This is a decidedly odd book. Was there a "secret" hominid that the world overlooked? While the Neanderthals get all the limelight, perhaps there was another lost species of human lurking in the background. The science seems settled - yes there was - so this book tells us how scientists reached that conclusion. Except, it isn't really clear who this book is aimed at. Part of it is very casually…
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Cables aren't just copper wire and plastic sheath any more. Modern USB-C cables contain little microchips called eMarkers which allow them to transfer data and power at terrifying speeds. But, sadly, there's no way you can look at a USB-C cable and see whether it supports the baffling array of features available. Enter the catchily-named Treedix TRX5-0816-AC. It will test just about any sort of …
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Open Data is dear to my heart. It is the idea that raw data should be public published, free of restrictions, and in a form that is most usable for others. When people talk about Open Data, they usually mean "Data that has been paid for by tax-payers" - often data created or collected by Government agencies. But it also extends to the data used by researchers, scientists, economists and any…
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This is a complicated book to review. There are several distinct strands to it, although they intermingle freely creating a confusing and disjointed thesis. Ita O'Brien, it is fair to say, invented the role of "Intimacy Co-ordinator" on film and TV sets. You wouldn't expect an director to just shout "fight" at a pair of actors and expect them to know how to safely perform a complex action…
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Interrail were having a sale on their month-long first class tickets. So Liz and I decided to do a "Grand Tour" - running around and seeing a dozen European cities. There are lots of companies which will sell you a pre-designed package Interrailing tour - but we decided to tread our own path. We spent a few weeks poring over maps and rail planners, scouring booking.com for hotels, and working…
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Terminology is hard. Computer terminology is even harder. Humans are animals who just love to classify things. We have a fundamental need in our delicious meaty brains to put things into conceptual buckets. This, I think, leads to some unfortunate consequences when our categories don't match up with other people's categories. For example, take this news story and this journalist's response to…
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QR codes are brilliant. They're a simple way to allow users to easily and quickly go to the right URl - no matter how complex. No more worrying about typing in long addresses or figuring out if that's a letter O or the number O. Scan and go! The best thing about QR codes is that they're free. It doesn't cost any money to generate one. They're an open standard with no middle-men. Users can go…
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Is it Season 15 of New Who? Series 2 of Ncuti Gatwa's Who? Series 1875 of the UNIT dating controversy? Either way, welcome back to this increasingly silly series of blog posts where I try to identify all the mobile phones used by The Doctor and their companions. This weird and wonderful series has, sadly, a paucity of phones. The only time they appear is in the phonetastic and bone-chilling…
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Over the last few weeks, I've received several calls which all have the same modus operandi. A disembodied robotic voice tries to get me to connect on WhatsApp. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/add-me-on-whatsapp.mp4 Some of the voices are reasonable facsimiles of human voices (like the above) and some are just garbage. 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. The voice cl…
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After reading the short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo, I decided to grab the first book in the "Dead Djinn" series. It is a delightfully realised universe although reminiscent of both Saladin Ahmed's work - a Middle-East populated with ghuls, djinn, and sword-wielding magicians - and also Annalee Newitz's Terraformers with its sentient trains and unionised robots. Unfortunately, it is rather…
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Way back in 2012, The Guardian reviewed an eInk reader which cost a mere £8. The txtr beagle was designed to be a stripped-down and simplified eReader. As far as I can tell, it never shipped. There were a few review units sent out but I can't find any evidence of consumers getting their hands on one. Also, that £8 price was the subsidised price when purchased with a mobile contract. Their w…
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Back in 2020, Andy Bell introduced me to the idea of grouping attribute values. You've probably seen something like this before: <article class="card-section-background1-colorRed" ></article> A single class over-encumbered by all sorts of things. The more modular way to write this would be: <article class="card section box bg-base color-primary" ></article> That's pretty good! Each…
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