Matt Fozard
@elfoz.bsky.social
Software developer, dad, bike rides and pub walks, weather watcher // Hampshire UK
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Like a latter-day Dr. Frankenstein, I have revived my Eruptions blog from beyond the grave. My hope is that it doesn't wreak havoc, but instead returns me to writing about volcanoes regularly. You should check it out! eruptions.site/2026/01/28/w...
Welcome back to Eruptions
So, it has been awhile, right? Over the past few years, there have been a lot of changes to my volcano communication world. Scientists moved from Twitter to Bluesky. People decided they wanted podc…
eruptions.site
January 29, 2026 at 6:12 PM
Like a latter-day Dr. Frankenstein, I have revived my Eruptions blog from beyond the grave. My hope is that it doesn't wreak havoc, but instead returns me to writing about volcanoes regularly. You should check it out! eruptions.site/2026/01/28/w...
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Currently on the easel. Thankful for a job that keeps me on the search for the most beautiful, moving sights I can find in nature. It’s too easy to forget we live in a world of wonders.
January 18, 2026 at 3:46 PM
Currently on the easel. Thankful for a job that keeps me on the search for the most beautiful, moving sights I can find in nature. It’s too easy to forget we live in a world of wonders.
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Everyone should read this: www.gov.uk/government/p...
Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security
This strategic assessment explores how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity.
www.gov.uk
January 23, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Everyone should read this: www.gov.uk/government/p...
Reposted by Matt Fozard
The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.”
* read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)
* read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)
January 22, 2026 at 12:44 PM
The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.”
* read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)
* read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)
Reposted by Matt Fozard
discovered a pretty critical coding error in The Human Body where sometimes the way to feel better when you feel too bad to work out is to work out. this is suboptimal for user experience of The Human Body
January 17, 2026 at 1:53 AM
discovered a pretty critical coding error in The Human Body where sometimes the way to feel better when you feel too bad to work out is to work out. this is suboptimal for user experience of The Human Body
Run report: a fine end to the day in Hampshire. 9km, 8C. #ukweather
January 17, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Run report: a fine end to the day in Hampshire. 9km, 8C. #ukweather
I do hope everyone in tech is subscribed to @quinnypig.com
"I construct the MIME message manually. It's fine. Everything is fine. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?" 😂
www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/i-hope-...
"I construct the MIME message manually. It's fine. Everything is fine. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?" 😂
www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/i-hope-...
I Hope This Email Finds You Before I Do
I Hope This Email Finds You Before I Do
www.lastweekinaws.com
January 15, 2026 at 1:55 PM
I do hope everyone in tech is subscribed to @quinnypig.com
"I construct the MIME message manually. It's fine. Everything is fine. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?" 😂
www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/i-hope-...
"I construct the MIME message manually. It's fine. Everything is fine. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?" 😂
www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/i-hope-...
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Honestly this works for everything
“I want to trap hungry 19c ghosts in jars to help us with historical research” ✅
“Please read our holiday card; we got a hungry ghost to write it this year” ❌
“I want to trap hungry 19c ghosts in jars to help us with historical research” ✅
“Please read our holiday card; we got a hungry ghost to write it this year” ❌
If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
January 12, 2026 at 1:11 PM
Honestly this works for everything
“I want to trap hungry 19c ghosts in jars to help us with historical research” ✅
“Please read our holiday card; we got a hungry ghost to write it this year” ❌
“I want to trap hungry 19c ghosts in jars to help us with historical research” ✅
“Please read our holiday card; we got a hungry ghost to write it this year” ❌
GitHub Copilot is down, looks like I'll have to go back to using my old fashioned brain today www.githubstatus.com/incidents/1l...
Receiving no requests to GitHub Copilot
GitHub's Status Page - Receiving no requests to GitHub Copilot.
www.githubstatus.com
January 13, 2026 at 9:55 AM
GitHub Copilot is down, looks like I'll have to go back to using my old fashioned brain today www.githubstatus.com/incidents/1l...
Winchester with its best winter coat on this morning -7C #ukweather
January 6, 2026 at 8:52 AM
Winchester with its best winter coat on this morning -7C #ukweather
Who is it at @metoffice.gov.uk that thinks this is useful? 3 different categories of warning for essentially the same weather and 4 overlapping warning areas 🙄❄️
January 4, 2026 at 10:15 AM
Who is it at @metoffice.gov.uk that thinks this is useful? 3 different categories of warning for essentially the same weather and 4 overlapping warning areas 🙄❄️
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Got a few quid spare? You could do some good here...
Northumberland nature recovery project takes shape with biggest land sale in 30 years
Wildlife trust is raising funds to buy largest piece of land in single ownership to come up for sale in England for a generation
www.theguardian.com
December 31, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Got a few quid spare? You could do some good here...
Unfortunately for me, this does not sound fun 😕
In essence a language model changes you from a programmer who writes lines of code, to a programmer that manages the context the model has access to, prunes irrelevant things, adds useful material to context, and writes detailed specifications. If that doesn't sound fun to you, you won't enjoy it.
December 30, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Unfortunately for me, this does not sound fun 😕
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Today is winter solstice ❄️
A perfect day to align with Earth’s rhythms and find peace in winter’s beauty.
📸: Ian Brierley
A perfect day to align with Earth’s rhythms and find peace in winter’s beauty.
📸: Ian Brierley
December 21, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Today is winter solstice ❄️
A perfect day to align with Earth’s rhythms and find peace in winter’s beauty.
📸: Ian Brierley
A perfect day to align with Earth’s rhythms and find peace in winter’s beauty.
📸: Ian Brierley
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Absolutely shocking.
We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases.
We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.
We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases.
We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.
December 17, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Absolutely shocking.
We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases.
We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.
We're offering an overall award of £10k for information that leads to a conviction in these cases.
We need to make raptor persecution a thing of the past.
Reposted by Matt Fozard
This little gem is tucked away in the release notes for VS Code 1.107 🙌
On macOS you can now navigate between editors using 3-finger swipe gesture with the trackpad. Enable this with the workbench.editor.swipeToNavigate setting.
On macOS you can now navigate between editors using 3-finger swipe gesture with the trackpad. Enable this with the workbench.editor.swipeToNavigate setting.
December 11, 2025 at 8:59 AM
This little gem is tucked away in the release notes for VS Code 1.107 🙌
On macOS you can now navigate between editors using 3-finger swipe gesture with the trackpad. Enable this with the workbench.editor.swipeToNavigate setting.
On macOS you can now navigate between editors using 3-finger swipe gesture with the trackpad. Enable this with the workbench.editor.swipeToNavigate setting.
Reposted by Matt Fozard
The group plans to launch a social network under the name "Twitter.new," possibly as early as late next year.
Operation Bluebird wants to relaunch “Twitter,” says Musk abandoned the name and logo
“Abandonment” offers rare chance to reclaim one of tech’s most recognized brands.
arstechnica.com
December 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM
The group plans to launch a social network under the name "Twitter.new," possibly as early as late next year.
Reposted by Matt Fozard
Lots of great suggestions already (thank you!) but so far my favourite is Let the Bodies Hit the Floor vs Teletubbies...
October 8, 2024 at 2:42 PM
Lots of great suggestions already (thank you!) but so far my favourite is Let the Bodies Hit the Floor vs Teletubbies...
Has a look at my feed - ***dooooooom*** - turns off and goes for a walk in the sunshine
November 23, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Has a look at my feed - ***dooooooom*** - turns off and goes for a walk in the sunshine
Spec driven development + agentic AI to generate code seems like a good idea on the surface, but what does it leave for me to do? Gather requirements, write specs, press some buttons, review the AI's code, perform manual testing. Writing my own code was the fun part...
November 19, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Spec driven development + agentic AI to generate code seems like a good idea on the surface, but what does it leave for me to do? Gather requirements, write specs, press some buttons, review the AI's code, perform manual testing. Writing my own code was the fun part...
It is [0] days since I trashed a live database 😱
(but also: yay for working backups)
(but also: yay for working backups)
November 18, 2025 at 5:26 PM
It is [0] days since I trashed a live database 😱
(but also: yay for working backups)
(but also: yay for working backups)
Reposted by Matt Fozard
This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu
November 18, 2025 at 9:44 AM
This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu
Looking forward to this - it's a real improvement on having to match arrays by index
ECMAScript excitement 😉
Congrats to my coworker @ashley-c.bsky.social at TechAtBloomberg on advancing Await Dictionary to Stage 2.7 at TC39 today 🎉
Promise.all returns positional results as an array. Promise.allKeyed allows named results inside an object 👍
github.com/tc39/proposa...
Congrats to my coworker @ashley-c.bsky.social at TechAtBloomberg on advancing Await Dictionary to Stage 2.7 at TC39 today 🎉
Promise.all returns positional results as an array. Promise.allKeyed allows named results inside an object 👍
github.com/tc39/proposa...
November 18, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Looking forward to this - it's a real improvement on having to match arrays by index