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XKCD 303 adapted to be about Cloudflare. Two people are swordfighting balanced on office chairs. The caption is "The #1 programmer excuse for legitimately slacking off: Cloudflare is down". Someone outside the room shouts "Hey! Get back to work!" A swordfighter responds "Cloudflare!" and the original person says "Oh. Carry on."
November 18, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Important message from my talk!

Exclude Insecure Devices is coming!

After April 2026 (or maybe even sooner), if your Matrix device is unverified, you will not be able to talk to someone who is using Element!

Or any other client complying with MSC4153

#matrix
Me giving a talk with this on the screen: Exclude Insecure Devices is coming! If your device is unverified, you will not be able to talk to someone who is using Element or any other client complying with MSC4153
October 20, 2025 at 2:33 PM
The other day we were walking around the grounds of Blenheim Palace, and my eldest began explaining to my youngest, from first principles, why a Monad is just a Monoid in the category of Endofunctors.

Almost expired with parenting joy.

We only got about […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Blenheim Palace and grounds looking beautiful from the air. It's a bit misty, and there are lovely lakes and green grass.
September 22, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Got it!

#lemmings
Some Lemmings walk past a firey exit, the wrong way, but hopefully they will get in there on the way back.
September 18, 2025 at 8:08 PM
This one is proving a little tricky
A Lemmings level with three entrances. The exit is in the middle, enclosed in diggable material and floating above a firey lake, with one entrance directly above it. The other two entrances are in the bottom corners. You have 10 of each ability. The real pressure is on bridges: you seem to need more than 5 on each side to bridge up to the right height, especially since you probably need to dig through one of them to prevent all the Lemmings falling off an incomplete bridge.
September 11, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Seriously fluked that
A screenshot of the game Lemmings. The last few lemmings are just about to enter the exit, which is a flaming pig's head. They are climbing a bridge and look a little relieved and surprised.
September 2, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I just solved Postcard from Lemmingland[1] and I feel good about myself.

1] [https://lemmings.fandom.com/wiki/Postcard_from_Lemmingland
Several lemmings walk out of the entrance, heading for a brick wall. This level is the same as one of the easy ones, but this time it's much harder: you only have 1 bridger, 1 basher, 1 miner and 1 digger.
August 31, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Prayer: We heard a story

https://wrestleswithgod.org/2025/08/17/we-heard-a-story/
Lord, thank you for the chance to talk to you. Please help us to pay attention to what's important. We heard a story that you're real and you love us. But we hear a lot of other things as well. We heard a story that everyone is important. But in Gaza hungry children are being killed waiting in a queue for their food. We heard a story that the Earth is a garden for us to care for. But this week the world failed again to agree on how to stop plastic pollution. We heard a story that we're all in this together. But every decade the summers get hotter and the wildfires burn. We heard a story that you care about things that are wrong. But in Sudan people are starving and dying of cholera, and we don't see you. We heard a story that you tell us to care for foreigners living in our country. But the voices demanding "go back wherever you came from" seem louder every day. We heard a story that we are all a family, but so many of us are so alone, and the gap between rich and poor keeps growing. We heard a story that you are here, in this room with us. We heard a story that you can stand up to the forces of evil. We heard that you are in charge, and we can trust you. How long are you going to let all of this go on? We heard that we are part of the story. That we can stand next to you. That together we can resist. That you are for those hungry children. That you are for us, and we have permission to care for ourselves and each other. Please help us to pay attention to what's
August 17, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Sneak peek at what I'm working on
A pixellated elf stands around with some pixellated yellow flowers scattered around. It doesn't look very exciting, but it seems like the elf is happy.
August 15, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Prayer: Silence

https://wrestleswithgod.org/2025/06/08/silence/
Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now. It feels like we've run out of words to say about the appalling violence we are witnessing in Israel and Palestine: man-made starvation, kidnapping, murder and military action against civilians. Even as we see the hatred-based violence yet again breaking out in other countries, including the murders in the US this week, it's hard to find anything to ask of you, Lord. It's obvious what we want: peace and safety for everyone. Respect for everyone. Basic food and medicine that allow life for everyone. As we acknowledge that there are no adequate words, I would like to invite you to be silent, to remember and respect the people killed and injured as part of the violence in Palestine and Israel. Lord, we acknowledge that you breathed life into the bodies of our fellow humans, even as those bodies are broken. We remember them, and we are silent in respect for them. As we perhaps listen to our children here making sound within our silence, we remember the children who are lost. Lord we offer our silence as a token of our grief, and as a request for you to intervene. We thank you for the hope we can find when we remember that you made us, and you love us - all of us - as we are. Amen
June 8, 2025 at 6:51 PM
My prayer for today:

https://www.wrestleswithgod.org/2025/03/23/prayer-life-from-bones-and-rubble/

Life from bones and rubble

#prayer
Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now. We pray for the people of Gaza, as the bravest make their way back to their towns and cities with the bombs still falling and search through the rubble for some way to restart their lives, in the face of grief and trauma. Please bring peace and safety for them, for their neighbours in Israel and for the hostages. We pray for the people of Europe as we face the reality of war in Ukraine and the fear of wider conflict. As tyrants shout out "peace" like a wartime slogan we pray for true peacemakers. Give us love for our enemies. Teach us what it means to turn the other cheek, standing in defiance toa protect our weakest, and ourselves, and holding on to the truth that when we stand, we stand against people: people with needs and fears and families and friends and love to give and receive, like us. We pray for the whole human race as it seems to have gone out of fashion to acknowledge the reality that our climate is racing towards being an ecosystem that won't support us. Please give our leaders courage and wisdom to speak truthfully about the climate crisis, in ways that are effective. We acknowledge the hopelessness many of us feel in the face of populism and worse in the US and beyond. We hope that we might be close to rock bottom, with not much further down to go. We pray for a change of heart for us in the West - embracing your priorities: love of neighbour and an ever-expanding definition of who our neighbours migh
March 23, 2025 at 9:41 PM
I'm still playing and enjoying Box Stacker, after leading the family team that wrote it two years ago.

Normally by the time a game is finished, I am sick of it and don't want to play again, but Box Stacker remains really fun.

You have to build little […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
A Box Stacker level where a cube is falling onto some broken tetris blocks.
February 20, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Are 8 levels of indentation too much?

We do like our Rust code to be specific...
Some pixellated code that makes a triangle shape going off the right because we have 8 levels of indentation.
February 13, 2025 at 11:38 AM
New game! Gonk Winter Olympics

https://gonk-olympics.artificialworlds.net/#winter

#opensource #gaming #freesoftware
February 2, 2025 at 5:42 PM
My Lemmings-like game, Rabbit Escape[1] has an old-school forum[2] where you can share levels you created! There's a video[3] explaining how to make levels, which should also help understand how to play the levels on the forum.

1] [ […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
People chatting about a level on the Rabbit Escape levels forum: Andy posted a level called Cup of tea, and suggested it might be good for the super-easy level set. tttppp says "lgtm!"
January 25, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Prayer: a crack of light

https://www.wrestleswithgod.org/2024/12/08/prayer-a-crack-of-light/

#prayer
When times are dark, it’s hard to see. We can get lost: everything is so confusing, and we can’t always see what is right. We are not asking for easy answers that make us feel like we’re right and someone else is wrong. We ask for your light. Help us see what others see, and turn to mercy. Teach us how to love our enemies. We pray for our friends and family members who are suffering illness. Some of us are begging for healing; others are asking for peace. We pray for those of us missing someone who’s died, especially as we approach Christmas. Give us faith in your love. We are looking for a glimpse of your mercy. Give us chances to show love to the people around us. Violence seems to fill our world. In Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, we ask for peace. We pray for UN peace builders in Sudan. Please bring an end to the use of sexual violence in that conflict, and give safety to the 25 million people who are at risk. We don’t always see how, but we pray for peace, and we pray for our government to have the courage to work for justice and for peace. In Israel and Gaza and the surrounding countries we continue to cry out to you for an end to the killing of children and adults. How can we ask you another way for the same thing we have asked so many times before? How can you let it go on? Where is your light? In the West we see so much hatred in our politics, and whoever is prepared to lie with the barest face seems to win. We ask for light to illuminate: to show up the truth and expose
December 8, 2024 at 12:34 PM