Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Matasano Chargen » Blog Archive » Matasano PFI (as seen on TV!)Bookmarked on del.icio.us at 21:36.
Tags: code, penetrationtesting, python, reverseengineering, security, tcp
Security dude's written a Port Forwarding Interceptor that lets you modify a raw TCP stream on the fly. I know it's wrong, but this guy makes me grin. Don't worry, my coat's just here.
Luctus temporalis
Thought formulated in Igor’s thoughts at 19:49. 2 comments.
Tags: cave, caveman, cooker, fire, flame, gas, gas hob, hob, palaeolithic, prometheus, stove
One of the things that annoys me about the fact that in all probability I won't live for ever is that it means I won't get to see all the crazy shit those space-age futuristas will come up with. Mostly the time machines. Example: only yesterday, a moment of genuine sadness overcame me when, while warming up some nice thick pea and ham soup, I glanced at my cooker and felt a real pang of regret that I might never be able to pop back to a carefully-tended Palæolithic fireside, wrest a caveman's attention from the dancing shadows cast by its oh-so-hard-won flames, zap him back to my futuristic lair and show him a god-damned GAS HOB. I mean, imagine the look on his face while I'm just standing there, switching it on, and off, and on, and off. Maybe casually scorching some paper, a candle, a sabre-tooth steak; you know, just making the point. On, again; once more, off. And hey! Look! I switched it on again! Yeah! How'd you like them apples, Cavey? He'd go batshit, I'm telling you.
Thought formulated in Igor’s thoughts at 19:49. 2 comments.
Tags: cave, caveman, cooker, fire, flame, gas, gas hob, hob, palaeolithic, prometheus, stove
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Jacob's LadderStuff incident experienced at 18:46 on May 14th. Posted in Igor’s stuff at 22:28.
Tags: beef, blackfoot butchers, butcher, charlotte place, jacob's ladder, london, short rib
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Nikos Kazantzakis' "Askitiki": The Saviors of GodBookmarked on del.icio.us at 21:54.
Tags: america, atheism, belief, god, kazantzakis, knowledge, power, religion, saviours, vermont
Holidaying in America, I took myself to a small town in Vermont, described intriguingly in guides as an artists' colony. My lodging seemed a fairytale house in the woods; I explored its environs, and took the advice of its proprietress to visit a restaurant in the centre of the town, where I met a trio of boisterous septuagenarians - Princeton professor, psychologist poet, and salty seadog - who regaled me each with tales from his own experience, alternately impressively erudite, unobtrusively insightful, and strikingly swashbuckling, before dragging me on to the bar over the road for beers and cheesy lines to local ladies. The poet-philosopher saw something in me, I know not what, but which moved him to share this piece of Kazantzakis' wisdom with me: "we come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life". It hit the spot; it helped me through some dark moments, and I’m in some way forever indebted both to the author and his representative.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Wolfram|AlphaBookmarked on del.icio.us at 23:29.
Tags: alpha, computation, information, knowledge, linguistic, processing, search, wolfram, wolframalpha
I registered early and so got to see the Wolfram Alpha webinar presentation on Friday evening. The depth of the analysis and the breadth of the scope Alpha was apparently able to apply to any given field made me reel at the possibilities; the coherence with which the four key components of "curated data; computational algorithms; linguistic processing; automated presentation" (Wolfram's categorisation) had been married gave the impression of a genuinely capable successor to Google, not in the form of a better search engine, but of a more likely first port of call for genuine information. On seeing the demo myself, I realised not only why the questions Mr. W. addressed in the webinar painted a slightly disappointing picture of the actual information stored in Alpha - it relies on curated data, and obviously they've not got round to curating all of it yet, so it didn't know all the answers - but also why whether it knew about a particular topic was the wrong question. It will.
Check *ME* out.
Picture of Enforcement episode taken at 17:46 on May 9th.
Tags: bishopsgate, city, city of london, city of london police, london, police
I'm a special police car, see. I'm City of London Po-lice. That means I'm not your normal, common-or-garden Metropolitan (big or small 'm') police car. No. Not me. I'm dark blue and I've got big day-glo yellow letters. I'm *special*.
Outside City of London police station, Bishopsgate, London, UK.
Picture of Enforcement episode taken at 17:46 on May 9th.
Tags: bishopsgate, city, city of london, city of london police, london, police
Outside City of London police station, Bishopsgate, London, UK.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Nati Shalom's Blog: Designing a Scalable TwitterBookmarked on del.icio.us at 10:37.
Tags: code, geek, programming, scaling, spaces, systems, twitter
Article about using a 'spaces'-based architectural approach to building a Twitter-like pub-sub/db hybrid system
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Early birdsPicture of Enforcement episode taken at 09:11 on May 1st.
Tags: downham road, london, police
Downham Road, London, UK
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Oh yes, this was a good one.Picture of Enforcement episode taken at 10:02 on April 24th.
Tags: london, parliament square, police
PC: Take a good photo of us, then, did you?
Me: [deciding to brazen it out] Yes thanks!
PC: Good and clear, was it?
Me: Yes, came out really well thanks, here, see [shows photo to copper]
PC: [disgruntled expression]
Me + taxi driver: [Exeunt, pursued neither by bear nor, apparently, police]
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Looking onPicture of Enforcement episode taken at 10:04 on April 22nd.
Tags: Palacio Municipal de Congresos, conference, madrid, madríd, palacio municipal, police, policewoman, w3c, www2009
Campo de las Naciones, Madrid, España