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STEWART LEE on The Riyadh Comedy Festival, Oasis Reunion, Marvel, Star Wars and Being Beaten Up

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4h

I like Stewart Lee and it's interesting that the interviewer hadn't heard of Top Trumps, but I liked the rant about ChatGPT at the start!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTfc...

YouTube video by Class Clown Podcast

www.youtube.com

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 6h

Why is Opera suggesting that I download Opera?

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 7h

I think the key to understanding recursion is finding an intelligible example - I used to use factorials, palindromes, drawing trees (in Scratch) and prime factors, but my new favourite is flood fill: #TeamCompSci
advanced-ict.info/interactive/...

Algorithms: Flood Fill

See how flood fill can be implemented with a simple recursive procedure.

advanced-ict.info

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 7h

Python 3.14 is more than twice as fast as Python 3.9 - but Rust is still 70x faster! #TeamCompSci
blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/python-...

Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It?

In November of 2024 I wrote a blog post titled "Is Python Really That Slow?", in which I tested several versions of Python and noted the steady progress the language has been making in terms of…

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 8h

AI and programming is a bit hit-and-miss. I haven't tried Copilot, but when I was writing this blog, neither Gemini nor ChatGPT could produce a BBC BASIC sorting program that would even run. It demonstrates that it's copying its homework rather than "thinking".
www.advanced-ict.info/blog/slownes...

Blog: In Praise of Slowness

How using a slow computer can help us to refine our programming skills.

Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It?

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 8h

A recursive Fibonacci function is what they used to benchmark Python here (as well as a bubble sort):
blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/python-...

In November of 2024 I wrote a blog post titled "Is Python Really That Slow?", in which I tested several versions of Python and noted the steady progress the language has been making in terms of…

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 21h

Yes - I suppose the fault lies with the publisher, which should have used a link to its corporate site, rather than the author's own domain.

UK libraries urged to remove children’s books with URL hijacked by porn site

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 21h

Why aren't people more careful with websites? My website is approaching its 24th birthday and every link I've shared still works, even if it says that the page has been retired or redirects to a newer version. Bitesize has broken a lot of its links and now this:
www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Puffin issues alert to schools and local authorities over books in popular Spy Dog series by Andrew Cope

www.theguardian.com

Bank of England warns of growing risk that AI bubble could burst

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 23h

Lots of new companies have inexplicably-high share prices. Remember Freeserve? It was worth a fortune despite never making a profit
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Possibility of ‘sharp market correction has increased’, says Bank’s financial policy committee

www.theguardian.com

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 1d

I've seen the MN numbers on Duracell batteries, but I can remember the last time I saw HP7, HP2, HP11, etc., which were common when we were kids. They appear in the "other common" column - were they a UK-only thing, like Marathons and Opal Fruits?

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 1d

I'm going to use that soon. Why do students who can round to decimal places often find it difficult to round to significant figures when the only difference is where you start counting?

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 1d

Hmm... on further investigation it seems that Bluesky can't cope with a square image. If I make the image rectangular then WhatsApp crops it, and if I centre the logo in a rectangular image then Facebook crops the blank areas and the "link card" looks like the one Bluesky one!

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 1d

Has anyone worked out to get links to look right in both Facebook and Bluesky? They both use the same OpenData tags, but they look different (Facebook on the left, Bluesky on the right).

Compare vector and bitmap representations of images.

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 2d

Hallowe'en stuff has been in the shops since before we went back to school, but if you're trying to think of a related activity, why not introduce vector graphics and draw a pumpkin (there's one included, but I'm sure you could make a better one!)? #TeamCompSci
www.advanced-ict.info/interactive/...

Vectorise

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 2d

What happened to all of the old battery names, e.g. HP7? Were they considered imperial?

Ten UK data centres could cancel EV emissions gain

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 2d

Data centres offset the benefit of switching to electric vehicles: #TeamCompSci
observer.co.uk/news/busines...

Research has underlined the lack of transparent and reliable figures for expected emissions driven by data centre growth

observer.co.uk

Investigate your understanding of number bases 2 - 16 with this interactive abacus.

Reposted by Computing and ICT in a Nutshell

Archives of IT @archivesofit.bsky.social · 3d

🍰 LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) was the first computer used for business, developed by UK firm J. Lyons & Co Ltd, known for tea shops and cakes. They needed to automate their payroll, marking the beginning of computers in business. Photo courtesy of the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.

A photograph showing the set up of LEO including where the power supply, circuits, store and input and output equipment should be.

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Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 3d

I made a number base calculator, if anyone in interested. I used to use it to help KS3 students who were struggling with binary, but that doesn't seem to happen so much these days. Are more primary schools introducing binary? #TeamCompSci
www.advanced-ict.info/mathematics/...

Binary Abacus

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4d

It turns out that, for HTML text input boxes, Safari has different default padding and line-height settings from the other browsers. Setting those explicitly did the trick. It's like the old days, with Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer!

Representation: Text Characters

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4d

Even though I have got a Mac, I rarely use Safari except to test all new pages for the site (because Safari is quirky). I just thought I'd better check pages I made before I had the Mac - I discovered this page (one of the older ones) has always looked a mess.
www.advanced-ict.info/interactive/...

Understand how binary can be used to define the appearance of a symbol in a character set.

Abacus making a comeback with Japanese kids in an increasingly digital age

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4d

It's interesting it mentions selection sort - that's my go-to sort if I need to code one myself and there isn't much data - but you'd think that insertion sort is more intuitive. I think that people playing card games tend to use insertion sort to organise their hand.

Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4d

Some early computers, e.g. ENIAC and at least one IBM model, didn't store numbers as binary, they used a method similar to an abacus, with ten binary flags to represent the digits in each "column" (e.g. units, tens, hundreds, etc.) of the number being represented.
soranews24.com/2025/10/05/a...

Who needs hacking? We got clacking!

soranews24.com

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Computing and ICT in a Nutshell @advanced-ict.info · 4d

I've not seen one of those before, but the light-up numbers seem to be a thing these days. I worked out that it's cheaper to buy some 0s and 1s and work in binary.