book Book Review ebook · 250 words
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…
Continue reading →cosplay red dwarf Sci Fi techsmas · 1 comment · 550 words · Viewed ~572 times
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! …
Continue reading →Book Review ebook · 300 words
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…
Continue reading →Bug Bounty hacking oauth security twitter · 4 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~16,093 times
Imagine the scenario. You're trying out some cool new Twitter app. It asks you to sign in via OAuth as per usual. You look through the permissions - phew - it doesn't want to access your Direct Messages. You authorise it - whereupon it promptly leaks to the world all your sexts, inappropriate jokes, and dank memes. Tragic! What's going on? Many years ago the official Twitter API keys were…
Continue reading →podcasts · 100 words
Brand new podcasting from The Two LJs - being TV presenter LJ Rich and artist Leila Johnston. It's a happy mix of tech and snark. Rather than two dull blokes chattering away about which iPhone is fastest, it's two women discussing the week's tech news. And occasionally breaking into song. Take a listen It is a delightful twist on the usual podcast fare. Genuinely joyous, and…
Continue reading →Open Data scotland · 700 words · Viewed ~240 times
Glasgow City Council has released a treasure-trove of open data. Nearly one-hundred datasets ranging from Live Traffic Information - to historic climate data. A fantastic boon for researches and open government enthusiasts. But there's a sting in the tail. The majority of the datasets are under the Open Government Licence (OGL). That's basically Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0). …
Continue reading →api Screenshots WordPress · 7 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~4,047 times
A few years ago, I wrote about Google's secret screenshot API - a slightly cumbersome way to take website screenshots for free. There's another service which you may find simpler to use - mShots from WordPress. Here's how it works: Take any website link: https://twitter.com/JennyVass/status/1067855777040338944 URL Encode it: …
Continue reading →gender NaBloPoMo satire tech · 600 words · Viewed ~335 times
There's been lots of talk recently of the dearth of women attending technical conferences. This problem is blown out of all proportion! There are many excellent reasons to attend an all-male tech event: Reduced chance of having an affair while away on business ⚤ Hetrosexuals only! Won't accidentally mistake a CEO for a cocktail waitress 💁🍸 embarrassing! Excellent networking opportunities i…
Continue reading →hack javascript NaBloPoMo Responsible Disclosure security sri · 12 comments · 700 words · Viewed ~34,358 times
A few months ago, British Airways' customers had their credit card details stolen. How was this possible? The best guess goes something like this: BA had 3rd party JS on its payment page <script src="https://example.com/whatever.js"></script> The 3rd party's site was hacked, and the JS was changed. BA's customers ran the script, which then harvested their credit card details as they were…
Continue reading →alexa IoT NaBloPoMo Smart Home · 10 comments · 600 words · Viewed ~9,524 times
One evening, my wife turned to me in bed and said, "Winter is coming..." Well, what she actually said was "Get your frozen feet away from me, you cold-blooded monster!" The only way to save our marriage? HOOK OUR BED UP TO THE INTERNET! I couldn't find an electric blanket with IoT connectivity - so I built my own. Why? As a person with cold feet, I want to yell at my robot servant to…
Continue reading →NaBloPoMo security sri · 2 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~724 times
Here's a curiosity which I found while stumbling through the Sony PlayStation store. The website loads internally hosted scripts using SRI (SubResource Integrity). Why? Does your work require you to swipe an ID card to access the building? That seems pretty normal. Does your work also remind you to keep your badge visible, and to challenge people who aren't wearing theirs? That also seems…
Continue reading →NaBloPoMo ODcamp Open Data OpenBenches · 3 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~356 times
For the last year-and-a-bit, Liz and I have been running OpenBenches.org. An open data website dedicated to memorial benches. Here are some rough and ready numbers about how it has gone so far. 9,870 Benches At the time of writing, we're a little shy of 10,000 benches. As you can see, we have photos from all around the world. 9,000 UK Benches The majority of our benches are in the UK. …
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