Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
Examples of Bad Metrics
There are myriad books and websites describing the Top N Metrics in a particular area, but very few tell you what not to do. This article will show you specific examples of metrics gone bad, what’s wrong with them, and what you can do to make them better. Economic as in economics, not financial. First, it’s important to…
My Takeaways from the 2019 DBIR Report
Many years ago, Verizon started a trend by releasing their Data Breaches Investigations Report, and today there are dozens of companies releasing similar offerings. But even with all the competition—some of which are quite good—the original DBIR report is still my favorite. Get the full report Here were my main takeaways from this year’s release. Meta This is…
Finding Clarity on the Exodus of the New Left
Image of Uri Harris, David Fuller, and Eric Weinstein So I want to comment on the dialogue that is taking place right now about the faction of the liberalism that’s splintering from the mainstream left. I just got done watching Eric Weinstein’s conversation with David Fuller, and I thought even they were missing what I see to be…
Why Required Password Changes Reduce Security
So I was listening to the Risky Business podcast this week and heard Adam Boileau mention something extremely juicy in passing during the news segment. Patrick asked him about Microsoft removing password expiration in an upcoming version of Windows, and if he thought that was a good or bad thing. His response was super interesting. They also mention…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 175
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Bottom of the Meaning Well is Race
I think what’s happening to America right now can best be captured as a catastrophic loss of meaning. Bowling Alone is the canonical work on the loss of community in our lives. We’ve spent decades cutting religion out of our lives, we’ve stopped interacting with each other, many core “American” jobs have been deprecated due to automation efficiencies.…
Google’s March 2019 Core Update Resuscitated my Site
In October of 2018 my site was hit by a meteor called Google. My traffic dropped by over 60% in just a couple of weeks—going from around 10,000 pageviews a day, to around 4,000. Read about the March 2018 Update After some research and help from Thomas Zickell, I knew that this was a Google algorithm update, but…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 174 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
The Difference Between Goals, Strategies, Metrics, OKRs, KPIs, and KRIs
Anyone who’s been in business for a while has had the conversation about measuring performance. The topic makes some people radiate with joy and gives others a case of severe narcolepsy. Here I want to talk about a few different business terms that are too-often conflated or confused, which are: Goals, Strategies, Metrics, Objective Key Results (OKRs), Key…
My Predictions for Who Will Die in Game of Thrones
I normally write about security, technology, and how they interact with humans, but I’m making an exception here for a prediction on Game of Thrones. I read a book recently called Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, and it talked about professional predictors of complex events. They get rated on how accurate they are, how much confidence…
Machine Learning Will Capture the ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ of Human Existence
Human genius has always been something of a mystery. Experts often cannot articulate how they know someething to be true. When a world-class chef smells something—crinkles his nose and says it’s not right—there’s a good chance he doesn’t know what’s wrong with it. Malcolm Gladwell told us the story of an art expert who knew instantly that a…
The Toxicity of Fear
Fear is toxic to creative thought. It will rob you of courage, of your creativity, and of your passion. It will turn you into an empty and uninspiring version of yourself. If you start thinking about something ambitious—and feel fear take hold—figure out where it’s coming from. Peoples’ biggest regrets at death’s door are not the things they…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 173
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Difference Between Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism
I recently wrote a well-received piece about the political positions of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), and a ferocious discussion erupted in the comments regarding Dave Rubin‘s political philosophy. To a modern liberal, Libertarian basically means someone who cares only about themselves. Rubin calls himself a Classical Liberal, but it turns out that people on Twitter and Reddit…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 172 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
A Visual Breakdown of Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) Political Positions
My Exploration of Difference Between Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism I realized recently that I had no idea where many people in the Intellectual Dark Web actually stood on key positions. I thought I knew—sort of—but it turns out that most of what I knew was coming from a shoddy skyscraper of misconceptions. I did a post recently about…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 171
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
Defining the Values of the Intellectual Dark Web
The gravity around the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) continues to build, with the New York Times doing a piece on it recently, and many other publications coming out to attack its members as either saviors or villains. The term was coined by Eric Weinstein on Sam’s podcast. In no particular order, the top echelon of members include Sam…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 170 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
Four Components of Free Speech Risk — Analysis of Sam Harris’ Podcast With Roger McNamee
I just finished listening to an extraordinary episode of Making Sense with Sam Harris, where Roger McNamee was the featured guest. He is a long-time tech analyst and investor, and actually used to be an advisor for Facebook before becoming an outspoken critic. Roger’s points were legion, and covered the now familiar ground regarding the collection of our…
The Insane Reaction to Renée DiResta on the Joe Rogan Podcast
I heard Renée DiResta on the Sam Harris podcast a while back, and was excited to learn that she just appeared on Joe Rogan as well. Her work is focused on misinformation campaigns, and she works at a place that tries to combat the problem. Anyway, I was listening to her and Joe talking, and I somehow started…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 169
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Bifurcation of Elite Education
I think the bottom is starting to rot out of the education racket. Elite education today is essentially two different things: The prestige of having gotten into that school, and The education you receive there. These two things are separating from each other, and I think that separation is about to accelerate. Better education elsewhere (or at least…
The Need for Post-Capitalism
When I saw Yuval Harari live with Sam Harris in San Francisco, I heard a lot of interesting things. But the most interesting thing I heard that night was from Harari, when he said something like: Forms of government have periods where they’re best suited, based on the evolution of the people at that moment. And as the…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 168 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
My RSA 2019 Summary
RSA was good this year, but I didn’t really notice any major new trends. Nothing on the scale of—say—AI, or blockchain. But there were some disruptions that looked quite interesting. Primary themes The overall themes I saw this year were largely the same as last year, with a few notable changes. AI talk has become a lot more…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 167
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Privacy Implications of 5G
Most people have heard that 5G is forthcoming, but few are versed on the key advantages over 4G LTE. Here’s a primer. Speed: Becasue it’ll work at much higher frequencies (many proposals use ranges over 6Ghz) you can move more data per unit of time. More Call Capacity: there will be less congestion and service degradation in busy…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 166 (Member Edition)
This is a Member-only episode. Members get the newsletter every week, and have access to the Member Portal with all existing Member content. Non-members get every other episode. Sign in or… Become a member and get immediate access
Unsupervised Learning: No. 165
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show that provides collection, summarization, and analysis in the realms of Security, Technology, and Humans. It’s Content Curation as a Service… I spend between five and twenty hours a week consuming articles, books, and podcasts—so you don’t have to—and each episode is either a curated summary of what I’ve found in the past…
The Rise of the Corporate Technology Ecosystem (CTE)
I love thinking about how technological advancement will intersect with our desires as humans. My book on this topic is called The Real Internet of Things. We have all these gadgets, technologies, and services, but towards what goal are they moving us? What’s the endgame? We see the features—like email and personal devices and various kinds of applications—but…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 164
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
AI-powered Visual Sensors Will be Wielded By Digital Assistants to Build us Custom UIs
Benedict Evans is one of my favorite tech analysts. His content is usually great, I often agree with it, and his presentation style is quite unique. His annual presentation on technology trends should not be missed. I had a chat with him in person once, and it was dissapointing to show him my long-term thoughts on where technology…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 163
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show where I spend 5-20 hours finding the most interesting stories in security, technology, and humans, which I then curate into a 30-minute podcast & companion newsletter. The goal is to catch you up on current events, show you the best content from around the web, and hopefully give you something to think…
My Takeaways from ENIGMA 2019
I have two favorite conferences of the year: AppSec Cali ENIGMA ENIGMA 2019 ended today, and I wanted to do a quick capture on what I saw and found interesting there. The conference For me conferences are all about the combination of ideas, people, and conversation, and that’s what both of these do really well. First a bit…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 162 (Member Edition)
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
Machine Learning’s Effect On Humanity Will Be Magnifying Our Successes and Failures
AI—and specifically machine learning—are going to empower humans the way a futuristic exoskeleton would empower a 4-year-old. When they want something from the kitchen cabinet—they’re going to get it. And if they don’t want to brush their teeth, it’s not going to happen. And in the process of expressing these concerns, the kitchen, bathroom, and perhaps the entire…
DNS Servers That Offer Privacy and Filtering
If you’re a programmer, a systems administrator, or really any type of IT worker, you probably have your favorite go-to IP addresses for troubleshooting. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably been using the same ones for years. Such IPs can be used for: Testing ping connectivity Checking DNS resolution using dig or nslookup Updating a system’s permanent…
We’re Heading for Something Ugly in 2020
I’ve had a sense of foreboding for the last month or so about the mental health of the United States. And sure—the Trump situation is raising pulses, but it’s more than that. It’s a building tension that I feel coming from everyone—especially online—from being forced by current events into extreme versions of ourselves. It’s like the country is…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 161
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show where I spend 5-20 hours finding the most interesting stories in security, technology, and humans, which I then curate into a 30-minute podcast & companion newsletter. The goal is to catch you up on current events, show you the best content from around the web, and hopefully give you something to think…
Those Bashing Smart Locks Have Forgotten How Easy it is to Pick Regular Ones
There’s currently a major backlash in the InfoSec community against so-called “smart” locks. And it’s not just by people who naturally overreact to change, or from people outside of InfoSec: there are plenty of smart people in our field—whom I respect greatly—that are making loud noises against this technology. So I want to make it absolutely clear that…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 160 (Member Edition)
This is a member-only even episode. Members get the newsletter every week, as well as access to all previous episodes, while free subscribers only get odd episodes every other week. Become a member to get access immediately
Why I Think the NSA is Releasing a Free Reverse Engineering Tool This Year at RSA
The NSA is releasing a free reverse engineering tool this year at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. A lot of people are asking about the motive of the NSA releasing a free reverse engineering tool at RSA this year.Theories include: it’s a backdoor, it’s a tracking mechanism, etc.My opinion? Recruiting.It’s a PR move to attract talent…
A Remarkably Clear Overview of The Border Security Situation
I recently stumbled onto a podcast with Scott Adams about border security, and what I learned from it not only surprised me, but also Scott Adams as the host. I used to be a huge Scott Adams fan, but that went away when he revealed himself to be one who places his tax rate above the welfare of…
Unsupervised Learning: No. 159
Unsupervised Learning is my weekly show where I spend 5-20 hours finding the most interesting stories in security, technology, and humans, which I then curate into a 30-minute podcast & companion newsletter. The goal is to catch you up on current events, show you the best content from around the web, and hopefully give you something to think…
How to Monitor a Website’s Uptime for $0.75/month on Amazon
If you’re like me, you care if your website goes down. There have been services available for years that monitor your site and let you know if it goes down. The one I’ve been using for over a decade is Pingdom, which is great. It gives you tons of advanced options like searching for text within probe responses,…
How Nassim Taleb is Both Right and Wrong About IQ
Nassim Taleb is making loud noises about how IQ is basically a big scam, and how it doesn’t mean anything. Like usual, he’s onto something, but also like usual his passion and snark is causing him to miss something major. For the record, I think Taleb is an absolute genius. I’ve read all of his books, and some…
How to Ctrl-Alt-Delete in VMware
Few things are more annoying than being stuck inside a bad UI, and withinin virtualization environments is a common place for that to happen. Here’s how to do the three-finger-salute inside VMware. Regular: Ctrl+Alt+Del Full-sized Mac keyboard: FwdDel+Ctrl+Option (Delete below Help key) Abridged Mac Keyboard, Fn+Ctrl+Option+Delete
Site Traffic Metrics for 2018
So the biggest story for my site’s traffic in 2018 is the Google Algorithm Changes that I wrote about here. It was a bloodbath, basically. I am currently at 50% of my traffic as compared to the beginning of 2018. But I’m hoping that’ll re-adjust as Google tries to figure out who has authority on various topics and…
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