Twitter is in the news again with another security breach in which 235 million users’ email addresses, phone numbers, and Twitter handles were exposed. These seems like a good opportunity to talk about what you can / should do to protect yourself if you need to maintain anonymity online. The basic rule is this: if… Read More »
Long-time readers of my blog will know that I am obsessed with backups and with keeping control over data that belongs to me. For example, in additional to a comprehensive backup system I built myself, I have an archive of (legally obtained) music files and movies because I don’t trust any of the cloud music… Read More »
Regarding my comics aggregator, three updates effective January 1, 2023: For those who don’t know what I’m talking about…
I will now tell you how to cook amazing home-fried potatoes, which are the perfect breakfast food, at least for people who don’t eat bacon (or so I’m told, seeing as how I don’t eat bacon). Equipment you need: Ingredients you need: Steps:
Several years ago, I decided I needed to lose weight. Here’s what worked for me (I went from 170 to 130 pounds, and I’ve kept off the weight). Maybe it’ll work for you as well. First, a word of warning: there are good reasons to want to lose weight, but there are also bad reasons,… Read More »
[UPDATE: As of May 26, 2025, I don’t think the instructions on this page work anymore, because I believe Twitter/X has blocked archive.org from archiving tweets.] I’m all done with Twitter, but I also didn’t want to just delete my account and remove over a decade of content that I created from the internet. I’m… Read More »
My health insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, currently uses Express Scripts as its mail-order pharmacy. They’re switching to CVS Caremark as of January 1, 2023, which as you’ll see from below is probably a good thing. However, if your insurance company is still using Express Scripts, then I to encourage you to… Read More »
I had a Visa card issued by Elan Financial Services branded through my bank (Eastern Bank). Elan is consistently mediocre. Their web site looks and works like it was built 20 years ago. Their monthly statements tell you how much “bonus” cash back you earned but don’t tell you which transactions fall into which bonus… Read More »
A progressive organization which I have supported philosophically and financially in the past recently sent me an invitation to an in-person holiday party. I wrote back and told them how disappointed I was with their decision to do that and that they had permanently tarnished their reputation in my eyes. They did not respond. A… Read More »
The open-source package Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme, or “ssss” for short, allows a relatively short secret, for example, a password or passphrase, to be split into a specified number of shares in a way that allows the entire secret to be reconstructed from only a subset of the shares. For example, you can split a… Read More »