Browser options are shrinking

2019-09-20

uBlock Origin is an ad-block, web security, and privacy tool, one that I have recommended for a long time. I was dismayed to see this article today. I encourage you to read that, but here’s the first line: Very quick tl;dr: uBO will no longer with Safari, use Firefox or a new “content blocker” app (see below for good replacements). If you read the article you’ll notice that Chrome is also essentially disabling support for uBlock Origin.…

Another reminder about MS and Privacy

2019-07-22

Bleeping computer’s Lawrence Abrams writes about a good reminder about why I avoid Microsoft products. There are good reasons why they collect this data, but there are equally good reasons to resent them for doing so. I choose not to share my information with them. I choose to use Linux.

Secure Messaging

2019-06-13

Dieter Bohn seems like a kindred spirit. You should read his article here about secure-by-default messaging.

Chrome is taking over

2019-05-29

Here is a good article about what kind of shennanigans that Google has been up to with chrome. A couple of months back I moved back to using Firefox as my primary browser for reasons not mentioned in that article. Several good points have been made about the state of browsers, and it’s important to keep Firefox relevant at this time or there won’t be ANY meaningful competition in the browser market in the future.…

Movie Night: Stardust

2019-02-01

Its probably been a decade since I watched Stardust for the first time. I remember liking it quite a bit. As I was considering showing it to my niblings, I couldn’t recall enough about it to know if my memory was accurate. It’s quite a good fairy tale; Neil Gaiman is far better than average at breaking the mold of fairy tale tropes and gender roles while keeping a sense of the bygone.…

Happy New Year

2019-01-01

I am going to work on meeting my challenges head on, and not letting it stress me out (as much).

Quantum Troubleshooting

2018-10-30

I’ve been a tech guy for a very long time. I was one of those kids who could connect the home entertainment systems and program the VCR much better than any adult seemed to be able to. I was getting the house connected to the internet while most of the household still thought of computers as word processors. It’s no surprise then that I get a lot of tech support questions.…

KDM: Black Memory

2018-10-18

According to my notes, we started playing Kingdom Death: Monster one year ago (October 21, 2017). The eighteen pound package arrived on my doorstep on October 18th. It’s been a good year, with a lot of sessions to keep us busy! For the anniversary I thought I would remember some of notable events from our games in the last year. Suddenly, a monster emerged from the darkness, its eyes wild with hunger.…

Night of the Creeps wasn't very creepy

2018-10-11

This self aware b-movie was a fun Octobor movie. It didn’t take itself seriously. At one point one of the characters exclaims loudly, “What is this a bad horror movie?” That’s pretty much why this movie works. It does not do much that is novel, although it goes further to explain the mysterious origins of the alien leeches than most movies bother with. While there is plenty of cliche and trope, it does have an atypical set of protagonists, and where many films probably would have given the disabled friend a chance to recover from his zombie illness I was gratified that they weren’t afraid to kill him too.…

Reduce the use of the big data companies

2018-10-09

With Facebook the simplest thing you can do is delete the apps from your phone (all facebook properties). Only use the web browser interface. For Google, switch your default search engine to Duckduckgo and consider finding a paid email provider who has your privacy in mind.