Just some thoughts about the titles I'm prepared to accept when Her Majesty gets around to dealing with me.

NuScale gets US safety approval for its small nuclear reactor. It is however not as small as I first thought.

Facebook says it might be pointless to try and track advert performance when Apple's iOS 14 starts asking users for permission to do so.

A bit of a whinge about the font sizes insane product manufacturers use when writing instructions.

Apple are feeling the heat lately. They're already undergoing antitrust hearings in the US and the EU and now Epic games are taking them to court over their app store policies.

Virgin Galactic have made an aeroplane that will travel at three times the speed of sound. About time too.

How is it that it's legal to pay off hackers and thereby fund their continuing exploits? I've read of a number of instances of this in recent months and I'm sure there are others we don't hear about.

Sports that are either pointless or aren't policed correctly.

Just a follow-up to some problems I had with Ulysses/iCloud syncing back in 2018.

Do pop-ups work? I presume they must but they're just a scourge and I can't imagine why we still allow them. Who actively wants to be interrupted in this manner?

Why the law remains an ass and why banks still stink.

Apple have made my early 2013 MacBook Pro obsolete, so I need to consider upgrading if I want to remain in the macOS ecosystem.

A BBC article about the man who's looking out for asteroids and comets that may be heading our way and threatening all life on Earth.

Recent battery problems with my iPad.

The latest news from SETI is that there are 36 intelligent civilisations in the galaxy. Possibly. It’s all a bit limited by the sample size we’re using.

In an article on Quanta Magazine, four physicists mull over how naughty gravity can be and why we need a new theory to describe it.

I'm hoping to be able to replace a number of my organisational apps with Agenda, which I review here. I should be able to roll notes, to-do lists, journals and project management all into one.

Twitter applies a few warnings to Trump's posts and Trump blows his top in response. Facebook keeps its head down.

An article in the New York Times features the views of Dr Ben Shneiderman and he suggests fully automated AI is a bad thing.

Apparently we still view gains in a different way to losses and Prospect Theory still holds.

Zuckerberg says Facebook will prevent electoral interference but is less like to prevent coronavirus misinformation.

Not the psychiatrist problem Basil Fawlty endured. One of my own that’s not nearly as funny.

When constant doesn't necessarily mean constant.

Humans rarely make rational decisions about things and usually just find ways to confirm their preexisting biases. Can we improve our thinking?

Where science and science fiction meet. Maybe warp drives have a future if we can overcome the seemingly insurmountable practical considerations.

An astonishing amount of training goes into this sort of thing.

I'm not convinced about the idea of restarting the Premier League in June. There are 750 million reasons why they might want to do so, but is it appropriate at the moment?

I watched Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) during the week and wasn't particularly enamoured with it, although it's not a complete loss.

The violation of one of nature's symmetries is the reason the universe didn't just destroy itself at the very start. I've tried to explain how that works in relatively plain English here.

Ryanair speaks out against the government's social distancing plans for planes.

Why is the support provided by big companies — and particularly big tech companies — so bad?

Why are we plagued by intrusive tracking and advertising without our informed consent?

ICANN has received many complaints about the sale of the .org domain to Ethos Capital.

Having programmed in both Node Javascript and PHP, I thought I'd compare the two languages to see how they fare as server-side scripting languages. Purely subjectively, of course.

Apple always know how to charge money but the cost of Mac Pro wheels is expensive even for them.

How will the UK's coronavirus app work, and will it be safe?

Google are planning to charge for the use of its reCAPTCHA, anti-bot testing facilities. This leads me to have a rant about the constant interruptions that stand between us and website's content these days.

Who are the useful people in society?

As a result of some feedback I've had, I decided to write an article describing the exercises you can perform with the Ironmaster IM2000 self-spotting machine.

How getting rid of the law of the excluded middle in maths might help quantum theory and relativity find common ground.

Tekashi 6ix9ine gets released from jail but can still punish us.

Why did Uri Geller cause so much friction over the years? Well, from my personal point of view, he didn't save Newcastle United from relegation like he promised, but he irritated a lot of people over the years, particularly James Randi.

Fixing a strange problem where macOS Safari doesn't allow you to tick extensions to enable them via preferences.

Hardly an illuminating error message from TSB bank.

There is some argument about whether the sterile neutrino is the source of the unidentified x-ray line and thus a candidate for dark matter.

There really should not be an egg shortage. I blame lazy chickens.

An article on Wired summarises the vaccines currently being developed to fight coronavirus.

A really irritating aspect of Microsoft's Code editor.

Apple's new 2020 iPad comes with a LiDAR scanner, but what is that and what could it be used for?

Personally I think economists talk a load of poppycock.

Printers are hardly thrilling items but I decided to review my HP OfficeJet 6950 colour inkjet printer. The bottom line is it's okay as far as these things go.

Everyone's having their say on the current coronavirus situation and I'm no exception.

If you use Google Search Console you might encounter coverage problems from time-to-time. Such problems might stop your site from being indexed properly. In this article I explain how you might correct some of those problems.

Idiots deprive sensible people of goods, showing a selfish streak and a single digit IQ.

I'm going to try and help people determine how much space is needed for a home gym. It's not as straightforward as measuring the dimensions of the rack because there are a few other considerations you need to take into account.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sue a company that created a robotic Terminator effigy of him.

Filemaker uses a strange definition of the term global in my opinion. Global database fields are not global if they're shared between Filemaker Pro and Filemaker Go, which each get their own copy of these fields. There is a workaround, though.

A pointless gadget that impresses me much.

Creating a problem by curing a problem.

Baboons dislike the idea of getting the snip.

What do we know about Apple AirTags? Not much is the answer, although it seems iOS is being positioned to cope with such things. I repeat many of the rumours about AirTags in this article.

I was motivated to write this review because I’m fed up of being spammed by Wescot Credit Services Ltd. I don’t owe them or anyone they represent a penny. In fact I’ve never heard of the person they claim to be after, yet they continue to spam call me.

I was motivated to post this following a recent report about the excessive charges some ISPs levy if you move away from them but want to retain your email address.

Taking screenshots instead of shutting down my iPad.

Barclays Bank's Big Brother monitoring system is booted back after a backlash from bemoaning employees.

The double-slit experiment was useful to help prove that light can be both a particle and a wave depending on how you observe it. I describe this quantum strangeness in this article.

BT's new 'flexible' TV package still requires a 24 month commitment, which doesn't sound all that flexible to me.

Musings on the plan to build a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland.

I've sorted out the problems with Universal Credit in a few paragraphs. I wonder why the government finds this so difficult?

I'm not in general all that excited about dark modes but creating one for my website seemed like an interesting learning experience. I've documented how I went about doing that in this article.

Why the hell do televisions need to be licenced? They're not dangerous. Also, was an MP banged over a wheelie bin?

Just some instruction about how to access Working Copy repositories from iA Writer.

The iPad has turned ten and that has led to a number of articles both criticising and praising it. I think some of the criticism has been harsh even if I can see where it's coming from. Here's my take on it.

Ring doorbell passes data from its app to a host of third-parties without any opt-in from users.

Why does Google show subscription sites in its search listings? I find this really annoying. I also moan about light switches.

I’ve tried quite a few Markdown editors but, until now, hadn’t properly investigated iA Writer. However, it now fits nicely into my workflow and in this article I explain how it does so and I present my review of iA Writer.

How is it that companies who chose to jump the gun and develop age-verification software for porn sites can claim £3m in 'damages'?

The Universe Splitter app allows you to make quantum decisions, spawning new universes in the process. Some quantum background to this and a brief review of the app can be found herein.

Sonos recently announced they're dropping support for their older kit, which has caused quite a stir.

I run the same Node app on two different environments and often encounter the Node Sass could not find a binding for your current environment error. Here's how I deal with that error.

I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last night and this is my review of it. I enjoyed it but still have some reservations I can't quite put my finger on. That's probably me just being overly fussy though.

I've recently transitioned to Interworx as a result of the price increases cPanel has imposed. These are my notes and comments about that.

In a desperate attempt to stretch out middle-age as long as possible, I've cherry-picked a study that suits my purposes.

Why all the fuss about what the Royal Family does? Also, the Flybe potential collapse situation.

An article on TechCrunch takes a look at how cookie consents are breaking the EU's GDPR laws.

I've encountered the Nested mappings are not allowed in compact mappings error a few times whilst processing YAML recently and come up with three possible fixes for it.

Samsung's new toy is simply a killer robot in disguise, but then again I am paranoid.

I'm unimpressed with the lack of thought council planning departments often show. Why do they insist on creating urban sprawls instead of self-contained 'new villages'?

I haven't used the railways regularly since the early 2000s and I'm staggered by how much they cost these days. Railways seem to have veered away from their whole purpose and we've been remiss in allowing it to get like this.

It's ludicrous, the number of things in my living room that are currently plugged in.

My hearing has been shot for many a decade now. For the most part I get by without a hearing aid but I recently purchased a Hearing Direct HD500 hearing aid. This is my review of that product.

It's a tricky one to explain is Schrödinger's cat. Just consider this a very rough idea about what's going on with said cat in a box. As much as anything it's an example of how the underlying quantum reality that everything is made of differs from the world as we see it.

This may be controversial but people pussyfoot around things to present some image a lot of the time. Oh this is how I want to be seen, etc. This is just my straight thoughts. Take it or leave it.

A binary star system got too close to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy and one of its stars acquired phenomenal speed as a result.

Long live the clam-shell phone.

After upgrading one of the sites I manage to Wordpress 5.3, I encountered our old friend the Critical Error. It has been a while since I've seen that one and I thought I'd jot down some notes about how to debug that error and get your site working again.

Yes, writing about cosmology is far more entertaining that Strictly on a Saturday evening but, then again, so is sticking your head in a bag of wasps. It's our old friend the black hole again.

For a long while scientists have thought the universe is flat but a recent paper suggests it's highly likely it is in fact curved.

Timezones are awkward things, so why not make it so 8AM here is also 8AM in China? This is perhaps not as silly as it sounds and some people are pushing for it to happen.

Zuckerberg doesn't fare well in front of Congress's House Financial Services Committee. He's held to account for his many sins alongside his plans for Libra.

A rant about cookie confirmation screens. Also some nonsense about bum implants.

What's the difference between speed and velocity? Why is acceleration often misinterpreted?

I have just finished binge-watching seasons 1-3 of Stranger Things on Netflix and here I present my review. I've avoided spoilers, so there's no worry that I'm revealing anything here.

I went back to my old stomping ground in the weekend and attended the Chepstow Real Ale and Cider Festival. This is my brief review of the occasion.

Today, 11th October, is World Egg Day, when we celebrate that most fantastic of nature's creations. I believe it's compulsory to eat eggs today.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are the three giants of Greek philosophy and they influenced virtually all of Western philosophy. This article looks at the lives and philosophies of these men.

Adding a new Tenda Nova MW-6 unit should be far easier than it is. It takes perseverance and I've noted down a few tips to help you out.

Apple's Reminders app is much improved under macOS Catalina, iPadOS 13 and iOS 13. It’s now a ‘proper’ GTD app with much added functionality as compared to previous versions. It’s still not perfect, though.

My washing machine irritates me again.

I watched In The Tall Grass on the weekend and this is my review of that film. I thought I’d better write one quickly because it’s the sort of movie I could easily forget, and therein lies a big clue about what I thought of the film.

Apple's puzzling and disruptive release schedule for iOS/iPadOS 13 and macOS Catalina. Why weren't Apple's new operating systems released at the same time?

Marvel vs DC rivalry. Marvel is better, obviously, but fans should let the rivalry go.

A writing instructor has an article in The New York Times praising the US whistle-blower's use of English.

Physics often uses 5 sigma as the level of certainty required to class something as a discovery, but what is 5 sigma and what does it mean?

My completely subjective review of Apple's iPhone 11. I hate phones so it takes a lot to win me over to them. I explain how the iPhone 11 did so and then I tell you what I think about it.

Google's quantum computer performs a task in a few minutes that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years.

I recently took delivery of an iPhone 11 and here's how I went about transferring over from my iPhone6. I also include some tips to get you started, such as what you do now there's no Home button.

Thomas Cook's collapse is going to cost me £100m, apparently. I don't understand why this is the case.

If there is other intelligent life, why hasn't it visited us? This is a question scientists sometimes ask. The thing is, I think we make far too many assumptions when trying to answer it.

My washing machine's timer lives in a parallel universe.

Pilot has a bad experience after crashing his jet and bailing out.

I have an old iPhone 6 that is 3.75 years old and, whilst I'm certainly not a phone person, I think it's time to upgrade (for reasons I talk about in the article) and therefore an iPhone 11 is on the cards.

An article by Sean Carroll on Quanta Magazine looks at what quantum probability might mean. I provide an intro and then link to the article.

Billy Mitchell takes Guinness and Twin Galaxies to court after they remove his high score. ArsTechnica reports.

A Quanta Magazine article about a new measurement of the size of the proton. Previously they thought protons might shrink in the presence of a muon, but it turned out their original measurements of the standard proton were wrong.

Further to my previous article on the subject, I present the sort of rules I'd like to see governing online advertising and privacy. I was originally motivated to post about this by Google's article about the subject, but they don't go anywhere near far enough in my opinion.

Insomnia is a plague and I use the early hour to entirely waste my time trying to connect Steve Harley to Camila Cabello.

A Quanta Magazine article about what happens at a cellular level during sleep. Apparently a process called phosphorylation helps us file memories.

The economics of the internet depends heavily on advertising but publishers, advertisers and advertising networks are going to shoot themselves in the foot if they don't address the problem of advert overload.

By and large, I've enjoyed the Avengers and most of Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Endgame left me a little disappointed. I'll tell you why in this review, in which I've largely avoided any spoilers.

Gravitational-wave detectors may have discovered a black hole of a mass that shouldn't really be allowed.

I've been musing about music again, this time it's the Parallel Lines album by Blondie.

Why can't the government overestimate a project for a change? HS2 is already allegedly going to be £30 billion over budget.

Optimism is overrated anyway.

Taylor Swift to punish our eardrums. She's going to receord her old hits.

Google is proposing a way to build a more private web which suggests a reclassification of cookies amongst other things. From a user's perspective I think Google are coming at this from the wrong angle.

I've been using Zen Internet as my ISP for 9 years now and I always recommend them to people, so I thought it was about time I did a proper review of the broadband package I use.

The puzzling issue of the Brexit backstop, and the even more puzzling issue of The Rock's acting.

An interview with Automattic's CEO about their takeover of the Tumblr microblogging platform.

The Cloudflare/8chan situation raises questions about how the internet should be moderated. With a bit of prelude I link to Ben Thompson's ideas about this.

Just some nonsense about drug crime in relation to my area.

I was recently reading an article about the expansion of the universe and how recent data suggests the figures we've been using might not be quite correct. This led me to look at how we measure this expansion - and, more generically, how we measure any cosmic distance - and I thought I'd write an article about it.

BBC report about how researchers at Exeter University have determined gulls are less likely to steal chips if they're being watched.

I had a problem with macOS's Mail app getting stuck 'moving messages' via my Microsoft Exchange account. This is how I solved the problem.

The linked article specifically talks about bipolar's depiction in 'Midsommar' but it's equally true of all mental health depictions in TV and film.

Priti Patel is pushing for weakened encryption in the UK as part of the so-called Snooper's Charter. She wants tech firms to provide backdoors in end-to-end encryption so intelligence services can access it at will. There are many problems with this idea.

More than 100 years after Einstein proposed it, his General Theory of Relativity is still being tested. In this case, Einstein's 'Equivalence Principle' is put to the test.

I'm a bit fed up with 'robot tests' that websites ask me to pass before permitting me access. Half the time I simply don't bother and visit another website instead. Is there no better way to do this?

A BBC article portraying the advantages of counting in base 12 rather than base 10 as we currently do.

I think the group photo from the 1927 Solvay Conference is iconic and possibly the most brainpower the world's even seen in one picture.

I'm not a big fan of Python but it has been so long since I've used it that I wanted to refresh my memory about the language. This is how I went about installing Python and Django on macOS 10.14 via Homebrew and pip.

5G is something that happens to other people.

A BBC article reports the increasing number of ransomware victims who are paying off their hackers.

Prenda Law's copyright troll Paul Hansmeier finally gets his comeuppance and gets sentenced to 14 years.

Why are many sites' privacy policies so long? Laws have changed regarding online privacy recently (GDPR, for example) but I'm not sure your typical user is any better informed and I think complexity prevents many people from asserting their rights and options.

I was doing some thinking, which is always dangerous, and decided the insurance industry needs reform. If you exclude nonsense like 'peace of mind', most people get very little for their premiums.

Having been unimpressed with a lot of Apple's announcements in the last year or so, WWDC 2019 has much more I like. I take a look at some of my favourites here.

Pound for pound bats outlive most other species of mammals. ArsTechnica reports scientific findings on the matter.

A Quanta Magazine article about ideas that have sprung up as a result of the Shuttlecock Universe idea Hawking proposed in the 1980s.