This is a great set of posts on embedded software and, in particular, getting started with STM Cortex-based chips. Will be returning to this to read it through properly.

I finally sat down with this, after it being in my to-read pile for ages. It was entirely worth it. I particularly liked the parts about the natures of silence, and about animal sentience, and about maintenance and regeneration as a natural state. It is worth every minute of however long it takes you to read it, be it the 44 minutes Medium estimate, or a bit more, or a bit less.

"I like how different the language of the sky is from everyday English – indeed, we might give it its own name, Aeroese (though it’s also sometimes, and less aspirationally, called Aviation English). Above all, I love how Aeroese can somehow manage, in its technical, obscuring precision, to capture the high romance of flight – an aspect of my job, no matter how much I love it, that in the cockpit we rarely have reason to consider directly." This is a lovely piece of writing.

"After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe. Since there was no real knowledge of how this animal actually looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant, thus reinventing an actual existing creature. This tree diagram traces the evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages up to the age of enlightenment." Elephants!

"All this to fit in, to belong." Alex is good people; this is excellent on all the little things to like – or not – about here, and yet to still love it. And – a reminder how little I know about having had to fit in anywhere else. I hope the gods of paperwork smile on her too. I'm still angry she's even had to go through this. I am still ashamed of all this Brexit nonsense.

"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.