Sketches of Bits

Moved

Sat, 05 May 2012 18:15:56 +0800

I’ve been rather disappointed by Tumblr for quite some time and I have finally channelled this disappointment into migration.

My new Blog + Tumblr combination now lives at http://blog.iphoting.com/. RSS feed available at http://blog.iphoting.com/atom.xml.

Reasons for moving are plentiful. The greatest motivation is the unreliability of the service. Downtimes are frequent and sometimes long. Search never works. The API is flakey. The Amazon S3-backed image store has issues with posts over 2 years of age.

Simply put, I don’t trust Tumblr.

I’ll continue posting interesting links at my new location, so update your bookmarks and RSS feeds.

Passwords vs. Pass Phrases

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:01:07 +0800

Passwords vs. Pass Phrases:

Coding Horror:

Passphrases are clearly more usable than traditional “secure” passwords. They are also highly likely to be more secure. Even naive worst-case passphrases like “this is my password” aren’t all that hackable, at least when compared to their single word equivalents, eg, “password”.

Yes, I’ve been advocating for pass-phrases ever since I’ve started using 1Password to manage all my credentials.

Breaking Conductors’ Down by Gesture and Body Part

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:01:18 +0800

Breaking Conductors’ Down by Gesture and Body Part:

NYTimes.com:

ARMS carve the air. A hand closes as if to pull taffy. An index finger shoots out. The torso leans in, leans back. And somehow, music pours forth — precisely coordinated and emotionally expressive — in response to this mysterious podium dance.

An interesting read.

Titanic at 100 years (via The Big Picture - Boston.com).

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:00:39 +0800

Titanic at 100 years (via The Big Picture - Boston.com).

Inside Apple HQ

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:00:15 +0800

Inside Apple HQ

A behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:00:37 +0800

A behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering:

Facebook gave me an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process it uses to deploy new functionality. I watched first-hand as the company’s release engineers rolled out the new “timeline” feature for brand pages.

It’s fascinating!

April Fools' Day On The Web : 2012

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:02:14 +0800

April Fools' Day On The Web : 2012:

A nice collection this. The thing to note is that this year, Google has a lot more jokes than previous years.

Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:00:11 +0800

Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger:

TorrentFreak:

The Pirate Bay is not only the most visited BitTorrent site on the Internet, but arguably the most censored too. Many ISPs have been ordered to block their customers’ access to the website, and recently Microsoft joined in on the action by stopping people sharing its location with others. Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger (MSN) now refuses to pass on links to The Pirate Bay website, claiming they are unsafe.

I no longer use MSN.

How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:00:07 +0800

How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp:

The Guardian:

His name is now Shin Dong-hyuk. His overall physical health is excellent. His body, though, is a roadmap of the hardships of growing up in a labour camp that the North Korean government insists does not exist. Stunted by malnutrition, he is short and slight – 5ft 6in and about 120lb (8.5 stone). His arms are bowed from childhood labour. His lower back and buttocks are covered with scars. His ankles are disfigured by shackles. His right middle finger is missing. His shins are mutilated by burns from the fence that failed to keep him inside Camp 14.

Nexus S: Even Google can’t do Android updates

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:00:11 +0800

Nexus S: Even Google can’t do Android updates:

ZDnet:

Remember the Nexus S? It was the Google flagship phone prior to the Galaxy Nexus. It’s not that old, it was the official Google phone until late last year and is still available for purchase. As a Google flagship phone, it was promised to get the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update shortly after it rolled out late last year. Nexus S owners are still waiting for it.

Such horrible after-sales service.

iOS 5.1 upgrade stats

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:58:39 +0800

iOS 5.1 upgrade stats:

It took iOS just 15 days to get the same percentage of users on the latest OS version as are currently on any single version of Android.

Needs no further elaboration.

My story: from lawyer to ruby hacker

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:00:06 +0800

My story: from lawyer to ruby hacker:

Three weeks ago, I got a paid internship as a ruby hacker. I mentioned the Stanford classes during the interview and my interviewer had heard of them. I am no longer adrift without a career, in contrast to thousands of underemployed lawyers nationwide, banging their head against the wall, hoping for a miracle. At my internship, I have already committed code that is in production (despite never having written any ruby when I was hired). In the past 15 months I have learned enough that I was able to pick up ruby/padrino and start contributing quickly

Inspiring!

The Experience Of Opening An Apple Product

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:05 +0800

The Experience Of Opening An Apple Product:

But with Apple things are different. They don’t just use an ugly cardboard box with their logo and a few stickers slapped on it. They actually give a great deal of thought to the design of the box itself. They think about what it looks like on the shelf, how it presents the contents to the purchaser, and what the experience will be like when you open it.

This is how a company can prove that it’s meticulous.

Annals of development: Dangerous delusions

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:00:05 +0800

Annals of development: Dangerous delusions:

The Economist:

It’s easy to see why developing countries might be seduced by Singapore’s recent success—but it’s also perfectly delusional of them. What many poorer countries seem to like about Singapore is that it seems to sell the quickest path—a short-cut, almost—to development. After all, wasn’t Singapore, now probably the world’s richest nation measured by wealth per capita, just a malarial swamp only a generation or two back? That’s what many people seem to believe.

Singapore’s ruling party of course does nothing to discourage the myth. The People’s Action Party (PAP) is anxious to take as much credit as it can for Singapore’s undoubted success. The title of one volume of founding-father Harry Lee Kuan Yew’s autobiography says it all—“From Third World to First: The Singapore Story”.

Yet this is far from the whole story.

Apple’s dividend and share re-purchase plan: the impact on cash growth

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:00:06 +0800

Apple’s dividend and share re-purchase plan: the impact on cash growth:

Asymco:

Today Apple announced both a dividend and a share re-purchase plan which, when combined, will consume 45% of Apple’s current US cash reserves.

The dividend will be $2.65/share/quarter and the buyback will cost $10 billion over three years. The dividend will therefore cost about $2.5 billion per quarter (starting next quarter) and the re-purchase will cost about $833 million per quarter (starting next fiscal year).

However, note that Apple’s cash has been growing far more quickly. It increased by $16 billion last quarter or $37 billion over the last year. This rate of increase is itself increasing.

…

This means Apple’s total cash should still grow by more than $35 billion this year.

TL;DR—Apple’s cash inflow grows at an increasing rate, that even this cash dispersion strategy will not dampen.

So, it has come to this. They’re earning so much money that they can’t spend it anywhere else, and fast enough. While I’d think that Steve Jobs might disapprove of this measure, but after some thought, I think this move might actually take some pressure of managing such a huge cash-pile off the CFO’s back.

In fact, it is said that Apple’s CFO can probably be considered as a large hedge-fund manager.

Hopefully with this move, we would finally see the market value Apple’s stock appropriately, after so many years of undervaluing AAPL.

Public Key Cryptography: Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:00:06 +0800

Public Key Cryptography: Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Sabotage not ruled out: SBS Transit on NEL disruption

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:03:06 +0800

Sabotage not ruled out: SBS Transit on NEL disruption:

Yahoo News:

Train operator SBS Transit has revealed it is unable to rule out any causes, including sabotage, until investigations are completed on the twin faults that caused an almost 11-hour disruption in services on the North East Line (NEL) on Thursday.

That’s the first thing I thought when I saw pictures¹ of snapped stainless steel support cables—sabotage.

If found to be true, it looks like there’s an even bigger problem at hand.

pictures seen in the evening news, not cited in the linked article. ↩

"Apple confirms that pre-order stock of new iPad sold out, says demand is ‘off the charts’"

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:16:00 +0800

"Apple confirms that pre-order stock of new iPad sold out, says demand is ‘off the charts’":

TNW:

“Customer response to the new iPad has been off the charts and the quantity available for pre-order has been purchased,” Apple told the publication in a statement. “Customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date.”

First, I’d would presume that Apple has increased its initial pre-order allotment, given last year’s backlogs, but it looks they did not over-provision.

Second, looking at the demand, it looks like the iPad market is far from saturation or even nearing it. It’s a huge market ahead, ripe for Apple’s picking.

Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:00:05 +0800

Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend:

It looked like a fine day for a sail. On Sunday, January 28, 2007, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray woke up on his boat, a red 40-foot fiberglass cruiser called Tenacious. The water in Gashouse Cove, a cozy marina in San Francisco Bay, was nearly flat. The 63-year-old programmer phoned his wife, Donna Carnes, who was on an annual vacation with friends in Wisconsin. He said he was heading out to the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge 27 miles offshore, to scatter the ashes of his mother, Ann, who died in October.

…

Then Gray and his boat vanished. The Coast Guard received no Mayday call, and Gray’s EPIRB — an emergency radio beacon designed to broadcast a homing signal if it sinks — stayed silent. No sailors in the area reported seeing the boat adrift, and not a single life vest, flashlight, or scrap of debris belonging to Tenacious washed up on local beaches.

Fascinating but tragic.

How to rig an election: Weighing the votes

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:00:05 +0800

How to rig an election: Weighing the votes:

The Economist:

If you set about rigging the vote well in advance, you can have an election that looks all right on the outside but guarantees the result you want. And nobody will be able to object. The secret is to obey the rules—having first written them yourself.

Here’s the secret to legitimacy.