microblog
In Clapham for the BSFA/SFF minicon and AGMs. Signal v poor. Are there no cell towers south of the river?
I can think of only one reason to take refugee children away from their parents at a border, other than sheer cruelty. That is to scare other families, so they won’t try to reach your country.
There’s word we use for causing fear for political ends: that word is terrorism.
You know those pocket computers we all carry? Will we ever stop calling them “phones,” do you think? When did you last make a phone call on yours? And even if the answer is “today,” is that the main thing you use it for?
Well, London’s Micro.blog meetup was… let’s say, lightly attended. [@johnphilpin](https://micro.blog/johnphilpin) has the photo. Good time, though, if not WWDC-level.
New iPad Keyboard
My iPad’s Smart Keyboard broke, and was out of warranty, so I thought I’d try the Logitech (or “Logi”, as they now call themselves) Create Keyboard. Backlit and everything. No bad.
I do (mostly) like the keyboard itself, I think. Certainly I should be able to get used to it quite quickly. But I’m not loving the whole package: as I feared it might, it makes the iPad comparatively bulky.
I think I’ll keep it, though, and see how I get on. I may, for example, only take it out with me if I think I’ll definitely use it.
On the other hand, that could get annoying: the best X is the one you have with you, after all. And it was using the Smart Keyboard (and having the long commute down to Croydon with (more or less) guaranteed seating) that helped me to finish my novel last November.
Oh yeah, having a holder for the Apple Pencil is a nice addition.
Brix & The Extricated at All Points East.
Looking forward to Nick Cave, Patti Smith, etc at All Points East in Victoria Park today. They’re not keen on publishing the full lineup, but I finally found the clashfinder.
No major clashes except for Patti & St Vincent. But a bit of zigzagging between stages needed.
Oh no! Alarming email from “Apple Service”:
We have detect some problem with your account Apple,because was sign in from other IP.For the further informations please find the attachment file (PDF) and follow the intructions.
Not problem with my account Apple!
So, Micro.blog folk: we’re planning a meetup in London. It’s scheduled to kind of coincide with one that [@manton](https://micro.blog/manton) and others are having during WWDC in San José, but that’s not important, really.
What is Important is the date, time, and place: Tuesday the 5th of June, from around 6:30pm, at The Grenadier – 18 Wilton Row, Belgrave, SW1X 7NR. More details here.
So far attendance is looking a little light, so your presence is not just desired — it’s required
If you’re within striking distance of Central London, your Micro.blog community needs you.
We’re having a crazy silent, dry thunderstorm in London tonight.
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.
