I want to make one thing very clear. Despite my propensity for IoT gadgetry, I did not connect my toilet to the Internet!
It's 2024. Why are you still scraping your arsehole with paper like some kind of 20th century throwback? A decade ago, I got a cheap bidet attachment. It wasn't great. The water was cold, the fittings leaked, and the plastic was creaky.
For our recent bathroom renovation, I decided that I wanted to get a proper Japanese style toilet with integrated bidet and all the technology I could find.
That didn't quite pan out. You can pay literally thousands of pounds for a "smart" toilet. And if you want the seat separately, that can cost several hundred quid as well. As much as I value my posterior, I didn't fancy paying through it!
But, with diligent research, I found one for £300 - that included the toilet, cistern, and smart seat.
Oh! A whole bunch! It offers rear and front wash - with an adjustable angle. It warms the water to your preferred temperature. While it is washing, it can oscillate and massage. And the whole thing can be controlled by a couple of built-in buttons, or a relatively simple remote control.
There's also a little hatch for putting in some limescale remover, and a drain hole if you need to empty the bidet's tank - so should be pretty good for maintenance.
The remote has a magnetic holster which can be stuck to a nearby surface.
At this price, there are limits to the technology. The seat isn't heated. The toilet lid doesn't automatically open or close. It doesn't play a little tune while you're going about your business. There's no air-dryer to remove excess water from your botty. No UV light sterilisation. The flush is manual - although it is dual control. It won't spray perfume into the water after a particularly troublesome dump.
Although there's a remote, the number of buttons build in to the seat are limited - front, back, and stop.
And, crucially, there's no Internet or Bluetooth connectivity.
Look, I know you think I'm stupid. But I would have like to control it from my phone. I'm going to be taking it in there with me anyway, so why can't I open an app to load my water temperature preferences?
The remote control operates at 2460MHz - which should keep it safe from naughty reprobates who have a Flipper Zero. But I doubt it offers any significant protection against a determined hacker. If you have multiple loos, is possible to set the remote to a different ID to prevent accidental interference.
The main protection seems to be the buttock detection software. Using a small camera presence sensor, the bidet refuses to operate until you have wedged yourself on the throne.
The pump and heater aren't overly powerful, so I'm not too worried about a hacker blasting a jet of boiling hot water up where the sun don't shine.
There are a few minor annoyances. The pump is a little on the noisy side. It is quieter than a flush, but the whirring is noticeable.
The plumbing is somewhat complicated. Our bathroom fitter said it wasn't the neatest design to fit. The water hose juts out a little from the side, as does the power cable. They then wrap behind the unit.
It does feel a little narrower than other loos I've used. But it is plenty big enough for me.
I can't find anything online about the "Purificare" brand. I suspect this is a white-label product; there seem to be several similar variants around. So I've no idea how reliable they are.
I wasn't expecting miracles for £300 - but I'm pretty impressed! As a toilet, it does the job. It is solid and the flush is powerful enough for my vegetarian diet.
The bidet is delightful. I mean that sincerely! Having a pulsing jet of moderately warm water, washing away the shameful filth of your pitiful human body, is a sensory delight. My tush has never been cleaner and my toilet-paper bills are much reduced.
If, like me, you spend more time on the bog than is strictly necessary, this is a reasonably priced accessory and will make even the most urgent visit to the smallest room a relaxing and pleasant experience.
I did a few interviews for magazines and podcasts - but nothing like as much as previous years. I did get involved with some Doctor Who props which was pretty cool!
Here's how I did against last years hopes and dreams (not goal or OKRs)
Graduate from MSc (and regain my free time).
Done! MSc Managed. I scored a distinction and have vowed to not do anything academic ever again. Until I change my mind.
Go on a proper relaxing holiday where all I do is sip cocktails and read books (and maybe a little sightseeing).
Done! Spent a week in Cape Verde swimming up to the bar and reading books (not simultaneously). Visited Berlin (gorgeous). Kuala Lumpur was an incredible city, I think I'm still full from all the food. And a couple of weeks driving around New Zealand's South Island was just perfect.
Put more effort into things like OpenUK and BCS (I need to give back more to the community).
I've been doing more things with OpenUK - both attending board meetings and meet-ups - but the BCS work has been harder. I keep suggesting things but they never get much traction. I have to admit to myself that I'm not a very good organiser of events and lack the ability to convince people to engage with them. Consequently, I'll be resigning shortly.
Consider joining a Worshipful Company (looks like it could be a fun way to get more involved with charities).
Nope! I went to a couple of events, and they were... fine, I guess? I don't think I'm sociable enough to benefit from them. I don't have the hustle to pick up work from them. And I'm not sure how much time I want to devote to something like that.
Blog more. I'm not introspective enough to keep a diary of how I feel - but I do enjoy looking back at what I thought. Probably not daily - but we'll see.
Done! Daily, as well. I find it a tremendously cathartic outlet. I do not have a rich emotional inner life - but it is nice to get my thoughts out.
Read more. I have too short a commute to get into a good book. So I'm going to have to proactively set aside some time.
Done! 52 books this year.
See more friends. I'm conscious that I've been keeping to myself rather a lot. If you fancy a beer and a natter, please get in touch 🙂
Well, mostly. Again, I need to put more effort into arranging things and seeing people.
So, what's up for 2024? More of the same, with a twist.
I have two contradictory goals. I've moved to 4-days-a-week in order to glide down to FIRE / FILE. But I'd also like to grow my own consultancy. I've already had several clients who are happy with me doing ad-hoc work for them. So how do I reconcile working less with taking on more work? Answers in the comments box, please.
With the upcoming General Election, perhaps I will get a bit more involved in politics - both local and national. After being politically constrained by my job for so long, it'll be interesting to see how that feels.
We've hit over 30,000 submissions to OpenBenches. Have we hit the limit? Is it worth promoting it more?
I am terrible at playing with all the toys I have. I want to spend a bit more time playing the games I have on the Oculus and Switch.
After several years of intensity, I think I want to throttle back a bit.
No doubt life will throw the usual amount of twists and turns. Let's see what happens!
The year 2014 has been removed pending legal advice. Needless to say, I fully expect to be vindicated and look forward to being crowned the rightful winner of The Eurovision Song Contest. ↩
Does it work with Linux? Oh yes! It has a Micro-USB port, so I got a USB-C OTG cable. I plugged it into my laptop and ran lsusb - which shows it as 072f:223e Advanced Card Systems, Ltd ACR1252 Reader
Running pcsc_scan gives pretty much the same information 0: ACS ACR1252 CL Reader [ACR1252 Reader PICC] 00 00
The antenna seems pretty sensitive. It read my ring from about a centimetre away though a cardboard sleeve. I think the debug port is the "J3 nRF USB" - but I can't find many details about wiring it up.
So, will it fit in the Framework laptop? Perhaps. If I could solder on a USB-C jack, it would still stick out 2.5cm - so a 3D printed protector would still be needed.
Alternatively, as suggested by Stephen Early it might be possible to hook it in to the spare USB 2.0 ports. And, if the size is right, stowing it beside the touchpad.
But, first, I need to wait for my laptop to ship 😂
The venerable NaNoWriMo is a self-directed challenge. To whit - can you write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November? It doesn't have to be a good novel. You just need to complete it. 50k words over 30 days is 1,667 words per day. If you can type at about 20 Words Per Minute, then you can bash out a novel in 90 minutes per day.
I know that I can bash out a novel in half a month given sufficient motivation. I have dozens of stories that I want to tell. I finally understand why authors complain about their characters not doing what they need them to do. Trying to engineer a nifty plot point is tougher than I thought. It's fascinating to write characters you don't like - and it can be hard to give them a suitable comeuppance. Stories I thought would be short went on far too long. Being clever rarely works. The thundercrack of realising exactly how something is going to work is brilliant.
But, most importantly, I can commit to a creative challenge, execute it, and complete it.
I've loved the feedback people have given - good and bad. I don't think I want to try and publish it as a "real" book. But we'll see.
Throughout September and October, I spent some time planning out the bones of my book. I wrote titles for chapters gave each a very vague synopsis. If I had a thought about a plot-point, I scribbled it down. This is similar to my algorithm to write an assignment. A paragraph of 100 words means that you only have to write 17 paragraphs per day. If your chapter has a beginning, middle, and end then you only need to write 6 paragraphs for each.
I also went to a NaNoWriMo "Write In" during October. It was kind of nice to sit with others and chat about our story ideas. It's also harder to doss about on the Internet when you're surrounded by people typing.
I mostly wrote in plain-text. When I did use something like Google Docs, I got distracted by its spell-check and (often erroneous) grammar suggestions. I found it incredibly important to get into the flow. Running on huge paragraphs without stopping to think if I'd spelled "obstreperous" correctly. All of that can be saved for editing. The most important thing is to get the story out.
I realise how privileged I am to have a couple of hours each day to write. And I don't mean to suggest that you should feel bad if you don't. But the nice thing about writing is that there are no short-cuts. I cannot teach you "one weird trick that authors hate". You literally have to sit at the keyboard and fling your fingers at it until the words are on the page.
I suppose the only "trick" is not caring too much about the end result while you're writing. Once the words are out, it's OK to go back and fix all your mistakes.
I think so! It's fun writing short stories. They're an interesting way to examine what I think about the world. Perhaps next year I will try to turn one of them into a full length novel.
I should probably read more about writing and attend some of the workshops run by published authors. It might also be useful to get beta-readers to commit to giving me feedback on each chapter.
Would I like to be the next Andy Weir and transform my blog into a best-seller and then a movie? Yes, obviously. But I'd rather be realistic about what I can achieve and how I can maximise the fun I have.
Anyway, you can read Tales of the Algorithm online - and I'd love to know what you think of it.
Whenever you talk about renewable energy, it's impossible to avoid a very particular strain of reply-guy.
The "Nuclear is really good actually" dude is convinced that you have critically misunderstood Our-Lord-And-Saviour Uranium.
Nukes are clean! They are cheap! They are safe and healthy! They are brilliant! Nuclear power will save us all!
Look, I 100% agree that nuclear power is theoretically better than every renewable power source. Nuclear totally clean1! Fewer people die of nuclear radiation poisoning than fall from roofs installing solar. Governments never need to cover-up the true cost of nuclear fall-out and decontamination2. Why can't people get it through their thick skulls that nuclear power is just so fricking cool?!
I agree! Harnessing the power of spicy rocks is a pretty nifty way of making electrons flow.
But here's my real test for nuclear power. Why can't I have a mini-nuke at home?
I have an incoming gas supply which I use for heat. I suppose I could buy a mini turbine to turn that into electricity. Or I could use a thermoelectric device to turn gas heat into electricity. Bit of a faff, but doable.
Similarly, I can burn wood (or coal) at home and use that for energy. I can go into the woods right now and pick up some sticks which will turn into lovely heat.
I could even buy a petrol / diesel generator and - although the fumes would be disgusting - I could make electricity that way.
Finally, if there were a river running through my property, I could install a hydroelectric generator. There isn't, so I can't. And I don't think my domestic water pressure could do more than power a few LEDs.
So where's my home-nuke kit?
Every other form of electricity generation has a version which can be reasonably installed in the home. Some of them have to be installed by a competent and qualified person. Some of them need yearly check ups. Some of them require planning permission or emissions controls. But they all provably work.
Except nuclear.
Is it because it isn't cheap enough at a smaller scale?
Would the risk of a small nuclear explosion be that much worse than the occasional gas explosions we have?
If my solar panels fell from the roof, they're fairly light but would still give you a nasty bump on the head. A fly-away wind turbine could probably kill someone nearby.
Burning wood, coal, oil, and other combustibles can create some pretty noxious pollution. Would a micro-nuclear reactor be better?
Perhaps there's an alternate future where Chernobyl and Windscale and Three-Mile Island never happened and we're all driving around with Mr Fusion reactors on our cars3.
I would be perfectly comfortable living next door to a large, well-managed nuclear power station. But would you sleep soundly knowing your neighbour had a small Generation IV reactor in their basement?
Infrastructure is impossible. You have to wrangle thousands of people over dozens of months, with a budget of millions, to deliver something made of hundreds of plans, which has to fit seamlessly into the world. How does any infrastructure get built?
It mostly doesn't. This is the terrifying true story of all the different ways big projects fail.
If you've ever been part of a big IT project, some of the themes will give you flashbacks. What kills me is how normalised this has become. We all know that predicted budgets are little more than crystal-ball gazing. We can see that tiny blockers now lead to catastrophes later on.
In plain English, minor changes combined in a way to produce a disaster. In complex systems, that happens so often that the Yale sociologist Charles Perrow called such events “normal accidents.”
This is as much about human psychology as it is planning. Take this example:
“I once asked an engineer why their cost estimates were invariably underestimated and he simply answered, ‘if we gave the true expected outcome costs nothing would be built.’”
Does that ring true to you? Whether you're justifying your own bit of home DIY, or trying to get a multi-billion project off the ground, of course you're going to lie to yourself!
What I love about the book is that it isn't just pointing and snarking. There are excellent suggestions in there; use experts, plan for disaster, do repeatable actions. Nothing revolutionary - but worth hammering into people's brains.
Most big projects are not the first, tallest, biggest, or anything else too remarkable.
It all comes down to the boring magic of standards. Find a standardised way to do something and iterate on that.
The book is, necessarily, a little dry. I think it could have benefited from a few illustrations. Sometimes a little help visualising data is necessary. Some of the megaprojects could have photos to help demonstrate the scale.
It starts as a somewhat jolly romp through grand failures but, by the end, becomes an urgent plea.
In our present situation, wasted resources and wasted time are a threat to civilization.
We don't have the luxury of wasting billions. We don't have the time to do things twice. Grandiose plans based on untested technology aren't going to save us from the climate crisis.
An excellent book for understanding the reality of building anything.
It will look something like this:
Theme SelectorDark ModeLight and BrighteInk
Modern CSS gives us a way to see which of those options have been chosen by the user:
#colour-mode option:checked[value="dark"]
That can be combined with the new . This allows the CSS to say "If the body has a checked elements with this specific value, then apply these CSS rules" - like so:
That says "If the body element has a child which has the ID "colour-mode", and if "colour-mode" has a child option with the checked value of "dark", then set the --text variable to be the value of --dark-text.
String enough of those together and that will make a pretty capable theme switcher!
Some browsers will know whether their user has a preference for dark or light mode. Perhaps the user has set their phone to dark mode, or flipped a switch somewhere for light mode. This preference can be determined in CSS using the .
A site can set the default value of the colour variables like so:
Sadly, this does require JS. This uses localstorage rather than a cookie. If a user doesn't have JS enabled, this will gracefully degrade; the theme will follow the user's preferences, switching will work but won't be remembered.
// Get the theme switchervar themeSelect = document.getElementById('theme');// If a theme has previously been selected, set itif (localStorage.theme) { themeSelect.value = localStorage.theme;}// Listen for any changes and save themif(themeSelect) { themeSelect.addEventListener('change', function(event){ localStorage.setItem('theme', themeSelect.value); });}
All USB-C cables are equal. But some, as the saying goes, are more equal than others.
This little gadget from Plugable is a fantastic bit of kit. Plug your USB-C power supply into one end of the gadget, plug the gadget in to your laptop, phone, or any other USB-C device. Watch the screen to see how much power is flowing.
There's no Bluetooth or WiFi to get the results out. There's no flash storage to record anything. There's no graphs. It shows you volts, amps, watts, and direction of power. That's all I need it for, and that's all it does.
As you can see, the screen reacts quickly. So you can get a good idea of what power load your various apps have.
This is great. My work Windows laptop was complaining that it wasn't receiving enough power from my USB-C docking station and, with this, I was able to see that it was getting about 40W.
I was able to test some USB-C cables to see how much power they could support.
Even better, this doesn't interfere with normal USB-C functions. It happily passed through video, audio, peripherals, etc.
It's about £20 - £35 online depending on whether The Algorithm favours you or not. You can find cheaper ones - but they tend not to go up to 240W.
This is an indispensable gadget - especially if you have dozens of cables of uncertain provenance. It'll tell you just how much they're capable of delivering.
Now I just need to find a USB-C plug which can actually deliver 240W via PD!
My Linux laptop used to suspend perfectly. I'd close the lid and it would go to sleep. Open it up, it would spring to life - presenting me with a password screen. But, some time in the last few months, it has stopped doing that.
If I close the lid, it keeps running. This is unhelpful.
If I manually run the suspend command - systemctl suspend - the laptop blanks the screen then immediately turns it back on at the lock screen. It doesn't suspend.
I know that suspend physically works - becasue running any of these other command does properly suspend the machine. But powering it back up goes straight to the desktop - no lock screen!
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, following lots of suggestions from various people on the Internet. None of these helped me - but they may be useful pointers to you.
I tried disabling everything in . I couldn't get PXSX to be disabled. But even with everything else off, the suspend didn't work.
Last week I attended an unofficial discussion group about the future of AI in Government. As well as the crypto-bores who have suddenly pivoted their "expertise" into AI, there were lots of thoughtful suggestions about what AI could do well at a state level.
Some of it is trivial - spell check is AI. Some of it is a dystopian hellscape of racist algorithms being confidently incorrect. The reality is likely to be somewhat prosaic.
Although I'm no longer a civil servant, I still enjoy going to these events and saying "But what about open source, eh?" - then I stroke my beard in a wise-looking fashion and help facilitate the conversation.
For many years, my role in Cabinet Office and DHSC was to shout the words "OPEN SOURCE" at anyone who would listen. Then patiently demolish their arguments when they refused to release something on GitHub. But I find myself somewhat troubled when it comes to AI models.
Let's take a theoretical example. Suppose the Government trains an AI to assess appeals to, say, benefits sanctions. An AI is fed the text of all the written appeals and told which ones are successful and which ones aren't. It can now read a new appeal and decide whether it is successful of not. Now let's open source it.
For the hard of thinking - this is not something that exists. It is not official policy. It was not proposed as a solution. I am using it as a made-up example.
What does it mean to open source an AI? Generally speaking, it means releasing some or all of the following.
The training data.
The weights assigned to the training data.
The final model.
I think it is fairly obvious that releasing the training data of this hypothetical example is a bad idea. Appellants have not consented to having their correspondence published. It may contain deeply personal and private information. Releasing this data is not ethical.
Releasing how the data is trained is probably fine. It would allow observers to see what biases the model has encoded in it. Other departments could use the model to train their own AI. So I (cautiously) support the opening of that code.
But training weights without the associated data is kind of useless. Without the data, you're unable to understand what's going on behind the scenes.
Lastly, the complete model. Again, I find this problematic. There are two main risks. The first is that someone can repeatedly test the model to find weaknesses. I don't believe in "security through obscurity" - but allowing someone to play "Groundhog Day" with a model is risky. It could allow someone to hone their answers to guarantee that their appeal would be successful. Or, more worryingly, it could find a lexical exploit which can hypnotise the AI into producing unwanted results.
Even if that weren't a concern, it appears some AI models can be coerced into regurgitating their training data - as discovered by the New York Times:
The complaint cited examples of OpenAI’s GPT-4 spitting out large portions of news articles from the Times ... It also cited outputs from Bing Chat that it said included verbatim excerpts from Times articles. NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances
Even if a Government department didn't release its training data - those data are still embedded in the model and it may be able to reconstruct them. So any sensitive or personal training data might be able to be reconstructed.
Once again, to be crystal clear, the system I am describing doesn't exist. No one has commissioned it. This is a thought experiment by people who do not work in Government.
So where does that leave us?
I am 100% a staunch advocate for open source. Public Money means Public Code. Make Things Open It Makes Things Better.
But...
It seems clear to me that releasing training data is probably not possible - unless the AI is trained on data which is entirely safe / legal to make public.
Without the training data, the way it is trained is of limited use. It should probably be opened, but would be hard to assess.
The final model can only be safely released if the training data is safe to release.
I want to live in a world where the data and algorithms which rule the world are transparent to us. There will be plenty of AI systems which can and should be completely open - nose-to-tail. But there will be algorithms trained on sensitive data - and I can't see any safe, legal, or moral way of opening them.
Again, I want to stress that this particular example is a figment of my imagination. But at some point this will have to be reckoned with.
You're in a restaurant with a group of friends. The waiter won't let you split the bill, so you offer to pay for it on your card and have your friends send you their share. How much would you charge them for that service?
That sounds absurd, right? OK, you might agree to split the bill evenly and maybe come out one drink in profit - but it's still a bit of a social faux pas to deliberately make money off your mates.
Recently, I was asked if I'd like to run a market stall at a geek event. There would be a bunch of traders there, and I could have a little pitch where I could sell the various gadgets, trinkets, and bits of art I've made over the years.
But the whole thing weirded me out and I'm trying to understand why.
Everything I could make and sell would involve me buying stuff at wholesale price and selling retail price. Like, I get that's the way commerce works, but it also feels kind of… I don't know how to explain. Rude?
If I buy 100 things at £10ea, assume I only sell 75% of them, plus VAT, plus credit card charges, then I have to sell for £16.50ea just to break even.
That doesn't account for my time spent buying them. Nor does it include dealing with returns, breakages, or any other expenses. I also need to pay corporation tax on my profits.
Speaking of which, that £16.50 above doesn't include any profit! If I wanted to make the enterprise worthwhile, I'd probably need to charge at least double the wholesale cost - which would probably reduce the number of people buying.
I've loved all the weird things I've purchased at hackspaces and conferences. And certainly I don't feel ripped off by the merchants. I can't wait to buy my friends' art, books, and gadgets. But it feels weird when it is me doing it.
I guess one issue is that this isn't my main source of income. I'm gainfully employed - so any extra income from selling stuff would really be in the category of fun money. Don't get me wrong, more money is always useful, but this would be a lot of effort for a relatively small amount of money, all of which I don't really need.
Also, and I realise this is my problem, I don't see my time and expertise as valuable in that way. I'd much rather show you how to build a thing, or blog the instructions, or help you understand how something works.
Finally, I think I feel this way because I see all the people I meet as friends. If we're at a weird hacker event, there's a good chance we have something in common and I'd be delighted to share a pint with you.
Does anyone else feel this way? Do you happily make fat stacks of cash from your peers? Am I just weird and neurotic? Let me know in the comment box. It's free.
I bloody hate hardware manufacturers. I wanted to use HDR on my PlayStation 5. The console supports it, my TV supports it, my amp supports it, my cables support it. Yet it wasn't working. I tried everything - updating firmware, replacing cables, and even reading the manual. Nothing.
Perform the following procedure when the unit is on.
While pressing DIMMER on the main unit, press AUTO/DIRECT to display the current setting on the display. While this is being displayed, while pressing DIMMER on the main unit, repeatedly press AUTO/DIRECT to switch the setting.
To exit the settings, release your finger. After a few seconds, the display goes out and the switching is complete.
Once the setting was changed to "Enhanced" HDR worked! But why isn't it in the manual? A bit of searching for the text finds a file called manual/ .
So I assume that this is a supplement meant to update the original manual - it is mentioned as new functionality introduced after a firmware update. But why isn't it in the main manual?
If you visit the VSX-933 product page you can download the manual, but there's no mention of a supplement or an update. The original manual was released in 2018, and the supplement in 2019.
I wonder what other features this amp is hiding that Pioneer simply haven't bothered to tell anyone about?
This is a retropost. Written in January 2023 but published long after I left the Civil Service.
One of the weird things about working in Westminster is how terrifyingly normal it becomes to work in grand old buildings, stuffed with grand old artworks, and staffed with grand old politicians. You turn a corner and there's a bit of Henry VIII's tennis court. There's a Tracy Emin hanging on the wall. That's the table where that peace treaty was signed. For goodness sake - don't sit on that chair!
Every time you open a cupboard door, you're confronted with a little bit of history.
While working in one building (I'm far too modest to say which) I was sent to grab a few extra chairs from a store-room. Oh, it is all glamour, let me tell you!
In amongst all the trestle-tables, old coffee urns, and discarded filing cabinets, was this:
I've scrubbed the EXIF metadata so as not to reveal its top secret location.
This post is a little silly, but contains a serious message. Everything is kept. Short of deliberate destruction, every decision - good or bad - is recorded somewhere. Sure, the Post-It Notes might fall off, and the Zoom call wasn't recorded, but the consequences of those decisions linger on.
It's all there. Just waiting for an eager - or lost - Civil Servant to literally open the door.
I saw a prominent AI proponent asking why people always focus on the things that AI gets wrong. AI works so well, he asserted, that it was churlish and childish to focus on a few minor mistakes?
Which reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago. I was in a rural pub and got chatting to one of the locals. We were getting on great, so I asked him what his name was. "You know," he said, "I've built houses for everyone in this village, but do they call me John the Builder? No! I repaired everyone's cars when they broke down, but do they call me John the Mechanic? No! I was the one who helped design the new school, but do they call me John the Architect? No!"
He took a sip of beer, looked rueful, and sighed. "But you shag one sheep..."
What else is there to say? The intern who files most things perfectly but has, more than once, tipped an entire cup of coffee into the filing cabinet is going to be remembered as "that klutzy intern we had to fire."
Should we forgive and rehabilitate people? Sure, some of them. But if someone has repeatedly failed - sometimes in catastrophic ways - it's OK to discard them.
In my experience with various LLMs, they're getting better at imitating human-writing, but show no signs of improving when it comes to being able to reason. Their accuracy is demonstrably just as poor as it has ever been. Even my Alexa gets things wrong as often as right.
Anyway, I asked ChatGPT what it thought of the joke:
The punchline relies on the juxtaposition between the man's numerous, significant positive contributions to his community and the singular negative action that tarnishes his reputation. It illustrates how a single indiscretion can disproportionately impact how a person is perceived, despite their otherwise commendable actions.
OK, you can argue about whether Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss in that episode. But how does anyone look at Star Trek - with its women on the command bridge, anti-colonial stance, and mixed-race crew - and not think it was a bastion of progressive causes? Star Trek is explicitly political. It isn't hidden in the subtext. You don't have to search for clues as to what the writers were trying to say.
Star Trek isn't complicated.
But some people only see the laser guns and exploding space ships. They're not looking at the text, they're barely even comprehending the narrative journey; they only see the flashing lights and gaudy costumes.
Kenny isn't wrong. But I am disturbed by the sheer number of people who don't have even a surface level of understanding of the media they're consuming. I know that lots of people don't get satire, but most TV isn't trying to bamboozle its audience.
I think there is a fundamental disconnect between people who consume and people who understand.
This is a retropost. Written contemporaneously, but published long after the events. At the time, I was a Civil Servant in Cabinet Office. Now I am not. But as we're heading for another General Election, I thought I'd share this post.
It's the evening of the 2019 General Election. I am plagued by two thoughts.
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. You read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
And
The pre-election period (purdah) is the term used to describe the period between the time an election is announced and the date the election is held. Civil servants are given official guidance by the Cabinet Office on the rules they must follow in relation to Government business during this time.
People tweet wrong things all the time. But, during this election, I've seen people I admire and respect tweeting out things I know to be false.
I don't mean slightly wrong about an esoteric policy. I mean balls-to-the-wall, head-up-the-arse, foot-in-mouth, inexcusably wrong.
I get that part of politics is enraging people to gather them to your cause. But these were people who I eagerly followed so that I could understand what was going on in an increasingly complicated world.
In normal circumstances, I'd've argued with them online. Sure, it's neither healthy nor a good way to change people's minds - but it would be something.
Purdah - a somewhat politically-incorrect term - prevents Civil Servants from commenting on things during the election. It's a sensible policy - but a bit annoying when People Are Wrong On The Internet. In fairness, I probably shouldn't get involved in arguments - that's best left to the press team.
But I am conflicted. I have first-hand, expert knowledge about a subject. I can objectively prove my arguments. Why shouldn't I be able to correct people's mistakes?
Even worse - and the thing that mildly terrifies me - if my idols are wrong about that thing, what else are they wrong about?
So I was beyond thrilled to be able to attend & speak this year.
There's always a risk that you can never recapture the magic of your youth. But EMF is consistently brilliant. A delightful alternative reality of robots, lasers, art, lasers, music, lasers, technical talks, lasers, and strange lights in the sky.
All the talks I went to were brilliant. Most of the talks I missed were also brilliant and I'm enjoying watching the catch-up streams. I took loads of silly photos, sat under an inverted fire pit, and talked to hundreds of lovely people. Oh, and watched my brilliant wife be Thor - the host of lightning talks.
I volunteered a couple of times (which was a rewarding experience) and got some meal vouchers for my troubles. Result! All the volunteers seemed to be having a whale of a time. Great seeing people pull together to make something special.
There was decent WiFi all over the field. I don't get the appeal of DECT phones - but they were ubiquitous.
Even the toilets were great! Seriously, it felt like luxury for a festival.
There was far too much to do. I didn't even try any of the CTF games or puzzles, I managed to play one arcade machine (plus a laser-projected Asteroids game), and only sampled a few of the beers available. My petition is to make EMF a 2 week festival in order to allow me to enjoy all of it 😄
All the bugs from my previous visit had been squashed. Presenters were all made to do laptop checks before presenting. There were no airhorns or howling in the middle of the night. Food stalls were relatively quick. All the Q&A happened away from the main stage. And diversity was much improved.
But, what is life if not full of the joys of complaining? Treat these kvetches as minor irritants.
P4 - I went to a workshop which wasn't well designed. Despite being advertised for beginners, the instructor seemed bemused and annoyed that people were asking for help with the basics.
P3 - The Night Market was a bit cramped. Half a dozen vendors in a single shipping container made it hard to browse and chat. While commerce isn't the primary aim of the festival, it would have been nice to have more space to view all the wares.
P3 - Official communications were a bit fragmented. There was Mastodon, and Signal groups, and Matrix/IRC, and probably more that I missed. It's great to have a variety of channels - but it was slightly overwhelming trying to check them all.
P2 - Stage B had a pillar in front of the centre of the stage, which made it a bit awkward to see what was going on sometimes.
P1 - The bar ran out of cider on the last night!!!! OK, it was pretty impressive that we collectively drank the bar dry 😂
P1 - The badges...
sigh I feel bad about ragging on the badges. They're high-tech gizmos obviously made with love. But if you're selling a gadget, I think it is reasonable for people to expect it to work. As in previous years, badges weren't generally available until later in the festival. When I did get mine, it just didn't work. The software crashed trying to update itself and the promised app store also didn't work. I don't think I saw anyone using it to display their name.
I know that the logistics of shipping hardware and getting software working is a difficult process. And I saw the team working flat-out to resolve the issues. The badge tent was full of helpful people and other attendees were willing to share tips. But I can't help feeling that these teething issues should have been solved a few weeks before launch.
I made a small tactical error by camping near to Null Sector. Surprisingly, I was able to sleep through the bone-rattling Drum and/or Bass. I suppose walking for miles in a field will do that! Even so, I came back from EMF feeling like my brain had been energised and my creativity had been given a super-boost.
I don't think I want to give a talk at the next one - I loved the experience, but it's time for more new faces. Instead - I want to see if I can build something delightfully delirious. Perhaps a multi-player collaborative game? Well, I've got two years to get it ready!
You're a big Doctor Who fan, right? If I asked you what the world DALEK meant, you'd probably tell me that it is an anagram of KALED - the original name of their species.
You'd be wrong.
In 1965, it was clearly established by a canonical source, that the world DALEK stands for:
Doctor Who wouldn't meet the Yeti for another two years - where it was established they were controlled by The Great Intelligence. Although, as the story is missing perhaps there is some retcon that we're missing?
Of course, there's no metric system in the future:
You think some of today's stories and tie-ins are a bit weird? The DALEK World is a wonderful little time capsule which shows what kids were devouring just a couple of years after Doctor Who first aired. If you can find a copy, I thoroughly recommend having a ruffle through it.
This is a retropost. Written contemporaneously in May 2020 during the height of the pandemic, but published long after the events.
The day the EU referendum was announced, the then Prime Minister came to visit our office. We were given a chance to talk to him in front of TV cameras.
This was my chance. I could ask a question - the perfect question - which would win the referendum and bring down the government. I spent the morning practising what I would say. I psyched myself up, and positioned myself in the PM's eyeline.
Of course, I wasn't called. And, of course, my question wasn't that great. The PM would have smoothly brushed me off. Or, maybe, I'd have had five minutes of fame on the local news. Or, more likely, I'd be fired.
Tomorrow, I have a call with the current Prime Minister. I expect it will be listen-in only with no chance of questions. But what if it isn't? I have fantasies of asking the question. The one which makes a madman reconsider his wicked life and repent. My mind is stewing. Could I craft such a question and get through to him? The one which trained journalists have so far failed to land.
No. Obviously not. At best, he would make a joke and move on. At worst, I'd irreparably damage my career - and sabotage the project I've worked so hard for.
The joy of capitalism means that I need to be employed to survive.
But.
Shouldn't I at least try? What's the point of being in the room if you can't speak truth to power? What's the point of promising to give professional, impartial advice, if that advice is curtailed by fear?
I'm not a super-senior Civil Servant. I'm a tiny pawn. He doesn't know me and my words carry no weight. My sacrifice means nothing.
Morally, I know that speaking out is the right thing to do. But can I find the words which protect myself and my team at the same time as speaking truth to power? I'll spend the night tossing and turning, trying to find the right words. Trying to find any words at all.
The next afternoon They didn't allow any questions.
Book cover - a red land with a spoon in the foreground.Fourteen years ago, I read Fforde's Shades of Grey and my life hasn't been quite the same since. It was a magical tale, almost totally devoid of exposition, building in an fantasy world like no other. Fans have been clamouring for a sequel ever since.
The first few chapters of the sequel do an excellent job of exposition - but this isn't the sort of book you can pick up without having recently read the original. I got a dozen pages into Red Side Story before I realised that I remembered nothing about the original. So I went back to read Shades of Grey. I'm delighted to say it was just as good as I remember - a delirious ride through a messed up world.
The second book is… more of the same. It slowly reveals more of the backstory and its grim origins. It builds to a rather satisfying conclusion. Along the way it gets a little tied-up in its own rules, and makes some weird pop-culture references. But never fails to be brilliantly perplexing in its structured surrealness.
In one my smarter moments I likened our era to someone arriving late to a concert, just as the final chords were hanging in the air.
If you like Fforde's inventive and bizarre worlds, you'll like this. But, I warn you, it really needs you to have read Shades of Grey first.
Book cover for Understanding Privacy.Heather Burns has an absolutely deft way of turning the sometimes-dull world of digital privacy into entertaining, informative, and actionable prose.
Too many of these sorts of books end up being a list of woes and end with "someone should do something, I guess?". Understanding Privacy is different. All the way through the mantra is "You are someone! You do something! And here's how..."
Digital privacy is, I think it is fair to say, not a universally loved topic. Too often it is seen as shrill pedants lobbing fines at unsuspecting companies. The reality is somewhat more prosaic. This is a journey we all have to go on - wherever we work in the digital world.
It would be easy for this book to descend into just being a mega-long checklist. But, while there are a fair few lists, they are backed up with practical steps which can be taken by both people and companies. Some of them are wickedly witty:
Please use https://, because seeing http:// this late in the game is not the sort of ’90s flashback I enjoy.
I especially enjoyed the reframing of certain privacy mavens as "privacy ableists" - those who "criticise a person with a disability for owning an Alexa device, taking no regard for the benefit it has brought into the disabled person’s life."
I also got emotional whiplash after hearing some people described as "privacy shamers" - those who "harass anyone who is doing their best to change tech companies from the inside as being collaborators on par with the Vichy regime."
The book is full of interesting links out to further resources. Although, I should point out that links like https://smashed.by/cnilrights go via the short.io service. Which probably makes me a privacy pedant 😆.
This is an empowering read. It isn't designed to make you feel hopeless at the state of the world but, instead, it asks you to reflect on what you're doing and what you should be doing.
The final question should be the one which weighs on you heaviest: How am I going to feel about myself if I continue to work for this company and develop this product?
I've got about another 10 months left at my current job and after that... I don't know what I'll do. I've already moved down to 4 days a week in an effort to glide down to FIRE. Do I really want to go back up to 5 days? Could I find somewhere that would be happy with me doing 3 days? Can I be arsed to constantly hustle for ad-hoc client work?
Can't I just stop?
What would happen if I took a gap year? A sabbatical? A full year of not working?
I'm lucky enough to have enough savings for this venture. I've got me a wife who could also do with taking a break from her career.
So could we...?
The obvious downside is a year without earning any money.
The next issue is returning to work. "Can you explain this absence on your CV?" Oh, yeah, I just decided to quit for a bit. I'm not sure how attractive that is to future employers.
And the final issue is... to do what? Backpacking round India? Gardening? Eating our bodyweight in cheese?
I'm pretty sure this is what I want to do. Take a year or so out. Recharge. Reconfigure. So the next few months are going to be planning on what that looks like.
If you've ever taken a voluntary mid-career break, I'd love to hear what you did and how you planned it.
I have a mixed relationship with the FIRE movement. It basically boils down to "spend less, save more, then you can retire once you've save 25x your annual spend". That's it.
As Michael Taylor writes, some people fetishise the "spend less" part. If you deny yourself all pleasure, he argues, then life isn't worth living. That's probably broadly true.
But he makes a fundamental mistake in his calculations:
Let’s assume that you’re able to invest an extra £10,000 per year by living miserably now in hopes of a brighter future (bear in mind the average full-time salary in the UK is around £35,000 and that’s before tax).
The S&P 500 has historically averaged around 10pc per year, so if we assume a compound annual growth rate of 8pc across 20 years, you’d have £46,609.57.
Yes. £10,000 getting 8%, compounded over 20 years is "only" £46k. Not really enough to retire on. So don't bother saving! Spend! Spend! Spend! Feed the capitalist machine!
But, that's not the assumption being made. Read closer:
you’re able to invest an extra £10,000 per year
You add £10k, get 8%, you now have £10,800. Next year you add another £10k, meaning you get 8% on £20,800. A total of £22,464.
Repeat that for 20 years and what do you end up with?
£540,838.79
Yup! Over half a million quid. That rather changes things, doesn't it? If you started investing at age 30 and stopped at 50, you could retire early and live off the proceeds of £500k until your state pension kicked in2.
But how much is £10k per year really? It is a lot for most people but can be structured in a more manageable way.
Let's assume you're part of a couple3. People who live together spend less on housing, utilities, food, entertainment, etc.
If you're part of a couple, you only need to save £5k per year each. How much is that?
£96 per week. Or £14 per day.
Actually, it is even cheaper than that. If you open up a LISA4, you can deposit a maximum of £4k per year and the Government will give you a £1k bonus.
To invest £4,000 per year, you'd need to save... £11 per day.
I don't want to go all "Millennials just need less Starbucks and avocado toast!" but... yeah. If you're the sort of person who buys a meal-deal for lunch5 how much of that can you save per day by making your own sandwiches?
A pint less here, a cheaper bottle of wine there, going to the lower resolution Netflix, all the other boring budgeting tips you've heard of6.
£11 per day, each, for 20 years, gets you half a million quid.
That's what the FIRE movement is about. Getting people to realise that a small sacrifice now will pay off in the future.
Michael Taylor's article is correct. You probably shouldn't live on a diet of bread and water, never seeing friends, not going on a spontaneous trip to France; life is for living. Make the most of it!
But, also, life is for living, not working. If you take small actions now, you can free yourself from drudgery later.
I'm terrible at networking. I forget people's names minutes after meeting them, I never have business cards and lose the ones I'm given, and I can't go five minutes without burbling some nonsense. But I recognise that networking is a skill and, like any skill, it takes practice to succeed.
I've always been told that success isn't always about what you know, but more about who you know. So how does someone who is introverted, bad at small talk, and terrible at sending follow-up emails get to know people?
The answer, as always, is to let other people do the hard work.
I realise that asking lottery-winners for advice on how to pick your numbers is not a reliable method for becoming a millionaire - but I'd like to explain how I network and where it has got me.
Several years ago, I lost my job. I knew it was coming, but it still felt shitty. At midday, I rang my wife, told her what had happened and said that I was coming home.
"What about your presentation tonight?" she said. I'd forgotten that I had a Mobile Monday talk in my diary. Frankly, I couldn't think of anything worse than standing up in a room full of employed people and bleating on about my side projects.
"Nah. I'm just not up for it," I said.
"Look, you never know who is going to be there. You can enjoy your unemployment tomorrow."
So, I did the talk. I chatted with people (whose names I instantly forgot), picked up business cards (which are still in a pile somewhere), and drank a bit too much free wine. Then went home to cry.
A few days later, I had an interview with a trendy new startup! The very first thing that the CEO said to me was "Nice to meet you - I loved your talk at Mobile Monday last week!"
I got the job. Not necessarily because of how awesome a speaker I am - but it certainly helped that I received a round of applause from people in the industry.
Several months later and I was touting for work again. A casual acquaintance told me her firm was hiring. I went in to meet the manager and, again, almost the first thing she said was "We saw your talk at Mobile Monday - it was great!"
Two birds - one stone 🙂
More recently, I've got speaking gigs because people have said that they've watched my talks online. I've had more interviews where people have asked for me by name after reading one of my blog posts. I've had journalists call me up for "expert commentary" because they've seen that I've been posting on social media knowledgeably about a specific subject.
Relentless self-promotion is exhausting and - I think - off-putting to most of your audience. That's not the aim here.
So here are my vague thoughts on how to get people to know you:
Don't talk about yourself - talk about what interests you.
Don't insert yourself mindlessly into a conversation - build up a rapport with people you admire.
Don't be a "brand" - people see through that.
Do put yourself out there - go to events where you have only a vague interest in the subject.
Do ask. Tell people you'd like to present, or write a blog post, or help them organise.
Do be prepared to fail. Most people won't remember the things which go wrong; but the effort pays dividends.
OK, OK. This isn't a particularly severe security bug, but I found it interesting.
The Matrix messaging app "Element" lets you sign in to your account on multiple devices. In order to prove those devices are controlled by you, the app asks you to verify the other sessions. This is broadly sensible.
You sign in to the web-based messenger, then you sign in to the Android app. The web asks you if you just signed in, you say yes. The app then says "scan the code shown on the website". You do. And then both devices ask if the logo displayed is identical.
Are those two the same shield? They're both the same shape. They're both green. They both have a tick. But the tick is a different colour!
I suspect this is because the shield on the web has a transparent tick and expects the background colour to be white. But, when in Dark Mode, the background is grey.
Interestingly, my phone was also in Dark Mode - but the image has a solid white tick.
I'm not sure if it is specifically a bug in Matrix or Element (and, TBQH, I'm hazy about their relationshp) so I've raised it on Element's GitHub.
But, let this be a lesson to you. Test all of your interface with all of your different themes. And don't use transparency to convey important security information.
