The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:54am on Wednesday, 25th February, 2026:
Weird
Here's another hero of science from the past who for some reason doesn't get a mention these days.
8:19am on Tuesday, 24th February, 2026:
Comment
If the United States is going to charge a 15% tariff on non-US imports, does that mean all non-US teams in the World Cup will get 15% more points? 3.45 for a win, 1.15 for a draw? The US will still get the usual 3 and 1, of course.
Sounds fair to me!
9:30am on Monday, 23rd February, 2026:
Anecdote
My keyboard started messing up over the weekend. Letters would suddenly repeat unstoppably, the lights came on and danced all kinds of weird colours, and sometimes none of the keys worked at all.
I have a Corsair mechanical keyboard, which gives a nice, loud, clattering noise when I use it that annoys my wife. It's wired, because I don't like running out of batteries when I'm in the middle of something. It would run out of batteries, too, because it needs two USB connections to power it.
It did occasionally refuse to produce characters first thing after starting up my PC, the solution to which was to unplug both USB connectors then plug them back in again. This was a fraught task, because the USB ports are at the back of my PC near the power supply, and I have to unplug and replug them blind. When I tried this fix on this occasion, though, it didn't work.
The keyboard, which is programmable, is managed by a software system called iCUE. On one occasion in the past, there was an update that stopped the keyboard from working, so I had to disable it. Later updates continued this trend, so I switched off all updates. Given that my keyboard was defunct, though, I thought maybe I should update iCUE in case an update to Windows had stopped the old, stable version from working. I therefore bit the bullet and updated iCUE.
Other than removing all my programmed macros, it had no effect.
I was on the point of ordering a new keyboard when it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't the keyboard that was at fault at all, but the USB ports. I disconnected them from the back and moved them to the front panel of my PC. It was a very tight stretch, but I managed to get them both in. These front-panel USB ports are dodgy: I use them for memory sticks and the like, but sometimes one doesn't recognise it's in use and I have to switch to the other.
Anyway, on this occasion they both worked, as evidenced by the fact that I'm able to type this.
If the USB ports at the back, which are on the motherboard, are damaged, I'm now wondering if I need a new PC. It's 8 years since I last got one, and since then crypto-mining outfits have bought up so many graphics cards that the price of those shot up. Worse, AI companies are now buying up entire production runs, along with as much RAM and drive storage as they can. I daren't look to see how much a new PC would cost. Maybe I just need a motherboard, but my past experience with buying those is that half of what worked with the old motherboard is incompatible with the new one.
I'll struggle on, I think, until the AI boom busts and warehouses full of graphics cards, memory and hard drives are dumped on the market. That's assuming my savings aren't swallowed up by the collapse of the economy or something.
8:29am on Sunday, 22nd February, 2026:
Weird
My wife does the giant crossword in the Essex County Standard.
This week, when she reached 24 down having already established with what letter the answer started.
F.
8:43am on Saturday, 21st February, 2026:
Anecdote
I may not be a fan of perpetual rain myself, but the crocuses in our garden seem to love it. It's like a marshland down there, but they're lapping it up.
These are the crocuses that grow naturally, by the ways. The ones I diligently plant each year stay resolutely underground, only emerging for a few minutes when squirrels dig them up to eat.
9:06am on Friday, 20th February, 2026:
Weird
Continents in Fantasy novels.
8:28am on Thursday, 19th February, 2026:
Anecdote
My epic sputum test came back positive for bacteria, so I've been put on antibiotics. I hope the doctor was as wrong about the damage this will wreak on my kidneys as she was about my cough being viral in nature.
I was getting over the cough anyway, but have started the antibiotics anyway because in the past I've had coughs linger for weeks. Also, this particular antibiotic is supposedly targeted at the actual bacterium causing the cough, not all bacteria in general.
Weirdly, the antibiotic isn't just for chest infections, though. It's also used for gum infections, urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Unlucky is the person who needs it for more than one condition at the same time.
Also, it apparently prevents malaria. Next time I get a bad cough, perhaps I should book a holiday to the forests of central Borneo so as to get some use out of this feature.
8:45am on Wednesday, 18th February, 2026:
Anecdote
What? What am I thinking about?
Oh, just what I'd train a parrot to say in a sentence beginning with the word "Siri".
8:49am on Tuesday, 17th February, 2026:
Weird
The sign reaads: "TEMPORARY OBSTRUCTION 15 MINUTES DELAY".
I took this photograph 50 minutes after I first walked past it.
9:33am on Monday, 16th February, 2026:
Weird
So that's an imprisonment system, then?
9:16am on Sunday, 15th February, 2026:
Weird
There's a broken advertising sign at the end of our road.
Conclusion: I live in a Looney Tunes cartoon and a gorilla just ran past.
8:11am on Saturday, 14th February, 2026:
Weird
Now hold it right there, Weetabix! What have you done here?
There are 12 in a stack, not 14. Everyone knows that!
9:13am on Friday, 13th February, 2026:
Anecdote
I went to the doctor's yesterday to see about this cough. Three other people with it had improved after receiving antibiotics, so I thought it was probably bacterial.
The doctor said it wasn't, it was clearly viral, and would go away of its own accord after between ten and fourteen days of conracting it. I caught it ten or eleven days ago, so only have to endure it for a short while longer.
Still, to placate me, the doctor offered me a sputum test. I hoik up into a jar, they send it off to some biohazard establishment where tests are run to see if there are bacteria present. If there are, the d0c will be able to prescribe the exact antibiotic that will kill the cough. I expect it'll take longer to do that than for my immune system to do what I pay it to do, but you never know.
As for when to spit into the bottle, the conversation went something like this:
Doc: Use the first cough of the morning.
Me: When's that? 1am? 2am? 3am?
Doc: The first one when you wake up.
Me: They all wake me up!
Doc: The first one after you get dressed then.
Doctors don't seem to like patients who want ANSWERS and they want them NOW no matter how RELEVANT their questions are.
The best thing, though, is that the little jar condemn to holding whatever sputum results describes it as "epic".
I have epic sputum! Cool!
Judging by what I put into it, it "epic" is a fair descripition, too, but I won't show you that because it's disgusting.
I redacted a part of the photo so you'll suspect it might have had the name of the US president there.
8:31am on Thursday, 12th February, 2026:
Anecdote
The ash tree at one corner of our garden used to have three trunks. One fell down in a storm in 2020, nearly crushing the bungalow beneath it. The new owners of the bungalow don't want to risk that something similar might happen, so sent in the tree surgeons yesterday.
It only has one trunk now.
The tree was the haunt of the local pigeon community, so I don't know where they'll be going now. It won't be in the loft of the bungalow, though, as the squirrels got there first.
8:21am on Wednesday, 11th February, 2026:
Anecdote
Seen in a garden centre's restaurant:
I didn't look inside, so can't tell if it contained entries like "dogfood" or like "labrador brisket".
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).