Opening Compact File Set (CFS) files in Linux


Unix is user-friendly — it's just choosy about who its friends are.

I was sent some medical images in a password-protected CFS file. Here's how to open them in Linux. You can't. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. It's complex, but here's how to do it. The Linux software for the Compact File Set hasn't been updated in years and only works with ancient versions of […]

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Theatre Review: Coriolanus at the National Theatre


David Oyelowo, shirtless and swinging a sword. Photo by Misan Harriman.

What is the city but the people? What indeed? David Oyelowo is a powerhouse. His Coriolanus is a shitheel teetering somewhere between Trump and Mugabe. He isn't a noble character with a fatal flaw; his flaws are his character. The citizens celebrate him, turn on him, fear him. It isn't about power corrupting, it's about […]

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Movie Review: Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person


Movie poster. A young girl drinks from a bag of blood.

There are some movies - like Snakes On A Plane - where the title simultaneously tells you the whole plot and compels you to watch it. Similarly, how can you resist something called "Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant"? Like the darkest of chocolates, the bitterness only accentuates the tender sweetness of the protagonist. A young […]

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WordPress - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi


The Logo for WordPress.

Why do so many vastly-wealthy tech personalities go mad? My ideal job involves being employed by a millionaire tech-bro. Just before they get on stage, or moments before they file a lawsuit, or an instant before they publish their thought leadership - I will appear to them. I will be dressed in rags, body smeared […]

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You can use text-wrap: balance; on icons


The HTML5 Logo.

A fun little CSS experiment! There's a new(ish) feature in CSS which allows you to set the way text is wrapped. Ordinarily, a long line of text might be split at an inopportune time. For example: This very long headline ends with a single word Having a dangling word doesn't always look great. Using text-wrap:balance […]

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Book Review: The Appeal - Janice Hallett


Book cover featuring a woodcut of a village.

I was 25% of the way through reading this when I purchased the sequel. It is an utterly compelling murder mystery - not least because the death doesn't occur until well after the halfway point. Who dies? Why? Who did it? Why?! With every paragraph I felt myself trying to decipher the characters' motives. A […]

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Import JetPack Statistics into Koko


Graph showing page views over time.

I've quit JetPack stats. I've moved to Koko Analytics. All the stats code is self hosted, it is privacy preserving, and the codebase is small and simple. But I am vain. I want all my old JetPack stats to appear in Koko so I can look back on the glory days of blogging. Koko has […]

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Liberate your daily statistics from JetPack


Bar chart showing how many times a blog has been red over a year.

Because Ma.tt continues to burn all of the goodwill built up by WordPress, and JetPack have decided to charge a ridiculous sum for their statistics, I've decided to move to a new stats provider. But I don't want to lose all the statistics I've built up over the years. How do I download a day-by-day […]

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Theatre Review: The Duchess [of Malfi]


Promo image for The Duchess.

After seeing one Doctor Who on stage, it was time for another! I was lucky enough to get preview tickets for Jodie Whittaker in "The Duchess [of Malfi]". The Duchess is… dark. No, darker than than you're imagining. I've seen plays with content warnings. This is the first I've seen where they cover both sides […]

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Collaborative discussions at an unconference


OGGCAMP BOOKCAMP
recommends the following:
 Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
. Podkin One-Ear - Kieran Larwood. 
Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien. 
The People - Sleina Todd
. Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson. 
Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas. 
We are Legion (We are Bob) - Dennis Taylor. 
The Entire Discworld - Terry Pratchett
. The Empire of Normality - Robert Chapman. 
Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
. The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin. 
The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu
. Fall or Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson
. Git Commit Murder - Michael Warren Lucas. 
Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson
. Tomorrow + Tommorow + Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
. There is no Anti-memetics Division
. The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin
. The Brentford Trilogy - Robert Rankin
. Fight Club - Chuck Palahnuik
. Digital Korea - Tom Ahunen.

Unconferences are brilliant. Rather than a set agenda, people come up with their own sessions. A dozen Post-It® Notes are slapped on a wall, everyone writes down what they want to talk about, they're slotted into a grid, and - BAM! - you've got yourself an unconference. At the recent OggCamp there were a number […]

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