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The Truth About Kodi - UPDATED May '17
Mon 27 Mar 2017
You've probably heard about Kodi, but may not know what it is, or what the law says about it's use. MrC is here to break it down for you, and explain your legal rights pertaining to Kodi and online content.
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Some Tips for the New Punnet of Picademics
Thu 09 Feb 2017
If you know nothing, but you know that you know nothing… that’s something.
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Don't Get Snooped!
Thu 26 Jan 2017
As the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 comes into force, it’s predicted that there will be a lot of people attempting to lock down their data to avoid the ‘Snoopers’ and the possible risks that come from having everything you do scrutinised on the internet.
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Why Adults Should Reassess the Value of Video Games
Mon 09 Jan 2017
Now that all the madness of the holidays is over, you might find yourself looking at the stack of new games your kids have been playing non-stop and wondering exactly why they love them so much. If you are one of those adults who have branded video games as ‘time-wasting’ or ‘just for kids’... this post is for you.
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MozFest: Keeping the Internet Free!
Fri 09 Dec 2016
Mozfest is a three-day festival which takes place in London each year, founded by Mozilla - the champions of the Internet. Mozilla are a not-for-profit organisation who have a mission to keep the internet ‘healthy, open and accessible to all’ and that mission is nowhere seen more evidently than at Mozfest: three days of code, tech, toys and hacking – all in the spirit of openness, sharing knowledge and making the Information Age a better place for everyone.
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#WIREDSecurity: Where the internet's top cybercops talk shop!
Wed 02 Nov 2016
Mac and I recently had the privilege to attend the first annual WIREDSecurity conference in London, and it was awesome. I learned so many things from different perspectives; how a social engineer can penetrate a company from the ground up by exploiting the human hardware that inevitably fails, to how an entire country has been digitised, to the way that malware exploits the gullible and technically ignorant. Incredible.
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Why Should Anyone Learn to Pen-Test?
Wed 02 Nov 2016
HackLab Sidekick and amateur hacker, S3th The ScriptKiddie explains why Penetration testing and learning to hack is a valuable skill for any digital citizen.
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The Biggest Hacks In History Just Happened
Wed 12 Oct 2016
Just in case you missed it, the two biggest website hacks ever undertaken happened last month. The InfoSec website Krebs On Security was the target for a huge DDoS attack from an unknown attacker using the IoT, and OVH the hosting provider was attacked a few days after with double the force. Not only that, but the code for this incredible, malicious, infectious piece of malware was released to the open internet a couple of weeks ago for anyone to use, adapt, modify and re-use for their own ends!
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Digital Citizenship in the Information Age - How Safe are Your Kids?
Wed 10 Aug 2016
Children spend a lot of time online these days and if yours have phones, tablets or laptops in the house or at school, they are connected via the internet to everyone else in the world who has one of those devices. Most of their interactions with the internet can be very positive – researching things for school or their interests, socializing with their friends, sharing photos, playing games, learning new things and so forth. But being a digital citizen in the Information Age comes with risks as well, just like ‘real’ life. Do you know what your kids are really up to online?
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Why You Should Give Pokémon Go a Go
Wed 03 Aug 2016
Let’s face it: Pokémon Go isn’t going away, at least not any time soon. There has been a lot of mixed press about the latest craze in video games lately, some of which is laughably yet tragically misinformed. Let's speak frankly about a game that is, frankly sensational.
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Future Experience Points
Wed 29 Jun 2016
I love everything about video games, especially their complexity in design and how amazing and creative the application of the intellect and skill of a team of developers can really be... then I attended the FXPFestival Game Jam and watched it all take place around me, over one weekend in June.
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Origin Stories
Mon 09 May 2016
I am currently working on a project that will incorporate all of the pop-culture things I have liked since I was knee high to a grasshopper. This research has me thinking a lot about my origin story, and all of ours, we may not think about them very often because they didn’t involve radioactive chemicals that enhanced our senses, or gamma radiation that made us indestructible, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t still awesome. So I have decided to discuss my origin story with you and how I think my surroundings have led me to be a member of HackLab, I don’t think it was a coincidence.
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21st Century Education
Fri 06 May 2016
The current system of western education does not prepare students for the 21st century, where new skills are required to succeed - critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity - skills which can never be learned by rote, only by refinement through experience. Standardised testing is the quintessential example of this educational disjunction in the UK, and something we have recently been seeing a bigger and bigger backlash against in the media and society at large: thousands of parents across the nation chose to pull their kids out of school on the days that SAT tests were run this month.
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How the Sausage is Made
Thu 31 Mar 2016
For me, playing games is like watching a movie that you’re in control of, that responds to your choices and keeps providing you with new stimuli and challenges – it’s the best thing ever for getting out of your own head for a while and just enjoying something for its own sake. I don’t have to think about deadlines, work, bills or responsibilities – I just become part of the game and float away with the character, or sink into puzzle-mode. Well… right up until I started hanging out with the HackLab’s tame Game Developers; Mac and J-Dave.
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Mind the 'Generation Gap' - How YouTube is making kids smarter
Tue 15 Mar 2016
We are currently facing an unprecedented ‘Generation Gap’ between the young...
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Teaching Tech-Fu - Students and the Digital 'Dark-Arts'
Wed 24 Feb 2016
"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fight...
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Some Tips for the New Punnet of Picademics
Mon 08 Jun 2015
If you know nothing, but you know that you know nothing… that’s something. ...
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Minecraft: More than a game.
Thu 04 Jun 2015
It has always seemed odd to me that there is a constant backlash against co...
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Do Your Kids Need to Learn to Code? Yes! But Not for the Reasons You Think
Thu 04 Jun 2015
Posted: 05/29/2015 6:58 pm EDT Updated: 05/29/2015 7:59 pm E...
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The HackLab Manifesto
Wed 03 Jun 2015
Once upon a time, ‘Men’ used to be able to do everything for themselves. It...
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Hacker Is Not A Dirty Word
Wed 03 Jun 2015
I want to get something clear for people out there: ‘hacker’ is not a dirty...
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