Having accidentally started group chats a few times, I've discovered WhatsApp's awful swipe up to talk. It's really annoying, given that one also swipes up simply to get to the latest in the conversation. I don't yet know if this worked but I've tried removing general microphone permission for the app, in case that restrains this feature.

Previously, working in cryptocurrency I had to have a Telegram account. It's mostly good for scammers and spammers. Recently, I kept finding myself being added to people's groups for random dodgy work tasks. I've now found some invites setting under privacy and security, which I have tried adjusting in the hope of ending this particular annoyance.

It would be nice if I could find such fixes for Gmail's web interface, which I use at work. Among other things, it's too easy to accidentally do things then too hard to undo them, and it's one of these interfaces that pops some control up right under your mouse pointer after you've moved it so you end up clicking on something that wasn't there a moment before.

I had mentioned how my work Mac, plugged in at home, was applying the wrong keymap for my external keyboard and imposing some godawful acceleration on my scroll-wheel. Now I have adequate solutions for both:

• I installed an open-source utility named DiscreteScroll, which fixes macOS's unnecessary scroll wheel acceleration, making the scroll-wheel behave rather more manageably.


• It turns out that Apple's idea of a UK-layout keyboard is not the typical one, it's kind of halfway to a US one. As the Mac doesn't understand the typical UK layout, I realized that I can just buy a US-layout keyboard, which I am used to anyway. Having despaired of making sense of the differences among the dazzling range of Keychron keyboards, I indulged in a nice, loud Unicomp.

In another keyboard victory, a couple of my UK keyboards had dodgy keys. I can be slow to realize things but, eventually, I had the useful idea of transplanting a keycap (using my pry an old Kindle open at the seams levers) to make one fully able keyboard from the two problem ones.

Admittedly, although working with Mac OS X instead of GNU/Linux usually slows me down some, for my day job I am finding the Mac not to be much of a hindrance.

After the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation, many smaller US organizations took the simple option of blocking the EU from their websites. It's for that reason I have a US-based web proxy in my back pocket for checking US news from local sources.

Now, the UK's passed the Online Safety Act which seems to be at least as onerous. I was chatting with a creative British person today. There is some website (I didn't ask which) that hosts their writing and art, and it's become inaccessible to them. So, like so many other British people in recent days, they've now subscribed to a VPN service.

The OSA seems to be a deleteriously blunt instrument. Children now seem to be barred (by easily bypassed means) from seeing all kinds of information that, frankly, it's good if they can see.

I am curious to know how this got so far without being stopped. It certainly says something poor about the powers that be, that pressure to do something resulted in pushing through legislation that had been widely warned about by many. It's not at all unique, we even had the Clinton administration trying to push the Clipper chip, but this example seems to be turning out unusually badly.

The Labour government had already burned up its honeymoon period but they still make unforced errors that the Conservatives make hay from. Amid all this, we also get to watch the Chancellor square the circle they've painted themselves into (with the Conservatives' help). An outbreak of political competence would make a welcome change.

Update: Very shortly after posting this, I read of moves in the EU to resurrect efforts to prevent communications from being wholly private.