Latest posts
- 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…
- Gadget Review: Orico Power Strip (UK) ★★⯪☆☆Feb 09, 2026@edent
The good folks at Orico have sent me their latest power-strip to review. On the surface, the specs are pretty good - two UK sockets, two USB-C for PowerDelivery, and two USB-A for legacy devices. Let's put it though its paces! Specs Physically, it is a little larger than I was expecting. The two UK sockets are far enough apart to easily get your fingers around the plugs. Similarly, the USB…
- Book Review: Me vs Brain - An Overthinker’s Guide to Life by Hayley Morris ★★★★☆Feb 08, 2026@edent
I bought this book for the title alone and I'm glad I did! I don't think I've seen any of Hayley Morris's comedy sketches. To be honest, you don't need to be a fan of her work to appreciate the humour and courage in this book. It could quite easily have been a cash-in celebrity autobiography - light on the details and full of charming anecdotes - and I'm sure her fans would have snapped it up. …
- Reputation Scores for GitHub AccountsFeb 07, 2026@edent
The folks at GitHub know that Open Source maintainers are drowning in a sea of low-effort contributions. Even before Microsoft forced the unwanted Copilot assistant on millions of repos, it was always a gamble whether a new contributor would be helpful or just some witless jerk. Now it feels a million times worse. There are some discussions about what tools repository owners should have to help…
- Book Review: Diversifying Open Source - An Open Standards Playbook for Inclusive and Equitable Tech Projects by Paloma Oliveira ★★★★☆Feb 06, 2026@edent
It is refreshing to read a political polemic which contains useful actions the reader can take. Too many books about the social problems with technology end up being a diagnosis with no cure. Paloma Oliveira's new book (with technical review by my friend Dawn Foster) is a deep dive into how we can all make Open Source more inclusive and equitable. Unlike most tech books, it doesn't follow the …
- Get all the reactions to your GitHub content using GraphQLFeb 05, 2026@edent
I am both vain and prurient. A combination which makes me fun at parties and a delight to know. Sometimes when I raise an issue on GitHub, or write a comment, other users leave me Emoji reactions. Perhaps a 👍 or 🎉 if they like my contribution, but occasionally a 👎 or 😕 if they're foolish enough to think I'm wrong. The problem is, GitHub doesn't tell me that someone has 🚀'd my wisdom. If Git
- Book Review: The Examiner - Janice Hallett ★★★★⯪Feb 04, 2026@edent
I've thoroughly enjoyed all of Janice Hallett's previous crime books. The Examiner is, frankly, more of the same - and I'm happy with that! You, the reader, are given a series of transcripts and have to work out what crime (if any) has been committed. You don't find out who the victim(s) is/are until reasonably far through the story. The characters are well realised (although a little similar…
- The cost of running OpenBenches.orgFeb 03, 2026@edent
After my recent presentation at FOSDEM, someone asked a pretty reasonable question. What does it cost to run OpenBenches? It is, thankfully, surprisingly cheap! In part, that's because it is a relatively simple tech stack - PHP, MySQL, a couple of API calls to external services. It was designed to be as low cost while also being useful. Here's the breakdown: Hosting - £171 per year Our biggest
- Book Review: The Voyage of the Space Beagle by Alfred Elton Van Vogt ★★☆☆☆Feb 02, 2026@edent
This is Star Trek before Star Trek. It is Alien long before Alien. It is the template for so much modern science fiction. What it is not is particularly good. I don't intend to dump on the classics (and this is undoubtedly a classic) but 1950s sci-fi takes place in an almost alien media environment. Even if you ignore the anachronisms (like having to develop film in order to see photographs)…
- Vanguard - The Government Project to get British Businesses to use the InternetFeb 01, 2026@edent
Email isn't an obvious business benefit. Imagine it is the early 1980s and you need to communicate with people across the country. A first-class letter will cost you 17p - about 60p in today's money. The letter will be delivered the next day and you'll have your answer back the day after. By contrast, a single computer terminal was likely to set you back around £3,000 - and that's before you …
- Book Review: With the End in Mind - Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix ★★★⯪☆Jan 31, 2026@edent
Is it possible to "die well"? We have midwives for births, should we have "deathwives" for the other end of our lives? I think this book was recommended to me in the depths of the pandemic. I was too much of a chicken to read it while those around me were dying. The book aims to normalise the process of death and mostly succeeds. Unlike a lot of books, it doesn't just identify a problem - it…
- Theatre Review: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy - Immersive Experience ★★★⯪☆Jan 30, 2026@edent
You've read the books, listened to the original radio performances, re-read the books, worn the t-shirt - and now it is time to be part of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. *Cue the music from Flight of the Sorcerer* This is a 90-ish minute immersive experience. As well as a full cast of actors and a puppet android, there are ✨celebrity✨ voice cameos. And songs! So many songs! Pre Show …
- Book Review: The Players Act 1 by Amy Sparkes ★★⯪☆☆Jan 29, 2026@edent
So! Much! Melodrama! This is a gently funny (and slightly tragic) romp with a band of travelling vagrants actors as they attempt to ply their renditions of Shakespeare to an indifferent 1700ish audience. There's a lot of charm to the characters and the plot is relatively straightforward. The characters are a bit one-note. The baddie never actually twirls his moustache - but you'll instantly…
- Are there any open APIs left?Jan 28, 2026@edent
One of the dreams of Web 2.0 was that website would speak unto website. An "Application Programming Interface" (API) would give programmatic access to structured data, allowing services to seamlessly integrate content from each other. Users would be able to quickly grab data from multiple sources and use them for their own purposes. No registration or API keys, no tedious EULAs or meetings. Just
- Book Review: Doppelganger - A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein ★★★★☆Jan 27, 2026@edent
This book is excellent at describing the symptoms of madness which have beset the world. It expertly diagnoses the causes which have led so many people into a mirror-realm of fantasy. Sadly it falls short of prescribing a cure. I doubt anyone who has fallen into the conspiracy mindset will read this book - but I hope if you read it you will become inoculated against the brain-worms. Let's…
- Do savings accounts really lose money to inflation?Jan 26, 2026@edent
I'm absolutely addicted to the Reddit's UK Personal Finance forum - where people mutually support each other through the difficult world of managing one's personal finances. It's a great community and full of people eager to help others. In amongst the confusion around pensions, tips for budgeting, and complaining about debt-collectors is a persistent drumbeat encouraging people to save money.…
- Book Review: Human Rites by Juno Dawson ★★★☆☆Jan 25, 2026@edent
After the pretty good Her Majesty's Royal Coven, the excellent Shadow Cabinet, the law of reverting to the mean hits the conclusion of Juno Dawson's Witches of Hebden Bridge trilogy. By now you know the tropes - Bitchy-Witches, 90s pop-culture references, and wry chapter titles. It's all done well enough, the plot is a little twisty, the story entertaining, and the repeated mentions of Buffy…
- Installing and Updating Filezilla from a Zip File on Pop_OS / UbuntuJan 24, 2026@edent
Notes to myself because I keep forgetting. tl;dr Unzip it into the /opt/ directory. I want to install Filezilla - so I can SFTP files around. Sadly, the Flatpak version is unmaintained and the version in apt is out of date. Luckily, you can download the zipped version. Their Wiki helpfully says: If you have special needs, don't have sufficient rights to install programs or don't like…