It's hard to ascribe "firsts" in history. Did Ada Lovelace write the first computer program? Does it count if it is a mechanical computer? Are Bombe and Tunny really computers in the modern sense? Was Pong the first home video game? Who was the first hacker? What is a hacker? Someone who (maliciously or otherwise) convinces a computer to do something that it isn't supposed to do. Sometimes for fun and sometimes for profit. Sometimes ethical and sometimes not. Anyway, I'd like to introduce…
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The past is another country to which you can never return. It is a million years ago, and my brother and I have just spent all of our pocket money (and a good deal of next year's) on a state-of-the-art PENTIUM 75 desktop. With 200MB of hard drive space, and more RAM than we'd ever seen (8MB), it was a beast. We chose it because it came with a CD-ROM Drive. Sure, we told mum and dad that the Encarta Encyclopedia would help with our studies - but really, we wanted the games! X-Wing! Zork! And, …
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My OnePlus 5T is 3.5 years old and, after daily abuse, its battery life is starting to fade. But how bad is it? OnePlus have a diagnostic tool which, annoyingly, isn't available in the Google Play store. And is a bit of a pain to run. So here's a quick tutorial. Download the app APK Mirror have a copy of OnePlus Diagnostic 2.1. There may be a later version by the time you read this. Download and install it. But how do you run it? I couldn't find it in my app list. Install App Manager From …
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One thing I'm finding extremely frustrating in academia is the number of people citing papers which don't seem to actually exist. As part of a data analytics class, I'm learning about "database sharding". That is, the process of splitting data between multiple machines. But where does the term come from? Wikipedia - the source of all truth - says: In a database context, most recognize the term "shard" is most likely derived from either one of two sources: Computer Corporation of America's …
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I am grumpy. As my very clever wife summarised, I hate when designers prioritise their æsthetic preferences over my usability needs. I tried sharing a website using Google Chrome for Android. I hit the share button, and a panel popped-up from the bottom of the screen. Hmmm. It didn't have the share destination that I wanted. It was early in the morning - when I'm not at my cognitive best - and I was stumped. There is nothing on this screen - other than the icons - to tell me how I can …
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I never get power cuts. But, we've had two in the last week. They've both been fixed quickly, but it takes an age for my cable modem to reboot - and then an age for my smarthome to reconnect to the WiFi. So it was time to invest in an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). My friend Paul Curry recommended the APC SMT1500i. It usually retails for around £700, but I found a refurbished one for £200 Let's put it through its paces! It's a chunky monkey! And weighs about 25Kg. So best set it on t…
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In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron — except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? And if so, why did they abandon us? Under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history, a journey into the boiling inferno of the sun... to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life. An absolutely crackling sci-fi story. One of the rare novels w…
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Maybe I'm an old grump. But this book did not make me happy. It starts off bad - then gets worse. We begin with a series of incorrect assumptions. Apparently, there's no antonym for Doomsday (Errr, how about "Rapture"?) and apparently no one ever investigates why a hospital is performing well (ummm... Yes they do!) and no one is ever described as "stark raving happy" (hello mania! Hello full-of-joy!). Oh, and we were all much more social before apps were invented by the iPhone 🙄 No doubt th…
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The fashion industry has the concept of "prêt-à-porter" - ready to wear. You pick a thing off the rack and off you go. No tailoring needed. Similarly, the food industry has "prêt-à-manger" - ready to eat. No telling l'artiste du pain how much mayo you want, just grab a boxed sandwich and start munching. What's the equivalent for Open Source Software? (I know it is facile to say "There are two types of X in the world..." but I'm going to do so anyway.) There are two types of Open Source Sof…
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Update! It's fair to say no one liked this idea - so I've reverted it. Thanks for all the feedback 🙂 Do you ever see those daft email footers which say "Please consider the environment before printing this email." Like, who the fuck is still printing out their emails? Anyway, a few years ago I went along to a blogging event where someone had printed out one of my blog posts. I was stunned. They'd stuck of loads of my posts (and other people's posts) on a mood board. Because I'm a digital fu…
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I'm still unsure where this fits in the MCU... After the complete lack of chemistry between McCarthy and Bateman in Identity Thief, it seems inexplicable that they've been paired together in yet another movie. Just like Identity Thief, Thunder Force is two good ideas for separate movies squished into one bad film. It suffers from an almost complete absence of jokes - other than that the leads are a bit too fat to get out of a car in a graceful manner. Melissa McCarthy plays the same…
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Verifiable Credentials are a brilliant standard to help... well... Verify Credentials. How do you know that someone has an MBA from Harvard? It's pretty easy to fake a degree certificate, or to change your name to George W. Bush, or simply lie. The same is true with any attestation - it's often hard to contact the issuer of a claim and check that it is genuine. Verifiable Credentials aims to solve that. The standard describes a document which includes the claim (this person is an airline…
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