Eurobloat #0140 • December 2021
The month Brussels labelled gas and nuclear green over the Christmas holidays so nobody could object, drafted an EU-wide tax, and handed out a medal to itself for caring.
Eurobloat
2021
91 posts
Reflecting on the year 2021
Reflection on the year 2021, checking progress of the goals, and some numbers.
Journal
Eurobloat #0139 • November 2021
The month Brussels docked a million euros a day from a member state, upheld a billion-euro penalty on a search engine, and watched its open border get prised open by a dictator with a stack of tourist visas.
Eurobloat
Merry Christmas
Christmas brings perspective on the passing years. The birth of Christ remains central to everything.
Christianity
Hanna
Hanna is a British-American action thriller series. It aired on Amazon Prime Video from 29 March 2019 to 24 November 2021. David Farr created it, based on the 2011 film of the same name. Esmé Creed-Miles plays Hanna, a teenage girl raised in a remote forest by her father to be a skilled fighter.
TV Series
Pure Chants by Gregorian
Gregorian's 2021 album, a calm set of choral arrangements blending sacred chant with familiar melodies for quiet listening.
Music
Monthly update #0379 • November 2021
Monthly update 379 • November 2021 • 2021-11-01 - 2021-11-30
Monthly Updates
Privacy Roundup #0184 • November 2021
November 2021 was defined by a reckoning over commercial spyware and facial recognition, set against a run of damaging corporate breaches.
Privacy
Better Off Dead by Lee Child
Better Off Dead, co-authored with Andrew Child, has Reacher searching for a missing twin in a desert town, clashing with a bomber plotting deadly attacks.
Books
Eurobloat #0138 • October 2021
October 2021 was the month Brussels invoiced a member state a million euros a day for the crime of having its own constitutional court, while the Parliament deplored, the Commission sermonised and the gas bills soared.
Eurobloat
Asterix and the Griffin by Jean-Yves Ferri
It is the thirty-ninth book in the Asterix series. The Gauls travel east to the frozen lands of the Sarmatians. They must protect a legendary griffin from Roman capture.
Books
Monthly update #0378 • October 2021
Monthly update 378 • October 2021 • 2021-10-01 - 2021-10-31
Monthly Updates
These Same Skies by Hillsong Worship
Hillsong Worship's 2021 album, a warm set of congregational songs about presence and freedom, recorded in California.
Music
Privacy Roundup #0183 • October 2021
October 2021 paired enormous leaks and breaches with a fresh wave of pushback against surveillance, from the Pandora Papers and the Twitch dump to Europe's vote against facial recognition.
Privacy
Curves and Surfaces
From fonts to animated movies, curves and surfaces constitute fundamental building blocks of many geometrical designs.
Gems
What is micactivityd?
If you see micactivityd running on your Mac, here is what this microphone activity monitoring process does.
Mac
Introducing Swift Distributed Actors
Apple announced Swift Distributed Actors, a new open-source package for server-side Swift that provides a complete cluster library for the experimental distributed actor language feature, released early to gather community feedback.
Development
Eurobloat #0137 • September 2021
Brussels spent September deciding which hole your phone charges through, building a new health super-agency, borrowing billions, and being blindsided by its own allies. More Europe, as ever, was the answer to everything.
Eurobloat
Music of the Spheres by Coldplay
Coldplay's bright 2021 concept album, a glossy pop journey through an imagined solar system, anchored by My Universe.
Music
Swift-DocC is Now Open Source
Apple introduced Swift-DocC at WWDC21 as a new documentation compiler for Swift frameworks and packages, now released as open source with support for macOS and Linux.
Development
What is audioanalyticsd?
If you see audioanalyticsd running on your Mac, here is what this sound recognition process does.
Mac
Privacy Roundup #0182 • September 2021
September 2021 paired spyware revelations and Apple's retreat on phone scanning with record European fines and a long run of breach disclosures.
Privacy
Stand by Newsboys
Newsboys' bright 2021 album, an anthemic call to hold firm in faith, full of big hooks and plain encouragement.
Music
Monthly update #0377 • September 2021
Monthly update 377 • September 2021 • 2021-09-01 - 2021-09-30
Monthly Updates
Sunsetting SecKey
Unfortunately the time has come to say goodbye to SecKey. It served us all for almost 4 years. In that time I enjoyed the feedback you have given and also the donations given as a sign of appreciation.
Projects