kate

kate, 1 day ago to random

“Things can only get wetter”

kate, 4 days ago to random

I get that this door hanger is meant to be playful, but some of these are downright creepy — I suspect most room service staff have had sleazy guys say some variant on “Care to join us?”

kate, 4 days ago to random

I finally went to see the memorial to the patron saint of queer programmers, Alan Turing:

kate, 7 days ago to random

A stranger called me “stylish” today, which I feel vindicates my refusal to dress appropriately for the weather and ground conditions

kate, 11 days ago to random

Glen Sligachan, Skye:

kate, 18 days ago to random

British transphobia has now reached the stage of coercing young people into detransitioning using the threat of referrals to social services if they access treatment through private providers. The Good Law Project is crowdfunding for a possible legal challenge: https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/nhs-cyp-guidance/

kate, 18 days ago to random

Today I’m updating https://grid.iamkate.com to use Elexon’s new API, as they’re switching off the current BMRS API at the end of the month. The new API is just as inconsistent as the old one, but in entirely new ways.

kate, 20 days ago (edited 20 days ago) to random

Bristol came so close to having the first Green majority on a upper-tier English council.

Edit: Here’s what the results imply for the Bristol Central constituency in the upcoming general election: https://iamkate.com/data/bristol-central/

kate, 22 days ago to random

If you’re designing a programming language, please consider allowing hyphens in identifiers. Hyphen-separated text (kebab-case) is more readable than camelCase, and doesn’t require use of the shift key like camelCase and snake_case. There’s no ambiguity with subtraction if you require spaces around binary operators (which every style guide I’ve ever used requires anyway).

kate, 1 month ago to random

The mnemonic I use to remember Markdown link syntax is that the square brackets look a bit like a button and then the round brackets mention the URL as a note afterwards:

button

kate, 1 month ago to random

Brits ask “A penny for your thoughts?” and Americans respond with “Just my two cents”. At current exchange rates ($1.00 = £0.80) this means Brits are receiving 1.6p of American thoughts for just 1p. In this paper we propose an alternative asset pricing model for the marketplace of ideas, considering—

kate, 1 month ago to random

Last night I discovered my christening candle in a box of childhood items my parents gave me. This morning the bathroom lightbulb died while I was having a shower. So now, for the second time in my life, I’m getting washed by the light of a christening candle.

kate, 1 month ago to random

I love it when @Clare makes garam masala — it looks so pretty in the pan

kate, 2 months ago to random

I wonder if the Highways Agency treats FIXME comments with any more urgency than the average software developer?

kate, 2 months ago to random

If you watch The Little Mermaid backwards it’s about a young woman who decides not to marry a wealthy but bland prince, gives him the silent treatment for a week, then swims out to sea where a friendly witch turns her into a mermaid so she can spend her days singing with sea creatures

kate, 2 months ago to random

The verb ‘to earn’ has two senses: the objective statement ‘to be paid’ and the ethical judgement ‘to deserve’. When people defend billionaires by saying “they earned their money” they’re confusing the two senses: no-one can deserve unimaginable luxury in a world where others can’t afford food or shelter.

kate, 2 months ago to random

Yes, the Enhanced Games are a terrible idea that would encourage athletes to recklessly endanger their health, but here’s the thing: current elite competitive sport is also a terrible idea that encourages athletes to recklessly endanger their health. For all the talk of a ‘level playing field’, elite sport has always involved the genetically blessed pushing their bodies to the verge of breaking. In many cases they push too far, resulting in career-ending injuries and sometimes even death.

kate, 3 months ago to random

This paragraph from Robert Macfarlane’s book The Old Ways is particularly meaningful for me, as it was in the vast landscapes of Skye and the Scottish highlands that I finally realised who I really am:

“For some time now it has seemed to me that the two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?”

kate, 3 months ago to random

I took this photo on the day I proposed to @Clare back in 2012. It was the fourth anniversary of the start of our relationship. She was working at a small organic farm at the time, and had the Saturday shift that week. I came along to help, and during the lunch break we saw this bloody-nosed beetle on the boardwalk of the farm’s nature trail. As we left for the day there was another good omen, as swifts screamed overhead for the first time that year.

kate, 3 months ago to random

#Introduction (January 2024 edition)

Hi, I’m Kate. I’m a 40-year-old software developer based in the south-west of England. I created my first website in 1998, and I’m best known for my National Grid: Live site at https://grid.iamkate.com. In my day job I’m the Development Director at https://itseeze.com, where in 2007 I created a content management system that’s now used by thousands of sites for organisations across the UK and Ireland.

kate, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to random

I’ve updated my historical (1751 to 2024) UK price conversion calculator with 2023’s inflation rate. Prices have doubled since 2005 and tripled since 1991: https://iamkate.com/data/uk-inflation/

kate, 4 months ago to random

Whenever I see a news article with an isometric illustration my first reaction is “I’d love to play that game”. In this case I’m imagining rushing to apply surreal repairs (plasters, rubber bands, duct tape) to a miniaturised rail network while the trains are still running on it.

kate, 4 months ago to random

It will be a few days before we get official confirmation from the National Grid, but I’m calling it now: 2023 was the year renewables overtook fossil fuels as the largest contributor to British electricity generation. In the 12 years I’ve been running National Grid: Live at https://grid.iamkate.com electricity generation from fossil fuels has fallen from an average of 25.1GW to 10.2GW, while renewables have risen from 2.5GW to 10.8GW.

Figures for 2023: Demand 29.6GW Fossil fuels 10.2GW Renewables 10.8GW Other sources 5.9GW Transfers 2.7GW

kate, 4 months ago to random

Gris is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, with a world that starts off in greyscale but gradually becomes a riot of colour as Gris comes to terms with her grief. Platformers usually aren’t my kind of game, and this puzzle-platformer was at the limit of my abilities in the few time-limited sequences, but I’m so glad I persevered.

kate, 4 months ago to random

My niche skill is hand-coding SVG icons, but this afternoon’s project was more ambitious as it’s built almost entirely from Bézier curves. This is a new logo for my website: a letter K based on my signature but in the style of Proza (http://bureauroffa.com/about-proza), the typeface I used on my site. The SVG is 482 bytes in size.