Is this a biography of a man, or of his mission? Is this the story of how the web came to be, or a lament for what happened to it? Do you crave the inside gossip, or the PR sanitised gloss? This Is For Everyone, but I think it ends up being slightly unsatisfying for anyone. It starts with the normal charming family anecdotes. No grand revelations or hidden secrets, just a lovely ramble…
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Quick Fix: Insert a USB memory stick, format it in the app, restart the Eufy HomeBase 2, format the internal memory, restart the hub. Background I've had the eufyCam system for over 6 years - which is pretty long-life for IoT devices. The cameras have worked pretty much flawlessly. Four years ago I added their Video Doorbell which has been similarly well behaved. But last night I went to…
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A decade ago, I read Ayoade's first book. In my review, I said: It's hard to know how to assess a book like this. It's far too clever for its own good - a frustrating and humorous look at... what? It's neither autobiography nor comic novel. An anti-novel which trudges the reader through a series of comic vignettes. It reminded me of some of Woody Allen's work. If you get the joke - you'll find …
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I cut bot traffic to my site by over 80% with a simple trap. Last month, my hobby website OpenBenches.org transferred more than 2.5TB of data to visitors. As much as I'd like to think the site is enormously popular, it looks like it is just AI bots endlessly crawling the data and slurping up the images. So I've built B to be an indiscriminate tool to eradicate these unwanted parasites. It is…
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Is anyone else SICK AND TIRED of the way hotels now foist plastic "keycards" on guests? No! I don't want tap to open my door! No! I don't want to keep the card in my wallet! No! I don't want electronics in control of my life! What if I need to stab an attacker? Keys are great for that by flimsy plastic cards are useless Gives us PROPER keys with big keyrings that we have to hand in to…
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This is a difficult but essential book. I was initially put off by how graphically autobiographical it is. The disaster planning I came for was frequently interrupted with the author's loves, disasters, health issues, pains, and domestic issues. As the book wore on, I realised how vital that is. Disasters - whether natural or caused by human actions - cannot be tackled in a dispassionate way.…
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There has been a dramatic fall in the amount of interpersonal violence in most countries. I don't want to go too Freakanomics and, obviously, correlation is not causation but perhaps video games have a role to play in this? A teenager being cooped up in their room means less exposure to situations where hormonal impertinence is likely to cause a violent reaction. Shouting and screaming at people …
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The most interesting thing about these headphones isn't the headphones; it's their case. The good folks at Tozo have sent me a pair of their new ear-blasters. They're a fairly standard pair of in-ear headphones. Sound quality is good, noise cancelling is excellent, battery life is fine. You know, all pretty standard. But what's actually a little bit special is the charging case. As well…
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I have a simple rule - if I meet someone at a party and they say they've written a book, then I will immediately buy that book. It's a strategy which has worked out well; leading me to some truly interesting and delightful prose. Rosalind Brown (a fellow UEA graduate) has written a stunning little book. Practice is an almost Proustian meander through a day-in-the-life of a young woman going…
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At the recent EMFCamp, I bumped in to Professor Kate Devlin who was talking a little about the AI Resist List. I think one of the useful things we can do is loudly complain about shitty uses of AI. Here's an example. As mentioned in a previous post, I'm contacting companies which send malformed calendar invites. One of the organisation I contacted was the British online supermarket Ocado. They…
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I love testing in production. The thrill of accidentally publishing some dummy data - or taking down an entire website - is similar to skydiving without a parachute. Exquisite excitement followed by heart-stopping terror. Before going live with a new website or service, it's sensible to test how text looks on it. Most people don't test with readable text - it's too easy for management to start…
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As of today, I've been on the Mastodon social network for 10 years. I think that deserves a little reflection and celebration. Post by @Edent View on Mastodon Social networks often launch in a blaze of glory but limp out of existence within a year or so. How many services have you signed up to, only to gradually drift away from? If you're anything like me, your password…
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