Archives for 2009
How to Manage a Cisco Device via Console Using a USB Port in OS X
Problem: you need to manage a Cisco device via console, but the only box you have available is your non-macpro-mac, i.e. you don’t have a console port available. Solution: manage it via USB. Step 1: Procure a USB to Console Cable It should look something like this. You can get them most anywhere. Step 2: Download and Install…
My Only Shot at Immortality
Like my religious friends, I too would like to live forever. The thought of there being an end to my learning–a point at which my lifelong tool sharpening goes to waste–is not a happy one. Here’s the only way I can see it happening (and I don’t think it’s too farfetched, either). We simply have to make it…
Happiness: Creation vs. Collection
I have an observation that I’ve been mulling for the last few days: unhealthy people collect things. Healthy people create things. Naturally, statements like these always pivot on definitions, so when I say “healthy” here, I mean people who generally like themselves and feel happy about where they are in life. This isn’t to say that all people…
Social Media is Nothing But a Global Interface to You as a Person
The problem newcomers often make when thinking about social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is thinking about it as some sort of additional thing–as if there’s a separation between you, and it. There isn’t. Social media is nothing disparate or foreign. It’s an arbitrary name we’ve assigned to “using technology to provide an interface to ourselves”. Your blog, or…
My Twitter Infosec List
I am really looking forward to the potential of Twitter Lists. Here’s my Information Security list. Ping me if I’ve overlooked you. [ Daniel Miessler’s Twitter Information Security List | twitter.com ] And here’s my complete list of…lists. ::
The Only Class That Matters
To have “class” means different things to different people. Some think it means having money. Others think it means being able to identify and procure expensive, hard to attain things. Another lot think it means appreciating obscure types of art or music. The key to the word’s meaning, however, always hinges on the concept of refinement or advancement.…
Harry Potter and the Extension of Reality
This will be a strange post. I just finished the Harry Potter series, and I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’m quite sure it’s the best series I’ve ever read in many ways. Not in all ways, but in many. Perhaps in most that matter. Anyway, I’ll come back to that later; that’s not the important part. While reading it…
One of Life’s Harshest Realities
There are many harsh things about life. The one people grapple with most is death, of course, but I see another that’s worse in many ways. It’s horribly unfair that we usually cannot live near our friends. When we are children we are stripped from close relationships because our parents had to move, or because their parents had…
Removing Files from a Git Repository Without Actually Deleting Them
Sometimes when you first install git you realize you added a bunch of crap to your repository, which makes it bloated. Or maybe you have junk files like .DS_STORE lying around that you want to keep out of your git goodness. Here’s how to delete from your repository without deleting them from your disk. # git rm -rf…
An Open Letter on Software Patents
My friend Richard is very passionate about software patents, and he’s in the process socializing an open letter he recently wrote to a number of outlets. He asked if I’d post it here as well, so here it is. — 5 Reasons the US Supreme Court should explicitly deny patent protection to software. Software is simply a solution…
Google Voice on a Verizon Android?
So Verizon and Google just announced a strategic partnership. Verizon also stated that they’re embracing openness, which means (among other things) they’re going to allow Google Voice on Android devices on their network. So this solidifies things for me on the mobile device front. At this point I see the comparison like this between iPhone vs. Android: Apple/AT&T…
Daniel Dennett on Free Will
I find this a highly practical argument, but not an absolute or reality-based one. He’s saying that because humans can see things in the future (such as a coming flood due to an oncoming weather pattern) and then take preventative action, we are exercising free will in the most meaningful way possible (harm avoidance)–even if we are actually…
Will Power in Finite Supply
An interesting study has just been published in Psychology and Health that shows that when you restrain yourself emotionally you deplete what seems to be a finite amount of will power you have for the day. I think this has interesting implications for people in certain fields, like day trading, or professional gambling. But I repeat myself. No,…
Want: A Disease Based in Low Self-Esteem
Here are three related scenarios: You own the DVD of a good movie, but you never watch it. But if that movie happens to come on TV–even mangled by commercials–you’ll see it the whole way through. Your manager thinks consultants, or maybe a prospective hire that’s not on the team yet, know much more than you–even if there…
Some Thoughts on the Future of IT
I see the cloud as a means by which business units will disentangle themselves from internal IT shops, eventually moving to a model where internal IT equates to one primary component, which are high-power IT experts with exemplary communication skills who serve as proxies between the business unit and outsourced IT services. There will be a small shop…
Liberal and Conservative
Conservatives long for the world of Leave it to Beaver, Christmas Story, and Babe Ruth. A world of everyone looking the same, talking the same, eating the same foods, and enjoying the same sports. Everyone loves Jesus, America, Baseball, and tries to work hard so he can be rich and enjoy well-deserved luxury. A core belief of this…
My Political Philosophy in Two Sentences
I’m not a liberal because I believe it is necessary to implement a number of cold and non-liberal policies to achieve the liberal ideal. I am not a conservative because I seek the liberal ideal. ::
The Three IT Roles: The King, the Sage, and the Cog
I observe three basic types of people working in the IT field: kings, sages, and cogs. The King The king is one who has complete control over how they are going to orient a given IT shop. He creates strategy and manages the implementation of that strategy. Most importantly, he can come up with his own ideas and…
Nmap: Use the –top-ports Option for Both TCP and UDP Simultaneously
I’m a big fan of nmap‘s –top-ports option, which gives you the ability to leverage Fyodor’s latest Internet research on open ports on the Internet. Basically, he scanned most of the Internet and determined which ports are usually open, and he built lists of the top ports for use within nmap. So now instead of saying: nmap -p…
Be Like Han
So Han’s walking down the halls of Bespin with his old friend Lando. Leia’s there, and lookin’ good. Han thinks he’s off to dinner – maybe some wine, a little flirting, and then back to the ol’ guest quarters with Her Hotness. But the door opens, and there’s Darth Vader. Han doesn’t look incredulously at Lando; he doesn’t…
Free Will vs. Determinism as the Core of Political Disagreement
Ultimately, there are two primary political belief systems, and they are poorly captured by any label such as liberal, conservative, republican, or democrat. These two designations are far more fundamental than any people normally discussed, and are defined by a single fork in philosophical thought: the question of free will vs. determinism. The two, fundamental political belief systems…
How to Have a Good Debate: Definitions
The majority of conflict within any sufficiently complex debate originates from semantics related to the core terms, e.g. atheist, agnostic, liberal, conservative. The primary goal of one wishing to have a productive discussion should be to isolate this problem before beginning. One method of doing this is to identify the loaded concepts, and to decompress them into their…
The Belief in Supernatural Free Will as a Significant Source of Human Suffering
I just had a possibly interesting idea: what is it that makes it possible for religious people to look at a image on TV of starving people dying in Africa and say, Well, that’s what happens when you reject Christ… ? I believe one answer might be the belief in supernatural free will, i.e. the free will given…
A Simple Technique for Successfully Debating the Ignorant
What follows is my new method of addressing someone who doesn’t create sound arguments during a debate, i.e. those backed by fact, data, or some type of objective evidence. Once you suspect that you’re arguing with someone like this, directly probe to see if they have any evidence whatsoever to support themselves. If they can’t offer any–and especially…
No, It’s Not Just “Those People” Who Current Healthcare is Failing
62% of bankruptcies are from medical bills. Most medical debtors are well educated and middle class. Three quarters of those who filed bankruptcy had health insurance. 62% of bankruptcies are from medical bills. Most medical debtors are well educated and middle class. Three quarters of those who filed bankruptcy had health insurance. 62% of bankruptcies are from medical…
Free Will Again (A Response to a Reddit Question)
In response to this thread on Reddit: — Free will is a necessary delusion. The big bang happened, and then we do things. If true randomness does exist it might rule out absolute determinism, but it still wouldn’t give us any more control over our decisions than if true determinism did exist. Nature + nurture + stimuli =…
From Reddit: An Essay on Why It’s So Hard to Leave Religion
What follows is an excellent piece from Reddit on why leaving a religion can be so incredibly difficult. Here is the original thread, which is followed by some excellent discussion. Here is the post in its entirety, written by Ancient09 of Reddit, for those who don’t like to follow links. — It is generally common for atheists to…
A Wake-up Call for “Moderate Religion” Apologists
I have debated here at great length the degree of benefit or harm offered to society by religion. My position is that religion–even in its so-called moderate forms–causes more harm to modern society than it offers in return. My argument, in summary, is that religion is the direct cause of significant anti-intellectual sentiment in this country, and that…
Password Reset Mechanisms: The Online Security Threat Nobody’s Talking About
Humans are notoriously poor at weighing risk. We use emotion, rather than reason, to judge what’s truly dangerous, which is why most Americans being afraid of handguns in the home more than swimming pools when it comes to child safety. And it’s the same with online security. People worry about scary hackers penetrating through firewalls and stealing passwords…
From Password Reset Mechanisms to OpenID: A Brief Discussion of Online Password Security
For those not familiar, OpenID is a system that allows you to sign in to multiple websites using one identity. So, rather than have a different username and password for each site, you would just sign into each one using your OpenID credentials. In addition to the convenience this offers, there’s a security benefit in that the websites…
Extracting Meaning from Emptiness
It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that life and existence are eternally justified. — Nietzsche I saw this quote on Reddit recently, and it resonnated with me. It reminded me of my thoughts on meaning, which basically conclude that meaning is not real, but that pleasure, happiness, and beauty are our best (and perhaps only) replacements for…
The Worst Sickness of All
I’ve noticed an ailment that a few of my male friends from the South have. This isn’t to say it’s a uniquely Southern thing, but I have yet to notice it in any of my friends from California. It’s so unspeakable that I’ve been putting off writing about it for years, but alas, I feel like it should…
How to Sign In to Facebook Using Google
So you have a Facebook account, right? And you use Google Mail, right? Good, then this is for you. It’s just recently become possible for you to sign into Facebook automagically, i.e. without entering your Facebook username and password, just because you’re already signed into GMail. It’s full of win. The wholesomeness that allows this to happen is…
Gandhi Hated Black People, and MLK Was a Plagiarist
Many of our best people were really bad people. But I read a lot, so I already knew this, and it’s actually not the worst of Gandhi’s actions. Interestingly enough, many of our great leaders and icons were massively flawed individuals. Martin Luther King Jr. was a documented adulterer and plagiarist (he plagiarized some significant portion of his…
Federated ID, OpenID, and OAuth: A Web Authentication Primer
Federated ID Federated ID, also called Federated Identity Management (FIM), allows a Service Provider (SP) to offer a service without implementing its own authentication system, and to instead trust another entity—an Identity Provider (IdP)—to provide authenticated users to them. If that seems confusing, imagine two companies: IdentiCorp and ServiceInc. ServiceInc has great services, but they don’t like the…
Pew: 32% of Americans Believe Humans Evolved Without Supernatural Influence
From a Pew poll. Few in the scientific community would debate Darwinian theory, but evolution is far from universally accepted among the public at large. While 87% of scientists say humans and other living things have evolved as the result of processes such as natural selection, only a third of the public agrees. Another 22% of the public…
A Brilliant Piece on Fashion
You’ll want to check out this piece over at Less Wrong on fashion. It’s the clearest thinking I’ve ever seen on the topic. I’ll summarize (and add my own analysis), which won’t nearly capture the article itself (so I encourage you to read it yourself, too). Fashion can be described with a couple of main concepts: The goal…
Fascism is Upon Us, and Other Thoughts About Our Future
We’ll start with a couple of definitions:: Facism (Wikipedia) Comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic i deology. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak. Fascists advocate the creation of a…
Racism Scopecreep in the Liberal Media
Image from edweek.org I like the New York Times; I think they produce an overall strong product. But sometimes the PC-bend is simply overwhelming. This piece on the New York Firefighters test is a case in point. They argue that the firefighter’s test is racist in hidden, sneaky ways–like in requiring people to be good at reading comprehension.…
Updated Ruby Code for Querying IpInfoDB
This version adds two main features: avoids barfing if the array size is zero when appending to the query string sends the web service 25 queries at a time instead of one speed: it’ll do about 3000 resolutions per minute now require ‘rubygems’ require ‘hpricot’ require ‘open-uri’ ips = [] file = File.open(‘/Users/daniel/Development/newfile’, ‘w’) File.open(‘/Users/daniel/Development/ips3’).each { |line| ips.push…
A Philosophical Precipice
As I debate with people about public health care as a specific, and about giving assistance to the weak and ignorant as a general, I find myself struggling with an ugly thought. It’s a thought I’ve had for a long time, and one that has pushed me in the past toward libertarianism. What if none of these social…
Conservative Cognitive Dissonance on Public Healthcare
There’s a saying in atheism circles that aims to show Christian hypocrisy related to how they dismiss all the thousands of gods that have existed previously, yet fail to understand how atheists dismiss theirs: I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all…
If You’re Not Experiencing Some Failure, You’re Not Taking Enough Risk
I just came across a really interesting concept, which I’ll call “Living by Umesh”, or, being “Umeshian”–in honor of the source. A blogger by the name of Scott Aaronson had an advisor named Umesh Vazirani who used to constantly repeat the following: If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports. Scott goes on…
An Empty Existence
Imagine you went to sleep one night and awoke to find yourself sitting at a table, on an alien space ship, with a view of space streaking by. And imagine that a friendly looking alien was sitting on the other side of the table. After all the WTFs and pleasantries, the alien explains that they are doing a…
Ruby: Parsing an IP List to Send to IpInfoDB
The code below does the following: Read a list of IPs Send each line (IP) to the ipinfodb web service Parse the XML result Display it Write it to a CSV file for import into Excel [ruby]require ‘rubygems’ require ‘hpricot’ require ‘open-uri’ file = File.open(‘/Users/daniel/Development/newfile’, ‘w’) File.open(‘/Users/daniel/Development/ips’).each { |line| doc = Hpricot(open(“http://ipinfodb.com/ip_query.php?ip=#{line}”)) (doc/’response’).each do|el| ip = (el/’ip’).inner_html country…
What’s Your Favorite Pen?
I like pens. I’m a Moleskine fan (yeah, one of those guys), and I like having writing utensils that match the class of that surface. I’ve been doing some research regarding what I should replace my current pen with, and here’s what I have so far. Current Pen So, I currently write with a modified Pilot G2 with…
A Word on my Distaste for Conditional Friendship
One thing that bothers me severely is the concept of a conditional friendship. There are a few ways these come about, but the most common way I see is through in-law family bonds. I think this problem is particularly bad in the South, although I’ll happily admit the only place I’m comparing it to is the West, which…
Why Your Website Needs a “Discovered Content” Section
One of the advantages of social content sharing is that if I like what you write then there’s a good chance I’ll like what you like as well. So, we “friend” and “subscribe to” people who share interests with us, in hopes that they’ll not just find additional content in our overlapping interest areas, but that their slightly…
News Entertainment: The Latest Chapter of Greed and Stupidity
Sometime within the last couple months I’ve realized that CNN and Fox (and most cable news channels) have become news entertainment. The reason for this is the increasing lack of education, and general sophistication, of the American TV-viewing population. Most Americans don’t want to think or be challenged; they want to be dazzled. And this translates to ratings…