So, I came out of retirement to work on a neato project. I’m doing a lot of programming, architecture, release management, project management, and, um, reporting. So, that’s why I’m not doing a whole lot of bagpiping or anything. Because this is fun and important. But nobody cares about that. The interesting thing here isContinue reading “Ars Gratia Artis”
Category Archives: Intellectual Curiosity
Going Anonymous
A friend posted a link to this story about the crypto and anonymity tools Edward Snowden used to communicate with journalists before his big reveal. It’s an interesting read, by itself, with lots of links out to various privacy tools. One that especially caught my attention was Tails, an operating system that, “you can startContinue reading “Going Anonymous”
Morning News
This morning’s news brief was just full of delightful bits. My head is whirling. We have the story about the Russian government performing cyberespionage. This will probably surprise someone; not anyone who has been checking their spam folder over the past 20 years, but yeah, the Russians have lots of programmers who write malware. AndContinue reading “Morning News”
Restricted Knowledge
I’m not really sure how to tell this story. I’ll start with the event that got me writing this post, but there’s a lot of backstory that explains why I even started writing, and then there are my observations of my changed thoughts and feelings about the phenomenon. It’s untidy in my mind; it doesn’tContinue reading “Restricted Knowledge”
Retro Bubble, Order’s Up!
I just read this article that says that Angela Merkel wants Europe to have its own network. Now, maybe I’m not understanding the story, and maybe the reporter didn’t understand what the chancellor said, and maybe the chancellor doesn’t understand how the Internet works. But it seems to me that if a laptop in BerlinContinue reading “Retro Bubble, Order’s Up!”
Simulation Distractibility
Yesterday I wrote about solving a problem using SmartThings. Thinking about some of the frustrations I felt during the process has led me back to thinking about the Salamander Simulation Engine. You know what it would be great for? Programming home automation.
Audio Kryptonite
You know that thing where you start imitating the accents and speech patterns of people around you? Yeah, I’m really susceptible to that. Audio books with compelling readers are the worst. It’s bad enough when I’m reading an actual printed book and really getting into it and find myself using turns of phrase from theContinue reading “Audio Kryptonite”
Upgrades
Back in, like, 1987, I lived in an apartment with three other guys. The four of us were all computer science majors and one of them had this catchphrase that we heard often late in the evening as he was working on his homework: “It was perfect, so I fixed it.” That has stayed withContinue reading “Upgrades”
Security Is Not a Compiler Flag
With the ongoing brouhaha surrounding the NSA’s surveillance of everyone, everywhere, I’ve got a few friends who are getting excited about figuring out how to secure their email. I kind of want to tell them that their questions, which boil down to, “How can I send secure email,” are, in the words of Mr. Norrell,Continue reading “Security Is Not a Compiler Flag”
Log of Damocles
I took the weed trimmer to the grass on the creek side of the house this afternoon. The grass had grown unchecked since, well, last fall. When we moved to the woods, I was really happy and thought, “Yeah, this is great! I’m never gonna mow the lawn again!” Except that knocking the grass downContinue reading “Log of Damocles”