James Michael

🔒 What does “private” actually mean?

On 17 August 2026

Welcome back to a series I’m calling Encrypted Pigeons. Why? Because it’s a frankly terrible phrase and I love it.

Now that we’ve established my overall opinions on privacy, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of it, and work out what privacy actually is in the 21st century.

First of all, let’s clear the air: being interested in privacy does not mean that you have something to hide. Quite the opposite. It means that you don’t want your life to be stolen from you by the very software you’re using.

That’s particularly relevant as our data becomes increasingly useful for AI. There is something fundamentally uncomfortable about a platform deciding that the personal information we entrusted to it is suddenly more valuable as training data than it is as something that should remain private.

But what does private actually mean?

I’ve had several answers to that question over the last six months.

🧑‍💻 Why I care about privacy

By James Michael

On 13 August 2026

Part of Encrypted Pigeons

I use Google Wallet.

That annoys me somewhat, because I’d quite like to stop using Google products. Not because Google is necessarily evil, but because I don’t agree with what they do with my data, whether I knowingly hand it over or not. And so far, I’ve managed pretty well to avoid most of Google’s ecosystem.

That’s why I use Proton for my email and my passwords. I self-host my photos, my documents, on Nextcloud. I replaced Google apps on my phone with more open, more privacy-respecting ones. Honestly? It was kind of fun.

So why is it that, when I go into a shop, and put my phone to the card machine, it’s a little Google logo that turns up and takes my payment?

This got me thinking a lot about what “privacy” actually means to most people, particularly today, when so much of the data companies collect is increasingly being fed into AI systems. I’m not especially interested in perfect privacy, I’m not going to ditch every proprietary app, go live in the woods, and communicate with the world through encrypted pigeons. That’s just ridiculous.

What I am interested in though, is understanding just what’s at stake when I click a cookie banner, or open an app. What am I giving to companies, in exchange for the services they provide me?

🐴 My ode to The Odyssey

By James Michael

On 9 August 2026

Today, I finally got around to watching Christopher Nolan’s new(ish) film: The Odyssey. Overall, it wasn’t bad, but there are a few key areas that I would question.

For the avoidance of doubt, and if you hadn’t realised already, this post contains spoilers for the film.

📅 Why are months named so oddly?

By James Michael

On 1 August 2026

There are twelve months in the year, and each one has a unique and distinctive name. There are some distinct patterns though, linked mostly to history, and specifically the Romans.

🔮 How often do coincidences actually happen?

By James Michael

On 30 July 2026

Recently, I was telling my family an interesting bit of research I’d found that day, about wartime defences on the Suffolk coast, such as the Sound Mirrors of Dungeness. These are giant concrete structures there from the 1930s, designed to reflect engine motor noises from out at sea into specially tuned microphones. The intention was to hear enemy planes before they arrived to prepare.

Those defences were never used during wartime — radar was invented soon after as a much more accurate system — but the walls are still there after over 90 years.

Anyway, as I was telling my family about this over dinner, the television was on at the same time with Jim Moir in the BBC’s Walking With… series, making his way around the Kentish coast. We weren’t really paying attention to it, but I could see the screen out of the corner of my eye.

As I was telling them about these defences, what should come onto the screen but the very stone walls and parabolic shapes of the Sound Mirrors that I was describing! I was pretty surprised, as was the rest of my family.

⛵ What’s the difference between “Boat” and “Ship”?

By James Michael

On 29 July 2026

Watercraft of some form or another seems to have existed for around the last 50,000 years, with the first rafts coming from settlers in Australia. But since then they have evolved enormously, from canoes to rowboats, to war and cruiseships. With them has evolved the terminology we use, but how much do we actually understand what we’re saying? What is the difference between a ship, and a boat?

The etymology of the two words can give us some insight. Both come from Old English, where boat or “bat”, may have meant something like “to split”, potentially referencing the way a tree trunk is split to carve out a boat. Ship, however, comes from “scip”, which specifically refers to a larger ship for navigation.

So it’s sorted: a ship is larger than a boat. Problem solved! Except it’s not that simple.