The press recycles worn clichés when it reports on volatility in the markets. Last week’s 700-point drop was a “collapse” and today’s 5% drop is a “meltdown”.
I’m sorry, but 30% is a meltdown and 50% is a collapse. 5% or 7% do not rate such excessive terms.
Some yahoo at Debian found what he thought was a bug in OpenSSL, and decided
to comment out some code without having any clue what purpose it served. That
purpose was to seed a pseudo-random number generator with entropy from memory,
specifically /dev/random. This only broke the cryptographic security of
OpenSSL on Debian (and thus Ubuntu) while being mostly
undetectable. It’s quite likely attacks of the same ilk were
deliberately planted by various spy agencies.
This is just an extreme example of why I prefer to build open-source software
from source code myself rather than trust blindly in some packager whose
choice of compile-time settings almost certainly doesn’t match mine. I
have a framework of makefiles that specify how each package is built from
source (meta-makefiles, really). This includes checking for new versions of
the package, setting configure options and make environment variables. For
instance, to fetch the most recent version of OpenSSL, all I do is make sync-openssl; make openssl then as root run make install-openssl. The
maintenance burden is low as I have been assembling these metamakefiles over
the last 12 years, targeting Solaris and OS X. The end-result is a
deterministic build according to my specifications.
My process would not ward against a malicious attack like Brian Kernighan’s notorious trusting trust attack, but it has served me well over the years.
Why are Untied Airlines, American and Delta still referred to as “full-service airlines” and Southwest as “no-frills”? As far as I am concerned, it is exactly the opposite. Southwest has leather seats, provides in-flight snacks for free, does not gouge you for checking bags, and if they screw up they will make it right and offer you vouchers in compensation. The so-called premium airlines won’t.
It’s conventional wisdom that politicians are self-absorbed windbags. Another piece of evidence to contribute: the longest words in the English and French languages are antidisestablishmentarian and anticonstitutionnellement respectively, both of which pertain to the political realm.
Much virtual ink has been wasted on discussing the Microsoft ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld, and how useless or ineffective it may be.
I wonder what it says about our society that we are discussing ad campaigns instead of the merits of the product they are supposed to be about, just as political news coverage often devolves on discussion of campaign tactics rather than substantive issues, as if they have any relevance to what happens after the election.
I know advertising is a major “industry”, and that without it people in the design field would find it hard to find well-paying jobs. Focusing the discussion on marketing campaigns instead of actual products ia a case of the tail wagging the dog, however.