michael

Technologist, Luthier, Maker; based in Merseyside, UK. Also I enjoy photography, motorcycling, and fika.

🧑🏼‍💻 Tech wise I build tools to enable and support climate scientists at the University of Cambridge, mixing Python and OCaml to build large-scale GIS/data-science pipelines. I also make fun graphics things.

🎸 Guitar builder-wise I'm interested in how to fuse traditional craft with modern digital manufacturing.

🇸🇪 Jag lär mig svenska, det är därför jag postar dålig svenska ibland.

Last Notes

2026-10-04 10:21:02 GMT

Early morning bike ride to the other side of the Wirral to catch the sun rise over the Mersey. The views from New Brighton over Liverpool can be amazing at times
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01M436PZ4PE2XA33DNJE5R1520.jpeg
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01M436Q152VSPREH9NHZDF5CAT.jpeg

2026-05-15 18:41:12 GMT

How do you put the magic smoke back in the TV?

2026-03-19 06:52:51 GMT

Now I live near the coast I can walk to the sea with my breakfast. Feeling very fortunate.
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01KM2DR7NS85ZTQYMSZRZKRE8M.jpeg

2026-02-17 09:44:40 GMT

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@nprofile…xuzd @nprofile…0htv Though on the flip side when I worked in progessional mac development I kept away from Swift until version 4 as they were aggressively iterating it every year in non-backwards compatible ways. Objective-C still works because they no longer are messing with it ;)
ButI do take your broader point. In general I find modern development platforms, particularly javascript, assume you want to keep chasing dependancies - I've no idea how you build stable products on this mindset.

2026-02-17 07:09:11 GMT

Glad semmeldag! I år har vi inga semlor eftersom vi flyttar till vårt nytt hus imorgon! När jag har min standmixer igen och vet var min mandelmassa är, ska jag fixa det!

2026-01-28 10:26:46 GMT

Does anyone I know have an Intel based mac running macOS on it? If so could you tell me what the output of runnign uname -m at the command line is?

2026-01-19 12:45:24 GMT

Some work #weeknotes:
I made a major update to my species Area Of Habitat library to try make it more generally usable
We have a new LIFE biodiversity metric paper out looking at how well it performs in real world case studies
I try catch up my STAR metric pipeline ready for the recent method updates
https://digitalflapjack.com/weeknotes/aoh_2.0/

2025-12-31 10:30:22 GMT

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@nprofile…xllf @nprofile…5nyw lovely sample image, so you got further than I’ve got yet. It reminds me of the old Sony advert where they released all the bouncing balls down a hill :)

2025-12-31 10:18:49 GMT

I've been having fun working my way slowly through the Ray Tracer Challenge book (https://raytracerchallenge.com/) over the break, as an excuse to do some fun programming in #ocaml, given I don't get to do that for $DAYJOB these days.
The book is nicely structured, with all these tiny steps towards a bigger goal and occasionally you get to stop and look how far you've come without realising it, and probably the best seller of test driven development I've seen.
A hat tip to @nprofile…5nyw who was the most recent person to remind me of this book in their feed - thanks Olle!
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01KDSXZZG2ABQDRWZ5F0ANTJX0.png
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2025-12-29 10:17:59 GMT

Anyone I know want a handspring visor? I don't appear to have a dock for it. Not powered on to see if it still works! Otherwise going to waste electronics heaven.
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01KDMSQVQMCMSSRGZ2B8DTAK85.jpeg

2025-12-25 08:48:22 GMT

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@nprofile…p67e For any production system I’ve had to deliver, I’d always vendor in third part code using git submodules (and those taken from a local mirror of each repo). You just can’t use external dependencies if you need to know you can ship updates to customers at the drop of a hat, and you never know when an open source project might go away.

2025-12-09 09:06:42 GMT

Work #weeknotes time (a day late, as yesterday I had no writing energy):
https://digitalflapjack.com/weeknotes/2025-12-08/
Mostly looking at the challenges I faced when trying to pull together a very large map image (650 billion pixels!) in terms of both automating the process for reproducibility, and in terms of hitting up against resource limits and a bug in Python's standard library.

2025-11-08 16:46:41 GMT

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@nprofile…p67e Certainly rivals the New York one which is justifiably famous, I just feel this one should be too.

2025-11-08 16:38:10 GMT

Liverpool is the early morning mist is quite a sight. It was many years of being in Liverpool area before I found this view, which I'm amazed isn't more celebrated.
#liverpool #thewirral #photography
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01K9J56HY8ZNCWRH6D0ST1J209.jpeg

2025-06-18 15:01:19 GMT

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@nprofile…sszg @nprofile…klwf How did you round 5240 up to 4550? Is there a typo in there?

2025-01-15 17:29:23 GMT

Winter sun
#photography #wirral
https://toot.mynameismwd.org/fileserver/018Z56S5YYKVCEHWX5DFD7MQGZ/attachment/original/01JHNG5FEX3JNTV924Q2GHVR76.jpg