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 …
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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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Five New Yorkers must band together to defend their city in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five. But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, …
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In the last few months, I've received dozens of spam calls which appear to come from a similar phone number to mine. If my number is 07700 900 123 I get calls from 07700 900 124 or 07700 900 456 Here's my working theory on why spammers do this. Americans. In the UK, there's a separate "area code" for mobile phones. If a number starts 07 then it is mobile (it's a bit more complicated than…
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A Lithuanian company has created a for-profit training company called Turing College. The word "College" isn't a protected term in most of Europe. Unlike, for example, "University", anyone can call themselves a college. It is also unaffiliated with Alan Turing. I asked them about this - because it seems a bit weird to me to name yourself after someone without their estate's blessing. They…
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I've been experimenting on my colleagues (sorry gang!) and I've found that video meetings go a little better when they start with a bit of mood music. This is, of course, highly unscientific and just a little bit silly, but it is fun. I log in to Google Meet a minute before the meeting start time and immediately share a YouTube video. Meet has this nifty ability to directly stream the audio…
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I accidentally watched a TV advert the other day. A woman was on a Zoom call with friends. Her blurred background failed and revealed her ugly kitchen. Her friends all laughed at her. So she went along to AMAZING KITCHENS DIRECT 2 U and got a brand new kitchen. Now her friends are embarrassed about their kitchens! What kind of fucking psychopath puts that out there into the world? Preying on…
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(Yes, I'm back on my bullshit!) Regular readers may remember that I'm trying to create an "Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality" map. That is, a map with a Gall-Peters Projection and with South up. Oh, and Aoteroa centred. For reasons. I've got one step closer! I wasn't able to find and decent Peters projection map tiles, but I did find the next best thing. The "Equal Earth"…
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It's hard to ascribe "firsts" in history. Did Ada Lovelace write the first computer program? Does it count if it is a mechanical computer? Are Bombe and Tunny really computers in the modern sense? Was Pong the first home video game? Who was the first hacker? What is a hacker? Someone who (maliciously or otherwise) convinces a computer to do something that it isn't supposed to do. Sometimes for…
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The past is another country to which you can never return. It is a million years ago, and my brother and I have just spent all of our pocket money (and a good deal of next year's) on a state-of-the-art PENTIUM 75 desktop. With 200MB of hard drive space, and more RAM than we'd ever seen (8MB), it was a beast. We chose it because it came with a CD-ROM Drive. Sure, we told mum and dad that the…
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My OnePlus 5T is 3.5 years old and, after daily abuse, its battery life is starting to fade. But how bad is it? OnePlus have a diagnostic tool which, annoyingly, isn't available in the Google Play store. And is a bit of a pain to run. So here's a quick tutorial. Download the app APK Mirror have a copy of OnePlus Diagnostic 2.1. There may be a later version by the time you read this. Download…
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One thing I'm finding extremely frustrating in academia is the number of people citing papers which don't seem to actually exist. As part of a data analytics class, I'm learning about "database sharding". That is, the process of splitting data between multiple machines. But where does the term come from? Wikipedia - the source of all truth - says: In a database context, most recognize the…
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