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
you can make anything online – even grave markers
Knock yourself out. http://www.tombstonebuilder.com http://www.customreceipt.com http://www.customweddingsign.com http://www.prescriptionmaker.com http://www.eyechartmaker.com http://www.customroadsign.com http://www.getamedal.com
what is “plan b” for iot security?
{{Schneier}} has a recent article on security concerns for {{IoT}} (internet of things) devices – IoT Cybersecurity: What’s Plan B? We can try to shop our ideals and demand more security, but companies don’t compete on IoT safety — and we security experts aren’t a large enough market force to make a difference. We need a …
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david pogue’s 1996 mac holiday sing-along
Thanks, Archive.org! God Rest Ye Copland Programmers (to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”) God rest ye Copland programmers, It’s finally Christmas Day. You’ve all worked 20-hour shifts Beginning back in May. No wonder after such neglect Your spouses moved away. The last real meal you had Was late last year– That’s what …
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telling on myself
When I was little, I used to get up (on my own) early – often between 6:30 and 7. And when I would get up, I would walk down the hall, knock on my parents’ room door, tell my mom I was up, and ask if I could watch some cartoons. Generally, my mom was …
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fallocate vs dd for swap file creation
I recently ran across this helpful Digital Ocean community answer about creating a swap file at droplet creation time. So I decided to test how long using my old method (using dd) takes to run vs using fallocate. Here’s how long it takes to run fallocate on a fresh 40GB droplet: root@ubuntu:/# rm swapfile && …
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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!
Seattle is a surprisingly hilly city
Maybe I should have expected this. But Seattle is hilly. Surprisingly so. For something so close to the coast, I wouldn’t have expected so many hills. Apparently I need topographical overlays turned on for my GPS apps.
crowdsourcing patronage
Just what is journalism going to look like in the future? It’s a question that’s been bouncing around my head for a while, and articulated in various pieces by Ben Thompson (in a nichification process), my friend Eric Hydrick, and others. Eric brought up the idea of supporting “special” journalism through services like Patreon. I …
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wonder how many zombie film/tv/game creators are/were computer science nerds
As you all know, I am a huge zombie fan. And, as you probably know, I was a CIS/CS major/minor at Elon. A concept I was introduced to at both Shodor and Elon was ant colony simulations. And I realized today that many people have been introduced to the basics concepts of ant colony simulations …
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Traveling is tiring
For the better part of a decade, I have done travel consulting. It’s great in that I get to see different places, meet new people, and – generally – get a lot done for them while I am there. But I don’t get to see anything “interesting” – everything closes before I get done at …
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Too many social networks
I understand there are different strokes for different folks, but there are too many social networks, messaging platforms, etc out there. Mastodon, Twitter, Google+, Telegram, Facebook, Slack, HipChat, LinkedIn, blogging, plogging (https://byrbyr.ga/H), Hangouts, SMS, iMessage, Nextdoor, SnapChat, WhatsApp, YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram… and I know I’ve missed scores and scores more. Oh – and don’t forget …
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pi-hole revisited
Back in November, I was really up on Pi-hole. But after several more months of running it … I am far less psyched than I had been. I’m sure part of that is having gotten better internet services at my house – so the impact of ads is less noticeable. But a major part of …
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Jabberwocky – by Lewis Carroll
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: long time the …
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Write less better more
Does writing less (each time) lead to writing better? Does writing better lead to writing more [often]? That’s one of many things Paragraph is trying to find out. Well, Paragraph, per se, is not going to find out; its users will. I think helping to force concision on an author for sake of clarity and …
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Assembly for iOS
On display on this blog is a pair of graphics (a logo, and an RSS icon superimposed on the logo) I built with Assembly – a sticker-creating app for iOS (https://byrbyr.ga/G) that will export to SVG, PNG, or PDF (with subscription). In combination with some post-processing by Boxy SVG (https://boxy-svg.com), I’ve been making logos (see …
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Welcome to the first Paragraph-enabled blog on the internet
Welcome to Paragraph.cf – the first blog running the Paragraph WordPress plugin (see https://plugin.paragraph.cf). The beauty (and entire point) of Paragraph is that there is no HTML formatting in any post or page – no tags: it’s all just text (albeit formatted by the theme’s overarching basics (font, color, etc)). Paragraph is an experiment in …
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i wrote a thing – paragraph, a simple plugin for wordpress
Along with becoming more active on Mastodon, I’ve been thinking more about concision recently. One of the big selling points for Mastodon is that the character limit per post is 500 instead of Twitter’s 140. And I was thinking, “what if there was a way to force you to write better by writing less / …
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Malachi 4 (ASV)
{Malachi 3} For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the …
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Malachi 3 (ASV)
{Malachi 2} Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall …
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Malachi 2 (ASV)
{Malachi 1} And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith Jehovah of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them …
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Malachi 1 (ASV)
The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the …
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update: keeping your let’s encrypt certs up-to-date
Last year I posted a simple script for keeping your Let’s Encrypt {{SSL}} certificates current. In conjunction with my last post sharing the “best” SSL configs you can use with {{Apache}} on {{CentOS}}, here is the current state of the cron’d renewal script I use. systemctl stop httpd.service systemctl stop postfix ~/letsencrypt/letsencrypt-auto -t -n –agree-tos –keep …
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tech news channel on telegram
I have started a Tech News channel on Telegram. Follow it at @datente.
ssl configuration for apache 2.4 on centos 7 with let’s encrypt
In follow-up to previous posts I’ve had about SSL (specifically with Let’s Encrypt), here is the set of {{SSL}} configurations I use with all my sites. These, if used correctly, should score you an “A+” with no warnings from ssllabs.com. Note: I have an improved entropy package installed (twuewand). This is adapted from the Mozilla config …
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