h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

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

🆕 blog! “A quick look inside the HSTS file”

You type in to your browser's address bar example.com and it automatically redirects you to the https:// version. How does your browser know that it needed to request the more secure version of a website? The answer is... A big list. The HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) list is a list of domain names which …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/a-quick-look-inside-the-hsts-file/
⸻
#CyberSecurity #dns #domains #https #security

New (good) changes to UK company law being rolled out:

https://changestoukcompanylaw.campaign.gov.uk/

Mr Bates vs the Post Office is excellent. And there's a familiar voice reading the radio news just before the end of episode 2 tonight...

Releasing videos to a schedule is one thing, but releasing videos to a weekly schedule non-stop for a decade is something else entirely.

Raise a glass to Tom Scott
Enjoy your rest, you deserve it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DKv5H5Frt0

Can you access the somehow-still-online Godzilla movie (1998) virtual world on the Steam Deck (2023)?

Yes.

Is it an absolute pain to do?

Also yes.