A decade later, has my mobile security advice changed?


Logo for 361 degrees podcast.

A decade ago, I appeared on the 361 Podcast to give my advice about mobile security. This was the era of the iPhone 5 and Android KitKat. BlackBerry was trying to have (yet another) resurgence and Nokia was desperately trying to keep Windows Phone alive. What advice did I give then, and is it still […]

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Book Review: Yellowface - Rebecca F. Kuang


Book cover. Bright yellow. A pair of almond-shaped eyes peer out.

This is a fucking audacious thriller! I literally stayed up way past my bedtime, tearing through the chapters, gasping out loud. The core of the story is simple - a woman steals her dead friend's manuscript and passes it off as her own. Will she get caught? The hook (for want of a better term) […]

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Book Review: How to Speak Whale - A Voyage Into the Future of Animal Communication by Tom Mustill


Book Cover for How To Speak Whale.

This is an excellent pop-science book. It gently weaves a personal tale (nearly getting crushed by a whale) into the current cutting-edge research of animal communication. It takes in along the way philosophy, geopolitics, and the crushing inevitability of death. At its heart is this question - if modern AI is brilliant at extracting semantic […]

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Social Media Blocking Has Always Been A Lie


Portrait photo of a woman with tape over her mouth. Photo by Katie Tegtmeyer, CC-BY.

What does it mean to block someone on a social media site? Way back in the mists of time, we dealt with trolls on Usenet with the almighty PLONK - PLaced On Newsgroup Killfile. It meant your newsreader never downloaded their posts. They could rant at you all day long, and you'd never hear from […]

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Premium Bonds can still win prizes even *after* you've sold them!


A fiver and some coins on a table.

This is a bit niche! A few months ago, I received a mysterious £25 from National Savings and Investments. A prize from the Premium Bonds! Not enough to make me rich, but enough for a takeaway. Oddly, after checking their app and website, I could find no record of the win. Curious. A few days […]

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The Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - The Four Doctors (1993)


Photo of Pertwee, Colin Baker, McCoy, and Davison standing outside the TARDIS. They all have 1990s mobile phones.

The Mirror has a rather wonderful image gallery of behind the scenes photos from Doctor Who. Lots of lovely black-and-white photos of classic stories. And then, right at the end, this: Cor! Four classic Doctors each with a mobile! This photoshoot was, apparently, done at the Hammersmith Ark which was holding an exhibition to celebrate […]

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http:, ftp:, and ... dict:?


Photo of a dictionary,.

I went for a spelunk0 through an ancient codebase a few weeks ago which contained a curious regex that I just couldn't grok1. {<((https?|ftp|dict|tel):[^\'">\s]+)>}i I'm familiar with HTTP and FTP. I worked in the mobile industry, so knew that tel:+44... could be used to launch a dialer. But DICT?!?!?! It turns out that, lurking on […]

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Theatre Review: Big Finish *LIVE!* Doctor Who - The Stuff of Legend


Promo poster for The Stuff of Legend.

Big Finish have been pumping out Doctor Who audio dramas for quarter of a century. But this, apparently, is the first time they've recorded one live and in front of an audience. It was glorious! Big Finish could have cheaped out - even with a bare set and a cast of newbies, the fans would […]

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Not everyone is as good at reading and writing as you are


"How To Fake Lile You Are Nice And Caring." A still from the film Magnolia.

It may be hard for you to understand this; reading is a skill. Unless you have recently started learning a new language with an unfamiliar writing system, you probably do not remember the tedious and agonising process of having to train your brain to recognise printed characters. Extracting meaning from the words you are reading […]

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Why does no-one discuss negative dynamic pricing?


Ticket receipt.

Much hullabaloo about Oasis using "Dynamic Pricing" for their concerts. There are far more fans than there are tickets, so prices rise. There are all sorts of complicated economic theories around how efficient markets can be, and whether "reverse Dutch auctions" are sensible. But the end result is always the same - the richest fans […]

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