android bug google · 250 words
I try to write good bug reports, I really do. I fill out templates when asked. I try to include reproducible proof of the bug. I'll even give a screenshot or screen recording to prove I'm not making things up. If I'm familiar enough with the programming language, I'll also attempt to say roughly where the problem lies. Sadly, that's not always enough. Two years ago today, I wrote what I thought …
Continue reading →BBC Interview solar · 5 comments · 550 words · Viewed ~407 times
I spoke, briefly, to BBC journalist Tom Singleton about our solar panels and how they're coping in the heat. The good news is that solar panels work when it is sunny (duh!) - but the bad news is that electronics are generally less efficient when it is hot. Here are a few examples. July 16th was a few days before the heatwave: .social-embed{all:unset;display:block;}.social-embed *…
Continue reading →xbox · 1 comment · 950 words · Viewed ~1,644 times
I know what you're going to say - the Xbox has HDMI. Well, modern ones do. The Xbox 360 and its successors all have crisp digital outputs. But I'm talking about the original Xbox. This bad boy: Mmmmm! Chunky! The OG Xbox's AV connector is... Let's be charitable, a bit weird. The console was released a few months before HDMI - so it isn't surprising that it doesn't feature that particular…
Continue reading →Energy Saving · 40 comments · 600 words · Viewed ~10,123 times
As part of our quest to make our house more efficient, we've installed solar panels, a battery, insulation, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do. The next step is working out if we can reduce our dependency on gas. Octopus Energy (join and we both get £50!) offered to send an engineer around for free to assess our property for suitability for an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP). The …
Continue reading →dns internet trivia · 23 comments · 100 words · Viewed ~35,743 times
As part of my new job, I'm learning a lot more about the mysteries of the Domain Name System than any mortal should know I thought possible. The humble unix dig command allows you to query all sort of DNS information. For example, to see name server records for the BBC website, you can run: dig bbc.co.uk NS Which will get you: ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: …
Continue reading →HTML5 i18n · 1 comment · 650 words · Viewed ~262 times
How do you show two languages simultaneously in HTML? If you want to show text in a foreign language, the markup is simple: <html lang="en-GB"> ... As Caesar said: <i lang="la">veni vidi vici</i> That says the page is in British English (en-GB) but the specific phrase is in Latin (la). But how can you offer an in-text translation of that phrase into the page's native language? Here are a few …
Continue reading →academia MSc Social Media yak shaving · 4 comments · 800 words · Viewed ~3,115 times
About a million years ago, I was discussing the FOAF (Friend of a Friend) ontology with its early proponents. It allowed you to define a machine-readable semantic relationship like "Alice is married to Bill" and "Bill is Carol's child" and "Carol works for David". That sort of thing. At the time, all the FOAF relationships were defined in terms of positive sentiment. There wasn't (and still…
Continue reading →faustshop HowTo php tutorial · 2 comments · 700 words · Viewed ~284 times
I was asked to help create some pseudo-NFT style avatars for Cambridge Digital Humanities' Faust Shop project. Something with vaguely the same æsthetic as those daft "Crypto Punks". You can see it in action partway through this TikTok video. @cambridgeuniversity Visit the #Faust Shop and see what happens when you make a deal with your digital double. #Devil #EduTok #Cambridge #Performance …
Continue reading →cryptography security · 1 comment · 500 words · Viewed ~782 times
Shamir's Secret Sharing (henceforth "SSS") is clever. Far too clever for most people to understand - but let's give it a go. Suppose you have a super-secure password for a Really Important Thing. Th15IsMyP4s5w0rd!123 You can remember this - because you're awesome. But it might be a good idea to share the password with someone else, just in case. Of course, if you share it with one person,…
Continue reading →covid19 emf emfcamp solar · 1 comment · 650 words · Viewed ~274 times
I fucking loved my first visit to #EMFcamp. After two years of lockdown, I was over-excited at the chance to be with all my friends in a field this year. I was over-excited about doing a talk about my beloved solar panels. I was over-excited about sleeping in a goddamned camper-van! I was even - sadly - excited at seeing my name broadcast on TELETEXT! Photograph © Skylar MacDonald 2022. All …
Continue reading →security Star Wars xss · 550 words · Viewed ~223 times
You remember that bit in Star Wars where the Rebels find the flaw in the Death Star plans and then completely fail to exploit it? Yeah, that's why they don't make movies about inept hackers like me… Anyway, the website https://play.starwars.com/html5/starwars_crawlcreator/ allows users to create their own "Star Wars" style crawl. It's a fun little site - but it has a few flaws. Whenever you l…
Continue reading →swearing · 2 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~624 times
The British town of Scunthorpe is a delightful place to visit. It is a perfectly normal town, with just one tiny problem. Its name is often unfairly redacted online because it contains a "rude" word. See if you can spot it… This sort of overreach is generally known as the Scunthorpe Problem. I ran into this issue on a kid-friendly site from a major brand. I had the temerity to type a perfectly n…
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