008
ABACHOBot
Accoona-AI-Agent
AddSugarSpiderBot
AnyApexBot
Arachmo
B-l-i-t-z-B-O-T
Baiduspider
BecomeBot
BeslistBot
BillyBobBot

Just to start at the top… Great resource.

Source2URL is a simple tool (currently bash only) designed to aid the content discovery phase of a web application security assessment. It parses a given directory containing source code and creates a URL list for all discovered resources. Once this is complete it then makes an HTTP request to each URL, through a configured proxy, so that visibility of that resource is attained and spidering can then ensue/continue. A text file containing all the URLs is left behind for use with other tools as desired.

I awoke at 2am last night compelled to make this thing. Next up: a Windows version.

lol

The reasons for the company’s dwindling prospects are easy to find.  Just walk into one of the company’s retail locations or shop online.  And try, really try, not to lose your temper.

I admit.  I can’t do it.  A few days ago, I visited a Best Buy store in Pinole, CA with a friend.  He’s a devoted consumer electronics and media shopper, and wanted to buy the 3D blu ray of “How to Train Your Dragon,” which Best Buy sells exclusively.  According to the company’s website, it’s backordered but available for pickup at the store we visited.  The item wasn’t there, however, and the sales staff had no information.

But my friend decided to buy some other blu-ray discs.  Or at least he tried to, until we were “assisted” by a young, poorly groomed sales clerk from the TV department, who wandered over to interrogate us.  What kind of TV do you have?  Do you have a cable service, or a satellite service?  Do you have a triple play service plan?

He was clearly—and clumsily–trying to sell some alternative.  (My guess is CinemaNow, Best Buy’s private label on-demand content service.)  My friend politely but firmly told him he was not interested in switching his service from Comcast.  I tried to change the subject by asking if there was a separate bin for 3D blu rays; he didn’t know.

The used car style questions continued.  “I have just one last question for you,” he finally said to my friend.  “How much do you pay Comcast every month?”

This makes sense.

They don’t sell anything you can’t get on Amazon or Apple’s stores/site, and there’s a good chance that anything you come there to get will be gone.

Then their website sucks and their stores are staffed by people who don’t know anything about the products.

It seems like it is just a matter of time.

But what’s going to take its place? That seems like the only argument for why they would remain. Sort of like Barnes and Noble. If they’re they last ones in the space of physical locations — even if online is better — aren’t they in a good position to survive?

I don’t know. But it’ll be interesting to watch.

The Constitutional Council approved the new soda tax, announced in August as part of the government’s fight against obesity and within the framework of a broader austerity programme, after it was passed in parliament last week.

The tax, which works out to one euro cent per can of drink, is expected to bring in 120 million euros ($156 million) in state revenues.

The tax has been slammed by beverage firms including Coca-Cola, which in September said it was suspending a planned 17-million-euro investment at a plant in the south of France in “a symbolic protest against a tax that punishes our company and stigmatises our products.”

Answer: lobbyists. Government needs to dominate enterprise when it comes to clear cases of the public welfare. This is something America used to know and has long since forgotten.

Few topics are discussed as much in the tech industry as how to hire great people. There are myriad approaches, from how to look for qualities you want, to how to filter people you don’t want, to how to ignore standard metrics and go with some sort of instinct. Everyone has their favorite pet filter. I’ve spent the last couple of years grappling with this challenge myself and reading most anything I can find on different ways to find good employees.

What follows is a collection of philosophies, systems, and approaches that I’ve encountered during this time that may help guide you in your effort.

My latest /study post.

Brilliant as always.

When he was in eighth grade, Steve Jobs decided to build a frequency counter for a school project and needed parts. Someone suggested that he call Bill Hewlett. Finding a William Hewlett in the telephone book, the 12-year-old Jobs called and asked, “Is this the Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard?” “Yes,” said Bill. Jobs made his request. Bill spent some time talking to him about his project. Several days later, Jobs went to HP and picked up a bag full of parts that Bill had put together for him. Subsequently, Jobs landed a summer job at HP. He later went on to co-found Apple Computer. 

Think of how amazing this is.  The founder and CEO of one of the major companies of the time, Bill Hewlett, got on the phone with a random 12-year-old he had never heard of.  He then proceeded to personally make sure to assemble the bag of HP parts the kid needed.

For the man, the possibility was there, and so the blood of Genghis Khan runs through a large segment of today’s human population. By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but for the few men who do, the gains have been real. And we are descended from those great men much more than from other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no descendants at all.

This is a fascinating article, and it happens to be tightly bound with my own views on gender and equality — i.e. we are this way for reasons that don’t care, and it is best to 1) understand those reasons, 2) accept them as truths, and 3) do what we can to remove the sharp edges using reason and a general desire for the humanist ideal.

“At MIT, his office in Building 20 was crammed with books, most overdue from the college library. Dr. Lettvin claimed he did not return them because the library would send him the students who wanted those books, and he would interview them as potential assistants.”

Jerome was gaming the library. He was holding onto resources that like-minded individuals desired in order to make professional connections. Cool.

This is a guy who cares about meeting like-minded people.

In temperance tests (the equivalent of how many times your kid can poke your dog in the eye before it bites him) of all breeds the most tolerant was the Golden Retriever. The second most tolerant was the pit bull.
Pit Bull’s jaws do not lock, they do not have the most powerful bite among dogs (Rottweilers have that honor) they are not naturally human aggressive (in fact pit bull puppies prefer human company to their mother’s two weeks before all other dogs), and they feel as much pain as any other breed (accidentally step on one’s toe and you’ll see).
The most tolerant, patient, gentle breed of dogs is now embarrassingly portrayed as the most dangerous. It would be funny if the new reputation did not mean 6,000 are put to death every day, by far the highest number of any other breed euthanized.

The reason pit bulls have such a bad name is that they became famous among those who mistreat dogs for being a breed that is good for fighting, so those people bought many of them and mistreated them.

Environment > Genetics. Some of those dogs bit people and a reputation was born.

Malcolm Gladwell makes the most interesting point, which is that pit bulls are actually very aggressive–but only towards dogs–not humans.

It’s stunning how wrong so many people can be about something with such a clear answer.

Silk Road, a digital black market that sits just below most internet users’ purview, does resemble something from a cyberpunk novel. Through a combination of anonymity technology and a sophisticated user-feedback system, Silk Road makes buying and selling illegal drugs as easy as buying used electronics—and seemingly as safe. It’s Amazon—if Amazon sold mind-altering chemicals.

You might want to check out the site while it’s still there.