If you use WordPress's HTML5 comments, there's an annoying little gotcha. There's a four year old bug which prevents client-side form validation. HTML allows <input> elements to have a required attribute. In theory, that means the form shouldn't submit until the input is filled in. Sadly, WordPress uses novalidate on the form - as the name suggests it stops any validation. But! WordPress is…
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The UK has what is known as a "Standard Scale" of fines for criminal acts. For example, breaking the law may incur "a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale". Part of the reasoning behind this, so I understand, is to make it simpler for the Government to update the value of those fines. Rather than having to change every law in the land - and have tedious votes on them - it's possible…
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If you've ever learned Mandarin Chinese, you'll know about "measure words". They're the sort of thing that trip up all new learners of the language. While 个 (gè) can be used as a generic measure word, using it everywhere makes you sound like an idiot (according to my old teacher). So you learn to use 个 for people, 包 for packets, and 根 for things which are long and thin. English has a similar con…
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After watching the BBC comedy series The Cleaner staring Greg Davies, I was surprised to learn that it was actually a remake of a German comedy series called Der Tatortreiniger. I don't think I've ever seen a German sitcom before, so I found the US DVDs (which is the only way to watch it with English subtitles) and gave it a go. It is fantastisch! It veers between farce, satire, and slapstick…
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What if the heroine in a Jane Austen novel had visions of the future and the past? That's the rather compelling premise of Time Squared. But, ultimately, it doesn't really fulfil the promise. It starts as a fairly standard regency-style novel - which of the two dashing brothers will our orphaned heroine marry?!? Our protagonist sometimes has headaches which lead her to see glimpses of a future…
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It's one of those pithy little quotes which reveals so much about our two cultures. The average Briton considers anything more than a 45 minute trip a bit of a schelp, whereas Americans will seemingly drive half a day just to get some ribs from that one place they like. Conversely, I went to school opposite a church which pre-dated Columbus's invasion of North America - and I doubt that was the…
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In web-development circles, it is a well-known fact that trying to validate an email using a regular expression is… complex. The full set of modern email standards allows for such wonderful addresses as: chief.o'brien+ds9@spásárthach.भारत So determining whether or not your user has entered a valid email address becomes an ever-increasing challenge. But what if you have the opposite issue? Suppo…
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I wrote a moderately popular post on Mastodon. Lots of people shared it. Is it possible to find out how many different ActivityPub servers it went to? Yes! As we all know, the Fediverse is one big chain mail. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. When I write a post, it appears on my server (called an "instance" in Mastodon-speak). Everyone on my instance can see my post. My instance looks …
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When I was seven or eight, I asked Santa to bring me a set of screwdrivers for Christmas. I wanted to take apart my toys to see how they worked. I also thought they might be useful on our upcoming holiday; if the aeroplane needed repairing mid-flight I'd be able to help! Santa heard my plea and delivered a set of screwdrivers. I used them for years. A few decades later and they're still in use - …
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Everyone smokes in the future. It is such an obvious truism that sci-fi writers can predict faster-than-light travel, yet fail to see that manly men won't be smoking pipes on board their spaceships. Someone recommended that I read "Autofac" which is the sci-fi version of "The Magic Porridge Pot". But the story was surprisingly hard to find. Originally published in a magazine in 1955, it was…
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I was saddened to hear of Kris Nóva's untimely death a few weeks ago. I had her book "Hacking Capitalism" on my eReader for several months, but hadn't got around to reading it yet. Never put these things off. The book is a complicated but fitting legacy. It absolutely showcases Nóva's ideas, ideals, and potential. Perhaps a little overwrought in places, and a little underpowered in others. It's c…
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Google Books is one of many projects that Google has forgotten about. There's no support available and, of course, it's impossible to send them a bug report. The best anyone can do is write a ranty blog post and hope it gets noticed. When I search for my name in Google Books, it returns books I have reviewed. These aren't books that I've written. They don't mention, quote, or cite me. My reviews …
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