Latest posts
- I'm a USB-C MaximalistJul 14, 2026@edent
My wife and I recently went on a 7 week holiday around Europe. Although we each took a massive backpack, we wanted to travel fairly lightly. I took a single universal power brick. This little unit was all I needed to charge my various gadgets. It has a hefty USB-C PD (Power Delivery) port for rapid charging of my phone and laptop. Two other USB-C ports for my other gadgets. And a couple of…
- [RSS Club] Half a million steps is about 10 marathonsJul 13, 2026@edent
Shhh! RSS Club posts are only available to feed subscribers. Keep the secret! I'm not a big fan of the "Quantified Self" movement, but since buying a ridiculously cheap smartwatch, I've been interested to see just how many steps I take per day. During our recent Interrail holiday, we travelled about 6,400 Km by train over 49 days. But how much did we cover by foot? My watch pairs with the Open
- Another Ridiculous Interrail Holiday - 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeksJul 12, 2026@edent
Last year, my wife and I went on a 5,025 Km Interrail adventure. We got the month-long unlimited pass and saw 10 Countries in 30 Days. That was a bit too intense. So this year we got the 15 travel days in 2 months package. We grabbed the 1st class tickets when they went on sale in December. Here's how our journey ended up: The trip included two ferries - one overnight - which had a small…
- Game Review: Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime ★★★☆☆Jul 10, 2026@edent
My new year's resolution is to play more video games with my wife. Specifically co-operative games. I hate playing competitively; it's rubbish to achieve victory at the expense of someone else. So I asked for recommendations and picked the cheapest things which looked reasonable. Several people recommended Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime. It's a neat little game which is just short enough to…
- A bug which only affected left-handed usersJul 08, 2026@edent
Verily, some of our brethren (and sistren) be afflicted with a sinister disposition. While the righteous scroll using the thumb of their right hand - as is good and proper - an accurs'd minority swing the other way. Look, you try writing an interesting bug report without sounding like a clanker, OK! I try to optimise my blog as much as possible. It may not look like much, but it has got it…
- I'm just so bored of AIJul 06, 2026@edent
I'm just so bored of talking about AI. It's like listening to vapers tell me how delicious their flavoured poison is. Did you ever meet someone at university who'd just tried drugs for the first time? Listening to a stoner ramble on about their mystic crystal revelations is amusing for the first five minutes, but quickly gets tiresome. Wow! You got your little computer friend to automate calling
- Combined 1D and 2D BarcodesJul 04, 2026@edent
This was a little idea gnawing at the back of my brain. The humble barcode has been in use since the 1970s. In the next few years it will likely be replaced with a 2D QR Code. I couldn't find anyone who'd made a QR code with an embedded UPC - so I decided to make one. If you move your phone close to the code (so it can't see the squares in the corners) it should read the number in the 1D…
- This blog is written in en-GBJul 02, 2026@edent
Someone left a comment on my blog recently asking if I'd mind making my language more inclusive. They didn't get some of the cultural references I'd used and suggested it would be easier if I used tropes which were more globally known. Here's the thing. No. All my blog posts start with a simple declaration: <!doctype html> <html lang=en-GB> There's a reason for that. It is more than the…
- Book Review: Fake Creativity by Blake Loch ★★★☆☆Jun 30, 2026@edent
Thanks to BookSirens for providing me with a review copy. This is an intriguing self-published novel with a backstory almost as interesting as the plot. The story is a descent into paranoia as an author is convinced that an AI is plagiarising his work. As the madness takes over, he's forced to confront whether his creative processes are genuine or not. It raises some excellent questions about …
- Book Review: The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer ★★☆☆☆Jun 28, 2026@edent
Despite vowing not to read sequels of books I love, I'm constantly surprised that regression to the mean is an iron-clad law of the universe. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in the series, so eagerly gobbled up the second. What a burlap fool I am. What was charming and wry in The Satsuma Complex is now overdone and clichéd. The violence, which was an undercurrent in the first book, is now …
- Review: Gamrombo PS5 controller - including Linux set up ★★★★☆Jun 26, 2026@edent
I'm not paying seventy bloody quid for an official PS5 controller - so I found a knock-off version for a smidge under £40. And this one has lots of unnecessary blinkenlights! Gamrombo is the consumer-facing brand of the generically named Professional Controller Manufacturer. AKA "Huizhou Ronghui Technology Co., Ltd" - there's virtually no information about them online other than paid-for …
- Auth0 PHP - manually authenticating JWT idTokensJun 24, 2026@edent
I find it baffling just how poorly documented most big projects are. Auth0 by Okta has a fair bit of cash, lots of customers, and almost completely absent documentation. Here's how to successfully authenticate a JWT supplied by Auth0. Once your user has authenticated with Auth0, they will be given an accessToken and an idToken. Only the idToken is needed for our purposes. It will look…
- Cybersecurity for the paranoid business travellerJun 22, 2026@edent
Over the years, I've worked for organisations with various levels of risk tolerance for business travellers. Some have been (rightly) paranoid and others have been (wrongly) placid about the threats their employees face. The fact is, individuals are often targeted for espionage, blackmail, or other state-sponsored attacks. Here's a list of some of the different advice I've received, roughly…
- Which Copyleft Licence is Suitable for an SVG?Jun 20, 2026@edent
The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format is amazing. It allows you to precisely define how an image should look. Written in XML, it uses various mathematical operations to display an image which looks crisp and clear at any size. Here's a trivial example: <svg height="100" viewBox="0 0 100 100" width="100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> <circle cx="50" cy="50" fill="#f00" r="50"/>…
- Book Review: The Great When by Alan Moore ★★★★☆Jun 18, 2026@edent
This is the most overwritten book I've ever read. Unfortunately, Alan Moore knows exactly how much polysyllabic pressure it takes to transmogrify base coal into precious gems. With lines like "his shaved suede skull made him look like a wilted thistle" and "There was a rumour of pink lipstick circling her mouth" you know you're in for a treat. Even better than the joyful prose of Bob…
- Two Way TV - product photos of 1997's hottest gadgetJun 16, 2026@edent
Back in the late 1990s, I did a brief stint of work experience at the BBC. One of the most memorable moments was sitting in on a meeting about early forms of Interactive TV. I saw a demo of "Two Way TV". A flimsy grey box which (somehow) integrated with your OnDigital TV Box and connected to a server via a modem. If you were watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" you could play along at home,…
- [RSS Club] What happens to old posts?Jun 15, 2026@edent
Welcome to RSS Club! These posts are only available to RSS and Atom subscribers. You can read more about the idea at Dave Rupert's site. I recently received an email from a distraught reader: I was going through my recent bookmarks and I found https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/rss-club-for-wordpress which I had clearly saved to reference again later. However, as with the nature of RSS Club™, I c
- Did Frank Sinatra really think "Something" was a Lennon/McCartney song?Jun 14, 2026@edent
Read enough articles about The Beatles and you'll repeatedly hit the claim that Frank Sinatra frequently introduced his cover of George Harrison's "Something" as his "favourite Lennon & McCartney number." Much like the misquote about Ringo not being the best drummer in The Beatles, I think this might be one of those semi-apocryphal lines which has taken on a life of its own. Here's what Paul…
- Gadget Review: TP Link EH210 Ethernet Splitter (USB-C) ★★★★★Jun 12, 2026@edent
When I ran Ethernet around our house, I thought I was being clever. A CAT6 cable for every room - lush! Some of my rooms have lots of devices, so they get a nice big Ethernet switch with lots of ports and blinking lights. But most of my rooms don't have that many devices. Our gym had only an Internet connected TV so that I could watch Quibi while exercising. Recently we added a Kodi box so that…
- Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio ★★★★★Jun 10, 2026@edent
Ooooh! This is a lovely treat of a book. Every time Lauren sends her husband into the loft, a different man comes down. Her past is rewritten and she has now been married to Dave/Gary/Bob/Whoever for a year, a month, a decade, a minute. This isn't like how Groundhog Day became On The Calculation of Volume or Sliding Doors became The Names, instead this is a new and twisty concept rendered…