Recently updated blogs

I recently got my hands on a USB drive with Kakasoft USB Copy Protection (DRM protection). This software promises to let you share data without the fear of it being copied by the end user. However, the pseudo-hacker in me couldn’t resist the challenge. After all, “If it can be read, it can be copied.” In this article, I’ll walk you through the entire process I used to crack this …

I’ve always been careful to ensure Curious British Telly doesn’t become a rose tinted, nostalgia-for-the-sake-of-nostalgia borefest - you know the thing, see all those Channel 5 documentaries about the 1980s. Nonetheless, it’s sometimes difficult to deny that the past had some amazing opportunities.Sure, there was nothing as conveniently lazy as, for example, Deliveroo in 1981. But did you need really need it back then? Especially when your hunger could be …

The CSS Anchor Positioning API is a game-changer in web development because it lets you natively position elements.

"Get or create" is a very common operation for syncing data in the database, but implementing it correctly may be trickier than you may expect. If you ever had to implement it in a real system with real-life load, you may have overlooked potential race conditions, concurrency issues and even bloat! In this article I explore ways to "get ot create" in PostgresSQL. Illustration by Abstrakt Design Table of Contents …

photo by Milton GreeneLike so many summer days in Los Angeles, this one began as a balmy and sunlit morning. It would grow warmer and sunnier, but the languid summertime mood was shattered by news of a shocking event in one of the city’s most elite enclaves. It was Sunday, August 5, 1962, the day Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her West Los Angeles home, an empty pill bottle …

The long-awaited day has arrived! It's been a while since we've had a Release Day celebration for a new Furrowed Middlebrow title, but as of today Eleanor Farjeon's delightful Miss Granby's Secret is officially out in the world, and doesn't it look lovely added to my shelf?Thank you to all who pre-ordered. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Welcome back readers. It was very painful this week to hear of Game Informer’s sudden shuttering, layoff-ing, and off-lining, as such a long-running publication that has continued to publish good work for nearly as long as I have been alive. These folks deserve far greater dignity than an unceremonious blindside by their parent company. It feels timely yet also evergreen to remind folks that independent games crit–not subject to the …

On his blog, Brent writes about NetNewsWire and Conditional GET issues.

I wrote a bit about the war of the zettlekasten as my last entry, and have been keeping two separate ones; one is a set of notes on Philosophy, thus far really just notes and nodes as I read Bertrand Russell, and another which is for… life stuff, the novel I am perpetually not writing, and so forth, It’s new, and filled with strange observations, one chapter from the novel, …

I’m running a bit behind getting this post written and uploaded this morning. It’s the last full day of PulpFest 2024. I didn’t make it to the Doc Savage gathering this morning at 7:30, but I did make it to the informal meeting of members of PEAPS, the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society. I will […]

My book about how comedy works, and why it matters, is available from good bookshops and truly exceptional coal merchants...Deeply analytical and utterly joyous.Robin Ince Joel Morris has finally invented ‘being funny whilst talking about being funny.Caitlin Moran It's made me a better writer. It's probably made me a better human too.Daisy Buchanan Joel knows what he’s talking about. And he’s sickeningly funny. Stop reading this sentence and buy this …

Where we started The first Government project I worked on was a licensing service, as part of the project, licence numbers were updated. That change stopped users from being able to log into a related service where they recorded their activity. In summary, our ‘service’ had broken someone else’s ‘service’. I’ve seen loads of examples of similar issues over the years. Usually the result of only designing parts of services …

This is a slight departure for Historical Ragbag, as I’ll be looking at a mythical figure. But it still involves research and a good story so I decided it still fit. In researching for my novel, it’s contemporary and with merpeople but based on Welsh history and mythology, I came across a figure who gets one tantalising mention in the Mabinogion. Dylan of the Wave. The Mabinogion is a series …

The fourth in the series about every year of Numberphile. Videos about Klein bottles, infinity, and coin flips.