NaBloPoMo Star Wars · 150 words
A couple of months ago I noticed there was an auction of Sci-Fi related material in London. The catalogue was amazing! The original Leela costume from Doctor Who, costumes from Star Trek, gizmos from Blade Runner - and a whole bunch of Star Wars props! Sadly, I couldn't afford the original pieces of the Death Star (expected price of £10k-20k) nor the Millennium Falcon blueprints (a more …
Continue reading →bodge camera hacking hardware NaBloPoMo · 3 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~541 times
I've been busy writing the definitive Sercomm Camera API documentation. (No, you need a hobby!) While doing so, I noticed that I couldn't get my Pan/Tilt/Zoom camera to... well... pan! No lateral movement whatsoever. It'd move up and down - but its left and right movement was non-existant. I could hear the stepper motor whirring, but it wasn't producing any movement. Weird... TO THE…
Continue reading →fonts NaBloPoMo · 500 words · Viewed ~571 times
If you thought Web Fonts were pretty nifty, then you're going to think font subsetting is really cool. No, honestly! It is! As I've written about before you can dramatically reduce the size of your Web Fonts by cutting out characters that you don't need. For example, suppose you don't need to include the русский алфавит - you can immediately drop 66 letters (upper- and lower-case), a whole load…
Continue reading →data gov.uk NaBloPoMo · 5 comments · 1,150 words · Viewed ~1,036 times
Eight years after I published this blog post, I helped officially release all these domain names as open data! Funny how life works out, eh? Would you like to know every domain name the UK Government had registered? Of course you would! There could be all sorts of interesting tit-bits hidden in there (ProtectAndSurvive.gov.uk? EbolaOutbreak2017.nhs.uk? MinistryOfTruth.police.uk?) Rather than…
Continue reading →complexitiy NaBloPoMo simplicity · 3 comments · 1,450 words · Viewed ~2,808 times
The one book I insist my new hires read before starting is Edward de Bono's "Simplicity". It suggests that we should value others' time over our own. Every hour we spend making things simple gives a net benefit to humanity. Whether it is laws, industrial design, software, or documentation - our goal should be to make things radically simple. Not only does simplicity save time - it also saves…
Continue reading →gchq guardian ipbill NaBloPoMo politics security spies · 1 comment · 1,500 words · Viewed ~234 times
Earlier this year, I attended a lecture given by Alan Rusbridger - the outgoing editor of The Guardian - entitled "The World After Snowden." Held at Oxford University, and attended by journalists, technologists, and former spies - it was an exceptionally interesting talk and provoked a lively debate over dinner. In light of the publication of the disastrous Investigatory Powers Bill, I've…
Continue reading →car i3 NaBloPoMo solar · 11 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~1,268 times
Regular readers will know that I have solar panels and an electric car. Is there any way to hook the panels up so they directly charge the car? Can I set my electrical system up to divert surplus electricity into the car when my house isn't using it. This is what I do with my hot water iBoost - when household energy usage is low, it automatically switches on my immersion heater. Can I rig up…
Continue reading →design NaBloPoMo rant toilet usability · 1 comment · 300 words
Another in my occasional series on the usability of toilets! It's hard wandering around seeing the mistakes which are made by designers. Perhaps it's poor keming on fonts, or a hotel room light switch which makes no sense, or - in my case - bogs. Lots of toilets incorporate a "dual flush." Press one button to unleash a deluge sufficient to sink all but the hardiest of bowel-movements, press a…
Continue reading →api fiverfun github hacking NaBloPoMo · 1 comment · 600 words · Viewed ~3,674 times
In the glorious past, Amazon had an API for interacting with its "Wishlist" service. Not any more though. So, here's the inspiring story of how a rag-tag band of adventurers brought it back from the dead! Several years ago, Justin Scarpetti created a tool to extract data from an Amazon wishlist - the imaginatively named Amazon Wish Lister. It used that most vulgar of programming practices -…
Continue reading →api NaBloPoMo twitter · 5 comments · 350 words · Viewed ~4,782 times
Go take a look at this tweet https://twitter.com/edent/status/650948940431511552. You can't - I deleted it! I've been looking at how to track politician's deleting tweets, when it occurred to me - is there any way to prove that a Tweet ever existed? It's possible to automatically take a screenshot of a page, but screenshots can easily be manipulated. So, can we preserve deleted tweets with…
Continue reading →api google NaBloPoMo Screenshots · 9 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~16,672 times
I've been looking for a way to programmatically take screenshots of websites. Most of the solutions I've found won't work on headless servers, require complex libraries to be installed, or cost money. So, what do we do when faced with a knotty programming problem? Hack it! Google has a "Pagespeed" service, it allows any webmaster to get a comprehensive report on how Google assess their page. …
Continue reading →hackathon NaBloPoMo · 900 words
Occasionally, I get some really interesting freelance gigs. It turns out there's a rising market for conference hack-days. New company Digiotology paid me - and several others - to participate in a hackathon based at the Extreme Medicine Conference in London. Conference goers could attend lectures, visit exhibitor stands, and come discuss their needs with a group of friendly hackers. We…
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