For the last two days I have been experimenting with reproducing my Strava timeline in Eleventy using a CSV file, for a change, as well as a JavaScript file to import new GPX files and map them correctly for the CSV file. That CSV file is then read by Eleventy to populate a site....
Latest Posts
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An Eleventy Strava Experiment in Three Parts — Mar 29, 2026 -
On Quitting Whatsapp Chatrooms — Mar 28, 2026When I worked as a deicer I was working such unsociable hours that my personal life took a hit. Friends would often discuss going to climb at 19:00 or so but I couldn’t. I had to be up at 02:00 to be at work by 04:00 ready to deice planes. After a while of feeling isolated I quit that chat, to preserve my mental health....
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On the Erosion of Online Conversational Spaces — Mar 27, 2026Yet again, in a Whatsapp chat someone asked “Can we keep this space for organising events rather than chatter?” and it had a toxic effect on me. This isn’t a turn of phrase. I mean that it made me feel deeply anxious and uncomfortable. The reason for this is simple. Whatsapp, before it was bought by Facebook was a chatroom for friends, and friends of friends, whom we met in the physical world. We had the desire to stay connected when we weren’t in the same personal space....
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A Simpler Wordpress Federation Process — Mar 27, 2026Yesterday I spent some time looking into why my WordPress blog was de-federated. My suspicion is that when I switched from FTP to rsync, to upload the latest changes, it modified the .htaaccess file or the .well-known/webfinger file. That’s why my blog stopped posting to the Fediverse....
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On Valuing Social Networks Over Social Media — Mar 26, 2026I believe that is wrong for a society dependent on cars to ban children from mobile phones and related tech. I believe that it is wrong because you create two problems. The first is that in a car centric society, where we go to school, is not where we live, so if we want to be social on weekends or after school we need transport. The second reason is that with car-centric societies we are isolating those that do not have simplified access to going out and seeing friends....
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MyAI Written Tests for Eleventy JavaScript Files — Mar 25, 2026I followed several JavaScript courses. They taught my about the process, and how to think about functions, but they rarely touched upon writing tests to ensure that the functionality remains when you refactor or make changes. While experimenting with Eleventy and refactoring I tidied up some code whilst in the process removing functionality that I didn’t want to remove. It took a while to fix....
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Refactoring Eleventy with Swisscom MyAI — Mar 24, 2026Yesterday afternoon I decided to experiment with MyAI and Eleventy because I was getting an error message. The issue is that when I refactored my Eleventy files with Gemini it removed code that broke the build process. I asked MyAI for help and it went beyond what I asked of it. Specifically, not only did it help me to fix the bug but it also helped me go from a build time of 35+ seconds, down to 25 seconds, and eventually down to 15 seconds. When you’re running build for each blog post that soon saves a lot of time....
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Experimenting With Eleventy — Mar 23, 2026One nice thing about switching from WordPress to Eleventy is that I start with a blank slate. By this I don’t mean that I start with nothing, because Eleventy does a lot. What I mean by this is that I can use APIs and other tools with greater ease than if I was experimenting with WordPress....
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On WordPress and the Eleventy Experiment — Mar 22, 2026Whilst I have found Wordpress to be a useful tool since around 2005 or so, recent changes have encouraged me to dump the platform. The first of these changes was when WordPress moved to react because this made the site slower, and heavier to use. React also has links to Facebook, and I try to avoid Facebook related projects when possible....
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A Physical Bike Ride and Simplification — Mar 21, 2026This Saturday was a great day for group rides for one key reason. The temperatures were pleasant, but more importantly, there was no wind to blow us around. The result is that despite riding with Group 2 I felt energetic until almost the end. Usually I’m exhausted much sooner, with this group. The ‘simplification’ I allude to, in my title, is the enduring habit of trying one thing, and then another, until it works, instead of breaking. You’ll know what I got to work shortly....