Latest posts
- Book Review: Under Fire - Black Britain in Wartime by Stephen Bourne ★★★★☆Mar 01, 2026@edent
Everyone knows that Black people didn't exist in the UK until recently, right? Despite mountains of evidence of everything from Black Tudors and Victorian actors, some myths perniciously persist. What was the experience for Black Britons during the second world war? I find it fascinating how the US cultural hegemony rewrites history. I've heard people in the UK talk about "Jim Crow laws" as…
- 30 months to 3MWh - some more home battery statsFeb 28, 2026@edent
Back in August 2023, we installed a Moixa 4.8kWh Solar Battery to pair with our solar panels. For the last year and a half it has chugged away slurping up electrons and sending them back as needed. Its little fan whirrs and the lights on its Ethernet port flicker happily as it does its duty. I estimate that it has saved us around 3 MegaWatt hours since it was commissioned. In monetary terms,…
- Book Review: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell ★★☆☆☆Feb 27, 2026@edent
Remember back in the early 2010s when any moderately popular Twitter account could become a book (or even a TV series)? This is a collection of Tweet-sized "overheard in" stories. All set in book shops. Isn't it funny that some people don't know how books work! ROFL! Aren't the general public strange? LOLOL! That's a bit harsh of me. It only rarely becomes mean-spirited. But in a book this…
- This time is differentFeb 26, 2026@edent
3D TV, AMP, Augmented Reality, Beanie Babies, Blockchain, Cartoon Avatars, Curved TVs, Frogans, Hoverboards, iBeacons, Jetpacks, Metaverse, NFTs, Physical Web, Quantum Computing, Quibi, Small and Safe Nuclear Reactors, Smart Glasses, Stadia, WiMAX. The problem is, the same dudes (and it was nearly always dudes) who were pumped for all of that bollocks now won't stop wanging on about Artificial…
- Book Review: Of Monsters and Mainframes - Barbara Truelove ★★★⯪☆Feb 25, 2026@edent
This is fun, silly, charming, and much better than The Murderbot Diaries despite being superficially similar. Imagine you are an interstellar ship and, of course, your AI is conscious. What would you do if your passengers were killed - not by a terrifying alien, but by Count Dracula??? What if, on the return journey, another set of your passengers were similarly slaughtered. Except, this…
- Adding OpenStreetMap login to Auth0Feb 24, 2026@edent
So you want to add OSM as an OAuth provider to Auth0? Here's a tip - you do not want to create a custom social connection! Instead, you need to create an "OpenID Connect" provider. Here's how. OpenSteetMap As per the OAuth documentation you will need to: Register a new app at https://www.openstreetmap.org/oauth2/applications/ Give it a name that users will recognise Give it a redirect of…
- Book Review: A Geography of Time by Robert V. Levine ★★★☆☆Feb 23, 2026@edent
This book doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a sociology textbook, travel guide, history book, or guide to the mysteries of the world? Subtitled "the temporal misadventures of a social psychologist" it veers between hard data and well-worn anecdotes until it becomes a sort of self-help book for the time-poor 1990s American executive. Despite being well-caveated against the "dangers in…
- How close are we to a vision for 2010?Feb 22, 2026@edent
Twenty five years ago today, the EU's IST advisory group published a paper about the future of "Ambient Intelligence". Way before the world got distracted with cryptoscams and AI slop, we genuinely thought that computers would be so pervasive and well-integrated that the dream of "Ubiquitous Computing" would become a reality. The ISTAG published an optimistic paper called "Scenarios for ambient…
- OpenBenches at FOSDEMFeb 21, 2026@edent
At the recent FOSDEM, I did a very quick lightning talk about our OpenBenches project. Sadly, despite the best efforts of the AV team, the video had a missing section. I took my own audio recording and zipkid took some photos, so I was able to recreate it using the Flowblade video editor. Enjoy! Many thanks to Edward Betts for running the dev room and providing the display laptop. …
- Book Review: Families And How To Survive Them by John Cleese and Robin Skynner ★★⯪☆☆Feb 20, 2026@edent
This is a curious and mostly charming book about therapy. It is presented as a (somewhat contrived) Socratic dialogue between Skynner the teacher and Cleese the pupil. Skynner lectures on while Cleese interjects with "that's too clever to be convincing" and other witty remarks. It is fun to have a somewhat sceptical interlocutor but it does get a little wearisome after a while. The basic of…
- AI is a NAND MaximiserFeb 19, 2026@edent
PC Gamer is reporting that the current demand by AI companies for computer chips is having a disastrous effect on the rest of the industry. In an interview, the CEO of Phison said: If NVIDIA Vera Rubin ships tens of millions of units, each requiring 20+TB SSDs, it will consume approximately 20% of last year's global NAND production capacity 駿HaYaO NAND is a type of microchip. Rather than b…
- Book Review: All Systems Red - The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells ★★⯪☆☆Feb 18, 2026@edent
Everyone raves about this series, so I thought I'd grab the first book. It's basically fine, I guess. It is moderately amusing having the Muderbot be an awkward teenage boy who just wants to watch videos and cringes when people stare at him. But it is a bit one-note. Similarly, evil corporations hiding details from exo-planet surveyors is a trope which has been a thousand times before. This…
- Gadget Review: Epomaker Split 70 Mechanical Keyboard ★★★★⯪Feb 17, 2026@edent
The good folks at Epomaker know that I love an ergonomic keyboard, so they've sent me their new "Split 70" model to review. This isn't your traditional ergonomic keyboard. Essentially, this is two separate halves joined by a USB-C cable; so you can position it however you like. Here's a quick video showing it in action: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/split-new.mp4 It is
- Book Review: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends - Nicole Perlroth ★⯪☆☆☆Feb 16, 2026@edent
This cybersecurity book is badly written, contains multiple offensive stereotypes, is technically inaccurate, and spends more time focussing on the author's love affair with the New York Times than almost anything else. Seriously, if you take a drink every time the book mentions the NYT, you'll spend most of the chapters drunk. Which, to be fair, is probably the best way to experience it. The…
- Social Media Payments and Perverse IncentivesFeb 15, 2026@edent
At the recent "Protocols for Publishers" event, a group of us were talking about news paywalls, social media promotion, and the embarrassment of having to ask for money. What if, we said, you could tip a journalist directly on social media? Or reward your favourite creator without leaving the platform? Or just say thanks by buying someone a pint? Here's a trivial mock-up: Of course, this…
- Book Review: 20 Goto 10 - 10101001 facts about retro computers by Steven Goodwin ★★★★☆Feb 14, 2026@edent
This is an excellent "dipping" book. There are nearly 200 articles ranging from short anecdotes, multi-page synopses of complex topics, and quirky little asides. Rather than a linear history of computing, each short chapter ends with a multiple-choice "GOTO". From there, you take a meandering wander throughout retro-computing lore. Some paths lead to dead-ends (a delightful little Game-Over…
- Gadget Review: Topdon TS004 Thermal Monocular ★★★★⯪Feb 13, 2026@edent
I love thermal imaging cameras. They're great for spotting leaking pipes, inefficient appliances, and showing how full a septic tank is. The good folks at Topdon have sent me their latest thermal camera to review - it is specifically designed for spotting wildlife. This is the TS004 Thermal Monocular: Let's put it through its paces! Hardware This is a chunky bit of kit and fits nicely in…
- Book Review: On the Calculation of Volume - Solvej Balle ★★★★★Feb 12, 2026@edent
I had the most intense time reading this book. Do you ever see the date of a famous event and notice that it is also the date of your birthday? When I do, my brain gets a fun jolt of recognition. This book is set perennially on the 18th of November - my birthday. My poor little brain was exhausted and satiated from the repeated mentions. A most curious experience. It would be easy to dismiss…
- Gadget Review: Epomaker TH87 ISO Mechanical Keyboard ★★★★⯪Feb 11, 2026@edent
If I'm being brutally honest, I never really got the appeal of mechanical keyboards. There was always someone in the office who made a godawful racket hammering on their keyboard and then waxed lyrical about the merits of various switches. I'd mostly just dismissed them as cranks. I'm in love with my old Microsoft 4000 ergonomic keyboard. What use could I have a mechanical keyboard festooned with
- Book Review: Ashes To Admin - Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer by Evie King ★★★★★Feb 10, 2026@edent
Why am I reading so much about death lately? This is a wryly funny and cosily charming book about council funerals. Evie King conducts Section 46 funerals under the Public Health Act. If you die and there's no one else around who is able to arrange your funeral, the local council steps in. This could be a coldly bureaucratic process with no wiggle room for anything other than perfunctory…