Number stations – Low tech but high encryption

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Team Fortress 2 Spy by ~GraffitiWatcher : http://graffitiwatcher.deviantart.com/art/Team-Fortress-2-Spy-174849322

Team Fortress 2 Spy by ~GraffitiWatcher : http://graffitiwatcher.deviantart.com/art/Team-Fortress-2-Spy-174849322

Flipping through the frequencies and the different wave lengths was one of my favourite things to do as a kid. You are meant to be asleep, but you’ve got the transistor radio and a single ear phone plugged in.

I use to love getting the foreign stations and listening to the different languages, music styles and jingles. It was exotic and strange simultaneously.

Every now and then you would find some strange beeping, static that seemed to have a pattern or just numbers being spoken. These were the Number Stations.

NeoLucida – New take on old tech

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Camera LucidaI can doodle badly. I have tried on a number of occasions to draw free-hand and it’s just not my bag. The last time I had to do any sort of live drawing was when I was a science teacher. To create pictures that meant something to the student and were easy enough to copy into their notes, I had to practice; a lot.

Now this item, called the NeoLucida, is a modern take on a very old bit of tech: the Camera Lucida.

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iOS apps & Mobile Safari cookies – say bye bye

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According to Techcrunch, Apple has begun to reject apps that utilise cookie tracking, HTML5 first party cookies or sometimes called “Safari flip-flop” (I personally had not heard of that one before – see footnotes).

This is the action of taking the user out of the app to mobile Safari on first load and then taking them back. This action is being performed by the app to place a cookie into the Safari cache so that the user of the app can be linked up for further tracking.

If you haven’t seen this in action, here the Hotels.com app doing this (skip to 01:00 to miss the blurb):

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Finally a folding bike I want

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I am a very lazy cyclist. If I cycle to work at all, I also have an Oyster card in my pocket too in case I can’t be bothered or I’m too tired to cycle home.

If I’m working at a client site where I can’t bring the bike inside, I do get worried about it. Why anyone would want to take a steel framed 15 year old bike is beyond me. More annoyingly if I don’t want to ride home, I can’t take it on the train or tube system unless it is a folding bike. OK fair enough we are packed in like sardines already.

I like the idea of the Brompton folding bikes but I would prefer a larger wheel size. Now there is in my opinion a candidate, the Montague Folding Military Bike

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The Chair is the killer

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I watched last nights Horizon with much interest. I am a sedentary person and it worries me. I do a lot of sitting and although I do get up and move around its not always so. If I’m engrossed in a task, two hours can fly by and my back at this point rebels.

Remember “the chair is the killer, the chair is the killer.”

I will freely admit it, I hate the gym. My exercise routine is mostly the mile walk back from the child minders having dropped off my boy.

The program highlighted for me two fundamental beliefs that I adhere to. Science is essential to helping us make a better life for everyone and that one size really does not fit all.

If you didn’t see the program here is the gist:

  1. Not everyone responds well to prolonged aerobic exercise, to be exact there is ~20% of the population where it does no good whatsoever.
  2. A High Intensity Training regime of three 20 second burst of flat out cycling with a 20 second rest in between, three times a week is beneficial

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Apps for Good Launch Event

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Weatherbirds at Apps for Good Launch EventWhat a fantastic day that was. The culmination of a ton of effort by seven different school teams, seven different developers, loads of mentors and everyone at Apps for Good.

This was the launch event for the Apps for Good 2012 award winners. Held at the top of the BT Tower, it drew in a large crowd of tech folks to applaud the efforts of everyone involved.

The views from the top of the tower were great too:
2012-12-03 14.38.39

 

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AFG Update – RMBme Kick off

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apps-for-good-logo3Another kick off meeting done today with the girls behind the RMBme app along with their developers Service2Media. Their app is a reminder app that will allow you to create the reminders with all types of media. In their opinion, whatever works to make that reminder memorable.

Balsamic

The girls are very excited about winning and have become celebrities in their school. They were so eager to start working on this app, they have already provided some wire-frames ideas created in Balsmic. If you don’t know this app, its a great piece of kit.
It’s a paid service, but the lucky girls have full access due to educational licensing. Every company should do this for their software in my opinion.

 
 
 
 

AFG Update – Promise Keeper Kick off

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apps-for-good-logo3Well all of the schools are back and the race is now on to channel all of that energy and enthusiasm into getting the app designs either started or finished.
The first kick off meeting I’m involved with was for the boys behind the Promise Keeper app along with Charlie and Chris from putITout. This is a very interesting app in that it could have only come out of a kids brain.

Behind the scenes of the Games Makers

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The Apps for Good folks have now moved from the Bevenden Street Trampery site out to their new one at Mayer Street in Hackney.
 
I got to see what a Games Maker saw during their training as the building was used for their training. All of the rooms are named after previous Olympic cities and there is the 2012 colours everywhere.