Announcing My First Open Source Project: Graphkit

In this mini update, I pleased to announce my first open source project on GitHub

What Is the Network Effect and Why It Matters to Social Media

I read an excellent article the other day called "The End of the Twitter Era" and the author made an excellent point about how the network effect impacts the life and death of social media platforms (both past and present). I've been thinking a lot about

Mastering the Bluesky Firehose with Python: A Simple Tutorial

Bluesky is awesome for many reasons, however one feature which not many may know about is the ability to collect data using the publicly available API thanks to the AT protocol - the system used to run Bluesky. One feature of the API's the ability to stream activity

Refining My Note-Taking Process: From Pen and Paper to Blog

In this post, I share my journey of refining my note-taking process. From handwritten notes to a private Hugo site, I’m simplifying my approach to better capture and refine my thoughts. Eventually, everything I learn will make its way to this blog and my social media profiles.

The Real Reason I Prefer Bluesky to X (and It’s Not Just About Elon)

Bluesky isn’t just a "left-wing echo chamber"—it’s a step towards sustainable, decentralised social media. While platforms like X face criticism for invasive policies and centralised control, Bluesky offers a future inspired by the open Web, driven by protocols like ATProto.

Why Bluesky Feels Like the Future of Social Media

I'm a huge supporter of decentralized social media, and after almost a week on Bluesky, and I love it! It feels like the future of microblogging—fresh, innovative, and better than Mastodon. Features like starter packs, custom feeds, and an open API make it a standout in the space.

My Thoughts on GoToSocial

I'm passionate about self-hosting and want to run my own ActivityPub-powered network without relying on others. After struggling with Mastodon, I found GoToSocial—a lightweight, privacy-focused alternative. It’s easy to set up and shows promise for those wanting more control on the Fediverse.

Experimenting with Thermal Printing: My Setup, Mishaps, and Tips

After some trial and error, I set up my thermal printer using Node-RED, ditching CUPS for easier control. Using Node.js packages like readability and wkhtmltoimage, I convert articles into clean PNGs, making print layout adjustments simpler and manageable through a web UI—no SSH needed!

Raspberry Pi + Receipt Printer = Hours of Fun

About a week or so ago now, I came across a compelling post from Hacker News about a guy who has configured a dot matrix printer to deliver his daily news. At first, I thought that this was a bit of a backwards idea considering we have smartphones for this

Is a Four-Day Compressed Work Week Really Worth It?

Considering a four-day compressed work week? After a year of experience, I’ve found it boosts productivity, improves work-life balance, and offers environmental benefits. While it’s not for everyone, if you get the chance, it might just be worth it!

2024 Conservative Leadership Election Endorsements: September Update

In a previous post, we looked at which candidates were leading in publicly declared endorsements from a range of individuals, including MPs, former MPs, Peers, and other politicians and public figures. I realise it’s been over two weeks since the original data was collected, and with the first round

The Challenges of the Fediverse. What No One Is Prepared to Talk About.

For what it's worth, Mastodon is a great platform and my general experience of it has been positive. Yes, I've experienced a lot of teething issues with self-hosting but overall, I much prefer it to Twitter/X. But, there are bigger problems at play which I

2024 Conservative Leadership

Who’s leading in the 2024 Conservative Leadership Election? Comparing Candidates Endorsements

In light of the 2024 UK Election which saw the Conservative party's seat share drop from 365 to 122 (their lowest in history), a leadership election was called to replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative party. So far a total of six candidates have put their

Datablog

Who Switched Endorsements Between 2019 and 2024 Election

In a previous post, we tracked the change in political party endorsements between the 2019 and 2024 general elections to see who won lost the support of the media and public figures. The results concluded that, Labour had the clear advantage when it came to support from the media however,

UK Politics

Where All Did the Seats Go? Understanding Who Won and Who Lost in the 2024 General Election.

Labour's victory at the recent 2024 General Election was quite impressive. In a previous post, we covered how just how significant this was with respect to vote share margins within each constituency. Labour clearly have the advantage, but how does this look like in terms of seat gains

UK Politics

Who Won the Media? Tracking Party Endorsements in the 2024 Election.

Every election, most media outlets and well-known public figures openly declare their support for a particular political party. These endorsements play a massive role in shaping political narratives in an attempt to win voters over to vote for a particular party and to gauge public support. Using data collected from

UK Politics

Just How Safe Is Labour After the Election

Just how safe is Labour after the election? What would the seat share look like if they lost their marginal seats.

fediverse

I Broke Mastodon, Playing with GoToSocial and More Fediverse Updates

As you may have seen from one of my previous posts, I tried to set up my on Mastodon server. While it worked for a short while, due to factors such as not knowing Ruby very well (the programming language used to build Mastodon) and trying to maintain work-life balance.

Academia

Leadership Is More Than Just Leading

I had the privilege of attending a leadership conference a few weeks ago now designed for early career researchers such as myself. The topic was about what it means to be a future leader in my area of research. If I’m honest, I went into this event thinking that

Book Review

Quick Book Review: 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You

Me being the true millennial like I am, I think it’s fair to say that my phone gets a lot of use throughout the day. From reading emails in the morning to browsing Hacker News and Reddit in the evening, I dread to think how many times I would

Introducing My New Website and Site Updates

This is just a quick post describing some of the changes to this site. Nothing major to report, although it involves a few changes in this site. 1) I have finally managed to get round to buying my very own .phd TLD domain. I thought I would do my best

algorithm

Finding Peaks in a Dataset and Why It Is Not Straightforward

In my job as a data analyst, I come across many different types of problems to solve. Some are relatively easy to solve, others not so much. That was until recently, where I came across a problem I have never given much thought before. That was until now. What is

Bible

Book Review: Where Is God in All the Suffering?

It’s been a while since I have last done a book review, so I thought I would write up my thoughts on a book I read fairly recently, as I feel that this topic is worth discussing. Have you ever heard someone say “Why would a good God allow

crawling

Notes on Crawling Instances on the Known Fediverse

One of my favourite features of Fediverse is how different instances (whether it be Mastodon, Lemmy or Pixelfed) cooperate with each other over using the ActivityPub protocol. This is a fundamental feature of decentralised social media. For instance (pun unintended), users of mastodon.social can communicate with mastodonapp.uk, and