The best beginner’s guide to all things security and privacy — I started listening to a lot of podcasts at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one of those had the best possible name: Firewall’s Don’t Stop Dragons. As a massive fantasy nerd, I, of course, needed to dive deeper. Run by Carey Parker, a cybersecurity & privacy advocate, author…

The best antidote in these hard times. — I watched the best film, and its name is Love and Monsters. It’s so good that I want you to stop reading this review and go watch it, right now. Or as soon as you are able. …

How did the way films are made change between the 1980s and today? — It’s been years since I hopped off the path of film historian and cinema theorist, but I still love the topic and frequently follow discussions as I find them online. I recently ran across this comment as part of a Tumblr thread and posted it as a topic of interest…

Understanding your rights as an author is a vital part of your career. — If you’ve ever wondered what sort of thing to expect from a contract when you go looking to have your work published, this is the place to begin. Too frequently, I encounter writers saying things like “I sold a story,” without taking the time to help others understand what that…

Know your rights and keep control of your work. — If you are the creator of a piece of work, you hold all the rights. Those rights only leave your control if you’ve taken official and formal steps to completely surrender those rights. This is not just for work submitted to big publishers, either, but is also important when it…

How open-source and libre software can benefit from compassion and a good UI — The first thing you’ll notice if you hang around the open-source software community for a moment is the prevalence of people to whom the description “conceited” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of their ego. …

Transform Grievous Hurt, Betrayal, and Setback into Love, Joy, and Compassion by Dr. Christopher Phillips — Prometheus, 232 pages ISBN: 9781633887886 Hardcover: $25.95 Audiobook: $14.95 Regardless of political leanings, it seems reasonable to suggest that global polarization has reached a knife’s edge. For the last century or so, sharp rifts have occurred in the United States, and ripples of the so-called Western world have affected people’s…

Some might say that war never changes, but that’s not quite true. The intrinsic elements: the horror, fear, and horrific loss of life remain the same, that much is true. …