James Cridland

Passionate about audio · Editor of Podnews https://podnews.net · Host of the Podnews Weekly Review https://weekly.podnews.net · I also write about radio https://james.crid.land · These messages self-destruct · ⚡[email protected]

I also have a thing for craft beer, and did so before it was quite as trendy as today.

I live in Meanjin/Brisbane QLD Australia - in Bardon 4065 - on the land of the Turrbul and Jagera people. I'm British and moved here almost seven years ago.

Public Key

npub1g5h6rwmps922vx6m3rfj23r9wlkkp9dzrwefuyzfkjktqnfwvxasc9t5sr

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

NIP-57 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsy2taphdscz49xrddc35e9g3jh0mtqjk3phv57zpymft9sf5hxrwcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qzxrhwden5te0wfjkccte9ehx7umhdpjhyefwvdhk6rnh8uz

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

relay.noswhere.com

relay.nostr.band

Author Public Key

npub1g5h6rwmps922vx6m3rfj23r9wlkkp9dzrwefuyzfkjktqnfwvxasc9t5sr

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Last Notes

2024-09-01 16:22:01

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@npub1nl7…7x3u So, your app is retrieving "missing metadata" for *every* newly-published episode? Is this in addition to the download for the audio?

2024-08-24 05:07:51

I keep noting that it’s just part the top of the hour and I’ve, yet again, missed the new ABC News theme tune. Looking forward to it, whenever it happens.

2024-08-11 11:10:02

Two recommended music albums, and a sweary Kyle and Jackie O - my latest radio trends column: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/kyle-and-jackie/

2024-08-11 04:19:58

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I’d go for “Brisbane’s biggest hit music station”. Or “best”, though “biggest” has two syllables like Brisbane, so it works better. Both communicate more than #1.
@npub1xjq…d7rr one for Mr Brisbane perhaps

2024-08-11 01:40:26

I use YouTube Music rather than Apple or Spotify, because it’s a family account and the video benefits are also good.
But its metadata is just bad. Today, it’s decided that Gomez (a laid back band from the early 2000s) is the same as Gomez (a relatively talent-free Christian rapper from 2024). Argh.

2024-08-10 05:45:36

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@npub1m38…6p0r I’ve been! It’s a fun evening, though not sure how long it’ll be there given how quiet it was…

2024-08-07 02:11:47

Sniffing around an interesting story in podcast land. If you know anything about The Interesting Story (Why? Who next?), do get in touch! Not hard to find my SMS, or DM here, or email…
#mysteriouspost

2024-08-04 12:53:06

Interesting discovery from the RAJAR figures (the UK radio audience numbers) - radio listeners are now listening to an average of 20.6 hours a week. That’s the highest figure for five years, and has nothing to do with the increase in population fuelling other, more spurious, claims. Yay!
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/rajarq224/

2024-08-03 14:29:50

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@npub1qj7…ech2 Good grief.

2024-08-03 14:20:00

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@npub1qj7…ech2 I assume that a VPN will get round the block?

2024-08-03 06:51:54

An hour’s cycling - the first for some time. Now treating myself to a little self-care, before the return journey (which won’t be an hour, primarily because I’ll not get lost this time)
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/896/288/164/976/970/original/9cd53b551e831710.jpeg

2024-08-01 14:41:32

UK radio figures have come out and the industry is crowing about “best ever figures”.
The percentage of the population listening per week is the lowest ever for Q2, at 88.1%. The time spent listening per week is 20.6 hours; in 2017 and 2018 it was 20.8 hours. But the highest ever number of people listening, because there are 1.3mn more adults who live in the country, and every Q2 they adjust the population numbers accordingly.

2024-08-01 03:12:21

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My fault, really, for not putting these in a background service, rather than holding up the server response. Here’s iHeart slowing things down for everyone (the numbers here are when these timing events happen in the script).
podnews.net/podcast/ib06p includes:003ms cachecheck:003ms podcastindexapi-byid:190ms itunes-pi-crosscheck:948ms luminaryapi:1.376ms iheartcheck:2.469ms globalapi:2.708ms rssfetch:2.796ms apple-channels-api:3.032ms updateapi:3.039ms

2024-08-01 02:58:45

The Amazon Music API that I have access to seems to take more than five seconds to return data. Hmm.

2024-08-01 02:47:50

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@npub1nej…m48v It’s my best Hmm.

2024-08-01 02:07:13

Harry Morton talks about Lower Street buying Pacific Content in the Podnews Weekly Review tomorrow. Here’s that in image form in Hindenburg PRO.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/883/846/126/681/128/original/8a6efedadfad7874.jpeg

2024-07-30 10:08:14

Invited to a thing at a conference (in Washington DC next month).
The only way to RSVP is to call a telephone number. That telephone number is in New York, so I have to either stay awake until 11pm tonight, or set the alarm before 7am tomorrow. I responded to the email, but am told to call the telephone number.
It must be brilliant to be American, and to ignorantly forget that the rest of the world exists.

2024-07-30 02:58:31

Just watched a helpful video (on Elon’s hate site) on how to pronounce Kamala Harris’s first name. “Comma-la” (as she has written) is actually wrong if you’re British/Australian, because we pronounce “comma” very differently to Americans.
The way to think about it is “Karma”, it turns out. It’s good karma to pronounce someone’s name right. And her name is correctly pronounced “Karma-la”, no matter which version of English you speak.
#kamalaharris #karma

2024-07-30 02:30:40

Not a particular fan of this, but due to “recent events”, I’ve now produced a one-click Alfred shortcut to add a watermark to an image before uploading it. This is 5% opacity and I think it might still be a little much, but let’s see.
https://podnews.net/uploads/goog-podcasts-subs.png

2024-07-26 13:10:24

A pandemonium of parrots.
(That’s the collective noun for them, which is very excellent, isn’t it?)
They’re King Parrots, and I saw them a few weeks ago.
#brisbane
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/852/478/915/440/074/original/159c050273700888.jpeg

2024-07-26 03:50:26

Hmm.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/850/278/622/011/102/original/3f6a1e31ada17239.jpeg

2024-07-25 06:48:50

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@npub142u…w5fu It’s the one app I miss now I’ve switched to an iPhone

2024-07-23 08:02:04

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@npub1auh…u2le People listen to HD3 stations? Well now...

2024-07-23 05:41:14

Remember when Google knew what they were doing? What a shell of a company it is these days.
From: @npub1uth…wprp
https://mstdn.social/@hkrn/112833679877342864

2024-07-23 05:36:12

iPhone users - is there a way to turn off the swipe-down gesture that moves the entire screen halfway down? Every single time I’ve invoked it, it’s been a mistake.

2024-07-22 09:04:31

From @npub1dan…asp3 later today. Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why the number of active podcasts has a peak in mid-March every year? (I've no idea, so just wondering).
Quite interesting to see the data like this.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/828/857/064/609/228/original/28a7de63efe7aad3.png

2024-07-21 13:22:16

The blue screen of death makes an appearance in my radio trends newsletter this week... https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/bsod/

2024-07-21 06:43:32

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@npub14vd…dha3 Allow me to demonstrate this thought with my rice cooker.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/822/648/374/106/375/original/5261e8b8ca51719f.jpeg

2024-07-20 14:13:36

Successfully fixed our automatic outdoor light, which has been stuck on for the past two weeks rather than only turning on when someone’s close by.
How did I fix it? I got around to researching the issue today, expecting to climb a ladder to fiddle with it. The answer was the strikingly familiar: “turn it off and turn it back on again”.
Amazing how that works.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/818/747/476/508/184/original/947126e89359bb1a.jpeg

2024-07-20 12:04:36

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@npub1nqs…azt8 Most of the streams are multi bitrate, though, and should come down to a reasonable level to cope with your bandwidth.

2024-07-20 03:27:14

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@npub17lg…9uux Um
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/816/214/777/630/054/original/23bed4f19c90264b.jpeg

2024-07-20 03:23:58

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@npub1lks…a4mq
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/816/202/491/103/360/original/62b02144ef72d52d.jpeg

2024-07-20 03:05:42

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@npub1nqs…azt8 Glitchy streams? Yes, I think that’s just you.

2024-07-20 03:01:52

Just attempted to unbrick my partner’s work Windows laptop; but the corporation uses Bitlocker, so the only option is to take it in to the office. Luckily, that’s only twenty minutes away.

2024-07-20 01:21:24

Wow.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/815/720/260/962/060/original/ccbe020f341ad6f3.jpeg

2024-07-19 11:24:35

I just saw a piece of video played on ABC News! #natureishealing

2024-07-19 10:52:17

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Loving Anna Jones on Sky News UK, closing her laptop and admitting "it doesn't work, it's just a prop".

2024-07-19 10:50:22

Sky News UK is back. No on-screen graphics, though. https://livenow.news/#skynews

2024-07-19 09:23:17

This CrowdStrike issue causing havoc with computers everywhere means that computers don't boot. So every single computer needs a human being to fix them. Good luck IT teams everywhere. You weren't doing anything this weekend, right?

2024-07-19 08:31:32

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@npub17qu…4zw7 Yes, Sky News Australia mentions Crowdstrike on their emergency rotating 3-minute clip. I've no idea what that is (not having used Windows since 2009). What a monumental screw-up if that's the case.

2024-07-19 08:28:15

This computer issue is a massive problem for Australian security. Almost all media companies affected. Payment systems similarly.

2024-07-19 08:04:33

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Also entirely down is Sky News Australia (which you can watch here - https://livenow.news/#sky-news-australia - which has just given up, running a rotating piece of video recorded seemingly on an iPhone.

2024-07-19 07:50:06

Want to see a television network running under severe stress? https://livenow.news/#abcnews is ABC News from Australia, where none of the computers are working. Seemingly, no captions, no reports, no graphics, and just someone talking to camera...

2024-07-19 02:59:38

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@npub19hk…najs I mean, I put that on a private Slack group for the lols! I wasn't going to post it publicly... :)
Anyway, I'm loving the eye makeup.

2024-07-16 11:47:05

Exciting times - @npub1dan…asp3 now uses AI, in a very (very!) limited way - to summarise each daily edition for our podcast description and a few other places. https://podnews.net/about contains all the not-very-juicy detail.

2024-07-14 13:28:55

Radio's place in breaking news - a look at how radio reacted, or didn't, to the breaking news on Saturday evening. And, why a station in Seattle broke car radios. https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/radio-breaking-news/

2024-07-14 00:44:47

When big news happens, there’s always https://livenow.news/ for all the big news channels in one place #trump

2024-07-11 04:04:38

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@npub1dzn…4dfn Just nervous about the privacy implications. But, you're right - the spam filtering is excellent, and I couldn't deal with Apple Mail's flakiness for IMAP/SMTP. Mimestream is the thing for me; so back to that.

2024-07-10 08:09:03

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It took less than two days for me to realise that I've done two things here: a) separated my email; b) migrated to a new email system (Apple Mail) for my personal stuff, and using IMAP rather than Gmail's goodness.
a) was a good idea. b) was not. Mimestream is such a good desktop program for Gmail, I'm keeping it. So, shifted my personal email to run through my neglected Google Workspace account (which I pay for anyway). No weaning off Google quite yet for email then.

2024-07-10 04:45:20

This is blissful madness. But brilliant. (I've long suspected that airline wifi systems are easy to hack, but this is... not how I would do it). https://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/

2024-07-09 03:53:59

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@npub1dzn…4dfn Mmm. "Google Podcasts" is kind of wrong now. How about "Google service" - so it doesn't get confused with the search engine? I'm thinking that these names are consumer-facing in podcast host dashboards...

2024-07-08 07:46:33

Question, best-practice #ux #webdev #seo people.
A job ad that has closed. It's no longer linked from anywhere. The page still exists. I currently return the full text with an "HTTP 410 Gone" header, and an error that you can't apply any more.
Should this be an HTTP 200 OK response, rather than a 410 Gone? The page exists, after all. Wondering if too many 40x results is a bad thing.

2024-07-08 03:41:04

Separated my business email from my personal email. Personal email now going nowhere near Google (at least, my @crid.land address is). Will be interesting to see what happens and whether it helps my horrible email inbox.

2024-07-07 12:04:12

Closures in NZ and Canada, and some election tech from the UK in my latest radio trends newsletter. https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/election-tech/

2024-07-06 14:50:01

“What food did you have in Kuala Lumpur? It’s a foodie heaven!”
I had this. It’s a Nasi Lemak pizza. It was amazingly good, but probably not that traditional. But it absolutely hit the spot…
#travel #malaysia
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/739/619/199/008/416/original/6b6515a6cb13af51.jpeg

2024-07-06 13:27:04

Australian elections are much more fun than the British. Here, I explain why - and whether preferential voting makes sense for the UK. (It does!)
Also, the big difference between the UK and Australia in terms of open data, and the actual counting process. (I learnt a lot while researching this!)
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/uk-vs-australia-voting/

2024-07-04 23:06:59

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And now, a clickable link - https://livenow.news/

2024-07-04 23:06:38

All the UK television news channels - livenow.news - even in quad mode!

2024-07-04 10:42:50

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@npub1df6…ns3a It was a quote from Austin Powers, of course. But... here you are!
https://extra.podnews.net/2105583/15360905-podnews-july-4-2024-in-dutch

2024-07-04 04:01:41

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@npub1df6…ns3a Natuurlijk! Dat zal ik vandaag doen. Ik zou alles doen voor de podfather! Zin in een sigaretje en een pannenkoek?

2024-07-03 05:08:22

Today - here's Podnews, in Japanese.
https://extra.podnews.net/2105583/15353974-podnews-2-july-2024-in-japanese

2024-06-30 15:14:48

So, I now have a Strike account at [email protected] - I guess I can’t yet use this as a home for V4V payments, until new podcast apps just support the “thing that looks like an email”. The KYC process in Australia was easy enough - scan a driving licence. Slightly nervous about my Umbrel holding all my Bitcoin long term. Considering making that Strike’s problem, not mine.

2024-06-30 07:19:42

Excellent. The dark grey wall where we hang out the laundry now has a spot of colour, thanks to Wellborn, a Ngarabul artist. The peacocks of our area and the creek are both well represented. https://www.instagram.com/_well_born_/?hl=en
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/703/861/193/307/303/original/aa1163643cc35a58.jpeg

2024-06-30 06:23:34

Won’t someone think of the pedsetrians?
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/703/660/564/737/778/original/627446c22058036a.jpeg

2024-06-27 12:04:30

Amazing. Google Podcasts has TURNED ITS WEBSITE BACK ON AGAIN, and you can now listen to shows on it once more. The service closed internationally last weekend.
#zombies

2024-06-27 09:49:08

Fun to meet Kim Fox, the Podcast Professor, in Brisbane today. Along with my daughter, we went to see the animals and saw the view.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/687/480/024/320/830/original/b56230de1831a4d1.jpeg

2024-06-26 13:03:21

I sure hope Google Podcasts is actually turned off soon, because for the podcast version of @npub1dan…asp3 I think I will begin running out of quotes and/or get a copyright strike. But there’s another fun bit of slightly random audio in the Podnews Daily podcast today.

2024-06-26 10:12:01

Very odd. Just reset my iPad (18 beta 2) and ticked all the things saying “set up as a new iPad”. As expected, none of my apps appear on screen - just the default Apple ones. Except… Ice Cubes, the Mastodon client, which appears to have been installed by default.
@npub1rk3…43sg

2024-06-25 08:31:05

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@npub14xq…afu2 I’d love a screengrab! Will anonymise

2024-06-25 07:36:02

BRAINNNNNSSSSSSSS.... Zombie Google Podcasts is still alive, two days after it was supposed to be turned off. (And still in the app stores!)
Remember when Google cared about, well, anything?
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/675/635/020/724/161/original/88f52dc1d4cb7712.jpeg

2024-06-24 13:10:34

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@npub1njj…nkyl I’m actually trying to move the plastic loyalty cards over to Apple Wallet. As I understand it, it’s quite easy to support loyalty cards, if the only thing you want to display is a logo and a bar code of some form.

2024-06-24 08:24:02

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@npub10h7…l9gn Yep. This used to be a Conservative seat (it was Michael Portillo's - at least, the bit I used to live in) but clearly they don't think they've a chance of winning, judging by their candidate.

2024-06-24 08:14:00

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@npub1tds…fjj5 The envelope has free postage on it. But - it’ll take more than three weeks to return that way, so just went to the post office and sent it express, for £21. That’ll get there next Monday.

2024-06-24 08:10:48

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@npub1rj9…6rnv They only refund Australians with an Australian bank account and address. If it isn’t registered online, you can always send it to me (but if it is registered online, the names need to match).

2024-06-24 07:53:24

Oh!
#ukvote
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/670/040/059/080/159/original/afea9d9afc7e7513.jpeg

2024-06-24 06:52:36

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@npub16a2…ddr8 The refund form is linked at the top of https://transportnsw.info/tickets-opal/opal/manage-your-opal-card/opal-fare-adjustments-refunds - only one page to print out (page 14), once you wade past all the t&cs.

2024-06-24 06:46:12

Tried to move as many plastic cards to Apple Wallet as I could.
Two thoughts:
1) Surprising who doesn’t support it. It’s not hard to support, as far as I understand.
2) Astonishing how many “forgot my password” routines are broken out there. (Can't remember the last time I tested mine, either!)

2024-06-24 06:44:59

Found an Opal card in my desk drawer. (I don't need it any more, since all trains etc work on contactless card payments). Fun fact: they’ll refund the money direct to your bank if you fill in the form (and put a $1.50 stamp on to send it back to them). I’m $20 up on the deal! #australia #sydney

2024-06-22 15:30:33

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@npub1tz0…qf8c On Elon Musk’s toy, someone wonders if the SiriusXM app has podcasts in it. And therefore this is for that.

2024-06-22 15:14:03

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@npub1ln5…xyw6 Being fair, it uses Googlebot, so it comes free with Google Search.

2024-06-22 13:12:03

Stitcher's podcast app closed last year, but it’s still happily checking Podnews’s RSS feed once an hour
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/659/969/006/827/811/original/f50587d63d8fa7c4.jpeg

2024-06-20 13:42:56

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Ah, actually - I bet there’s a HEAD request there followed by a GET. Tomorrow I’ll log that.

2024-06-20 13:42:55

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@npub1tz0…qf8c

2024-06-20 13:41:33

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@npub1tz0…qf8c Those two were requested at the same time. So I’m very confused!

2024-06-20 13:38:26

Hmm
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/648/749/297/728/254/original/cfa069ade056bf34.jpeg

2024-06-20 12:50:03

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@npub1tz0…qf8c Indeed. I set max-age as 30 minutes; but very clearly that’s not supported, either by many.
(A lot of these calls are from mobile devices, making the call on behalf of just one listener)

2024-06-19 12:26:25

After a car theft in the area, I was wondering whether our cameras had picked up anything. Two cats and a ring-tailed possum is all we managed.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/642/799/982/362/811/original/08e2012230a0fdfe.jpeg
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/642/800/515/999/495/original/1803daf28222bc51.jpeg
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/642/800/730/642/082/original/0ca4e138472ae9c5.jpeg

2024-06-19 01:06:47

Web push / browser notifications. I’m interested in doing these - sounds like I need to use a service to achieve them? Does anyone have any advice?

2024-06-18 23:59:15

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And here’s one from 2001. Much less exciting - literally a pin in concrete.
But surprising how many there are of these things. I walk past loads of them every day - never noticed them before. I clearly found the best, most ornate one, earlier.
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/639/856/706/304/631/original/c672b79e62eb1529.jpeg

2024-06-18 23:56:40

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This is the one from 1962. I don’t think much of this one. Would have been better if it hadn’t have been painted (both in blue but also maroon at some point in its life).
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/639/851/144/700/004/original/15ede46de9eaef5e.jpeg

2024-06-18 03:18:49

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The council form doesn’t know when it was installed, but this was written in 1978. There should be another brass plaque close by, installed in 1962, according to the map. (There’s an app, which is free, called Benchmrk which lists them all).
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/634/954/637/985/540/original/d557aa659faa95d0.jpeg

2024-06-18 02:04:31

This is a lovely thing. A “permanent survey mark” at the bottom of the street in #brisbane #queensland #australia . The fine for “interference” is in pounds, so it’s from before 1966, though looks almost brand new.
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/building-property-development/surveying/permanent-marks
https://assets.bne.social/media_attachments/files/112/634/668/885/124/879/original/77db567ae4007010.jpeg

2024-06-17 13:11:23

Niche content special - Podnews today goes into a *much* too deep-dive on bandwidth saving techniques for podcast hosting companies. Someone should stop me from writing this stuff.
https://podnews.net/update/podlp-cloud-phone
(today, available using Brotli compression for the first time)

2024-06-16 12:11:49

Another Sunday, another radio email newsletter. Faked calls, Morecambe and Wise, Swiss Radio Day, and more.
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2024/faking-it/

2024-06-16 12:03:40

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@npub1dzn…4dfn Irritating, I thought it was actually back again...

2024-06-16 10:12:35

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@npub1cc3…qs70 She said that deterioration has been getting worse for a while, and right now it’s Morrison’s problem. It’s pretty clear.

2024-06-16 10:06:01

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@npub1cc3…qs70 Nah, I’m still not getting it.
But I’ve looked through some of your previous posts and it seems you think the ABC is horribly biased. Imagine what happens when you discover Sky News!

2024-06-16 09:20:06

Updated my live TV news website, https://livenow.news - simplifying the code and adding some new channels, too. Always fun to work on.

2024-06-14 08:09:25

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@npub1pa0…pfyr I’ve spent about half an hour on this so far, and have switched these to JPEG rather than PNG to see if that works.

2024-06-12 12:55:21

Let's see whether I've actually managed to embed a web font into the Podnews newsletter today. (It won't display in Gmail; it should display in iOS and macOS Mail).