After reading Saladin Ahmed's collection of short stories, I was keen to read more. This book is fantastic! Fantasy books usually seem to be swords and dragons, set in a generic European country. Crescent Moon is scimitars and sorcery, and set in a mythical Middle-Eastern country. The writing is sublime. It feels like an ancient epic, translated a hundred years ago with archaic language left…
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Think global; act local. That's the mantra, right? I can't stop coal plants belching out suffocating pollutants, but can I ensure my website is as environmentally friendly as possible? There are several services which claim to be able to detect just how lean, green, and clean your website is. But, in my opinion, they're all a bit inadequate. WebsiteCarbon The WebsiteCarbon.com service gives me …
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What happens after we die? All dogs go to heaven, but all data eventually gets corrupted. Most online services are designed for the "happy path". Users never change name, gender remains fixed, spouses never divorce, and customers live forever. The real world is a tad more complicated. As the book puts it: When death occurs for users and platforms, it becomes a kind of glitch that reveals needs …
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Did you know that there was a virtual monopoly on condom production in the UK? I certainly didn't! This book is a detailed dive into how and why one company came to dominate the "French Letter" business and the ways in which British culture shaped them. This is a sober and detailed look through the lifespan of a fascinating British company. It is, in part, corporate biography, marketing…
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I am flying through the sky with a magic glass on my lap. As I hurtle at terrifying speeds to lands undreamed of, Chaucer's words arrange themselves on the slate. With the merest flick of my fingers another tale appears. In a few hours I will have covered more distance than he ever did in his lifetime. The parchment evidence of his life is now compiled for all to read. I can't remember when I…
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What does it mean to write an autobiography? For most people, their autobiography is a series of well-worn stories that they've told themselves. I remember reading Peter Mandelson's autobiography and being staggered at how he won every argument he ever had and was proved completely right by history. I'm sure you've read a dozen autobiographies where the subject has gleefully recounted something …
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a programmer in possession of some HTML will eventually try to parse it with a regular expression. This makes many people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move. In the bad old days, it was somewhat understandable for a PHP coder to run a quick-and-dirty preg_replace() on a scrap of code. They probably could control the input and there wasn't …
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The good folks at AsiceSound sent me their latest Bluetooth Earbuds. They're yet another no brand company which rebadge various Chinese gadgetry. The S23 are £50, which is a reasonable price compared to AirPods, and expensive compared to bargain basement earbuds. So what do these have going for them? The charging case shows the battery level of each bud You get a few different si…
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From crummy old S-Video, through SCART, VGA, and HDMI - the world of video connectors has never been entirely cross compatible. Oh, sure, with enough boxes and adapters you can usually get an old device to talk to a new one. But results are never guaranteed and quality can take a hit. HDMI was supposed to be our saviour, but now DisplayPort threatens its dominance. What's the difference? For the …
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What does the humble ⋮ symbol mean to you? To geeks, it is a compelling attraction. Something cool and esoteric lives in there! All sorts of goodies to explore and configure. To normal people, it is invisible. Normal people don't go pushing random icons on their apps because computers are fragile and may break if you do the wrong thing. To me, it is a sign that product managers are a menace a…
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The brilliant kobodl Python package allows you to interact with your Kobo account programmatically. You can list all the books you've purchased, download them, and - as of version 0.12.0 - view your wishlist. Here's a rough and ready Python script which will tell you when any the books on your wishlist have dropped below a certain amount. Table of ContentsPrerequisitesGet your wishlistSort the …
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How far can you enhance an image or video before you cross the line into manipulation? The UK is currently prosecuting two men accused of a crime. Part of the prosecution's evidence is a video. In showing it to the jury, the prosecution have said: the two minute and 41 second-long video is "extremely dark" but the "unmistakeable" noise of a chainsaw can be heard followed by the sound of a tree…
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