Prasenjeet Dutta @pd@curmudgeon.cafe

With progressive web apps being all the rage, it’s sort of hilarious that Windows has supported HTML apps since, oh, Win98 as Hypertext Applications (.hta). Here’s a tiny hta that’ll work even on Windows 10: http://www.nattyware.com/fontster.php

Killing Eve 2 starts on BBC America and AMC today. No date set for, um, the other BBC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jeez, even Chinese flagship phones start at €799/999 now? Or is Huawei an outlier here?

All five seasons of Stargate Atlantis are now on Amazon Prime Video (UK) - great news for anyone looking to catch up.

The smallest Samsung (S10E) launched today is iPhone XS-sized and costs $749. Looks like everyone’s ceding the $500 flagship to Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and Honor, who are presumably more willing to live with slimmer margins.

The lighting in the new Frozen 2 trailer looks great. And check out the fur on the reindeer Kristoff is riding.

This video from the BBC in 1982, trying to explain email to a lay audience, is absolutely adorable. It even features a proto-webpage (really a BBS screen)!

https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1093819472803254272/video/1

SMS authentication is very problematic — they’re not encrypted and increasingly criminals are taking advantage of that: https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/mbzvxv/criminals-hackers-ss7-uk-banks-metro-bank

Dear #Mac users, do any of you run macOS at 1.5x scaling? (For example, 1440p on a 3840x2160 monitor?) Does it look okay? Would you be able to share a screenshot? (This is to help with a monitor purchase)

📚 Lots of good SF/F books releasing this year: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/30/18127072/sci-fi-fantasy-anders-leckie-liu-hurley-coreybook-gibson-chiang-recommendations-2019

Lots of European artistes in the #London fireworks music tonight. Sends the right message 👏 https://youtu.be/21EJMIdK1_g (producers confirmed it was by design)

Not an obvious choice for a holiday movie: Brooklyn (2015). Heartwarming, and Saoirse Ronan lights up every scene she’s in. (It did feel very 30s/40s for a movie set in the 1950s though)

We interrupt your social media consumption for this broadcast from Downing Street: https://youtu.be/Tjp5OmoDYQM #Brexit

Stardust (2007) is an excellent family holiday movie. 🎥

Trevor Noah’s standup special “Son Of Patricia” on Netflix is 💯.

Not really happy with the “Microsoft building a Chromium-powered browser” news. It makes sense for the new open-source Microsoft but, on the other hand, an engine monoculture isn’t good for the industry, we learnt that the hard way with IE6. (At lease Chromium is open source.)

Spoiler: in this episode the documentary crew break the Prime Directive. As someone with a troubled relationship with the Prime Directive, this makes me incredibly happy.