Yes yes, Cunningham's law etc etc! I want to play around with 2FA codes. So, I started looking for the specification. Turns out, there isn't one. Not really. IANA has a provisional registration - but no spec. It links to an archived Google Wiki which, as we'll come on to, isn't sufficient. There's some documentation from Yubico which is mostly a copy of the Google wiki with some incompatible…
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Exactly a decade ago, I asked "Why Can't Red Dwarf Predict The Future?" That is - sci-fi writers can imagine interstellar travel and sentient computers, but they think the future will still involve developing film photographs, library fines, and 3-pin electrical plugs. At the end of the post, I said: Here are my thoughts on some trivial aspects of our lives which - if put in a sci-fi film -…
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This is quite the epitome of yak-shaving! Suppose you have an article written in HTML. The basic layout might be something like: <body> <main> <article> The content of your article ... Pretty standard. Now suppose you let users add comments to the article. I have two questions: Where in the tree should they go? What HTML element should be used to group them? It…
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Well, this is an unexpected treat! What happens if you build a maze you can't get out of? How many people do you inadvertently drag in to your craziness? Are you responsible if they get hurt by the traps you set for yourself? Remember that 1990s horror movie "Cube"? This has exactly the same vibe. Except all the rooms are made of cardboard. And the deaths are… well, no spoilers - but funny. It …
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Truly, men have the worse of everything…⸮ But, there's something we blokes can be grateful for. No matter what grief the world throws at us, it'll always be the women's fault that there aren't enough babies! The other day, I saw this headline: The Business Insider article - in the "Economy" section - focussed solely on the lady-folk. Why do those pesky dames refuse to procreate? About hal…
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I've been using Bitwarden for years. It generates a unique password for every website I visit. There's only been one small problem - I want a unique username for each website. Let me explain. Sometimes websites sell or leak your email address to spammers. If you're using yourname@example.com for every site, you'll never know who leaked your details. Bitwarden can fix that! …
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As regular readers will know, I love adding Semantic things to my blog. The standard WordPress comments HTML isn't very semantic - so I thought I'd change that. Here's some code which you can add to your blog's theme - an an explanation of how it works. The aim is to end up with some HTML which looks like this (edited for brevity): <li itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Comment"…
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Well! This is a delight, isn't it? It's almost impossible to describe without giving away the plot. An unreliable narrator, trapped - perhaps - in a labyrinth which may (or may not) be a deeper metaphor for something else. It's confusing - but then, it is a story about confusion. It is magical - without being beholden to the lore of magick in the same way "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" was. It…
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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. …
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I'd seen the movie. I'd seen a student production. But nothing could have prepared me for the visceral reality of seeing Cabaret live on stage. It seems that theatre producers have finally realised that audiences want an immersive experience which simply can't be replicated sat at home with NetFlix on. The entrance to the theatre is via a door tucked away from the main theatre foyer. Down down…
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Yesterday, I revealed my disappointment in being unable to print a bookcase. Today I revel in my cleverness at coming up with a solution! I decided to create a photo-mosaic of a nice photo of me and my wife - using all our book covers. The Result Close Up The image was printed on high-quality canvas - which gives it a pleasing texture and isn't too glossy. Zoomed in, this is what it looks…
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Yes, you read that right, 2D printing. Not 3D printing. Let me explain my problem... Our bookshelves are bare. A few years ago we made the switch to eBooks - we got rid of all our paper books. We've switched to downloading our games, so no gorgeous box art for us. All our DVD discs are in the loft, and their movie-poster allure is hidden away. When friends walk into our house, they have no…
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