While I was at OggCamp, I noticed a few people had repurposed supermarket eInk shelf displays as name-tags. Nifty! I wondered if there was a retail version I could hack around with. I found the HSN371. It is a colour eInk screen with a lanyard hole. The picture quality is amazing given the technology, the update speed is acceptable, and the supplied app is crap. Let's take a look! Picture Quality Colour eInk isn't designed to be as vibrant as an OLED display. But that's not why you get…
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People like to send me gadgets to review. My motto is "if it has a USB-C port, I'll review it!" So the good people at Flexispot have sent me a chair with a USB-C port. Fair play! This is the Lotus XR6 Recliner Chair - the electric variant of the XC6. Here's what it looks like when assembled: And once fully reclined: Not completely flat, but good enough for a quick snooze! Tech Specs There's both a USB-C and a USB-A port. I measured the power output using an in-line meter. I wasn't …
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Ever since phone manufacturers killed off the headphone jack, there has been an epidemic of people blasting sounds from their shitty speakers in public. Music, TikTok, phone calls - it seems some people want the whole world to share their sonic experience. Forget that noise! I have a passive-aggressive death-wish and want to hand out free headphones to people annoying me on public transport. Time for our-lord-and-saviour USB-C! With Apple finally succumbing to the inevitable it should be…
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I had never seen Pertwee's final story. So I was overjoyed when an anonymous reader got it for me from my wishlist. It is an utterly bonkers story which nearly makes sense. Let's address the elephant in the room first. The "yellow face" isn't acceptable now and shouldn't have been acceptable back then. Kevin Lindsay does an "accent" which is, thankfully, mild. But would it really have been so difficult to have found actors of even vaguely the right ethnicity to play the various Tibetan…
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The problem with plays about science is that they necessarily have to give the audience a mini-lecture in the subject. The problem with biographical plays is they need to give the audience a summary of a life in a few short speeches. The problem with historical plays is they have to give a précis of the context needed to understand the times. The Lightest Element is a historical science biography, with the net result that it feels like a play based on a dozen smushed together Wikipedia …
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Big Finish have been pumping out Doctor Who audio dramas for quarter of a century. But this, apparently, is the first time they've recorded one live and in front of an audience. It was glorious! Big Finish could have cheaped out - even with a bare set and a cast of newbies, the fans would have flocked to it. Instead, we got this lushly decorated set: The console pulsed away during the interval. Swirling lights played around the TARDIS when the *Vworp Vworp* SFX played. And the DALEK told…
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Sitting down, eh? What's that all about? You bend your knees and just hope something is there to catch you as you fall! So, the good folks at Flexispot have sent me their latest chair to review. Just like most modern office chairs, it is fully adjustable. But, rather than having a a set of big foam cushions, the seat, back, and head-rest are 100% mesh. It's currently on sale for £290. The Build As with any bit of modern furniture, your LEGO skills will come in handy. In truth, it's a …
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Unless someone invents time travel, this is probably the closest you'll get to experiencing Janis Joplin live on stage. Jukebox musicals have a variety of viable routes to success. You either do a Mama Mia / We Will Rock You and just spin a weak story around the tunes - or you do a straight biography interspersing songs with whatever anecdotes the surviving members can agree on. Janis treads a different path. It is presented as a gig, with Janis singing and telling stories. The "twist" is…
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I am easily influenced. At EMF Camp, I saw my friends Skylar and Cameron using some nifty walkie-talkies out in the field. Skye (patiently) explained to me the joys of PMR446 and - because I was quite drunk I hastily bought some radios on Amazon. Hey, they were on special - £30 for a pair! After a few days of use, I've come to the conclusion that they're… basically fine? My main reason for buying them was that they did USB-C recharging (we live in the future now). They didn't come with ch…
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I love putting stickers on my laptops. But when it's time to move to a different laptop, what happens to all those cool stickers? After spending too many nights with a scraper and isopropanol, I decided to get a pre-cut dbrand skin. It'll protect the laptop and it will peel off in one piece, allowing me to preserve all my old stickers. I got the cheapest possible one - it's going to be covered in stickers anyway - which came to US$60 with the deluxe package. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled at the…
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I thought I didn't know Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. But, like all truly great cultural phenomena, it had disseminated itself through the cultureweb so thoroughly that I felt completely familiar with it. Performed in the round, from our nosebleed seats we had a stunning view of the action. The full floor of the Royal Albert Hall is used - there's so much going on that it become hard to take it all in. The gods'-eye-view makes it feel a little like Virtual Reality - turn your head the wrong way for …
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I'll review anything with a USB-C port. When hardware companies offer to send me a gadget to review, I'll always reply back with "only if it has USB-C". The EBL C9010N has a USB micro socket. *sigh* We live in the future now. Don't buy anything which requires you to have multiple cables and adapters. In terms of what the products does, it is… basically fine. Plug in Ni-MH or Ni-CD batteries and they will slowly charge. The batteries go in at a slight angle, which makes them slightly easier …
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