The headlines were clear - Upcoming solar eclipse to wreak havoc on Germany's solar power output screamed the headlines. Although the reality was slightly more prosaic. Although it's only one data point, I'd like to show you what happened to our solar panels during the eclipse. The full day graph shows a clear dip during…
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Last year, during Britain's windy season, my car was struck by a tree. I say struck. I saw it teeter and made the wise decision to accelerate through it as it fell on top of me! Slightly more detail of the tree what fell on me. pic.twitter.com/5fgi1ZHyln — Terence Eden (@edent) October 21, 2014 It…
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A couple of weeks ago, I was a finalist at FameLab Oxford. I won the "Audience Choice" award - and was placed in the "Wildcard" category for a place at the National Final 🙂 OMG! Just won the audience vote at the #FameLab final. Thanks guys ☺#ScienceFTW pic.twitter.com/bWWQGk7unC — Terence Eden (@edent) March 6, 2015…
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I remember the first time I saw a Swastika in India. It was gaudy red, painted on the back of a dusty yellow moped. The driver wore a helmet, but the woman riding pillion had only her sari to protect her head. India is different. The rules of the road are different. The languages are…
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I had dinner with the outgoing editor of The Guardian the other night. Clever chap, sure he'll go far in life. The Guardian is very hot on security. Many of their writers have PGP keys which they publicly advertise. In theory, that's great (complaints about PGP notwithstanding) - but the reality shows just how tricky…
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Recently I've been plagued with Tweets saying that I'm "trending in London." As flattering as that is, it's not true. There appears to be a network of Twitter bots which are randomly repeating other people's tweets, ripping off avatars and bios, and generally causing a nuisance. Looking at the users' Twitter name, I don't think…
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There are two very clear signs that I'm getting old. The first is that I bought a domestic robot to help me with the chores. The second is that, rather than spending my evenings and weekends reading decades old forum postings, reverse engineering serial interfaces, and soldering components together - I plunked €99 on a…
Continue reading →(An adaptation of my earlier blog post on the same topic1.) This is a case study focusing on the usability of encryption systems as used by political dissidents in Apartheid era South Africa. Background - South Africa Between 1948 and 1994, the nation of South Africa was ruled by an ethnically white minority. They set…
Continue reading →Last week I was on In The Abstract - a science podcast - along with the very funny Francesca Day , the mediumly funny Tara Clarke, and the just-funny-enough Steve Pritchard. During the talk, I completely forget the name of the Rosetta Disc and made several legally doubtful slurs against Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.…
Continue reading →Last week I was on the In The Abstract podcast. I came up with a curious idea. If I were Tom Scott, I'd turn this into a performance piece - instead, here's a short and entirely fictional story. Facebook knew you were in love a long time before you did. It noticed you scrolling back…
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