Episode 26 - Dan Pope's trntxt.uk
Do you want an ultra-minimalist, open source, train times website? If so, Dan Pope, has created trntxt.uk just for you! 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. …
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Introducing the new HTML element - welcome <clippy>!
google HTML5 standards web · 14 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~47,303 times
Hello! It looks like you're writing a blog post - would you like help with that? chuckles Me and my colleagues at Microsoft have decided that the world needs more Clippy - the adorable animated paperclip. To help with that, we're bringing a new feature to Edge 6.0. Web Developers can now use <clippy> to call up an animated virtual assistant. I've spoken to several people in Microsoft, and we …
Continue reading →Review: The Jennifer Morgue
Book Review · 200 words
Bob Howard is an IT expert and occasional field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's Secret Service that deals with occult threats. Dressed (grudgingly) in a tux and sent to the Caribbean, he must infiltrate a millionaire's yacht in order to prevent him from violating a treaty that will bring down the wrath of an ancient underwater race upon humanity's head. I met Stross in a…
Continue reading →Queer Computers In Science Fiction
robots Sci Fi · 4 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~632 times
An interesting question appeared on Twitter - where are the queer robots in Sci-Fi? Let's first define what we mean by Queer. This usually means outside of binary gender and/or someone who is attracted to the same sex - what's commonly referred to as LGBT+. Feel free to supply your own definition. As for what we mean by AI - let's go with "mechanical or non-biological autonomous being."…
Continue reading →Falsehoods programmers believe about flags
design falsehoods flags programming usability · 3 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~2,752 times
(For more about the "Falsehoods" meme - read the big list of falsehoods programmers believe.) Do You Want To Phone A Friend? A popular website asked me to confirm my phone number. It "helpfully" pre-filled the country-code with +1. And proudly displayed the Stars and Stripes. Except, of course, the USA isn't the only country to use +1 - our friends in the Great White North also use +1. …
Continue reading →HOWTO: Add sponsorship to a GitHub project
github money Open Source · 1 comment · 400 words · Viewed ~1,308 times
I've just seen that I can now add sponsorship to my GitHub projects. Here's a quick guide to how it works: Repo settings There's now a new option in your repository settings. Tick the box and click the button. Easy! WTF is YAML? This is a bit of a weird one. To set up sponsorship, you have to hand-edit a YAML text file. I would have expected this to be a easy to use GUI. Or something to…
Continue reading →102KB ought to be enough for any email
bug email gmail google · 12 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~4,401 times
Another day, another Gmail bug which won't get fixed. The original Android phone - HTC Dream - had 192MB of RAM. The latest Android phones tend to have 6GB. A 32 times increase in a decade. Laptops have also leapt forwards in speed and memory. Sadly, no one on the Gmail team has noticed. It's 2019, and Gmail app users are still seeing the dreaded "[Message Clipped] View entire message"…
Continue reading →How to run a tech swap shop at a conference
barcamp bclxi gadgets swishing · 550 words · Viewed ~265 times
At the recent BarCampLondon Ⅺ I decided to run a little experiment. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentAnyone coming to @barcamplondon fancy doing a Tech Swap Table with me?Bring bits of (working) kit and old gadgets that you don't want in the hope they find a loving home.Let me know if you want to take part 😁#bclxi❤️ 7💬 3🔁 016:20 - Sat 04 May 2019 The idea is similar to Swishing - a popular way t…
Continue reading →Invisible Pink Unicorns - a Firefox emoji rendering bug
bug emoji firefox linux unicode · 7 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~235 times
Here's a curious bug I just discovered in Firefox 67 for Linux. Can you see this unicorn: →🦄 ← What happens if you use CSS to change the opacity of an emoji? Here's a unicorn, with a pink font colour: 🦄 Unicorn Let's wrap that in this scrap of CSS to make it 50% opaque. color: rgba(255, 105, 180, 0.5); 🦄 Unicorn Hopefully, you see a semi-transparent philosophical argument. What if we set …
Continue reading →Warning - do not click on Twitter ads
badvertising spam twitter · 2 comments · 850 words · Viewed ~3,536 times
It seems that Twitter has lost control of its advertising system. This blog post will show you why it is dangerous to click on any Twitter advertising. Twitter ads have always been a bit crap, but I've seen a recent influx in outright scams. Let me step you through a couple of examples. A typical click-bait headline. What has our favourite celeb done this time? In a moment of weakness,…
Continue reading →Review: Scatter, Adapt, and Remember - Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz Book Review · 300 words
In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? Having read Newitz's brilliant sci-fi novel "Autonomous", I thought I'd try her pop-sci book from a few years ago. The central thesis is that animals survive when they "scatter" (find new habitats) and …
Continue reading →Adding Sign Language to HTML5 video
HTML5 standards video · 5 comments · 600 words · Viewed ~1,375 times
I watched this video from my colleagues in NHS England - it's the first time I've seen a Sign Language overlay on a Twitter video. NHS@NHSukNeed help fast, but not sure what to do? Go straight to 111.nhs.uk . To find out more about NHS 111 including how to use the NHS 111 BSL interpreter service visit nhs.uk/111 #NHS111 pic.x.com/tk18uvm2vy❤️ 16💬 1🔁 016:00 - Sat 18 May 2019 Is it possible to ha…
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