By @edent · Book Review chinese Sci Fi · 200 words
Yet another compendium of Chinese sci-fi stories - and there are some great stories in this collection. There are also some essays about what makes Chinese science fiction Chinese. Based on my (limited) experience, I'd say one of the defining characteristics of the Chinese SF I've read is the way exposition is dispensed with and […]
Continue reading →By @edent · comedy tv · 13 comments · 300 words · read ~120 times.
I finished watching Frasier over lockdown - the miserable tale of a self-destructive incel - and decided to continue watching old American sitcoms. I thought Cheers was a hellish dystopia populated with malicious tormentors. So now on to M*A*S*H. It's hailed as a masterpiece of comedy. But, really, it's an exercise in military propaganda. The […]
Continue reading →By @edent · feminism history · 4 comments · 150 words · read ~119 times.
Due to a strange mix-up with an eBay order, I've come into possession of these rather quaint anti-suffragette postcards. I hope it is obvious that I am pro universal suffrage. What amuses me about these cards is how emotional they are! These aren't dispassionate arguments designed to calmly influence the rational man. It is all […]
Continue reading →By @edent · android CyberSecurity LineageOS security · 9 comments · 600 words · read ~220 times.
Should my bank be able to block me from using their Android app, just because my phone is rooted? I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that... yeah, it's fair that they get to decide their own risk tolerance. Sage of the Internet, and general Sooth Sayer, Cory Doctorow once gave an impassioned speech on "The […]
Continue reading →By @edent · OpenBenches php Symfony · 2 comments · 350 words · read ~101 times.
I once described my ideal coding environment to a colleague as "telneting directly into prod and damn the consequences!" I jest. But only a little. When I build for myself I treat best practices and coding styles as harmful. Chaotic evil but, hey, it's only myself I'm hurting. Anyway, my wife and I run a […]
Continue reading →By @edent · satire theatre · 550 words · read ~230 times.
Well, this is a glorious mess! The puppetry is astounding. The grey-clad puppeteers manipulate their charges with grace, precision, and joy. The work is so much more intricate than, say, Avenue Q. The mannerisms of the Tom Cruise doll are perfectly executed, with subtle moments of genius. The puppets range from miniscule to gigantic, with […]
Continue reading →By @edent · nhs technology · 1 comment · 350 words · read ~114 times.
Tom Dolan has an excellent blog post which touches, in part, on comparative cost. If you're working for, say, a TV company - then you know exactly how much an hour of TV programming costs on average. If you want to do something like build a website, it's quite natural for people to evaluate its […]
Continue reading →By @edent · google home · 250 words · read ~128 times.
There's no one dafter than the previous owner of your property. Over the years we've found dodgy wiring, horrificly bodged plaster, and things plumbed in backwards. We've started re-doing our garden recently. The hideous decking was quickly rotting away and needed removing. But what would we find under there? Google's StreetView for the web lets […]
Continue reading →By @edent · shakespeare · 650 words
I'll cheerfully admit to only having a hazy familiarity with the play (it's the one with twins that isn't 12th Night, and with the shipwreck which isn't Tempest, and with the annoyed money-lender which isn't Merchant of Venice... wait... perhaps I have seen it in aggregate!) On the one hand, this is an entirely traditional […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Auth0 HowTo php Symfony · 250 words
I am using Auth0's Symfony library to allow users to log in with their social network providers. It works really well. Using this firewall configuration, a user who visits /private is successfully taken through the login flow and I can then use $this->getUser() to see their details. security: password_hashers: Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\PasswordAuthenticatedUserInterface: 'auto' providers: users_in_memory: { memory: […]
Continue reading →