By @edent · bluetooth Briar · 7 comments · 600 words · read ~1,962 times.
Problem: My wife and I are going on a long plane journey and don't have seats next to each other. How can we communicate? Constraints: The plane WiFi is ruinously expensive. The in-seat messaging service isn't private. We both have Android phones. Preferences: Open Source. Secure. Easy to use. Solution: Use Bluetooth messaging app Briar. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Tales Of The Algorithm · 1 comment · 3,200 words
< p>Another short story. This time in the form of a screenplay - formatted with screenplay.css. < p>What do the algorithms get up to behind our backs? The Life Script A play for algorithms SCENE I INTERIOR A DULL LOOKING OFFICE. A BLUE LIGHT SUFFUSES THE STAGE. TWO ALGORITHMS SIT ACROSS FROM EACH OTHER, EACH […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review gaming · 1 comment · 1,600 words
I have never felt less like a human being than while reading this book. I don't mind video-games, I find them mildly diverting. I've never gotten in to massively multiplayer online games (unless you count Twitter). I just don't see what's appealing about them. Why would I want a bunch of teenagers screaming racial slurs […]
Continue reading →By @edent · HTML unicode webdev · 6 comments · 650 words · read ~12,250 times.
Originally posted as part of HTML Hell's advent calendar. While browsing Mastodon late one night, I came across this excellent blog post called HTML is all you need to make a website. It describes a few websites which are pure HTML. No CSS and no JS. And I thought… do you even need HTML to […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Movie Review · 3 comments · 300 words
How many times can you go back to the well before it is completely dry? With Kevin Smith, it's always once more. I remember watching the original Clerks about a hundred years ago at university. It was a cheap a daring movie then - and remains a mainstay of what you can do if you […]
Continue reading →By @edent · gadget review usb-c · 4 comments · 450 words · read ~249 times.
Winter has come! And with it the risk of power-cuts. Thankfully, we already have a Uninteruptable Power Supply for vital things like WiFi and security. But what about lights? Hurrah for candles! They're not just for birthday cakes, you know. But how do you light candles? I vaguely remember something about rubbing two stones together? […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Game Review metaverse oculus review vr · 400 words
I thoroughly enjoyed the first Red Matter VR game, so I leapt at the sequel when it was on offer. What's it like? Exactly the same as the first. Lots of creepy corridors, a range of puzzles, and a sedate-ish journey. You're exploring an abandoned space-station, looking for clues and trying to figure out what […]
Continue reading →By @edent · bcs Open Source · 7 comments · 350 words
I'm chuffed to bits to announce that I was recently elected to chair the BCS's Open Source community group! The British Computer Society is an august body, and the OSSG have put on some brilliant talks in the last few years. But I'd like to shake things up a little. I want us to move […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Auth0 OpenBenches Social Media · 7 comments · 800 words · read ~412 times.
The inimitable Simon Willison has a brilliant presentation all about managing side projects: It is all good advice. But I gently disagree with the slide which says: Avoid side projects with user accounts If it has user accounts it’s not a side-project, it’s an unpaid job I get the sentiment. Storing passwords securely is hard. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · fediverse MastodonAPI · 1 comment · 500 words · read ~861 times.
Computer Science has two canonical "hard problems": cache invalidation naming things off-by-one errors Let's talk about how we name unique items in Federated services - for example, posts on a social media service. If you have only one service, it's pretty easy. Every time a new entry is created in a database, give it a […]
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