instantiator.dev

Say hello world and nothing else

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An unintentionally hilarious one-act play by Google’s Gemma 4.

Say Hello World and Nothing Else

Honestly, it’s a marvel that technology and statistical methods have come so far. It’s still quite amusing to see their internal monologues…

Free art should be free

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When it’s not being a television with a very awkward user interface, the Samsung Frame 55" is touted as being optimised for art. Imagine spending money on it, just to learn that if you want to access the art itself you need to buy a subscription.

Experimental development with number-jam: a number plate obscurer

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

number-jam detects, tracks, and obscures vehicle number plates in video clips - and was an experiment in AI-assisted development.

Manage rich video experiences in your webapp like a pro

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Browsers rule with an iron fist when it comes to the things your web app is allowed to do, and video playback is a complex topic. This post breaks down some advanced solutions for developers implementing embedded video.

About

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am a tech lead and senior software developer. My career reflects my passion for public service and volunteerism.

Discounts

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Referrals

£20 off your next order of Huel
Code: REF-LEWISW4944

€50 off your first Fairphone
or Fairbuds XL

Share £100 with me
and join Octopus Energy

5% off 3D printing products
at the Snapmaker store
Code: instantiator

Do something wholesome

Get your audio books from libro.fm
and support local bookshops*

*Also, I get an audiobook credit

Looking for work?

This is a personal recommendation¹.

Conversational deliberation, at scale

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Reproduced from a recently published LinkedIn article.

Conversational deliberation, at scale

I’ve been leading a software development team at the Centre for Collective Intelligence at Nesta for a couple of years now, and I’m lucky enough to work with, and have worked with, some brilliant people. Amongst the things we’re good at is the process of designing and running deliberative workshops.

Bucket List - the bucket that wouldn't die

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

When the time comes to delete an old S3 bucket, it’s important to know that they can’t be deleted while they contain content. Here’s what you can do about it from the CLI…

Managing lists on BlueSky collaboratively

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 12:00:00 +0000

ListSky is a new tool for collaboratively managing lists of social accounts.

In this house we celebrate...

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 12:00:00 +0000

An alternative calendar for the geek in your heart…

In this house we celebrate…

Here’s a fun alternative celebration calendar. It’s a collaboration between friends, and we’ll keep improving it. It’s for you, for the geek in your life, or the nerd in your heart. You can add it to Google Calendar for the full experience, or visit it on its own page.

Dracula and the Epistolorean

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

What is The Epistolorean, and what has it got to do with Count Dracula?

Open Social Distributor

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 11:00:00 +0000

How to use Open Social Distributor to post threads and messages across multiple social networks at once.

Reveal in React

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What if your UI was a slide show?

Reveal in React

TLDR: Here’s a template repository for a NextJS app with a Reveal slide show UI: instantiator/reveal-on-next

Exploring OAuth

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 17:00:00 +0000

OAuth Token Explorer is a tool to explore authentication and authorisation on behalf of a user.

Hammering JSON into CSV

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

json-to-smart-csv is a tool to help build CSV records from arbitrary JSON…

Your own map server

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 13:00:00 +0000

A quick guide to running your own tile server, with a geo database populated from OpenStreetMap data.

Building an app for Flipper Zero, part 2: A simple user interface

Fri, 05 May 2023 21:00:00 +0000

In this part, we’ll build a simple user interface for a Flipper Zero app.

Building an app for Flipper Zero, part 1: Getting started

Fri, 05 May 2023 09:00:00 +0000

FlipperZero is a digital signals multi-tool. Here’s a short guide to the basics of building an app for it…

A Netflixstory - analyse your Netflix watch history

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 17:30:00 +0000

Exploring your personal Netflix viewing history…

TLDR

If you’d like to generate your own Netflix data visualisation, feel free to make use of this Jupyter notebook:

Building AI into your application with Semantic Kernel

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 21:00:00 +0000

This is a quick guide to some of the features of the Semantic Kernel, a Software Development Kit that simplifies integration of language models into your own applications.

Post 3

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 11:00:00 -0700

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Post 2

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0700

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3D puzzle print: a crossword generation tool

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A tool to design 3D printed crossword puzzles.

Generating 3D crossword models

I’ve been working on a tool to generate crossword designs using OpenSCAD. The output is an STL file that you can use with your favourite slicer and send to a 3D printer. It’s open source, and you’re free to plunder it for tips, techniques, or to generate your own…

Post 1

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 09:00:00 -0700

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The rocketship template 🚀

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Presenting a simple template to develop, publish, and test a simple C# service backend on AWS, with serverless Lambda functions, supported by DynamoDb, behind an API Gateway, and protected by Cognito auth.

8-bit Supercomputer

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It took me 3 weeks to complete the day 11 puzzle for Advent of Code on a BBC Micro this year, and you’d be hard pressed to describe my solution as “proportionate” or “necessary”…

International Consensus Chess is in public beta!

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Consensus Chess is going through some beta testing on Mastodon, and you can play today!

International Consensus Games (WIP)

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on a pet project recently: Consensus games are a fun new way to play together through social media…

A rather so-phish-ticated scam

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A few days ago we had a call from one of the most sophisticated phishing attacks I’ve experienced…

Secrets With Friends

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It’s possible to share a secret amongst a group of people so that only some of them are needed to reconstruct it…

Dead Person Switches - secrets from beyond the grave

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

More commonly known as a Dead Man’s Switch, a Dead Person Switch (DPS) is a system that can hold a secret on behalf of a person, and govern its release should they become unavailable.

Rainbow paws

Sat, 13 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

_Art is fun and hard and messy and complicated and like every other trade it’s full of people who are earnestly showing you what they created (sprinkled with a few jokers)._

TIL - shell environment variables aren't available to OS X apps

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Just recently I have been exploring a very strange issue: My application couldn’t find a tool that was right where it should be…

Dead Person Switches - appeal for journalists

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I am hoping to interview some investigative journalists for my masters thesis at the University of Oxford.

A template thesis to simplify your write-up

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The things I’ll do to avoid learning LaTeX…

Do you prefer Markdown to LaTeX?

Making the best possible referrals

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 16:00:00 +0000

The Data Standards Authority are holding an open challenge to discover and set a new data standard for vulnerable people services.

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Contact

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 6: Triggers

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

In part 5, we amended our Lambda to write to an S3 bucket; and in this part, we’ll explore triggers to run it regularly.

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 5: S3

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

In previous parts, we’ve built a Lambda that can query the OpenWeather API, using a secret key; and in this part we’ll extend it to write that data to S3.

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 4: Logs

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

In part 3, we extended our Lambda to communicate with an API, using a secret key; and in this part, we’ll explore the logs created when the Lambda runs.

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 3: APIs and secrets

Sat, 17 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

In part 2, we build a Lambda function, deployed and invoked it; and in this part, we’ll extend it to communicate with an API using a secret key.

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 2: Build, deploy and invoke

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

In part 1, we set up the basic infrastructure to support a new Lambda function on AWS; and n this part, we’ll build a Lambda function, deploy it to AWS, and invoke it with some input.

Building an AWS Lambda in C#, part 1: AWS

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 18:00:00 +0000

At first glance, Amazon Web Services (AWS) can seem impenetrably complex, but it’s not so bad once you’ve found your way around it…

Querying data files with terminal tools

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 17:30:00 +0000

There are a many ways to peek inside a data file and reason about its contents. This post is about a triplet of simple, easily available tools that I’ve found handy for searching and querying common data file formats. You might too…

Choosing your first coding language

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Anyone can code.

This is a short exploration of the choices for coding beginners out there.

Keeping jobs alive with caffeine

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 19:00:00 +0000

My Mac likes to go to sleep to save power, and that means any long-running processes I have underway will be suspended when it does.

Hello, World!

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 22:00:00 +0000

I learned to code on a computer called the BBC Micro, released by the BBC in 1981. I was also released in 1981, and I have a bit of a bond with these 8-bit wonders.

We're only human

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Cleaning up data from volunteer groups across the UK.

We’re only human

In the previous post, we took a tour of the open data available that tells the story of volunteerism across the UK since the coronavirus crisis began.

Look for the helpers

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What can we learn about grass-roots COVID-19 volunteer groups from open data?

How to donate your laptop safely

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A friend is helping out with a community project and asked for some laptops. I rustled up some old kit and gave it a refresh. You can too!

Being a better witness

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed a stabbing…

Being a better witness

I didn’t know it was a stabbing at the time. I was walking to the gym when I heard some young men shouting. I could see a few of them in someone’s front garden behind a hedge, pushing and shoving. It sounded brutal. A little girl in school uniform ran past me up the road, and there were a few people from the street nearby, looking on — some of them were on the phone. I called the police and reported what I saw. By the time I’d told them everything I could see, everyone involved had fled down the road.

Policing data interventions

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

A friendly face for the victims of burglary

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Let's hack the police, part 3

Wed, 07 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Wriggler

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog.

Wriggler

It was 1998 and I was 17. My tool of choice was QBasic and this is a game I wrote based on a concept I stole from another game called Wriggler.

Software Self Defence 101

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Software Self-Defence 101

The first time I met Glyn Wintle, I embarrassed myself.

Touch Pairing at Sex Tech Hack 2017

Sun, 26 Nov 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Touch pairing is an exploration of intimacy and closeness at a distance, from Sex Tech Hack 2017.

Hacking the Police, part 2

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Hacking the Police

Hackathons are everywhere these days, and if you know what they are already then do please skip on and learn why the police are so hungry for innovation! A hackathon is an “invention marathon”, where teams of independent coders and designers innovate for prizes in different categories. Nobody knows what the outcomes will be, and presentations are judged at the end of a long hard weekend of work and play.

3 excellent ways to build trust with your users

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article was originally posted to Medium.

3 excellent ways to build trust with your users

I don’t see why it needs that permission!

5 reasons refactoring your project can give you back your competitive edge

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article was originally posted to Medium.

5 reasons refactoring your project can give you back your competitive edge

It didn’t used to be so expensive to change one little thing…

Why are some projects so expensive?

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This article was originally posted to Medium.

Why are some projects so expensive? Need they be?

This article is adapted from a response I gave to the Reddit post for the Medium article How I replicated an $86 million project in 57 lines of code in r/coding by Tait Brown

Drive Stamper

Fri, 29 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog.

Drive Stamper

Drive Stamper is one of the first projects I released into the wild, and helped me to kick off my old blog in 2011.

Text adventures in 3D

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog.

Educational games

It’s time to take a look at a project from almost a decade ago! Source code, screenshots, documentation and (old!) binaries are now available in the instantiator/openbook-v2 GitHub repository.

Hack Highlight #4: How did we do?

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Hack Highlight #3: AroundMET

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Hack Highlight #2: Terminal 2.0

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Hack Highlight #1: Secure evidence recording

Sat, 25 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

We hacked the Police!

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog. To find out more about Hack the Police events, civic tech, and policing technology, visit: Police Rewired

Hacking up Parliament

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is a necropost, resurrected from an old blog.

The hack

The Parliamentary Hack, recently featured in the Independent, was an interesting event. Almost every age group was represented and the event was a hive of activity from the word go.