Feedback on an article about why a conspiracy theory about the Titanic is bullshit. “Uhh, it’s not a theory, it’s a story” I fucking hate the Internet.

Here is an article I wrote about the conspiracy theory that the sinking of the Titanic was an elaborate insurance job.

Today I had another meeting with Alice and Bob. I assume it was encrypted. This is, of course, the same joke I made last time I had a meeting with Alice and Bob. But if it’s going to pop up in my head every time, I don’t see why I should live with that alone.

The Doctor’s conversation with Davros in Remembrance of the Daleks is remarkably concerned with erectile dysfunction.

Pleased to share the final full line up for 2025.ffconf.org It's a day that you'll come away from inspired and full of ideas.

I won't believe the Doctor Who series 10 soundtrack news until that email from Silva Screen hits my inbox...

Oh dear what a shock I never saw this coming at all.

Software people! Samsung devices have this huge custom time input widget. It looks like even Chrome on Samsung uses this time picker. Can this be disabled? appearance: none seems to be ignored.

RTD must go, if true.

Kinda fitting that “bro”mine is toxic, volatile, and highly dangerous.

Kinda fitting that “bro”mine is toxic, volatile, and highly dangerous.

Off to the great candlelight supper in the sky.

So close to 1 million views on this! My (hot) wife keeps checking in on it and if it crosses that threshold then I'll do a fun live stream with an exciting announcement 👀 youtu.be/Fs6q3FDFlFc

Once again, it’s clear the government does not understand what it is asking for. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Big Digital ID protests in Liverpool. I am happy about this. Anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist, and climate change denier Piers Corbyn speaking at that protest. Less happy about this.

Kirk: The Klingons don’t take prisoners, Saavik. Kruge (about 2 weeks later): I want prisoners!

A possibly controversial take on Star Trek. Light Saturday night thoughts. I watched Star Trek III today. And despite the “odd numbered films are bad” rule I really enjoyed it. But what’s interesting about ST3 is that it is a very emotional, character driven film.

How about, instead of shipping CSS resets, we could have a meta tag to disapply the user agent style sheet?

Every newspaper headline should be “Labour to deny citizens the right to work”

Fucking authoritarian bullshit.

It’s another one of those times where it becomes abundantly clear that parliament is full of lawyers and journalists, and not a lot by the way of software engineers. They do not understand the problems, or the solutions they propose.

The UK government's technology policies are ridiculous. Online Safety Act; making people use proprietary software to file tax; trying to force Apple to backdoor their messaging; frotting Big Tech, and getting moist for "A.I.", and now Digital ID.

Papers, please.

Here is an idea to solve the small boats. Bear with me, it gets complicated. Strap in. How about: we provide safe routes for asylum seekers to come here and settle? Bananas, I know.

They’re not nazis though. It was a Roman salute.

Good god, iOS 26 is buggy.

Buy ANY book from Bookshop.org today, September 24, and you could win a £250 digital gift card! Every sale supports independent bookshops and if you buy from the Fabulous Folklore Bookshop, you help support the Fabulous Folklore podcast too uk.bookshop.org/shop/fabulou...

I’m watching the TNG story Contagion. And chuckling to myself remembering my friend Duncan when we were 13 insisting it was pronounced “con-taggion”

What are you up to today? #qedcon

From me, in The Skeptic today. What we call “the placebo effect” is a hotch-potch of various statistical effects, conditioning, biases, errors, and other cruft. If we account for those, is there any “placebo effect” left?

Fuck me. And also just this second remembered there was a Ready Brek ad based on it too.

I have just remembered the song Nellie the Elephant was a thing.

Thought I would try Deezer and see what their podcasting features are like. Except I can’t because you’re locked into a sign up flow until you choose 10 musical artists you like.

GenV/The Boys is so much harder to watch than it was a few years ago.

Ohhh okay. Cipher is Jordan Peterson.

Speaking of talks, I’ve just started writing two new conferences talks for web developers. The first is tentatively titled “Who’s Afraid of a Binary File?”, and aims to demystify binary formats like JPEG which developers often treat as scary and opaque.

The Casa. Thursday night. 7.30pm. I will be giving a talk on Jack the Ripper and whether new evidence proves his identity. (Spoiler: the answer is not yes) Free to attend, but voluntary donations welcome. www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/talks/the-sh... Be there! I will.

I tell you what, Magnum have done well in managing to persuade people that a choc-ice is somehow a luxury item.

The flush on the downstairs loo is a bit dodgy at the moment. Need to get it looked at. Without putting too fine a point on it, I can suddenly understand where the Denton’s were coming from.

So. Shearsmith is doing Taskmaster dressed as Withnail, right?

Today I will be mostly listening to the Back to the Future soundtrack

Anyone who takes pictures at QED. I am after a good image of the organising team, ideally front-on. Can you help? DM

I am 100% confident that this is ragebait that has been fallen for hook, line, and sinker www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-n...

Shit.

Fuck me. The Guardian doing “consent or pay” now.

I never saw Karaoke and Cold Lazarus when they aired. I tried but just didn’t get it; I was probably too young. But I figured why the fuck not, I’ll give them a shot again. And I fully did not expect Albert Finney’s Dalek impersonation 15 minutes into episode 1!

Mitch Benn’s “This Ain’t your Country Any More” was always great, but it’s got a real fucking bite to it listening to it today.

What do you call a magician that’s lost his magic? Ian