Mat's Hideout

Thoughts on Tech, Music, Politics

  • One year today

    I wanted to write an eloquent status update reflecting my thoughts, beliefs, and status one year on. But I am so besieged with grief, and so incapacitated by regret that I cannot. Last night I walked his last journey from Lilac Ward Tolworth Hospital to the tree. It broke me that I could walk back, […]

  • An open letter to my Facebook friends

    Facebook, it seems, has become a front-end for cheap, baiting, advert-laden websites like Buzzfeed and apparently my Facebook friends are falling for it by the droves by posting links to “Top ten tatoo fails”, “8 reasons you are single”, “10 things you can do to be nice to a single person”, etc. I thought Facebook […]

  • How To Touch Type (for beginners)

    Today I came across my old website which is hosted on the University of Manchester Compsoc server. I had an account on this server since I studied Computer Science at Manchester which was in 1999 (before I gave it all up to read music instead). I can’t even log on to my account, but I’m […]

  • One week today

    The last seven days have been a blur. I have eaten and slept, but only because of the efforts of my nearest and dearest. One week ago today, a kind man – a man I may never meet – was walking with his dog through an open green space in South London. At first this […]

  • Surely nobody thought “Fiscal Union” was really a good idea?

    Far from being an Orwellian nightmare, I love the idea of greater fiscal and political union with our neighbours. Maybe it could even work… in 100-500 years? But right now, as long as different countries within Europe teach different versions of history, value different types of trade, have different climates that affect their vastly diverse […]

  • How to configure your NTL 250 to work with wireless

    If you are merely browsing this blog, don’t read the below. It’s dull as dogs. This is for incoming google searches. (Hint. If you actually want to configure wireless for your NTL 250 cable modem, skip to the far quicker and superior “Option B”.) This blog is for the benefit of anyone who might be going […]

  • Clicktivism or Slacktivism?

    I know, I know; the Kony 2012 subject has been done to death. I don’t plan to weigh-in too heavily on the debate, except to make a small comment on what the media has termed “clicktivism”. Or indeed what sceptics have termed “slacktivism”. Before I go on: my viewpoint on the campaign. Naturally it goes […]

  • Top Ten Grammar Peeves

    I recently read one of those annoying graphics that are being shared on Facebook. What makes them annoying is not that they are faddy, inert, and positively dull, but that they are low resolution JPGs of plain text which have been resized to look like arse. Anyway, the latest – which I simply couldn’t let […]

  • LrReview Test

    [lrp_collection id=558 float=none]

  • The Pluralist Paradox

    Deep down inside of me, there is a swing voter waiting to get out. A true British I-don’t-really-know-what-I-think voter, someone who could go both ways. Hell, I could go three or four ways. I know, dear imaginary reader, you are thinking, “but how can someone so … so – political – how can you not […]