It would seem I have configured {{OpenVPN}}, {{Squid proxy}}, and, to a lesser extent, Pi-hole well – none of the major sites that report IP, {{DNS}}, and other connection-related security issues find anything out of the ordinary when I’m either running “just” proxied, or {{VPN}}, or VPN+proxy. You should check yourself hereon: https://ipleak.net http://ip-check.info/?lang=en (ironic …
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Category:cool
manning is doing something similar to my bucket proposal
Manning Publishers has a liveBook offering. And it allows for the type of mini transactions (through their self-hosted “token” system) that I proposed when writing about how I’d dumped Pi-hole last year. Quoting from their recent announcement email Book publishers follow a simple rule: put your content behind a solid paywall. At Manning, we believe …
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simple ip address check – ipv4.cf
I’ve published another super-simple tool. A la whatismyip.com, but with no extra cruft (and no queer formatting of the IP address under the hood), welcome IPv4.cf to the world with me!
new service – free, secure password generation
Today, I am formally announcing a brand-new service / website for secure password generation. Go visit password.cf Get yourself random passwords of commonly-required lengths and complexities*. Password Varieties: 4 of 4 upper & lower alphanumeric lower alphanumeric Lengths generated: 12, 16, & 24 characters Visit the {{GitHub}} project page .. .. if you want to …
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above the cloud storage
Who wants to go into business with me? I’ve got a super-cool storage company idea. Load up a metric buttload of cubesats with radiation-hardened {{SSD}} storage, solar power, and [relatively] simple communicaton stacks (secured by {{SSH}} or {{SSL}}, of course), and launch them into orbit. You think cloud storage is cool? What about above-the-cloud storage? Pros: …
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haiku appliance
I have been a fan of Haiku for years – and BeOS since way back in the 90s. I run a Haiku mirror, and try to pay attention to the project’s updates. Today I am making available a Haiku-OS r1 alpha 4.1 virtual appliance! Download it from me here (created in {{VirtualBox}}, but in .ova format, so …
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i’m a medium plogger now*
(*Though most people would call me an {{XXXL}} blogger.) Following in the steps of Dave Winer, I am now plogging (sorta) on Medium. And, like Mr Winer, I’m doing it via IFTTT (though not via {{RSS}}, I’m doing it via the {{WordPress}} channel). If you’d like to do the same, use this IFTTT recipe.
subaru isn’t groveling
Subaru released a new vehicle in the Japanese market recently called the Levorg (I saw it on Samurai Wheels on NHK World). It stands for LEgacy reVOlution touRinG. It also spells “grovel” backwards. From the review Samurai Wheels gave it, it certainly doesn’t grovel. But it also purports to do something relatively difficult. Subaru has introduced EyeSight in …
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show only most recent facebook news feed
(Note: I did this in Chrome – it’ll be a little different in other browsers) I have several complaints about the book of the face – not least of which is that it likes to reset your News Feed from “Most Recent” (aka most useful) to “Top Stories” (aka whatever Facebook wants you to see). …
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steam by andrea sutcliffe
{{Andrea Sutcliffe}}’s book {{Steam: The Untold Story of American’s First Great Invention}} was a pure joy to read. Being the second review I’m writing with my “new” system, I hope you find this book as interesting as I have. In 1784, {{James Rumsey}} designed a boat that could, by purely mechanical means, move its way …
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merging centos iso images
Thanks to @Anon on Unix.SE for the pointer on how to do this. And to @Andy‘s comment on @mmckinst‘s answer for the warning about additional packages you may need. As my three readers know, I run a {{CentOS}} mirror. One of the idiosyncrasies of CentOS, like its upstream {{RHEL}}, is that DVD ISOs aren’t always just one image – …
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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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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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reviewing
I was contacted by Packt a few months ago to be a possible author of an eBook on the {{Raspberry Pi}}. As fun as that sounds like it would’ve been, I am in no way qualified to write on the topic, as I’ve both never used one, and don’t really have the time to play …
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programming again
It’s been years, but I am working on some new (small) programming projects again. First out will be an open-source app that’s a simplified (and slimmed-down) tool akin to Yahoo! Pipes. One of the things I had forgotten was just how hard it is to write code that doesn’t stink. Here’s hoping the first release …
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irony at olf2013 – the olpc and sugar
I played with the OLPC for a little bit at the Fedora table at OLF this past weekend. The Sugar desktop environment works on the metaphor of circles. It took me a few minutes to figure them out, but as soon as I was pointed at the right button (a dot, of all things), I …
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#moosefs @smartfile – distributed, redundant file management (#olf2013 talk)
As promised, some follow-up to OLF. Chris from SmartFile gave a great talk at OLF this year on MooseFS and how SmartFile leverages it to handle their rapidly-growing storage infrastructure. Specifically, he compared it to Ceph and GlusterFS. In short, MooseFS provides better configurability than either Ceph or {{GlusterFS}}, runs with lower overhead, and provides …
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civchoice.com
I found out about a super cool company a few days ago – CivChoice. The basic gist is that you create an account with CivChoice, put money into it (which is a one-way street: it’s a “donation” to CivChoice), and from there you divvy it out to the charities of your choice. You get a …
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deadline by mira grant
I read {{Feed}} (review) a few weeks ago, and just finished the 2d installment in {{Mira Grant}}’s {{Newsflesh}} trilogy, {{Deadline}}. The frenetic pace of book 1 was upped a level in book 2 (along with some more language). Mira is a fantastic author, and I cannot wait to read {{Blackout}} (it’s on my library queue). …
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krakatoa: the day the world exploded, august 27 1883 by simon winchester
I have been interested in volcanoes for a long time. I first wrote about them for a college essay in 1999, but my attraction to them began far earlier. Most likely it was triggered by hearing from my mom that her wedding day was the first time she’d ever really had allergies – just 6 …
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atlas of the year 1000 by john man
It was with great excitement I reserved {{Atlas of the Year 1000}} from my local library. {{John Man}}’s work did not disappoint (excluding the humorous typo of “a a” when only the single article use was intended). Starting with the Americas, then working Eastward to Europe, the Islamic region, and Asia before moving back west …
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geeks night out
Last week I went to the Geeks’ Night Out at Beerworks in Lexington. One of the people I met was a junior EE major at UK named Robyn who, along with two of her friends, is looking to start a home automation company (The Unity Box) – but not in the realm of a company …
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gardening efficiently – for fun and profit
I have gardened off and on for most of my life. Back in the 1980s, there was a show called “Square Foot Gardening” on PBS hosted by Mel Bartholomew. Now there is a website. When we lived in Albany, we purchased the book {{Square Foot Gardening}} (which has been updated and simplified even further by …
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thanks, {redacted}
A friend and coworker owns a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, and invited my wife and I to spend part-to-all of a week with him and his wife there at the beginning of March – doing a “WFC1” week instead of being ‘merely’ WFH2 (like we normally are).. He arrived Saturday morning with his wife, …
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bursts by albert-lászló barabási
{{Albert-László Barabási}}’s book “{{Bursts}}: The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do, from Your E-mail to Bloody Crusades” is fascinating. In the same overall genre as {{Malcolm Gladwell}}’s {{Outliers}} (review) – pop psychology and pop science – {{Bursts}} is a great read: bringing highly technical and dense topics to the masses in a manner that [apparently] …
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