Long time readers will know that the happiest day of my life was when I got married. Dressed as Darth Vader. The most expensive thing about our wedding was probably that Vader suit. After nearly 10 years of marital bliss, I got bored at having that gorgeous suit packed away in a box. So I bought a full-sized mannequin and set about dressing it up. Having a box of limbs delivered is a little…
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Ever had a moan at your bank on Twitter? You're not alone - it's one of the most popular ways to interact with large companies. But how can you be sure that you're actually talking to the real customer services team? There's been a worrying rise in the number of fake accounts which attempt to trick people into handing over their banking details. Let's take a look at one of them. Here we see…
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I've written before about Solipsist design - those services which have been designed to work only for a very specific type of family. I was taking a look at Google's "Family" proposition - which allows users to share their purchases with other family members. What I found didn't impress me. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentFile under "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Families."…
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This is a (silly) attempt to fix some of the shortcomings of JSON. Hence it is named after the goddess of music. It uses C0 Control Characters Here is an example: ␜ ␁ This is a KYLI document ␂ ␝ GroupName ␞ data ␟ value ␛ Comments are supported too! They can be multilined easily. ␙ I've used Unicode Control Pictures so you can see what's happening.…
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This is a blog post about user interfaces. I was wandering along the beach one day, when I noticed some clever chap had drawn some arrows in the sand. Can you guess where they led? The more astute of you will have realised that these are not human drawn arrows. They are, of course, footprints left by birds. A bird's foot is a "backwards" arrow. The apex points to the bird's rear. It is …
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Companies face a complicated choice. Make things easy for the customers, or make things secure for them. Convenience seems to take priority most of the time. This forces companies to get their customers to risk their own security. In this example, we see Verizon Wireless asking their customers to type their passwords into Twitter for everyone to see! This is dangerous. It is likely that many …
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I'm probably not the first to do this - but it was a fun way to learn just how tricky it is to control a cheap quadcopter even in mild weather. This video has no sound. Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video tag. Good enough quality to make sure the panels aren't covered in bird-mess, leaves, or anything else which might block their efficiency. Thanks to Jack Franklin for the…
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Last week I attended a talk by Dr Irina Higgins from Artificial Intelligence company DeepMind. It was a fascinating look at how their AI works, and how it is trained. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentIf you've ever played a video game online, it is likely you've been training an Artificial Intelligence agent without realising it.Ethical?❤️ 7💬 4🔁 020:06 - Thu 09 March 2017 Part of the problem is…
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Update! The source-code for this app can be found at https://github.com/edent/TweeView Many years ago, I created a threaded conversation viewer for fledgling social network App.net. It was a unique way to flow through a conversation without having to be constrained by the linear vertical scroll of the typical web browser. App.net died - and I never found a reasonable way to recreate it for…
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Here's a simple bash one-liner to convert mixed-case filenames into Title Case: rename 's/(\S+)/\u\L$1/g' * This forces the file extension to lower-case as well. Use rename -n to test the command without changing anything on the filesystem. (Adapted from this PerlMonks FAQ.) Background I have a bunch of inconsistently named files like: HERE COMES THE SUN.mp3 hey jude.mp3 The lOng and…
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Walking back from work yesterday, I noticed an unusual set of chuggers - those faux-cheerful folk who try to stop you in the street asking for money. They were fundraising for Unicef. Rather than handing out flyers they were carrying high-tech VR headsets! Using the headset, I was able to take a virtual tour of a Unicef aid drop. As with all 360 experiences, it takes a little getting used…
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The ultra secure messaging app, Signal, requires a mobile phone number in order to sign up to it. This, as my friend Tom Morris, points out, is madness. People don't own mobile phone numbers. They are rented from mobile operators. Yes, you may be able to move "your" number between a limited set of providers - but it ultimately doesn't belong to you. An operator can unilaterally take your number…
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