We’re suffering from really poor network degradation from our internet service provider this week, as a result of them working on network “upgrades”. You forget how much you take for granted until you’re faced with constant go-slows and time-outs. Yesterday was particularly tricky, for the kids were home, apparently with school work to do while …
Congratulations: you pioneered machine learning, gave the machine the keys to all the other machines, and now worry the machine can’t be controlled. Way to go. Shall I start to count down, or will you?
Leaked photos of Google Pixel Fold suggest it’s pretty much what the Surface Duo should have been. So there’s another device to um and ah over in three years’ time, when it’s on sale on ebay, heavily discounted and almost affordable. This shiny tech is always out of reach.
By its third birthday, this will have become really good. Too bad for Microsoft that it took three years of iterative development to make it really good. Currently available on eBay for £350, £1K off its original asking price. Good news for patient nerds. Only, you could get last year’s Samsung flagship — bendy or …
I love the little phone I gifted my beloved. It’s one of those new-fangled flippity smartphones, which bend in the middle, folding down into the palm of your hand. Well, her hand, not mine. It’s a cute little thing, ever-so-neat. So neat that daily I find myself coveting its shiny form factor. But in truth …
The side of Rwanda we don’t usually see. Pretty cool.
My wife and I have never owned a flagship smartphone — not new, anyway. We’ve always had budget handsets, costing just a few pounds a months. The closest I’ve come is a Galaxy S8, just as the S20 was hitting the shelves. A fine phone, regardless. But when my beloved started looking for a new …
So years of tinkering have finally born fruit. After hours spent trying and failing to set up the prerequisites for a CMS based on the Django web framework locally on my Mac, I finally had a lightbulb moment. That was after toying with Docker as a potential workaround. “Sod this,” I thought in the end, …
Another evening spent providing tech support to an octogenarian, battling with web problems via Zoom. The first of them, quite baffling, but mostly as a result of the antiquated software he uses to manage that particular site. It brought back memories of supporting SharePoint 2007. No, it wasn’t that bad. After much probing, we settled …
Fear of missing out. The trial of our children’s generation. All of their friends have a slab of glass in their pocket, and spend every free moment endlessly scrolling through TikTok videos. At the start of our discussion this morning, I was the oppressive dad, unjustly preventing his children from participating in what everyone else …
Why is a company worth 1.8 trillion dollars laying off staff? This is a company — the world’s third wealthiest — which made something like 17 billion dollars this year. Why, in a time of hardship, would a company making such gargantuan profits lay off thousands of employees? A percentage point downturn in revenue doesn’t …
I must say that the omission of a hash key on Mac keyboards is one of the dumbest design decisions ever. If you use your Mac to produce graphics for the web, you’ll want to use the hash key for colour hex codes. If you’re writing CSS, you’ll definitely need it for defining the same. …
Ooh, I’ve got referrers, how exciting. I must check them out. No, but not by clicking on the link directly. Let’s google your domain. What’s that? It’s a parked domain? No, never! Ah, but only the root. The subdomain is live and kicking, hosted on Digital Ocean, with email provided by Proton Mail, the Swiss …
Yesterday, I made the mistake of working late. A mistake, not because I was unsuccessful in completing my work, but because I was not around to supervise what was purported to be homework. If only I had undocked so as to sit in the same room. Better still: if only I had logged off on …
An evening wasted providing domestic tech support — or, more precisely, unpicking youthful mischief. I’m a techie, but even I grow weary of this game. I don’t know how parents who are not tech-savvy navigate the digital minefield. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they just provide access and hope for the best, head lodged firmly in …
