So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. A joyous read in these troubling times. A series of essays on Shakespeare from one of the UK's…
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I have a vertical monitor for my new Linux laptop. Because it is rotated 90 degrees, this causes problems with some graphics drivers on Linux (and Mac!). Here's a solution I found for my Intel graphics card. Edit this file: sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf Find this line: WaylandEnable=false Change it to: #WaylandEnable=false Reboot. On Pop!_OS, there is this settings cog in the bottom…
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My mate, the accessibility specialist Léonie Watson, has this to say about how we improve the world, piece-by-piece: Accessibility doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a little bit better than yesterday. Source: Twitter Damn straight! One of the best ways we can make tomorrow slightly better than today is by making small changes which make it easier for people to do the right thing. …
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I haven't used a trackball in earnest since about 1998 - when they were briefly all the rage at school. But we're all working from home during lockdown, and my desk isn't big enough to accommodate a full-sized keyboard and mouse. So I thought I'd try a trackball. This doesn't need an unboxing video, or any complicated set-up tips. It's an inert black box, with a red orb nestled in it. Made in …
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Sorry for the title gore. But it's the only way to let people know that all four of these laptops are identical. Taiwanese manufacturer Clevo makes the N151CU laptop. They sell it directly to resellers, who in turn sell it on to consumers. It has excellent Linux support. Both Entroware (in the UK) and System76 (in the USA) sell it pre-installed with Ubuntu. I purchased mine from PC Specialist…
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One of those things that organisations love to do is issue identifiers. My credit card provider issues me with a Customer ID, a Billing ID, a Reference Number, and an online login ID. All of which are different. And none of which match the embossed plastic card they sent me. The state also issues identifiers. I know, I know, I am not a number, I am a free man. But I have a passport number which…
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Many years ago, when I worked at Vodafone, we had a senior network engineer give us a talk about keeping the network stable in the hours after the 7/7 bombings. He was completely dispassionate. He spoke about analysing network traffic, predicting demand spikes, routing around damage, physically securing sites, supporting the emergency services - and all the minutiae that goes in to running a…
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I can't find these instructions anywhere online - so I hope these notes help! The AS302P SMETS2 has two buttons. I've labelled the top button A and the bottom button B. Press the A button once to bring up the menu. The display should light up. It should show "General". Press the B button. This scrolls down the display. Press it a couple of times until it says "Registers". If you go past it, …
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My colleague was understandably ticked off with me. A week previously, they'd asked me to get something fairly urgent done. I hadn't done it - and all hell was breaking loose. I wasn't being truculent or disobedient. I simply hadn't seen their message. And it was all Google's fault. At work, we use Google's G-Suite. It's a brilliant set of email and document tools. It also contains two…
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I was signing up to a website the other day, and it wanted to know my title. Here are the options it offered me: Look, I get it. If I'm ever daft enough to undertake a PhD and masochistic enough to complete it - I am going to demand that everyone addresses me as Doctor Who Doom Octopus. But why this ordering? Why distinguish between male and female doctors? Let's see if the source code holds…
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The good folk at Nooie have sent me their 360 WiFi camera to review. Cost is usually £50 - but check the bottom of this post for a discount code. The design is gorgeous - and award winning. It's a sleek unit and, surprisingly, feels nice in the hand. It can store videos on an SD card (not included) or via the cloud. The app - which is pretty nice - also lets you view the camera when you're away …
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I've never "got" the appeal of a Mac. But I have to use one for work. Here's a partial list of everything I cannot do on a Mac, but I can do on Ubuntu. These are all objective facts. These are things which either are impossible, or require adding unsupported 3rd party software - sometimes at a cost. Resize the system font I find the menu bar at the top too small. The only way to do this on…
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