Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

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Book Review: How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu

· 450 words


Book cover featuring three dots surrounded by circles.

For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, Sequoia Nagamatsu's debut is a wildly imaginative, genre-bending work spanning generations across the globe as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a devastating plague. Dr. Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting p…

Footnotes in Markdown

· 2 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~546 times


A very long footnote.

Did you know - WordPress Markdown supports footnotes? There is some documentation but I thought I'd write a slightly more comprehensive guide. The code is pretty simple. Write [^1] where you want your first footnote link to appear. Then, later in the document, write [^1]: The text of the note. It doesn't matter what number you put inside the [^…], WordPress automatically generates a sequential …

Searching online for books in local libraries

· 3 comments · 550 words


List of items matching the search "Song of Achilles" - includes two versions of the book, an audio book, and other work by the author.

This is a mixture of lament and how-to guide. Suppose you've reviewed lots of books. It's pretty easy to generate a link to let people buy the book at Amazon or any other online store. But how do you link to a user's local library? You can't. There is no "search every library in the UK" service. You can search the British Library, but they generally don't deliver to your local town centre. …

Rethinking Twitter Verification

· 7 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~579 times


Screenshot of the GOV.UK Twitter Account. Twitter have added a flag and label saying it is state affiliated.

I have my Twitter Tick™ because I'm a mediocre white man in the tech industry. No joke. During one of Twitter's periodic bouts of opening up their verification programme, I applied and basically said "Don't you know who I am??!" and got it. Sucks to be anyone other than me, I guess. Twitter has paused the Verification process for now. In part, I suspect, due to overwhelming false positives and n…

Book Review: The Power of Privilege - How White People can Challenge Racism by June Sarpong

· 450 words


Book cover.

The death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have made clear to everyone the vicious reality of racism that persists today. Many of those privileged enough to be distanced from racism are now having to come to terms with the fact that they continue to prosper at the detriment of others. Having spent the last four years researching, writing, and speaking about the…

Book Review: Alien 3 - The Unproduced Screenplay

· 500 words · Viewed ~228 times


A grim alien menace.

The first-draft Alien screenplay by William Gibson, the founder of cyberpunk, turned into a novel by Pat Cadigan, the Hugo Award-Winning “Queen of Cyberpunk.” William Gibson’s never-before-adapted screenplay for the direct sequel to Aliens, revealing the fates of Ripley, Newt, the synthetic Bishop, and Corporal Hicks. When the Colonial Marines vessel Sulaco docks with space station and milit…

MSc Assignment 2 - Data Analytics Principles

· 2 comments · 4,350 words · Viewed ~1,764 times


A map where square relating to a specific group all have the same colour.

I'm doing an apprenticeship MSc in Digital Technology. In the spirit of openness, I'm blogging my research and my assignments. This is my paper from the Data Analytics module. I enjoyed it far more than the previous module. This was my second assignment, and I was amazed to score 72%. In the English system 50% is a pass, 60% is a commendation, 70% is distinction. Nice! A few disclaimers: I…

Book Review: Clockwork River by J.S. Emery

· 600 words


Book cover featuring interlocking clockwork.

A sister searches for her missing brother as a new power rises amid the splendour and the squalor of a once great city. Lower Rhumbsford is a city far removed from its glory days. On the banks of the great river Rhumb, its founding fathers channelled the river's mighty flow into a subterranean labyrinth of pipes, valves and sluices, a feat of hydraulic prowess that would come to power an…

Full Disclosure: XSS in Getty Images

· 3 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~697 times


Javascript popup on the Getty Images website.

I've spent two months trying to report this issue to Getty images. They haven't responded to my emails, phone calls, Tweets, or LinkedIn messages. I've tried escalating through OpenBugBounty and HackerOne - but still no response. I've taken the decision to fully disclose this XSS because the Getty Images sites accept payments from users - and users need to be aware that the content they see on…

Adding a language tag to image elements

· 2 comments · 350 words · Viewed ~374 times


Text in a mixture of Chinese and English.

(You may already know this, but I didn't. Every day is a school day.) HTML has the concept of the lang attribute. It allows you to say that a specific element contains text in a specific human language. For example, this page starts with: <html lang="en-GB"> That says the entire page is written in English, with the sub-type of Great Britain. This means your browser might offer to translate…

Porn Spam on Google Maps

· 6 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~25,972 times


Screenshot of Loch Ness on Google Maps.

User Generated Content is great, innit? As a company, I want users to submit photos, so I don't have to do any content curation. Moderation? Nah mate, stick some AI on there to filter out anything offensive and we're golden. *sigh* James Whatley (inactive)@WhatleydudeSurprised Loch Ness isn't trending tbqh.❤️ 7💬 0🔁 021:36 - Sat 07 August 2021James Whatley (inactive)@WhatleydudeSearching for Loch…

Should browsers remember 2FA codes?

· 5 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~397 times


In HTML, the autocomplete attribute is pretty handy. The HTML autocomplete attribute is available on <input> elements that take a text or numeric value as input, <textarea> elements, <select> elements, and <form> elements. autocomplete lets web developers specify what if any permission the user agent has to provide automated assistance in filling out form field values, as well as guidance to the …