Slow Puncture   I’d use every one of them – each tiny symbol / sign – to ‘light up’ my words … and write eye-catching lines: the comma; the colon; the ellipsis; the slash; the question mark; the hyphen; the en and em dash.   In stanzas 1-2, it was all there on show (Was there nothing not used? The short answer: No!) But then I came to an unfortunate juncture: my punctuation, you see, got a slow puncture   and those small, helpful marks which let my words breathe and made me understood, all started to leave. Hyphens unhappened semi colons got missed apostrophes went awol in commaless lists.   “And what of the question marks Oh yes even those (while my brackets and speech marks forgot how to close When the last comma left there was nowhere to pause my words floated by in one endless clause   and no one could tell once the full stops departed where one sentence ended and another one started capitals absconded and meaning left too as the breaks between stanzas bowed then withdrew just like the line breaks then all sense gotblurred thelastthingtogowasthegapsbetweenwordsbrianbilston

Today’s poem is called ‘Slow Puncture’.

The good news is that CTR is about to get a spring back in its step!

Did baby boomers eat all the pies? John Lanchester on the truth about the generation gap It’s a grim time to be in your 20s, no doubt, but don’t blame it all on older people: being chopped up into ever smaller rivalries only serves the market

Good article from economist turned author John Lanchester on generational differences and the wealth gap.

www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

The irony is that if you block Linkedin's script from sending the data it has extracted from your browser it loops trying again and again and eventually gives up - in my testing - after 6,236 times - putting strain on my own CPU.

Screenshot of browsergate.eu. The headline reads "LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer" and the subhead says "Microsoft is running one of the largest corporate espionage operations in modern history.". It continues: "Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm. The user is never asked. Never told. LinkedIn’s privacy policy does not mention it. Because LinkedIn knows each user’s real name, employer, and job title, it is not searching anonymous visitors. It is searching identified people at identified companies. Millions of companies. Every day. All over the world. This is illegal and potentially a criminal offense in every jurisdiction we have examined."

I've seen this LinkedIn "BrowserGate" site posted a few places online. LinkedIn is "searching your computer"! It's a "mass breach of personal data"! It sounds illegal, and maybe it is, but you should know what this is really about, and who's behind it.

🧵

So to sum up:
- LinkedIn does browser fingerprinting, which is bad
- But they aren't "searching your computer", which is impossible
- This whole thing is a data harvesting company throwing a tantrum because LinkedIn blocked their scraping

German text, with one word partially obscured by a black bar. It's clear that the last letter is an E, and the bottom of the rest of the letters is visible as well.

And it sure looks like whatever that tool is called starts with a T and ends with an e. Hmmmmmm.

Lingfield! Yay!!!! At last!!! 🎂🥳🎉




wait..
it's not is it. 😢

Kei Truck Garden Contest - The Blissful Gardeners Garden Conservancy Fellow Roger Greenberg shared a fascinating story with me that I just had to share. Ever heard of the Kei Truck Garden Contest in Japan? It’s an annual event sponsored by the Japan ...

But i need a listicle of the top 10 Kei Truck Garden Contest winners...

You do to - you just don't know it yet...

www.theblissfulgardeners.com/kei-truck-ga...

I have a recuring To Do to remind me!

Monthly update to my Now page just done.
www.simoncox.com/now/

Chrome dev tools console screen showing 6,245 errors - 6236 of which are from one script being invalidated and it looping and looping and looping and looping etc.

Oh yes I recall that. Annoyingly witht this because I am stopping the script send any packets back, the Linkedin script is throwing a hissy fit and is looping 6,236 times before it gives up. Happens each time I refresh any linkedin page.

That's using CPU that I would rather it did not.

Have a read: browsergate.eu/executive-su...

and browsergate.eu/what-is-brow... - why do they need to know what religious extensions we are running?

The biggest category is Workflow and Planning - think what Salesforce can do with that info when they know companies utilise certain software.

I wish it were that simple!
I use Vivaldi for my personal browsing, that has levels of privacy. I also have Ghostery extension where you can block all sorts of nonsense. I use Little Snitch to see what packets are going out to who.
It's one level to be measuring visits but another to profile users.

That, and they have been bold enough to use Algerian font!

#WeAreNATO not US

But, but think of the children says the poster maker as the burn down the planet.

I do like the Betws-y-coed poster.

Chrome Dev tools showing a lot of blocked interactions from Linkedin - Ghostery is blocking them.

I think Ghostery has got my back on most of this though - lot going on with the Linkedin page thats its blocking.

Well that’s not a surprise theses days but it’s still disappointing:

browsergate.eu/how-it-works/

Thank you so much, Adrienne, for the opportunity and for supporting me along the way :)

It is yours now: theseocommunity.com/resources/bl...

I collaborated with The SEO Community and @adriennekmetz.com on 5 videos and this article that sums them up.

I also got @tory.thegray.co, @jocameroo.bsky.social, Erica Ylimäki, and @kevin-indig.bsky.social to share their insights.

This week, Brexit finally killed our family business. We cleared out our warehouse, handed back the keys, paid the final bills and said goodbye to our last employee.
What was once a thriving firm died a slow, sad death, all thanks to Farage, Johnson and the gullible idiots they conned. 1/18

Wrong question!
How is it April?

Exactly!

So my question is: why isn't this happening in the browser already? Surely thats the place to do it rather than downloading a script for each site? But I'm not a browser engineer so have absolutly no idea what it would entail!

Obviously. What else is there to do during a core update?

Just fixed an issue where the details tag wasn't expanding on mobile - now it does so you can read the programme summary if ther is one. Was fine on desktop but i borked the mobile view!

Oh i like that!

Thank you Seth. 😀

What's on telly tonight Simon? she asked.

tv.simoncox.com

Obviously we only watch BBC 1 and 2 for the moment.

I will add other channels, someday, probably.