Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - BONUS ENTRY!


The Doctor holding a bomb and saying "Run for your life!"

Hello gang! I've identified all of the mobile phones used in every single episode of Doctor Who! This bonus post looks at a very special entry from s01e01 - but feel free to rummage in the archives. A Rose By Any Other Name... The very first episode of New-Who has some lovely zeitgeisty phones. But […]

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The New Mutants - one of the more interesting superhero movies


An artsy poster for the movie.

I hate superhero movies - let's get that out of the way first. They're a bag of clichés, where flashing lights are considered an adequate replacement for new ideas. 2017's "Logan" is the only one I've found interesting. What happens to a Superhero after they're too old for this shit? What does it mean to […]

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Book Review: Algorithms of Oppression - Safiya Noble


Book cover showing some distressing Google searches.

Run a Google search for “black girls”—what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls,” the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why black women are so sassy” or “why black […]

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Review: Moixa Solar Battery


A big white battery on a wall.

A few years ago, I took part in a local trial to install a solar battery in our home. The battery was excellent - and made a reasonable difference for our energy use. Sadly, last year, it died. It was prototype hardware, and these things happen. Moixa offered to replace it with an updated model […]

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What would happen if computers never got any faster?


The crappy 2D graphics of Alex Kidd.

My first computer was a BBC Micro. It could do basic graphics at a resolution of 640×256 - with 8 different colours. Not a typo. Eight! The mono speaker produced bleeps and bloops. It was basic, in all senses of the word. Eventually, talented hackers found a way for it to do simplistic 3D graphics […]

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Movie Review - The Craft: Legacy


Four teenage witches sprawled on the floor.

A group of high school students form a coven of witches. A sequel to the 1996 film, "The Craft". This bills itself as a sequel to the mid-90's classic, but it's a completely independent movie. Although it is not as dark or scary as its predecessor, it's a fun and challenging film. What starts out […]

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Three small tips for shrinking SVG images


Rows of icons - each one has the size printed next to it.

I work on the SuperTinyIcons project. Our aim is to make pixel perfect SVG icons in under 1KB. Because SVG can be quite verbose, every single redundant byte we can eliminate is a byte we can use in drawing. Here are three quick tips for shaving a few bytes off an SVG. Decimal Magic SVG […]

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How do you raise a software bug with a book publisher?


HTML code - a span wraps the first letter of a word.

Recently, I bought an eBook which has a bug. I'd like to explain what the bug is, why it is a problem, and how I'm trying to get it corrected. Amazon sells eBooks in KF8 format. That is an ePub with some proprietary extras. ePub is a standard based off HTML5. You can read the […]

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Living the Stochastic Life


Many coloured dice in a row.

When I become Emperor Of The World, I will implement my favourite method of electing officials. The Single Stochastic Vote. It's a cheap, simple, and quick way of electing people. It retains the best features of First Past The Post and Proportional Representation. Here's how it works: Everyone in the constituency votes for their most […]

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Book Review: Shouting Zeros and Ones - Digital Technology, Ethics and Policy in New Zealand - Andrew Chen


A plain book cover.

‘Understanding how the zeros and ones increasingly influence and control our lives is critical to understanding how we can reciprocate influence and control back onto those zeros and ones.’ This vital book is a call to action: to reduce online harm, to protect the integrity of our digital lives and to uphold democratic participation and […]

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