By @edent · Book Review · 450 words
I did not get on well with this story. I know every novel has to be about The Pandemic, but this feels like it really wants to hammer home that Boris Johnson wasn't an especially good PM. I mean, yeah, we lived it. We know. At its heart, a story about how a family survives […]
Continue reading →By @edent · battery eink HowTo php solar · 700 words · read ~378 times.
I'm a little bit obsessed with building eInk displays. They're pretty cheap second hand. They're low energy, passive displays, with good-enough performance for occasional updates. Here's a new one which shows me what the current cost of my electricity is: Background After installing solar panels, a smart electricity meter, and a solar battery - the […]
Continue reading →By @edent · gadget linux review usb-c · 550 words
The good folks at Fifine have sent me this neat little microphone to review. Unboxing Sound Quality Writing about microphones is like painting about flavour. So here's what it sounds like: No noticeable hiss. Captured my voice perfectly. It picked up a little clack from my keyboard as I typed. Colleagues could hear me clearly […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT Smart Home · 12 comments · 150 words · read ~1,655 times.
Another blog post which is a long and complex search query. I have a bunch of smart plugs. Some use WiFi, some use Zigbee, some use Bluetooth. None of them use PowerLine Ethernet. Why is that? I have a bunch of PowerLine Ethernet adapters. They let me use my home's electrical wiring as a network. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review meta · 2 comments · 300 words
Rather pleasingly, I averaged one book a week this year, 52 in total. 24 by women - although that doesn't include compilations which had a mixture of genders. So fairly even handed. As per usual, I alternated between fiction and non-fiction. I find my brain gets confused otherwise. I also set my eReader to have […]
Continue reading →By @edent · art ForSale map OCSE · 5 comments · 950 words · read ~613 times.
I'm delighted to announce that I've actually finished a project! Over the last few years, I've been designing a custom map. As per the credo of the "Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality", this map uses the Equal Earth projection to ensure proportional land-mass size, the South is at the up, and - of course […]
Continue reading →By @edent · NaNoWriMo Tales Of The Algorithm · 1 comment · 1,500 words
The first self-replicating solar panel is the hardest. After that, it's just a race against time. Herein lies the history of our programme and the challenges we now face as an isolated Kardashev Type II civilisation. You will recall that our planet-bound ancestors were not quick to realise the potential of direct solar power. We […]
Continue reading →By @edent · NaNoWriMo Tales Of The Algorithm · 3 comments · 2,050 words
It took the single green pixel a total of 185 seconds to travel from India's Mars Rover back to Earth. Along its 220 Gigametre journey it passed through an orbital satellite, then the Phobos concatenator, along the Deep Space Network to the Lunar L4 relay, and then to the geostationary conduit which finally beamed it […]
Continue reading →By @edent · NaNoWriMo Tales Of The Algorithm · 1 comment · 1,950 words
From the Web-Log of Doctor Nosetacular! 2032-11-28 There's no such thing as superheroes. That's why I've placed my head in a vice and am expanding my nasal cavities with a surgical drill. All my life I wanted to be special. I grew up on a diet of those glossy superhero movies and spent every birthday […]
Continue reading →By @edent · NaNoWriMo Tales Of The Algorithm · 2 comments · 1,800 words
The bomb which ripped Hunter's stomach to shreds was not intended for her. It was wired up to a long-range RFID scanner and strapped inside a plastic recycling bin. The RFID scanner was tuned to the specific frequencies of passport chips and the microcontroller ingested all their data looking for patterns. When each person passed […]
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