I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. Night in the Woods is a cute looking indie game, with one fatal flaw. Nothing happens in it. I gave the game an hour or so, and all I did was walk left and right and click next in the dialogue. There are a few dialogue options, but that doesn't alter the course of the game. I…
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A few months ago, UK supermarket Tesco released some flesh-toned sticking plasters. Whose flesh though? In this case, Tesco had them in a range of colours and shades. Because people come in all sorts of flavours. Naturally, some people (mostly old white dudes) were angry about this. Because they're angry about everything. Here's my "favourite" response: "normal coloured plaster". What is…
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I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. This is the delightful indie game A Short Hike. I don't play many video games, because I find them arbitrary and confusing. They also go on far too long. But "Hike" is the perfect length. I completed it within 2 hours (I think - more on that later). Which, considering I paid $10 …
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We're in the age of endless conference calls. So I decided to spruce up my audio hardware. Sadly, I don't have the budget for a professional podcaster's microphone. Luckily, I was sent this cheapo model to review. And, I'm pleased to say, it's pretty good! Comes with a reasonably long USB cord, and a pop-shield. The mic is suspended in a little elastic harness so it doesn't pick up vibrations. …
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Today is the longest daylight of the year. We had our new solar panels installed just after the vernal equinox - so now seems to be a good time to check in on how they're doing. (Who am I kidding - I look at their output several times per day!) Edent's Solar Panels@Edent_Solar AutomatedToday I generated 24.35kWh of solar electricity. pic.x.com/Mrm4QN8uTy❤️ 0💬 0🔁 020:21 - Sat 20 June 2020 As of …
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Some days, I want everyone on the Internet to wear this t-shirt: Designed using Guillaume Chabot's tool after the original 2K by Gingham - which has been parodied many times. Explaining the joke The Dunning–Kruger effect is - simply put - when people of low ability are over-confident in their ability. The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is less easy to put simply. You open the newspaper to an a…
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I'm a board member of Open UK - which promotes UK leadership in open technology - and we're looking for nominations for our Open Source Awards. These are designed to honour the individuals and projects which have made a positive impact to open source, open data, and open hardware. You can nominate at openuk.uk/awards/ There are five categories available: 👶 Young Person 👩 Individual 📊 Open Dat…
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All printers are objectively awful. But this might be the cutest little printer I've ever used! This is the Phomemo M02 Pro. If you remember the late, lamented Little Printer you'll immediately understand the appeal. Connect your phone to it, and immediately print out text, graphics, drawings, rules, Tweets, the weather, ANYTHING! It uses thermal paper, so there's no ink to run out and no…
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I made a laptop sticker. Enough people told me how much they liked it, that I decided to sell them. Here's the story of how I (didn't) become a millionaire. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Single-Blinking-Laptop-Sticker.mp4 Prototype Normally, I'd upload a design to something like RedBubble, and sell the stickers that way. But I couldn't find any sticker companies which…
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I think what I'm asking for is impossible... I have a Linux laptop with built in speakers and an external monitor with speakers. The laptop connects to the screen via HDMI. I have my Linux desktop set up for dual screens. If I drag a window from one screen to the other, I want the sound to follow the window. Is this possible? A bit more detail When I have YouTube running on my monitor, I…
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A practical book for practitioners and non-practitioners alike interested in better service delivery, this book is the definitive new guide to designing services that work for users. My former colleague Lou has written a marvellous book. It reminds me of the great “Simplicity” by Edward de Bono – it’s a series of short chapters, interspersed with large-print summaries. I regard it as essential …
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I've spent most of the last decade ranting against NFC. QR Codes are almost always superior to NFC. QR codes hold more data, are extremely cheap, and easy to spot. NFC tags are limited in size, expensive, and have no universally recognised icon. Oh, and NFC doesn't work if it's stuck on a metal surface! So, I've been sent 20 NTAG 215s to review. First thing's first, these cost a pound each! …
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