🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Thousand Deaths of Romeo and Juliet - Caroline Finch”
★★★★★

The thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/book-review-the-thousand-deaths-of-romeo-and-juliet-caroline-finch/
⸻
#BookReview #NetGalley #shakespeare

Anybody interested in a free ride in a helicopter, flight for 4 people?!

I'm still looking for 2 more people to join us. We leave early Saturday (October 24th) morning from Manchester and will fly to Poole in Dorset where we will have breakfast and then on a yacht for lunch.

Then we’ll have a flight to Jersey and return to Poole for dinner, then fly back home.

If interested please DM me. Preferably someone with a helicopter and yacht, otherwise we can't go.

More evidence that #Google have abandoned their #GoogleBooks API product.

Completely broken for over a week and no response to various requests for help.

https://discuss.google.dev/t/google-books-api-intitle-inauthor-queries-return-zero-results-while-plain-queries-succeed-october-2026/401929

Ok, this is slightly weird. The #ZigBee sensor in my fridge works overnight. But as soon as I open the door in the morning, it seems to lose the connection to the mesh.
WTF?
I need to put some more lights near the fridge to bolster the network - but that'll mean getting Alexa to talk to my #HomeAssistant box.

We've released DrFed 0.1.0, the first version of the ActivityPub development and debugging tool I'm building with the team.

It's still an MVP: you can create test instances and actors, and inspect incoming activities. I wouldn't call it a particularly useful debugger yet. We wanted to share what we've built so far and let people know that development is continuing.

We're working toward a tool that helps when your ActivityPub app won't federate with another server. Thanks to my teammates for getting us to this first release. I hope you'll follow along.

https://hackers.pub/@drfed/2026/drfed-0-1-0

Say, if you’re in #London November 12th, why not come join me for a free public talk I’m giving at LSE called “Against fire and ICE: The lifehouse as community defense.”

The proposition, in a nutshell, is that the things a community does to protect itself against climate-system collapse also happen to be reasonable measures to take in the face of authoritarian heavy manners. The principle involved is what professional emergency managers calls “all-hazards preparedness” — just supplemented by the understanding that some hazards wear badges.

I’ll be joined by Gargi Battacharyya and Dubravka Sekulić; we’ll spiel from 6:30 until around 8, and then most likely split for the Seven Stars to continue our conversation over martinis. Join us! And obviously feel free to share this invitation with anyone you know who might be interested.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/events/2026/fire-and-ice

Also got some of these small temperature / humidity sensors.
They work pretty well. The one in my fridge *mostly* connects back to #HomeAssistant but occasionally just doesn't.
I possibly need more #Zigbee sensors dotted around to form a more effective mesh.

🆕 blog! “I paid people to try and follow my README”

Developers suck at writing documentation. We like to say RTFM but often there ain't no FM to R. At best we have a half-arsed collection of notes, some obsolete tips, and a link to a desolate forum full of people asking the same questions again and again. That's no way to treat our users.

I naïvely …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/i-paid-people-to-try-and-follow-my-readme/
⸻
#ActivityBot #ActivityPub #developers

I just added my first bench to Open Benches cc @Edent https://openbenches.org/bench/46340

Crossposted with @openvibe

Checked in to The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, United Kingdom

Here to find out just how tiny Little Alex Horne really is. Of course, he might just be very far away 😄

https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/6acba669fe906f16ad0af327?s=7K1gKEnuUowKSICd04pN83DyOgc

🆕 blog! “I paid people to try and follow my README”

Developers suck at writing documentation. We like to say RTFM but often there ain't no FM to R. At best we have a half-arsed collection of notes, some obsolete tips, and a link to a desolate forum full of people asking the same questions again and again. That's no way to treat our users.

I naïvely …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/i-paid-people-to-try-and-follow-my-readme/
⸻
#ActivityBot #ActivityPub #developers

Calibrating my new Zigbee soil moisture sensor.

🆕 blog! “Some quick thoughts on Unit Testing ActivityPub”

I'll be radically honest here - I never really got the idea of "Test Driven Development". I'm much more of a "telnet into production and damn the consequences" kind of guy. Look, it's much more fun and my cardiologist recommends severe shocks every now and again.

The essence of unit testing is pretty…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/some-thoughts-on-unit-testing-activitypub/
⸻
#ActivityBot #ActivityPub #php

🆕 blog! “Some quick thoughts on Unit Testing ActivityPub”

I'll be radically honest here - I never really got the idea of "Test Driven Development". I'm much more of a "telnet into production and damn the consequences" kind of guy. Look, it's much more fun and my cardiologist recommends severe shocks every now and again.

The essence of unit testing is pretty…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/some-thoughts-on-unit-testing-activitypub/
⸻
#ActivityBot #ActivityPub #php

A little bit of politics at the London Museum of Water and Steam.

Well #GaussFest is *lots* of fun 😄

Checked in to London Museum of Water & Steam, Kew Bridge Rd (Green Dragon Ln), United Kingdom

Just had all my nervous diseases cured at #GaussFest 😄

https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/6aca0e03efd0c548942f2f5b?s=qvAHdfqfA3wjR4Gm5fDtDwO9Rhk

You can take 50% off any website simply by adding the following CSS:

```
body {
clip-path: xywh(0 0 50% 100%);
}
```

This is exceptionally good.

> “Robot” Is A Social Construct: Why Your Dishwasher Is Not A Robot

https://robotgirlgang.com/2026/10/08/robot-is-a-social-construct-why-your-dishwasher-is-not-a-robot/

RE: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:i6misxex577k4q6o7gloen4s/post/3mxhx7lryvk22

You should hook your bed up to the Internet. Nothing will go wrong if you mix electricity and IP addresses.
(Also, quote posting BlueSky works now 😃)