There are many improvisational games which are great for improving creativity, helping a team bond, or simply having a lot of fun. But there's one which is perfect for demonstrating how things like ChatGPT work. The "Once. Upon. A. Time." game requires two or more people with a basic grasp of English. Even a small child can play. The way it works is very simple. The first person says "Once..." The second person says "Once upon..." The next person says "Once upon a..." The next person says…
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There are movies before Being John Malkovich, and there are movies after Being John Malkovich. It sets the standard for celebrities playing heightened versions of themselves. Once of those post-Malkocivh movies is the criminally underrated JCVD. In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Jean-Claude Van Damme. He's an ageing movie star, dealing with a fading career, money problems, and divorce. Unexpectedly, he's caught in a criminal plot where he has to live up to his reputation as an action star.…
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My OnePlus 5T is beginning to show its age. After replacing the battery a few years ago, I felt it was time to upgrade its software to Lineage 20. Everything went smoothly - but there are a few niggles you should be aware of. Some of these are Google's fault - they truly have contempt for their users - and some could be fixed by Lineage if there were sufficient demand. I've mostly posted this list so that someone from XDA can tell me I'm an idiot and there's an easy fix for all of these…
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In 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein - setting the stage for modern science fiction. A mere 9 years later, Jane Loudon published "The Mummy!" which, to my mind, becomes one of the earliest works of speculative science fiction. Set in a 22nd Century England which is ruled over by a wise queen, a pair of scientists fly their personal hot-air balloon to Egypt where they use their galvanic battery to re-animate the mummified remains of Cheops. Disaster, naturally, befalls them. The story…
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I hated art class at school. I could see so clearly in my head what I wanted my drawing to look like - but my hands just wouldn't obey me. Despite endless tutoring from sympathetic teachers, I left school with an unhealthy distaste for creating my own art. I simply didn't have the physical skills, knowledge of technique, or the temperament to continue. These days, I enjoy playing with algorithmic art where I am more comfortable controlling the input and output. A few weeks ago, I went to a…
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I always find it depressing when I reach the limits of my abilities. I have a new Thermal Imaging camera. It automatically saves photos in two formats. The first is a standard JPEG with false colours and metadata superimposed. The second is a .irg file which can only be opened by the Windows-only software which comes with the camera. Judging from what that software shows, the .irg contains a raw thermal image and separate metadata. That makes it more useful for analysis. What I know…
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Computing is a comparatively young industry. We don't have hundreds of years of history, or secret societies jealously guarding our knowledge, or much love for hierarchy. This makes it difficult to progress in a world which values strict demarcations between people. There's an obvious and well documented path from Army Private to Sergeant. If you're an architect (the kind that designs buildings) there are various qualifications and bodies to assess your knowledge and seniority. But…
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If you're a Doctor Who fan - I promise that this post is going to please you greatly! The Internet is a weird and delightful place. For years now, I've been running a blog series about the Mobile Phones of Doctor Who. I went through every episode and painstakingly identified every mobile the cast used. People chipped in with their suggestions if I wasn't able to definitively state which phone was on screen. Hey, don't go yucking my yum, OK? Anyway, a few days ago, someone emailed me out of…
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I don't think I've ever spent £400 on a meal for two before...! Let's get that out of the way first. We decided to go out to celebrate our wedding anniversary, the completion of my MSc, Liz being appointed to a committee, and... you know what? Fuck you! It has been a bastard of a pandemic and we wanted a night of ridiculously extravagant luxury dining - and boy did we get it! Gauthier is a vegan dining experience like nothing I've had before. We took the "Grand Dîner" tasting menu. 11-courses …
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Last year, I reviewed the X-Sense wireless interlinked smoke alarms. They were a multipack of smoke alarms - set one off in the kitchen and the one in your bedroom will start chirping. As I noted at the time, they were only smoke alarms. Without an interlinked heat alarm, they may not have been compliant with Scottish legislation. Well, I'm pleased to say the fine folk at X-Sense have released an interlinked heat alarm. They've kindly sent me one to review. Set up was pretty easy. The…
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(This is a rant because I'm exhausted after debugging something. If you've made RegEx your whole personality, I'm sorry.) The other day I had to fix a multi-line Regular Expression (RegEx). After a few hours of peering at it with a variety of tools, I finally understood the problem. Getting that deep into the esoteric mysteries made me feel like a powerful wizard with complete mastery of my domain. And I think that's dangerous. I'm sure we've all read a story about a witch or wizard who…
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I've been reading lots of books about race, justice, and history. One of the things which confused me when I started this journey was the notion that race is a construct. But then I started reading about how Blumenbach literally invented the concept of distinct human races. And about how the discredited "Science" of race is making a comeback. And then about the Philosophy of Race weaves its pernicious influence. And I found it illuminating. Of course, theorising is a different experience to…
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