Winner of the 1989 Children's Book of the Year Award for older readers. I rarely re-read books. I just don't like revisiting the past. But I remember reading this repeatedly during adolescence. And something called me to re-reading it as an adult. I'm glad I did. Parts of this book were buried deep in my brain. I call on them from time-to-time. But long sections of it were completely alien to …
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Food is delicious and exercise is boring. This is a problem. I'm not going to cut back on delicious treats, and I don't want to get out of breath climbing stairs - so I need to get a bit fitter. I'm a grumpy old sod, so these are all the things I dislike about this frickin' weird game. Grade Inflation The very first level nets you 900 XP. What? The numbers are meaningless from the beginning.…
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In order to provide a video playback UI, WordPress uses the excellent MediaElement library. Recently, I discovered a slightly annoying flaw - I couldn't see the play button! Here's a screenshot of the video UI. In the middle of this screenshot is a white play button. I have trouble seeing it, because the video's background colour is predominantly white. The issue is with the…
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The UK register of businesses - Companies House - has an online record of every company in the UK. It contains articles of incorporation, statement of accounts, and all sorts of legal documents. Everything which has been digitised is freely available. Yay for public records! Famous and important people have companies. Lots of them use lawyers and accountants to handle their business affairs.…
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I've got a new laptop which runs Linux! These are mostly notes to myself. Fonts First, from the console, install Gnome Tweaks sudo apt install gnome-tweaks Run Tweaks and select "Fonts". You can swap fonts, boost them, and generally have a good fiddle. Increasing the scaling factor is a good way to boost the size of all desktop elements. Bluetooth - rename By default the Bluetooth name is …
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So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies and flaws. This electrifying new book thrives on revealing, not resolving, the ambiguities of Shakespeare's plays and their changing topicality. A joyous read in these troubling times. A series of essays on Shakespeare from one of the UK's…
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I have a vertical monitor for my new Linux laptop. Because it is rotated 90 degrees, this causes problems with some graphics drivers on Linux (and Mac!). Here's a solution I found for my Intel graphics card. Edit this file: sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf Find this line: WaylandEnable=false Change it to: #WaylandEnable=false Reboot. On Pop!_OS, there is this settings cog in the bottom…
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My mate, the accessibility specialist Léonie Watson, has this to say about how we improve the world, piece-by-piece: Accessibility doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a little bit better than yesterday. Source: Twitter Damn straight! One of the best ways we can make tomorrow slightly better than today is by making small changes which make it easier for people to do the right thing. …
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I haven't used a trackball in earnest since about 1998 - when they were briefly all the rage at school. But we're all working from home during lockdown, and my desk isn't big enough to accommodate a full-sized keyboard and mouse. So I thought I'd try a trackball. This doesn't need an unboxing video, or any complicated set-up tips. It's an inert black box, with a red orb nestled in it. Made in …
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Sorry for the title gore. But it's the only way to let people know that all four of these laptops are identical. Taiwanese manufacturer Clevo makes the N151CU laptop. They sell it directly to resellers, who in turn sell it on to consumers. It has excellent Linux support. Both Entroware (in the UK) and System76 (in the USA) sell it pre-installed with Ubuntu. I purchased mine from PC Specialist…
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One of those things that organisations love to do is issue identifiers. My credit card provider issues me with a Customer ID, a Billing ID, a Reference Number, and an online login ID. All of which are different. And none of which match the embossed plastic card they sent me. The state also issues identifiers. I know, I know, I am not a number, I am a free man. But I have a passport number which…
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Many years ago, when I worked at Vodafone, we had a senior network engineer give us a talk about keeping the network stable in the hours after the 7/7 bombings. He was completely dispassionate. He spoke about analysing network traffic, predicting demand spikes, routing around damage, physically securing sites, supporting the emergency services - and all the minutiae that goes in to running a…
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