Movie Review · 150 words
Here's a movie about objectively terrible people making bad choices! I love a quirky little indie-comedy. The problem is, there aren't too many laughs to be had here. Part of the issue is that I'm an old-fart. Celeste, the antagonist, seems like a lovely person! It's not her fault that Emily, the protagonist, abandoned her boyfriend and life. If Celeste picked up the pieces of a broken…
Continue reading →phishing scam sms spam · 4 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~792 times
Earlier this week, my holiday was interrupted by a sophisticated SMS scam. Rude! Let's take a look at it. Let's take a look at all the ways we can tell it is a scam. Firstly, and most obviously, I am not a customer of Lloyds Bank! But these scammers send out to multiple people hoping to catch victims. Secondly, I've not made a complaint to Lloyds! But, again, scammers know that plenty of…
Continue reading →Book Review statistics · 400 words
In How to Make the World Add Up, Tim Harford draws on his experience as both an economist and presenter of the BBC’s radio show ‘More or Less’ to take us deep into the world of disinformation and obfuscation, bad research and misplaced motivation to find those priceless jewels of data and analysis that make communicating with numbers so rewarding. Through vivid storytelling he reveals how we can…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 300 words
This is a slightly unfair review as I fell asleep about 30 minutes from the end. I'll attempt to avoid spoilers - but I guarantee you've seen this movie before. I felt like I was watching a supercut of a dozen different movies and TV shows. Loving American parents secretly spies? The Americans! Tank driving through an urban centre? GoldenEye! Dropping a knife to a free hand? Game of Thrones!…
Continue reading →data mobile · 3 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~262 times
A couple of months into the pandemic, I realised that I was vastly overpaying for my mobile usage. I was paying £10/month for unlimited calls, texts, and 8GB data. That's a pretty reasonable price, but I was sat at home all day on WiFi - so I had no need for data. I don't send SMS any more - all my friends and family are on Signal / WhatsApp / Telegram etc. And, it turns out those services also …
Continue reading →gadget review usb-c · 16 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~2,845 times
Are you too hot? Can't run an air-conditioner? Stuck on a sweaty tube train? You need a USB-C powered personal cooling device! There are loads of personal electric fans available - but I've gone for something slightly more high-tech. A neck-wearable Peltier cooler. It looks like this: And fits round your neck like this: Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentReplying to @edentThere is a USB-C…
Continue reading →bluetooth gadget headset linux review ubuntu usb-c · 1,050 words · Viewed ~3,636 times
Back to the office! The only thing which makes other people bearable is being able to block out their chatter (sorry colleagues, I love you all dearly!). So I picked up this pair of on-ear Bluetooth headphones with active noise cancelation. They're pricey (a bit under £200) but are they any good? First impressions Not great. None of the buttons are labelled, so it's surprisingly hard to figure …
Continue reading →excel python r · 25 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~19,715 times
I recently had cause to take a beginners course in R - a language I'm fairly familiar with. One of the other students had never used it before, so we were buddied up in order for me to show them the ropes. The first lesson of R is always the same. Read a CSV, manipulate it a bit, draw a graph. We did it all without much fuss - and a graph appeared on screen. Nifty! "I don't get it," the…
Continue reading →censorship drone · 400 words
A John Gilmore (probably) said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Let it be so with drones. About a decade ago, I wrote about Smuggling USB Sticks. You can load an incredible amount of data onto flash memory and carry it just about anywhere. Nowadays, drones mean that people don't need to physically carry drives themselves. And drones can carry a lot more than…
Continue reading →fronk infinidash scam · 35 comments · 650 words · Viewed ~73,902 times
Many moons ago, when I was very young and you were even younger... London was in full bloom of tech-startups. I was running my own consultancy. Dashing from business to business, trying to pick up work as an expert in this new-fangled "Mobile Internet" thing. Some of the companies I worked with were great. Some of them went bust. And some were... just... ew! Digging through a box of files…
Continue reading →pop_os ubuntu · 7 comments · 200 words · Viewed ~3,898 times
Mobile phones have been one of the greatest drivers of functional enhancements for computing interfaces. I use the clipboard history feature on Android multiple times per day. Rather than copy one item, then paste it, then switch back, then copy another, then switch back etc - I just copy two items, switch app, and paste them where I want. For some reason, I never considered doing that on Linux …
Continue reading →emoji ubuntu · 1 comment · 150 words · Viewed ~1,698 times
All the Cool Kids™ use emoji. On Android, they're usually built right in to the keyboard. But that's not the case on desktops and laptops. Well, unless you build a dedicated emoji keyboard. So I was delighted to find this brilliant little Gnome Extension called Emoji Selector. It sits in your dash, until you click it or press 💠+e. Then you get this pop up. The search bar focuses as soon as …
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