Analysts estimates are always interesting to read - especially if you know the real statistics which they are trying to prophetize. Even when someone releases "official" statistics, they're usually hard to verify independently, and even harder to analyse by region. Benedict Evans - who I've had the pleasure of meeting at Mobile Monday - published some very interesting official stats on Facebook's mobile usage. The statistics show that roughly 44% of Facebook use is "not mobile". How does…
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My good friend Documentally has written up his thoughts on the future of AudioBoo. Here is my reply, appropriately enough, in audio format. 🔊 The Future of AudioBoo is Uncertain🎤 Terence Eden 💾 Download this audio file. You may be interested in my other posts on the subject - Preparing for the Collapse of Digital Civilization and I Don't Want To Be Part of Your Fucking Ecosystem (So, yes, still trying to find a decent WordPress plugin which will take multiple files and display onl…
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How much checking do we perform that our code is running as intended? I found a curious bug this weekend, which made me think about some of the assumptions that we use when programming. Imagine sorting an array using JavaScript. var arr = [10, 5, 66, 8, 1, 3]; arr.sort(); So far, so normal. Create an array of numbers, then sort that array. The result should always be [1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 66]. Would we ever need to do this? if (arr[0] < arr[5]) { // Do something } else { // THIS SHOULD …
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It's 1986. You're working on the Russian's Buran space programme - trying to create a re-usable space vehicle which will exceed the capabilities of the American's "Space Shuttle". There's a problem. You have very complicated real-time algorithms which you need to review, improve, optimise, and then turn into code. How do you do it? Obviously, you invent DRAKON! ДРАКОН, "dragon" Backronym for "Дружелюбный Русский Алгоритмический язык, Который Обеспечивает Наглядность." Translation: "Friendl…
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A few weeks ago, I received what I thought was a particularly inept phishing attack. Subject: shkspr.mobi ***PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL YOU MAY RUN THE RISK OF THIS NAME BEING ERRONEOUSLY DELETED - PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE (VIA EMAIL) WITH REFERENCE TO THE ACCURACY OF THE WHOIS INFORMATION*** Hello; I'm writing to you from Tucows (Registrar for your domain). It has come to our attention that the WHOIS for this domain (see subject line) may not …
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This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTEqKd92kcI Pop quiz: How many MB did you use watching that YouTube video? When dealing with data usage, a familiar cry in the telco world is “Customers just don’t understand what a MB is!” Is this true? The theory goes something like this… Some elements of a phone bill are easy to conceptualise. Customers understand how many minutes they’ve used, texts they’ve sent, etc. T…
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