Simon Bisson
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sbisson.com
Simon Bisson
@sbisson.com
3K followers 2.1K following 8.4K posts
👨‍💻 Used to write code, now writes words about code 📘 Azure AI Services At Scale🦎O'Reilly 💻 Beats: enterprise, dev, cloud 🙋‍♂️ Vrai Jerri, bird photos, SFF writer, reader, ally, he/him/they 🐈‍⬛ calico floofs 📧 [email protected] 🌍 sbisson.com
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Simon Bisson @sbisson.com · Jun 19
Come for the developer journalism, stay for the long running SFF review series, photographs of inner London birding, and well, the randomness of a crapaud in the big city.

All this from an ex-engineer who found one of his cancelled projects in For All Mankind.

And if you want to chat try Signal.
QR code for Signal messages.
Reposted by Simon Bisson
rosemarymosco.com
As the year comes to an end, I'm reposting some of the comics I made this year, including this ridiculous thing.
A six-panel comic. In the first panel, a yellow warbler says "Hey so I'm going to go out on a limb here." In panels two through five, the warbler hops along a long branch against a blue sky with clouds. In panel 6, it stops at the end of the branch and sings.
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
sbisson.com
Recent Reads: Mileships. A narrative art book (text by Jim Rossignol) of Ian McQue's signature floating tramp ships. The story, told in excerpts from books and diaries, is one of slow decay around drifting sky islands, where the titular ships and their crews struggle to remain relevant. Gorgeous.
November 25, 2025 at 5:35 PM
sbisson.com
Today's theme for #BirdOfTheDay is #HangingAround. the obvious picture has to be the one I use for my Drunk Parrot stickers, a feral ring-necked parakeet, reaching for a berry, hanging from a branch by one claw.

Oh, and the sticker art, too.

#putney #birds #birding #photography #londonparrots
A feral green parrot hanging from a branch while reaching for a berry. There is an out of focus brick wall behind it. A posterised version of the previous image, a green parrot hanging from a branch clutching a bottle of vodka. There is text on a curve "Drunk Parrot has a posse".
November 25, 2025 at 1:19 PM
sbisson.com
So we’re sending a relativistic tree to another galaxy? Yeah!
The cover of Donald Moffitt’s 1980s SF novel The Genesis Quest, with a fleet of interstellar trees.
November 25, 2025 at 1:18 AM
sbisson.com
Another recent visitor to the Wandle's confluence with the Thames seems to have stuck around. This ittle egret was being mobbed by crows, but then had a good preen in a low tide pool near the Fulham Bridge.

It was a ball of fluff.

#wandsworth #wandsworthpark #birds #birding
Little egrets in winter are white balls of fluff.
November 24, 2025 at 6:48 PM
sbisson.com
From Sunday's Wandle Wander down the delta, the winter migrants are coming back. This gadwall was bobbing past Point Pleasant on the Thames.
A grey and brown duck bobbing along a blue Thames.
November 24, 2025 at 6:45 PM
sbisson.com
Today's #BirdOfTheDay is a #warbler: in this case, a chiffchaff sat on a flowering hedge on an early summer evening on the north coast of Jersey, near Devil's Hole.

#birds #birding #photography #jersey
A small brown bird on a flowering hedge
November 24, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Simon Bisson
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
Every time
When the bridge closed, about 25,000 vehicles crossed it daily and TfL predicted a severe economic impact. Six years later, 9,000 of those journeys have vanished - not diverted to other crossings, but simply evaporated
November 23, 2025 at 1:59 PM
sbisson.com
I don’t have too many obsolete cables…

The rest? Yeah, you got me.
A pile of obsolete USB cables.
November 24, 2025 at 12:11 AM
sbisson.com
A black-headed gull on the Spit was doing a power stance.

#birds #birding #wandsworth #wandle #gulls
A gull on a fence. It is white with shades of grey, with a red beak and legs. There is a patch of black behind its eye.
November 23, 2025 at 6:51 PM
sbisson.com
The feral parrots in Wandsworth Park were excavating holes for next year's nests this morning.

#putney #wandsworth #birds #birding
A ring-necked parakeet digging out a hole in a plane tree. \it is green with a crimson beak. A ring-necked parakeet digging out a hole in a plane tree. \it is green with a crimson beak. A ring-necked parakeet digging out a hole in a plane tree. \it is green with a crimson beak.
November 23, 2025 at 6:41 PM
sbisson.com
Just back from a wander down the Wandle delta and this shot of the winter migrant green-winged teal flock fits the bill for today's #BirdOfTheDay theme, #Mr&Mrs. Three males and a female in a rushing Wandle after yesterday's day of rain.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth #photography
A small flock of green-winged teal in rushing river water. Three males with their distinctive brown and green heads and a female preening her brown feathers.
November 23, 2025 at 1:34 PM
sbisson.com
The black-headed gulls on the Spit looked slightly worried about me and my camera.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth
A white gull with a red beak and red legs and feet standing on a wooden fence rail.
November 23, 2025 at 1:29 PM
sbisson.com
Winter is nearly here: the green-winged teal flock is back on the Wandle delta.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth
A small duck with a brown head and green strip across its eye. It has a finely patterned grey and white body, with a broad white stripe on its wing.
November 23, 2025 at 1:27 PM
sbisson.com
The cats’ new water fountain appears to be full of Cherenkov radiation…
A cat drinking water fountain glowing with a blue light. It was a plastic flower in the middle.
November 22, 2025 at 9:55 PM
sbisson.com
Today's #BirdOfTheDay is a #BirdOnAWire. So here's a starling on a TV aerial.

#birds #birding #wandsworth #photography
November 22, 2025 at 1:38 PM
sbisson.com
Triaged the USB cable bag. This lot is off to WEEE recycling.

I do not need that many mini- and micro-USB cables.
A pile of USB cables. They are mostly black with some white and one orange.
November 21, 2025 at 9:37 PM
sbisson.com
I do wonder what John Barnes thinks of Plur1bus. I mean, the hive mind is clearly One True.

Then again, he's probably glad it's not Daybreak.
November 21, 2025 at 9:30 PM
sbisson.com
Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #GroundedGulls.

So it's back to The Spit in the Wandle delta for this yellow-legged gull at low tide on a summer day.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth #photography
A yellow-legged gull standing in the gravel of the Wandle at low tide. It has yelow legs and a yellow beak with an orange tip.
November 21, 2025 at 7:52 PM
sbisson.com
ZBT-1 to ZBT-2 migration complete.

There is a bug in the current @home-assistant.io Core 2025.11.2 build that stops the firmware setup of the ZBT-2; force download the new 2025.11.3 build to fix this issue.

Apart from that; all good and a faster than promised migration between Zigbee networks.
November 21, 2025 at 5:44 PM
sbisson.com
Here's an @home-assistant.io question. If I migrate a Zigbee Home Automation network from a ZBT-1 to a ZBT-2, can I switch the ZBT-1 to running Threads?
November 20, 2025 at 8:52 PM
sbisson.com
Amusingly the stock photograph of the Panamint Springs Road to Death Valley is very similar to one I've taken myself.

That road is one of my favourite places in the American west...
A dead straight road launches out across the arid wastes of the desert near Death Valley.
November 20, 2025 at 6:59 PM
sbisson.com
Last week I spoke to Shireesh Thota, CVP Databases at Microsoft, about Azure HorizonDB, a new hyperscale variant of PostgreSQL before it's launch at #msignite.

My resulting deep dive:

www.infoworld.com/article/4093...
Azure HorizonDB: Microsoft goes big with PostgreSQL
Microsoft’s latest database is a fast, scalable PostgreSQL for cloud-native and AI developers.
www.infoworld.com
November 20, 2025 at 6:50 PM
sbisson.com
Microsoft and Activision make Zork I, II, and III open source.

opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11...

Github link to Zork I: github.com/historicalso...
Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source
Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), Team Xbox, and Activision are making Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III available under the MIT License.
opensource.microsoft.com
November 20, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Simon Bisson
russincheshire.bsky.social
2 posts containing details of Boris Johnson's response to the initial outbreak of COVID, taken from "The Decade In Tory"

I'm glad the inquiry has been published. But it's 3 years too late. And by focusing on just COVID, it barely touches the surface.

£2.50 right now.

amzn.eu/d/eCNltv2
November 20, 2025 at 6:11 PM