Back in November 2017, I treated myself to my first new phone in ages - the OnePlus 5T. I was pretty excited! This week, 928 days after I bought it, OnePlus pushed an upgrade to Android 10! Back in 2011, I was moaning that Sony Ericsson didn't even support their phones for a year. How times have changed! Android devices aren't yet at the longevity of the iPhone, and they're still a long…
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My friend Owen recommended this book - and as it was only 99p, I thought I'd give it a go. It's a sprawling urban fantasy - with an unwieldy cast of characters. It is suffused with atmosphere, palace intrigue, and a strong sense of decay and decrepitude. I'm usually a sucker "history + magic" books - but this was a bit unrelenting, and almost devoid of joy. It has an unsatisfying end - like…
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I am not a fashion blogger. The last time I did anything interesting to my hair, I did not enjoy it. But lockdown has meant my beard hasn't been shorn in three months. So when I was offered a beard styling product to review, how could I refuse?! It's around £16 on Amazon. I've no idea whether that's a reasonable price or not. There are two heat settings, a poorly translated user manual, and …
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This a rant, written at midnight, after battling software errors. Set your profanity filters accordingly. I despair over the state of software engineering - specifically, stability. We seem to have lost the understanding that computers are there to do the hard work for us. And I don't think we ever believed in a user-centred approach to developer tools. The last time I developed an Android app…
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Last Monday was a Bank Holiday in the UK. The Tuesday was a "Privilege Day" - a day off for Civil Servants for the Queen's birthday. Thursday was my wife's birthday - which I had booked off ages ago. So I decided to cash in my TOIL and take Wednesday and Friday as holidays as well. Including weekends, that made for nine days off in the glorious British sunshine. Stuck at home, sure, but nine…
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My quest to move my entire life to USB-C continue. Headphones, laptops, Switch, phone, eReader - all taking the same power port. Bliss! But that means I need more USB-C chargers. This is the YLpower 87W USB-C Charger. First off, 87? What? The USB-C port is capable of 85 Watts - enough for even the most demanding laptop. The USB-A port supplies the remaining 2 Watts. Perfectly fine for most…
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I have a vivid memory of my school days. I'd completed a pencil sketch in art class. For once, I was impressed with my dexterity. Then the teacher demanded that I colour it in. I was terrified that I would ruin it. I begged to use the photocopier - but to no avail. So the drawing remained uncoloured. I've been like that ever since. I have a crippling fear of doing something artistic which cannot …
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I'm going to revisit an argument I had in… Ooooh… 2001ish? I wanted to make some edits to my university's fledging student union website. In order to do this, I needed to learn the arcane art of SSH. This was one of my first introductions to text based config files. I was horrified! A single typo, or a stray comma could break everything. The instructions our WebMaster provided were laughably unc…
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Barbara Newhall Follett was just thirteen years old when she published The House Without Windows in 1927. The book went on to become a million-copy bestseller. Years later, as an adult herself, Barbara followed in the footsteps of her radical heroine - dissatisfied with the limitations of life as a respectable married woman, she walked out of her house one day and simply disappeared. This is a …
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I have a weakness. I love listening in to other people's conversations on the bus! I was sat behind a gaggle pride squad of teenage girls on the bus. They were variously complaining about their schoolwork, parents, and love-lives. I'm not going to attempt to recreate their vernacular, but the conversation went something like this: "Why won't Daren answer my WhatsApps?!" "Is he leaving you on…
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Here's a simple scrap of CSS which you can Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V kbd { border: .1em solid #aaa; border-radius: 15%; display: inline-block; padding: .1em .5em; background: linear-gradient(180deg, #fff, #fff, #fff, #ddd); user-select: none; cursor: pointer; color: #000; font-weight: bold; } kbd:hover { background: linear-gradient(0deg, #fff, #fff, #fff, #ddd); } …
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ISPs suck. They're designed to. The A in ADSL stands for "Asymmetric". That is, your download speed is faster than your upload speed. This makes sense for most domestic purposes. Most people suck down a lot more than they push up. But we've now entered the (permanent?) work-from-home era. If you're anything like me, you're spending more time broadcasting video than you ever did before. It's…
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