February Pieces Of My Mind #1

• Heard a talk by a senior policeman involved in the big drug gang take-down after the French military cracked Encrochat encryption in 2020. And it seems to me that not only was this technological breakthrough necessary for the police’s success. Technology is in fact necessary for the intricate day to day operations of a successful crime gang. In other words, it’s not that the police were lucky that the gang chose to use mobile phones. The gang could not have chosen to operate without them.
• Bought a set of pyjamas, and months later an ancient memory surfaces: I used to keep my jammies under my pillow.
• There should be a wizard named Glyph Rychard.
• We all know that you can’t pray away the gay. But more importantly: can you gay away the pray?
• The study of Italian 60s and 70s horror-crime cinema is known as giallogy.
• Was I the only one who thought that the excellent phrase “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair” was original with P.J. Harvey in 1992?
• Pope Francis did something good: proclaimed that anti-gay legislation is sinful. There are definitely jurisdictions where a) the Pope’s opinion, b) the concept of “sin” are important.
• I was a young dad (26). I’m not young anymore. But something struck me: I’m still young in relation to my kids’ age. A lot of dads retire around the time their youngest kid moves out. Jrette is ready to move out when I still have 20 years left of my working life.
• Dammit, I need to start buying gig tickets farther in advance. Missed out on both Goat and King Gizzard. /-:
• Movie: The Apartment (1960). Underling in a big office lends his apartment several nights a week to company executives so they can see their mistresses there. Until he gets involved himself with one of the young women. Grade: great!
• I have never displayed a poster at a conference. From my first international conference at age 24, I have always been speaking.
• I’m endowing a big research institute to focus on the detailed study and classification of crashed computers. Exactly what are they doing?
• Let’s all agree that March is a month of spring. In that case, there’s only four weeks left of this winter. OK? Please?
• A reenactor very kindly called me generous with my time as a scholar. I don’t think he realises that I’m generous in the same way that Jehovah’s Witnesses are generous with Watchtower Magazine. 999 out of a 1000 passersby would much prefer not to talk about either Jesus OR the Vendel Period.
• Failed to spot the comet with hiking binoculars, but had a nice look at the Orion nebula and the Pleiades.
• I am a dwarf and I’m digging a hole / Diggy, diggy hole
• There’s a pork futures warehouse in Pratchett’s Discworld. It is used to store potential future pork until it instantiates.

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