The headlines were clear - Upcoming solar eclipse to wreak havoc on Germany's solar power output screamed the headlines. Although the reality was slightly more prosaic. Although it's only one data point, I'd like to show you what happened to our solar panels during the eclipse. The full day graph shows a clear dip during the eclipse. As the eclipse drew closer, my minute by minute tracker showed a noticeable drop in production. Although, due to the cloud cover, it wasn't as large as it…
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Last year, during Britain's windy season, my car was struck by a tree. I say struck. I saw it teeter and made the wise decision to accelerate through it as it fell on top of me! Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentSlightly more detail of the tree what fell on me. pic.x.com/5fgi1zhyln❤️ 0💬 1🔁 009:55 - Tue 21 October 2014 It wasn't quite as dramatic as some of the footage you see from Russian drivers - whose dashboard cameras picked up a meteor streaking through the sky - but I thought it was the …
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A couple of weeks ago, I was a finalist at FameLab Oxford. I won the "Audience Choice" award - and was placed in the "Wildcard" category for a place at the National Final :-) Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentOMG! Just won the audience vote at the #FameLab final. Thanks guys ☺#ScienceFTW pic.x.com/bwwqgk7unc❤️ 5💬 2🔁 020:48 - Fri 06 March 2015 If you're thinking of entering a local FameLab competition, please do so! This quick blog post explains my experience with the competition and hopefully…
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I remember the first time I saw a Swastika in India. It was gaudy red, painted on the back of a dusty yellow moped. The driver wore a helmet, but the woman riding pillion had only her sari to protect her head. India is different. The rules of the road are different. The languages are different. The colours, spices, and clichés are different. Over there, the स्वस्तिक is a symbol of auspicious fortune. In England, however, when carved crudely into a wall, it has a different meaning. Be af…
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I had dinner with the outgoing editor of The Guardian the other night. Clever chap, sure he'll go far in life. The Guardian is very hot on security. Many of their writers have PGP keys which they publicly advertise. In theory, that's great (complaints about PGP notwithstanding) - but the reality shows just how tricky it is to act in a security conscious manner. Have a look at Alan's Twitter profile. In the bio, we see a link - http://bit.ly/1g4S9WR which points to…
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Recently I've been plagued with Tweets saying that I'm "trending in London." As flattering as that is, it's not true. There appears to be a network of Twitter bots which are randomly repeating other people's tweets, ripping off avatars and bios, and generally causing a nuisance. Looking at the users' Twitter name, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that "ekip_uhokoqeq" and "utadaqusoxeh" are randomly generated sequence of characters. And, without wishing to judge, that photo…
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There are two very clear signs that I'm getting old. The first is that I bought a domestic robot to help me with the chores. The second is that, rather than spending my evenings and weekends reading decades old forum postings, reverse engineering serial interfaces, and soldering components together - I plunked €99 on a bit of kit which "just works". Enter the Thinking Cleaner - it's a replacement faceplate for Roombas which adds WiFi and a sweet hackable API. This post looks at how the unit …
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(An adaptation of my earlier blog post on the same topic.) This is a case study focusing on the usability of encryption systems as used by political dissidents in Apartheid era South Africa. Background - South Africa Between 1948 and 1994, the nation of South Africa was ruled by an ethnically white minority. They set in place a system of government – known as Apartheid - which suppressed, brutalised and discriminated against other races. The African National Congress (ANC) was formed in the …
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Last week I was on In The Abstract - a science podcast - along with the very funny Francesca Day , the mediumly funny Tara Clarke, and the just-funny-enough Steve Pritchard. During the talk, I completely forget the name of the Rosetta Disc and made several legally doubtful slurs against Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Stick it in your ears - 🔊 February 2015🎤 In The Abstract 💾 Download this audio file. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe at In The Abstract. …
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Last week I was on the In The Abstract podcast. I came up with a curious idea. If I were Tom Scott, I'd turn this into a performance piece - instead, here's a short and entirely fictional story. Facebook knew you were in love a long time before you did. It noticed you scrolling back through her timeline. Every millisecond lingering over the photos of her at the beach was faithfully logged. When she sent a message to her best friend saying "Hot date tonight ;-)" it correlated all the…
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