Fourteen years ago, I blogged about the future of voice. In the post, I asked these two questions - which I'd nicked from someone else: Are you faster at speaking or typing? Are you faster at reading or listening? Lots of us now use Siri, Alexa, Bixby, and the like because it is quicker to speak than type. For long-form wordsmithing - it's still probably easier to type-and-edit than it is to…
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This is a regular HTML page. But if you click or tap on the text, you will be able to edit it!HTML is magic! This isn't a fancy styled <textarea>, it's a <div> element which uses the contenteditable global attribute.There are some nifty features - depending on your browser.You canadd more bulletsby pressing enterHow 🆒 is that?!Same goesfor numbered listsclick here and type a new lineSplelcheck is …
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A box set of late-era Tom Baker stories. And they're a bit of a mixed bunch. Full Circle First up, Full Circle - which introduces us to Adric. Ah, poor sweet Adric. He's an exercise in wish-fulfilment. Getting a nerdy, 17 year old, Who-geek to write a teenage nerd to appeal to other teenage nerds. I don't think the character quite works because, in my opinion, the Doctor needs a slightly…
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Two years ago, I got a DophiGo DV-200 WiFi Doorbell. It's been OK, but I was hankering for an upgrade. Something with a more reliable app and better video / audio quality. About a year ago, I got a Eufy Security Camera System. It has been excellent. The main advantage is that it comes with its own hub. That gives it a dedicated wireless channel and it stores my videos locally! It turns out…
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I know shamefully little about the British Empire and its colonisation of India. I remember going on a school trip to the memorial at Ypres - but I don't remember hearing about the thousands of Indian troops who served and died. I learned endlessly about Churchill - but not about his racist attitudes towards the Bengal famine. I was vaguely aware of partition - but not the casual ignorance which …
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As part of my MSc I'm taking a short course in Practical Machine Learning via QA.com. The first three days were just about basic stats visualisation using Python. It was great to have a refresher - but I would have expected that to be a pre-requisite. The tutor was excellent - very patient at explaining complex concepts. And the use of Jupyter Notebooks is a gamechanger for taught courses like…
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Google has decided to fuck over its early adopters. Way back in 2006, Google announced Google Apps for Your Domain. Basically it was Gmail - but you could use your own domain. No more example@gmail.com now you could be me@example.com. Hurrah! At the time, they said: organizations that sign up during the beta period will not ever have to pay for users accepted during that period (provided Google …
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Scratching my own itch. I want an alert when there's been a price drop on an item on my Amazon wishlist. I couldn't find an easy way to get an email directly from Amazon (customer-focused my shiny metal arse) so I knocked something up in Python. This is heavily inspired by Leigh Dodds' Wishlist Monitor. Amazon don't offer an API for wishlists (innovative my shiny metal arse). So this uses…
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NB: The bit about NFT and smart contracts is at the end. As I discussed yesterday, being able to resell digital art via an NFT means that the price of art falls to zero. Let's assume that I'm correct and, through a combination of technology and changing social attitudes, no one wants to pay for music, books, films, or art any more. What are the ways that art and artists could get funded? Here…
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At the moment, it is not possible to sell a 2nd hand eBook or MP3. This seems fairly reasonable because a re-seller might keep copies of their original files after selling them. This would allow the re-seller to undercut the original publisher and sell the file multiple times. We tend to label this "Piracy". Someone buys a DVD, rips it, then either sells or gives away copies. The Blockchain…
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I loved this movie but, the more I reflect on it, the less I like it. There's no doubt that Frances McDormand deserves every accolade - she's one of those rare actors who can completely inhabit a character and makes the screen light up. Chloé Zhao's direction is subtle and sublime, giving us a tender and touching portrait of a community cast adrift. I always find it hard watching stories …
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I am a vain man. For a few years, I've been tracking academic papers which cite my blog posts. Recently, someone let me know that they'd found one of GitHub repos in a paper they'd read. It hadn't even occurred to me to search for those! So, shove your GitHub URl into Google Scholar - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=github.com/edent - and you'll see if any repos have made it into…
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