Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

Edinburgh Fringe: Stand-up Philosophy ★★★⯪☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-14T15:16:26.000Z

For a pay-what-you-want show this was decent. Three comedians doing sets on the theme of philosophy - followed by a Q&A where the audience poses philosophical conundrums to them.

It more-or-less works as a gimmick. Although an early afternoon crowd may have been more likely to ask questions anonymously.

I've never seen a Sikh doing an unnervingly accurate impression of Trump before. Daman Bamrah did a perfect routine which blended his philosophy with the perils of the bum-gun. An unexpected but hilarious combination.

Sid Singh's set trod a fairly standard path through reactions to racism, but his discussion at the end about the inherent problems involved in writing controversial material was excellent.

Tying it all together was Alex Farrow who perfectly brought together the various philosophical strands and proved why Albert Camus was a fan of Stewart Lee.

A great set of acts at a decent price.

Edinburgh Fringe: Waiting for Wonka ★★★⯪☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-14T12:31:07.000Z

This play is fucked up! Such a brilliant concept - what happened to the kids from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after they were rejected by Wonka? Stuck together in a Big-Brotheresque household, they trauma-dump on each other.

New Zealand's Half Trick have shrunk their full-length play into a Fringe-standard 60 minutes. That does make it a little brusque and, simultaneously, a bit repetitive. The characters don't get quite enough room to breathe. Mike Teavee has, of course, become an incel online troll - perfect! - but the rest haven't changed much.

The horrors of industrial accidents mixed with corporate malfeasance makes for an excellent comedy. The cast inhabit their characters perfectly, each totally believable as a childhood favourite who has become a deeply troubled adult.

I'd be delighted to read a full length novelisation of the script. It is a witty and terrifying update to a book I devoured as a child. Only now do I realise that it was also devouring me. Truly when you gaze into the lake of chocolate…

On Publishing Your Salary - Kev Quirk

2026-08-14T09:16:00.000Z

One of my favourite things to do online is perusing the IndieWeb. It's fun, and I've been able to discover a tonne of interesting people along the way. But every now and then, I come across someone who has published their salary history on their site.

At first, I thought this was a great idea. It feels transparent, and it theoretically gives people an idea of what they could or should be earning in a particular field. But as I've discovered more people doing this (for the record, I've only seen it a handful of times), a pattern seems to have emerged that makes me think it might actually have the opposite effect.

Before we go any further, I want to state for the record that I have nothing against people publishing their salary. If you want to do it, that's entirely your call. Personally, I've decided not to post it here, but I am open about it - if you want to know what I earn, email me and I'll gladly tell you.

Discussing pay here in the UK isn't as taboo as in other parts of the world, either. We actually have legislation in place that allows us to talk about our salaries with co-workers.

So what's my concern?

A double-edged sword

Of the handful of times I've seen people sharing their salary history, they are always very high. For context, a six-figure (£100,000) salary in the UK puts you in the top 4% of earners in the country.

This is where my concern starts - we only ever see these high outliers, so the sample size is incredibly skewed. Nobody is rushing to publish their £25,000 salary history, which means the curmudgeon in me can't help but feel that these pages can sometimes read more like a humble brag than genuine advocacy, even if the author's intent was entirely pure.

For the reader, this can be deflating, rather than empowering. A developer earning a perfectly respectable £50k (which already puts them in the top 15% of UK earners) might look at Jane Smith earning £105k and think, "Jesus, I'm doing terribly."

But salary is highly subjective. It depends on where you live, the company you work for, the unique responsibilities of your role, what your peers earn, how hard you negotiate, and how supportive your manager is.

When you strip all that context away and just publish a high number, what is the reader supposed to do with it? If our developer goes to their manager and asks for a 100% pay rise because they saw Jane Smith online earning £105k, they're going to be laughed out of the room. Because, without context, the raw numbers are useless.

I'm all for paying people the maximum amount possible for good work, but unfortunately, we live in a world where many organisations want to pay their staff the minimum they can get away with.

So what's the alternative?

I don't know what the perfect answer is, but I don't think it's telling people to stop sharing. Transparency is important, and it's severely lacking in the corporate world.

Perhaps the solution is context? If you feel comfortable publishing your salary, maybe add a disclaimer explaining the unique circumstances behind it, stressing that it's a record of your personal journey, not an industry target or a standard benchmark.

Or, maybe just ignore everything I've said in this post, as who am I to tell you what to do with your site. 🙃

I've thought about adding a salary page to this site many times, but I've always held off. Honestly, I think I'm grossly overpaid for what I do, especially compared to roles like nurses, police officers, or members of the armed forces. I'm incredibly grateful for it, and I've worked hard to get here, but I don't want to add to the noise.

If you publish your salary on your site, more power to you. But it's worth considering how that number might be perceived by the people reading it, and whether it's truly helping them or just making them feel left behind.

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Notable links: August 14, 2026 - Werd I/O

2026-08-14T09:00:15.000Z

Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.

I've been taking a hiatus during August while I prepare to join the Stanford JSK fellowship, but I couldn't wait to send you today's link.

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I’ve been more excited about this announcement than any other development in either social media or news technology this year. Chicago Public Media — which runs both WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times — will run a network of online social communities for Chicago neighborhoods at chicago.com. These communities run on New_ Public’s Roundabout, a social networking platform designed to be a positive space for local communities to organize, meet, and share.

As Nieman Lab reports:

“Roundabout’s team sees these communities as places local reporters can be invited into to listen and build trust — places where they can answer people’s questions and learn what they should be reporting on. Reporters, and reporting, are not central to what Roundabout is; they are components that can strengthen the local community conversation that is central.”

I strongly believe that this sort of community engagement is how news turns around its precipitous decline in trust from the public. People trust human relationships, not brands; hosting a space to support those relationships, and forming them authentically and organically with a wider community, will lead to more representative journalism, stronger trust from the public, and better information overall. More than that, these sorts of communities have the potential to meet what most people need from local journalism in a format that feels more equitable (everyone participates rather than it being a voice from above) and modern.

Roundabout is not the only game in town here: this is a genuine, growing trend across media. The Newsmast Foundation has been building community spaces for newsrooms that are backed by the Fediverse; its first major launch was British newspaper the Bristol Cable last year. Meanwhile, Bonfire Networks has been building its community platform to operate with similar intentions to Roundabout, including by working with media companies like Jacobin Germany.

Still, this is a significant, brave development, particularly for US media, and is notable for its scope and ambition. It’s incredibly rare for a news organization to put their neck on the line and truly build new technology that up-ends existing paradigms. A new kind of social space for one of America’s largest cities fits that bill. Conversely, working with local media orgs — people who already understand their local communities deeply and are active in them — is a great way for New_ Public to build a platform that is safer and less toxic than something like Nextdoor. Roundabout has a bunch of its own features that help provide this safety; the focus on conversation over profiles or clout, and Nextdoor’s notoriously racist “suspicious person” posts are banned.

There’s something else here too: Blaine Cook, currently the platform’s principal engineer, confirmed that it runs on AT Protocol, the open social web protocol that powers Bluesky. It’s its own archipelago for now, but once private spaces land in AT Protocol properly, it’ll be connected to the wider network (known as the Atmosphere). This protocol compatibility allows anyone to build their own apps. Once Chicago’s network is connected to the wider Atmosphere, anyone will be able to build other communities that connect up to it, and build platform software that interoperates with Chicago’s. Given the size of this project, it’s likely the biggest foray for any media company onto the open social web.

If this experiment in Chicago is successful, I think we’ll see New_ Public expand to work with other media orgs — and we’ll see some of the orgs that might not have considered this kind of platform come around to the idea.

And more:

Here are some of the stories I didn't get a chance to go into in depth this week.

How can news media wean themselves off the Big Tech drip?

The University of Amsterdam is teaming up with European newsrooms De Correspondent and Follow the Money for a two-year project that will see researchers co-design news technology prototypes with the public. The goal is to help newsrooms build greater autonomy through building things their readers actually want to use.

The offline messaging apps challenging internet shutdowns

Authoritarian governments sometimes combat protest by conducting internet shutdowns. A new set of offline-first, truly decentralized social apps allow protestors to communicate regardless by using Bluetooth mesh networks. Modi's government tried to block access to Bitchat's GitHub repo: a sure indication that they're worried about it. In turn, these apps are a sign that the genie cannot be put back into the bottle.

Mea Culpa - Dark Hours

A developer used Claude to build a tool to give you an idea what you could see in the sky that night. The LLM created something that was so markedly similar to an existing open source project that it duplicated a bug that project's author had since fixed. The plagiarism was unintentional and didn't come to light until the open source author reached out. Everyone using AI to develop software (or anything releasable) should consider this a warning.

America’s largest newspaper chain, USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data as search traffic falls

Apparently Axel Springer and Fox News are doing the same. I'm not sure it makes me feel good to know that the firm that powers ICE also has access to data about which news stories people are reading.

Chicago's social network is a huge bet for news. I think it's the future. - Werd I/O

2026-08-14T02:04:23.000Z

Link: Can public media build its own social network? Chicago Public Media teams up with New_ Public to try, by Sophie Culpepper in Nieman Lab

As Nieman Lab reports:

“Roundabout’s team sees these communities as places local reporters can be invited into to listen and build trust — places where they can answer people’s questions and learn what they should be reporting on. Reporters, and reporting, are not central to what Roundabout is; they are components that can strengthen the local community conversation that is central.”

Edgar - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z

Wearing a distinguished red scarf, the fluffy librarian sits atop a shelf of books.

Of the stacks and stacks of stories and tales resting beneath, he knows all.

Edgar is a quiet, soft fellow — content contemplating closer to the clouds.

He could recite any poem from Dickinson —
or paint a portrait of the quietest, fullest Japanese coffee shop.

Instead, he sits patiently, waiting for the moment when you reach out, asking “what should I read today?”

With a smile always on his face, and without a spoken word, you realise he has a book all ready for you, under his two big, small paws.

paper - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z

to feel the boundaries of the paper loneliness hopes blankness fullness peripheries texture colour;

within its edges:
frames of beginnings.

Edinburgh Fringe: Doris, Dolly and the Dressing Room Divas ★★★★⯪ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T22:23:25.000Z

Quite simply marvellous! Three Scottish divas giving us their interpretations of the greats while backed by an excellent pianist.

So many shows at the Fringe skimp on sets and props - not this! A luscious array of costumes, hats, wigs, and ruby slippers bring the characters to life.

The framing is thin but serviceable - the backstage helpers are reminiscing about their favourite stars and bring them back to stage. It is a fun and campy evening, without ever straying into parody or obsequiousness.

Sadly a few technical gremlins crept in, but the cast are absolute troopers and dispensed with them.

Oh, and there's an incredible Sweary Poppins who steals the show.

In amongst the Fringe's high concept art, fiendish new writing, and blokey-standup, it was a real treat to see a good old fashioned revue.

Highly recommend.

Iconic moments in gaming - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-13T21:10:00.000Z

I saw this post by Gabz a while back titled Iconic moments in gaming and I wanted to share my own! Of course, these will spoil game mechanics or plot twists and you should thread carefully!

I will not be using <details> to spoil, though I’ll add skip buttons between each videogame I bring up. I will also list each game in release order, some games may feature multiple epic moments, I won’t mention all of them, but I’ll mention some, so if you are playing a title without fully completing it, it may be best to skip it altogether.

If you have played any of these games and you agree with my choices, or prefer different moments, please tell me about it!

Final Fantasy VI - 1994

skip to the next game

Do I really have to talk about how many iconic scenes this game has? It is stuffed with some of the most memorable scenes in the whole series!

The Opera scene continues to be filled with emotion to this day, and it was such a flex on the Super Nintendo days.

However, the most iconic moment has to go to the way the story of this game evolves after reaching the halfway point. I can’t think of many games that have been able to pull this off, have the world go to ruin, allow the villain to win, and end up with our characters separated all over the map, losing their will to fight. A bold choice for 1994.

Chrono Trigger - 1995

skip to the next game

With the time travel mechanic in Chrono Trigger, we are able to see many landscapes across time and space. There are way too many moments to count there.

The inciting event of the whole thing, where our characters discover the fate of the world and the evil that lies within the planet itself

The eerie atmosphere of the End of Time is also incredible, a place in the middle of the void with a strange man who knows way too much, standing under a lamp post.

But the cake has to go for that amazing reveal, the floating islands of the Kingdom of Zeal, with the sound of the Corridors of Time, one of gaming’s most iconics soundtracks.

Terranigma - 1996

skip to the next game

The story of terranigma is truly something to behold. I played about eleven hours of it and it was quite a mindblowing experience. Thankfully, one the most iconic moment of the game happens early, and it’s the moment you step out of the starting town, and realize what the world around you truly looks like.

The Super Nintendo’s graphics are at its best with the effect going on in the overworld, the color palette, the music, and the crystal blue, a simply stunning view.

Final Fantasy VII - 1997

skip to the next game

The jump to 3D has come to the Final Fantasy VII, and one of the most intriguing intro cinematics ensues. That starting sequence is unforgettable, Aerith, the city, everything on it is great.

There’s a few more cool moments in this game, such as the awesome escape from Shinra and out into the overworld, an unexplored landscape for our characters to journey through.

In any case, I am yet to play more of this game, so I will leave it there for now.

Resident Evil - 1997

skip to the next game

Come on guys, it’s the zombie! I already described that moment in my review for the game.

However, after that one, an iconic moment of the game has to bee the puzzle involving the paintings, that one is not only an incredibly well design moment, but the oucome when you do it wrong truly takes you by surprise.

There’s some more cool moments in this game, the jump scares are plentiful. I’d say the apparition of the Hunters has its place too, I really had to run away as soon as that thing showed up…

Resident Evil 2 - 1998

skip to the next game

How the Licker is introduced is awesome, it is the Zombie all over again, but with some more teases before the reveal. These scenes alone make an excellent case for the fixed camera angles of classic survival horror.

I actually really liked the way Mr. X shows up in-game too, but my favorite moment has to go to look at Mr. X through the security cameras, as he slowly approaches, destroys it and continues walking at his snail-like pace, what a menace!

Parasite Eve - 1998

skip to the end

This game has plenty of great sequences, the very intro is simply cinema, and the cutscene that kickstarts the story! With people burning in flames out of nowhere while the opera singer sings, as if everything is fine.

In fact, every single cutscene in this game is kind of epic, the very first rat mutating into a hideous creature, the piano scene with Eve revealing herself, the giant blob made of a whole audience of people, the horses on fire running about, so many moments horrific cutscenes and events.

But again, that crying statue of liberty takes it all.

Final thoughts

Like Gabz, I have so many more memories of many more amazing games, we are still in 1998 after all!

A continuation shall come at some point in the future. I actually quite liked the chronological order, but if I play some old game in between the ones mentioned here, and it also has some epic moments in it that I haven’t talked about, I’ll have to break the chain, sorry not sorry!

In any case. I would love to see more posts like this, what are some of your favourite moments in videogames you’ve played? Please share!

This is day 18 of #100DaysToOffload and day 13 of #Blaugust2026

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Edinburgh Fringe: The Musical Mystery Caller ★★★★★ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T20:21:53.000Z

Walking down the street, I noticed a ringing phone box so, naturally, I answered it.

What happened next was a few minutes of pure fringe magic!

I had a little chat with the caller, he welcomed me to the smallest venue in the fringe, and then he improvised a banger of a song based on my peculiar proclivities.

What a treat to have a front row experience at a one man (and one audience member) show. The song was heartfelt and beautiful, played and sung with panache - albeit down a twisted copper pair of limited bandwidth.

He didn't reverse the charges, so it didn't cost me a penny! Which, given the high prices of most shows, was an absolute bargain 😃

If you hear a phone ringing, you should always answer it and say hello.

Edinburgh Fringe: Miscast Sondheim ★★☆☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T18:45:15.000Z

I'm not sure what they're teaching at LAMDA, but it certainly isn't vocal projection. We were forewarned about the technical difficulties - but if a trained stage singer can't reach the 6th row of a tiny theatre, that can't be blamed on the backstage team.

The show advertises itself as:

What happens when you take Sondheim’s most beloved music and turn it on its head? Ingénues become villains, villains deliver delicate ballads, and comic sidekicks step into tragedy.

But, bluntly, that's not what was delivered. The gender swapping and colour-blind casting was fine, but there was no sense that this was a twist on the songs. They were all delivered in a straightforward fashion.

In fairness, there were a couple of truly excellent singers - Adam Boggs McDonald was spectacular and Paulina Hill was an absolute showstopper. The twist on Agony by Angelia Castillo and Adelia Castillo worked well.

Sadly the rest was over promised and under delivered.

Another show seen purely in the basis that we had an hour free and the venue was close. That's generally a pretty sound strategy for seeing shows - but you have to accept the risk that you might not like what you get.

Weeknote #2013 - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-08-13T18:37:45.000Z

I announced the shut down EchoFeed which I intend to write more about soon. I shipped Doodle Scan this week which you can read about here. I also made a zine and I was on a podcast. I have a couple of other things I'm working on which should be out soon.

I've finally had time to sort through an obscene amount of links I had saved and there was a lot of good stuff in there. Who knew?

Chris built his own font and has lots of tips about how to go about doing that.

delphitools is a collection of "privacy-first browser tools" which is what I was going for with DoodleScan and some other upcoming projects. Lots of good stuff here.

Matt & Nick's Stupid Adventure is a review blog ranking energy drinks. No RSS feed though, boo 👎.

A couple of little website dinguses - Pocket Bird and TownSquare. Fun.

The Closet allows you to browse all the Criterion movies as if you're in the closet. I have bad movie opinions so there's nothing here for me.

A script to make detect similar images in your photo library and make wigglegrams from them. What's a Wigglegram?.

CSS Buttons is a collection of nice buttons.

Improved CSS Text-Stroke and text stickers. Wild what you can do with CSS now.

The Definitive Guide to Neubrutalist Web Design. Hot.

The Website Specification is a useful reference for all the things you need to include in your website like metadata and such.

I love these doodle projects from Fountain Pen Love.

Do I need another hobby? No. Do I want to make my own rubber stamps? Yes.

Noice - Noice helps generate SVG filters for noise textures.

chiriapp/chiri: 🍃 Cross-platform CalDAV task management app.

Computer Modern is the font made for TeX. This project converts them all to web-friendly formats.

A bookmarklet to quickly check how your alt texts are doing.. Nice.

This Proof of Purchase project is so cool.

Another editor called GRAM. It has a frog logo so worth checking out.

Edinburgh Fringe: Hot Flush – A Bold, We’re Old(ish) Burlesque Show ★★★☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T16:45:02.000Z

Are menopausal women hot? It is often said that pornographic actresses move straight from "barely legal" to "MILF" without so much as moment in between. Unlike the fringe's other burlesque shows - which seem to exclusively feature nymphettes and twinks with nary a grey hair between them - Hot Flush focuses on the over 40s.

Look, you probably don't want to read a review of how tempting I found each temptress, nor a multivariant testing of their erotic powers - so let's just say this…

The lecture in the middle about the menopause and how to cope with it was very educational.

The performers were all talented and the costumes (before removal) were sufficiently sufficient for their purpose.

The main problem is that it is staged at the least sexy venue on the fringe. A basement meeting room which looks more suitable for a regional sales conference than a burlesque. Perhaps if they were going for a Belinda Blinked cabaret it might have worked better.

The performers coped well with the technical difficulties (no doubt caused by a moralising theatre ghost) and recovered their momentum well.

Edinburgh Fringe - Eleanor Morton: The Mermaid ★★★⯪☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T14:55:59.000Z

The undisputed queen of short-form viral video comedy snacks takes to the stage. Well, swims to the stage.

The Mermaid is a delightful and gentle amble through the confusing world of a girl who just wants to become a mermaid. Less standup and more storytelling, nevertheless it packs in the laughs with some rather clever jokes, a bit of bawdy humour, and - a rarity on The Fringe - a decently designed set!

It stands out by being well-rehearsed (surprisingly not a given here) and with no technical glitches during the performance (and, again, I cannot stress enough how unique that is). Eleanor Morton is an absolute professional who knows how to put on a quality show.

Book Review: Coding Literacy by Annette Vee ★★⯪☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-13T11:34:09.000Z

This is a disappointing and frustrating book - not least because it so nearly hits the mark.

The subtitle is "How Computer Programming Is Changing Writing" - but it never gets close to discussing that topic, let alone deeply examining it. Instead, it is a book mostly focussed on the history of what we mean by "literacy" and, by contrast, what it meant to be "illiterate".

As per the standard for academic monographs, it is more interested in endlessly discussing the semantics of a term than engaging with its impacts. The historic stuff is genuinely fascinating. But the endless diversions about what Academic A thinks and how Academic B rebuts is a little tedious. There are clear parallels between a pre-literate society relying on the village scribe and the modern family having that one cousin who "knows computers" - but it is only weakly explored.

There are moments when it seems like the author is really going to delve in to what coding literacy actually means:

The relationship between programming as a practice and computer science as a discipline is a central tension in the contemporary programming campaigns that invoke literacy,

But it rarely goes beyond surface level. Most people can write - but only few can write a novel. Many can engage is literary criticism - but few take it any further. How does that model fit on to coding? The book doesn't discuss, but there's an easy parallel there. Only a few people can write an app, but many can use it. Anyone can write a review of an app, but not many can do so from a position of literacy.

This was published in 2017, so written a decade or so before LLMs became seemingly ubiquitous. Nevertheless, there are some historic titbits which seem to fit nicely into today's world:

As early as 1961, Peter Elias claimed that training in programming languages would soon cease because “undergraduates will face the console with such a natural keyboard and such a natural language that there will be little left, if anything, to the teaching of programming. [At this point, we] should hope that it would have disappeared from the curricula of all but a moderate group of specialists.”

But, as the book does briefly discuss, the way the brain is changed by coding literacy forces people to think more in line with a computer. Even if you tell an LLM "build me an app to do xyz", you still need to think about what you're doing, why you're doing it, what edge-cases you need to consider, etc.

But then it is back to the interminable academic squabbling about whether Wittgenstein's definition of an inconsequential term is compatible with Chomsky's.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is that there is almost a complete absence of code! A few examples of BASIC would have done so much to demonstrate how a restricted language set changes how people write and therefore think.

There's a brief exploration about how the typewriter and typesetting changed language and literacy - but where's the examination about how the tyranny of ANSI layout curtailed the way programmers wrote? There's an amazing exploration to be done about why coders use => rather than → and how various other symbols got co-opted into their languages.

Instead, it is back to the history books again.

Here's another good example about how writing changed literacy:

Written texts provide fewer cues than oral delivery about how to “take” them; for example, ironically, sincerely, or jokingly. Readers must interpret texts, supplying the illocutionary force of the text themselves.

It seems obvious to me that this is directly comparable with something like a code review. It isn't immediately clear what a programmer means when they write something down - and even comments can be misleading. What sort of "oral traditions" are we building up?

The book then mostly abandons any pretence of talking about code. I think the author really wanted to write a history book but needed the (then) coolness of tying it to the various "get kids to code" campaigns.

Towards the end, it almost returns to the topic at hand.

We choose our words in terms of what is potentially reportable on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter

[…]

Although few people know how to program the devices on which code and computation ride into our lives, their manifestations influence us anyhow. In various ways, we have learned to see ourselves as “computed” by the devices and networks on which we depend.

As we might say nowadays "Hey chat! Guess the Cheeto didn't unalive himself today!" - but that isn't really about coding. The people using those substitute words are ignorant of how algorithms really work and think that their clever doublespeak can bypass censorship.

We desperately need more people to be literate in what coding means. Sadly this book only every lightly touches on what coding literacy does to our language, our thoughts, and our society.

I'm giving it 2.5 stars because the history was genuinely interesting - but it completely fails to engage with the topic it promised.

Questions - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-13T00:00:00.000Z

Ever since I published “Blogs, websites, and identity”, I have been thinking about and discussing some of the questions I raised in the blog post: why do we take photos, what does it mean to write on the web. The essay feels like a starting point: a framing from which to work, a point of reference, a repository of questions.

In the essay, I wrote:

But I can’t shake my question: what does it mean to write on the web?

I am still thinking about this question. I am no closer to having a written answer but, while out on a walk earlier today, I realised that I am content sitting with the question – letting it exist in the back of my mind for a while. The question feels significant, but I don’t know where to begin.

How does writing on the web contrast with other types of writing? This may be the question I need to think about first, and I already have some openings now that I think about it: I approach writing letters and private drafts differently to pieces I write on the web, while all continue to be expressions of my voice.

The aforementioned question – “what does it mean to write on the web” – is, I think, a “big question”, an idea I learned about from Tracy’s website – a question that can guide my thinking. I have a few more “big questions” that came to mind as I started thinking about what to write today, which sum up some of the concepts that have been on my mind of late:

What does change feel like? (My ideal framing here, however, is not necessarily a question so much as an invocation for me to think more about change, apt at present as I have recently redesigned my website home page, a reflection of change.)
How do the visual and the textual relate?
Why do some things stand out more than others?
What cultural artefacts engage with or are inspired by art history (like Paris Paloma’s excellent single “Pre-Raphaelite”)?
To what extent are my interests in writing and how my design sense manifests related?
Why do some paintings stick in my mind more than others (i.e. Turner’s “Rain, Steam, and Speed”)?

I am not sure when I will write about these topics, but I am curious about all of them. If you have thoughts on these topics, or know of any materials that might be interesting, please feel free to send me an email.

Just before I wrote this blog post, I listened to part of Maisie Peters' "Questions" song, which, while not related to the content of this post, shares a title with this post. As soon as I wrote the title for this post, I knew I had to listen to the song. Her latest album, Florescence, is a no-skip album for me.

Pre-Raphaelite feels like a starting point feel free to send me an email Tracy’s website Rain, Steam, and Speed

Edinburgh Fringe - Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody ★★★★☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-12T21:22:09.000Z

There are at least four different Heated Rivalry shows at the Fringe this year. Earlier this week we saw Edinburgh Fringe - Heated Rivalry: The Musical Parody!. This is different because it is the unauthorized musical parody.

Oh, and it is in the much larger Udderbelly venue.

Some people spend the fringe watching every possible interpretation of Timon of Athens - we decided to go for doubles of gay hockey sticks.

So, how does it compare to its twin?

It is good, but deeply conservative. The whole thing is framed through the eyes of a middle-age suburban mom which, sure, is probably a large part of the target audience but felt a bit retrograde. While the other show had a plentiful amount of acrobatic simulated sex with near-nude performers, this only has a couple of shirtless scenes and the actors are reduced to having a couple of trysts with literal mannequins. Weirdly, the one sex scene they perform together takes place behind a sheet. The leads kiss only twice which, for a parody of a show famed for its explicitness makes it all feel a bit Hays Code.

The songs, however, are sumptuous. A full score accompanies the incredibly talented cast. This is very off-Broadway - with soaring melodies, powerful solos, and solid reprises. At times it feels more like a parody of Broadway shows than of the TV show.

That isn't to say this is bad. It is very good. The script is full of delightful references and silly jokes. The lyrics at times are downright filthy! It is an excellent show and well worth seeing - but my heart remains with the other parody.

HTML Day 2026 - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-08-12T20:18:41.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? Last Saturday was HTML Day, a yearly celebration of hand-writing HTML started by Elliott Cost and Laurel Schwulst. Meetups happen in cities all over the world, and Zachary Kai ran an online session for those of us nowhere near one. Ten minutes of introductions, forty minutes of writing HTML, ten minutes sharing what we made. Zachary has a recap of the session up on his site.

I went in with a plan. At the recent Homebrew Website Club I talked about a question we hear all the time at the 32-Bit Cafe: “What should I put on my website? I don’t know what to put on my website.” These web surfers have the HTML and CSS basics down. Their homepages are full of badges, blinkies and custom cursors. What they don’t have is content. After thirty seconds of surfing I know nothing about the person behind the site.

So for HTML Day I started hand-writing a little zine about it: Grow Your Website. Forty minutes was enough to plant the first pages. I’ll finish the rest over the weekend and share the link once it’s online.

The method is one page and a way to grow it. You start with a seed: a title, a paragraph about who you are, and a bullet list of your interests. The intro grows into an about page. A bullet grows into its own page. The new page grows its own list, and every item on it is another seed. Repeat forever, because a website is never finished.

The zine needed someone to grow a site, so I invented PyRo, a webmaster from Aotearoa who works at a garden centre, has a cat called Savage, and listens to a lot of NZ hip-hop. PyRo’s site is the example the zine follows. When it’s finished you can click through the zine and watch it grow from one page to five. (PyRo was one of my earliest handles.)

PyRo has good taste too. The NZ hip-hop page covers the Years Gone By crew, the Zips (+++!) collective, and a few others. That list deserves a proper post of its own. More on that soon.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

Edinburgh Fringe - James Rowland: Team Viking ★★⯪☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-12T19:20:01.000Z

This is a technically precise and emotionally complex show with energetic delivery from a talented performer.

Sadly, it did nothing for me.

I found it a little one note in terms of storytelling. The rhythm of the story followed all the predictable beats which I thought was a little repetitive.

There's no doubt he's a gifted storyteller. The comedy is suitably dark with some good moments of joy and catharsis. It is probably the perfect show for some people but I wasn't the right audience for it.

Edinburgh Fringe - Garrett Millerick: We Tried it Your Way ★☆☆☆☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-12T17:55:57.000Z

Easily the worst show we've seen at the fringe. Garrett Millerick has trained an AI on his stand up. Can it replace him?

Yes, but only in the sense that the AI is obnoxiously dull and Millerick is simply obnoxious.

He insulted a kid who he'd called on to stage to help him. Not even in a jokey way, just being rude. His splenetic rants against religion and politics were beyond tired. The dating segment was like something from an incel forum. Bitter and uncomfortable.

There's a minor point that's made about whether AI comedy is cheating (yes) and if comedians need to be worried (no). But even when he goes back to performing his organic routine, it is dire. There are a few chuckles to be had, but most of the audience were just looking stricken with second hand embarrassment.

The delivery is a one note rant, the jokes are the shouting of an angry disillusioned man, and the AI is a clanker of the worst order.

Dire.