Month: April 2015

Once More Unto etc. etc.

As news of Ryanair suffering a hacking attack of some sort which resulted in the loss of actual money broke, I wondered why the Costa Coffee Club story from a few days earlier hadn’t got wider pickup. Is there just a lack of media interest if there isn’t cash involved? It’s a very well-known high street brand, and access to the club required parting with quite a chunk of personal data –

The app-accessed club requires a fair amount of customers’ information, including names, emails, birth dates, phone numbers and physical addresses

This yet again illustrates the slack security around customer data shown by a range of surprising organisations. Presumably few people are kept awake worrying that their favourite coffee shop is leaking their personal information.

Not at the tipping point for public awareness / anger or interest quite yet.

Sunday Whatthehellany, Volume Three

This week’s documentary of the week from BBC Radio 4 is on the Shipping Forecast. Essential listening if you’ve ever been lulled to sleep by the forecast, or daydreamed yourself away to the faraway places conjured up by it.

Design + stealth + subterfuge + war = the story of the US Army’s ‘Ghost Army’ in World War II.

Sunday Whatthehellany, Week Two

For adventurous recipes, ask a supercomputer. Specifically, IBM’s Watson. Listen to the background above and  get your own nightmarish yet delicious suggestions from Watson here.

 

Two grown men watch and review Sex and The City 2 once a week, which really is a terrible idea. It is pretty entertaining though

Whilst you’re listening to those, you could do far worse than having a quick read of this, which is day-to-day reality for women on this planet.

Now you sit as close to the driver as possible but it sometimes means a split-second judgment call on whether the man in the seat beside your prospective seat looks like a weirdo. You wonder which seat is the safest. You text your friends to let them know you made the last bus.

‘Don’t go anywhere: Risk management for women’ by Stephanie Lord.

What can I say?

I haven’t gotten anything done. Oh well. My mind is like a bunch of nothing. Today was a total loss, but it’s not important. I’ve just been letting everything happen without me these days.

Current Mood: [Face] phlegmatic

(This entry was brought to you by a little bit of obscure Web history, the Brunching Shuttlecocks Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator. Lots more links to Shuttlecock stuff on MetaFilter.)

Sunday Whatthehellany

Some leisurely listening for a Sunday.

This digs a little deeper into the myth constructed around Rosie the Riveter,  brought back briefly into the public consciousness by Beyonce recently. Amongst other things covered is the tort of seduction, if you happen to be a fan of that patronising piece of law.

A look back at Twin Peaks and how it allowed David Lynch to become an unexpectedly influential part of American popular culture for more than a decade. Keep the entire Pacific Northwest weird.

 

If you listen to just one thing this weekend, make it this. No, seriously, just listen to it now. It’s about animals and people and conservation and the past and the future, awith a cracking musical accompaniment.

All 6 episodes of the BBC Radio 4 production of Terry Gilliam and Neil Gaiman’s book Good Omens have been broadcast. That means they’re available online for another twenty four days if you’re interested. I’ve only listened to the first one so far, but it sounds very good.