iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

"According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, there were 235 shooting incidents at American schools last year and at least 140 so far this year." www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm89zp4…

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

I started reading John @scalzi's "Zoe's Tale" today and this made me smile. "A girl could do worse."

Photo of page of ebook:

I glanced over at my parents about six meters away, kissing to celebrate the arrival. That seemed like a good idea. I reached my hand behind Enzo’s head to draw him to me and planted one right on his lips. Our first kiss. New world. new life, new boyfriend.

What can I say. I was caught up in the moment.

Enzo didn't complain. " ‘O brave new world, that has such people in it' " he said,
after I let him breathe again.

I smiled at him, my arms still around his neck. “You've been saving that up.” I said.

“Maybe.” he admitted. “1 wanted you to have a quality first kiss moment.”

See. Most sixteen-year-old boys would have used a kiss as an excuse to dive straight for the boobs. He used it as an excuse for Shakespeare. A girl could do worse.

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David Gerard @davidgerard.circumstances.run.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

jesus christ, Linux has had a 100% LLM takeover. this project is completely cooked. even after the AI bubble pop, it's not clear how to recover from this level of bullshit from this level of bullshitter. lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1099594/be20… > Linus Torvalds believes that […]

circumstances.run

Original post on circumstances.run

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Felicitas Pojtinger 🌅 @pojntfx.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

nonfunctional.substack.com/p/passke… TIL that passkeys have remote attestation built-in. That seems pretty damn terrible. Don't use passkeys.

nonfunctional.substack.com

Passkeys are a trap. Do not use them.

Intended audience: non-technical citizens of the web

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Liam Proven @lproven.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Lobbying is corruption « Have you ever tried to explain lobbying to a European? Neither have I. But George Hotz just did the opposite: he explained it to everyone who is not American. Read it. It is short, funny, and devastating. » carette.xyz/posts/lobbying_and_corr…

carette.xyz

Lobbying is corruption

On lobbying, corruption, and the same animal under two names

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

We run a web server protected from bad actors via fail2ban (JFGFI) so, for example, we block IP addresses who try to login to WordPress (which we do not use). As an experiment I put Cloudflare in front of one of our sites for extra protection from things like DDoS attacks. Only problem is that […]

mastodon.scot

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

I've just signed up for this year's Flu Survey, an online surveillance system for monitoring respiratory symptoms, flu and COVID-19 activity in the UK. You might want to do the same? You've surveyed weekly through the season via a web form. flusurvey.net

flusurvey.net

FluSurvey

Help us monitor the flu and other respiratory infections in the UK today.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

My latest wibblings: GNU Patricia Oldham I was watching a video this week where Jimmy Carr was talking about Sean Lock where Jimmy said, quoting someone else, that you don't really die until your name is spoken for the last time ... and that got me thinking. Read more […]

mastodon.scot

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

Like the ancients I can tell by the sun when the autumn is coming on. This is the sun shining through the window of our upstairs bedroom at the back of the house with the rays then coming down the stairs and through the door into my study at the front of the […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

Computer monitor with a semi-circle of light projected on to it near the top.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

Window on the stairs on Ritson Young, accountants in #Nairn Lots more lovely windows further into the building of the same style with shuttering in the side panels but I only got a photo of this one. #FensterFreitag

A window in a wooden glowing varnished wooden frame view from below. It's split, horizontally, in the middle and on each side there are panels with wooden knobs behind which lurk shutters which, in the old days, would have been unfolded over the window at night.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'm down to the last nine copies of this ISS Cat print, so if you want one, please order soon. It's in my shop along with other prints, badges and a zine: www.tomgauld.com/

A view of the International Space Station floating in the stars above the earth. A cat in a space suit floats outside. An astronaut within the station looks out of a window and says "In? But I just let you out."

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

It seems that you can store whatever you like here ... other than a tank. Or perhaps if you want to dispose of tank you drive it in here and it vanishes in a puff of logic? So hard to tell.

Grey wooden garage doors with a sign on the left door in white capitals with a white surround reading "ANTI-TANK GARAGE"

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

#wotd hypergamy n. marriage into an equal or higher caste or social group, so often marrying someone who has more education, money, or status.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

I am now officially old: my state pension starts today. How did that happen?!

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Round windows at Fort George (where there had clear been doors at some point) #FensterFreitag

Two rounds windows each divided into eight parks with a central circular blank area, set it a sandstone block wall.

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Daniel Lakeland @dlakelan.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

Fediverse, the social media system for 40+ year old people who built the world wide web and regret it.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

Today's good news is that I've just paid £14 to renew my driving licence. What is this good news you ask? I have a medical condition which means that for the last two decades they've restricted my licence and made me renew every three years, with medical checks each time, and although it's a […]

mastodon.scot

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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“People are working 12 to 13 hours a day just to press enter.”

voxium
@vOxium
X.com
I am done with this shit. It is over. The state of engineering right now is horrible. It has been half a month since I started a new role at a big company.
Nobody knows anything here. The specs, code, tests, PRDs, tickets, resolution of those tickets, reports, etc., everything is made by Claude Code.
Nobody on my team likes this. They are being forced to ship as much as they can. I have heard multiple times from higher management that pushing code is not a bottleneck, so why are we slow?

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Turns out that one of the "benefits" of taking a holiday in Germany is that I'm now being spammed in German. 👀

German spam. In English it reads:
We are pleased to inform you that we have located an inheritance that may be linked to your surname. Please contact us at nigelhigginsgroups@outlook.com to confirm this and receive further information.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

Third data breach at someone I have an account with in the last couple of months. First it was Friends of the Lake District and Newlyn Art Gallery, both from the same breach with Beacon's CRM software (which hit 1,500 organisations) […]

mastodon.scot

Original post on mastodon.scot

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

I have a new car, a Skoda Karoq, and it's got all the knobs and whistles a modern car has. It was locked up on the drive. Tonight the doorbell rings. It's a neighbour to say the tailgate door is wide open. He's had this too (he's got a BMW): if you've got the "key" in your pocket and the […]

mastodon.scot

Original post on mastodon.scot

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

This morning I ate my last Orange Club. It was always one of my favourite snacks and who can forget "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club🎶" ... except it now has so little chocolate in it that the coating has to be legally described as […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

Photo of Orange Club lying on red material

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

John Swinney gave his programme for government speech at Holyrood yesterday. The BBC news web site covered it under their Scotland tab. This is the #GuardianUK app (for which I pay a monthly subscription) an hour after the speech with no mention of it […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

Screen shot of page from Guardian app headed "Scotland, Never miss the latest articles"

Headlines include:
- Summer of 2026 was UK's hottest on record Met Office says
- Tuesday briefing: Scotland has promised on violence against women - can it deliver?
- 100 ultramarathons in 100 days: former rugby pro hit by injury nears end of feat
- Properties in UK national parks command 24% premium, study finds

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

#wotd ithyphallic adj. 1. Of or relating to the phallus carried in the ancient festival of Bacchus. 2. Having the penis erect. Used of graphic and sculptural representations. 3. Lascivious; salacious. Spotted in "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler.

Photo of page of book. Text reads:

"Melissa was beginning to slip the tether. She’d just taught me a word and then made me promise not to ever say it to our parents. The word was ithyphallic. Years later, if ithyphallic had come up on the SATs, I'd have been all over it, but no such luck. It’s not really a very useful word."

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

Italian email host loses .org domain after being classified by the US Govt as "terrorists". Our primary home domain is the-hug.org and that's where our personal email addresses are. Hmmm ... old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/…

Post from reddit sub /r/sysadmin:

Italian email host loses org domain after being classified by
the US Govt as terrorists”

Rubio Uses Terrorism Law To Ban Secure Email Service

hitps/ireason.com/2026108/27/rubio-uses terrorism-law-to-ban-
secure-email-service/t)

An Italian militant organization "Autistici/lnventati" has been classified as a "terrorist organization” by the US government for providing “untraceable” email hosting to Anifa groups. As a result of the designation, the organization's domain auistici.org has been suspended.

As mentioned in the linked article:

> It may also allow the U.S. government to seize the autistici.org domain name. The U.S. government has long argued that, because the registries for .com and .org domains are located on American soil, itis illegal to host websites for organizations under U.S. economic sanctions.

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Liam Proven @lproven.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

RT @brianoneill.bsky.social Honestly, if this somehow wrecks Mar-a-Lago a lot of long-held beliefs I have about the afterlife will be hastily reconsidered.

Southern Maryland Weather Center
@SOMDWXCENTER

Hurricane Dolly now has a high chance of forming in the Tropical Atlantic.

In an unbelievable coincidence, Dolly is the next name on the Atlantic hurricane list, and country music legend Dolly Parton passed away today at age 80 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Invest 96L currently has a 70% chance of development as it moves across the Tropical Atlantic.

If this system becomes a tropical storm, it will be named Dolly.

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David Gerard @davidgerard.circumstances.run.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026

in 0% surprising news, the story of moving a cable for Dobby's grave turns out to be *completely made up bollocks* to fill a space in the papers in August Dan Davies went looking backofmind.substack.com/p/chortle-o…

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2026

At least after last night I could do my morning prayers correctly attired for a change... #pastafarian

Man with beard wears colander on his head

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

Now wondering if a trip to, say, Gairloch is worth the extra 1% for #eclipse2026 ... probably not but it might make a nice day out anyway .

Map from MetO showing percentage eclipse and peak time for locations across the British Isles. Essentially you get more the further WSW you go so SW Ireland is 96-98% but Nairn will be roughly 90.5% and Gairloch 91.5%

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

"[...] One of my coworkers, however, is a HUGE pain in the ass. "He will not stop using Microsoft Co Pilot for every. Single. Thing. "I ask him a question that I expect a single sentence for in response? He replies with paragraphs of slop that don’t even address what I’m asking. We need to […]

mastodon.scot

Original post on mastodon.scot

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Image: In a childrens library, a small boy contentedly reads a small picture book, while an angry-looking small girl storms past, carrying a very heavy book.

Caption:
Unfortunately for Charlotte, the adjudication committee decides that, for the purposes of the under-nines summer reading challenge, the six volumes of proust's 'in search of lost time' is considered to be one single narrative, whereas each of Roger hargreaves' mister men' books is a distinct work, thereby awarding the library's 'top reader' sticker to her brother Toby.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating the obvious. "At first Ford formed a theory to account for this human behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths seize up […]

mastodon.scot

Original post on mastodon.scot

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Brian M Milton @munchkinstein.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

The council have put up some new signage round us which, as my wife points out, may be unfortunately correct.

A red triangle showing an elderly couple. Underneath, a sign saying "Elderly people". Underneath again, a sign saying "Crematorium" with an arrow pointing ahead which, unfortunately, points directly at the elderly people signs.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

Came across this over on reddit. It's a page of very high speed photos of atomic bombs milliseconds after detonation. Lots more in the link but this is Priscilla (37 kt). It was held 700 feet aloft by a balloon with steel cable mooring. The ‘rope trick’ spikes […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

A grey sphere with white dots on the surface against a dark background. Three light spear heads are sticking out from the sphere.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2026

RE: mas.to/@pauls_trips/116952877314802… I'm off on an adventure a week today. If you want to see how it goes then follow me on my new account especially for holiday wibblings. Or not.

mas.to

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2026

This was made twelve years ago for the fiftieth anniversary of #DoctorWho but I only just came across it. I think it's rather well done. TL;DW A-ha's 'Take on Me' video reworked with a Doctor Who themed animation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVUCv6q5Lg

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

I'm buying a new car and as part of the money laundering rules the dealer wanted me to prove my identity via a link on a third party web site. That in turn involved them wanting to take a photo of my driving licence. Oh, and it couldn't do it via Samsung browser, only Chrome. At the point where […]

mastodon.scot

Original post on mastodon.scot

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

I was doing yesterday's Gruaniad crossword and needed a list of US states with four letter names. This was the first hit I got from a web search. The "5 US States With Four Letters (2026)" are apparently Iowa, Ohio, Utah, Maine, and Idaho ... Clearly #AIslop […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

Screen grab:

Why Some U.S. States Have Short Names

Most US. states derive their names [...] a select few have short and
simple names consisting of just four letters.

These states are:

* lowa
* Ohio
* Utah
* Maine
* Idaho

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 10/07/2026

Not that I would normally encourage you to visit the Daily Fail web site but there's a poll there in which you may choose to vote. www.dailymail.com/news/article-1596…

Poll: Who would you vote for in the Clacton by-election?

- Nigel Farage 15% 3525
- Count Binface 76% 18362 votes
- It's all a waste of time and money 10% 2321 votes

24208 votes. 76% of others agreed with you.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2026

Just finished watching season one of 'Sugar' on #AppleTV. Beautifully crafted and shot, with a twist which is glorious in its originality. Colin Farrell is superb and there's a very strong supporting cast (not least the dogs and the car). Recommended.

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Paul Oldham 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 💛 🇺🇦 @tallpaul.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

I've just updated the #Ghost server running on my Raspberry Pi from version 5 to version 6 (which has been out for a while but, you know, busy). Remarkably painless as Ghost have documented it well at -- docs.ghost.org/update Story of the original […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]

A Raspberry Pi 4 model B, essentially a small PCB pretty much completely covered with a heatsink with a dual line of pins down the left edge. A red LED is lit on the front edge, a power cable plug can be seen on the right, and there's a yellow CAT6 cable plugged in at the back.

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Troed Sångberg @troed.swecyb.com.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2026

Did you know that Microsoft applied for a permit for a warehouse in southern Sweden - and once they had built the "warehouse" they declared they were going to host a datacenter there with diesel backup generators? I mean, we hear this happening all the time and so let's hate on data centers […]

swecyb.com

Original post on swecyb.com

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