What does the humble ⋮ symbol mean to you? To geeks, it is a compelling attraction. Something cool and esoteric lives in there! All sorts of goodies to explore and configure. To normal people, it is invisible. Normal people don't go pushing random icons on their apps because computers are fragile and may break if you do the wrong thing. To me, it is a sign that product managers are a menace a…
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The brilliant kobodl Python package allows you to interact with your Kobo account programmatically. You can list all the books you've purchased, download them, and - as of version 0.12.0 - view your wishlist. Here's a rough and ready Python script which will tell you when any the books on your wishlist have dropped below a certain amount. Table of ContentsPrerequisitesGet your wishlistSort the …
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How far can you enhance an image or video before you cross the line into manipulation? The UK is currently prosecuting two men accused of a crime. Part of the prosecution's evidence is a video. In showing it to the jury, the prosecution have said: the two minute and 41 second-long video is "extremely dark" but the "unmistakeable" noise of a chainsaw can be heard followed by the sound of a tree…
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I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to news reports. The real story is always in the penultimate paragraph. Let's look at this inflammatory headline: Woman’s 'spree' after $158k banking error, refuses to return pensioner’s life savings An Auckland beneficiary is under investigation for an alleged “spending spree” after $158,000 was mistakenly transferred to her account. […] pensioner lo…
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Consider these two HTML elements: <div class="a b">…</div> <div class="a b">…</div> Is there any semantic difference between them? Is there any way to target one but not the other? In other words, are they logically different? I think the answer is no. On every browser I've tested, both are the same. Whether using JS or CSS, there's no difference between them. You could replace every \n wit…
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I like to highlight bits of code on my blog. I was using GeSHi - but it has ceased to receive updates and the colours it uses aren't WCAG compliant. After skimming through a few options, I found Tempest Highlight. It has nearly everything I want in a code highlighter: PHP with no 3rd party dependencies. Lots of common languages. Modern, with regular updates. Easy to use fun…
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My wife and I run OpenBenches - a crowd-sourced database of nearly 40,000 memorial benches. Every bench is geo-tagged with a latitude and longitude. But how do you go from a string of digits to something human readable? How do I turn -33.755780,150.603769 into "42 Wallaby Way, Sydney, Australia"? Luckily, that's a (somewhat) solved problem. Services like OpenCage, StadiaMaps, OpenStreetMap,…
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HTML elements can have attributes. For example id, class, src, alt, and many others. These attributes can contain values - an img element's src attribute has a value which is a link to an image. An id attribute's value is a single string. But some attributes can contain multiple values. Here's a thought experiment for you. Consider these two HTML elements: <p class="alpha bravo charlie">………</p> …
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The faithful old GeSHi Syntax Highlighter hasn't seen an update in a many a long year. It's a tried and trusted way to do server-side code highlighting - turning a myriad of programming languages into beautiful HTML & CSS. A few weeks ago, I noticed someone had proposed an update to its HTML rendering. The changes were mostly adding in new element names. PHP has been updated several times…
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I think I mostly agree with everything this book is saying, but after almost every paragraph I found myself scribbling the same note "Yes! But what action should I take though?" The author has an excellent and accessible way of showing the problems caused by the Climate Crisis - but the "action" part is mostly missing. Take this example: So something you can do right now to tackle them is to…
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What if the Discworld's Assassin's Guild existed in the real world? That's it. That's the plot. Go to a university where they'll teach you to be a better class of murderer. The first half is excellent. Chuckles all the way through. A heady mix of every boarding-school novel you've ever read, and funny little twists and turns. Lots of the dialogue is straight out of Terry Pratchett (and I can't…
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The good folks at SmartDisplayer Technology Co have sent me a six colour eInk badge to play about with. Here's a quick video and then a walk-through of its features. You can also view SmartDisplayer's official video. The Badge It is a single block of plastic. There are no seams, screws, or rough edges. The ePaper appear right on the surface of the badge, there's no recessing or anything…
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