“Criminals often call other people criminals as a form of psychological projection, deflection, or hypocrisy.”

N case it’s not obvious, there are some people out there who believe that reporting crimes, opposing online abuse, and generally blogging about tech is sometimes something one deserves prison for. Worse yet, there is collective punishment extending to one’s wife.

It’ll never work. It can only ever backfire badly, both for those who wish for it to happen or those who facilitate or entertain this wish.

Later this year we celebrate 15 years and we still live in a country which cherishes free speech and freedom of the press.

AM reminded today that the Clacton by-election is 11 days away because the BBC has updated its article about it. The election has many candidates on the ballot. “In a statement on his website, external, Pocock, who is a software engineer, is asking voters to
read about his work on ethics in technology, safety of children online, artificial intelligence,
cryptocurrency and cybersecurity,” the BBC says.

This is “short and buried among the loonies,” a friend told me, “but at least he is mentioned [...] how does the math work out in regards to splitting the vote there? If all the anti-Farage and protest votes are spread too thinly…”

Well, it’s very unlikely that Pocock will win and many of the rest cannot win, either. The more potent contender can lose votes to the marginal candidates, but so can Farage.

The outcome will be interesting.

first created a site in Geocities. It was around 1997. It was my first site. It wasn’t until the early 2000s (some time around 2001) that I began developing something about myself, back then a Software Engineering student. It was modeled after the academic page of a lecturer whom I respected.

The Web is waning for many reasons (not just slop), but people still read, some watch videos (usually short ones), and there’s no sign that people will quit caring about literature altogether.

So we all carry on.

omorrow it’ll be 3 weeks until Rianne’s birthday and exactly 3 weeks since the end of the hearing in London [1, 2]. Many people go on a long holiday this coming week, some had their last day (prior to leave) this past Friday. I’ll be keeping this blog active throughout August as there’s no imminent plan of long-distance travel. The weather here is already good and I have plenty of things to get done.

have taken stock of things we did about half a decade ago or years ago but no longer do. The main ones:

1. Midland Hotel/Spa
2. Shopping in Town
3. Weekly coffee shop trips
4. Massively feeding hundreds of birds (we agreed with the weed-smoking neighbours to reduce the feeding in exchange for them curtailing their weed habit/hobby)
5. Consistently working overnight or at nighttime (we quit that job

From the home of the Pankhursts [1, 2, 3]:

“The 41-year-old is the first ever female Mayor of Greater Manchester and was the first LGBT leader of the city council.”

Crossposted from Tux Machines

oday, August 1, we have a new mayor. It’s the one Rianne and I bot rooted for. It’s a good start for a new month.

This coming week we’ll be rather busy with leisurely affairs and Rianne celebrates her mother’s birthday.

Image source: Manchester in Christmas 2019