Terence Eden’s Blog

Why shouldn't an opera be set in an office?

Whenever a company asks me to review their gadgets, I always ask if it is USB-C powered.

After reading Evie King's previous book Ashes To Admin - Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer I was eager to read her not-quite-a-sequel.

A few days ago I booked a Novotel hotel on Booking.com - two days later I received these phishing messages via WhatsApp.

The good folks at Mokin have sent me their new USB-C hub and it is a beast.

This is a charming and funny book all about the various ways humans have promoted fake medical cures in exchange for money.

Let's get this out of the way first - this is a terrible idea!

A few months ago, I went to see Dr Hutchinson record his stand-up comedy special for the BBC - it's about his experiences working in the NHS as a Black doctor.

It's hard to craft a book with so much righteous indignation - let alone make it funny, accessible, and informative.

Twelve years ago, I was complaining that IoT devices were too expensive.

The thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story.

Developers suck at writing documentation.

I'll be radically honest here - I never really got the idea of "Test Driven Development".

London's musical entertainment scene has something for everyone - from long-running blockbuster shows to no-name bands in dingy basements.

I'm a theatrical cheapskate.

I don't know why hardware manufacturers find it so hard to write decent documentation.

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With the news that the BBC are tendering for a new series of Doctor Who, I thought I'd write down what I want from the show.

I've never been a huge fan of smart watches.

What do you use your smartwatch for?

Like sticky popcorn, this is a moreish but ultimately unsatisfying set of stories.

Ahhh!

"The problem with defending the purity of the HyperText Markup Language is that HTML is about as pure as a cribhouse whore.

One of the great things about modern HTML is that it tries to standardise stuff that developers are already doing.

Last year I ran an experiment to test the ability of modern LLMs to correctly answer a relatively straightforward question.

This book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars.

The Flywheel theatre company are reviving the rep tradition by having five actors perform five different plays in five weeks.

Each new post on this blog now has a Digital Object Identifier.

You're part of the Groovy Gang because you're a member of RSS Club!

The HTML specification is old and, while there is beauty in longevity, there's an inevitable build-up of boondoggles and baggage.

Do riders in autonomous vehicles think that they are in a private space?

Let's suppose you've updated the description of your ActivityPub account from "World's Number 1 Taylor Swift Fan" to "This account is now a Nickleback Truther".

If you're reading this, you're part of RSS Club!

For years, I've had a test-card at the start of my slides.

Here's a problem that I've found with ActivityBot - my little ActivityPub server.

I imagine everyone here has received an unsolicited message telling them that their tax is overdue and that they urgently need to visit Genuine-Tax-Payment-Website.fart or that a parcel is delayed at customs and you can pay a small sum for its release at…

This is a gorgeous set of short stories - and a good deal more accessible than some of the heavyweight prose Liu has previously been involved with.

If you're reading this, you've probably been hitting your head against a brick wall trying to parse and decipher the new HTTP Signatures sent by Mastodon and other Fediverse servers.

As part of my grant from NLnet to improve my Fediverse bot project, I'm spending time making sure I understand all the fundamentals of ActivityPub.

The whole point about Shakespeare is that you can set the play on an intergalactic space station or an American high school and keep virtually the rest unchanged.

Back in February, I applied for NLnet's Next Generation Zero grant.

Next to all the code samples on this blog is a little "copy" button.

The monkey-punchers at Google never quite seem to finish any of their apps.

This is a charming and zeitgeisty novel which has a strong start and fulfils the promise of its blurb.

The good folks at Thermal Master have sent me their latest camera to review - and it is a bit different to all the others I've tried.

Cats is so silly!

On our recent trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, I was bemused by just how little effort performers put in to finding out why people had selected their show.

Pixels are a lie.

This is a detailed examination of the various senses possessed by animals.

One of the promises of the AI-filled future is that we'll all have highly capable autonomous servants "agents" to work for us.