iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 24/08/2026

There's only one funny programmer joke. All the rest are just insightful.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 16/07/2026

Well done. That was a masterful rickroll.

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Reposted by Peter Russell

PyCon UK @pyconuk.org · 09/05/2026

This year's PyCon UK has been cancelled, but we're looking for a Conference Director to make PyCon UK 2027 happen - could it be you? Full details of what the role involves and how to apply here: buff.ly/j4cVItY #PyCon #Python #PyConUK #Community

A view of the main auditorium at PyCon UK 2025. Photo by Mark Hawkins, CC BY.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 07/04/2026

I'm amazed that this never got mainstream attention, but it's such a tough story to tell, I guess.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 26/12/2025

Have you tried coffee or beer?

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 19/12/2025

The first time I became aware of him as an AI influencer was his PyCon keynote (which admittedly wasn't that long ago, but feels like a long time). Don't generate slop was something he was saying back then.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 14/12/2025

According to a Stack Overflow answer, the aliasing behaviour depends on whether you're using C or C++, but it's designed for (utf8) text.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 14/12/2025

I think I saw a comment on YouTube saying that there's now a thing called char8_t, and it exists for precisely this reason.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 13/12/2025

I for one am really enjoying them.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 11/12/2025

Yeah, it's not very surprising that being Googlable wasn't a high priority at the company that brought us .Net.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 02/12/2025

Well it's only a story because the Chancellor made a big deal out of it. If she hadn't had the press conference, we wouldn't be here. As a punter it does seem like what she said was spurious at best.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

The accusation, as I've understood it, is that she was dishonest when she said she needed to raise taxes because of x, because actually she needed to raise them because of y (and also a little bit of x).

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

Is that right? You'll be far better informed than me, but my impression is that the bulk of the tax rises are for increased spending, not increased headroom.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

The risk of acting like you think we might be credulous fools might be far worse than whatever you're trying to avoid.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

Same now. I'm not a keen observer of the Labour party, but my impression is that Rachel Reeves remains a good, or even the best pick for chancellor from the Labour benches. Does anyone truly want her sacked? Other than the opposition? So keep her! Admit that it was an error, and move on. 5/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

Here's the thing, I don't think either needed to be such a big deal. I don't think Boris Johnson needed to sack Dominic Cummings. He was the PM, if he wanted to keep a key advisor, in a pandemic, he could, couldn't he? Did he need to tell us that black is white and up is down to do so? 4/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

D) The person in question, and then the Prime Minister barefacedly claim that the thing didn't happen. 3/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

A) Person does a thing. It's not the sort of thing that a person in that position ought to do. B) It's pointed out that it's happened. C) It's plain to all that the thing did in fact happen. 2/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

Is anyone else finding this Rachel Reeves / OBR / dishonesty business increasingly reminiscent of the Dominic Cummings / Barnard Castle thing? 1/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 01/12/2025

Felt cute, might delete later.

A screenshot of the app Libra, showing a consistent downward trend in a person's weight over a period of three months.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 25/11/2025

@simonwillison.net Have you ever tried your pelican benchmark with PostScript instead of SVG? I've just been playing with Gemini 3 Pro thinking and it's really good at PostScript, but it definitely can't one-shot it.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 17/11/2025

I was today years old when I realised why it's called firmware.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 12/11/2025

Yes, I guess it makes sense.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 12/11/2025

TIL you can await in an F string.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 21/10/2025

I thought it was really eye-opening the way that just choosing a slightly less obvious way of encoding the data gives a free lunch in terms of density. The clapping was a good demonstration too.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 20/10/2025

I often wonder whether disproportionate punishments could be a good thing. The death penalty is clearly no deterrent to murder, but I bet it would make you clean up after your dog.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 16/10/2025

@drmaciver.bsky.social I enjoyed your email this morning. I too am a fountain pen user who had previously never thought about the principles of operation of the cap. It made me think of this Tim Harford post. timharford.com/2019/07/how-...

timharford.com

How the Brexit debate was flushed down the drain

On a scale of one to seven, how well do you understand how a flush lavatory works? This was a question asked by two Yale psychologists, Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil, almost two decades ago. Befo…

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 10/10/2025

Out of curiosity: why isn't the existing tier 1 support for aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu sufficient?

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 25/09/2025

I really loved this talk.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 19/09/2025

That was such a special experience. Thanks again to all involved.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 18/09/2025

I've got a pipedream of putting a Raspberry Pi Compute Module in my old netbook to give it new life. Kinda like a cyberdeck but boring.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

I read that GNU Screen has some support for charset conversion. Is anyone using it? Does it work? Is there anything else? 6/6

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

I think I need some sort of software in between the terminal and the shell to convert back and forth. Then I can run with $LANG=en_GB.UTF8 as usual, and I won't leave strange byes on the filesystem. 5/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

But the thing I don't really know how to handle is text encoding. Obviously any modern system will use UTF-8 for file names etc. But naturally my 1994 WY-520 speaks something else (DEC-MCS, maybe?). 4/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

I've got working comms (USB / RS232 adapter, cable, stty settings). I've also got systemd to run agetty when the adapter is plugged in. (Writing udev rules is not to my taste, but it does work.) Still some messing to do with finding the best $TERM and various settings on the terminal itself. 2/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

Has anyone got any experience of seriously using a vintage text terminal with modern Linux? I'm giving it a go, but I'm not sure if it's really viable today. 1/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 05/09/2025

It would be a small but meaningful improvement to the world if shoeboxes were built to be large enough for A4 paper. I've got lots kicking around, but they seem to be just slightly too narrow.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 04/09/2025

Thanks for sharing. I went and read a lot of them after I saw Simon's post. I didn't know Michael at all really, but I'd met him many times and it's striking how the stories chime with each other, and with what I knew of him.

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Reposted by Peter Russell

Simon Davy @bloodearnest.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

PyCon UK is in a couple of weeks, and it won't be the same without Michael. RIP.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 03/09/2025

I didn't know! How dreadful.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

Is all of that not exactly what is appropriate, given your public platform? /4

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

If we ever found ourselves in the same physical space, I'd probably be nervous about speaking to you, and at most say something like "I'm a big fan of your work". 3/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

But the way I treat you (and other minor celebrities) is - hopefully - respectfully. I tip a little in your Patreon (I don't knowingly actually use any of your work, or it would be more). When I occasionally reply to you on Social Media, I try hard to be interesting and not demanding. 2/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

I suppose I do view you as a minor celebrity: I admire you and your work and follow you fairly closely online (occasionally I'll look back through your posts to check I haven't missed anything). I think what you make is really cool, and makes the world more interesting. 1/

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

Actually one person has one. Perhaps they brought their own.

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Peter Russell @qwertyface.uk · 23/08/2025

Is it me, or is it getting harder and harder to find a beer mat in pubs these days? Some pubs seem to want to have them on the bar (why?), but it seems increasingly common for them not to exist at all. I'm in a 'spoons and people are using menus, lottery tickets, magazines. Madness.

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