in 2017 a popular twitter game was to type a partial phrase then see what your phone auto-completes it with. this proved so popular that it is now the only business model in the US.

Today I finished my #startrek #tng #lego. Very pleased with it!

Tune. #mikeandthemechanics #totp

Not enough Texas, you bastards #totp

This is not enough Texas. FFS. #totp

That mic's not not even plugged in! 😮 #totp

I only know Yazz for The Only Way Is Up, hadn't realised she did Sade-like romantic pop jazz. #totp

PLAY TEXAS #TOTP

Yay, unnecessary cover klaxon! 🚨 #totp

Is this song about Peter Powell? 😬 #totp

That Boyzone cover offends me, so I'm watching https://youtu.be/-n3sUWR4FV4 instead for the next 4 minutes. #totp

IME, a lot of good information on how to achieve things with the #openhab Rules DSL requires good searching on the OpenHAB forums or mining through the Javadoc. I thought I'd use Claude over the weekend/last night to help generify some stuff in my config, and it suggested a cool approach […]

What. The. Shite. #totp

This is the definition of an unnecessary cover, surely. Only seems like a few weeks ago we had Johnnie & Denise. I guess they're relying on the Boyzone fans to raise money for Comic Relief. But can't we just edit in Billy Ocean now? #totp

This morning I upgraded #openhab from 2.5 to 4.3. Mostly things are working. Mostly. I also tried to use `adb` to disable background stuff like Alexa on our #philips #androidtv - if nothing else to try and get the Channel 4 app working reliably. It is not better 😡 - happily shows adverts but […]

I know it's Kylie, but POINTLESS COVER KLAXON. #totp

A 2008 Livejournal entry confirms what I suspected: someone else had thought of "Curtis's Tigers" before me. https://wardytron.livejournal.com/217314.html #totp

Not a high bar, but best #genesis song? #totp

Chooon. My brother had the 2 Unlimited album on cassette. I don't think I fully appreciated it at the time. #totp

It's a banger, but it's too Commonwealth to do well in Eurovision. Not European enough :-( #totp

This was never our Eurovision entry, surely. It's far too good. #TOTP

Bit of turn of the century ska/two tone? Works for me. #totp

I'm a little surprised Britney Spears is as late as 1999. My daughter's just said "oh, I hadn't realised how accurate the Glee version of the video was" 🤦‍♀️ #totp

Tune. And despite previous toot, I do appreciate the live era of #totp

None of these live performances are setting a high bar. #totp

Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots How I managed to give an exam while giving the students the choice to use a chatbot or not. And what I learned in the process. https://ploum.net/2026-01-19-exam-with-chatbots.html

Oh look: #discord outsourced their age verification to some vendor. You know, the #ageverification that countries like the UK want to make mandatory for basically every online service. And the vendor had a data breach exposing photos of government IDs for 70,000 people. Do you feel safer? How […]

First day of the year back in #london and I'm shattered. It was a good day, even without any after-work socialising, but... blimey. (I don't think I can blame the commute really, it's day 1 of an intense week of interviewing folk for a role)

I made a thing called Wellness Ping because someone I care about went silent and it took too long for anyone to notice. You get regular check-ins via email. If you don't respond, your emergency contacts get notified. Built it for anyone who might go missing and needs someone to notice […]

I wrote about Grok's CSAM problem and how journalists keep fumbling the story www.readtpa.com/p/grok-cant-...

The two hardest problems in Computer Science are: 1. Getting up in the morning 2. Going to bed at a reasonable time

With our children now nearly 17 and 20, my wife's just told me of a #christmashack she's often thought of - but never told me, or acted in it (because she always thinks of it at the time, and never before). If your child puts an empty stocking out awaiting Santa to fill it with (little) gifts […]

The Quo seem surrounded by a large amount of white powder. #insertjokehere #totp

It's now feeling like the worst bits of Jools' Hootenanny with the fake Chrismas cheer and "what do you hope for in 1991" #totp

Another chooon #totp

Probably should watch Ghost again at some point. Not sure if I've seen it since the cinema! But that seems unlikely. #totp

Sinéad 💔 #TOTP

Not an unnecessary cover. #totp

Did they ever tell you how they got these scars? #totp

What could Celine Dion's bigbhit of 1998 possibly be?! Probably sank without a trace. #totp

That was... jarring. #totp And triggers an unnecessary cover klaxon.

The tom-toms might not be plugged in, but appreciate the live singing. #totp

Oh-oh! Tune. Cheese. Lovely #totp

I hope you're all singing along at home, as requested by Robbie #totp

Prefer the Kylie & Kermit version. #totp

Well after reading this long sarcastic newsletter on the whole NVIDIA and AI grift, I gotta assume we are all screwed. Seems extremely likely that the vast majority of GPUs sold that justify NVIDIA being the biggest company by market cap in the world are not even powered up. Which is a good […]

This is a shot in the dark, but why not... Way back in the mid 90s I briefly got really into MOD file music. There was a track I had that used a bunch of samples from The Crow. Does anybody out there remember this and know what the song's name was? #boost4reach