Author: John

Secure

Good advice, doomed to be wasted on folks who just want a quick, easy solution that lets them move on to the next item on their To Do list… I cringe when I hear self-proclaimed experts implore everyone to “use a password manager for all your passwords” and “turn on two-factor authentication for every site… Continue reading Secure

Black Mirror

Having caught up with the last episode of the latest series of Black Mirror, I was amused to learn that Nine Inch Nails were jumping on the marketing bandwagon, after an episode where a (real life) Pop Princess was repurposing a couple of their songs: Head like a hole! I’m on a roll! Riding so… Continue reading Black Mirror

iPadOS

Rui Carmo is, rightly, a little less optimistic than most of the Apple-focused commentariat about the notion that Apple forking iOS to create an iPad-specific variant marks a new era for the iPad: I have a profoundly different take on what “work” means than Federico-like one of my friends said the other day, there is… Continue reading iPadOS

Spomeniks

Owen Hatherley reminds us that the Spomeniks weren’t created just to be concrete clickbait: remembering what they were commemorating matters too: What Spomenik and the like forgets, Pupovac insists, is not only the scale of what happened here – “Yugoslavia was the fourth highest country in Europe in terms of civilian casualties” during the Second… Continue reading Spomeniks

ASCII art in code

I’m more than a little in awe of some of the pieces of work laid out in Explaining Code using ASCII Art. Fine work by all involved. [Via Accidental Tech Podcast]

On the bright side…

Positively the only good thing about recent political developments in the UK is that they’re going to give Marina Hyde tons of new material: […] Arguably this morning’s most amusing development was Helen Grant resigning as Tory vice-chair to openly support Dominic Raab. Is this the same Dominic Raab who resigned in protest at a… Continue reading On the bright side…

Cap’s PR

Somewhere down the line I do hope Disney find the time – in between building up whichever cosmic-scale threat is going to close out Phase Six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – to fill in some of the gaps in the story they’ve shown us so far. Tell me this fanfic about life as Steve… Continue reading Cap’s PR

40 years of Aliens

Just before 20th Century Fox was swallowed up by Disney, they celebrated the 40th anniversary of one of their own greatest franchises with six Alien 40th Anniversary Short Films. I doubt the Xenomorphs are going to be showing up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe any time soon, but that’s OK: they’ve done a fine job… Continue reading 40 years of Aliens