

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:00:00 -0700

Visicalc, the world’s first spreadsheet, was also the original killer app. Steve Jobs said that Visicalc “propelled the Apple ][ to the success it achieved”. As one of the first mainstream digital tools, I’m fairly sure the first spreadsheet inspired Jobs’ later quote that “…the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” – and that quote often inspires me.

I wrote a compiler

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 12:00:00 -0700

I have a Computer Science degree. I attended a whole course of lectures on compilers (and have a certain fondness for “the red dragon book” as a result). However, I had never actually written a compiler from start to finish until a rainy day last weekend.

BBQ ribs

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 12:16:19 -0800

BBQ Ribs (a continuous work in progress) Ingredients 2 racks baby back pork ribs For the rub 1/2 cup brown sugar 4 tablespoons chili powder kosher salt black pepper 2 tsp oregano 1 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder Steps sous vide method

Wine update and 2020 vintage

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 12:00:00 -0700

Amid the pandemic and California fires, September saw a flurry of activity on the wine-making front. We bottled our 2019 primativo and picked, crushed, fermented and pressed our 2020 vintage - a (tricky) pinot noir.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Authentic Chicken Tikka Masala. Authentic to British takeaway curry houses, that is.

Non-alcoholic "spirits"

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0800

I’m trying to make something better than seedlip. August 15th 2020, “Summer Sun” Ingredients Zest of two lemons One largish jalapeno two lime tree leaves 20g coriander seeds 1/4 cup sugar 16 oz water Steps toast the jalapeno seeds and coriander seeds mince the rest of the jalapeno macerate in a pestle and mortar simmer ~15 mins, dissolving the sugar chill Tasting notes Grassy and bright with a spicy aftertaste.

How to Land the Space Shuttle... from Space

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0800

I happened upon Bret Copeland’s awesome 20 minute talk from 2016 this week. Landing the space shuttle is an amazing feat. Delightful talk, you won’t be disappointed.

New York style bagels

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Bagels, the way they make them in the Big Apple. Recipe makes 8 bagels. Ingredients 500g bread flour 23g baker’s sugar 7g packet of instant yeast 297g water at 32C/90F 6g salt 1 egg Seasoning if desired (e.

Carrot and red lentil daal

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Absolutely inauthentic, but yummy. Ingredients 1/2 cup red lentils 2 carrots, grated 20g finely diced cilantro stalks handful fresh cilantro 2 tsp honey 1 tsp cumin salt and pepper to taste Steps Fry diced cilantro stalks with cumin.

Bill Gates - TED - How the pandemic will shape the near future

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Bill Gates’ TED episode “how the pandemic will shape the near future” is the most lucid overview I’ve heard of where we stand with respect to fighting COVID-19.

Chicken udon soup

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0800

This recipe is a great way to use roast chicken leftovers. Hearty umami flavor. Guaranteed to make you smile.

Making concrete is fun

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 12:00:00 -0700

I asked my son what he wanted to do for his fourth birthday and he said “make concrete”! I suppose this was to do with my having waxed lyrical about how incredible concrete is. Stone! That you can make wherever you want, in any shape that you desire.

Apricot and date stuffed pork loin

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Work in progress. Ingredients 2 lb pork loin 1 apple (optional) for the stuffing 1/2 cup dried apricots 1/2 cup dates 1/2 cup cashew nuts (unsalted) 1 cup breadcrumbs 1/2 cup olive oil 1 tbsp cumin 1 tbsp black pepper Steps Combine the stuffing ingredents in food processor and blend until finely chopped Butterfly the pork loin and tenderize Spread the stuffing evenly across the loin (about 1/2 inch thick) Roll the stuffed loin and tie with kitchen string Fry in an iron skillet to seal.

Brussels Sprout and Sweet Potato Tacos

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Weird but delicious. Ingredients 1 onion 8 oz brussels sprouts 1 sweet potato 1 tbsp cumin 1 tbsp chilli powder 2 tsp paprika 1/2 oz hot honey 1 tbsp olive oil 4 flour tacos Steps roughly chop onion dice brussels sprouts peel and grate sweet potato toast the spices then add olive oil and fry the onion add the brussels sprouts and grated sweet potato, fry until slightly caramelized add 1/4 cup water to the pan and cover, cook 2-3 mins add the hot honey, cook 1 min Serving Serve on tacos

Bonjour ma classe!

Mon, 18 May 2020 12:00:00 -0700

When COVID-19 hit, my kids’ school, like many others around the world, moved over to a fully remote/online learning program. The school and some of the other parents were looking for ways to help the students keep in touch during lockdown. Over the course of a couple of weekends back in April, I built a little web app for them. It collects availability and matches kids for 1:1 online video playdates and allows them to sign up for extra “recess” classes facilitated by teachers. This was fun and it was nice to be able to give something back to the school community at such a stressful time. Building something that would be simple for the school to operate was an interesting challenge.

I want to share a few things I used on this project that made it much faster to build.

Appreciating Duolingo

Sat, 11 Apr 2020 12:00:00 -0700

This is #NotAnAd - Duolingo is my favorite app of the year.

Duolingo is an app for learning a new language at your own pace and in your own time.

I recently achieved a 100 day streak on Duolingo, part of the way to my New Year’s resolution to do 365 days of French this year. I’m un peu fier (a little bit proud) of myself, but I’m also a little bit in awe of quite how polished, delightful and rewarding an experience Duolingo-the-team has produced. If you haven’t tried it, even if you don’t think you’re interested in learning a new language, you should, just to see how well put together it is.

Duolingo has a playful and intuitive interface that works across mobile and desktop and makes language learning feel like a fun game. The learning experience itself is impressive - combining implicit instruction (learning by example - e.g. throwing new words into the mix from time to time so you figure them out by context) with explanations (pedagogical cards that explain how to use a word / grammar construct) and mastery learning (you have to reach a certain level in a skill/area to unlock more levels or topics).

On top of that, the whole thing is gamified to next Sunday. There are delightful little dopamine hits every time you get a question right (“da ding!”), an in-game currency that you earn as you learn, badges and achievements and a leaderboard + community. They’ve even figured out how to make you feel better when you get a string of questions wrong “you’ve got to make mistakes to learn!” provided by a cute little owl (who can dress up in outfits you buy in the virtual store… it sounds ridiculous but it’s strangely enticing). Above all, they’ve figured out how to string all this together at just the right time to keep stretching or rewarding you just when you were about to give up. Here are just a few of the things I’ve appreciated in the experience.

Carrot Risotto

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Sweet ribbons of grated carrot make this simple risotto sweet and delicious Ingredients 1 1/2 cups arborio rice 3 large carrots, grated in fine ribbons 300 g cherry tomatoes, halved 1 large onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 1 pint vegetable stock or broth 3 tbsp olive oil 1/3 cup vermouth or white wine salt to taste Steps In a large saucepan, Fry the tomatoes until blistered, set aside Add the diced onion and carrot, fry in the olive oil until browned, 1 - 2 mins Add the rice and coat in oil, fry 2 mins Add the vermouth, stir constantly until absorbed Gradually add the stock, stirring constantly until absorbed Cook until rice is al dente Season Serving

Artbruary

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 12:00:00 -0700

For the month of February, friends challenged me to produce a piece of art every day. I’m a little surprised but quite proud to report that I did! In 29 days, I produced 25 pencil sketches, 2 photographs, 1 piece of graphic design and a study for a large art project I hope to complete later in the year.

Eggplant curry

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0800

Sri lankan eggplant curry Ingredients Eggplant (salted), deep fried (veg oil) black mustard seeds cumin seeds roughly chopped onion curry leaves green chili garlic ginger chopped tomato cinnamon (optional) dried chili flakes lemon juice sugar (optional) black pepper Steps Cook Serving Serve with rice and sprinkle with coriander.

Superhero stew

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 17:00:00 -0800

I made this stew for my kids. It contains many of their favorite ingredients. My daughter Emily named it and promises you that it is scrumdiddlyumptuous. Ingredients 1 red onion 1 yam 1 sweet potato 3 large carrots 300g split red lentils 600ml vegetable stock 1 tin (400g) kidney beans 1 tin (400g) chopped tomatoes tomato paste 2 tsp ground ginger 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp cumin 1 bay leaf Steps Toast the spices.

Exploring SwiftUI with Recipes

Sat, 04 Jan 2020 21:24:17 -0700

Apple recently released SwiftUI, which is a new declarative system for building user interfaces across Apple platforms. When Mac OS X came out, Apple introduced Objective-C and Project Builder including the NeXT-inspired Interface Builder tools (since integrated in XCode).

Shakshuka

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:00:00 -0800

a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes Ingredients 1 red onion 1 1/2 bell peppers 3 cloves garlic 2 tbsp cumin 1/2 jalapeno pepper bunch of cilantro 1 large tin tomatoes (800g) tomato paste 8 eggs (optional) feta cheese Steps Toast the cumin, finely slice the garlic and dice the onion and jalapeno, fry in olive oil with the very finely diced stalks of cilantro.

Adventures in winemaking at home

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 15:55:40 -0700

I’m making wine. The process is a delightful combination of craft and science. I had no idea where this mission would take me - from harvesting grapes in bucolic Sonoma, to exploring the micro-biology of malolactic fermentation.

Santa Maria style Tri-Tip

Mon, 28 Oct 2019 00:00:00 -0800

The mainstay of California’s culinary heritage, apparently. Also, very tasty. Ingredients 3 lbs beef tri-tip (Costco is great for this) 1 tsp sea salt 1 tsp ground black pepper 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder 2 tsp paprika 1 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp dried rosemary 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 3 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard 1/3 cup red wine vinegar Steps Mix the marinade in a bowl Cut the tri-tip into 3 - 4 pieces Rub the meat in the marinade and place in vacuum sealable bag Pour any remaining marinade into the bag Vacuum seal and refrigerate for around 4 hours Grill on barbeque until center of meat reaches 63°C / 145°F Serving pinquito beans, fresh salsa, tossed green salad, and grilled French bread.

Laser cut Tic-Tac-Toe

Sat, 19 Oct 2019 21:24:17 -0700

My daughter recently learned to play Tic-Tac-Toe (that’s Noughts and Crosses for all the English readers and “exie ohsies” for the norn-iron crew). I made her a wooden board using our Glowforge which came out so well she wanted to give one to her friend for their birthday.

Better known...

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 19:57:40 -0700

Last year, Ivan Wise interviewed me for his Better Known podcast, where each guest names six things they think should be better known. Here’s a transcript of the episode.

Distraction-free writing

Mon, 08 Jul 2019 21:26:40 -0700

More than a decade ago I had a Psion 5mx. A great little palmtop computer with a mechanical keyboard. I used it to take notes in meetings, to write stuff on trains and on beaches.

Don't Panic

Fri, 31 May 2019 21:26:40 -0700

When I was a kid, the apocryphal! story of the fire at the library of Alexandria, the supposed loss of most human knowledge acquired to that date, was something that made me sad.

From dokku to Google Cloud Run

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 22:56:38 -0700

I’ve been using dokku to host the majority of my personal projects for the last few years. It’s a delightful little self-hosted Platform as a Service, offering a Heroku-like workflow with all the flexibility of hosting on your own hardware.

Chicken Dhansak

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0800

Wonderful spicy persian/gujarati stew. Ingredients 1 green bell pepper, diced 1 large onion, finely chopped 3 x chicken breast or equivalent amount chicken thighs, diced 2 garlic cloves, pressed/finely diced 20g ginger, grated 1 tbsp garam masala 1-4 serrano chilli pepper(s), finely diced 1: mild, 4 (incl seeds): spicy 400g tin chopped tomatoes 600ml chicken stock 150g dried red split lentils, rinsed and drained 2 bay leaves Juice of 1 lime 20g sugar Steps Toast the garam masala in a large frying pan Add 2 tbsp oil to the spice and fry the onions ~5 minutes Add the chicken to pan and brown, add garlic, ginger and chili pepper, fry 20 secs Add tomatoes, lentils, stock and bay leaves.

Sourdough checklist

Sat, 12 Jan 2019 12:16:19 -0800

This is my current method, it’s approx the proving steps from DO/Sourdough and the baking steps from Tartine Bread. Production sourdough 150g wheat starter 100g wholemeal flour 100g white flour 120g water @ 35°C/95°F mix knead briefly prove 4 hours Proving complete small drop production sourdough floats in water put 150g production sourdough back in starter vessel Final dough 300g production sourdough 100g wholemeal flour (if baking "brown" loaf) 300g white flour (or 400g for "white;" loaf) 280g water @ 30°C/95°F 8-10g sea salt Soaker mix water, flour and salt leave 30 mins - 1 hour Final dough mix production sourdough into soaker knead (8 Kitchenaid dough hook speed 2, 10 mins by hand dusting with flour to correct hydration) add small amount water if needed rest dough dust proving basket with rice flour flour and fold dough dough into proving basket prove overnight Bake preheat oven and dutch oven at 500°F turn loaf out from proving basket into shallower side of dutch oven score top of loaf bake dutch oven closed for 20 mins; reduce oven temp to 450°F remove lid, bake for further 25-35 mins (test core temp @ ~100°C Merch Buy a fridge magnet with the checklist.

Laser cut sundial

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 12:16:19 -0800

sundial.singleton.io - Laser cut a sundial customized for your very own corner of planet earth 🌍. I had fun building an SVG sundial generator in python and cutting the designs on my Glowforge.

Zucchini and Meatballs pasta bake

Sun, 13 Dec 2015 12:16:19 -0800

Delicious, cozy meatball dish. Ingredients 500g lean ground beef 3 zucchini 1 red onion 2 cloves garlic 2 stalks celery 300g closed cup mushrooms 2 bell peppers 1 fresh chilli 250g dry farfalle pasta glug red wine 200g fresh cherry tomatoes 300g passata 4 tbsp olive oil Steps Mince one clove of garlic and combine with the beef and 2 tbsp olive oil.

Journal 2.0

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 21:44:19 +0100

I’m a Software person, I spend 80+% of my waking hours in front of some kind of computing device. I love it. Building software products is fun and creative - virtually anything you imagine is possible, sometimes things that seem impossible are just difficult.

8 hour lamb shoulder

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 12:16:19 -0800

Delicious melt in the mouth lamb dish. Ingredients whole lamb shoulder 3 stalks celery 3 carrots 1 white onion 1 bulb fennel 75 cl white wine 1 l stock Steps Rub salt and rosemary generously over the lamb Brown the lamb in a very hot skillet.

Northern irish vegetable soup

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 12:16:19 -0800

This recipe is apparently unique to Northern Ireland and uses soup/herb celery which is hard to find outside the area, but regular table celery can be substituted (including the leaves).

Autonomy without chaos?

Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:44:19 +0100

On 24th Apr, my birthday! I was lucky to be invited to visit Armenia [thx @raffi] to share my perspective on organising eng teams. The video of my talk is now available on YouTube.

The Northbelt

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 21:44:19 +0100

Recently I read this old WIRED article linked on a dicussion forum. It kindof blew my mind. For a while in 2004, a man in Germany wore a belt which continuously gave tactile feedback indicating which direction was north, and he developed a sixth sense of direction.

Beef brisket chili

Sun, 19 Jan 2014 12:16:19 -0800

The mother of all chilis. Serves 6 Ingredients 3 lbs beef brisket 2 red onions 4 jalapeno chillies 1 habanero chilli 1 large cinnamon stick 1 tbsp ground cumin 1 tbsp paprika 1 heaped tbsp dried oregano 2 fresh bay leaves 2 red bell peppers 2 green bell peppers 800g chopped tomatoes 400g kidney beans 400ml beef stock 1/2 bunch coriander Steps Place the cinnamon stick, cumin, paprika and oregano in a pestle and mortar.

Super simple guacamole

Sun, 19 Jan 2014 12:16:19 -0800

Some guacamole recipes call for many ingredients and can be a pain to prepare. This super simple guac can be thrown together in a couple of minutes and tastes great.

fitbit for bonsai trees

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 21:44:19 +0100

Things have been kindof busy lately but I’ve been on-again / off-again working on a little project to wirelessly track the temperature, light level and soil moisture of my bonsai tree, so I can track its progress and know when to water (and more importantly, when not to).

Wixel

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000

I’m working on a project (more soon!) which needs to sample a few sensors and send data wirelessly at low power. After testing out an Arduino Uno + Bluetooth shield (too flaky, too bulky) and deciding that all the BLE solutions out there are not quite ready yet (though some look promising), I discovered the Pololu Wixel.

Introducing PiUi: add a simple mobile phone UI to your RaspberryPi project.

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:57:00 +0000

I’m excited to introduce you to a project I have been working on for a few weeks in my spare time: PiUi. A lot of folks asked how to use my RPi Timelapse Controller without the LCD Plate - which is kindof expensive and not everyone is comfortable to solder one up themselves.

Raspberry Pi Website Hit Tracker

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:49:00 +0000

You just made a funky neon sign flash in my living room. How? I have just completed my latest project which is a neon lamp which lights up every time someone visits my website.

Raspberry Pi Timelapse Controller

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:10:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I found this beautiful video on Youtube – a timelapse video of stars and the Milky Way. Seeing the stars appear to rotate overhead (due to the rotation of the Earth) and the intricate structure of our own galaxy gave me a profound feeling of the scale of the universe that we move through on spaceship Earth.

Raspberry Pi webcam; a gentle intro to crontab

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:08:00 +0000

Here's a quick and easy first project for new [Raspberry Pi](http://www.raspberrypi.org/) owners - turn your Pi into a webcam, and learn about Linux's ability to run repeated tasks at scheduled intervals with the `cron` utility.

My bacon talk

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 21:43:23 +0000

The awesome folks over at devslovebacon have made my talk available on youtube. It's a pretty good quality recording, hope you enjoy it.

Living in the future

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:13:54 +0000

Paul Graham’s latest essay - How to get startup ideas - is a great read. I was struck by the Bucheit/Pirsig conjecture: "Live in the future, then build what's missing." and the following paragraph regarding ideas that come out of folks' experience at college.

Parsing huge XML files with go

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 04:37:58 +0100

I’ve recently been messing around with the XML dumps of Wikipedia. These are pretty huge XML files - for instance the most recent revision is 36G when uncompressed. That’s a lot of XML!

Hands on with Raspberry Pi

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 23:27:31 +0000

I was extremely fortunate to get access to a Raspberry Pi alpha board for the past couple of weeks. For those of you who haven’t already heard about it, the Raspberry Pi project was started to provide a tiny computer for kids to learn to program.

One nanosecond is to one second as one second is to 31.7 years

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:45:06 +0000

Peter Burns wrote a great post earlier last week about timescales as they might be “perceived” by a computer’s CPU… “your CPU lives by the nanosecond” [and humans live by the second].

how I built a self driving RC car and you can too

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:46:49 +0000

Recently, I have been refreshing my knowledge of Machine Learning by taking Andrew Ng’s excellent Stanford Machine Learning course online. The lecture module on Neural Networks ends with an intriging motivating video of the ALVINN autonomous car driving itself along normal roads at CMU in the mid 90s.

unhumanize.py is a simple python library to convert humanized time intervals into timedeltas

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:49:31 +0100

<p> <a href="https://github.com/dps/unhumanize">https://github.com/dps/unhumanize</a> </div>

Why mobile apps suck when you're mobile

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:31:56 +0100

In 2011, Smartphones are ubiquitous and everyone and his dog is writing mobile apps, but using apps when you're not in range of a fixed wifi hotspot or standing still in an urban area is often extremely frustrating.

Arduino temperature logging

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:24:58 +0000

This graph shows the result of my weekend project - it's the temperature in my living room, logged to an app running on Google Appengine every 30s via an Arduino UNO with ethernet shield.

Arduino PS2 mouse controlled RC car

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 23:40:39 +0000

I spent the weekend learning how to hack hardware with Arduino - I built this mouse controlled RC car. Fun to build and fun to play with! Read the detailed HOWTO

DODOcase factory tour

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:34:30 +0000

On my latest trip to San Francisco, I was privileged to be able to drop in to the DODOcase factory and got a guided tour from chief DODO - Patrick. DODOcase use traditional bookbinding techniques (at a long-established local book binder) to produce a really neat book-like case for iPad and Kindle 3.

HOWTO make a real book Kindle cover

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:25:55 +0000

I love reading on my Kindle, but as anyone who has been using one for a while knows, it feels too delicate to drop straight into a bag and really needs a case.

getting started with EC2

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:54:19 +0000

I spent some time at the weekend getting my iPhone Chess game up on Amazon EC2. On Ubuntu. It was kindof a pain, so I’ve written up some tips on working with Ubuntu on EC2 here.

blogging again

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:44:19 +0100

Since joining twitter, I haven’t written a single blog post - my old blog became defunct and is now available only via the magic of archive.org’s wayback machine. I love twitter - it’s really changed the way I consume media.