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Remote backends for incremental Linux backup software
One of the Arch wiki maintainers thought it was “useless bloat” to add information about which remote backends are supported by various Linux backup programs on the Arch wiki, and reverted my contribution. Well, I don’t think so, as I did the research because I needed to know. I don’t want it to be lost,…
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The Case of the Secret Compartment in the plain-text file
Hidden data somewhere in a big opaque file? Nobody would be surprised. But hiding in a very short plain-text file? It sounds impossible until you use Amazon’s AWS tools: % echo hello > hello % aws s3 cp hello s3://indiecomp-test/hello > out % cat out upload: ./hello to s3://indiecomp-test/hello Seems all very straightforward, right? The…
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Almost half of US households can barely make it
This is incredibly awful and shameful. According to the United Way ALICE project, a research project run by a group of charities, almost half of US households are barely getting by. ALICE stands for: Asset Limited Income Constrained, but Employed. and it means: a “household who cannot always pay the bills, has little or nothing…
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Why smart contracts are not for you (or me)
A friend asked: “So you don’t think smart contracts are ever going to be … secure and useful?” Here’s my response: “Ever” is a long time, but … let me tell a quick story: When I raised venture capital during the dot-com bubble, if memory serves, the combined legal bill for my company’s Series A…