N case it’s not obvious, this blog will soon exceed 3,000 posts (after 22 years) because I want to keep personal opinions out of other sites, where authorship should focus on technical matters.

Back in 2004 I was a Ph.D. student and blogging as a term was barely known to anybody. I remember the first time I read that term, seeing the “blog” of someone from Cambridge around 2003, maybe earlier (maybe even 2002).

Seeing what a pile of crap the Web has become (slop, clickbait[*], and TikTok), I am compelled to get back to blogging.

____

[*] From IRC moments ago:

<admfubar> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/11/canadian-airline-cancels-flight-after-child-refuses-to-wear-seatbelt
28-29TechrightsBot-tr/#techrights28- 0606www.theguardian.com | Canadian airline cancels flight after child refuses to wear seatbelt | Airline industry | The Guardian
<schestowitz[TR2]> probably dramatising something
<schestowitz[TR2]> as it is hard to believe
<schestowitz[TR2]> “The child was standing in their chair as the 6 August Porter Airlines flight taxied towards the runway, the airline said. Repeated attempts by an accompanying parent and crew to secure the child in their seat failed, so the crew elected to return to the terminal and have the two passengers disembark as “the aircraft could not take off in this unsafe condition”, it added.”
<schestowitz[TR2]> cancels flight
<schestowitz[TR2]> for who?
<schestowitz[TR2]> “were able to depart on a flight the following day”
<schestowitz[TR2]> big delay
<schestowitz[TR2]> not cancelled
<schestowitz[TR2]> misleading headline
<schestowitz[TR2]> clickbait
<schestowitz[TR2]> one grumpy kid -> fly delay -> international news?

have now been informed by three Tor users (that’s 3 out of 3) that this domain cannot be accessed by Tor users, with failure occurring at DNS level (cannot even reach the server). The webhost claims Tor is not blocked, so there seems to be no room for resolution or compromise here.

Are we mis-communicating the issue?

While disappointing, and I fail to think of a workaround, I’ll probably have to just leave it at that.

T seems safe to say that very hot weather will impact us today, culminating in about 34 degrees tomorrow (we plan to go to the park again). Will new records be set and old ones broken? Probably. We saw that in May.

This is global warming and climate breakdown. In some parts of China they’ll have a third of the total seasonal (or annual) rain in just one day. It looks like rainfall has been misallocated somewhat.

AM old enough to remember Mars bars being a lot bigger (there’s some online debate about shrinkflation in relation to candy bars this week), chicken not being injected with water (to artificially increase the weight), and drinks – not limited to milk – being sold in glass bottles that could be reused, recycled etc. (Some plastic can be recycled, but glass is vastly easier to recycle).

People’s diets will continue to worsen as long as nutritious meals aren’t a priority. Rather, it’s all about maximising profits by lowering costs.

A lot of the same can be said about the effect on people’s mental health.

Instead of tackling root causes they try to sedate those impacted with “antidepressants”. That too has become a giant for-profit industry, set aside the opioids.

T will soon be part 150 in the series about SLAPPs. I have so many stories to tell that I estimate it’ll take many years to tell them along with all the accompanying evidence, proper debunking etc.

Why do this? To raise public awareness. There needs to be frank and open public discourse about the SLAPP industry. These are some of the biggest enemies of British democracy and they work in the shadows. They use threats and extortion in an attempt to secure their secrecy.

We need to discourage secrecy about these matters.

here is work underway paving the scenic walkway leading up to the ManCity stadium. They’re laying down tiles or brick-like structures on what used to be bland blue paint on concrete. As a result, it’s unavailable for passage. Across the walkway, and over the bridge that crosses the Ashton Canal, there’s the venue that comes back to life on Sunday (Joji) after a very long hiatus on the same day ManCity is “back in action” (not a friendly match but Community Shield).

The expansion of the ManCity stadium and the works associated with improving the area seem almost complete. It probably will take several more months to clear things up and start opening shops. Less cranes, fewer heavy vehicles, almost no noise.

There are other plans for the “Sport City” of ManCity. Italian links aside, there’s “Mamma Mia!”

HAVE been told that, contrary to what two people told me, Tor is not blocked by this server. As I blog a lot more here these days, and as the target audience is reasonably technical and not “everyday people”, it’s important to not discriminate against people who value their privacy. I didn’t think that (ever) my own blog posts would become inaccessible to users of Tor. The cause remains unknown or unclear.

The host says Tor is definitely not blocked and I’m told by a friend that maybe they outsource the blocking to a third party (or some list/blacklist which covers exit nodes). The latest reply that I got was: “The way Tor works is you can’t select which exit node you use. It is randomly selected for anonymity reasons. The way to test in practice is to open the Tor browser, load the page, see it fails to load, and then do Ctrl + Shift + L. This will change your Tor circuit for the site. Please note [host] does not block Tor connections, and due to Tor’s unreliable nature, it’s likely not an issue with the hosting but an issue with the way Tor works.”