"This isn’t because I want to optimise an audience; this isn’t because I want to sell ads. This is because it’s nice to know that 17 people read the website and 21 people opened the newsletter, and 36 people read the same story on Facebook, and 6 in an RSS reader — and gosh that’s like the whole top level of a double decker bus, all those people read my story! When companies deal with millions and billions, I think perhaps they forget how the intimate feels. How sometimes it’s not about a thousand retweets but instead about an audience of readers who come back. With whom you have a relationship. Who appreciate you, and you appreciate them. Yes it’s a pleasure to write, and yes I will do it without needing to get 1,000 likes on each and every story, but also let’s not forget that it’s more pleasant with company." This is all good by Matt – on the way the small-bit-intimate web has been sidelined for the all-or-nothing approach. (I'm glad I still run my own site. I'm glad RSS still works. Small software is important. Maybe web-scale doesn't automatically mean 'big')

Nice interview with Tom Phillips. (That sounds so trite, but that's what I have to say; he's great, his work is great, this is a nice interview).

The Internet Archive now supports HyperCard. Super-formative for me; I particularly want to return to the development books which I never had the chance to read at the time…

Tom Wiltshire on various classic oscillator designs based around the Curtis 3340.

"One way to illustrate that most technologies are, in fact, pretty "hi," is to ask yourself of any manmade object, Do I know how to make one?

Anybody who ever lighted a fire without matches has probably gained some proper respect for "low" or "primitive" or "simple" technologies; anybody who ever lighted a fire with matches should have the wits to respect that notable hi-tech invention." Ursula le Guin with strong truth about technology and science fiction.

"Do you ever feel like all you’re doing is copy/pasting from Stack Overflow?

Let’s take it one step further.

from stackoverflow import quick_sort will go through the search results of [python] quick sort looking for the largest code block that doesn’t syntax error in the highest voted answer from the highest voted question and return it as a module. If that answer doesn’t have any valid python code, it checks the next highest voted answer for code blocks."

Oh good lord.

Good writeup on the LM386, and the fact the basic application note is garbage. (This solves many noise issues I had years ago).

James is keeping weeknotes on designing a product based around an EFM32 microcontroller – I enjoyed this first installment; it's nice to see how other people think about projects.

"HTML goes in, games come out. HTMLE is a project template and a set of scripts that take care of a lot of the work involved in setting up these tools and simplifying everything." Might well be useful for things that aren't games, too…

Utterly lovely writing about music – and playing in Holy Trinity, Blythburgh – from Laura Cannell.