Goodbye daily blogging

by @edent | , | 2 comments | 400 words | Read ~148 times.

A calendar view of all my blog posts in the last three years.

At the start of 2020, for some strange reason, I decided to publish a new blog post every single day of the year. And, a third of the way through that, COVID struck. In a way, it was good for my motivation. I didn't have any fun and exciting trips to go on - so…

Movie Review: Ammonite

by @edent | | 200 words

Movie poster, two women's faces overlayed on each other.

What a treat of a movie! Kate Winslet shows, once again, how great acting isn't about who can shout the loudest, but who can convey the most meaning through a single glance. It is a movie of delightful contrasts - the sound design is overpoweringly loud, until it suddenly disappears. The silence is rarely punctuated…

Certified Blockchain Professional - Module 1

by @edent | , , | 3 comments | 1,950 words | Read ~148 times.

Logo for the Certified Blockchain Professional.

As previously discussed, I'm doing the Certified Blockchain Professional course. It is self-directed learning, so I'm going through it at my own pace. In order to consolidate my learning, and help organise my thoughts, I'm blogging about my reflections on each module. These are mostly notes to myself - but I hope if you find…

Certified Blockchain Professional - Part 1

by @edent | , , | 3 comments | 350 words | Read ~202 times.

Logo for the Certified Blockchain Professional.

Why do I do this to myself? Why? As part of my ongoing MSc, I have to take 3 professional training courses. I've completed my cybersecurity course, and I have a Machine Learning course booked for January. So what to do next? There's a lot of discussion in government1 circles about Blockchain. As with any…

Quick and dirty way to rip an eBook from Android

by @edent | , , | 3 comments | 450 words | Read ~5,600 times.



Energy efficiency of modern codecs

by @edent | , | 2 comments | 550 words | Read ~1,064 times.

Binary code displayed on a screen.

How efficient are modern codecs? Can we ever work out whether the power use of compression algorithms is a net gain for global power consumption? Come on a thought experiment with me. I have invented a new image compression format. It shrinks images to 50% smaller sizes than AVIF and is completely lossless. Brilliant! There's…


by @edent | | 250 words

Chinese actor on a movie poster.

I'm not a big fan of superhero movies - and the Marvel ones are particularly bad - but this is… pretty good! It's nice to see a modern / westernised "Kung Fu" movie. All the budget of a blockbuster, all the cheese of cheap Wuxia. It's refreshing that so much of it is subtitled -…

Book Review - Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal

by @edent | , , , , | 1 comment | 300 words | Read ~106 times.

Book cover.


Why doesn't Disney+ support accents in profile names?

by @edent | , , , , | 2 comments | 250 words | Read ~109 times.

An apostrophe in Donald O'Duck causes the profile name to display an error.

Because I'm genetically pre-disposed to watch every piece of Star Wars content ever created, I signed up for a free trial of Disney's newest streaming service. As part of onboarding, it asked me to create a profile name. This is typically done so that multi-user households can have separate profiles and preferences. Mum doesn't have…

Free Software as in Free House

by @edent | , , , | 5 comments | 550 words | Read ~138 times.

Binary code displayed on a screen.

Much like a Tesla, all analogies break down eventually. As many many many people have said - free software is free, in much the same way as a free puppy is free. I prefer to think of it as being free just like being given a free house is free. Imagine that! Being given a…