Writings, arts, softwares
Preamble My latest obsession has been trying to find a "retro" personal music player, and replace the all-too-easy lure of subscription services of my eternally chatty Android phone. I already have a sizeable collection of music bought from Bandcamp or ripped from CDs, but having tried out a number of FOSS Android Music apps, they just don't feel good to use. They're "fine", but…
Intro When I was around 8 years old, I fell in love with computers. This was the early 2000s when everyone had a big green hill and blue skies on their recently flattened monitors, and computers could now do everything! I used to make little websites that did horrible flashy effects, make animations in Macromedia Flash and play Worms Armageddon with my brothers. Grandfather Halfy was not so keen.…
Hey friends! This post got stuck in a sludge of inaction for the last week, and has just been sanded down and ready for your consumption. 2025 was a reasonably busy year for projects and things that I got up to, so this is just a quick summary on the year. Content Warning Food — Some of this post contains pictures of food including meat. I've left this section at the end, so feel free to skip…
This is going to be a series of blog posts discussing the various bits and pieces about one of my most proudest achievements; I've spent the last 2 years 1 working on building a fully functional clone of Worms Armageddon . For those less familiar with the series, you control a group of small characters on a island of randomly generated breakable terrain. You have a bunch of weapons, nearly…
I run half-shot.uk, and various other services off actual server hardware at home. A few years back a friend convinced me to stop relying on cloud servers, and instead just buy a second hand box and run with it. The friend houses the server for me, and provides me an internet connection, power, and space in their cabinet at home. And for a long time the arrangement worked out fine. We installed a…
A few years ago after moving into a flat, I was staring at a white wall (I presume this isn't unique to the UK, walls are always boring and white). A friend of mine suggested that the wall really could do with some RGB lights, and being the sort of person who is naturally attracted to flashy rainbows...I went and purchased some Nanoleaf lights. Nanoleaf make "Shapes" panels which are neat…
Preface I bought an Internet Radio. Yes, one of those things from the late 2000s where you could make a radio connect to your WiFi and hook into a MP3 stream. I bought one because I was unsatisifed with the solutions out there to get audio around your house. Bluetooth is cumbersome, you have to connect it and then you have to locate an app on your phone to get the media you want...ugh. I want a…