Book Review · 150 words
I have to say, I did not get on with this book. The central conceit is that a sci-fi fan is abducted by aliens and their universal translator converts everything into understandable slang. So we get lots of warp factors, ansibles, dilithium crystals, and Hitchiker’s references. It makes the whole thing feel a bit cheap. OK, maybe it is a little silly when an author comes up with some t…
Continue reading →android google GrapheneOS nfc · 11 comments · 650 words · Viewed ~8,667 times
Google's monopolistic stranglehold on Android results in poor experience for power-users, and artificially restricts choice for those who have older phones. For example, Google Wallet is the de facto way to use NFC payments on Android. There's one problem though - it only works with Google's Android. If you have the temerity to install a 3rd party Android OS - like the hyper-secure GrapheneOS - …
Continue reading →Book Review NetGalley · 350 words · Viewed ~210 times
This is a cheerful and convivial look through the history of humanity's search for life "out there". It isn't an "ancient aliens" style book of nonsense, but rather a steady walk through what has actually happened - and what we hope might happen. It is a beautiful PDF which has been gorgeously typeset and lushly illustrated. So many fonts! Sure, it isn't brilliant for eInk but excellent for a…
Continue reading →electricity energy HomeAssistant IoT Smart Home · 8 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~972 times
I unashamedly love my smart-meter. Rather than having my energy provider guesstimate my bill, or having to send manual readings each month, it automatically beams them back to its mothership. It also enables interesting things like variable energy tariffs. By design, the smart-meter is limited in how much data it can send back. You can choose to have readings sent monthly, weekly, daily, or…
Continue reading →Book Review Mary Robinette Kowal · 2 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~256 times
The Lady Astronaut books are an absolute triumph - it's just a shame that they've been somewhat overshadowed by the TV series "For All Mankind". They both follow a similar trajectory - what if women were an integral part of the early space race and helped us to colonise off-world? The books, thankfully, don't pad out as much as the rival show - this latest novel is tightly focussed and takes us …
Continue reading →Theatre Review · 550 words
Leave your cynicism at the door. Jukebox musicals usually stick to a single-artist (Mamma Mia, & Juliet, Tommy). As a result, they all start to sound a bit samey after a few numbers. Shows like Return To The Forbidden planet shoe-horn in songs from a dozen artists without much regard to plot, tone, or pacing. Just For One Day goes down a different route. Rather than just recreate the famous…
Continue reading →CyberSecurity hacking linux nfc rfid · 8 comments · 900 words · Viewed ~36,984 times
For boring and totally not nefarious reasons, I want to read all the data contained in my passport's NFC chip using Linux. After a long and annoying search, I settled on roeften's pypassport. I can now read all the passport information, including biometrics. Table of ContentsBackgroundRecreating the MRZPython code to generate an MRZCan you read a cancelled passport?Cryptography and other…
Continue reading →bug chrome chromium svg · 550 words · Viewed ~849 times
Writing web standards is hard. You have to write a formal specification which is useful for machines, humans, and web developers. I recently stumbled across what I think is a little bug which might be caused by a misreading of the SVG Animation specification. Here you should see two overlapping circles gradually appear: If you're on Chrome, you…
Continue reading →Theatre Review · 500 words · Viewed ~263 times
Everyone I know told me to go and see this show. I resisted as long as possible but managed to score cheap last-minute tickets via a friend. I wish I hadn't waited so long! If you're unaware of the book (or the film. Or the novelisation of the film. Or the Twitter thread. Or the inaccurate tumblr retelling.) the story involves a dastardly British plan to use a corpse to fool the Nazi menace…
Continue reading →Book Review satire Sci Fi · 2 comments · 200 words · Viewed ~355 times
No book has the right to be this good. It's the sort of howling sci-fi satire that Ben Elton used to excel at - a novel set five minutes in the future with a eye firmly on today's problems. The plot is delightful - what if carbon credits extinction credits were the new capitalist plaything? What second, third, and forth order effects would that have on the world? The worldbuilding is sublime -…
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Mostly notes to myself. Shotwell stores most of its information in a database. Which I lost. Because I'm an idiot. But a bunch of metadata is also stored in the image's EXIF metadata! Most importantly is the "Original File Name" which should become the "Description" in DigiKam. Unfortunately, there's no way to copy those values automatically on import. So here's a one-liner which will read…
Continue reading →Book Review politics · 1 comment · 350 words · Viewed ~273 times
I expected so much more from this book. It starts with a central thesis - the UK over-indexes on America because we speak the same language, but there is an enormous gulf in attitudes between the two nations. We rarely hear on the news what's happening in France, Germany, or Ireland even though they're much closer geographically, politically, and culturally. That sounds like a pretty good book! …
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