Once in a while, you'll see some blowhard railing about the modern world. I recently saw someone decrying the fact that Star Trek had "gone woke". This Star Trek? OK, you can argue about whether Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss in that episode. But how does anyone look at Star Trek - with its women on the command bridge, anti-colonial stance, and mixed-race crew - and not think it was a bastion of progressive causes? Star Trek is explicitly political. It isn't hidden in the subtext. You…
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It looks like it's the end of the party for streaming services. Prices are going up, choice is going down, and the quality is declining. Despite all the hype about how transformative streaming would be for the industry - there's one thing which never really seemed to take off. It's almost impossible to find "foreign" TV on Netflix, Apple, Prime, and the BBC. Outside of a few breakout movie hits - like "Space Sweepers / 승리호" - there's a dearth of non-English content for me to watch. Take Der T…
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Way back in 2010, Paul Battley was blogging about device discrimination on the Internet. The new iPlayer service was using TLS certificates to ensure that only specific devices were able to stream media from the BBC's servers. That's a situation which continues over a decade later. If you watch iPlayer on your laptop, you're stuck with 720p quality. If you want 1080p and above, you need a specially certified device. Well, that's what everyone thought! A few weeks ago, I found this curious…
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This book demonstrates how popular culture can be successfully incorporated into medical and health science curriculums, capitalising on the opportunity fictional media presents to humanise case studies. Studies show that the vast majority of medical and nursing students watch popular medical television dramas and comedies such as Grey’s Anatomy, ER, House M.D. and Scrubs. This book is currently free on the Springer website - and it's a brilliant read. I thought this was going to be an "…
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I decided to treat myself to an upgraded home cinema experience. But mandatory copy-protection has meant I've spend the weekend trying and failing to get things working, rather than watching glorious 4K HDR 10 bit movies. Here's the problem: Why am I getting the error "This content can not be displayed because your TV does not support HDCP 2.2."? I have four pieces of kit in the mix, all of which claim to support HDCP's Digital Restrictions Management: Amazon Fire TV Stick - the new 4K…
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One of the most important tools in the war for your attention is the ability to critically examine media and discover its provenance. Take this example - a friend of a friend was tagged in this Facebook post, and so it appeared on my feed: WOW! Right! Nature is Coooooool! Or is it? If "The Planet Today" were a reputable source of news, they would tell us who the photographer was. Or where the shot was taken. Or... well... anything about the photo. But they're just a clickbait farm, so …
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I read a Guardian article about an artist who set up an analogue camera in front of their TV, set it to long exposure, and set a movie playing. The result was a rather wonderful collection of images. You can see more of Jason Shulman's works Is there a way to automate this process? Yes! Here's my attempt at a "Long Exposure" of "Taxi Driver". It's not the same as Shulmans's process, but I think it is rather charming. Here's a timelapse of how it was constructed. I experimented with …
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After hearing my interview on Radio 4, the Jeremy Vine show asked me to talk about my smart home tech for Radio 2. BBC Radio 2 @BBCRadio2 BBC We discuss controlling all the devices in your home with your mobile phone. #r2vine pic.x.com/O9hx7aTFpp ❤️ 6 💬 8 🔁 0 …
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Off the back of my ThingMonk talk I was invited on to BBC Radio 4's PM programme to talk about the Internet of Things in the home. Listen to me on BBC Radio 4 - about 47 minutes in 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. Want me on your show or podcast? Give me a call! You can read more about my IoT adventures, including: Singing to my lightbulbs. Hacking my vacuum cleaner. Hacking my electric car. Getting hacked by my light switches. Securing my security cameras. Thanks to Chris Valla…
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Always a delight to be interviewed by the BBC again. This time, talking about our Solar Batteries. You can listen again on the BBC iPlayer. The solar stuff starts at 14m 30s, with my interview at 17 minutes. You can also hear my electric car being charged :-) Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentBeing interviewed by a nice man from the BBC about @Edent_Solar, @OxfordSolarLive and @edent_car!Thanks @JonDgls! pic.x.com/uvPiXQRM2r❤️ 4💬 0🔁 018:08 - Tue 18 October 2016 🔊 Solar Power, Free-range E…
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Private Eye is the only "Dead Tree" publication I buy. I think its satire misses the mark more often than not - but its investigative journalism and general muck-raking are second to none. The Eye has reluctantly been drawn into the digital age. It has a piss-poor website run by the sort of "tired and emotional" gnomes who struggle with concepts like sanitising user input. EXCLUSIVE Push this button to see the Eye's new owner... Meet Our New Owner!Private Eye is delighted to announce …
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Getting access to my Twitter archive opened my mind to the nature on transience of the media we create. Take, for example, this tweet and image: Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edenthttp://twitpic.com/2dhr3 - Loving #mint09 :-)❤️ 0💬 0🔁 012:24 - Mon 23 March 2009 Well... ok... fun at the moment it was taken, but does it have any use beyond that? On the off chance that I become a subject for scholars in the year 3723, perhaps. Should some media just be declared ephemeral? The word comes from th…
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