Movie Review · 1 comment · 200 words
How to Build a Girl is a 2019 coming-of-age comedy film directed by Coky Giedroyc, from a screenplay by Caitlin Moran and John Niven, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Moran. The film tells the story of Johanna Morrigan, teenager living with her working-class family on a council estate in Wolverhampton, England, who grows up to become a popular but conflicted music journalist. Beanie …
Continue reading →metadata php schema.org WordPress · 850 words
This is a real "scratch my own itch" post. I want to add Schema.org semantic metadata to the book reviews I write on my blog. This will enable "rich snippets" in search engines. There are loads of WordPress plugins which do this. But where's the fun in that?! So here's how I quickly built it into my open source blog theme. Screen options First, let's add some screen options to the WordPress…
Continue reading →Book Review racism · 350 words
For millennia, dominant societies have had the habit of believing their own people to be the best, deep down: the more powerful they become, the more power begins to be framed as natural, as well as cultural. When you see how power has shaped the idea of race, then you can start to understand its meaning. In the twenty-first century, we like to believe that we have moved beyond scientific…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 200 words
"A woman is boxed out by the male sports agents in her profession, but gains an unexpected edge over them when she develops the ability to hear men's thoughts. I remember taking a date to see "What Women Want" back in 2000. It was a lousy movie, but I ended up marrying the date - so it wasn't a totally wasted evening. What Men Want is a fairly lazy updating of the "classic" story. What if a…
Continue reading →gadget review USB usb-c · 4 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~607 times
The only thing I miss about my old MacBook was its magnetic charging cable. It was just so convenient to be able to hover the plug near my laptop and have it snap into place. If I walked off with my machine, I knew the cable would easily spring out - rather than jerking me back or breaking. So here's a gadget to convert any USB device to magnetic charging! Chinese company TOPK have sent me some…
Continue reading →gadget review · 4 comments · 300 words
I was sent this gadget in return for a fair review. It's awful, so I returned it. To avoid you making the same mistake, here's my review. This is a "Multifunction UltraViolet Sterilizer With Aromatherapy" by Nuxgal. It's a reasonably clever idea for a device. A USB powered UV lamp with a timer. Shove your phone or face mask in there, hit a button, and take it out when the time is up. Great in…
Continue reading →laptop linux · 150 words · Viewed ~435 times
Sorry for the title gore. But it's the only way to let people know that all four of these laptops are identical. These laptops come with an HDMI port and a Mini DisplayPort. Here's how to get both working simultaneously so you can have three screens. Enter the Dragon BIOS Restart your laptop. Press the F2 key when the manufacturer logo displays. You're now in the BIOS. The screens may look…
Continue reading →Open Data solar · 6 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~572 times
Back in 2014, I released a year's worth of solar generation data. I was enormously proud to recently discover that the data were cited in a couple of academic papers: Colantuono, Giuseppe & Kor, Ah-Lian & Pattinson, Colin & Gorse, Christopher PV with multiple storage as function of geolocation (2018) page: 217-232. Elsevier BV. Solar Energy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.03.020…
Continue reading →Book Review racism · 1 comment · 350 words
Philosophy of Race: An Introduction provides plainly written access to a new subfield that has been in the background of philosophy since Plato and Aristotle. Part I provides an overview of ideas of race and ethnicity in the philosophical canon, egalitarian traditions, race in biology, and race in American and Continental Philosophy. Part II addresses race as it operates in life through…
Continue reading →gadget review · 1 comment · 400 words · Viewed ~300 times
As part of my quest to become an internationally renounced fashion vlogger (shut up! It could happen!) I've been sent a ring light to review. If you've ever wondered why all your favourite YouChubers are so well lit - this style of light is the reason why. They provide a constant, shadow-free, evenly spread light. So, what's this £40 light like? This is made by Jiangxi based OldShark. …
Continue reading →avatar HTML programming · 2 comments · 200 words · Viewed ~1,519 times
Given a social media user's username, how do you get a picture of their avatar? I always used avatars.io - but sadly that service has bitten the dust. So I've switched to unavatar. It's dead easy to use. https://unavatar.now.sh/twitter/edent will return @edent's avatar. You can use GitHub, Facebook, Gravatar, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, SoundCloud, and a couple of other providers. Simple…
Continue reading →game itch.io review · 250 words
I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. I've never played a dating simulator before. I'd heard of them, and their weird parodies like Hatoful Boyfriend, but this is my first time playing one. And, I'm delighted to say, Arcade Spirits is delightful. The game looks gorgeous, the voice acting is top notch, and the sound …
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