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Incremental Garbage Collector in PyPy
Hello everyone. We're pleased to announce that as of today, the default PyPy comes with a GC that has much smaller pauses than yesterday...
Insecurities in the Linux /dev/random
New paper: “Security Analysis of Pseudo-Random Number Generators with Input: /dev/random is not Robust, by Yevgeniy Dodis, David Pointcheval, Sylvain Ruhault, Damien Vergnaud, and Daniel Wichs. Abstract: A pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) is a deterministic algorithm that produces numbers whose distribution is…
How the .0001% Made Its Money
America’s .0001% is becoming more meritocratic - to an extent.
Why Android SSL was downgraded from AES256-SHA to RC4-MD5 in late 2010
blog about networking, cameras, old gear, and xmpp
Ghost Launches to The Public
Today we are very proud to announce the first public release of the Ghost blogging platform to the public. Following three weeks of intense testing after launching [https://ghost.org/changelog/launch/] to our 6,000 Kickstarter backers, today we are releasing an updated Ghost 0.3.2 to everyone
The trouble with timestamps
Some folks have asked whether Cassandra or Riak in last-write-wins mode are monotonically consistent, or whether they can guarantee read-your-writes, and so on. This is a fascinating question, and leads to all sorts of interesting properties about clocks and causality.
Richard Feynman: Cargo Cult Science (1974)
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T-Mobile Rocks
I was a T-Mobile customer for more than a decade from the late 90s until a year or two ago. I really enjoyed the experiece. I didn't know many other T-Mobile customers. That was fine with me. One by one, my family switched to AT&T. My kids went to AT&T for the iPhone when you […]
Inspired by the 180 websites I will understand 52 academic papers in 52 weeks
Hi 👋 you're reading a pretty old post! I started writing on here back in high school and this page may not reflect my current views. Recommend checking out related articles and categories down below, I've likely published more recent thoughts on this topic.
Hostnames
The idea is to come up with some kind of category, so that people have something to remember all the names by. Some categories: Geographical (countries, cities, parks, rivers, lakes, streets), entertainment (flintsones, simpsons, disney films, celebrities), companies (hotels, airports, local shops, restarants)…
What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months
It’s been 6 months now since I moved from Amsterdam to Asia to work remotely. I chose Thailand for its low-cost of living and safety. Since my visa will run ou…
Faking Bluetooth LE
Dmitry.GR: Creating BTLE-compliant advertisement packets, so that iOS and android devices can see and parse them.
Nordstrom Finds Cash Register Skimmers
Scam artists who deploy credit and debit card skimmers most often target ATMs, yet thieves can also use inexpensive, store-bought skimming devices to compromise modern-day cash registers. Just this past weekend, for instance, department store chain Nordstrom said it found a half-dozen of these skimmers affixed to…
Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License
Dear Google, There has been quite a bit of news lately that you have applied for a patent on bill splitting. It's a helpful tool—we've all been to restaurants or lived with housemates and have needed a convenient way of calculating and tracking who owes what. But this technology already exists—and...
The war on drugs is a broken business model
We challenge unacceptable issues and systems for good. See how we lift entrepreneurs, communities and ideas for a more just, equitable and peaceful world.
Why Microsoft Word must die
I hate Microsoft Word. I want Microsoft Word to die. I hate Microsoft Word with a burning, fiery passion. I hate Microsoft Word the way Winston Smith hated Big Brother. Our reasons are, alarmingly, not dissimilar ...
Why Registers Are Fast and RAM Is Slow
In the previous article on ARM64 , I mentioned that one advantage of the new architecture is the fact that it has twice as many registers, allowing code load data from RAM less often, which is much slower. Reader Daniel Hooper asks the natural question: just why is RAM so much slower than registers?
Air Gaps
Since I started working with Snowden’s documents, I have been using a number of tools to try to stay secure from the NSA. The advice I shared included using Tor, preferring certain cryptography over others, and using public-domain encryption wherever possible. I also recommended using an air gap, which physically…
The core Internet institutions abandon the US Government
In Montevideo, Uruguay this week, the Directors of all the major Internet organizations – ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Society, all five of the regional Internet address registries – turned their back on the US government. With…