This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Feb
17
2015
Disclaimer: if you haven’t seen The Matrix, you might not fully appreciate this blog post. Remember to watch only the first movie.
How did the people progress from how we are now to how they were in the movie The Matrix?
Simple: gradually.
You start with nothing – content and complete by yourself.
Then you add in an audio connection to devices – iPod.
(more…)
Feb
10
2015
In the interest of combining things (“leveraging technology” if you want the appropriate buzzwords), I thought through how wind turbines could sell advertisements.
By “wind turbines” I am referring to the tall, 3-vaned, modern-looking windmills that generate electricity (and kill birds) and are popping up in more and more places.
In fact, my niece plays soccer in the shadows of a few of these.
Now for the advertisements. If you’re not familiar with the concept of Persistence of Vision, here’s an example:
Dec
18
2014
I’m not sure what to think about security questions. You know, the things they make you answer when you forget your password.
There are some times when I wonder “why not do away with the password?” If answering a couple security questions is good enough to get a new password, then mabe it’s good enough to replace a password.
And some times I get asked a security question I don’t remember setting up, and there are multiple possible answers. In that case, what’s the fallback if I can’t get the answer right?
After seeing a few too many security questions to which I answered (in my head) “How am I supposed to know that?”, I was inspired to come up with a list of bad security questions.
For those developing login sequences, here are questions that will annoy your users:
All of those are things which are ambiguous or I don’t know or they don’t have an answer.
Any other examples of bad security questions?
And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.
Acts 17:9
Sep
16
2014
There once was an IT manager who tended the computers at a business on the outskirts of town. He was bored, because things were running just fine.
To amuse himself, he sent out a company-wide email that said “Critical Security Issue: all employees must change their passwords immediately. Every password must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one number.”
The employees scrambled to comply with the new directive. To those who asked if it was critical because passwords had been stolen or compromised, he replied with a laugh, “It is in keeping with industry best practice!”
“Don’t cry ‘critical security issue’ if it’s not critical,” the employees said as they slammed the door behind them.
The next week, the IT manager was bored again.
To amuse himself, he sent out a company-wide email that said “Critical Security Issue: All employees must use Internet Explorer only. Any other browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and others) will be automatically uninstalled.”
The employees scrambled to comply with the new directive, and to understand it. To those who asked if it was critical, he replied with a laugh, “It’s in the best interest of the corporate network to reduce security holes.”
“Don’t cry ‘critical security issue’ if it’s not critical,” the employees said as they slammed the door behind them. “And why choose IE as the preferred, no – required, browser if the goal is to reduce security flaws?” they employees wondered, to no avail.
The next week, someone outside the company had posted financial documents that were not yet published, and the IT manager could see there was a lot of unusual network activity occurring.
The IT sent out an urgent company-wide email that said “Critical Security Issue: All employees must disconnect their computers from the network due to a security breach.”
The employees didn’t even see the email, since they had all setup a filtering rule in their email software so that anything from the IT manager went straight into the virtual trash can.
The IT manager noticed there was no effect on the network activity, so he shut down the servers and took everyone offline. The employees, being the resourceful creatures that they were, enabled their phones’ internet sharing capabilities and worked off that, or left for a coffee shop, or went home and worked remotely – all the while keeping their work laptops connected to the internet. The IT manager sat helplessly as all the company secrets flowed into the public.
The next day, the big shots called the IT manager into their offices, wanting to know why all their files were gone.
“Didn’t you read my email about logging off yesterday?”
“No, your emails full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“But that one yesterday was important.”
“Corporate policy states that email communication must be professional and accurate. Labeling everything as ‘critical security issue’ doesn’t strike us as accurate.”
Since the company had to spend a lot of money on the subsequent damage control and lawyers, it didn’t have enough room in the budget for the IT manager. He was laid off, but eventually found a job as a headline writer for a major news outlet.
The End.
He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
John 10:12
Apr
14
2014
If you ever need a random-number generator for values between 0-100, don’t bother with any of the standard libraries or websites to provide them.
Just look at the weather forecast for Michigan.
Thus I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.
Genesis 31:40
Jul
9
2013
I set my phone screen to lock so that it won’t rotate. I know people put effort into the fancy sensors and software so the phone can have that feature, but it needs one more enhancement before I’ll use it.
Here is my use case – I’m lying on my side (on a couch, in bed, whatever) and I’m holding the phone. What should the phone do?
Here is the feature as the phone companies tout it (look! the phone screen knows which way is up!):
But here is how it works for me:
As you can see, when I lie on my side, the screen no longer matches me. Now I have to tilt my head awkwardly. Or disable screen rotation so that the phone doesn’t think it is smarter than I am (no, trust me – this is what you want, even though you don’t want it).
My proposal: Use the secondary camera match the screen orientation to the user, not to gravity
The new phones these days have cameras that can see the user. And they have facial recognition algorithms that should be able to know the angle of the person’s head. If the phone is tilted and the user’s head is tilted the same amount and direction, then don’t rotate the screen.
Bryan Logan, make it so.
P.S. – see about a NASA grant, because this technology would also apply to zero-gravity situations when the phone’s sensor can’t tell which way is up.
When they moved, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went; but they followed in the direction which they faced, without turning as they went.
Ezekiel 10:11
Jun
3
2013
Warning: Engineering / computer science discussion ahead. Proceed with caution. Actually, it’s not that bad. Non-engineers might also appreciate this post, as long as they are familiar with the 80s.
I was given the assignment at work of providing a summary of RTOS (real-time operating system) differences. We use 3 different types of embedded operating systems in our various modules, and management was looking at another one to meet customer requirements.
For this application, there is a regular RTOS and a safety (or safe) RTOS for critical equipment. (If you are unfamiliar with those options, here are search results for safe RTOS so you can get more details.)
My summary is that a normal RTOS runs the expected tasks in one common environment, whereas the safety OS runs different tasks in different threads so they are isolated from each other memory- and context-wise.
If that’s still not making sense, maybe this will:
You can task if you want to
You can leave your threads behind
Because your threads don’t task
And if they don’t task
Well they’re no threads of mineSafety
OS
I’m hoping management wants me to present my summary at the next department meeting so I can put that on a slide.
He pursues them, passing on in safety,
By a way he had not been traversing with his feet.
Isaiah 41:3
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