Ian RentonBlog Archive — Page 3
These are some pretty old posts! I don't blog that much any more, but if they are of interest, feel free to browse. Alternatively, you can go back to the homepage to see some more recent stuff.
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A Journey into the World of Slimming
While clearing out a decade of unnecessary junk from the kitchen today, we discovered this recipe book from the 80s… and it is INCREDIBLY CURSED. Here’s some of the recipe highlights you may like to enjoy. Or you may not, you know, it’s your call. We’ll start with “Tangy Grapefruit”....
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Another Shenzhen Special: 15 Minutes with the MAFAM M11
Thanks to an excitingly mis-sold internet purchase, we are now in possession of the latest in exciting mobile technology - the MAFAM M11. (If you’re mentally incapacitated, you could have one of your very own for 24 whole US dollars!) Let’s jump in and see what this technological marvel has...
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SuccessWhale.com Discontinued as of Today
As far as I know, SuccessWhale is not being actively used by anyone any more, so I have chosen not to renew the domain name successwhale.com when it expires today. Like most of my past web-based projects, it will continue to live on at an onlydreaming.net subdomain, in this case...
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Automating the Roast Dinner Timing Chart
Against all my expectations, the most popular page on this website (at least, the most visited) turns out to be “The Great Roast Dinner Timing Chart”, which was my attempt to help newbies at the revered British art of the Roast Dinner get their timings right. I first posted it...
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Coolest Robot of the Day
Today in Cool Robot News: A team at Harvard University have developed their tiny RoboBee so that it is equally at home in water and in air. No mean feat by itself, but check out the way it crosses that tricky barrier between water and air: it splits water into...
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Migrating from Jekyll to WordPress
Over the course of many years, I’ve changed blogging software several times, including WordPress to Jekyll and back again twice! One thing I’ve found is that while migrations from WordPress to Jekyll are well documented, with various scripts and plugins available, the reverse from Jekyll to WordPress seems to be...
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The Apocalypse comes to Weymouth
In the shadow of Hurricane Ophelia, Saharan dust and smoke from Iberian wildfires has been blown towards the UK, resulting in eerie orange skies across the country. I took this photo looking across Portland Harbour into the dim orange sunlight this morning. No filter required!
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Proper Emmets
In contrast to two years ago, this year’s holiday was mercifully free of stifling nights and sweltering days. This year we stayed in a caravan by the sea in Cornwall, a much more relaxed (and cheaper!) affair. Since we live by the sea anyway, a seaside beach holiday wasn’t high...
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Adventures in Belgium
Freshly back from a work trip to Bremen at the end of May, they sent me off again for two weeks in Belgium at the start of June, to the exciting seaside destination that is Zeebruges—a town famous for its commercial port, its 1980s ferry disaster, and very little else....
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This Week's Helpful Advice: Don't Help the Poor?
Our local newspaper, the Bournemouth Echo (beware of annoying ads & trackers), is as ever a font of useful advice. This week it comes from the police, who are letting us know that helping the poor is a bad thing. Now I’m not too upset with the usual idea trotted...