xurble.org

Gareth Simpson — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:08:59 GMT

I’m about to add an MCP server to my latest project before or possibly instead of an API. Can’t decide if this is genius or madness.

#mcpserver

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:27:50 GMT

This is why I am a software engineer and not a hardware engineer. This is ChatGPT talking me through rescuing a PC I bricked with a rash BIOS choice.

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:57:56 GMT

I have been using Notational Velocity since at least 2012. At least that’s my oldest surviving note.

Since macOS keeps telling me it might not survive my next OS upgrade, I’ve forked my own version.

Next stop, something custom for my phone instead of whatever iCloud-Drive-compatible notes app I have to hand.

#notationalvelocity

Gareth Simpson — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 22:14:40 GMT

Vibe coding is a bit like I imagine crack to be. Enjoyable, addictive and very bad for you.

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:01:41 GMT

Child 2 doing her patriotic duty

#RaiseTheColours

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:00:24 GMT

Child 1 doing god’s work.

#RaiseTheColours

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 06:38:21 GMT

I love my @trmnl and I am very much looking forward to my X, but having an order tracker that shows less than 1 order a day progress is a bold move.

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:05:06 GMT

From time to time my wife will ask me “do you have ADHD?” And now with #ai coding tools and the revival of every side project I’ve ever done we finally have an answer.

Yes. Yes I do.

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:37:16 GMT

Tik Tok woke up and chose violence.

#seniors

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 16:06:38 GMT

If this is happening to @siracusa, I can only assume it's driving him insane.

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 14:16:42 GMT

Thanks Barclays. We’ve gone through the entire beta cycle and you’ve done this with the end in sight?

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:29:34 GMT

Every time I make my daughter a cheese toasty I wonder if the George Foreman marketing department physically attacked the product designers for missing the opportunity to brand everything cooked on their grill with the company name.

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 15:48:31 GMT

My family is hard on phones.

Gareth Simpson — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 17:50:06 GMT

It’s like an episode of fucking Masterchef.

Gareth Simpson — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 22:04:22 GMT

Anyone who doesn’t like LLMs hasn’t had to do mandatory training modules for their job.

#ChatGPT #llm

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 10:59:30 GMT

Is this ironic? It feels like it might be ironic.

#gravy #ai

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 10:48:25 GMT

Having finally started using Cursor properly, this blog post has inspired me to try agents a bit more.

https://allenpike.com/2025/coding-agents

So far so good. I am on the road with my wife issuing orders to a posse of eager junior developers to add simple but useful features to various projects that I would never get around to.

It’s actually kind of terrifying. Not sure I’m being the company Emma hoped for while we fetch this horse.

I don’t even have my laptop with me.

#cursor #ai

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 10:16:12 GMT

My Trmnl arrived and I’m in love!

Stayed up too late last night making a dashboard for my wife’s business.

Might be a little more impressive looking if I hadn’t finished after midnight 🤦🏻‍♂️

#trmnl

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 22:00:18 GMT

I've used Cursor for ages, but just for much more expansive autocomplete. I've never really embraced vibe coding until today.

I'm not 100% sure it's quicker than by hand but its more fun.

Like pair programming with an enthusiastic golden retriever who is simultaneously an incredibly knowledgeable developer and a complete idiot.

#cursor #development

Recast 1.7

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 10 May 2025 19:03:02 GMT

Annual upgrade. Now using Django 5.1 and django-feed-reader 2

What's Changed

Add test source option to the feedgarden. by @xurble in #33
Bump django from 4.2.10 to 4.2.11 by @dependabot in #34
Bump idna from 3.6 to 3.7 by @dependabot in #35
Bump sqlparse from 0.4.4 to 0.5.0 by @dependabot in #36
Bump requests from 2.31.0 to 2.32.0 by @dependabot in #37
Bump urllib3 from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2 by @dependabot in #38
Bump certifi from 2024.2.2 to 2024.7.4 by @dependabot in #39
Bump django from 4.2.11 to 4.2.15 by @dependabot in #41
feat: Upgrade everything by @xurble in #45

Full Changelog: v1.6...v1.7

Gareth Simpson — Sat, 10 May 2025 17:38:40 GMT

It is now 11 years since I wrote my podcast catch-up service Recast. In that time I still haven’t found a podcast client that neatly handles listening to an existing podcast from the first episode. So I’ve given it its annual dust-off and upgrade and it will continue on again.

If you’re looking for something worth catching up on, I highly recommend Origin Story by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey.

Listen at your own pace by getting a Recast link here: https://recastthis.com/source/1511/

#podcast #rss

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 01 May 2025 20:14:21 GMT

Went to cast my futile vote. Almost tactically voted Tory to try and keep Reform from winning but if we’re honest are they really any better? 🤷

#ukpolitics

Gareth Simpson — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 09:32:37 GMT

Enjoy it, but accept that you just lost it.

Courtesy of my daughter.

#thegame

Gareth Simpson — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:07:38 GMT

I’m listening to @siracusa compare LLM vibe-coding to 4GLs on @atpfm

Hard to believe 4GLs were going to be the next big thing. My (admittedly very bad) university course was filled with 4GL and CASE talk. I think the only thing I learned at uni that I still use today is SQL. Everything else was a future that never came or already on the way to being the past.

Gareth Simpson — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 16:16:14 GMT

I don’t have favourite children but if I did, this is the kind of behaviour that would get you bonus points.