It's hard reviewing a comic book like this. A weekly or daily feed of little vignettes of lockdown life regularly raises a chuckle. But it long-form, it doesn't quite work. We already know how the story ends - after a year, you're still in lockdown. You've grown around the belly, but have you grown as a person? No, probably not. The sketches are cheerful, relatable, and a little heartbreaking in places. You'll probably recognise your own behaviour in more than a couple. And, I guess that's …
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I blog about my solar panels - probably a bit too much! Recently, a reader asked me if I'd heard of Rowan Energy's solar payback scheme - so I took a look into it. Here's how it works: Rowan installer a "miner" next to your solar inverter (the big box that turns DC from solar panels into AC for home use). The "miner" monitors how much electricity you produce and reports it back via your home Internet connection. The readings are written onto a blockchain. Rowan pays you 10p per kWh your…
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The UK faces an epidemic of telephone scams. Fraudsters are constantly calling people up pretending to be their bank. But how can you be sure the number displayed on your screen in genuine? You can't. The telecom system is hopelessly insecure and shouldn't be trusted for anything more complicated than dialling the speaking clock. Barclays bank knows that customers are worried about this. So they've produced a handy website where you can see if a telephone number belongs to Barclays. Because…
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Our society has been shaped by the car in innumerable ways, many of which are so familiar that we no longer notice them. Why does red mean stop and green mean go? Why do some countries drive on the left, and some on the right? How did cars, introduced only a little over a century ago, change the way the world was administered, laid out and policed, along with experiences like eating and shopping? And what might travel in a post-car world look like? As social transformations from…
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Being from the United Kingdom is hard sometimes. When scrolling through a list of countries, we might be found down the bottom as "UK" or near the top as "Great Britain". Occasionally someone files us under "England" - thus ignoring Wales, Scotland, NI etc. Once in a while, it'll be "The UK". Truly, no one has suffered as we have suffered⸮ Here's a list of countries from the Curve Credit card (join and we both get a fiver!) - I scrolled all the way to the bottom looking for the UK, only to f…
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Hundreds of years ago, the last humans left Earth. After centuries wandering empty space, humanity was welcomed – mostly – by the species that govern the Milky Way, and their generational journey came to an end. But this is old history. Today, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a place many are from but few outsiders have seen. When a disaster rocks this already fragile community, those Exodans who have not yet left for alien cities struggle to find their way in an uncertain future. Amo…
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Beginning during the final events of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, this standalone sequel branches out to explore new characters and new corners of the galaxy. Once, Lovelace had eyes and ears everywhere. She was a ship’s artificial intelligence system, tasked with caring for the health and well-being of her crew, possessing a distinct personality and very human emotions. Now, reactivated and reset, Lovelace finds herself in a synthetic body. She’s gone from being virtually omn…
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