World War 2 was won by many men with big guns and feats of daring-do. Sure, the boffins in Bletchley might have helped a bit - but it was bombs, muscles, and blokes which saved the day. Well, that's what we're all taught, right? Would it surprise you to learn that a significant contributor to Victory in Europe was a woman? Britain's first "James Bond" wasn't a suave man leaping from building to building. She was a one-legged American woman who used her wit and cunning to help lay the…
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I genuinely think that USB-C might be the defining feature of the 21st century. A little port which is cheap enough to add to the most trivial of devices, and that can carry an impressive amount of power and data. All of my gadgets have it - phone, eReader, headphones, laptop, thermal printer, battery, games console - and now, my mosquito bite zapper! This is the "heat it" - it's about £30 on Amazon and is fucking magic. It's smaller than a thumb-drive, fits on a key-ring, and has no …
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I don't usually back Kickstarter campaigns - but I love sci-fi & fantasy, and I don't think I've previously read any from Ukraine. So this was an instant buy - and it is a delight. As with any translation, you have to accept that the phrasing may sound a little "foreign" and you won't immediately get all the idioms and references - but that's all part of the fun, right? A tiny drumming sound grew alongside him, like chubby old fingers on glass, like rain on a coffin. He would here die, too, …
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Let's do the time warp again! If you're new to the blog series, this is where I attempt to identify all the mobile phones used by The Doctor and their companions. The 2023 shows were an absolute blast. Some classic stories and a whole lot of running around. But were there any phones? Oh yes! The Star Beast First up, we get a gaggle of extras filming and taking selfies with the spaceship hurtling towards Cardiff London. All a bit blurry, but there are some iPhones in the mix. Shaun…
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It sometimes takes my brain a little while to catch up with reality. Back in 2019, I used Wikidata to improve a popular piece of art. I had lots of fun writing the code, fiddling with the output, and blogging about the process. Four years later I realised I could pay a poster shop to print it out! So I uploaded it to my RedBubble shop and paid about a tenner for them to print me off a HUGE version. The print quality was excellent: And I was going to use Bluetak to stick it to my…
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People who fart about with computers like to give themselves highfalutin titles. We're not programmers; we're architects! Yeah, nah. I wish I knew who recommended this book to me so that I could properly thank them. It is an astonishing series of life lessons viewed through the lens of architecture. Even to a lay-person like me, it was an accessible work - helped by Brand's friendly and unpretentious demeanour. It is chock-full of photos with lots of before-and-after shots - to the point…
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Dear the venture capitalists. I am a very charming white man and am prepared to drop out of university if you'll invest in these ideas. In the future, all your clothes are an NFT. "Wow! I love your blouse." "Thanks, here's a smart contract showing where I purchased it from. If you buy one, I get 10% of the sale price back in WoolworthsCoin." Applause Tokens™. A smart monitor under your theatre seat detects how long (and how loud) you applaud for. Remember, the more enthusiastic you are a…
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How do you know you're looking at an old website? You may have found a page which has lots of interesting information, but how can you tell it's a modern and relevant result? Some websites don't contain dates in their URls. There may not be a © date or publication date shown on the page. And the <meta> tags might not contain anything useful. If you're lucky, the site will look old fashioned: Unlike the BBC, most sites have adopted the "Eternal CSS" pattern. When fashions change, the entire …
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Way back in July 2017, Liz and I started OpenBenches.org. It was designed to be a fun way to record all the lovely memorial benches we saw on our walks. A few weeks ago, Stuart Orford added the thirty-thousandth entry! Here's what all that collective human effort looks like when plotted on a very exciting graph. Using a proprietary mix of AI and BIG DATA, I can confidentially predict that there is a slight uplift in entries when the weather is nice. And, by the end of the decade, every…
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You know it's a good gig when you're having too much fun to take photos! I'd decided to go see the Internet-famous Scary Pockets on tour in London. A few months after buying the tickets, they announced they were moving to a bigger venue due to overwhelming demand. The Troxy was heaving! It's an excellent venue with a large standing floor and plenty of booths and seats for those of us who don't want to be on our feet for a couple of hours. The support act was David Ryan Harris who is…
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The venerable NaNoWriMo is a self-directed challenge. To whit - can you write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November? It doesn't have to be a good novel. You just need to complete it. 50k words over 30 days is 1,667 words per day. If you can type at about 20 Words Per Minute, then you can bash out a novel in 90 minutes per day. I completed the challenge in 15 days and published a new chapter every day in November. I want to talk about how I did it and what I learned from it. What I…
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Well, that year happened! I quit my Civil Service job. Started my own consultancy. Then took on a new job working 4 days a week. Busy! I wrote a 50,000 word set of sci-fi short stories for NaNoWriMo. Contributed to lots of Open Source projects and did a few responsible disclosures - but got no bounties. Got sent some weird gadgets to review. Went to some splendid restaurants. Saw some decent shows - including The Who!. I did a few interviews for magazines and podcasts - but nothing like as…
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