This is a retropost. It was written in July 2021, but published after I had left the Civil Service. An MP has written to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asking about some work our department is doing. This is all rather usual for Government business. In the letter, the MP mentions me. By name. This is decidedly unusual! Civil Servants at my level are anonymous, interchangeable cogs…
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I'm pretty sure that the 2FA codes generated by my bank's TOTP app have a bias towards the number 8 - because eight is an auspicious number. But is that just my stupid meaty brain noticing patterns where none exist? The TOTP algorithm uses HMAC, which in turn uses SHA-1. My aforementioned brain is not clever enough to understand how that works. Although bigger, meatier brains have assured me it …
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Recently, WordPress got in contact with me to say they suspect that my password was exposed in some sort of data breach. Well, it's a day ending with a "y" - so of course some scumbag has pilfered my digital identity. WordPress mandated that I change my password. But was that really necessary? Firstly, the password was uniquely generated by my password manager. It isn't re-used anywhere else.…
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A few weeks ago, someone wanted to send me some crypto. After spending months studying for a Blockchain exam, I usually avoid such things. But, hey, $20 is $20. So I signed up for a wallet, installed an extension, verified my credentials, saved a seed phrase, and - without too much technical fuss - had some crypto transferred to my account. So far, so good. Compared to a traditional financial…
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A glistening pool of blood gently wept from the body. Crimson gore sparkled under rapid flash photography as it loosely clung to the wounds. So many wounds. Too many for this to have been an accident. "Bite marks," said the forensics officer. "A lot of bite marks." The detective peered at the ragged corpse. It was barely recognisable as human; just a series of holes where flesh ought to be. …
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I love putting stickers on my laptops. But when it's time to move to a different laptop, what happens to all those cool stickers? After spending too many nights with a scraper and isopropanol, I decided to get a pre-cut dbrand skin. It'll protect the laptop and it will peel off in one piece, allowing me to preserve all my old stickers. I got the cheapest possible one - it's going to be covered…
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TicketMaster has joined the long list of companies to lose their customers' information. As is common, they sent out an email to warn poor sods like me who might have had our details snaffled. Their email is particularly poor and contains a delightful example of how not to communicate issues like this. See if you can spot it: In the same breath as warning their customers to look out for…
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Another one in the Panopticon series. Bouncy sci-fi which scattershoots its plots all over the place. VR, Mission to Mars, evil AI, underwater cities, eyeless technomages - this has it all. It probably has a little too much crammed in. But, hey, it's a great ride. A cliffhanger every other chapter, vaguely plausible science, and mortal danger at every turn. It looked like I was about to be part …
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Vague thoughts as they enter my brainbox. The BlueSky social network has introduced "Reply Gating" - it looks like this: You can write your hot take on Taylor Swift and not be inundated by weirdos replying to you. Nifty! This is nothing new. Twitter has it. Facebook has the concept of "audiences" to restrict who your post is visible to. And, of course, blogging has this! There is a comment …
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I thought I didn't know Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. But, like all truly great cultural phenomena, it had disseminated itself through the cultureweb so thoroughly that I felt completely familiar with it. Performed in the round, from our nosebleed seats we had a stunning view of the action. The full floor of the Royal Albert Hall is used - there's so much going on that it become hard to take it all…
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Guess who's back, back again! If you're new to the blog series, this is where I attempt to identify all the mobile phones used by The Doctor and their companions. The 2024 series is incredible. Lots of plot, not too much exposition, and a whole bunch of mystery. I love it when Doctor Who goes off in a new direction. Let's take a look at the handsets used in these stories. The Church on Ruby…
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Last week, I was part of the BarCamp London Hackathon. It had all the usual ups and downs of a Hackathon - laptops crashing, APIs failing, and HDMI ports breaking. We had a massive projector for participants to show off their work. The HDMI connection was… shit. Sorry, there's no better way to put it. It worked for about 30 seconds and then displayed a green screen. We replaced the HDMI cable. W…
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