Getting close now to the end of the component cleanup phase on the old bike.

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Took the Brompton out for a little spin yesterday, telling myself it would let me check more places for a black spray paint for cars, needed to get on with the Raleigh restoration. On the way I got some rust converter and snagged a couple of slices of pizza at one of the best local places, unchanged...

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Today is the International Day of Biological Diversity. As it happens, Eat This Podcast today published an episode that raises a question I have seldom seen given any serious discussion. Are rare breeds important for the conservation of genetic diversity?

Like all headline questions, the answer is probably “No”. Let me explain.

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Another day, another unbalanced set of bearings.

While I wait for a freewheel removal tool to appear, I turned my attention to the front wheel, starting with the axle. This proved relatively easy to get undone, although there was some rather strange fibrous material that seemed to be trapped in th...

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“Tool” is a euphemism, in English. This post is not about that kind of tool. It is about things we use to help us perform a job, the job, in this case, being writing on a computer. It requires a tool because almost any time a human is writing for a computer they are writing a draft that will be tweaked in one way or another by a computer before it appears on a screen.

The point about it being on a computer is that nothing else separates the presentation from the content quite so thoroughly. For example, if I want to emphasise a word by making it bold I need to know how you might be reading it. If you’re reading it in a web browser, I want the browser to receive <strong>bold</strong>, knowing that it will present it to you as bold. If I plan to make the text available as a PDF, I need to take other steps to make the text look the way I want it to.

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