I naively thought that, now that GDPR Day is here, we might see a reduction in annoying cookie popups. (I don’t know why I thought that; I was probably just being hopeful.) But it’s got worse Much worse. Giant, screen-covering popups; “Accept” buttons that don’t work. Oh dear.

This is a form of GDPR email I haven’t seen before (and I’ve seen a lot):

With new data protection rules known as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) effective 25th May 2018, we are reaching out to existing customers to notify them that RCP Parking Ltd will be unsubscribing all existing customers from our promotional communications.
…
RCP Parking Ltd has determined that previously subscribed customers were not subscribed in a manner compliant with the new GDPR regulation.

Refreshingly honest.

The Book of Dust vol 1: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (Books 2018, 12)

The first volume in Pullman’s “equel” trilogy: part prequel, part sequel, to His Dark Materials. This one is pure prequel, about trying to protect baby Lyra from the forces of the Magisterium.

If you’re already a fan, you’ll want to read this. It’s a real page-turner. If you’re not already a fan, don’t start here, obviously. You’re looking for Northern Lights.

Which I might be just about to start rereading, because that’s what finishing this one makes me want to do.

Regarding Eurovision: I sort of understand why you can’t vote for your own country. Though if you could, would the most populous country automatically win? Or the country with the biggest LGBTQ community? I don’t think so. People would still vote for a song they liked. But it would be interesting to try it one year.

But more importantly: why can people in the UK not vote by text? Seems weirdly old-fashioned.

It’s been a 24-hour rollercoaster for my daughter (and all of us) as Brooklyn Nine-Nine has now been picked up by NBC. Phew.

Duplex Duplicity?

In A Little Duplex Skepticism, John Gruber says what I’ve been thinking about the Google Duplex demo:

It’s totally credible that Google would be the first to achieve something like Duplex, but the fact that all they did — as far as I’ve seen — was play a recording just seems off. It feels like a con.

I’ve only heard a bit of the “booking a haircut“ recording on a podcast. I thought it sounded a) impressive if real, but b) very possibly fake.

That kind of technology will come, eventually; but are we that close to it today?

(If we are, then whether or not we want it to be used in the kind of way demonstrated, is a whole other question.)

Google, of course, gave no timelines, no suggestion of when such a feature might be available. Given that, it makes you wonder why they even bothered to demo it.

Until his morning I couldn’t have told you the name of Frightened Rabbit’s lead singer, though I like some of their music. Now Twitter tells me of Scott Hutchison’s tragic death.

All I can say is: if you find yourself in a dark place, please, talk to someone. Help is there.

My daughter has just told me that Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been cancelled. God damn it. In this golden age of television that we’re living through, it’s consistently the funniest thing out there. Never an episode goes by that we don’t have to pause and jump back because one or more of us (to be fair, usually me) were laughing so hard we missed the next line.

I hope they don’t leave on another end-of-season cliffhanger.

My Dock came back without me having to do anything. Very strange.

I’ve never seen this before: my iPhone’s dock is missing this morning. Everything else is working fine, though.