In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history. What a delight! This is a classic murder-mystery wrapp…
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What kind of utter muppet leaves their comfort zone? It's comfortable! That's the whole flipping point! If someone said "do you want to stay on the comfy sofa or would you rather change over to a really painful chair?" - how would you reply? The Department of Health and Social Care have stolen me away from my old job. I loved my role at GDS. I worked with brilliant people - and after two…
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This New York Times bestseller about the 1MDB scandal exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century. This book is unbelievable. I have no doubt it all happened - but each page left me agog at the audacity of the characters. This is the story of how billions of dollars were embezzled from Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund. …
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Far from being a misery memoir, Was this in the Plan? Is a frank, open and no-holds-barred account of how a family was determined not just to survive but to thrive when the odds were against them. It will make you question your own attitude to life and how you choose to respond when unexpected events throw you off course. My colleague, Stephanie Nimmo, gave me a gentle ribbing for using the…
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Code-sharing site GitHub automatically sends email notifications to users. If you've commented on an issue, you'll get an email each time there's an update. That's pretty handy. It also allows users to reply by email. The reply is then automatically posted in the issue thread. Also handy. But a little dangerous. Lots of people have email signatures which contain personal details. When these…
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A mysterious woman, with a non-London accent and blonde hair, reached out her hand. She asked me a simple, yet terrifying, question - "Do you want to come on an adventure?" Sadly, Hadley Beeman does not have a TARDIS (Well, as far as any of us can tell...). What she does have is an interesting new job for me. Take a deep breath, because it's a heck of a long title: Senior Technology Advisor…
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Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses. Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner. Oh, but this is a cracking r…
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There's a new bug bounty provider in town! The Belgian company Intigriti. This is a quick write-up of how I found a trivial bug in their own system. The EU has announced that it is providing funding for bug bounties on critical open source projects. They've split the programme between HackerOne and Intigriti. I signed up to Intigriti, and instantly received a confirmation email. Can you…
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I was in need of a new laptop, so I bought a cheap ChromeBook - mostly because Amazon could deliver it the same day. Sadly, the trackpad was broken. Before I sent it back, I thought I'd try using a mouse with it. That's when I discovered that accessibility is very much a second thought for all the young and healthy people Google employ. I have RSI and use a vertical mouse. After decades of…
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Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesn’t? Nina’s mum isn’t so sure. But she’s busy with her new husband and five year old Katie. And Nina’s almost an adult after all. And if Nina sometimes wakes up with little memory of what happened the night before, then her friends are all too happy to fill in the blanks. Nina’s drunken exploits are the stuf…
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I love cosplay. Or, rather, I love the utter joy which leads people to dress up like their favourite characters. This is the story of how I won 2nd prize in a beauty contest for dressing up. It seems to me, there are three ways to find success with cosplay: Be pretty and coat yourself with colourful latex. Spend a lot of time, money, and effort on building/buying an incredible costume. Cheat! …
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Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess…
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