C-list Blogger Since 2004.
Systems Mechanic, Conference Wannabe. Hot chili, mild takes.
he/him || they/them
Reflection On My School Days
This is an extended, long-form version, of something I mentioned in passing on Threads. Just in case you think I keep repeating myself. Despite the awfully silent 2025, for reasons I explained previously, I've been writing this blog for over 20 years. Almost all of that is in English (though the original posts were in Italian), almost all of that is in long-form (though there were a few short, near-microblogging posts, from the time before…
@stuartl I would actually be curious to see how the setup is in Australia — since I haven't had the opportunity to visit yet, I have no experience to compare.
I think the problem for EU/UK is that cashless *relying on Visa/MC* works a little too well. Slightly reminds me of "login by email" and how well it works…
… as long as everyone is using Gmail.
Will We Ever Get An European Payment Rail?
Preamble and full disclosure. The topic I'm writing about in this post is somewhat connected to my employer, Meta Platforms (i.e. the parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp), who dabbles in payment rails in certain markets, and has dabbled on a larger basis before. I am not involved in any of those products, have no insider knowledge of their internal work, or their communications with the various regulators, consortiums, or…
https://flameeyes.blog/2026/02/13/will-we-ever-get-an-european-payment-rail/
The Blog’s Most Clicked Articles in 2025
I'm not a big fan of the whole "wrapped" meme from services — a lot of things for me don't quite line up on a calendar year basis, so I don't find that particularly compelling to look at. I also find it fairly silly to "wrap" an year at the beginning of December for any service that doesn't have seasonal patterns — the reason why Spotify, the ur-wrapper, releases theirs well before the year's end, is because for many people,…
https://flameeyes.blog/2026/01/30/the-blogs-most-clicked-articles-in-2025/
Market Segmentation: EcoFlow Delta 3 Plus
One of the things that seriously annoy me about being on the Internet, particularly around the communities heavily influenced by Doctorow and Stallman, is that most of those members, confronted with business decisions influencing design and implementation of devices and services, can only respond with one of two discussion-terminating memes: enshittification or defective by design. I find these answers annoying because they…
https://flameeyes.blog/2026/01/16/market-segmentation-ecoflow-delta-3-plus/
As For Why We Left London
Nearly exactly five years ago, after my wife and I left our first flat in London, I wrote a post explaining the reasons we left. I thought it would be a good fit to explain why, five years later, we left London altogether and now effectively live in the suburbs. So first of all, I have to say I don't regret…
https://flameeyes.blog/2026/01/02/as-for-why-we-left-london/
Where Did Flameeyes Go?
Hint: not far at all. If you're one of the handful of readers of this blog, you probably noticed that I've been awfully quiet for quite literally most of 2025. Unlike the previous time I took a sudden hiatus, the reason this time is a happy one: my wife and I decided to move out of London, and get our own place, given the…
@vbabka @theflameeyes it *shouldn't* be the case, because I'm using one of those scales that need you to explicitly press a button to turn on.
But I can believe the MCU is not left in the lowest power state throughout this.
I posted an update over onto my fundraiser's page together with this week's steps!
Comes with a picture of the trike I have posted about before!
https://step.diabetes.org.uk/fundraising/diego-elios-fundraising-page
This is the time of the year that I usually remind people who are okay with Adobe and Amazon, that you can get a discounted Creative Cloud Photography Plan via Prime Day.
But then I forgot that the 20GB plan I use was discontinued this past January.
Still, at £110/yr it's worth buying *now* rather than waiting for the 20GB to be completely dissolved and having to pay full price for it.
The start of this challenge had a bit of a weird timing for me, since we just moved, thus I actually did most of the steps *in* the house.
But things will shape better soon, particularly since they just finished paving our pedestrian walkway, so walking out of the house is a *a lot nicer.*
https://step.diabetes.org.uk/fundraising/diego-elios-fundraising-page
@stylus (sorry for the solutionizing here) try asking them by email if they take bank transfer?
It's still painful since it'd have to be in NOK, but you I believe Wise is now available for US residents and it *should* make it fairly quick.
So now that Threads can follow fediverse accounts without them interacting first, I thought I would recreate my following list over there, and at least keep a pulse!
But of course, no, most of my follows that are from a shared instance are on instances that blocked Threads so I can't see y'all.
(Hachyderm seems to be one of them.)
I had a feeling that silos would be my least favourite option.
So I decided that since I'm going to be walking a lot anyway this summer, I might as well sign up for this.
@davidgerard basically the same way? I wouldn't bother with an inline upgrade, tear down and move site by site?
@stuartl @theflameeyes (I forgot I still can't reply from there) ooooh that's awesome! And it knows about the redways!
And since our house is in a road that's not built yet, having the option to add it is going to be important.
Although *somehow* it seems to have a bit of an identity crisis out of the box!
I'll need to check what the paid options are — happy to support something that can compete with GMaps given the recent shenanigans.
@qdii there's also @flameeyes@flameeyes.blog if you prefer Mastodon.
It feels like a lot of people start to have opinions about rewriting software and programming languages — I will point out at something I wrote a few years back.
Cat loving UK based tech types: Cat's Protection is hiring a lead dev, UK remote £48k, .net stack
Whirlpool AP330W: It’s A Trap
So I disassembled my Whirlpool AP330W air purifier, and yes I keep thinking this was a white label, low-quality job, and it's possible there is no real way to replace the filter!
https://flameeyes.blog/2025/02/16/whirlpool-ap330w-its-a-trap/
