A few years ago, I idly wondered "Whatever happened to URI Schemes?". Older communications protocols didn't rely on http. You can use mailto:me@example.com to send email, sms:+447700900123 to send a text message, and skype:terence.eden to use Skype. There are dozens of these sorts of protocols. But modern apps seem to prefer making everything an https: link. That way, if the user doesn't have…
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Jon Hicks has a lovely blog post about his site's design. In it, he briefly touches on something I find interesting: Blogging like it's 1972 I also finally realised that there's nothing stopping me from adding journal posts dated from before I started blogging. So I'm going to start adding key life moments as much as I can. A blog isn't an immutable chain of events. There's nothing to stop us…
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There's a new pre-print paper called Pinpointing the problem: Providing page numbers for citations as a crucial part of open science by Leon Y. Xiao and Nick Ballou. It's a short, easily understandable paper, and well worth a read. I think I disagree with nearly all of its conclusions! The main point, I agree with. Citing a whole paper is a lossy process. Saying "Smith, J (1963) Practical Time…
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I recently saw Robin Moisson's method of password protecting a statically served HTML page. It's quite neat! But it does rely on JavaScript. That got me wondering if there was a way to encrypt a static page only using CSS? And... I think I've done it! I'll warn you now, this is a deeply stupid way to solve the problem. Here's a screencast of the demo in action: …
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Exactly a decade ago, I wrote about how Shakespeare invented the emoticon. Nestled deep in "Winter's Tale" is the first recorded use of the typographic smilie :) As I discussed, Sir Smile's smile appears in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th folios. One hundred years after the 4th folio was printed, the smile vanished. The 1786 edition simply omits it. At the time, I didn't have access to any other…
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The Guardian launched its online adventures back in 1999. At some point, they started using the name "Guardian Unlimited". Hey, the dot com boom made us all do crazy things! As part of that branding, they proudly used the domain GU.com Over time, the branding faded and GU.com became a URL shortening service. Tiny URls like gu.com/abc could be printed in papers, sent via SMS, or posted on…
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I'm back with some more exclusive Doctor Who goodies! A collector has recently acquired a load of old Who prop phones - and I'm working with them to identify which episodes they're from. You might remember Series 8's "In the Forest of the Night. It's the kid-heavy episode with lots of unidentified phones. At the time, I wasn't able to get a clear enough view of the phones to work out what…
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There are many improvisational games which are great for improving creativity, helping a team bond, or simply having a lot of fun. But there's one which is perfect for demonstrating how things like ChatGPT work. The "Once. Upon. A. Time." game requires two or more people with a basic grasp of English. Even a small child can play. The way it works is very simple. The first person says "Once..." …
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There are movies before Being John Malkovich, and there are movies after Being John Malkovich. It sets the standard for celebrities playing heightened versions of themselves. Once of those post-Malkocivh movies is the criminally underrated JCVD. In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Jean-Claude Van Damme. He's an ageing movie star, dealing with a fading career, money problems, and divorce.…
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My OnePlus 5T is beginning to show its age. After replacing the battery a few years ago, I felt it was time to upgrade its software to Lineage 20. Everything went smoothly - but there are a few niggles you should be aware of. Some of these are Google's fault - they truly have contempt for their users - and some could be fixed by Lineage if there were sufficient demand. I've mostly posted this…
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In 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein - setting the stage for modern science fiction. A mere 9 years later, Jane Loudon published "The Mummy!" which, to my mind, becomes one of the earliest works of speculative science fiction. Set in a 22nd Century England which is ruled over by a wise queen, a pair of scientists fly their personal hot-air balloon to Egypt where they use their galvanic…
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I hated art class at school. I could see so clearly in my head what I wanted my drawing to look like - but my hands just wouldn't obey me. Despite endless tutoring from sympathetic teachers, I left school with an unhealthy distaste for creating my own art. I simply didn't have the physical skills, knowledge of technique, or the temperament to continue. These days, I enjoy playing with…
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