Please don't underestimate balance issues

I'd like to use your attention for a moment to ask that people don't underestimate what "balance issues" means.

I suffer from MS, multiple sclerosis, and for about a year now the world has been permanently spinning because of lesions on my cerebellum.

It will be for the rest of my life, the damage is done and won't get fixed. In fact, it'll get worse as more lesions appear and my brain gets increasingly scarred. It's not reduced over time, I've just learned to protect myself a bit more and to avoid things that make it worse.

The other day, I fell over from standing completely still.

The world shifted sideways, and I reflexively compensated, as anyone would if for example you were on a boat or plane and it suddenly took a turn or capsized; the response came, as it always does, before having a chance to process it on any conscious level. If the world had shifted, I would have then kept standing.

But it hadn't.

So I operate on false information and respond to something that doesn't exist, and end up on my arse. The number of times I've injured myself is pretty hilarious at this point, I've got multiple inches-deep gashes in my legs from falling on things made of metal.

I'm not looking for thoughts and prayers here, but I do want people to try to understand how radically crippling it is.

Backing up with Arq

Time Machine is an easy way to back up your Mac and if you're non-technical, and especially if you don't have multiple terabytes to back up, it's what I recommend.

If, however, you've got the slightest technical chops, consider switching to Arq. It does everything Time Machine does with more configurability, and doesn't suffer from the problem Time Machine has of becoming unreliable as your backup size increases. I can't count the number of times I've validated my Time Machine backup only to find it's befuckled. Arq, on the other hand, has always been rock-solid.

It's not free, but it's worth it. Restoring does not require a valid license; the app will happily start in restore-only mode with no other limitations.

It supports backing up to all kinds of destinations, but importantly also quite happily supports backing up to a disk or SMB/AFP share. Backing up to a SMB/AFP share also doesn't mount the disk on your desktop, which is admittedly a small thing but something that would annoy the crap out of me if it wasn't the case.

You can grab it from the Arq website.

“We have to call the police”: Flying with Flipper Zero

TL;DR - London Gatwick security have been instructed to call police if a Flipper Zero is discovered in passenger luggage. If you plan to fly with your device, pack it in your hold baggage and not your hand luggage. I can’t promise it’ll fix the problem, but it’ll make it less likely you get hassled.

I recently flew out of London Gatwick on a short-haul flight. Went through security as per usual, unpacked the things that they asked me to unpack, but they didn’t mention that they wanted power banks removed as well. As a result, my bag was shunted to the manual search queue.

Okay, fine, no problem. “Do you mind if I search your bag?” Go for it, there’s nothing illegal or prohibited in there.

Then he pulls out the Flipper and calls his buddy.

“We have to call the police” he says, taking my passport.

We are running fairly behind for our flight. Not too bad, we’ll make it in good time, but any delay here beyond the normal time to clear security is cause for concern. Told him as much, and that I’m happy to talk to the police but they need to get here quickly so that we can make the flight.

Half an hour passes. I exhort my travelling companions to just go and get on the flight. They politely decline. I ruminate on how I’m going to explain that the Flipper is a sort of technical Swiss Army knife, that I’m only planning on using it for innocent reasons even though it is capable of more untoward shenanigans; you can say the same thing about a pen. That the untoward shenanigans it is capable of are vastly overdramatised.

I’m itchy. We’re going to miss the flight. The security guy walks over to me mobile phone in hand and I realise that the cops are going to be on the other end.

I prepare for an argument.

“You’re not going to believe this,” says the security guy.

“Try me.”

“Are you planning on using this to copy any security cards?”

“Of course not.”

“Here you go.”

And with that, in a blinding flash of absolute bafflement, my allegedly terrifying implement of destruction is returned to me along with my passport and I’m free to go. Well, for some value of “free to go”. Free to leg it as fast as possible to the gate before they close it on the sweaty mess they’re presented with, because apparently it was important enough to detain me but not important enough for a cop to even bother showing their face.

I found out later that a similar experience had happened to a guy named Vitor Domingos, also at Gatwick, back in October. He had his device seized. I’m sure that the fact that I sound like a middle-class British citizen and he is a Portuguese native had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the difference in how we were treated.