Terence Eden’s Blog
A few years ago, I tried out that Seek Thermal Compact Infrared Camera which is a USB addon for phones. It was a good gadget, but had a number of compromises to get it into such a small form-factor. I've just been sent the TopDon TC004 handheld thermal camera to review. It's a chunky beast […]
Continue reading →
on
If you're a Doctor Who fan, this post contains a lovely little surprise at the end. I promise you it'll be worth it. For a few years now, I've been running a blog series about the Mobile Phones of Doctor Who. I'm only human1, so I occasionally miss some of the devices. A reader contacted […]
Continue reading →
on
I read an interesting discussion the other day about why humans (mostly) don't eat carnivorous mammals. It boiled down to a few main points: Carnivores often don't taste good due to their relative lack of fat and stringy muscles. Aggressive animals are hard to domesticate. What do you feed them? 1 and 2 are manageable. […]
Continue reading →
on
I ordered some pills off the Internet and swallowed them! What could possibly go wrong? Let's get one thing out of the way first. I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. This blog post is not medical advice.
Continue reading →
After reading Laline Paull's The Bees, I was eager to read her next work. The Bees was about Bees, obviously. Pod is about a pod of dolphins - and their oceanic friends and society. Weirdly, this is the third book I've read from the perspective of cetaceans. Both The Idiot Gods and Startide Rising deal […]
Continue reading →
on
This film is a masterpiece. Sure, the plot is nothing special ("What is the dark secret behind this seemingly idyllic life?!?) but it is directed with such flare and texture that it becomes a joy to watch. I can't remember when I last saw something which kept me engrossed just through the sheer inventiveness of […]
Continue reading →
on
"How long have you been vegetarian?" Asked the waitress. "Oh, over twenty years now," I replied. She looked concerned. "Some people find the 3D printed steak a bit..." she paused, considered, and continued, "A bit intense. It takes people by surprise how it makes them feel. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I'd eat […]
Continue reading →
on
Punch was a satirical magazine first published in Victorian London. It had a long and noble history of poking fun at... well, just about every fashionable idea of the day. Anyone who pricked the public's conscious probably found themselves lampooned within its pages. Charles Babbage - inventor of the first mechanical computer - found himself […]
Continue reading →
Hmmm... I was left a bit unconvinced by this series of essays. They feel like casually written blog posts - or hastily dashed-off Sunday Supplement articles. I was expecting a bit more rigour and investigation. The book treads over well-worn ground - most Silicon Valley companies are trying to recreate Mommy tidying their room via […]
Continue reading →
on
Why do most programming languages use the / character when we have a perfectly good ÷ symbol? Similarly, why use != instead of ≠? Or => rather than →? The obvious answer is that the humble keyboard usually only has around 100 keys - and most humans have a hard time remembering where thousands of […]
Continue reading →