Welcome to the thoughts of Michael. AKA Tea drinker AKA The Tea Lord. Here we talk about tech, programming and other stuff I find mildly interesting.
This story all started with me and some mates wanting to get a drink in one of those cool, trendy hipster places you see online (I promise I'm only 20, apparently that sentence makes me sound old). The site loads for a brief moment and then redirects you to a Cloudflare looking page. You press verif...
## Lamb Dopiaza **Prep time:** 20 mins (+30 mins marinade) **Cook time:** 60 mins **Serves:** 3-4 This rich curry features tender marinated lamb simmered in a spiced yogurt base for deep flavor. Fried onion petals are added at the very end to introduce a sweet, slightly crisp texture.  . I was itching for another one, so I went to Hack Pompey this year to defend my title (and for the free food and merch—okay, mostly for the f...
### Recipe Card: Indo-Chinese Chilli Chicken & Spinach This vibrant Indo-Chinese stir-fry transforms simple chicken chunks with a high-heat sear and a bold, salty glaze of soy sauce, fish sauce and Lemon juice.  **Yie...
So this is a bit different. In a recent live stream, we coded an RGB strip light web control system using an old Raspberry Pi Zero W. After the stream, I received a few messages asking for a comprehensive guide on how to set it all up, so here it is, along with the demo. ![Demo of lights working]...
I hang around on many programming servers, forums, and other chatrooms. While _in person_ you can get away with: > **'Hey mate, can you take a quick look at this?'** Online, you’ll either be **ignored** or **mocked** for this approach. ---------- ### The Dreaded: “Does Anyone Here Know P...
I want to start by saying Hack Pompey was an absolute blast – thank you so much to the Hack Pompey team and Sea Change for putting this together. I'm writing this two weeks later, so I may have forgotten a few minor details, but this is how I won... I feel like we need some starting context for t...
There are two fundamental problems with people. The biggest one is that they sleep. When we are sleeping, we are not making money, and as Warren Buffett probably said, 'If you are not earning money while you're sleeping, then you will never be drinking rum on a yacht the size of Abu Dhabi's.' ...
Welcome back to yet another journey into AI (still highly caffeinated—Yorkshire Tea is the best brand of tea). If you haven't read [my first AI article, I'd recommend doing so here.](https://blog.michaelrbparker.com/post/5) Otherwise, the TL;DR is that I'm brand new to the whole AI development thing...
# HTML Elements and Their Summaries Nothing fancy just a few of the most common HTML elements and a one word summary to help out with your web dev exam. ## Head Section Elements - **`head`**: Contains metadata about the document, such as links to stylesheets and scripts. - **`title`**: Defi...
## 52 Projects in 2025: Join the Challenge! I'm trying to make 52 projects this year. I'm mostly attempting this project to practise coming up with ideas. I'm not sure if it is even a skill someone can learn, but we will try it. It could also be a cool way to learn a few new tricks. I am thinki...
Welcome to my (highly caffeinated) journey to unlock the hidden knowledge of AI. I have no idea how AI or ML works, but I have been invited to join an AI research paper, so I'm here to document my learning journey. I started off reading the Blitz PyTorch course, mostly as I had been told it was t...
Happy Halloween, I made this recently made this 100% CSS Pumpkin to get in to the spooky season spirit and some people would like to know how it was made. <iframe height='400' style='width: 100%;' scrolling='no' title='100% CSS Pumpkin' src='https://codepen.io/micfun123/embed/jOgZXQQ?default-tab...
# The Story Behind Simplex: A Journey in Open-Source Development I am the maker/developer behind the open-source Discord bot called Simplex. In this article, I thought I’d walk you through some of the decisions made with this project, the issues and bug fixes, as well as why the project started...
This EPQ tried to explore the courses of modern-day issues as well as how they relate to computer science. I also tried to explore possible solutions to these issues. This EPQ was written in my last year of sixth-form school. # Abstract This review will be about the possible ethics issues in t...
This is a small post on some of the cursed, strange and outright daft python behaviours I have found. Python has a reputation for being simplistic and straightforward, leading to it being one of the most used languages in schools. Sometimes Python is not always as it seems. 1. Numbers with the `...