A friend of ours sends little ducks around the world for her young daughter to follow via a Facebook group. Our friend has terminal cancer (not to make a sob of it), the ducks are a way to make adventure for her daughter & have something that will continue to bring her joy after.. well afterwards.

With Artemis II launching imminently (all being well) may I take this opportunity to ask you all for your recommendations for space blogs? Can be on current events and covering the legacy before them ^_^

If anyone in the I.T field in the UK has any corporate laptops being discarded because of Windows 11 requirements please either give me a shout or reach to @freeitstafford.bsky.social A UK non-profit volunteer team fighting e-waste and digital poverty by giving them back to the community.

To toddler parents tomorrow morning as the clocks go forward tonight.. godspeed.. #parenting

Re-exploring the benefits of wired headphones. I suspect this is going to lead me onto a path on which lays some dedicated portable (likely Android-based) music players

Never underestimate the power of a new screen protector and case to give you that “new phone” feeling.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Sky Broadband does some shenanigans to sometimes delay / deprioritise encrypted DNS requests 🤔

🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work. This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public. Please spread the word. 🧵 1/4

@menageri.org.uk could be DNS antics? I flit between a handful of encrypted DNS providers and have to toggle off now and then when they’re, intentionally and usually In a way I’m pleased with, blocking something. Trade off is OK, occasional hiccup but network level ad and tracker block.

Does anyone have an old BBC Spot FX door to lend??

While I appreciate it’s not Apple’s fault this, along with liquid ass, is another reason to avoid iOS 26.

#Leeds folk, I seek input! Wildcraft, a gluten-free bakery, is closing down. Their cafe in Meanwood has been a haven for us, being able to have an easy break and actually have options we can eat & drink that was also child-friendly.

How is it Monday again tomorrow already?? 😩

While it could be good to have the Greens in power I fear were all overlooking the possibility of Reform being the Opposition. I hope not but I suspect the battle for the national conscience will extend beyond the next General Election, though I also suspect Labour and the Tories won't be players.

Steam Machine and now Switch 2 getting AI-hardware-greed related price hikes. Feels like a good time to be into #retrogaming (well, via emulation anyway, hardware and cart prices are stupid these days) www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/02...

I hear we’re posting Ko-fi links today. The way to support my very occasional musings is now here! ko-fi.com/wiredfire supporting Musings may also support rescue hens and 3 cats so there’s that ^_^

How is it Monday again tomorrow already?? 😩

I see Spotify's continuing identify crisis is going well.. lifehacker.com/tech/spotify...

Everyone seems shocked and bitterly angry about the Mandleson Epstein antics. I'm neither shocked or angry. It's all par for the course. They're all utterly terrible people and it's all just noise to me. Maybe we'll collectively try something different next general election. #ukpol

I hear a bunch of gatekeeping Star Trek fans are upset about a Klingon healer in Star Trek Academy. What so they think every single Klingon is a warrior? Right.. so who built their starships? Who designed them? Who makes their clothes, farms the ingredients for their gagh and brews their bloodwine?

“More Personal Computing”, being as I understand it to be stuff Microsoft sells to actual end users, was the division reporting a decline. Feels like a small sign that People are starting to call bullshit on Microsoft’s nonsense. GOOD. Your computing stuff should work for you, not for them.

“in my case I was just being a bit of a dick so you could argue that blocking my requests was the correct course of action, but AI guardrails already block plenty of perfectly legitimate requests when the LLM playing nanny gets it wrong” abbeybridge.consulting/articles/adv...

I wonder what the Green’s position is on technological overreach masquerading as “protecting children” is. Ultimately they're politicians so chances are their capability to properly understand the subject enough to effectively legislate is limited.. but I sure would enjoy being proven wrong.

Uk government mulling requiring “age verification” aka ID registration for using VPNs. Sure, good luck with that when many VPNs wouldn’t be under UK jurisdiction for this so no need to comply and by the very nature of any decent encrypted no-log VPN would have zero way to actually enforce it 😂

I have a hankering for a regular old dumb-watch. I also don’t want to spend a lot 😅 I'd like an "illuminator" or "indiglo" thing but I'll probably just got for the cheap classic Casio F-91W. Open to suggestions though!

New screen protector day

Nasty racist joining nasty racist party seems about right. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm not suggesting we abolish all established forms of human governance and just put cats in charge, but that is exactly what I'm suggesting. International incident? Feathers on a string. Global warming? Licky snack. Problematic male celebrity? Scritches. Sounds like a mad dream? It needn't be.

@zackpolanski.bsky.social please less reposts! I get a flood of damn near the same thing all at once and that really doesn’t make me pick up the message. Please, whoever is managing your social media accounts, spread out the reposts throughout the day and don’t do more than one or two at a time.

By-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

This please really does go full “twitter“ if you dare say something , huh 😂😅

This page has a handy view of how many users on Bluesky have blocked ICE. You may also find their bluesky handle there if you would like to block them too. Which seems like a good course of action. Better might be to question if Bluesky is still a reasonably safe space to be in. ice.0x0.boo

So I hear Bluesky is now cool with verifying ICE and tolerating other more questionable people and organisations..

I’m using Lemudroid over Retroarch on my RetroidPocket 3 now. I kinda miss some of the features of Retroarch but the “ready to go” nature of Lemudroid means I spend more time enjoying the games over endlessly tinkering with settings. #retrogaming

The arrogance of demanding “creatives” go to where he is instead of himself following where the community he “performatively” claims to care about went.

"If you're not paying for the product you ARE the product" really is becoming impossible for even the most blasé of users to ignore. boingboing.net/2026/01/09/g...

All the more reason to use you stuff for longer & buy refurbished when you need to replace.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a gamer in possession of an interest in retro gaming must be in want of a Nintendo DS #retrogaming

I hear absurd DRAM prices are going to make SSDs (and non-crappy USB sticks as far as I can see from prices) get silly expensive. Well that’s rubbish. I probably should have sorted that replacement nvme for my laptop sooner..

Finished reading Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet last night. Such a fun sci-fi read. Feels less like a big story and more like a series of “episodes” each of which shows the reader more about the characters and the rich and varied galaxy they inhabit.

iPhone internet has been sluggish on WiFi for a fair while, but lighting quick on mobile data. Other devices on WiFi absolutely fine.

You know something else that’s great to love about #RetroGaming ? No AI tomfoolery to be found anywhere. Lovely stuff.

Good King Wenceslas got take-out, From a guy named Stephen, He ordered a big pizza, Deep-pan crisp and even, Quickly came the feast that night, Met with his approval, Food delivered on a bike, Saving lots of fuuuuu-el

I know that factually once I’ve scanned all my old physical photos there’s no real need to keep the originals. Let's face it the overwhelming majority of my photos are already digital-only already.

Your leg being broke is not an illness. Your liver failing is not an illness. Your cancer is not an illness. At what point are these awful awful people going to stop marginalising mental health??

And also, life is not supposed to be *permanently* stressful. We're adapted to short periods of stress. If you maintain that kind of thing for weeks, let alone months or years, with no respite or hope, that's putting people into PTSD territory.

Wish I could find a Discworld book club, where we just read Discworld books. I own nearly all of them but have no one to talk to about them as I read :(

Chancellor vows "direct action to tackle cost of living" then in the same budget says "ordinary people to pay a little bit more". Do Labour even hear themselves when they’re speaking?

Printers are the WORST. Worse than that though are printer manuals.

Remember remember the month of November, fireworks every damn day 😒