I say yes. Martin McKeay from Network Security Blog disagrees. He writes: I kind of like Daniel Miessler’s writing and think he has some good posts, but he totally misses the point of the CISSP when he complains about CISSPs who can’t program a home network. The CISSP isn’t aimed at testing someone’s ability to program their Linksys…
Archives for August 2007
Google Phone vs. iPhone
Google is releasing a phone soon (possibly Q1 2008). It’s going to run on HTC hardware. It’s going to be sick. This we know. Google vs. Apple. I don’t see anyone else in this game right now. Everyone else will be trying to catch up via imitation. A few points/predictions: The overall web service integration (Google services, obviously)…
Ron Paul is for Real. Let’s Do This.
Many have been hearing a lot about Ron Paul lately — have heard some things they like — but aren’t sure exactly where he stands on the issues. Well, he’s actually a real candidate now. He’s not some random, fringe guy anymore. He’s winning straw polls, he’s making it onto mainstream media outlets, and he’s getting people involved.…
Philosophy Should Be a Core Part of Education at All Levels
Philosophy should be taught starting at a very early age, and should continue all the way through college. Nothing is more important than learning how to approach…thinking. Logic, reason, debate, and most importantly — resistance to manipulation. I think young students versed in philosophy and history have a solid foundation on which to take on additional education. Can…
How Would You Prove Evolution?
I need some help here. I have a friend with whom I’m debating evolution. He is a fundamentalist Christian (wait for it), but he has an uncharacteristic understanding of, and respect for, science. So he’s an extremely intelligent guy who doesn’t deny the validity of science. In fact, he actually accepts microevolution. He’s familiar with the various moth…
Atom > RSS: Why We Should Just Call Them “Feeds” Instead of “RSS” Feeds
I’m no longer calling feeds “RSS feeds”. From now on I’m calling them “syndication” feeds, or just “feeds”. There have been two standards for doing this type of XML-based website syndication for a long time now — Atom and RSS. RSS is older and has more penetration, so its name has been confused with its function. Just like…
Atheistic Societies Are Happy Societies
According to a major study there’s a very strong correlation between atheism and societal health. Here are the most non-religious countries in the world, according to the findings: Sweden Vietnam Denmark Norway Japan Czech Republic Finland France South Korea Estonia From the paper: High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such…
Intelligence and Experience
Many define intelligence at least partly as the ability to learn from one’s experiences. If I make a mistake and I’m intelligent I should be able to see what I did wrong, adjust, and avoid the problem in the future. That’s fine, but I have a better definition. I think what’s even more important is the ability to…
Saying No To “www”: A Fortune 50 Company Analysis
I recently wrote a piece about why we need to abandon the use of “www” both in speech and in technical implementation. The overwhelming response led me to wonder how the business world was handling the issue. How do the “serious” companies deal with requests that don’t include the “www” prefix? I started with the 2007 Fortune 500…
7 Essential Firefox Quicksearches
If you’re not yet using Firefox Quicksearches you’re missing out. Quicksearches allow you to search virtually anything directly from the Firefox URL field. Here I just searched for Ron Paul related information on Google. The trick is the first character — in this case “g” — that tells Firefox where to send the query. To set this up…
iPhone vs. Blackberry
iPhones don’t seem to be as durable as Blackberrys. At least that was my experience. I dropped my iPhone a couple of times last week and a few of the home screen buttons stopped responding to touch when you hit them a certain way. It still worked fine, but it was “flawed”. So yesterday after work I drove…
Searching Your Google Bookmarks From Firefox’s URL Field
I was looking for a bookmark of mine on Google Bookmarks a moment ago and did so in a very primitive way — I went to my bookmarks page and typed my query into the search field. Bad form. Well, it dawned on me that there’s a much better way to do this. After remembering that I use…
God Committed the Original Sin
In the beginning there was nothing — just God. Before the book of Genesis there were no humans and therefore no human suffering. In fact there was no suffering whatsoever since God Himself was the only thing in existence, and He is perfect. So in a pristine world completely devoid of pain God decided to create a life…
Paying Respects to Bruce Lee — The Original Mixed Martial Artist
I’ve always been a Martial Arts enthusiast, and I used to be obsessed with Bruce Lee. I thought he was God. I’ve not thought much about him in the last 10 years or so, however, even as I have become a full-fledged Mixed Martial Arts fan. But I realized yesterday when reading some Bruce Lee quotes that it’s…
Why Scott Adams is Wrong about Atheism
Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has come out and challenged the intellectual merits of atheism. In a recent blog post he argues that the only intellectually honest option for a non-believer is agnosticism. Here’s his argument: It is common for humans to be 100% certain of a particular fact, and later find out it is wrong. Therefore, it…
A Flag Shibboleth
Here’s an interesting security tidbit from the world of flags. There’s a right way and a wrong way to fly the Union Jack, but only people who are intimately familiar with the symbol will even notice. The flag does not have reflectional symmetry, due to the slight pinwheeling of St. Patrick’s cross, which is technically called the counterchange…
Why You Should Encrypt ALL of Your Google Activities [POC]
Everyone loves Google. They want to be everything to everyone, and they’re getting pretty damn good at it. Once you start using their services it gets easier and easier to migrate more of your life to them. But there’s a slight problem. Google, like most other similar services, encrypts login traffic but not your content. So the moment…
Observations From DEFCON
DEFCON is a Social Networking Event DEFCON makes all of the audio and video content available (for a price) afterwards, meaning you can watch all of the presentations as if you were there anyway. What you can’t do is mill about and catching up with your with your friends and colleagues from all over the country (or make…
Our Fickle Minds
I read news items by opening them in background Firefox tabs from Google Reader. I go through the feeds that I’m reading at the moment, open all that are interesting, and then close my reader app. What’s interesting about this is that if I leave for a bit before reading my open tabs, something strange happens — none…