I wrote an article on passwords, passphrases, entropy, and data breaches for my employer’s blog: https://augustschell.com/passwords-passphrases-complexity-length-crackability-memorability-data-breaches
Category:education
kvp is a lousy way to teach
Recently on one of the podcasts I listen to, I heard an offhanded comment made about how history is taught not in patterns but as facts. For example, “On the 18th of April in ’75, hardly a man is now alive, who remembers that famous day and year”. Rarely are the “whys” explained – understandably …
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setting-up etherpad in centos 6
To add to my tutorial collection, here’s how to setup EtherPad on CentOS 6 (x64). As in the IRC tutorial, I used a Digital Ocean VM for this 🙂 What is EtherPad? It’s an open-source collaborative text editor that works like Google Docs – ie, all editors/viewers can see changes from everyone else in realtime. …
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programming your home by mike riley
{{Mike Riley}}’s entry in {{The Pragmatic Programmers}} series, {{Programming Your Home}} – automating with {{Arduino}}, {{Android}}, and your computer – was a lot of fun. While I am not really in a position to do many of the mini projects given in the book (wrong type of house plus we rent), reading some of the …
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why nations fail by daron acemoglu and james a robinson
I first came across {{Why Nations Fail}} at my local Half Price Books. After seeing it on the shelves a couple times, but still being unsure about whether I really wanted to read it or not, I reserved it at my local library. Now I wish I had bought it (and likely will) – {{Daron …
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the seven stages of expertise
I recently found The Seven Stages of Expertise in Software Engineering. Stage 1: Innocent barely knowledgeable if at all Stage 2: Exposed seeking knowledge Stage 3: Apprentice has read case studies and tries to apply those techniques Stage 4: Practitioner can actually apply concepts learned in one context to a not-identical context Stage 5: Journeyman …
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what is the “new” python?
9 years ago, {{Paul Graham}} made a controversial statement: [W]hen you choose a language, you’re also choosing a community. The programmers you’ll be able to hire to work on a {{Java}} project won’t be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in {{Python}}. And the quality of your …
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reference materials
I learned recently that my wonderful wife was never taught how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, almanac, or encyclopedia as a child in school. Not all of that can be because she went to public school whereas I was homeschooled. Nor can it merely be that she grew up in KY and I in NY. …
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organizational knowledge capture, retention, and dissemination
Knowledge capture, retention, and dissemination has been an interest of mine for a long time. I have written about various aspects of it before. The most vital commodity any organization has is the knowledge of its members – it does not matter if it is a historical society, company, church, or school: the organizational knowledge …
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redecentralizing school
I have a very long–term interest in education. As I look at the current public education “system” in the US, I can see a variety of major problems. The biggest problem, endemic of any system built around the premise that the only people who should be together all day long should all be “similar”. Somewhere …
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mastery by robert greene
In {{Mastery}}, {{Robert Greene}} continues in the style of his excellent work, {{The 48 Laws of Power}} (which I previously reviewed and have been posting excerpts from). Sadly, it is not quite to the level of The 48 Laws – though it still a good book. Unbeknownst to me, I’ve already been practicing most of what …
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the basque history of the world by mark kurlansky
I have long been interested in the Basque people; first introduced to them nearly 13 years ago in an introduction to terrorism class (a year and a half before it was “cool”) with the separatist group {{ETA}}. So it was with great interest I grabbed {{The Basque History of the World}} by {{Mark Kurlansky}} off …
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ghosts in the fog by samantha seiple
For much of my life I have been interested in WWII – my grandpa Myers was in the Navy in the Pacific theater on a mine sweeper. My dad read extensively on the war, largely because of his father, and passed along an interest in military history – the navy in particular – and intriguing stories …
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the art of war by sun tzu
{{The Art of War}} by {{Sun Tzu}} is one of the oldest texts in the world, and the oldest known treatise on warfare. It has become de rigueur in war colleges, business schools, and other venues. Most people have incorporated at least part of Sun Tzu’s teaching and thinking in their lives as leaders – …
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the 48 laws of power by robert greene
Unlike my previous book reviews, I’ve decided to approach {{The 48 Laws of Power}} by {{Robert Greene}} in a slightly different manner. Mr Greene’s collection of historical observations into a neatly-distilled, easily-readable format should make everyone who reads it want to put a copy on their desk – and reread [parts of] it frequently. The …
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why the electoral college matters
This year’s election results seem to – again – be confusing a LOT of people. The incumbent presidential candidate, Mr {{Obama}}, won ~51% of the popular vote. His main opponent, Mr {{Romney}}, won ~48% of the popular vote. However, when you look at the electoral votes (the only ones that really matter), you see a different picture: …
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thoughts on vilt
Over the years, I have taken (and given) a lot of training. I’ve had self-paced tutorials (printed and electronic), in-person lectures, hand-on labs, small groups, formal classes, one-on-one tutoring, and virtual instructor led training (VILT). I’ve seen two distinct types of VILT – good and bad. I have yet to see any “ok” training. It’s …
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certifications and dependencies
Last week I participated in a beta class for HP’s new Cloud Service Automation 3.0 product release (ok, so it’s a prerelease, and “product” is a strong term). 3.0 is a full rewrite from 2.x, so there is no upgrade path. Also, not everything that “appears” to be in place OOB is actually working – …
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asking the wrong question
A recent question (“Is it possible to trace someone using Google during an online exam?“) on superuser had me thinking about asking the right question again. I want to design an online exam for over 1000 students via around 50 computers right after the vacation ends. Now the problem is that I have heard that …
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nclb – you know, unless you’re in one of these 10 states…
Pick your slant report – Huffington Post or Fox News: it has been reported that President Obama’s administration will be issuing waivers to 10 states with regard to compliancy with No Child Left Behind (which, in my opinion, is one of the biggest debacles in public education ever). If the point is to “leave no child behind”, why …
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doing technical phone screens
Related to a previous post on career development, I thought it could be interesting to look at one approach to the technical screen that I have used over the past few years when interviewing candidates. for folks with no “real” experience yet, I ask them to rank themselves on a few key technologies on the …
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http is a stateless protocol
The ubiquitous protocol that enables the internet as we know it, http, is stateless. Stateless merely means that any given request has nothing to do with the previous, or the next request. This enables the world wide web, as web servers do not need to keep track of who is receiving data, nor ow much …
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technical career development
Career development. Career path. Development opportunities. Taking your career to the next level. Terms and phrases we all hear and pretty much pass over in our day-to-day lives. Right up until we want to move to a new/better job or performance reviews roll around. But what do they mean, and how can you advance your …
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the ticket smash, raw metrics, and communication – how to have a successful support organization
When I worked at Opsware, and for a while after HP bought us, we used to try to have once- or twice-a-week meetings for each support group wherein we would bring our most difficult cases (with the difficulty being determined by the case owner), and have an opportunity for everyone on the team to ask questions, …
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debugging authorized_keys and ssh
I saw an interesting question this morning on ServerFault, entitled “SSH Prompts for password even though private keys are available, presented to server and known to it”. when my user is not already connected to the server (first ssh connexion), it prompts for password even though privates keys are availiable (PuTTY + Pagent). After that …
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