«13:33:58»

And last not least, check out «Tubes» by Andrew Blum, a «Journey to the Center of the Internet». Well, it is about the tubes that connect us. 📚

«12:59:12»

NEC subsidiary OCC is a major maker of undersea cables, and some models of their SC300 and SC500 steel-reinforced fiber cables are able to be deployed at depths greater than 9000m. Check out the brochure from NEC for a good overview of the whole system they provide for these interesting and challenging projects. ⛴

«08:56:19»

Most of the massive amount of our internet traffic including Netflix binges, is carried by underseas cables. Ever since the first one was pulled across the English channel in 1851, humans have laid a huge amount of cable under the sea. It is an interesting topic, from the cable design by companies like NEC OCC, to the actual method of delivery. 🚢

«08:41:11»

Thinking about the potential perils of using remote access technology in inappropriate situations, I was reminded of this «Old Eigyo» advert I saw in a taxi. The pasty-faced new kid is being introduced, and the veteran sales reps react with shock-horror at his skinny legs, saying that sales is all about your leg muscles! The narrator says «no longer, you can just use our product to do sales from your desk.» Ugh, put me down for old eigyo anytime. Technologists should remember that remote access and remote presentation is not always the best way. Thanks @norombasic for the reminder. 🤨

«22:57:20»

Twitter user @hmpffff gave me a tip about «davmail», the main goal of which is to «provide standard compliant protocols in front of proprietary Exchange». It is a bridge between standards-compliant software that uses IMAP, CalDav, CardDav etc, and Exchange. Looks like a cool tool! 😎

«13:34:01»

F5 Networks has agreed to acquire Nginx for 670MM USD. It remains to be seen if this will impact their open source offering, but there is always Apache, Caddy, Lighttpd, and others written in Rust etc. Hopefully this will be the catalyst to push a move from HTTP/0.9 finally. 💰

«09:10:27»

Living in Japan with our pervasive, sleepy feeling of security, we do not consider that our PIN numbers at an ATM might be skimmed. I heard skimming does happen in Japan, but this «Krebs on Security» article shows how creative criminals can get. ATMs are not drive-through here so the logistics are different, but my takeaway is that I think I will start covering the pad with something as I enter the PIN. ㊙️

«07:25:48»

Learned about «KeyMe» in the New York Times this AM. Apparently they are developing what they call «proactive relationships with law enforcement». Frankly, the whole concept of a 3rd party kiosk where you can get a card key copied, sounds super dicey to me. So many unanswered questions and so much blind trust. 👁

«22:22:46»

I am trying to indie-webify my logr site, but there are a lot of moving parts like microformatting, auth, tokens, micropub, joining the webring and so on. Making progress tho. 🙀⚙️

«08:26:59»

You know those absurd Gcal «you have no events scheduled today» emails? Calendar settings, select cal, set Daily Agenda to None in General Notifications. You are most welcome. 📅

«20:45:55»

«Spring ahead» or daylight saving time has started in North America, and since Japan does not adjust, we are now back to being 13 and 16 hours ahead of Eastern and Pacific time respectively (London changes end of March).

TZ Trivia: Did you know all of China is the same timezone? Far west China, Akto county, by latitude should be 3 hours different from Beijing, but is is the same. India uses one timezone as well. Also, Rudi tells me “Russia spans across 11 timezones, however all trains operated on Moscow time until around August 1st 2018, now they print both local and Moscow time on your tickets.” That’s a lotta time zones. ⏰

Here are some TZ commands:

On macOS:

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$ sudo systemsetup -gettimezone
Time Zone: Asia/Tokyo
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones
...
$ sudo systemsetup -settimezone US/Eastern
Set TimeZone: US/Eastern

On Linux, it is different depending on your distro. Sometimes /etc/localtime is a link to a timezone file, so you can delete that file and make a link like ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/country/zone localtime. Or it might be an editable file /etc/timezone, which lists the timezone in the file. Be sure your TZ variable is set as well.

«15:29:28»

A day late and 100 yen short to honor important people who happen to be female:

• Hypatia the astronomer and mathematician;
• Dae Jang-geum the cook turned Royal Physician in Joseon Dynasty Korea;
• Nicole-Reine Lepaute whose calculations predicted Halleys Comet;
• Ada Lovelace who wrote the first computer program;
• Grace Hopper who created the first compiler;
• Rosalind Franklin who showed the structure of DNA via x-ray diffraction;
• Lise Meitner whose groundbreaking work first described nuclear fission;
• Katsuko Saruhashi the geochemist whose work helped the world understand climate change;
• Margaret Hamilton of MIT and the Apollo project who coined the term Software Engineering;
• Flossie Wong-Staal who identified HIV as the cause of AIDS and genetically mapped the HIV virus;
• Clara Lazen discovered as a fifth grader the molecule tetranitratoxycarbon which has the potential to store energy;
• Coraline Ada Ehmke who authored the «contributor covenant» for open source projects;
• Emma Haruka Iwao who recently broke the world record for computing the digits of Pi;
• Katie Bouman who led the team that created the first image of a black hole;

…and so many more. May many more women dream big dreams. 👭

Other Lists

See also remember these women by my micro.blog friend Miraz!

«12:47:32»

Reading up on the titanium tumbler I just got from SUS Gallery, it turns out there is a lot behind the metalworking and coloring of titanium, which has high hardness and is difficult to work. It is very light and low density, poorly conductive, non-magnetic, biocompatible / non-toxic, and in practical use, holds both heat and cold.

«17:28:39»

Python program «remarshal» is a useful utility to convert between TOML, YAML and JSON. My friend Bjørn wrote this one-liner to use it to convert the frontmatter of content markdown files, from TOML to YAML, because github renders them nicely. Here is his solution:

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 $> find content -name "*.md" | while read i; do YAML=`sed -n '/+++/,/+++/p' $i | sed '1d; $d' | remarshal -if toml -of yaml`; perl -pi -e "BEGIN{undef $/;} s/\+\+\+.*\+\+\+/---\n$YAML\n---/gs" $i; done

Run from the root of your Hugo project, this command finds any markdown files in the content folder ending in .md, then reads each line by line into a pipeline of commands. The YAML var is set, by extracting the lines between the +++ delimiters and using remarshal to convert that TOML to YAML. Then, perl is used to find the whole frontmatter section including the +++ lines, and replace that with the $YAML variable contents, between --- delimiters expected for YAML frontmatter. (Why doesn’t Github render TOML nicely, given its author?) 🤖

«09:21:30»

PSA: Vulnerabilities have been discovered in Google Chrome versions prior to 72.0.3626.121, which could allow a hacker to remotely execute code. Google has released an update, which I recommend you apply immediately. Access chrome://settings/help to check. 🐞💀

«22:14:59»

I love the typeface «IBM Plex» so much that I re-formatted my Logr site to use it. The official Plex site has a bold, Jan Tschichold vibe, and the faces themselves are unique yet familiar. I love the Selectric-like Mono Italic face, but IBM has made available four subfamilies, 8 weights, both roman and italic styles and 100 languages. Of Plex, IBM says:

When we set out to create a typeface that was unmistakably IBM, our own history was our greatest source of inspiration. IBM has always served as a medium between mankind and machine. Between the natural and the engineered. The emotional and rational. The classic and the cutting-edge. Our most important job is to help humanity and technology move forward together. IBM Plex™ brings these relationships to life through letterforms.

You can download it from here and use it on your computer or as a web font. Thanks IBM! 🔥

«11:26:21»

I saw a post comparing the HHKB to the Leopold FC660C mechanical keyboard, concluding that the latter is better because it is heavier. They both are Topre-based with a similar form factor, but part of the reason the HHKB is so popular in Japan is because is is light. Much easier to schlep on the crowded subway. ⌨️🚈

«19:40:41»

Do you know of the «Doherty Threshold» or «Zeigarnik Effect»? If you design any interfaces, consider studying «LawsOfUX» by Jon Yablonski. It is a beautiful collection of the:

«maxims and principles that designers can consider when building user interfaces».

«14:37:52»

If you are a mechanical keyboard user (and you should be), follow @PFU_HHKB on Twitter, then retweet the pinned tweet I link below for a chance to win a custom lacquered HHKB keyboard! HHKBs Japanese tweet says:

«Thank you for 500,000 units sold retweet campaign! We have passed 50K units sold globally, so as a way to say thanks, we will select one lucky user to receive a custom urushi lacquered HHKB worth 500,000 yen! Follow us, then retweet this tweet.»

Retweet this tweet. 🇯🇵

«09:56:00»

Did you know that if you store your iPhone backups on iCloud, it is encrypted so that not just you but Apple themselves can decrypt it? Wow. It is a super weak excuse that they keep a key because users sometimes lose theirs. See the EFF article for more info.