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Test your “disaster recovery plan”
I love Kirsh (Alien: Earth). Here’s another of his quips made when dealing with the loss of one of their hybrid synths after Boy Kavalier asks… Where are we on reboot and restore? Kirsh replies: – Conceptually it’s possible.Practically, we haven’t cracked it yet. After the loss of this fictional 6 billion dollar synth is…
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A scientific method is …
“The creatures need to be fed and watered.Check the data from last night.And pick the next experiment from the list.[…]Step by Step.Follow protocols to the letter.A scientific method is a method, not a suggestion box.“ Kirsh, “Alien: Earth” (Episode 6) Science (experimentation specifically) is about following a well defined process. A process that’s been defined…
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Union Jack – there is an up and a down
It grinds my gears when I see our national flag flown upside down. I remember chatting to an Australian many years ago and told him that the best way to irritate a “Brit” is to fly the flag upside down. He laughed – he didn’t know the flag had an up and a down. Sadly,…
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A “Destination X” Geo-Genius (Official)
We’ve followed the BBC series – it was quite entertaining. Made more so with a fun way to play along with your own “map room”. Quite a few of the destinations were easy to identify. Getting to within 1,000m of the actual destination takes some skill – especially using the featureless map you’re given (it’s…
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I’ve stopped formatting tables
In my early years developing software, when presented with an opportunity to beautify code and comments, especially tables I would. I’ve even have people use my code as an example to others. I take pride in everything I do. I treat my code like the cutlery drawer – I don’t just throw knives, forks and…
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Really liking the ESPHome framework
Really liking the work put into the ESPHome framework. It makes really light work of configuring microcontrollers like the RP2040. I’m using the ESPHome builder container image to develop device files and simplified its launch with a simple docker-compose.yaml file: – I’ve captured and I am starting to document my early work in my public…
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Films less than 90 minutes long are OK
In recent years I’ve avoided watching films on streaming services that are less than 90 minutes long. Why? Because (in my experience) they’ve turned out to be rather dull “made for TV” experiences. But I’ve just watched “The Wrath of Becky” (at only 83 minutes) was quite a bit of fun. It’s a little gruesome…
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The Singularity
Since reading Bryan Appleyard’s book “The Brain is Wider Than the Sky: Why Simple Solutions Don’t Work in a Complex World” I’ve had time to reflect on his discussion of what is referred to as The Singularity (otherwise known as “The Technological Singularity”). I believe John von Neumann was the first to coin the phrase…
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In the future there will be no code
A colleague recently brought my attention to Google’s GameNGen experiment and their paper. In the experiment they demonstrate generative AI creating a playable version of Doom without any code. Google’s experiment is able to render an interactive version of Doom, in real-time, using a neural network that understands how the game behaves, having been shown…
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Secure passwords do not need “special characters”
All too often I’m presented with the following “rules” when setting a password for a website or service: – Let’s make this clear now … NONE of these requirements make a password secure. Passwords are not secure simply because you use obscure special characters (numbers, symbols, and upper and lower-case letters). A wonderful Password Strength article on xkcd covers this succinctly,…
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