As it's #AppreciateADragonDay let's do some classic covers from Dragon magazine!

In the shadowy corners of the shortwave spectrum lurk the Numbers Stations: strange radio broadcasts of mysterious blocks of numbers in creepy monotone voices!

It's actually an old form of spycraft which is still in use today. And as it's #WorldRadioDay let's take a listen...

A Numbers Station is a type of one-way voice link for sending information to spies in foreign countries.

Operating on Short Wave radio bands they transmit a secret code of spoken numbers. Use of Numbers Stations peaked during the Cold War, but some are still operating today.

Numbers Stations are operated by various national intelligence agencies. At set times on a pre-arranged frequency a musical tone is played, followed by a speech synthesised voice reading out blocks of numbers. To most listeners it sounds both creepy and meaningless.

However to spies it can be vital. The numbers can be decoded to reveal a message, provided the spy has the right One Time Pad (OTP) - a random number key that is only used once before it is destroyed. OTP encryption is impossible to break if done correctly.

Why broadcast your secret message on Short Wave? Because it can be picked up across the globe. All a spy needs is a shop bought SW radio, a pencil, and the correct One Time Pad and they - and only they - can decipher the message. No complex kit is required.

There really isn't enough sociology in advertising nowadays...

"I am Myrtle, Goddess of logistics and distribution..."

"Look at what you could have won..."

Which book took you the longest time to actually finish reading?

For me: Underworld. 17 years from buying it to actually getting around to reading it, and maybe 19 months on and off to make myself read it until the end.

Still, ticked it off the list ✔

Second place goes to The Charterhouse of Parma, which Stendhal wrote in 52 days. According to the Oxfam Books receipt I used as a bookmark I bought it on 11 April 2009. Finished it last month.

Coming Up For Air was torture. It's nature's punishment for autodidacts.

Happy #WorldEggDay everyone! Let's share a few egg facts to celebrate.

Did you know... a chicken's earlobes can predict what colour egg they will lay?

Fake chicken eggs are a problem in China. Manufactured false eggs made from resin, coagulent and starch in a counterfeit shell are being sold as real by fraudsters. #WorldEggDay

In 1806 con artist Mary Bateman scratched the words "Christ is coming" on numerous eggs before inserting then back up a chicken. She then charged people to see the 'miracle eggs' being laid. #WorldEggDay

The world record for eating hard boiled eggs is 65 swallowed in 6 mins 40 secs by Sonya Thomas. She could have eaten more but they ran out of eggs. #WorldEggDay

And finally... Canadian scientists concluded in 2008 that the egg did indeed come before the chicken: dinosaurs were laying them long before they evolved into birds.

Every day's a school day... #WorldEggDay

Are you writing a sci-fi or fantasy novel? Are you struggling to choose a title for it?

Well good news! I've just analysed the titles of 1,500 DAW sci-fi and fantasy novels, and I think I've found the secret!

Come with me...

Let me talk about something
I consider myself qualified to discuss: a film director, Oliver Stone. OS is a great political director & a very clever man, one of the best in the industry. My view is that he did not simply take the Russian vx because he didn't want to wait for US 1

He's a very clever man, he made a judgement for his own life, for his family, & he chose the Russian vx instead of any of the Western ones, because he wanted the vx & considers Sputnik V the safest one.

I can see the logic:
1 No accountability for any of the Western vx, nobody can sue for any damage etc.
2 Those who made Sputnik V know they are always personally accountable to Vladimir Putin
3 S5 is based on a pre-existing vx with minimal changes so safety tried for many years

So if the Russians could find a safe way to adapt a tried & tested technology & only alter what is required, using adenovirus vectors, a technology in use for 50 years, experimented on for vx since the 1980s, why were Western Big Pharma so keen on something completely new: mRNA?

That is the question that Oliver Stone is indirectly asking us all to look into & answer: why were Western Big Pharma all at once suddenly so keen on using mRNA when there were much safer & tested directions available (adenovirus vectors), what is it that Western Big Pharma want?

one of the things i like about Batman is that it's fundamentally about being orphaned, and being an orphan — how this guy stays tethered to the world in his own weird, abstract, extrajudicial way when he feels that his link to it has been violently severed

Batman does this by permanently recapitulating his own trauma: solving crimes for other people, protecting them. But that's actually just the beginning; he also recapitulates his own experience of orphanness by essentially raising several orphans

Dick is an orphan in the traditional sense: dead parents. Batman sees it happen. Jason, less so: missing dad, known mom who eventually dies. Tim, even less so: parents are around a while, and involved, before both dying. Carrie, even less than that: negligent parents.

Steph: evil father, who openly works against her. And then there's Damian, whose parents are both alive and yet both have identities that totally obliterate their role as his parents. He doesn't relate to them as a mother and father; he can't, and neither can they.

In all these different cases, Batman tries all these different ways of making orphanness for them not what it was for him: Either by trying to teach them the (arguably poor) coping skills early that he learned over a very long time, or by literally legally adopting them, etc.

One of the most Monkey's Paw things about my life is my relationship to books. When I was a teenager, I read all the way through the school and public libraries, spent everything I had on books, and still couldn't get enough and dreamt of more.

1/

Today, as a reviewer, I have more books than I can possibly read, huge, teetering mountains of books that I'm desperate to read, far beyond my ability to ever get through them. Periodically, I declare "book bankruptcy," sweep away the backlog and start over.

2/

Even then, my eyes are bigger than my stomach: I keep back a few books that I can't bear to part with and promise myself I'll read them someday. Usually I don't, but I just did, and boy did I ever make the right call with @TheUniverse's BROAD

I have read a LOT of histories of computing, and I had a front row seat for a lot of the events depicted in this book - people I worked with, people I worked against - and yet I was surprised over and over again with details and perspectives I'd never encountered.

4/

For example, for some reason, my ninth grade computer science course included lengthy readings on ENIAC, Univac, the Mark I and the Mark II, but none of those mentioned that they were all programmed exclusively or primarily by women.

5/

The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action film directed by Rob Cohen and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, and Paul Walker. The Fast and the Furious is first film in the The Fast and the Furious franchise, distributed by Universal Pictures.

The film was released June 22, 2001 and grossed $207.3 million. In 2003, The Fast and the Furious was followed by the sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Brian O'Conner is an undercover Los Angeles copwho aspires to become a detective.

When he is tasked to stop hijackers led by Dominic Torettofrom stealing expensive electronics equipment off of trucks, Brian must choose between his obligation to the LAP and his friendship with Toretto after he becomes good friends with his family.

The film opens at a dockyard where a container is loaded onto the trailer of a semi-truck. The truck then departs the dockyard and one of the dock workers makes a phone call to an anonymous party on the other end, informing them on how to identify the truck.