Tautology
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Tautology
@tautology.uk
@tautology0
@tautology@infosec.exchange
@tautology.uk

vi is the best editor. The Oxford comma is totally superfluous and does not need to be used in 90% of cases. "Die Hard" is not a Christmas film. "Internet" is a proper noun.
I have been told by many game developers that it's not their problem that their games allow workshop mods to perform RCE. It's no surprise that they keep getting found ...
January 30, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Tautology
On almost everything – fraud, polarisation, radicalisation, misinformation – evidence suggests that over 60s are in much more urgent need of online protection and education than teenagers.

But that issue gets zero political attention, and is a total non-starter. Nothing good will come of it.
This was a minor story on London news this morning - but suspect is a real cautionary (and alarming) tale of an older man getting radicalised online.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sidcup man convicted aover explosive attack on Ulez camera
Kevin Rees's homemade bomb caused damage to vehicles and property including a child's bedroom.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 29, 2026 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Tautology
You might be interested in this other map experiment where someone asked LLMs to decide if a particular gps coordinant was over land or water: open.substack.com/pub/outsidet...
How Does A Blind Model See The Earth?
A tiny LLM eval with pretty pictures
open.substack.com
January 28, 2026 at 8:26 AM
I'm trying a new "see how well AI image gen is" test. This time I'm going to ask it to draw a map of the world, and then zoom in to Europe, the UK, Yorkshire and York to see when things start to get hazy.

All of these are with the free models using the smart/thinking variants. 1/n
January 27, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Tautology
Superb - and alarming - piece on the torrent of falsehood and disinformation pouring into people's phones, designed to stir up racial hatred.

If you don't subscribe to @londoncentric.media, its investigative journalism is outstanding. @jim.londoncentric.media www.londoncentric.media/p/tiktok-lon...
Who's secretly filming fake TikToks inside Londoners' homes?
We tracked down the viral video account invading people's houses to spread false claims about immigrants.
www.londoncentric.media
January 24, 2026 at 10:25 AM
Lunchtime fix. Original Gameboy belonging to one t'other half's co-workers needed the regulator board changed. One part purchased from Retrosix and 5 minutes soldering and we have a fully working Gameboy once more!
January 23, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Tautology
BSides Birmingham is a volunteer led, non-profit community event built by people who genuinely care about security.

And the support has been unreal… our first ticket drop sold out in 30 mins.

📣 Call for sponsors is OPEN

Sponsor pack link in comments 👇

#BSides #BSidesBirmingham
January 20, 2026 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Tautology
My #RaspberryPi project - the PsionPi. A Pi 4 is underneath the screen. Then, I have a 3S Waveshare UPS giving power to the whole thing, over which is a #Psion 5 keyboard. A small adapter board converts the keyboard signal to USB. 2 3D printed halves of the case are held together with M2.5 screws.
December 31, 2025 at 4:46 PM
I thought I'd start writing up some of the reverse engineering of 8-bit format I did in the past as I turn all my old C code into modern stuff.

First up is the Line drawn picture format for the Mysterious Adventure text adventures.

tautology.org.uk/blog/2026/01...
Reverse Engineering Mysterious Adventures Graphic Format – Tautology’s Blog
tautology.org.uk
January 7, 2026 at 11:13 PM
Happy birthday to all those people who lie about their date of birth to social media.
January 1, 2026 at 10:18 AM
Stupid form requirements n/∞. The application for a UK postal vote: WTF do they need a signature for? Have we dropped back in time to the 90s? There is zero guarantee that my signature will look anything remotely like the last time I used it, which was about 5 years ago.
December 8, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Seriously Amazon, the recommended size for a T-shirt is based on *other* customer orders?
December 3, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Tautology
Io beauty shot.

Taken by the Juno spacecraft on 3 February 2024.

The right-hand hemisphere is illuminated by the Sun.

On the left, the night side isn't totally dark because of Jupitershine.

Image credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS
November 27, 2025 at 3:54 AM
My usual experiment to find out how bad LLMs are at technical instructions (wiring a UK plug) as applied to grok. It's just as bad as any other LLM out there:
November 26, 2025 at 9:12 AM
11 years behind Randall Munroe on this cartoon.

Being the other half to a person with cancer is strange: you don't get the physical symptoms, but you still have the upheaval and stress.

Still, it shows there is a future where the worst case doesn't happen.

xkcd.com/3172/
Fifteen Years
xkcd.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Tautology
November 22, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Tautology
Zork I, II, and III are now open source. Microsoft has released the classic Infocom text adventures under the MIT license! opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11...
Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source
Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), Team Xbox, and Activision are making Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III available under the MIT License.
opensource.microsoft.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Tautology
It's official! #PicoIDE, the open source IDE/ATAPI drive emulator I've been working on for the better part of this year, will be launching at Crowd Supply! Go there to sign up for updates and to be notified when the campaign is live: www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...
PicoIDE
An open source IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for vintage computers
www.crowdsupply.com
November 19, 2025 at 1:59 AM
People who know scam tactics: I've just had an SMS conversation with someone who was adamant I'd phoned them at 16:50 when I hadn't (I don't make phone calls). They kept asking who I was.

Caller spoofing on them or somebody trying to set up a scam on me?
November 12, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Tautology
Mission Update: Speaker recording available - Dave Lodge - From Sputnik To James Webb: Satellite Comms (And Security?).

Join Dave Lodge for a journey through satellite comms, security, GPS spoofing, pulsars, and even vintage tech like modems & tapes. youtu.be/4PexfCLvO_E
November 10, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Today I discovered that the bottle opener key I was given by the lock picking village at @bsidesncl.bsky.social works well as a trolley token if you jiggle it just right...
October 25, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Doom on a satellite, now that would have latency!
m.slashdot.org/story/448242
Slashdot
m.slashdot.org
October 24, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Went to Rome for holiday, randomly found old computer and game museum. Had most of the computers anyway. Sprogs enjoyed it.
October 23, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Tautology
Reposted by Tautology
If only someone could have predicted that uploading your ID to age verification services was a bad idea and that ultimately one of these providers was going to get popped…..
October 4, 2025 at 7:48 AM