It's my birthday! As is customary, here's my year in review. See 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010. WHAT. A. FUCKING. YEAR! The year started with me getting a colonoscopy - and went downhill from there. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentWell gang, I'm drinking a litre of industrial strength laxative in preparation for a colonoscopy tomorrow morning.How's *your* Saturday night going?❤️ 11💬 15🔁 017:14 - Sat 23 November 2019 The camera-up-the bum wasn't too bad. No cancer,…
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The Kendrick family have been making world-famous dolls for over 200 years. But their dolls aren't coveted for the craftsmanship alone. Each one has a specific emotion laid on it by its creator. A magic that can make you feel bucolic bliss or consuming paranoia at a single touch. Though founded by sisters, now only men may know the secrets of the workshop. Persephone Kendrick longs to break tradition and learn her ancestors' craft, and when a handsome stranger arrives claiming doll-making …
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In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. My brother recommended this astounding book to me! I know next to nothing about Greek mythology, so this was a…
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My date of birth is the 1st of January 1901. My phone number is 0000000000. My gender is decided on a coin flip. My country of residence is Afghanistan. And my Mother's maiden name is a random mix of upper-case, lower-case, numbers, and symbols. Well, that's what you would believe if you were any website I've registered for. If you're a free WiFi provider, you get random details. Unless you have a legitimate reason for needing my name and address, you'll find that I live in a desirable area of …
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One of the things I loved about Facebook was its "On This Day" feature. There's something delightful about seeing what nonsense you were talking about on this day a decade ago. Twitter doesn't have anything like that. So I built it. Introducing - Twistory.ml Note: Twitter's recent changes means this no longer works. Stick your @ name in, hit the big button, and you'll get a list of everything you said on this day in previous years. The code is open on GitLab. It's not the prettiest site, …
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Academic citations are hard. One of the joys of the Digital Object Identifier System (DOI) is that every academic paper gets a unique reference - like: 10.34053/artivate.8.2.2. As well as always leading you to a URl of the paper, a DOI also provides lots of metadata. Things like author, publisher, ORCID, year of publication etc. I've built a simple website that turns any DOI into a semantic HTML reference - get started at DOI2HT.ML. Here's what it looks like: Pop a DOI in the box and hit…
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I recently had an interesting voting experience which I'd like to share with you. Perhaps you can give me some advice? I'm a member of a board and we recently held an election for new board members. We had 8 spaces and 19 candidates. Candidates wrote a short application and we each ranked them in preference order. My most favoured candidate was ranked 1, the worst candidate was ranked 19. With multi-member elections, there are seemingly endless ways to tally votes. So we tallied them…
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I have a distinct and unpleasant memory of my parents not-arguing-in-front-of-the-children. It was the early 1990s and my parents had decided to take us on a road trip across America. My dad's experience of driving the sleepy high-streets of the UK suburbs had not prepared him for the terror of the Los Angeles freeway at night. He was jetlagged and my mum, bless her, can't read maps. On the hard shoulder, of the wrong side of the road, they argued about whether the map really said that you…
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Welcome to the world of endless conference calls! My last pair of headphones broke after a few months of constant use, so I decided to treat myself to a new, sturdier pair. These Aftershokz are SEVENTY QUID! Which is about £40 more than I usual spend on a pair of cans. But these use magic to get the sound into your head. They make your cheekbones vibrate and that sends the music direct to your eardrums. This means your ears can still receive outside sounds. Handy if you're jogging and don't …
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All dogs go to heaven, that's just science. But cats are contrary buggers and hang around long after their nine lives are up. My cat, Busby, was the scourge of squirrels. The menace of mice. The dispatcher of rats. Legend tells of the day a dozen foxes ran screaming from the bushes, being chased by a jet-black missile of fury. I'm not saying he was maliciously evil. But we frequently saw squirrels without their tails, and rabbits without their heads. Occasionally we would find them with our …
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Without your permission, or even your awareness, tech companies are harvesting your location, your likes, your habits, your relationships, your fears, your medical issues, and sharing it amongst themselves, as well as with governments and a multitude of data vultures. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you and decide for you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to. And it's not just you. It's all your contacts too, all your fellow citizens.…
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It has been over five years since I added WiFi to a Roomba. Technology has come a long way since then. I've just bought a WiFi enabled mopping robot for under £150. This is the snappily named Muzili G9070. It is a rebranded Tuya model - more on that later - which is available under a range of names. It is... good! Not just for a cheap Chinese robot, but it is genuinely good. Fill it with water, hit the button - on the unit, app, or remote control - and off it goes. If you have carpets, you …
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