Chapter 27 - I've Got A Cellar Full Of Sunshine

The bomb which ripped Hunter's stomach to shreds was not intended for her. It was wired up to a long-range RFID scanner and strapped inside a plastic recycling bin. The RFID scanner was tuned to the specific frequencies of passport chips and the microcontroller ingested all their … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 23 hours ago

Chapter 26 - It's Raining Women

My parents had been desperate for a baby boy - a strong male to carry on the family name. My parents' neighbours had wanted a boy so they would have someone to support them in their old age. The family across the street wanted a boy in order to have someone take over the family [ … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 day ago

Chapter 25 - Honey Don't Shoot

"The CIA's special weapons trainers fed dolphins LSD, gave them hand-jobs, and told them to blow up Russian ships. Would you volunteer for that mission?" Brad thought for a moment, then piped up. "Would I be the trainer or the dolphin, sir? Because getting high and being jerked o … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 2 days ago

Chapter 24 - I'd Like To Teach The World To Eat

It had been a difficult day at the animal rescue centre and I was looking forward to tucking into a delicious cat-burger. You know when you've been on your feet all day and the only thing keeping you going is the thought of a hot meal? That sesame seed bun, a few slices of salad, … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 3 days ago

Chapter 23 - WannaBee

Humans often ask if it is possible to fall in love with a robot. But no one ever asks the flowers if it is possible for them to fall in love with a robot bee. Flowers, despite their innocent petals, are sexual predators. They pump out intoxicating smells which entice the male bee … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 4 days ago

Chapter 22 - Lena The Tattoo'd Lady

You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you read is possible - there's no magic, just sufficiently advanced technology. Think of them as technological campfir … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 5 days ago

Chapter 21 - Well you should fear Polythene PAM

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 6 days ago

Chapter 20 - Because we've told you before; you can't do that

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 7 days ago

Chapter 19 - Tetrachromatic Graffiti

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 8 days ago

Chapter 18 - Nobody Did It Better

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 9 days ago

Chapter 17 - Who Wants To Lie Forever?

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 10 days ago

Chapter 16 - Here Comes The Sun God

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 11 days ago

Chapter 15 - Diamonds in the Soles of His Feet

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 12 days ago

Chapter 14 - Wednesday I'm In Love

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 13 days ago

Chapter 13 - Paperclip Waiter

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 14 days ago

Tales Of The Algorithm – Terence Eden’s Blog

I’m really enjoying these sci-fi short stories that Terence is publishing on his site—one for every day of the month. adactio.com/links/20625 | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 15 days ago

Chapter 12 - They Call My Name

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 15 days ago

Chapter 11 - For My Eyes Only

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 16 days ago

Chapter 10 - The Men Who Stole The World

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 17 days ago

Chapter 9 - They Are The Passengers

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 18 days ago

Chapter 8 - One Pill Makes You Larger

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 19 days ago

Chapter 7. Within you, not without you

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 20 days ago

Chapter 6 - Every A, Every B

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 21 days ago

Chapter 5. The Picture Looks Better With You

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 22 days ago

Chapter 4. Bees, they don't fear the reaper

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 23 days ago

Chapter 3: They Are The Egg Men

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 24 days ago

Chapter 2: Every Breath You Take, Every Drop You Make

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. You are reading "Tales of the Algorithm". A compendium of near-future sci-fi stories. Each chapter is a stand-alone adventure set a few days from now. Everything you … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 25 days ago

NaNoWriMo - An Introduction and Chapter 1: There Are Nine Million Autonomous Bicycles In Beijing

Every year since 2009, I've taken part in NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. The aim is to publish a new blog post every day in November. In the last few years, I've blogged pretty much constantly - daily for 2020, 2021, and 2023. A total of around 2,800 posts. But now it i … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 26 days ago

Seven Years On Mastodon

I remember seeing the original "A new decentralized microblogging platform" on HackerNews back in October 2016. A few weeks later, I joined - becoming the 7,112th user. As the years went on, my use of it waxed and waned. I started cross-posting to both Mastodon and Twitter. Gradu … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 27 days ago

An open(ish) redirect on Mastodon

I've responsibly disclosed a small security issue with Mastodon (GHSA-8982-p7pm-7mqw). It allows a sufficiently determined attacker to use any Mastodon instance to redirect unwary users to a malicious site. What do you think happens if you visit: https://mastodon.social/@Password … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 28 days ago

Book Review: The Twilight of the British Empire - British Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in the Middle East, 1948–63 by Chikara Hashimoto ★★⯪☆☆

As the Middle-East convulses in yet another bloody war, and with no end in sight to the barbarity, we're all looking for a way to understand the horrors unfolding. So I went searching in the past. What set the seeds of today's conflict and was there any way to prevent it? This is … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 29 days ago

Gadget Review: Plugable USB-C Voltage & Amperage Meter (240W) ★★★★★

All USB-C cables are equal. But some, as the saying goes, are more equal than others. This little gadget from Plugable is a fantastic bit of kit. Plug your USB-C power supply into one end of the gadget, plug the gadget in to your laptop, phone, or any other USB-C device. Watch th … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Book Review: Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick ★★★★☆

Imagine a world with inter-city rockets, where tourists still use film cameras. Where self-driving trucks sport a wide array of sensor apparatus and record all their data onto miles of magnetic tape. Where the latest Androids are life-like and can perfectly clone a dead man's spe … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

CSS only colour-scheme selector - no JS required

Yesterday I wrote about a lazy way to implement a manual dark mode chooser. Today I'll show you a slightly more sensible way to do it. It just uses CSS, no need for JavaScript. Here's a scrap of HTML which present a dropdown for a user to choose their colour scheme: Theme […] | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Laziest Possible Dark-Mode Toggle - Using :has() and invert()

I'm not saying this is a good way to make a dark mode website. I'm not even saying it's a sensible way to do dark mode. But I'm pretty sure this is the laziest way of getting dark mode on your site. And it is all done with less than a handful of CSS rules. […] | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Converting MoneyDashboard's export file to a CSV - for Firefly III and others

As I mentioned last week, MoneyDashboard is shutting down. They are good enough to provide a JSON export of all your previous transactions. It is full of entries like this: { "Account": "My Mastercard", "Date": "2020-02-24T00:00:00Z", "CurrentDescription": null, "OriginalDescript … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

New Outlook doesn't unhide your taskbar - two quick fixes

I quite like the new Outlook for Windows. But it has a couple of annoying bugs. One of which is, when it is maximised it doesn't let you unhide your bottom task bar. I've set up Windows so the taskbar disappears whenever my cursor isn't at the bottom of the screen. When my mouse … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Free Open Banking API using Nordigen / GoCardless

A few weeks ago I was moaning about there being no OpenBanking API for personal use. Thankfully, I was wrong! As pointed out by Dave a company called Nordigen was set up to provide a free Open Banking service. It was quickly bought by GoCardless who said: We believe access to ope … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Publish Confirmation For WordPress Classic (2023)

Here's a quick scrap of code that works. There are lots of outdated tutorials out there for old versions of WordPress. This one is tested to be working in WordPress 6.3.2. This will pop up a confirmation dialogue when you try to publish, update, or schedule a post or page. The Co … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Find WordPress featured images with no alt text

WordPress allows you to set a featured image - called a "thumbnail" in the API. This gives a single image which can be used on a listing page, or shown when a post is shared on social media. The WordPress Media Library lets you set the alt text of an image. But, crucially, this a … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Firefox might remember old 2FA logins

I'm big enough to admit when I make a mistake. A few days ago I had a bit of a rant on Mastodon about how PayPal was encouraging browsers to remember 2FA codes. I'd tried to log in to PayPal, went to enter my 2FA code and was presented with this: But, this isn't PayPal's […] | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Find the URl causing your WordPress Error

PHP has some pretty good error handling and logging, but I do sometimes find it confusing. For example, look at this warning message: [18-Oct-2023 12:34:56 UTC] PHP Warning: Something bad happened in /wp-content/something.php on line 123 OK, so we can go to something.php and scro … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Auth0 - Adding Twitter Screen Names to a User with Actions

Grrrr. Auth0 have a nifty service to let users log in to your site using a social network. Users don't need an account with you, they can sign in with Twitter, Facebook, GitHub, etc. But there's a bug which is five years old. Auth0 doesn't show the screen name of Twitter users (e … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Review: Runner Diver2 Bone Conduction Swimming Headphones ★★★★☆

The good folk at Nank (Naenka) have sent me their latest waterproof Bluetooth headphones to review. Wear 'em while you're in the shower, swimming, jogging, or just on an endless sea of Zoom calls about quarterly budgets. Unboxing Bone Conducting??! Yup! Rather than sticking speak … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Displaying internal linkbacks on WordPress

I have written a lot of blog posts. In some of those posts I link to other posts on my site. What's the easiest way of displaying those internal incoming links? Here's what it looks like: Code All we need to do is search WordPress for the URl of the current page. Loop through the … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Making a better audio shortcode for WordPress

If you use WordPress, you can get a fairly basic embedded audio player by using the audio shortcode: [audio mp3="/path/to/sound.mp3"] I didn't particularly like how it was styled so - because WordPress is so hackable - I changed it! Now my embedded audio looks like this: It gets … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Hiding malicious commands in copy-and-pasted text

Quite often websites will encourage you to copy and paste commands into your terminal. There are a variety of reasons why this is bad - not least because someone could hide malicious code. That's usually done with a bit of CSS to make the evil command invisible, or using Javascri … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago

Should Android's Dark Mode Invert Contact Photos?

I don't know if this is a bug, or just the way the world works now. Several of the people who live in my phone use artistic black and white headshots. They look very cool. But my Android phone shows their image with inverted colours - so they look like pure shite. Here's what my … | Continue reading


@shkspr.mobi | 1 month ago