Buster: Captcha Solver for Humans

Buster is a browser extension which helps you to solve difficult captchas by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges using automatic speech recognition. Challenges are solved by clicking on the extension button at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA widget.

Statement of Maciej Cegłowski, Founder, Pinboard on the topic of “Privacy Rights and Data Collection in a Digital Economy”

The internet economy in 2019 is dominated by five American tech companies: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. These are also the five most valuable corporations in the world, with a combined market capitalization exceeding four trillion dollars. Between them, these companies control the market for online advertising, mobile and desktop operating systems, office software, document storage, search, cloud computing, and many other areas of the digital economy. They also own and operate a significant portion of the physical infrastructure of the internet, and act as its de facto regulating authority.

Pocket-Run

I’ve become a bit addicted to Pocket-Run Pool — a charming and well-designed single player pool game with a bunch of different playing modes.

Split

Personally, I’m much more interested and excited by the materials than I am by the tools. But I think it’s right and proper that other developers are excited by the tools. A good balance of both is probably the healthiest mix.

Insightful read.

Itinerant

Itinerant is an experimental weather forecast app, utilizing the human visual perception system (i.e. recognizing shapes and colors) instead of the symbolic interpretation system (i.e. reading words and numbers).

Looks interesting and available on the App Store — I (of course) use Weather Line.

Fabada asturiana

IMG_5185

Using the leftovers from last weekend’s roast pork shoulder I cobbled together a tasty fabada asturiana with what I had in the kitchen. It’s a rich, heavy dish — I had it with a couple of boiled potatoes.

Ingredients

  • Leftover pork shoulder, cut into 6 ⨉ 3cm cubes
  • Chorizo, cut into 4 ⨉ 3cm pieces
  • White beans, 400g tin, drained and rinsed
  • Tomatoes, 2, chopped
  • Onion, 1 medium, diced
  • Red onion, ½ medium, diced
  • Garlic, ½ bulb, minced
  • Bay leaf, 1
  • Pimentón, 1 tsp
  • Crushed red pepper, ½ tsp
  • Dried mixed herbs, 1 tsp
  • Vegetable stock, ½ pint
  • White wine, 1 glass
  • Olive oil, a glug
  • Salt + pepper

Instructions

  1. Take a heavy lidded casserole pan, heat a glug of olive oil on a low-to-medium heat.
  2. Add the onion, red onion, garlic and sweat until the onion becomes translucent.
  3. Add the tomato, crushed red pepper and dried mixed herbs. Cook until the tomatoes turn soft.
  4. Add the pork, chorizo and the white beans, stir.
  5. Add the white wine and vegetable stock, stir.
  6. Add the pimentón and bay leaf, stir!
  7. Put the lid on and cook on a low heat for ~2 hours, stirring occasionally.
  8. Take the lid off and reduce for ~30 minutes, or until desired consistency.

Art of the Game: Ukiyo-e Heroes

A Canadian craftsman and an American designer with a father and son generation gap collaborate to revive the ancient Japanese woodcut using pop-culture icons: Mario and Pokémon.

I stumbled upon this documentary on a flight recently — would recommend.

Yesterday, I peeled a bulb of garlic, bashed it up with a handful of rosemary, salt and pepper, loosened with a tablespoon of olive oil and rubbed all over a joint of pork and left to marinade in the fridge overnight.

I’ve just unwrapped it to slow roast and it smells fantastic!

Biangbiang noodles from Murger Han

Murger Han
62 Eversholt Street, London NW1 1DA

A History of Tokyo in 8 Dishes

From the fishing village of Edo to the global leader in Michelin stars, eat your way through Tokyo’s past and future.

I wouldn’t read this if you’re hungry.

The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed the way Britain shops

Paul Foley, the former Aldi CEO, who now runs his own retail consultancy, often tells his clients about his attempts to replicate a KitKat in the 1990s. It turns out this is really hard to do without the chocolate making the wafer soggy. Eventually, Aldi gave up. Foley asked his buyer to contact Nestlé’s UK office to announce Aldi’s surrender and request to stock KitKat. Nestlé would not return his call. So Foley ordered the bars from Germany, where they have a slightly different taste. Soon, Nestlé UK starting receiving complaints about the taste of its KitKats, and traced the problem back to Aldi. When they phoned Foley to complain, he “politely refused to cooperate”.

A fascinating long read.

These days when I sign up for a web service, the first thing I think of is: “How can I get my data out of this?”

How are you today?

A collection of words that should try and describe the weblog of Rey Dhuny.