Infornography

Re-wrote web server / 2022-07-15 T 07:55

I re-wrote my web server.

Authorization software / 2022-06-10 T 22:26

Possibly unique among all types of software. authorization systems prevent you from getting work done when they function as intended. 8-[

On second thought, they aren't unique. They resemble user interface “improvements”.

I watched The Sweet Sound of Death / 2022-05-14 T 08:31

I also reviewed it & did a little analysis. tpy75.html

Overturning Roe v. Wade will damage the Democrats in elections / 2022-05-08 T 10:49

The Democrat party is already planning to use the Supreme Court's draft decision to improve their performance in near-future elections. As usual, that plan will fail. iubg0.html

API doesn't mean what you think it means / 2022-02-02 T 09:07

People are misusing the term API. d2h10.html

the most powerful tools of humans / 2022-02-01 T 07:28

The two most powerful tools of humans are language and organized collective action.

We invented language. Nobody in the world uses language the way we do. Be proud.

These tools are so powerful that they tend to use us.

old Wikipedia pages about Silent Hill / 2021-12-28 T 13:01

In 2007, I printed copies of some Wikipedia pages about Silent Hill. Now I've scanned them to PDF. They are at silent_hill_wikipedia_2007.pdf

I guess they are not up to the editorial standards of modern Wikipedia, but they are full of insights & are fun to read. So here they are.

I realize that A.G.I. is hard / 2021-12-12 T 10:47

I finally understand. fe5fb902-d2f1-47db-a5e9-d6d4ef447c98.html

The security disaster that is the web these days / 2021-12-10 T 06:29

You've noticed how cyber-security events are becoming more frequent & more severe? How the “cloud” could be considered part of the foundation of civilization now, & cyber-security events threaten that?

What will we do?

The problem is severe, but I predict it'll wash out similarly to what happened with virii & worms infecting stand-alone computers in the early 2000s. The problem got worse & worse back then until there was a period — maybe a whole year but probably less than 6 months, I don't remember for sure — when a virus of the week would take significant portions of the Internet offline for half a day or more.

We solved that problem to the extent that, while virii & worms are a problem, they interfere with few of us daily.

I predict that the increasingly severe & frequent security problems we see now will be solved similarly. We'll beat them down until, while the problems are there, they'll be under enough control that they won't affect few of us daily.

But it sure sucks now, & it's gonna keep sucking for a while to come.

Is encryption useless without authentication? / 2021-12-09 T 08:23

Someone told me that encryption is “useless” without authentication. I disagree, & I wrote my thoughts in 7f1a7.html

Maybe we shouldn't have called it AI / 2021-11-14 T 19:04

a brief rant: 4dvts.html

The Net (1995 film) / 2021-10-07 T 05:30

I watched “The Net” (1995) (not for the first time). We all know that it ain't the greatest, but it doesn't suck. A few interesting things about the film this time this time include:

• It shows how she keeps mostly to herself, in her home, has things delivered. In 1995, it was possible but rare. Since Covid, not so rare. (Movie predicted the future.)
• They make an explicit point that someone was able to mess with her because all the information is “in a computer”, but I'm thinking that's not quite right. Electronic form is a more malleable medium than paper in a file cabinet (or paintings on a temple wall), but what a civilization knows is what's in the official records, regardless of how they are stored. Control them & you control everything. Computers didn't make that reality, but people became aware of that reality as our civilizatoin's memory migrated into electronic form.
• When she uses a computer, it's often via colourful menus. Unrealistic it is, I now realize that movies work by showing, & colourful menus are a valid way of letting the audience see what she's doing with a computer.
• When she's being chased on a merry-go-round, I suspect it's a visual homage to the end of “Strangers on a Train”. If the scene had someone crawling under the merry-go-round, I'd be certain it was an intentional reference to that movie.
• When she confronts the main guy who's been chasing her, on a scaffolding, I could swear it's a visual homage to the end of “The Parallax View”. Come to think of it, that movie & this one might go back-to-back well.
• Has me wondering what other references I overlooked.

Brute force password attacks + your router's guest wifi / 2021-09-19 T 09:03

According to Kaspersky, even as late as the year 2020, most of the incidents they ivestigated involved brute force password attacks.[kaspersky]

Reminds me of telling someone to use a password manager & not to “have a system” for making memorable passwords. Even in the year 2020, they reply “I have a good system” which they then describe to you because it's so clever[sarcasm].

This is why your router offers a guest wifi network & why even your {girl, boy, whatever}friend gets that passcode, not the one to your real network.

When to use the Tor browser / 2021-09-03 T 08:22

Don't ask “When should I use the Tor browser?” That's the wrong question. f2byk.html

another blog entry / 2021-09-02 T 20:52

Nothing to see here unless it's an error message. Move along (but thank you for peeking).

start a blog / 2021-09-02 T 12:24

Let's reorganize this, my ancient web site. Short blog(?) entries that say short things or link to longer things. And longer things in their own files (as they already are).