Probably the 72 year old Ferguson tractor I own, new parts are so easy to find and usually very reasonably priced. It’s also designed to be easily user serviceable and user repairable.

“He’s not on Chitter, he’s not on Friendface.”

We finished working on what we had already agreed to do and then cancelled the contract, the client was quite understanding.

At a small company I used to work for we agreed to take over the management system for someone trading physical resources. The guy that originally wrote it was self taught. We did a hand over with him where he took us through the code base. It was written in dotnet but it was a huge mess, he had blended multiple different dotnet paradigms, there was mixed business and UI code all over the place, large chunks of html were stored in the db, db code was just scattered through the application. We took it over briefly but it was a nightmare to work on and we found a SQL injection vulnerability. So as kindly as possible we told the client that his software was a piece of shit and the dev he hired had no idea what he was doing.

Not that I would have worked for that scummy company to begin with but that would be a huge deal breaker.

When I was in my teens I used Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, by Led Zeppelin as my alarm, over 15 years later and I can’t help but feel like I’m being yanked out of dead sleep every time I hear it.

Nope, not even once. I find the idea of circumcision really bizarre.

Hmm, let’s work shop this. Slice out the island bit and let’s make that into its own move.

• Get rid of the cannibals, let’s make the island deserted, there’s no one left for the unlimited chess games, so let’s have him just go a bit nuts for a few years.
• Exchange the baboon with a volleyball.
• Let’s get Tom Hanks back.

Oh wait…

I bought the biggest column mill I could afford, a HM-48B and bench top lathe that had the features I wanted, an AL-320G. Given I intend to mainly make model steam engines they should be more than enough. What sort of things do machine?

I only took up manual machining this year, there are a few of us young ones, but not heaps.

Also vibe coded vibe coding AI assistant.

I’m a big fan of manual machining over CNC.

Nah, power off the oligarchs too

Jurassic Park 3 when I was 9 for a friend’s birthday. I had nightmares about dinosaurs for weeks. I’m not really haunted by it any more but the scene where the skeleton in the parachute swings out of the tree is seared into my brain.

It’s obviously the one in the country I live in. All the others that I have had zero experience with are from Satan.

As a hobby engineer/machinist I would say any “medium” sized mill but specifically Bridgeport mills are especially coveted by hobbyists.

If I found a reasonably priced Bridgeport even one that needed a bit of work, I would happily sell my Chinese machine and make some extra room in my workshop.

Kangaroo has to be done right. A good kangaroo roast can be better than lamb or pork.

The good old milky milk.

I didn’t want kids for the entirety of my twenties. I’ve been with my partner since we were 21 and she wasn’t keen on kids for that whole period either. We got married at 30 and it wasn’t long before we both felt like kids was something we wanted.

She is currently 35 weeks pregnant and we are both super excited about the impending birth of our daughter.

We have the occasional “Oh shit! What have we done.” But mostly we can’t wait to watch her grow and teach her about the world and do exciting things with her.

We know it’s going to be a huge change but we are very stable in our lives and the time is right for it. We are both really good at supporting each other by now so we know we can cope with change together.

I recognise that patch!