The authors of the Signal messaging system are acting as useful idiots for state security and police services: while they are almost certainly not working for them or funded by them, what they are doing is extremely convenient for them.

Once upon a time, when the world was younger, a young and rather foolish physics student used to debug his FORTRAN programs using printed backtraces.

Richard Stallman (RMS) is a famous hacker who wrote Emacs and founded the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project. He is an important figure in the history of free software. He is also someone whose behaviour towards women has been appalling and who believed, for a long time, that sex with children was not harmful: he is someone who should have no place in the present or future of free software, at all. And yet he is vociferously defended by a significant number of free software advocates: this says exactly what you think about them.

After WhatsApp’s threatened change to their terms of service, which may allow them to leak information to Facebook, many people are moving to Signal, a tool which purports to be more secure. If you want security which is not at least partly theatrical you should not use Signal.

Or: things you do to distract yourself from watching an attempted fascist coup.

Or: how many people will be needed to vaccinate enough people? How many people will keep on being needed?

Or: should you keep that tape?

It is the Abomination of Desolation, not seen by prophecy far off in some fabulous future, nor remembered from terrible ages by the aid of papyrus and stone, but fallen on our own century, on the homes of folk like ourselves: common things that we knew are become the relics of bygone days. It is our own time that has ended in blood and broken bricks.

Or: you can’t buy history, however much money you have.

Or, a theory about the mess we’re in.