I always have a little chuckle at 13:37. It's one of those times that I irrationally feel I see more often than any other time, but it's just that I notice that specific set of numbers more than any other... or maybe I check the time at exactly the same point each day because my body clock is 1337!

The concern about digital media compatibility and longevity is definitely valid. But even in the unlikely event that all electronics simultaneously went kaput, the knowledge to recreate working systems, as well as the materials, are still going to be there. Also, the average person has more knowledge than even just 200 years ago, not too mention the fact there is still more print media around than then too.

Yes our current global data footprint could take a massive hit, and would feel like a huge step back, but it's still going to be comparatively huge compared to any other time in history. Not so much going back to the stone age as going back to the 1980s.

Information his always degraded over time. Some being lost, some being made obsolete, some evolving (like culture). I think given our short term digital experience as a species we just find it a bit of existential crisis to view our digital data as having a shelf life too.

Snowball throwing was banned because a nephew of a friend of a friend of a teacher was supposedly blinded by one. Same school had an assembly that informed us that listening to heavy metal would make us want to kill our friends.

For an IRL example... I explained April Fools Day to my 4 year old kid this morning for the first time. His first instinct was to wrap a piece of Lego in foil and have me write CHOC on it, then leave it outside the bedroom door for my wife (who was having a lie in). I think he gets it!

Thank you! I'll be breaking this one out at the in-laws in about an hour

I would rather they make money from advertising their own pretty awesome services than from advertising unsustainable (environmentally, but also unsustainable for the fucking soul!) bullshit via blood sucking multinational tech companies that prey on the masses with whatever data they can automatically dig up on you. The revenue Proton makes from converting free customers to paid allows them to grow a freely available service that is a user-friendly and is a technical rival of the surveillance capitalists.

My take is:

• If you're the sort of person that is convinced your requirements need some custom covert ops pagan voodoo self hosted data center in an old cold war era bunker, don't let me stop you. You crack right on mate and good luck (sounds like you need it!).
• If you want the sorts of services Proton provides, but don't want to be fucked, then Proton are a good shout.
• If you can afford it, pay for it. It makes the experience smoother and keeps a relatively small but decent company going in an ocean of massive cunts.
• If you can't afford it and don't want to use the free version of Proton, I hear Google and Microsoft will happily buy your soul and sell your data.

I'm more concerned that streaming platform algorithms prioritise passive listening (maybe not more concerned... I'm not sure how concern is quantified). It goes against their business model to risk serving users music that might actually push, and thus potentially expand, their taste. Music that is challenging may cause a user to stop listening. Better for the auto play algorithm to serve up safe bets, homogenising the general popular music gene pool. Like serving endless Big Macs in case tom yum is too spicy or lamb shoulder is too rich. As a result, the way to find success in the era of streaming platforms is to play G-D-Em-C and sing about the boy/girl you like/liked. This causes a feedback loop where bland music leads to bland tastes, which leads to bland music...

Solidworks - A reliable FOSS 3D CAD package would be amazing... Parametric Blender? Photoshop/Illustrator - I know how to do 50% of what I need to in GIMP/Inkscape, but I lean on Adobe usually!

Not my wife

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the person who came up with the name Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors revealed their idea. I've got an image of someone sitting on their hands, eyes wide and shaking slightly as their desire to share it tries to burst out of them!

When I was about 16 I was walking past a nightclub as some guys were packing up a van outside. One of them called out to me and started telling me a story about how they were fitting out the club with a new sound system and had some surplus speakers. They asked if I wanted to take them off their hands. Really, I wanted to go and research them first, but this was in the olden days before the entire internet was in your pocket. They showed me the brochure and manual, I gave them £200 cash, and they drove me home in the van with the speakers. On the journey I started to get suspicious and got them to drop me a few roads over from my actual house. Lugged the speakers home by hand, started researching them and found it was a common scam. The units themselves were totally fake and from what others had said were a fire hazard. Police weren't interested as I had given the money freely. I had a buddy take them to the dump in his van. I spent quite a while researching who was behind it and ended up with the details of the "company" manufacturing the units in a workshop in London. I then spent a few weeks having fun prank calling them with various soundboards (Arnie was the best!). I made my peace with the whole scenario by framing it as an overpriced, but entertaining subscription to a guilt-free prank call experience.

I don't care how polished a deepfake it might end up being... nobody would believe something that batshit.