13th July - 19th July #SilentSunday Back in September last year, my faithful Kobo Nia died on me. I started a firmware update, fell asleep, and woke up to a boot-looping brick. I picked up my wife's ancient Kindle and have been limping through the last 11 months on that. I even wrote about e-ink being incredible...

Billed as Neo Dolly Parton melodic noise stark punk and post-punk soundscapes by my old mate John Robb1, Molly Vulpyne and her band rattle through a number of sleazy punky numbers that are pretty good but I probably need to sit with them a bit longer. "UR A FAD X" has shades of early Soundgarden mixed with "The...

6th July - 12th July Thick morning fog completely hides the hills on the horizon. smudging the yolk-gold sun like it's trying to erase it from the sky but, instead, spreads it across the firmament like butter. It feels like a dream. Not entirely sure what possessed us to take a day trip by public transport during a...

Listening to AA Williams and feeling blown away. Gothic dark rock music. A slick and polished wall of bassy distorted guitars, solid drums, and plaintive piano leaving room for Williams' vocals that sit in that Tori Amos space. At times sweeping and epic, others painfully introspective — sometimes both in the same...

Interface designers must have the same maxim as doctors: primum non nocere Matt Gemmell Time after time we hear the same stories; companies shipping radical new UI that alienates stalwart users, "Google changed Gmail and now my mum can't find anything", MacOS Tahoe. While it's true that no-one ever got promoted for...

Ashur has a lovely website and a brilliant eye for detail (look at the URL!). I have been replying to folks' blog posts every now and then over the years, notably in #JulyReply season so I jumped at this nice bit of design work. Basically inspired by social media threads, Ashur added an indicator to relevant posts...

In their article "Wanting to Write More", Toronto blogger Joshua Maynard, mentions feeling like they're running out of things to say here which, in all honesty, is something I've struggled with in the past too. I have a couple of pieces of advice that may or may not be useful to Joshua or others. Regularity My most...

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual is a document written by the Office of Strategic Services (now CIA) in 1944. The manual was declassified in 2008. The manual was used to train "citizen-saboteurs" in German-occupied Europe because Occurring on a wide scale, simple sabotage will be a constant and tangible drag on the...

29th June - 5th July It's light at 5am, the memory of last night's thunderstorm still lingers in an overcast sky and fat wet raindrops falling from leaves to the ground with a slow. rhythmic. slap. The birds are clearing their throats to begin the dawn chorus. The air smells wet. On the walk down the dirt track...

I am an absolute sucker for female protagonist urban fantasy surrounding books and libraries, and this is a good example of that sub-sub-sub-genre. Sitting in the Venn diagram intersection of library-based urban fantasy and disabled characters as protagonists, this is quite a rare book indeed. On the main...

We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40 Auntie Beeb Just reading an article about the FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) movement and I have Opinions™. First, my obligatory declaration that I'm not talking about you. The headline centres around a couple who big up their coupon...

Happy July! Here are a few photos from my phone from the last month with neither rhyme nor reason to the theme. Thanks for reading this post via RSS! Let me know your thoughts by sending me an email: rss@thomasrigby.com.