Paul Leader

Over the last year I’ve finally learnt how to do cryptic crosswords. My grandfather was always a big fan of them but I could never get into them as a kid. Having now got into them properly, I can understand why he always had a newspaper and a thesaurus next to his armchair.

This is my quick guide to some of the resources that helped me get started.

An attempt at a taxonomy of code review.

A few years ago I was experimenting with the Opal Ruby-to-JS transpiler, and in the process knocked up a proof-of-concept implementation of Conway’s Game of Life in the browser.

You’d think that Which?, self-declared champion for consumer rights and campaigner against poor products & services, would make cancelling their service easy, perhaps a button on the website, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong.

A little bit of thought and effort can make a big difference between a system that is useful, and one that is helpful.

I’ve been randomly googling my name and usernames, ostensibly to check what private information I might have accidentally put out on the web over the years. I have yet to turn up much to worry me, which is good, but I have turned up something interesting that I’d completely forgotten about.

Until a few years ago, I was a chronic insomniac. For as long as I can remember I’ve had what you might call a fractious relationship with sleep. Unlike my wife, who will be sound asleep half an hour after hitting the hay, I’ve gone through phases when I’ve not had more than an hour’s sleep each night for almost a week. Boy was that an odd week at school. Here are some of the things I’ve learnt over the years about sleep.