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Archives for December 2011
Hitchens vs. Strunk and White
I am quite curious how top tier writers square the circle of Strunk and White’s demand for being concise and avoiding long, complex sentences, and Hitchens’ ability and inclination to do so beautifully. An example from a Hitchens essay: I have heard arguments about whether it was Milton Friedman or Gore Vidal who first came up with this…
An HTML 5 Christmas
It’s Christmas day and I just happened upon a post by the Google Webmaster team talking about removing the HTML, HEAD, and BODY tags from their code, as they are evidently no longer necessary. I started looking at their code (particularly for their 404 pages), and it was very interesting. It’s a few minutes later now and most…
A Collection (of Collections) of Obama’s Accomplishments
This next year is going to yield many debates on what our current President has or has not accomplished in his first term. Here’s a collection (of lists) of what he has accomplished. http://obamaachievements.org/listA seriously comprehensive list of accomplishments, by category. PolitiFact Promises Kept ListingA phenomenally unbiased list of promises and statements made by Obama, with analysis of…
Who Makes the Best Web Security Testers?
There’s been some debate in my circles recently on the topic of what type of person and background makes the best web security tester. The issue is that web testing involves and requires a number of skills. It includes performing a staggering number of monotonous actions according to a methodology, as well as being able to use deduction…
Plane Crashes and Child Molestation
In one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books he talked about how respect for authority has caused a massive number of plane crashes over time. Basically, the relationship between a senior and junior pilot was so severe in many countries that the co-pilot (junior) knew that his effective boss could bury him in an instant, and so he walked extremely…
Why Christopher Hitchens Inspires Me
News of Christopher Hitchens’ death was crushing to me last night. I can think of no other author that is so inspiring to me. Here are a few simple reasons why: Reading, or listening to, his prose makes me a better writer. His skill with language was simply magical. I can listen to him speak for hours upon…
Observations of Japan
I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo, Japan for a week this month for work and while there I kept a running list of observations. I was able to commute to work on the subway, which I found quite fun. First, my observations: the Japanese are extremely orderly; everything is very neat and clean Japanese men are…
Three Proxy Options Every Security Pro Should Consider Using
Working in the information security field it’s frequently handy to be able to browse the web in different configurations. Sometimes you want to be able to see and interact with our traffic we speak with a server, sometimes you want to hide where we’re coming from on the other end, and other times we need to bypass a…
A Potential Issue With Immersive Fantasy Games
I’ve been a role-player since junior high school, and I have been a reader of non-fiction long before that. I have a group of friends from junior high that still game (role-playing), and I noticed over the last couple of years that there was something very negative about it for me. I haven’t been able to capture it…
The Worst Way to Waste Time
There are many things to regret as one nears death, but I understand people tend to regret most the things they didn’t do rather than those they did. You may be thinking now of activities, such as jumping out of an airplane, applying to become an astronaut, or moving to Europe to be with an early lover. But…