Opening Night is complex, fascinating, and flawed. It is baffling that this is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The acting and singing are incredible - Nicola Hughes in particular has a magnificent stage presence. The directing and staging is wonderfully innovative - giving even the most distant seat a close-up view. The songs are all great - with "You gotta make magic" a standout hit. The whole ensemble comes together in a perfect display of a what a West End musical is supposed to…
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I was building some flatpack furniture the other day (my life is so glamorous) when I came across an interesting example of how not to write technical documentation. Drill a hole in part A and insert part B once you have ensured part C has been aligned after its connection to A. Most people can handle reading a whole sentence to figure out what's going on. But, after a tiring day of building, it is somewhat annoying having to juggle instructions into actions. Most readers will assume…
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This is a weird book. The politics of the Star Wars universe are rarely deeply examined. The various tax-related shenanigans of The Phantom Menace were derided by geeks but here become a potent source for art as a dozen artists reimagine classic propaganda posters from Earth and remix them with pop-culture. There are some stunning pieces of art - with a real feel of history. Here's a typical sample: Others just look like they were stitched together from clipart. The images are a decently …
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Many years ago - when I was very young and you were even younger - it was standard for an ISP to provide all their users with a small amount of webspace. Both Pipex and Demon offered webspace back in 1996. If my hazy memory is correct, they offered a few megabytes - more than enough for a fledgeling website. But, over the years, ISPs shut down their bundled web offerings. Even their bundled email services went on the chopping block. This is sad, but understandable. Most people unbundled…
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This is a blast from start to finish. I haven't heard such screams of laughter since, well, the last Mischief production I saw! The Mind Manger is a crap magician dealing with his shitty home life, a tosspot stooge, and an audience full of idiots. Naturally, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Imagine a very grumpy Tommy Cooper who despises his audience and, against all the evidence to the contrary, is convinced of his own mesmeric ability. It's a fully interactive show - the whole…
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The good folks at Kaiweets have sent me their KTI-W01 Thermal Camera to review. You can use coupon code TEB15 for an exclusive 15% discount. Let's get this unboxed and working! Demo Photos The photos are stored as JPGs which can be read by any normal graphics program. They also contain the thermal metadata which you can extract with specialist tools. Here's the full photo taken with the camera. It shows the interior of an office with some computer equipment on a shelf. You aren't…
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Every technology is a transitional technology. This book makes the case that the complexity of modern technology is, well, complex! Systems are designed by so many people that their outputs are an utter mystery to anyone - even those deeply enmeshed within them. It is somewhat scattershot - leaping between sextech, payment processors, architecture, and half a dozen other subjects. Each chapter is a worthy examination of a complex technology - but I felt it would have benefited from being a…
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The good folk at WAVLINK have sent me their Dual-Screen USB-C adapter to review. Plug it in to a USB-C socket and you now have two extra monitor ports. It'll even work on a USB-A socket, if it is USB 3.0. But is it any good? No. Not really. Hardware It's a fairly chunky hub, with a tragically short USB cable. The USB cable has a dongle which converts it from C to A. That's handy if you don't have enough C ports. But the cable being so short means it is sort of awkward to place. If you're …
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My love of Android waxes and wanes according to how much the software feels like it is fighting me. On a good day, I can flash the OS and install whatever apps I want. On a bad day, I can't remove bloatware and I'm forbidden from changing the internals. I started using the latest Google version of Android on their Pixel 8 Pro. I say "their" because it never really felt like the device was mine. Google kept popping up and asking me to do things which were clearly in their interest; not mine.…
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An outstanding and joyous show. Through Rachael Stirling we catch a glimpse of Sarah Siddons - the acclaimed 18th/19th century actress. Stirling - and the entire cast - are exceptional. They transport us backstage with a dazzling array of characters. Every single actor gets a scene-stealing moment - it's lovely to see a cast having so much fun. It is Noises Off versus The Patriarchy as we discover how hard it is to be a actress (and authoress) in a world where female celebrity was only just…
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I was noodling around in PHP the other day and discovered that this works: <?php $🍞 = "bread"; echo "Some delicious " . $🍞; I mean, there's no reason why it shouldn't work. An emoji is just a Unicode character (OK, not just a character - but we'll get on to that), so it should be fine to use anywhere. Emoji work perfectly well as function names: function 😺🐶() { echo "catdog!"; } 😺🐶(); Definitions: define( "❓", "huh?" ); echo ❓; And, well, pretty much everywhere: class 🦜 { publi…
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I want to make one thing very clear. Despite my propensity for IoT gadgetry, I did not connect my toilet to the Internet! It's 2024. Why are you still scraping your arsehole with paper like some kind of 20th century throwback? A decade ago, I got a cheap bidet attachment. It wasn't great. The water was cold, the fittings leaked, and the plastic was creaky. For our recent bathroom renovation, I decided that I wanted to get a proper Japanese style toilet with integrated bidet and all the…
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