Edent

Edent, 2 hours ago to academia

Hey #academia friends.

If - and it is a very big if - I wanted to start a PhD in about a year's time, what should I do now to prepare?

I got my MSc a year ago. I haven't started looking at any specific programmes yet.

UK-based tips especially appreciated!

Edent, 8 hours ago to JasperFforde

🆕 blog! “Book Review: Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde”
★★★★⯪

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 […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/book-review-red-side-story-jasper-fforde/
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#BookReview #jasperfforde

Edent, 1 day ago to webdev

🆕 blog! “Accents and eBooks”

By and large, the English language doesn't use diacritical marks. Even our loanwords are stripped of them; we drink in a cafe rather than the more pretentious café. This has a consequence for HTML and, by extension, eBooks. As a quick primer, modern computing gives us two main ways of displaying a letter with an […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/accents-and-ebooks/
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#ebook #HTML #unicode

Edent, 1 day ago to random

Surely Colin is absolutely riddled with syphilis?

Edent, 2 days ago to random

🆕 blog! “1,000 edits on OpenStreetMap”

Today was quite the accidental milestone! I've edited OpenStreetMap over a thousand times! For those who don't know, OSM (OpenStreetMap) is like the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone can go in and edit the map. This isn't a corporate-controlled space where your local knowledge is irrelevant compared to the desire for profit. You can literally go…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/1000-edits-on-openstreetmap/
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#OpenStreetMap #ReDeCentralize

Edent, 2 days ago to random

Oh! This is clever. Using the AP bridge, you can follow my ActivityPub account on BlueSky!

Hello bsky friends!

Edent, 3 days ago to random

What's the lowest amount you've paid for something using a credit card?

Went to the market the other day and paid for a £2 punnet of fruit using a credit card. Guy was running Square on his phone, showed me the screen, I tapped, done.

I remember when everyone was £10 minimum for card payments, even in large shops. Now sole-traders can take instant payment for low value amounts. Brilliant!

Edent, 3 days ago to DoctorWho

🆕 blog! “When does Doctor Who meet historical figures who are alive today?”

In a recent episode of Doctor Who, we see a lovely sequence where The Doctor has a nice chat with Paul McCartney of The Beatles. Great larks! The Doctor often meets real people - Dickens, Shakespeare, Rosa Parks. But, crucially, all those people are dead by the time the episode airs. Macca …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/when-does-doctor-who-meet-historical-figures-who-are-alive/
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#DoctorWho

Edent, 4 days ago to random

So, you know about this nonsense proposal to ban rainbow lanyards in the UK Civil Service?

I wrote about it 4 years ago.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/01/when-do-symbols-stop-being-political/

The Civil Service code explicitly says:

> You must carry out your responsibilities in a way that is fair, just and equitable and reflects the Civil Service commitment to equality and diversity

Edent, 4 days ago to history

🆕 blog! “Book Review: Fallen Idols - Alex von Tunzelmann”

"History is not erased when statues are pulled down. It is made." Some people celebrated when Saddam's statue was toppled in Iraq. Yet those same voices condemn the felling of Coulson, Rhodes, and a dozen other statues. Why? Alex von Tunzelmann has a knack for getting to the heart of history in an accessible man…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/book-review-fallen-idols-alex-von-tunzelmann/
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#BookReview #history

Edent, 4 days ago to random

Grrrr. Google Slides doesn't support WebP.

Why, yes, my #EMFcamp talk prep is proceeding nicely, thanks!

Edent, 5 days ago to solar

🆕 blog! “One MegaWattHour of Battery Power!”

Less than a year ago, in August 2023, we installed a 4.8kWh Solar Battery at a cost of £2,900. Whenever I talk about the upfront capital costs of solar power, people rightly want to know what the payback period is. Well, after less than 10 months, the battery has given us 1MWh. To put that […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/one-megawatthour-of-battery-power/
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#battery #moixa #solar

Edent, 5 days ago to random

My home battery has saved us about 1 MEGAWATTHOUR of electricity in less than a year.

Looking at a payback period of under 8 years - depending on what electricity prices do in the meantime.

Combined with solar power and a time-of-day dynamic pricing, this has been a great way to use more of our power locally.

https://botsin.space/@solar/112431524729995323

Edent, 5 days ago to DoctorWho

I found a small continuity error in #DoctorWho!
In the episode Space Babies, after The Doctor enables Universal Roaming on Ruby's phone.
Can you spot it?

video/mp4

Edent, 5 days ago to random

Calling all Service Designers! Want to help work on an exciting genetic health project? We'll pay you money to do that!

https://apply.workable.com/our-future-health/j/7F9D8D2713/?utm_campaign=3bf3f3ed1e&utm_medium=eps&utm_source=link

Edent, 6 days ago to python

🆕 blog! “Untappd to Mastodon - Updated!”

A few years ago, I wrote some code to post Untappd check-ins to Mastodon. I've recently updated it to also post a photo of the beer you're enjoying. First up, you'll need a file called config.py to hold all your API keys: instance = "https://mastodon.social" access_token = "…" write_access_token = "…" untappd_client_id = "…" untappd_cli…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/untappd-to-mastodon-updated/
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#MastodonAPI #python #untappd

Edent, 7 days ago to random

Didn't even make it to the 1 hour mark in #MadameWeb.

Just a completely pointless absence of a film.

Edent, 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago) to blogging

🆕 blog! “It was twenty years ago today”

I wrote my first public blog post on 2004-05-11. I immediately followed it up with a brief review of my BlackBerry. I kept up the blogging for a few months, then it trickled off. I preferred posting on Usenet and other primitive forms of social media. But, by 2007, I was back to blogging on […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/it-was-twenty-years-ago-today/
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#blogging #meta

Edent, 8 days ago to HowTo

🆕 blog! “link rel="alternate" type="text/plain"”

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post, I've now made all of this blog available in text-only mode. Simply append .txt to the URl of any page and you'll get back the contents in plain UTF-8 text. No formatting, no images (although you can see the alt text), no nothing! Front page https://shkspr.mobi/blog/.txt This blog […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/link-relalternate-typetext-plain/
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#HowTo #php #WordPress

Edent, 9 days ago to wordpress

🆕 blog! “A completely plaintext WordPress Theme”

This is a silly idea. But it works. I saw Dan Q wondering about plaintext WordPress themes - so I made one. This is what this blog looks like using it: The Code You only need two files. An index.php and a style.css. The CSS file can be empty, but it needs to exist - […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/a-completely-plaintext-wordpress-theme/
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#WordPress

Edent, 10 days ago (edited 3 days ago) to random

From an artist's point of view, is there any difference between you buying a donated CD from a charity shop and downloading pirated music from a torrent site?

Neither gives the artists, songwriters, producers, publishers, or distributors any money.

Neither reports to a charts authority to show popularity.

Both have the same impact on secondary revenue like gig tickets & merchandise.

Vote now - and please show your workings.

Edent, 10 days ago to wordpress

I keep getting TrackBack spam in #WordPress.
But, what's weird, is that the domains don't exist!

This is a typical one. A nonsensical and non-existent domain - R9NpK.com

I can't understand how these are submitted, nor what their goal is.

Edent, 10 days ago to feminism

🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Doors of Opportunity”
★★★★★

Did you know that a Suffragette invented the UK's electrical plug? Dame Caroline Haslett was an electrical engineer who foresaw the way that electricity could be used to remove domestic drudgery from women's lives. There is a slim biography of her, written by her sister, which is sadly out of print. Luckily, the book is […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/book-review-the-doors-of-opportunity/
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#BookReview #feminism

Edent, 11 days ago to opensource

If you're coming to #EMFcamp, I'll be giving a talk all about the UK's Contact Tracing app - and whether open source saved lives.

https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/16-lessons-learned-open-sourcing-the-uks-covid-tracing-app

#OpenSource #Covid #NHS

Edent, 10 days ago to random

The nice thing about finding a typographical mistake in an #eBook is that they files are just HTML.
You can inspect element and see where the bug is.

In this case, they used ¯ when they clearly meant ̄

#Unicode