SIP is a stupid acronym. It's basically a standard way of making phone calls over the Internet. This means you can make and receive phone calls over WiFi. Here's how I got it working - for free - on Android. By the end of this tutorial you will be able to: Receive calls to a new phone number, sent via WiFi to your Android handset. Receive calls to your existing phone number, redirected to arrive over WiFi. Get a SIP account Sign up for a free SIPGate Basic account. Doesn't cost you…
Continue reading →
A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England… They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married and buried by the Church. They were paid wages like any other T…
Continue reading →
Stuck in lockdown, what else is there to do other than rewatching old sitcoms ad nauseam? When I was a kid, Frasier seemed to be the epitome of sophistication and wit. It is still, mostly, hilarious. The farce is sublime, the puns intricate, and the pomposity is cringe-worthy. But, naturally, large parts of it have not aged well. Originally I was planning on writing an episode-by-episode critique - but who has time for that? Whiteness and White Fragility There's an almost complete absence…
Continue reading →
Another day, another phone scam. Yesterday, I received a call from +442085044434 by someone trying to get me to "invest" in BitCoin and other Cryptocurrencies. I managed to drag the call out for 6 minutes - have a listen: 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. The caller admits the trading and advice isn't regulated. That they don't need permission to make marketing calls. And that Estonia is the home of many Cryptocurrencies(!) I'm not a brilliant scam bater. I didn't manage to get his addr…
Continue reading →
I recently gave an online presentation at Tech Nottingham. It went off without a hitch, and I got some great feedback. I'd like to briefly discuss the tech that I used to make it all work. Here's "mission control": On the left portrait monitor, I had two windows. The top one was Zoom, running in Chrome (more on that later). This was what I was presenting from. I kept it on screen so that I could see what others were seeing. There's nothing more annoying than having to stop a presentation…
Continue reading →
A modern take on Charles Dickens's classic tale of a young orphan who is able to triumph over many obstacles. Written and directed by Armando Iannucci, based on the 1850 novel by Charles Dickens. It stars Dev Patel as the title character. This is such a joyous movie. It is a fast, funny, and beautifully shot piece. I've no idea how faithful it is to the original. Frankly, I don't care. A movie is a separate type of art to a book and deserves separate treatment. One of the most lovely…
Continue reading →
How to Build a Girl is a 2019 coming-of-age comedy film directed by Coky Giedroyc, from a screenplay by Caitlin Moran and John Niven, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Moran. The film tells the story of Johanna Morrigan, teenager living with her working-class family on a council estate in Wolverhampton, England, who grows up to become a popular but conflicted music journalist. Beanie Feldstein seems born to play awkward teenagers in coming-of-age comedies. Good! She's excellent…
Continue reading →
This is a real "scratch my own itch" post. I want to add Schema.org semantic metadata to the book reviews I write on my blog. This will enable "rich snippets" in search engines. There are loads of WordPress plugins which do this. But where's the fun in that?! So here's how I quickly built it into my open source blog theme. Screen options First, let's add some screen options to the WordPress editor screen. This is what it will look like when done: This is how to add a custom metabox to…
Continue reading →
For millennia, dominant societies have had the habit of believing their own people to be the best, deep down: the more powerful they become, the more power begins to be framed as natural, as well as cultural. When you see how power has shaped the idea of race, then you can start to understand its meaning. In the twenty-first century, we like to believe that we have moved beyond scientific racism, that most people accept race as a social construct, not a biological one. But race science …
Continue reading →
"A woman is boxed out by the male sports agents in her profession, but gains an unexpected edge over them when she develops the ability to hear men's thoughts. I remember taking a date to see "What Women Want" back in 2000. It was a lousy movie, but I ended up marrying the date - so it wasn't a totally wasted evening. What Men Want is a fairly lazy updating of the "classic" story. What if a high-powered business woman could read the minds of all the men around her? That's it. That's the…
Continue reading →
The only thing I miss about my old MacBook was its magnetic charging cable. It was just so convenient to be able to hover the plug near my laptop and have it snap into place. If I walked off with my machine, I knew the cable would easily spring out - rather than jerking me back or breaking. So here's a gadget to convert any USB device to magnetic charging! Chinese company TOPK have sent me some of their Magnetic Charging Cables to review. How it works Plug the receiver into your gadget.…
Continue reading →
I was sent this gadget in return for a fair review. It's awful, so I returned it. To avoid you making the same mistake, here's my review. This is a "Multifunction UltraViolet Sterilizer With Aromatherapy" by Nuxgal. It's a reasonably clever idea for a device. A USB powered UV lamp with a timer. Shove your phone or face mask in there, hit a button, and take it out when the time is up. Great in theory, but really badly executed. This is so annoying to use. When you plug it in, it makes a…
Continue reading →
