Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

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Theatre Review: Macbeth - with David Tennant and Cush Jumbo

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Poster. Lady Macbeth towers over Macbeth, placing a crown upon his head.

Would you like to spend two hours with David Tennant whispering in your ears? You'd be a fool to say no! The stage is bare, the costumes are monochrome, Pepper's Ghost serves as a backdrop, the audience wears headphones. Is this style over substance? Almost. So let's talk about the schtick. Every actor is wearing a microphone which allows their merest whisper to be picked up. An impressive…

Theatre Review: Immersive 1984

· 800 words


Photo of me holding my party badge bearing the name Ministry of Truth.

Greetings Comrades! Are you ready to begin your assessment? This immersive reworking of Orwell's 1984 holds so much promise, but the production is so sparse that it ends up feeling a little underwhelming. In theory, everything about this should work. It is set in Hackney Town Hall, an impressive venue for a play about the dangers of bureaucracy. On entering, we were each given an ID badge -…

An Easy Guide To BlueSky Verification

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Change Handle screen.

The new Twitter-Wannabe BlueSky has an interesting approach to verifying accounts. Rather than you sending in your passport, or paying a 3rd party, or bribing an employee - you can self-verify for free! This opens up verification to small organisations, individuals, and anyone who wants to prove who they are. Brilliant! Verification means that your @username will change to @Your.Website.com -…

2024 - A Year In Review (special mid-life crisis edition)

· 12 comments · 850 words · Viewed ~326 times


Photo of me holding my party badge bearing the name Ministry of Truth.

It's my birthday! Therefore it marks the end of another year of me hurtling around Earth's yellow sun. So, as is customary, here's my year in review. I'm not really sure what happened to the last year. As the philosophers once said, "the years start coming and they don't stop coming". The biggest personal item was snapping a tooth and the long journey to getting implants. I've had my head…

The street finds its own use for the Internet of Things

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Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

Being the further and various adventures of The Guerrilla Infrastructure Team - a renegade bunch of digital anarchists and freedom fighters who mostly just wish things were slightly better and who would stop at nothing to find convoluted technical solutions to complex social problems. Their manifesto (such as it was) had paragraphs about the correct way to drink Club Maté nestled next to …

Under Electric Candle Light

· 1 comment · 2,300 words


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

It isn't true that Vampires only live in the dark. Yes, we are obligate nocturnal, but we've always been surrounded by artificial light. In fact, we thrive on the pinpricks of illumination that pierce the night. The long shadows of a fire are our hunting grounds, flickering candles our playthings, a gas lamp was like a disco-ball. Oh! I remember discos! Random flashes of lights in a variety…

Spelling Errors

· 1 comment · 1,400 words


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

The scream of a hundred days drew to a close and silence covered the land. The choir of villagers were delirious with exhaustion. Some of them had been at the chant for a week without sleep in order to draw God ever closer. The last few months had been spent screaming in a foreign tongue and the sudden absence of noise felt oppressive. The choir collapsed in a tangled heap onto the threadbare …

Set your domain name as your handle for a BlueSky bot which is bridged from the Fediverse

· 3 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~292 times


A confused little cardboard robot is lost amongst the daisies

If you've found this page, it's because you are me in the future and want to remember these instructions! Create an account on the Fediverse using a domain you control For example @user@bots.example.com Follow the Fediverse-ATProto bridge @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy Your account will need to be over 2 weeks old and have a name, profile picture, etc. You now have an account on BSky! Its…

Tell me, what did you eat last night?

· 2 comments · 1,750 words


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

"The electric tongue says the soup needs more salt." "It got more salt!" Mothers and daughters have been bickering about seasoning ever since the stone age. One person's "too salty!" is another person's "you call that flavour?!" It is amazing kitchen knives are only ever rarely used to dispatch a disobedient daughter-in-law or to remind a nagging matriarch that she's overstepping the mark. …

When Doves Cry

· 4 comments · 1,800 words


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

I spend every day crying for men I've only just met. Way back when, the selling of emotions was a complex affair. My grandmother was a lust seller - although she wouldn't have described herself like that. Bedecked in feathers and fake jewels, she gyrated on celluloid. She's in the background of that Monroe film, showing off her legs in a Hay's Code Compliant manner. Enough to titillate without…

Anyway, the wind blows

· 4 comments · 1,800 words


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

Finding the root cause of an incident will always come to a dead-end at some point. We can use various investigatory techniques to ascertain why a part failed or who installed it incorrectly, but that doesn't get to the heart of the systemic failures which led us here today. This has been a time-consuming (and some would say futile) effort, but I believe this sort of analysis is vital. Here is …

Introducing ActivityBot - the simplest way to build Mastodon Bots

· 9 comments · 350 words · Viewed ~1,178 times


Logo for ActivityPub.

As you may have read, BotsIn.Space is closing down, I have lots of automated bot accounts living on the Fediverse - and I want them to continue posting. Installing and maintaining an entire Mastodon instance sounds like hard work. Paying people to host my stuff feels like putting my fate in someone else's hands. Say… didn't I write my own ActivityPub server? Why, yes! Yes I did! I took the c…