Today was my first day in India. Bangalore, to be precise. The city is hot, noisy, full of dangerous drivers, cows on the road, and a disturbingly potholed pavement. I entered a modern looking mall. Partly out of tourist curiosity, mostly for the air conditioning! I saw something which shocked me. As I was coming down as escalator, I noticed a teenage boy stood at the bottom of the "up"…
Continue reading →camera linux review y-cam ycam · 750 words · Viewed ~1,046 times
This is a review of the Y-Cam Knight SD. I previously reviewed the Y-Cam S in 2009. I got this camera for a 30% discount thanks to Y-Cam's social media team. Adjust your bias filters accordingly. Unboxing Linux Set Up To set the camera up, you need to use its internal webserver. So, how can you find out the IP address of the camera? Use the provided network cable to connect the…
Continue reading →bit.ly london QR Codes · 250 words
Wandering through London today, I noticed that Southbank London has put QR codes on its posters. I've mentioned before the dangers of using Bit.ly as a QR code generator - as it allows us to peek at the codes' performance statistics. Here are the codes on the posters - click for bigger. As all the codes use Bit.ly so we can see how well they've performed - click on each one for the latest…
Continue reading →bible humanism religion secular · 600 words
The Telegraph's headline screams "Christians have no right to wear cross at work, says Government"! Personally, I think it's good that the Government is standing up for secular values. I also like the cognitive dissonance which this case must be causing the right-wing as it seems to be about the religious right using the much derided "Human Rights!" Act. Whoever wins, they lose. What struck…
Continue reading →jonathan lord nhs southwest trains stop the bill woking · 1 comment · 200 words
(Unlike most "open letters" this one was sent to my MP using the fantastic WriteToThem. I've added hyperlinks for context.) Dear Jonathan Lord, I want to thank you for highlighting the inadequacy of South West Trains service from Woking. As commuters for four years, my wife and I are sick and tired of trains which are overcrowded, frequently late, and often filthy. As the answer you…
Continue reading →api developers hci programming ui · 20 comments · 1,250 words · Viewed ~23,431 times
I've been thinking a lot about APIs and their design recently. I stumbled on this fantastic quote from Greg Parker: Greg Parker@gparkerA programming language is a user interface for developers. Language authors should learn from HCI principles.❤️ 41💬 6🔁 019:10 - Wed 22 February 2012 When I first started learning C++ (back in the bad old days) I was convinced that any 1st year student could desi…
Continue reading →github Open Source php qr QR Codes · 4 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~1,086 times
When people ask me which QR generator to use, I usually suggest Google Charts. However, recently I've become dissatisfied with its limitations, so I've decided to write and release my own QR encoder. I'm still looking for a catchy name for it (suggestions welcomed) - so for now it's called "QR Generator PHP". It's available on GitHub or you can use it directly. So, how does it compare to…
Continue reading →drm dvd linux ripping · 2 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~13,888 times
This is a quick tutorial to show you how to rip DVDs on a headless server. That is; one which only has command line access. The documentation for MakeMKV is available. It's a bit sparse. It also doesn't have many of the features of the GUI. For example, the GUI allows you to select which video, audio, and subtitles, you want to copy. So if you only want the original German director's…
Continue reading →code hackathon hackday winer · 2 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~219 times
Dave Winer is totally off base when he says "Hackathons are how marketing guys wish software were made." Perhaps it's different in his part of the world, but over here, hackdays are fun! All the hackathon / hackdays I've been to are, essentially, Scrapheap Challenge* for software people. *Note to Americans, Junkyard Wars is the US remake of Scrapheap Challenge. The last hackday I went to was…
Continue reading →data protection dpa legal twitter · 150 words · Viewed ~241 times
As Twitter now have a UK office, I thought I would see what data they hold about me. Thanks to the UK's Data Protection act, it's really simple to request the information. I wasn't expecting a whole CD's worth of information - like Facebook provides users - but what I did get surprised me. Twitter UK has no control or responsibility over the user information in the Twitter service and cannot…
Continue reading →movies review woody allen Woody Allen Challenge · 150 words
I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. After his previous films, it's hard to see why anyone would let Woody Allen make another comedy. I'm glad they did! "Bananas" is the first truly funny Woody Allen film. Right from the start it contains gags which - amazingly - make you laugh. A departure from his earlier films! The jokes come at an even pace, a good mix of…
Continue reading →movies review woody allen Woody Allen Challenge · 100 words
I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order. Take The Money And Run has a promising start. A faux documentary with some excellent gags. But it leaps around the story with no real regard for the viewer. It's possibly the first "mockumentary" and, as such, is a trail-blazing piece. But as with his earlier films the gags are few and far between. Once the jokes hit, they're…
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