Artificial authorship: Why I’m betting my blog on ChatGPT’s wit

In a groundbreaking move that has both the media industry and my two loyal readers reeling, I, John Band, have decided to embrace the inevitable future. With a nod to my past adventures in experimenting with AI text generators like Grover and Transformer, I've chosen to leapfrog into a new era. Henceforth, all content on … Continue reading Artificial authorship: Why I’m betting my blog on ChatGPT’s wit

On moving to SSL, infinite loops, and the downright impossible

Those of you who pay attention to such things (and, realistically, most of the people who read this blog are tremendous nerds about one thing or another) may have noticed the exciting green secure HTTP padlock to the left of the URL in their browser bar. Yes, we're now officially just as secure as a … Continue reading On moving to SSL, infinite loops, and the downright impossible

I have ruined the weird sidebar shape

I'm not saying blogging is obsolete, just that I've had a lot of outlets for my views lately that aren't here, and also everything* has been sufficiently terrible that I'm not sure I want to publicly express some of the views, etc etc. But I try and do this sort of thing at least once … Continue reading I have ruined the weird sidebar shape

Dropping the dynamic, because everything is awful

Because I am a naive optimist, when I migrated various defunct blog archives from elsewhere to here, I assumed that running them on auto-updated WordPress would be fine. This was a stupid move. Not specifically because WordPress is bad, but because everything is bad, and hacking is easy. And, of course, happened. After several months … Continue reading Dropping the dynamic, because everything is awful

Spot the difference competition

Pictured: 1) Vivian James, an embarrassing stereotype of outdated social attitudes and behaviours; 2) Vivian James, an Australian writer. If you've no idea what I'm talking about, then you've probably missed #gamergate, the latest example of of socially inadequate men attempting to drive women out of 'their' space of video gaming. Here is an excellent … Continue reading Spot the difference competition

Twitter won’t kill the general feed, cos that’d kill Twitter

Long-time Twitter users, myself included, value it mostly for the general feed (everyone you follow, live and in chronological order) and the ability to replicate the general feed model for specific lists you've made of people you follow and for specific search terms and hashtags. At the same time, Twitter is a confusing experience for … Continue reading Twitter won’t kill the general feed, cos that’d kill Twitter

Spiritus in coelum

Ad me quiescam et requiescent cum moriar Qui optimus in locum ire Mori cum cubabo Spiritus in coelum ascendere ad Spiritus in coelum ascendere ad Ibi ego ire cum moriar Ad me quiescam et requiescent cum moriar Qui optimus in locum ire Scio te oportet praeparare Obtinuit amicus Iesu Ut scias, cum morieris Ille agnus … Continue reading Spiritus in coelum

CBA’s Netbank platform was never vulnerable to Heartbleed

The suggestion has been doing the rounds, at least at the more paranoid/self-fancying end of the technology spectrum, that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)'s Netbank online banking platform might have been vulnerable to the Heartbleed vulnerability. TL/DR: it wasn't. Heartbleed only hit sites that use certain versions of the OpenSSL secure toolkit, with its … Continue reading CBA’s Netbank platform was never vulnerable to Heartbleed

Content filtering is stupid, but you are stupider

There's been masses and masses of fuss over the last couple of days about the implementation of opt-out content filtering for porn in the UK. As everyone sensible argued in great detail at the time the PM promised it following a Massive Stupid Media Panic, content filtering is pointless: it's easy to bypass, provides a … Continue reading Content filtering is stupid, but you are stupider

Pharma hackers gonna pharma hack, 2013 edition

I was Googling for an old Banditry post yesterday, as part of a discussion about that new 'people lie about their drinking' study. Eventually I found it, only to discover that I'd linked to a (London) Times article, and that therefore the paywall had ruined the whole thing (curiously, even though the Times now shows … Continue reading Pharma hackers gonna pharma hack, 2013 edition