iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 03/10/2026

Child: "Daaaad! What just happened in my online physics homework??" Most parents: 🤷 People like me: "Ah, allow me to introduce you to the imprecision of floating point arithmetic!"

A screen grab of an online learning platform showing the answer to a maths problem as 58.800000000000004

070

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 25/09/2026

Plant fans: These have started growing in my garden. Never seen them before. Closest I've got to an ID is that they might be Silver Fir seedlings. Any other good options?

110

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 19/09/2026

Oh. I always wondered how this happened. Didn't realise it was so simple!

A screengrab of part of a web page. Title is “Create Child”. The rest reads “To create a new child please complete the following details and then save these details using the buttons at the end of the form.”

130

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 15/09/2026

Someone told me about one of the best features of iOS 27 and so I must pass it on. The wallet app lets you create custom passes. You can scan and store all your loyalty cards!! (Android users, if you've had this for years, I'm happy for you. You don't need to brag!)

A redacted Nectar card in my iOS wallet.

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 27/08/2026

One of the banks I use has changed their terms and conditions to allow them to put an AI help agent in their app. From what I can tell it says "Our AI tool may be wrong. And if it is, and you do what it says, it's your fault." Account closed.

An Al assisted search tool relies on statistical techniques, so despite thorough training and testing, errors or misleading statements can still occur. Therefore, you must not interpret any statements made by the tool as implying any of the above functionalities that it is not designed and intended for. If a statement by the Al assisted search tool appears unclear, inconsistent or otherwise questionable, you should contact our customer service or verify the information in other ways.

021

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 20/08/2026

Does anyone know what is being stored at the western end of the old Filton runway near Bristol? LOTS of very uniform piles of curved things.

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 23/07/2026

First full day of school holidays. Took kids to the local high ropes place. Very fun. But I'm surprised this slack line fix got past health and safety! 😬

A slack line high up in trees, with a lot of gaffer tape wrapped around it

100

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 19/07/2026

I am a member of my local Makerspace. I have access to a laser cutter. I need to practice my new skills!!

210

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 16/07/2026

I am particularly proud of the TikTok-worthy, white-man-bakes-sourdough / ASMR crossover video! 😂

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 16/07/2026

Baking mornings are the best kind!

A bread board with a freshly-baked sourdough loaf, a plate with two slices of that bread, one has butter, one has butter and marmite. The marmite jar is also in view.

380

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 02/07/2026

But there is a built-in "Photos" app (this is iOS) that doesn't turn up when I fat-finger search for "ohot". Looking at this list though, there's presumably some tagging/keywords. Perhaps Google were smart enough to include "ohotos" as a keyword?

100

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 02/07/2026

I will never understand how the various search functions work on iOS. App search is kinda fuzzy? Accidental "ohot" matches "gOogle pHOTos" perhaps? Spotlight search is just wrong most of the time. There is a built-in app that I use all the time called "weather" and you can't find it?

An app search for “ohot” shows one result: “Google Photos”

A spotlight search for “weather” shows many things, but not the weather app!

100

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 27/06/2026

The other day someone asked "What your low-stakes conspiracy theory?" And I knew I had one but could NOT remember at the time. It's this: The famous crop circles of Wiltshire are Swindon's transport planning dept trying out new roundabout layouts!

A series of small circles connected by pathways to form one big circle.

060

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 27/06/2026

Trying again with alt text and the correct “joke”… Today I am at Bletchley Park. Home of the WWII code breaking effort. Fascinating place. But I note that geese were properly valued in the 1940s! 😃

A display poster in the Bletchley Park museum shows Winston Churchill and the quote “The geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled.”

He is describing the Codebreakers
and their success in keeping their work secret.

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 25/06/2026

I want to replace "iPhone" with my name, print this out big, and leave it covering me as I attempt to sleep.

100

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 23/06/2026

Turbo Admin v1.22.0 is out with the Firefox iframe fixes - amongst some other minor things. Useful thing… I've improved front-end detection of WordPress APIs, so you can pop the palette up on your favourite WP sites to search them! (This was broken for a while)

The Turbo Admin command palette open on the CSS Tricks website, showing search results for “flex box”

The Turbo Admin command palette open on the core Make WordPress website, showing search results for “field” including the recent release field guides

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 16/06/2026

The prompts/placeholders in the new post screen in the Indigo app are so good. 😆

A new post window with the placeholder text “This better not be slop”

021

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 06/06/2026

This is kinda interesting and fun. The next release of Turbo Admin will track (internally, 100% privately) command palette usage and admin site visits. These are for future features, but I can show them! There's something compelling about it. Must. Resist. "Turbo Admin Wrapped" at new year!!

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 28/05/2026

I was somewhat amused that a life ring in Brixham - home of "one of the biggest pirate gatherings in the world"* - has the What3Words code "BURGLARS-SHIP-MOVEMENT" (* - see www.brixhampiratesfestival.com/)

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 25/05/2026

My wife found a house that looks like a Minecraft Villager. 😂

I don’t really know what the alt text for this should be. It’s a picture of a house. And it looks like a Minecraft Villager. Do you want more?

020

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 21/05/2026

"Own a car", they said. "It'll be fun!", they said. "And not at all occasionally very expensive and inconvenient!" Me: gets two punctures in a week

A close up of a car tyre with a big screw stuck in it.

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 19/05/2026

Slightly less favourite-video right now is the stuff coming out of Google I/O. Just… ugh. Where are the PEOPLE? We're heading to Wall-E level dystopia, aren't we? Makes me genuinely angry.

100

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 18/05/2026

Woah! 2nd in Memoku!!! (I could go down, but it's pretty late in the day!) puzzmo.com/play/memoku/s6z4v1...

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 11/04/2026

The most trivial thing. But not only am I team “vertical tabs” but I’m team “right-side tab bar”! I heard an argument for right-side nav in a code editor: a left sidebar moves your code around when you toggle it; a right sidebar does not. I like this. So I applied it to my browser too!

160

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 28/03/2026

So Turbo Admin will soon work in #WordPress Playground. Just not with REST API access because <complicated reasons>. But it’s very cool. Especially the automated on-boarding clean up! Experienced devs don’t need all that. Video shows Playground without Turbo Admin and then with. SO much cleaner!!

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 28/03/2026

This week’s AI abomination in my inbox. A poster for a local high-ropes company featuring child who has an elbow on the wrong side of their arm and who clearly didn’t get a safety briefing and is about to lose their fingers. And some very random and meaningless icons. Make it stop!!!

030

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 15/03/2026

You inspired me to try again… 😬😂

150

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 01/03/2026

I get a ton of this SendGrid spam. Doesn't seem to get filtered. But this is new. Current-affairs-specific phishing attacks? Wow.

An obviously spam, phishing email that claims to be from SendGrid, but isn’t. Reads:

A Personal Note

Hi,

I'm writing to you today about something personal. Recent developments in Iran have affected my family directly, and I know many others are going through similar experiences.

The people of Iran deserve better. They deserve freedom and the right to determine their own path forward.

Because of this, we're adding a footer to all outgoing SendGrid emails to help raise awareness and support. If you'd prefer not to include it, you can easily disable it in your account preferences.

Then there is a Manage Account Preferences button.

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 01/03/2026

Oh no. The school found AI generated images for the newsletter!! 🤦‍♂️

A close up of an AI generated image. It shows a globe in a library. The globe is impossibly levitating and seems to have an enormous new country off the west coast of the Americas, in the middle of the Pacific.

A close up of an AI generated image. A cartoon of a girl in a library. She is resting her chin on two hands and holding a book in front of her with a third hand.

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 15/02/2026

On the parental controls topic… I recently discovered that in iOS, if you Spotlight-search your kid’s name and tap it you get this highly useful “Instant downtime” button that I’m sure is not anywhere else in iOS.

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 11/02/2026

This is an amusing juxtaposition of things…

A screen grab of a YouTube ad that’s actually a survey question. It reads “Help YouTube by answering in question”

Underneath is the question “What if you made a jetpack using rifles?”, which is the title of the video.

010

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 10/02/2026

Well, the Science Museum’s warehouse that's 15 minute's drive from where I live is FASCINATING. Housing 300,000 items representing 90% of the Museum's collection (the other 10% is in exhibits). Everything from the World's Fastest Milk Float, to Stephen Hawking's “voice”!

A shiny blue milk float sits among other old vehicles in a large warehouse.

A large orange vehicle with metal caterpillar tracks and the words “Trans-antarctic expedition” in large uppercase letters. It sits surround by other historical vehicles in a large warehouse.

A Dr Who Cyber Man costume and a Dalek on wooden palettes and surrounded by turn-of-the-century vehicles in a huge warehouse.

A non-descript black metal box with scratched paint labelled “Main Voice” sits on a shelf.

071

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 10/02/2026

I’m having a nerdy science night out… Hey, Robot!!

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 26/01/2026

I should have given blood more than this. But proud to have got to 25 donations. And this is a nice recognition. I know not everyone can do it, but giving blood in the UK is quick, easy, and literally life saving!

050

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 13/12/2025

I've been given permission to get a BluRay player, even if I don't get one for Christmas. So it's time to build an HD movie collection. Charity Shops FTW! These were priced at £1.50 each, but when I went to pay they guy said “6 for £2”. Amazing.

A stack of Blu Ray discs in their boxes including several Star Wars movies, a Harry Potter, and The Imitation Game.

240

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 23/11/2025

I endorse this message. www.isthiswhatwewant.com Ironic that Apple Music lists it as “Lossless”

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 20/11/2025

I think I’ve found an early ancestor of Marvin the Paranoid Android…

A small, pale blue car for sale outside a dealership. It kinda looks sad. Its number plate reads O H 23 W H Y. Which looks like “Oh Why”

031

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 11/11/2025

Oh fun. My anti virus/malware software says VS Code's GitHub Copilot Chat has a dodgy Base64-encoded script in it! You'd think GitHub, of all people, would know not to do that!

021

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 06/11/2025

The two Howard’s are “making out in the corner”. 🤷 I never knew who “Howard Stevenberg” was. I assumed he was a rock star or movie star. But no… He’s the world’s fastest reader! 🤯😂 www.howardberg.com

000

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 29/10/2025

Phew! Epic day with the kids: - Science Museum - Minecraft Experience - Getting lost in Westfield Shopping Centre - Finding a Nintendo pop-up store! - Driving to London and back Hooray!!

170

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 28/10/2025

Checking the Aldi leaflet. Prawns are in there. As are ribs. Maybe you could avoid food for L and just have a stocking? Or a gingerbread stocking?

110

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 17/10/2025

Is “Rotated poop emoji” now a trend in logos? Or is it purely accidental? 🫣 This is the second I’ve seen in as many weeks!

020

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 11/09/2025

This was a real email too. From Companies House: noreply@news.companieshouse.gov.uk Great to have the scam pointed out! Thanks.

111

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 29/08/2025

I swear, the EE website is the WORST website in the whole of the UK. I can NEVER do what I want on it. I usually enter a weird redirect loop at some point. And crap like this happens. It's AWFUL!!!!

210

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 23/08/2025

Already a new favourite over here! We’re big fans of Phyllis (aged 83) in particular! 😄

110

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 10/08/2025

I’m reading ALL of these right now. You can NOT accuse me of not wanting to level up my knowledge and become a better programmer. Yes, even 30 years into my career!

Four books like on a desk with a keyboard.

1) Working effectively with legacy code
2) The Staff Engineer’s Path
3) Engineering management for the rest of us
4) The Pragmatic Programmer

130

Ross Wintle @rosswintle.uk · 09/08/2025

OK. This is actually happening now. And it’s NOT really crap. 🙌😁 DIY video gaming table. Budget so far: £105 Needs paint. We’ll add some small fans for cooling. And a USB hub. And such a fun summer project to build! And it’s OURS! WE made it. And that’s so cool.

050