After railing against eSIM-only phones for over a decade, I've finally succumbed. It appears impossible to buy a modern phone without them. Thankfully, most seem to be dual-SIM. So I can have a regular SIM card and an eSIM. I find dual-SIM phones handy. I have a disposable number which I give out to people who don't need my main number. And when I go abroad, it's useful to have a local SIM. …
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A few years ago, classic TV comedy MASH, was remastered and released on streaming platforms. The picture quality was massively increased with just one minor flaw. They cropped the image to 16:9 widescreen 😱 This upset some fans. The thing about widescreen is that it chops off the top and bottom of the picture. The top of Hawkeye's head? Gone! The bottom of Hot-Lips' boots? Vanished! אױ װײ איז …
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Bill's back! Fresh from winning some dance show on linear-TV and ready to... well, do the same thing as he's been doing for years. Rambling tales, dozens of instruments, innovative tech, and a charming whimsy - undercut with, perhaps, a little more darkness than usual. It is a classic, if unsurprising gig. There's an odd segue into Pachelbel's Canon - material which has been mined to extinction…
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It's always fun keeping your network inspector tab open. While looking around the O2 UK website, I found this page all about eSIMs. For some reason, it wants to know the user's phone number. I put in a random number, and it refused to let me in. Putting in a genuine O2 number let me through. So what is it doing to validate numbers? It is making an API call to this URl: …
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A few weeks ago, I built an ActivityPub Server in a Single PHP File. It's a proof of concept showing how easy it is to turn a website into a full-featured Fediverse participant. After a bunch of feedback and testing, I've added a some features to make it slightly more useful. A single PHP file - 45KB of no-library goodness. Just add your details, upload, and done. No databases. Everything…
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Do you know about the EURion constellation? It is a pattern which is embedded into some modern banknotes and has a curious property. Most modern photocopiers will, if they detect the pattern, refuse to make a copy. Try it for yourself - stick a €20 note into your nearest Xerox machine and try to print out some illicit currency - see what happens! It goes a little further Some printers will r…
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After watching the First few series of the TV show "M*A*S*H", I thought I'd give the original movie a go. It isn't very good. Even if you ignore the rampant racism - and there is a lot of racism - you still have to content with the brutal misogyny - and it is toe-curlingly grim. Then you get the homophobia which, may have been of its time, but the sexual assault isn't. And if you can get past…
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