When I started this blog, I was envisioning some in-depth essays about computing and stuff.¹ So far, this hasn't panned out, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your tastes) I feel lazy enough to keep it that way, at least for now. Sorry.

Instead, I'm taking a sharp right turn and reviewing a horror movie. Well, horror with sci-fi elements. I've been a fan of director Anthony Scott Burns' music and oeuvre of short films for a long time. Burns takes a lot of inspiration from the oft-vaunted horror greats - a fact that he makes sure to mention on social media - but also manages to put his own unique spin on things. His second entry into feature films² is his take on one of the classic thematic staples: dreams. As Burns says...³

In the later 1800s, the confession album was a popular fixture in British culture. The name had nothing to do with people's deepest, darkest secrets, though the "confessions" within were of a somewhat personal and revealing nature. It gained prominence for about fifty years, before falling (well, mostly) out of fashion.

I now have a custom domain! novov.neocities.org now redirects to the much terser novov.me. The .me TLD technically belongs to the small Slavic nation of Montenegro, bordering the Adriatic Sea. So now I have to bear alliegance to the Montenegrin government, I suppose...

Twenty years ago, online encyclopedia Wikipedia was born with surprisingly little fanfare. Starting as an offshoot of the more conventional expert-contributor website Nupedia, it was conceived as little more than a flash-in-the-pan experiment. Nobody would have predicted then that it would turn into one of the web's most essential reference works, a veritable repository of information both informative and interesting - but occasionally inaccurate. ^{[citation needed]}

And although it has problems with power-tripping admins and over-zealous editors, I'm happy that it's there. The community is a testament to the power of the common man without the all too frequent handicap represented by the profit motive, and I hope it stays that way for many years to come. Here's to twenty more!

On 1 January 2021, Adobe Flash was discontinued. In fact, Adobe went so far as to say that:

Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems.

If you've reading this, you should do the same - Flash has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. I already uninstalled Flash with the advent of Safari 14 - which doesn't support it. This has been a long time coming.

Note that this blog post is very political and somewhat negative. If that's not your thing, feel free to ignore it; I'll be posting more lighthearted stuff in the future.

Many people look to today's New Zealand, especially under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, as a beacon of progressiveness in an increasingly divided world. She stood with dignity as her country faced an earthquake, a white supremacist incursion, and a pandemic that nobody could have seen coming. A feminist icon, she carried a baby while continuing to serve as Prime Minster. She's an aspirational figure, a guidestone, for all New Zealanders, one that all young Kiwis look up to in awe. The country she leads is a veritable paradise: it provides free healthcare and great social services, and its idyllic landscape and environment shows how we can combat climate change.

Some of what I said above is true. And plenty of people seem to agree with such depictions.

Ever since the creation of my site, I've wanted to have a blog. I finally have the time, and the result is what you see here. I'm aiming to post extremely occasionally - mostly long-form content about computing, design, and other fun stuff. Kind of like Eevee's blog, which has a bunch of interesting articles (and some furry stuff that I'm not personally into).