Being a creature of habit, I’m very grumpy that this week we’ve all had to say farewell to Schlock Mercenary. After 20 years of steady daily posts telling stories of Tagon’s Toughs, Howard Tayler is taking a little well-earned time off: Parentheticals aside, here we are, 19 years after 9-11, and I’ve been doing this… Continue reading So long, Sergeant Schlock
Category: Uncategorized
If not Netflix, who?
M.G. Siegler ponders Netflix’s ability to get us watching, even when the content isn’t all that special (sparked by his watch of The Old Guard, but prompted by the wider pattern of so-so content on the platform: The real risk here is that the audience starts to associate Netflix with mediocre films. It may not… Continue reading If not Netflix, who?
Reasons not to use Microsoft Teams (number one in a very long list)
My experience of team working from home bears precisely no relationship to this. And yet, I still can’t help but find it entertaining and endearing. So, well played, Apple’s marketing team. Well played indeed.
Amazon Apostate
Now that he’s left Amazon, Tim Bray can express heretical thoughts about the company’s priorities out loud, in public: On a Spring 2019 walk in Beijing I saw two street sweepers at a sunny corner. They were beat-up looking and grizzled but probably younger than me. They’d paused work to smoke and talk. One told… Continue reading Amazon Apostate
The truth
One day the truth will be revealed… [Via Memex 1.1]
This is fine
It’s almost as if the manufacturers of smart speakers want everyone to get used to accidental activations: Voice assistants in smart speakers analyze every sound in their environment for their wake word, e.g., «Alexa» or «Hey Siri», before uploading the audio stream to the cloud. This supports users’ privacy by only capturing the necessary audio… Continue reading This is fine
Paper PCs
For readers of a certain age, these paper PCs are tremendously nostalgic, reminders of great computing times past. Let the nitpicking1 commence.2 [Via MetaFilter] It feels to me that the keyboards on most of these come off as far too bulky. The Atari 520ST looks very good – the slant in the floppy disks and… Continue reading Paper PCs
Antarctica
Definitely something to view in full screen mode, on as large a screen as you can lay hands on: Antarctica in Black & White – Chapter 2: Mountains, by Jan Erik Waider. Magnificent!
Halt and Catch Fire, finished
As promised I’ve finished watching Halt and Catch Fire now, and am happy to report that, as promised, it got better and better as our four main characters moved on from their first season efforts to make an IBM PC clone only better. As Tom Armitage put it after he rewatched the show earlier this… Continue reading Halt and Catch Fire, finished
Hashtag
Watching Hashtag, I can’t help but notice that it’s unclear from the film’s storyline how far our protagonist’s lifestyle differs from that of a male social media influencer trying hard to keep their position near the top of the tree. In the near future the film depicts, are the menfolk participating in the influencer business… Continue reading Hashtag