When the NHS was launched in 1948, this leaflet was sent out to everyone. I wanted to recreate the coat of arms that was on top to print on a t-shirt. Sadly, the scan available is too low a resolution for most modern purposes. Wikipedia has vector logos of most of the coats of arms - but not this one. In desperation, I emailed the College of Arms. They sent me back the most delightful LMGTFY …
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I'm joined by my old school-chum Rebecca Bradshaw - as we talk about an innovative recycling company - TerraCycle. You can find out more about their recycling programme on Twitter. 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. Sorry for the slightly iffy audio-quality. The call recorder on my phone is OK for admin, but not brilliant for podcasting. Will try to record future episodes in person of via V…
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I'm joined by Suw Charman-Anderson - powerhouse and founder of Finding Ada. 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. You can follow Finding Ada on Twitter and you can support the project on Patreon. If you'd like to have a chat with me - get in touch. 🎧 Stick this Podcast Feed into your podcatcher. 🍏 Subscribe on iTunes. 🎵 Intro music "Gran Vals" performed by Brian Streckfus. ⏱ Stopwatch Icon…
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Like all true geeks, my laptop is a smörgåsbord of stickers dedicated to openness. And, like all true geeks, I have loads of t-shirts that advertise failed start-ups, trendy apps, and unconferences. Why not combine the two? (Thanks to Matt Edgar for the NHS artwork.) (Thanks to Jukesie for his MVB design.) You can buy them from the GovGeeks SpreadShirt store. Available in a range of s…
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I get confused when I hear statements on the news like "community leaders have called for calm" or "community leaders will be encouraged to host informative programs" or "assurances were provided by local community leaders" or "community leaders have launched a campaign"... I want to ask you a simple question. Who are your community leaders? Take a moment to think about that. Who are my…
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The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end, despite pressure from its charismatic CEO and threats by her lawyers. Elizabeth Holmes is my hero. The next time I'm in a room full of Very Big And Important People, and I'm feeling out…
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I received this weird bit of mojibake in an email. Here's the raw text view: ------=_NextPart_001_009E_01D4D8BF.D0737E10 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =E6=8C=A8=E2=8E=92tml xmlns:v=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o=3D"= urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-c=…
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Taking us on an eye-opening journey through science, Inferior challenges our preconceptions about men and women, investigating the ferocious gender wars that burn in biology, psychology and anthropology. Angela Saini revisits the landmark experiments that have informed our understanding, lays bare the problem of bias in research, and speaks to the scientists finally exploring the truth about…
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In 1843, at the age of sixteen, servant girl Grace Marks was convicted for her part in the vicious murders of her employer and his mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders. A curious book this. It read like a Tracy Chevalier - take a minor historical figure and spin a yarn around them - although written…
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Twitter has a problem with scam advertising. Rather than having humans manually check adverts for acceptability and authenticity, they let almost anyone promote anything. Whatever meagre protections they build in are rapidly evaded by the scammers. Let's take a look at an example of a promoted crypto-scam about Singapore. I'd say it was obviously a fake, but Twitter says this story comes from…
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Last week I wrote about how I had 800 passwords in my password manager. It was intended to highlight the ridiculous proliferation of online services, and how redecentralising identity comes with a manageability problem. I now want to talk about 2FA - Two-Factor Authentication - the random codes you have to type in every time you log in somewhere secure. This week, I've moved all my 2FA tokens…
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I'm a fan of the Little Alchemy series of games. Combine earth and fire to get lava. Combine fire and water to get steam. Steam and lava combined makes... You get the picture. I've been toying around with making a version which only uses emoji. Here's what me and my friends have come up with so far. Feel free to add others. ❄+⛄=☃ 🌧️+☂=☔ 🌦️+🌱=🌳 🔥+💧=♨️ 🚰+🦠=🚱 🐟+🍚=🍣 🥕+🥬+🥒+🍅=🥗 🔒+🔑=🔓 🌌+🔭=☄️ 🧔+💈=👨 🚬+…
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