Addendum: just read the letter in question. Even by the standards of data breaches, this one is astonishingly bad.

But don't worry, DentaQuest has “engaged security experts and provided more employee training.” Which sounds like a case of locking the stable door after the horse has not just bolted, but is chilling with cocktails on a beach in Rio.

New rule: any time a company suffers a major data breach, the CEO and CTO should be ritually disemboweled on the floor of the NYSE. Seem reasonable?

It’s ironic that “The safety of your information is very important to us” is a phrase that you only ever read in letters in which a company explains that the whole of their customer database has just been downloaded by teenage hackers from Moldova and all your personal information is now available on the darknet.

If the safety of my information had ACTUALLY been important to you, you wouldn’t be sending me this letter now, would you?

Addendum: I even care about Angleton, for crying out loud, and Angleton is … well, Angleton is a lot. No spoilers, but Angleton is not the kind of character that you typically find yourself emotionally invested in.

RE: https://wandering.shop/@cstross/117291228961971527

When I finally got around to starting the Laundry Files, I expected the usual @cstross trademarks: madcap inventiveness, off-the-charts grotesque, wry commentary on institutions and conventions, page-turning pacing etc. What took me by surprise was the emotional depth. My heart regularly aches for poor Bob and Mo.

Anyway, to quote the man himself, “Is good book. You read.”

In fact, is all good books. You read all. Start here.

Pro tip: It's important to be clear on the difference between ‘kaiju’ and 'waifu' BEFORE you ask the genie to grant your last wish.

Good article from Scientific American about Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

The TL;DR version is that Jared Diamond's "Collapse” got it totally wrong, and his "Guns, Germs and Steel" might actually be a better model for what happened. Maybe he needs to write a new book called "Rats, Sheep and Europeans”, as those seem to be the usual suspects when it comes to the collapse of isolated ecosystems or societies.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-really-happened-on-easter-island/

Eclipse

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Eclipse

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If I had a hamster I would name him Tyrion Hammister, because he drinks and he gnaws things.

A new “Neuromancer" teaser gives more details of AppleTV's upcoming series based on @GreatDismal's genre-defining cyberpunk novel. In the trailer, the mysterious Armitage hires ace console jockey Case to help him activate his legally-purchased copy of Microsoft Office 365. Frustrated by Case's failure and an endless series of “Unknown Error 0x0 “ pop-ups, Armitage orders street samurai Molly to kill everyone in Redmond, but she is unable to buy a plane ticket because the 2FA email never arrives.

AirDrop could easily be the coolest feature Apple ever invented, if it worked more than one time in five.

May his memory be a warning.

“Pigeons live at the edge of chaos" is about the most metal scientific headline you're likely to read today.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chaotic-pigeons-are-helping-redefine-what-we-know-about-learning/

Firefighter behind me: “people complained about the sonic booms. C’mon! This is America!

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Standing by the railing in Battery Park, waiting for the tall ships.

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My phone just displayed a message that read "Charging will resume when iPhone returns to normal temperature" and I'm like "Same, iPhone. Same.”

I hope that there IS a schism in the Catholic church, so we can finally resolve the longstanding scientific question about what happens when a pope and an antipope collide.

My money is on mutual annihilation, accompanied by the emission of some high-energy cardinals, but I'm open to other suggestions.

#SSPX #religion #Catholicism #schism2026

Some people say that outlawing VPNs is actually the goal, and that a social media ban for kids is really just a pretext for a government attack on communications that can't be surveilled and monitored. Banning VPNs “to protect the children” is supposedly easier to sell to the electorate than just banning VPNs “because we want to be able to see everything you do.”

Authoritarian regimes, of course, just ban VPNs outright (as far as they can).

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Joking aside, I think a predictable consequence of the #UKSocialMediaBan is that kids (and others) WILL use VPNs to skirt the ban, and that carries significant risks.

First up, government action to control/outlaw VPNs. It's in the nature of governments to make poorly thought-out laws about tech and then, when someone does a technological end-run around them, start playing whack-a-mole to try to get the genie back into the bottle. Never works, but they do it anyway.

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The UK government's plan to teach 10 million British children how to use VPNs may be one of the most ambitious IT education projects ever launched. Experts have praised the scheme, saying that a deft combination of incentives and peer education make it more likely to succeed than other, comparable initiatives.

"With the rise of autocratic governments worldwide, VPN-literacy is more essential than ever.” said one expert, “This bold project definitely comes at the right time.”

#UKSocialMediaBan