h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

A bit of Johnny Cash on the turntable this morning. It goes well with my coffee. #vinyl

My latest post on what is happening with Covid in England right now:

https://christinapagel.substack.com/p/latest-covid-situation-in-england

Flash emulation has finally reached a point where we can accurately restore some of the most important cultural sites from the early days of the web, and its only going to get better.

I proudly present: https://welcometozombo.com

What makes a good prophecy?

A couple of years ago, taking questions on stage in front of a live audience, I was asked to do my duty as an economist and make an economic forecast. But the questioner had a demanding benchmark for what made a good prediction, informing me that the previous keynote speaker at this conference had been a prominent scientist, who warned of a deadly global pandemic. That was i

https://timharford.com/2024/01/what-makes-a-good-prophecy/

#UndercoverEconomist

We've a new report: the Post Office claimed £934m tax relief for its compensation payments to the postmasters it persecuted. That's outrageous. It's also unlawful - so the Post Office now faces an unexpected £100m tax bill. It may be insolvent. https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/01/12/934m/

The UK government is consulting on "Street vote development orders". The proposal is to introduce a local #referendum mechanism when certain planning proposals are made for a "street area".

You can view and respond to the consultation using the link below. The consultation closes on 2 February.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/street-vote-development-orders-consultation

i decided to revisit something i wrote 10 years ago. a lot has changed since then but a lot hasn't. https://livelaughblog.glitch.me/posts/10-years-since-i-warned-you-about-bitcoin/

Two weeks left to have your say on how #Southend council is elected - continue with 1 of 3 councillors being elected most years, or all 3 elected once every 4 years? https://www.southend.gov.uk/news/article/3027/have-your-say-on-how-your-council-is-elected

https://www.danlynch.org/blog/2024/01/floss-weekly-is-reborn/ - I blogged about the fate of Floss Weekly. Should you have any interest in the podcast it might be worth a read. #podcast #flossweekly

DNA Lounge Update, Wherein we have had a second ATM stolen
https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/01/09.html

Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. 🥳 So what does that mean for our shared culture? Free-range archivist Jason Scott takes readers on an enlightening tour of copyright, the creative ecosystem & film preservation in a thoughtful new post: https://blog.archive.org/2024/01/05/mickeys-bad-day-or-the-ecosystem/

I finally got my proof-of-concept (and world wide first open source) SM-DP+ for consumer eSIM to work. This is the component from which the eUICC (chip in phone) downloads encrypted eSIM profiles. Code at https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/pysim/+/35461 - will be merged to pysim master soon. #GSMA #3gpp

Everyone's talking about the mouse, but dozens of classic films moved into the public domain this year:
🎬 The Cameraman (Buster Keaton)
🎞️ Easy Virtue (Alfred Hitchcock)
🌆 The Lights of New York (Bryan Foy)
⚔️The Passion of Joan Of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer) ⬇️
Explore the newly unlocked works of art in our curated list: https://blog.archive.org/2024/01/04/the-worlds-most-famous-mouse-joins-the-public-domain/

Floods have put #EarithBulwark on show.
More: https://www.cambsnews.co.uk/news/cambridgeshire-flooding-reveals-english-civil-war-fort-after-storm-henk/20281/
Picture by Terry Harris (not me!), https://www.terry-harris.com/
Where: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/333542888#map=16/52.3546/0.0443
#StormHenk #Cambridgeshire #RiverGreatOuse #Earith

🆕 blog! “What's the smallest file size for a 1 pixel image?”

There are lots of new image compression formats out there. They excel at taking large, complex pictures and algorithmically reducing them to smaller file sizes. All of the comparisons I've seen show how good they are at squashing down big files. I wanted to go the other way. How good are modern codecs at …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/whats-the-smallest-file-size-for-a-1-pixel-image/
⸻
#compression #images