Terence Eden @Edent@mastodon.social

(Mostly) Vegan

I've been a vegetarian for 21 years. And, last year, I became (mostly) vegan. Because my bum kept falling off.

I'd been getting frequent stomach cramps and "gastrointestinal distress" which culminated in a nice man from the NHS shoving a camera up me to see if my guts were rotten. They were not (aside from a couple of small polyps).

After various food diaries and testing exclusion diets, my wo

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/mostly-vegan/

#/etc/ #vegan #vegetarian

Book Review: How To Invent Everything

This is an entertaining, useful, and thoroughly tedious book. Imagine your time machine went wrong and you were stranded in the past. How could you "invent" the technology needed to improve the world,

At its heart is a potted history of every piece of technology required for modern civilisation. Short and entertaining chapters which discuss everything fro

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/book-review-how-to-invent-everything/

#/etc/ #bookreview

Book Review: The Queen’s Gambit – Walter Tevis

The novelisation of the TV series! OK, OK, the book was written nearly 40 years before the Netflix miniseries. But it is uncanny how close the two are.

Most adaptation are really "creative reimaginings" of the source material. Taking liberties with the source material, introducing new, relatable characters, and monkeying around with th

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/book-review-the-queens-gambit-walter-tevis/

#/etc/ #bookreview

How do I know you?

I don't have a great memory. I often meet people who remember me, but I don't remember them. I've had whole conversations with people who clearly know me, but on whom I've drawn a blank.

My phone's address book has a "notes" field, and mine is peppered with little aide memoirs about the people I've met. Things like this:

And, I guess we've all got a contact

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/how-do-i-know-you/

#/etc/ #contacts #socialmedia #socialnetworks

It’s cheaper because we pass the risk on to you!

Texas is under a mountain of snow. As the energy grid struggles, the law of supply-and-demand kicks in.

Electricity prices climb ever higher. The wholesale cost rises. And doesn't stop rising.

Some people signed up to "Griddy" a service which charges users the wholesale rate for electricity. In normal times, that might be a good deal. Cut out

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/its-cheaper-because-we-pass-the-risk-on-to-you/

#/etc/

(Mostly) Vegan

I've been a vegetarian for 21 years. And, last year, I became (mostly) vegan. Because my bum kept falling off.

I'd been getting frequent stomach cramps and "gastrointestinal distress" which culminated in a nice man from the NHS shoving a camera up me to see if my guts were rotten. They were not (aside from a couple of small polyps).

After various food diaries and testing exclusion diets, my wo

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/mostly-vegan/

#/etc/ #vegan #vegetarian

Stop this digital ownership madness. NFTs are bullshit. And the stupid makes me angry.

(A hastily written and grumpy post.)

Another day, another Blockchain Bullshit project.

https://twitter.com/tweet_nfts/status/1360896333100548097

Someone "claimed" one of my Tweets and added it to the Blockchain. I'm not particularly happy a

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/stop-this-digital-ownership-madness-nfts-are-bullshit-and-the-stupid-makes-me-angry/

#/etc/ #blockchain #grift #nft #scam

Book Review: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

This is either the greatest time-travel novel ever - or a load of monkeyshine. And I'm not sure which!

What if Quantum Leap was an Agatha Christie novel? That's the basic plot - but, in this, Sam is only leaping between characters in the same story.

The whodunnit plot is brilliantly worked out - and has the requisit

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/book-review-the-seven-deaths-of-evelyn-hardcastle/

#/etc/ #bookreview #timetravel

Building a car which cannot speed

As part of my MSc, I'm reading a lot of "Leadership" books. They're all pretty bad - but they have one common thesis; it is essential to improve your company culture.

I'm not sure if I agree. I feel completely divorced from most forms of company culture. I find the way that these books talk about changing people is pretty creepy and disingenuous. T

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/building-a-car-which-cannot-speed/

#/etc/ #culture #leadership #msc

Movie Review: Royal Hunt of The Sun (1969)

So, farewell Christopher Plummer. This might be one of the most bizarre role he's ever played, in this charming - but flawed - production of the stage classic.

I met my wife at a University production of Royal Hunt of The Sun. As an anniversary gift, she got me the DVD. The film is incredible - the DVD is terrible. So this review will be in two p

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/movie-review-royal-hunt-of-the-sun-1969/

#/etc/ #moviereview

What’s the point of Zip files?

My laptop ran out of space yesterday. Why? Useless ZIP files!

I needed to download a Windows Virtual Machine in order to upgrade the firmware on a device (long story). The official Windows 10 VM is 20GB

TWENTY GIGA-FUCKING-BYTES!!!

It downloaded reasonably quickly - yay fibre! But I had to wait almost as long to unzip the bloody thing. Whereupon, I discovered t

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/whats-the-point-of-zip-files/

#/etc/ #rant #tech #web

When your game console becomes your bank

Before GameStop became a memestock (what even is 2021) - it was the subject of another popular meme. The First National Bank of GameStop.

This got me thinking. In the UK, retail banking is (mostly) free. Rather than pay interest to depositors, banks give away free ATM withdrawls, free Direct Debits, free transfers to other accounts.

Some premium accou

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/when-your-game-console-becomes-your-bank/

#/etc/ #msc

Force Directed Graph of the London Tube Map – including CrossRail!

Force Directed Graphs of the London Underground have been done many times before - but I think I'm the first person to add the new Elizabeth Line (CrossRail).

I've also created a JSON graph of all of London's rail services - including DLR, Trams, C2C, ThamesLink etc.

Demo

https://yo

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/force-directed-graph-of-the-london-tube-map-including-crossrail/

#/etc/ #map #opendata #tfl #tube

Minimum Viable Tweet to Semantic SVG

One of the problems with OEmbeds of Tweets is that they're heavy. Lots of JavaScript, tracking cookies, and other detritus. See this excellent post by Matt Hobbs looking at how to make your website faster by removing Twitter embeds and replacing them with images.

Here's my attempt to turn a Tweet into a semantic SVG!

This doesn't attempt to faithfu

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/minimum-viable-tweet-to-svg-2/

#/etc/ #hack #php #svg #twitter

Ten Years Later – Was Elop Right?

A decade ago, Stephen Elop made the announcement that Nokia was adopting Windows Phone 7 as its platform of choice.

Being the mobile nerd that I was, I live Tweeted the press conference.

https://twitter.com/edent/status/35964102467784704

Let's take a look back to see what Elop and I got right or wrong.

https://twitter.com/eden

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/ten-years-later-was-elop-right/

#/etc/ #microsoft #mobile #nokia #windowsphone7 #wp7

What do you miss the least from pre-lockdown life?

This was an excellent writing prompt from Janet:

https://twitter.com/JanetHughes/status/1356912190788411392

Toilets! That's what I won't miss. It isn't the queueing for the single free bog, nor the (lack of) industrial-strength loo roll. It's finding the bloody things that I won't miss.

I quite often went to other offices as part of my wo

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/what-do-you-miss-the-least-from-pre-lockdown-life/

#/etc/

Why is it so hard to give digital gifts?

I am reading The Digital Transformation Playbook for part of my MSc. It's a good book, but I found this passage about eBooks a little confusing:

what about gift giving? No one I have ever asked has thought that an e-book was an acceptable substitute for a printed book when giving a gift.

I've received an eBook as a gift (than

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/why-is-it-so-hard-to-give-digital-gifts/

#/etc/ #digital #ebook #msc

The next disruption of the music industry?

Another short - and probably incorrect - prediction about disruption.

Spotify, for all its tech, isn't magically disruptive. The business model is similar to a radio station. It pays music publishers based on what songs its listeners' request.

(This is grossly oversimplified. Stick with me.)

Spotify buys a product wholesal

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/the-next-disruption-of-the-music-industry/

#/etc/ #disruption #msc #music #spotify

Movie Review: Space Sweepers / 승리호

This is a frustratingly good movie. I wish I had the film-making vocabulary to describe it properly.

As a fun sci-fi heist, it is a triumph. The special effects are light-years beyond Star Wars - both the original and the sequels. The multi-lingual world it presents is possibly the most realistic depiction of the future that

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/02/movie-review-space-sweepers-%ec%8a%b9%eb%a6%ac%ed%98%b8/

#/etc/ #moviereview #scifi