Robert Gillings

Most television dramas attempt to be at least a little like real life. There are certain things that happen on TV, though, that never happen in the real world. It's not stuff like vampires or superpowers that really seem out of place, though, it's the actions discussed below that really hammer home that television has its own special kind of reality. No Goodbyes Have you ever noticed that most characters don't say goodbye when they end a phone call on television? It's not that they just hang up on the other caller, really - it's that both parties almost telepathically decide on the perfect moment at which the conversation should end. There's rarely even a quick 'love you' between spouses - just a tightly edited end to these conversations. One-Handed Shooting A surprisingly large number of characters on television are proficient with firearms. They're so proficient, in fact, that they don't use the same kind of firing stance that re...

Wimbledon is the epitome of class in tennis. Staid, professional, and very British in its sense of propriety and place. There is no noise, other than the whack-pock of the ball and the grunt of the players as they connect with it. There is no levity, only carefully cultivated seriousness with a healthy dose of respect for one’s opponent. All of that was showcased at this year’s Wimbledon matches. There was formidable Venus Williams vying to become the oldest woman to win a major. Roger Federer re-established his dominance on the grass, winning Wimbledon for a record eight times. Federer also managed to win without losing a set, the first man to achieve this since Bjorn Borg way back in 1976. Clijsters Shows Off But none of this was the biggest headline coming out of Wimbledon 2017. With apologies to Garbine Muguruza, who battled Williams hard in the first set, then whipped her in the second, the biggest story to come out of Wimbledon this year involved a chubby fan in a skort....

Bad news for Verizon customers this month. Last week the telecom giant admitted that personal data belonging to about six million customers was “leaked” online. The issue was discovered by UpGuard, the same net security firm that found leaked voter data last month. In its initial report, UpGuard reportedly told Verizon the leak could affect up to 14 million customers, but later cut that estimate by more than half. The reason given for the leak? Human error, in the form of a “misconfigured security setting” on a cloud server. According to the report, the “leak” put customer names, contact information, and PIN codes up on the web. These PIN codes are not for credit or debit cards. They are used when customers call in to speak to a Verizon representative. That’s not to say those PINs do not put consumers in a vulnerable position. UpGuard’s Dan O’Sullivan, told CNN, “A scammer could receive a two-factor authentication message and potentially change it or alter [the authentication] t...

Illinois, for all intents and purposes, appears to be a mess, politically and financially, and it seems everyone is taking sides. This includes the Governor Bruce Rauner and his wife, Diana. According to CNN, in a recent statement released by a nonprofit foundation run by Diana Rauner, Illinois representatives were “urged to override her husband’s veto of a budget compromise that would end a two-year stalemate…”

The 21st Century Fox attempt to purchase a controlling Sky TV may have been given a “go ahead” pass by UK media regulators Ofcom last week, but in their findings, the regulators took the opportunity to hammer Fox leadership about “significant failings” at the network.