I wonder if people might struggle less with computer security if we employed metaphors for previous technology. People have attempted to get videos off the internet, showing a clear misunderstanding how how computers work. If they thought in terms of many people photocopying a picture, I'm sure they would understand …

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The Guardian informs me that Suella Braverman has resigned, stating: Earlier today, I sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague as part of policy engagement, and with the aim of garnering support for government policy on migration. This constitutes a technical infringement of …

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Plato's Republic can come across as naïve, and I find that fact tragic. Broadly, the book climaxes with a plan to make a state ruled by Philosopher Aristocrats. While Plato calls these rulers "Philosophers", we shouldn't picture modern Philosophy students, but academics. I find the failure tragic because all rulers - …

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I'm getting real sick of the 'I am not a lawyer' everywhere. Everyone's not a lawyer, nobody's not a doctor. I get that people think their suggestions may have legal consequences. I don't think mine will though. I'm an internet lawyer - go murder someone, it'll be fine. This is legal advice. I just can't picture …

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Little things annoy me that nobody else in the world could possibly care about. One of them is E-Bay's message at the end of every sale: "You have bid £3.40 for the item. Hope you win". Who hopes I win? E-Bay the corporation? The browser? Clearly I'm the only one inferring meaning here, so maybe I mean it, but I'm not …

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My basic education included 11 years of French classes, and I don't know any more French than 'le chat'. Those lessons could hardly have failed harder in Britain's schools. I recall the counting in Maths, and most people can square something, and understand what, roughly, Maths can do. I still read well, so evidently …

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1 When you're eating bacon... 2 3 4 I don't each bacon. 5 6 7 Right, but when someone eats bacon... I find this sort of thing happening routinely. I suspect everyone else feels more comfortable with waiting for the meaning of a sentence to emerge later. Whatever happened to saying 'one', as short for 'someone'? It …

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We're not all in power, by definition. (Ricky Gervais) Pouring the rest of my soup into a Tupperware container, my girlfriend-at-the-time asked me to stop. "That won't fit", she said. "Obviously it will", I replied, pointing to the remainder of the pot. And it did, with a millimetre to spare. "Oh, you're one of those …

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I like half-listening to brainless YouTube videos. A good chunk of people complaining about the world dumbing with YouTube click-bait no doubt saw the kind of nonsense I watch and thought 'the BBC showed much more enlightening and informative content than this modern drivel'. This comparison doesn't work. We shouldn't …

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Native English speakers commonly muck-up every sentence thrown at them in a way one doesn't normally find with Spaniards, Serbs, Finnish, or Germans. This cannot come from the same reasons that few Europeans can pronounce Cantonese words - that we simply don't have those sounds. We have 'con', but cannot say 'pivo'. …

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