Twenty Years
15 January, 2021
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!
Gone in a Flash
2 January, 2021
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.