Movie Review · 300 words
Cyrano is deeply weird. As a retelling of the classic story goes, it hits all the right beats. And yet everything about it just feels… off. The actors speak their dialogue with the cadence of a Shakespearean play or Restoration comedy. But they speak modern English with some very laboured prose. The music is delightful. But the lyrics sound like they've been mistranslated from French and forced …
Continue reading →Book Review Panopticon Books Sci Fi · 3 comments · 150 words
Another fun and frantic slice of near-future sci-fi from Anne Currie. This is the sequel to Utopia Five. A post-global-climate-catastrophe Britain, where augmented humans stalk the land and immersive technology allows for an effective panopticon. Is it a snooper's paradise, or a sensible way to maintain order? There's a surprising amount of philosophy in here - although it does occasionally…
Continue reading →google spam · 11 comments · 1,200 words · Viewed ~5,524 times
Recently, I've been getting a lot of spam notifications from Google Drive. Here's a sample: The notifications come direct to my Android phone via the Drive app - they don't appear in my Gmail spam folder. There is no way to report the abuse. If I go to the list of notification in the Android apps, there's no option to report that the notification is spam. If I'm stupid enough to open the…
Continue reading →Book Review code programming · 7 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~11,261 times
There are some books which make you feel smarter just by having them on your shelf. This is one of them! I would consider it essential for anyone working with code - whether a wide-eyed newbie or grizzled veteran. How do human brains understand code? What neurological quirks do we all have? Which common mistakes can be easily avoided? Only by understanding our puny hardware ("Isn’t it a miracle …
Continue reading →hp printer review · 14 comments · 1,750 words · Viewed ~18,552 times
The fine folk at HP sent me one of their new Laser printers to review. The HP M140w is a small printer/scanner with built in WiFi. It's pretty good - but has an atrocious app - and works with Linux. So, what do you get for your £220? Unboxing Annoyingly, it doesn't come with a USB cable! I thought that was to save money - but they included a UK and EU power cable, so I think it's just to …
Continue reading →Book Review piracy the pirate bay · 4 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~409 times
Obviously, I've never downloaded "warez" in my life. And, for the avoidance of doubt, I was never a member of the so-called "Scene". But such shenanigans were almost unavoidable on the early web and - wow! - is it weird seeing snippets of your history presented in an academic study! Why do people "pirate" software and other intellectual property? The answer isn't as simple as you may think. This …
Continue reading →arg Social Media twitter · 4 comments · 1,700 words · Viewed ~351 times
If you hang around on a social network long enough, you'll find the same tropes being repeated again and again. So, I thought I'd document some of the ones that I personally find annoying. This blog post is an extension of my moderately popular Twitter thread - with a bit more detail about why they are irritating. The Thief of Words .social-embed{all:unset;display:block;}.social-embed *…
Continue reading →solar · 6 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~1,454 times
We've had solar panels on the roof of our London home for exactly two years. They've just tipped over the 8,000kWh mark. The first question people tend to ask is "how much do they cost?" And the answer is… "It depends." The costs we paid two years ago aren't going to be particularly relevant to you. We have a 3 storey house, so paid a bit more for scaffolding. Our electrics were in a decent s…
Continue reading →IoT Smart Home tuya · 150 words · Viewed ~441 times
I've been experimenting with Far Infrared heating. The panel itself is fairly boring technology. A large solid-state "thing" which turns electricity into Infrared energy. But what's the "smarts" in it which allows it to be controlled? TO THE SCREWDRIVERS, ROBIN! There's a single board hiding in the boring grey shell. It's a QNQ010W - which doesn't have any publicly available data. KB-5150…
Continue reading →asakuki gadget IoT review Smart Home tuya · 2 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~895 times
All gadgets have to include WiFi now. That's the law! Does your home smell horrible? Would you like it to smell lovely? Well, friends, the good folk at Asakuki think that I'm the sort of person who knows lots of putrid people. So they sent me this Essential Oil Diffuser. It's pretty plug-and-play. Pour some water into the supplied jug, tip it into the unit, shake in a few drops of your…
Continue reading →bitcoin blockchain Certified Blockchain Professional MSc · 1,100 words
As previously discussed, I'm doing the Certified Blockchain Professional course. It is self-directed learning, so I'm going through it at my own pace. In order to consolidate my learning, and help organise my thoughts, I'm blogging about my reflections on each module. These are mostly notes to myself - but I hope if you find something interesting (or incorrect) that you'll leave a comment. …
Continue reading →Book Review Sci Fi uplift · 200 words
SUPERCHIMPS! IN! SPAAAAAAACE! The previous book was about neo-Dolphins, this one is about chimps. And it is very good. Ultimately, it is a book about slavery and ecology. What do we owe to our planet? Can we take "lesser" races and bring them sentience and sapience? Should they be allowed to develop their own culture? What can we do to prevent "alien" cultures from influencing us? Despite its…
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