18 Apr 2020

SETEC Astronomy

My voice is my passport, verify me.

This is a semi-whenever list of interesting articles, podcasts and videos that I come across during the week. Hope you enjoy it, have something new to think about, and share it with your friends.

Day “X” of being socially isolated has had me thinking a lot about personal privacy mixed in with the need for what needs to be done to get through all of this craziness. And while Massachusetts has launched their first efforts to identify people you have had close contact with, I still wonder around what things we are also giving up. I’ve read the Apple/Google contact tracing spec; it seems really good albeit some potential flaws, I can’t lie as I was up a lot the last few nights with my mind racing around what we lose.

Which brings me to the movie Sneakers — a classic (and still probably one of the best) movies on ‘hacking’. Give it a watch while you are all stuck at home wondering about “who controls the information”.

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This weeks “Deep Links”

Originally from 2010 in The Paris Review, was one of the best interviews I read this past week (which I had never seen before) was with Ray Bradbury about a fictional (or, perhaps not) character named Mr. Electrico. Not wanting to spoil the it, just go and read where Bradbury basically ‘hacks’ the interview — More

M.G. Siegler hits the nail on the head in exploring the simple thing that we all missed as the next real “killer” platform — working from home — More

I hadn’t read about the devastating story around Lee Holloway, one of the early employee’s of CloudFlare and his eventual decline. A really sad and tragic read — More

Halide remains one of the best camera applications for your iPhone, and they recently did an incredibly detailed look Ito the new LIDAR camera in the recently released iPad Pro. Probably a great sneak peak into what the next iPhone camera will have — More

I don’t know about you, but “that’s no moon; it’s a space station” was the first thought I had when I read about NASA’s new moon-based telescope (the picture doesn’t help) — More

The New York Times also agrees with me on the movie ‘Sneakers’ — More

There’s a basic fact when it comes to security: everything is hackable. Daniel Miessler weighs in on one of the more important themes around “implicit tradeoffs we make in life with regard to functionality vs. risk” and the pro’s and con’s of Zoom — More

Speaking of Zoom — I am so inviting a goat or llama to one of my upcoming work meetings — More

Neither of my boys are interested in Animal Crossing, but I am seeing tons of people playing this right now as it “serves up unexpected consolation by offering surrogate habits — a structured, if fictional, alternative to normal life.” — More

In another bit of movie nostalgia, I guess I knew (but forgot) that the “Cannonball Run” was a real thing. With the highways mostly empty right now, why not try to go cross country in 27 hours by car — More

Another skill I’ve been working on this week — “How to Crack an Egg With One Hand” — More

From 2014, a look at how Google needed to reinforce undersea fibre cables after sharks decided to have lunch on them — More

Helvetica (yes, the font) is another essential movie watch. You never realized how much of an impact a single font has had on your life — More

Closing Thoughts

There’s a war out there, old friend.
A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets.
It’s about who controls the information.
What we see and hear, how we work, what we think…
it’s all about the information!

This weeks “Deep Links”

Closing Thoughts

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