I have written about cybersecurity legislation, covering the House bill called CISPA. This week it’s the Senate’s turn with the Cyber Security Act of 2012 (PDF). One thing that always jumps out at me when looking at these bills is that they get away without a problem statement and without explaining how the bill is supposed to solve the problem. When you look at the text of the bill all you get for motivation is “To enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and communications infrastru...

I have written about cybersecurity legislation, covering the House bill called CISPA. This week it’s the Senate’s turn with the Cyber Security Act of 2012 (PDF). One thing that always jumps out at me when looking at these bills is that they get away without a problem statement and without explaining how the bill is supposed to solve the problem. When you look at the text of the bill all you get for motivation is “To enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and communications infrastru...

This past weekend I finally tackled two projects that I had on my to do list for quite a while. Had I known how easy they would turn out to be I would have worked on them much sooner. The first was setting up the 212 area code number I had bought for Susan a while back. As a longtime New York resident she really didn’t like that we got a 646 number when we moved back from the suburbs. As it turns out you can buy unused 212 numbers. All I wanted to do then is to forward that number to our 646 ...

This past weekend I finally tackled two projects that I had on my to do list for quite a while. Had I known how easy they would turn out to be I would have worked on them much sooner. The first was setting up the 212 area code number I had bought for Susan a while back. As a longtime New York resident she really didn’t like that we got a 646 number when we moved back from the suburbs. As it turns out you can buy unused 212 numbers. All I wanted to do then is to forward that number to our 646 ...

Only a short post today as I was spending most of the morning on the phone with some PR folks in Germany talking about the German National Computer Science Competition (page in German). I participated in and was one of five national winners in one of the early years this competition was held. They called to find out what I thought of it all these years later (this year marks the 30th anniversary of the competition overall). I told them that I had very fond memories and was glad to see this tr...

Only a short post today as I was spending most of the morning on the phone with some PR folks in Germany talking about the German National Computer Science Competition (page in German). I participated in and was one of five national winners in one of the early years this competition was held. They called to find out what I thought of it all these years later (this year marks the 30th anniversary of the competition overall). I told them that I had very fond memories and was glad to see this tr...

Video has proven to be a very powerful way of connecting with people online. I think no site demonstrates this more than Kickstarter. For instance, Allison Weiss raising money to make a new record (one of the very early projects), shows just how compelling a video can be. Covestor exists in the much more staid world of investments. But it too has at its heart a people driven approach. Each model that you can follow on Covestor is managed by a person. A person who is investing their own money ...

Video has proven to be a very powerful way of connecting with people online. I think no site demonstrates this more than Kickstarter. For instance, Allison Weiss raising money to make a new record (one of the very early projects), shows just how compelling a video can be. Covestor exists in the much more staid world of investments. But it too has at its heart a people driven approach. Each model that you can follow on Covestor is managed by a person. A person who is investing their own money ...

It may be a bit of a stretch to call a redesign and new brand identity a feature but bare with me for a minute. Earlier this week Shapeways launched a redesign of the site including a complete overhaul of the brand identity. This was designed to clear up several years of detritus that had accumulated and offer a more welcoming experience. I love it and it has been well received by existing community members. Why do I call it a feature? Much the same way in which speed is a feature. You can ha...

It may be a bit of a stretch to call a redesign and new brand identity a feature but bare with me for a minute. Earlier this week Shapeways launched a redesign of the site including a complete overhaul of the brand identity. This was designed to clear up several years of detritus that had accumulated and offer a more welcoming experience. I love it and it has been well received by existing community members. Why do I call it a feature? Much the same way in which speed is a feature. You can ha...

There has been a flurry of posts about Google’s acquisition of Sparrow. As I was reading the posts, I felt that a couple of important points were missed (or at least didn’t jump out at me). Let’s start with the discussion of whether users have a right to be upset. No matter what view you ultimately take here it seems worth remembering that the dollars spent on the software are not the only costs that were incurred by users. First there is the cost of time. Let’s say that over the course of a ...

There has been a flurry of posts about Google’s acquisition of Sparrow. As I was reading the posts, I felt that a couple of important points were missed (or at least didn’t jump out at me). Let’s start with the discussion of whether users have a right to be upset. No matter what view you ultimately take here it seems worth remembering that the dollars spent on the software are not the only costs that were incurred by users. First there is the cost of time. Let’s say that over the course of a ...

I have been spending a lot of hours driving in the last couple of days as we are on a road trip to the kids’ summer camps. Inevitably when driving long distances my mind starts wandering. In particular I have been thinking about how political change has become so incredibly difficult. We have big issues that we need to address but the political systems here and elsewhere mostly seem in a kind of stasis. Historically there were several opportunities for a new start as people migrated to new te...

I have been spending a lot of hours driving in the last couple of days as we are on a road trip to the kids’ summer camps. Inevitably when driving long distances my mind starts wandering. In particular I have been thinking about how political change has become so incredibly difficult. We have big issues that we need to address but the political systems here and elsewhere mostly seem in a kind of stasis. Historically there were several opportunities for a new start as people migrated to new te...

In the last two posts we looked at control structures as part of the programming series here on Tech Tuesdays. We saw that loops let us repeat a sequence of instructions, which is one way of having to avoid writing the same code over and over again. Today we will learn about another and more powerful technique: the definition of new words that can then be used anywhere in the program. You may recall the example of nautical terms from the post on programming languages:For instance, if I tell a...

In the last two posts we looked at control structures as part of the programming series here on Tech Tuesdays. We saw that loops let us repeat a sequence of instructions, which is one way of having to avoid writing the same code over and over again. Today we will learn about another and more powerful technique: the definition of new words that can then be used anywhere in the program. You may recall the example of nautical terms from the post on programming languages:For instance, if I tell a...

We are on the road with our kids and have encountered a few technical glitches (nothing major). Unfortunately it means that I have to postpone today’s installment of Tech Tuesday. Sorry!

We are on the road with our kids and have encountered a few technical glitches (nothing major). Unfortunately it means that I have to postpone today’s installment of Tech Tuesday. Sorry!

Much has been written about how idiotic it is for the NBC to tape delay Olympic broadcasts when everybody already knows via Twitter what the outcome of an event has been. At the current Olympics we are witnessing like never before that the Internet is global and realtime whereas TV historically has been neither. Now you can in fact get live streaming of the Olympics but only if you are based in the UK. Enter proxies. A proxy is an intermediate server that lets you appear as if you are located...

Much has been written about how idiotic it is for the NBC to tape delay Olympic broadcasts when everybody already knows via Twitter what the outcome of an event has been. At the current Olympics we are witnessing like never before that the Internet is global and realtime whereas TV historically has been neither. Now you can in fact get live streaming of the Olympics but only if you are based in the UK. Enter proxies. A proxy is an intermediate server that lets you appear as if you are located...