Here’s my custom controller and display for Kerbal Space Program. Last year, after seeing this custom controller, I was suitably inspired. I wanted to build a simple physical device to control launch/stage, throttle, landing gear, lights, and maybe some custom stages. I knocked up a quick hack just to get a feel for how well […]
Category Archives: geek
Quiver pen holder
Here’s how I used to carry my pen: Here’s how I do it now: So much better. I really love this thing.
Things meter
I’ve been using the Things app for a while for tracking projects and next actions with the goal of Getting Things Done. I wanted something to help me pay attention to the things I need to get done, and decided that a physical representation of daily progress would be an interesting thing to try. The […]
Lightspeed i-Helicopter and Turbo Drone mini quadrocopter – hands on reviews
The lovely folks at Paramountzone sent me a couple of shiny new toys to review. First, the Lightspeed i-Helicopter with on-board camera. As always with these Lightspeed choppers, you get a good selection of extra bits in the box, including two rotor blades and two tail rotors. With this one, you also get an 2 […]
Jargone
I made a thing. Jargone is a bookmarklet for highlighting jargon words on any web page. The list comes from the Government Digital Service GOV.UK style guide, specifically the plain English and words to avoid sections of the guide, which has this to say about avoiding jargon We lose trust from our users if we write government ‘buzzwords’ […]
My LEGO studio
Here’s my LEGO studio. The main desk at the front is two metres wide and has two levels; plenty of space to store things I need to have close at hand. On the left of the room are a bunch of fishing tackle boxes, drawers, trays and little boxes which I lift out and place […]
Inky-Linky
Inky-Linky makes web pages 100% more useful and irritating when printed. It’s a bookmarklet that adds a QR code to the margins for each external link in the page. It came about because I wanted to make it easy to visit a link from a printed page, and also wanted to see if I could […]
Lightspeed phone controlled i-Helicopter – hands on review
The nice people at Paramountzone were kind enough to send me a Lightspeed i-Helicoter to review. It’s an iPhone / iPad / iPod / Android controlled helicopter, and (having played with a few micro-copters in the past) I can honestly say this is the best I’ve seen. Rather than a separate remote control, the controller […]
Podcast recommendation: Off the Wall Post
As you might know, Shift Run Stop (that podcast I used to edit every week) is on holiday at the moment. While we work out when/how/whether to restart, I’ve found myself listening to lots more podcasts. There’s one in particular which I think you might like. Off the Wallpost (‘a conversation about digital media in […]
Some of my collections
I was invited to give a short lunchtime talk for a team in BBC Audio and Music (radio, to you and me) by the lovely Hugh Garry. In a gloriously open brief, he asked me whether I’d prefer to talk about things I make or things I collect. For some reason I thought sharing a […]