Cover Your (Online) Tracks

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This tool is made available by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a reputable and experienced non-profit advocate for defending our* digital privacy, free speech, and innovation.

* mostly US but that almost always affects the world online

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The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

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It feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Who Reads Your Messages Without You Knowing?

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We all send messages, a lot of us call them texts even though we might not be actually sending them via SMS. Not only do some of us send a lot of messages we now rely on them instead of phone calls, which might also not really be phone calls but you know what I mean. SMS ("text") - least secure The one we all started with, that we fall back to when nothing else works, the basic, the granddaddy of all messages. SMS / text is the one we know will get through when other fancy messaging systems may not, it covers the world. It's also totally insecure. Your message is sent unencrypted. You message carries all it's metadata (who from, who to, date & time sent, where sent from) is unencrypted. Think of text as sending a postcard in the post. Yes, it will get there but anyone and everyone can read it on the way, including it's address, stamp, and who from. If you have set-up 2FA / multi-factor authentication - you absolutely should for your Google , Apple ,  Facebo...

Buy A Volvo, Suddenly The Roads Are Full Of Volvos

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That's what happened to me, although I wasn't egotistical enough to think that because I'd bought a yellow Volvo that's why everyone else has - I was just noticing them more. The frequency illusion is another example of a cognitive bias that you can’t avoid; you can only be aware that it happens. However, you can lessen the effect by being more mindful of your surroundings, and when something does catch your attention and you start seeing references to it everywhere, you simply have to remind yourself that you are probably just noticing it for the first time. The Frequency Illusion: Why You’ll Probably Hear the Name Baader-Meinhof Again Soon   is a fantastic explanation of why there were so many Volvos being noticed by my brain, and how politicians and marketing people use this to fool us into thinking something is important. Not a Volvo, but yes this is the real one

W. C. Fields quotes

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The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa...

"Right Wing" Comedians

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Too many people comfortably plump themselves into an army of one type or another . Surrounded by those that sound like you, listen to you intently whilst nodding, and echo your thoughts on why the fight is a good fight and that the other side are such bad terrible people. I used to be more like that than I am nowadays ... hmmmm, aren't we humans meant to become more conservative and reactionary as we age, strange Mike. These thoughts have me thinking of two UK comedians that have been tagged as "right wing", which is putting them into an army for the benefit of someone but, I suspect, not them. First up,  Simon Evans who makes me laugh when he's talking about his family, kids, and life in Brighton. He then hit my ears big time with: Simon Evans Goes to Market , has had six seasons, delighting audiences with his witty and insightful take on the comedically unpromising territory of economics, all of which prove among the most popular downloads on the Sounds App. On the...

Curtains Of Water

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The wind was perfect to cause the Carter Fountain - did you know that was it's name - to create these fantastic 'curtains' of water.

How Did It Happen, Look Outside The Bubble

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There's no such thing as an interactive site / app ( "social media" if you have to ) that *is* something. Even Twitter / X is, for some, a lovely place where they chat with those they follow about comfortable things and Facebook even more so, a curated place for friends and family that seems like a bubble amongst the outside shite. We live in our bubbles of followed and following, of friends, of LinkedIn connections. We see what they say and believe, "Facebook is fine, I don't get what the problem is." This is all merely a reflection of how we live our actual lives, in wee bubbles of comfortableness, surrounding ourselves with like minded (if sometimes challenging) people. Our bubbles become our reality. I'm not sure, as humans, we can be any different without going totally insane. Everyone does it, Elon Musk lives in his bubble, I live in my bubbles, you live in yours. Bubbles pop really quickly. When they pop the outside world and their bubbles rush in...

Do We Live Better Than Medieval Royalty?

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[UPDATED] Listen to an audio summary of this post and all the outbound links, created using "AI", enjoy. It's an almost common phrase, "We live better than a king of old!" Ok, let's do some a lot of searching and see if that's true in any sense at all BUT first ... Some definitions ... "We all" Almost exclusively this is white, middle-class / middle-level, in the top 10-15%, sort of people. Also, European or of European descent, i.e. those that think being a medieval king is a thing to emulate. "live" Doing our general stuff but not one-off things like wars, marriages, and deaths. Think of it as the life we live on a Tuesday afternoon. "better" Hmmm, I think this is a combination of ease, ability, availability, and cost. "Medieval" The medieval period , also known as the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages, began around 476 A.D. and ended between 1400 and 1450. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to descri...

Aurora Australis, May 2024

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"Nah, can't see anything out here ... hang on ... that sky looks a bit weird, where's my phone" "OMG! Look at this!! " Aurora Australis 2024  

Yarn Bombing

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I absolutely adore the people that yarn bomb, especially in massively public areas. Street art ( my full album ) makes my heart sing to power of creativity and "fuck yeah!"