Make your Gmail more private

Proton, the Swiss encrypted and privacy-aware email service, now lets you read and reply to your Gmail emails from within Proton. If you’re looking to wean yourself off Gmail, or just curious about trying an alternative, this could be a good place to start: anyone you reply to will still receive your messages as Gmail, …

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Connected to the ATmosphere

Clouds seen from above with bright sunlight shining across the scene.

My social media hangout of choice is Bluesky – now, this website talks to it. I think. WordPress have released an ATmosphere plugin allowing me to post directly to Bluesky from here, and maybe even suck comments back in, using the protocol Bluesky is built on. I, er, think that’s good?

Settled

A person reclines in a chair, bathed in the glow of a television set, with a lit lamp behind them — captured in black and white in an old Maxell advert. The scene suggests they're being pushed back in their chair by the sound.

We’ve moved a lot, over the years. A lot. I don’t think I’ve been settled in one place for more than a few years since I left home. It’s been the same for H as a forces child. You develop rituals that tell you when you’ve settled in. Maybe it’s the last of the packing …

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Balloons

A black and white photograph, apparently from the early 20th century, showing a person sitting at a desk writing, wearing a large padded helmet that completely encases their head. The helmet has small goggles over the eyes and a breathing apparatus over the mouth, connected by a tube to a gas cylinder on the left. A desk clock, telephone, and other office items are visible on the desk.

…results suggest that people do flit from one task to another more frequently than they did in previous decades, and that this switching is often detrimental to performance. But there is little evidence that the brain’s fundamental ability to concentrate has been impaired. This suggests that if we can shut down the distractions of our …

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One night in the life of a bowl of dog food

A black and white nighttime photo of a hedgehog near a bowl of dog food.

I put a camera out last night with some of the dog’s unwanted food (high quality, expensive stuff, turns out she’s happy with cheaper). Anyway, others appreciated it, and it was great to see one of our spiky buddies around.