Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: Internet

  • TED Talk: The Internet’s Immune System

    I really enjoyed this TED Talk on hacktivists the first couple times I watched it a year ago and a few months ago. Not sure why I have not yet posted it. The beauty of hackers, says cybersecurity expert Keren Elazari, is that they force us to evolve and improve. Yes, some hackers are bad…

  • Collected Quotes June-August 2014

    On the Internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog… but everybody knows if you’re a jackass. — stevemb

  • Algorithmic Random

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    If you are out on the Internet or around academics long enough, then you will run across the rant about random designed by humans not being really random. It might be the iTunes shuffle. It might be random sampling of an experiment. It might be a complaint of you using the word for how you…

  • For Want of a Scrollbar

    The start of an adventure usually starts when I tweet an annoyance: Who has two thumbs and regularly disables Sharepoint’s overflow: hidden CSS to re-enable the scrollbar? Me… A coworker asked a good question, which is, “Any easy/lazy way to make it automatic-like?” My response was a Greasemonkey script should do the trick. Okay, so,…

  • Just Get Rid of Java

    Apparently there are security flaws in the current version of Java allowing the installation of malicious software through web browsers unknown to the user. The known attacks using this flaw work on Windows, OSX, and Linux. According to Reuters: Java was responsible for 50 percent of all cyber attacks last year in which hackers broke…

  • TED Talk: The currency of the new economy is trust

    How would you describe my reputation in three words? My judgment, knowledge, and behaviors in various situations? Back in the 1990s, the beauty of the Internet was we could disappear and be whomever we wanted. Wherever we went, almost no one knew who we were. Then web sites started providing accounts to sites and tracking…

  • Why I Love The Internet

    Everything is out there. From the most profound to the most mundane, whatever I need to know when I need to know it. Last week I set my DVR to record a series. I knew it was in re-runs and British. The DVR sucks in the sense it gives an original air date but not…

  • How much does the Internet weigh?

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    An interesting attempt to calculate the weight of the Internet. Not the machines or fiber. But the amount of data and weight of electrons used.

  • Smaller Java Cache

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    One of our campus Blackboard Learning System Vista Enterprise administrators reported to have reduced the number of Java cache related issues (failed sessions) by changing the Disk Space Allotment from the 1,000 MB default down to 100 MB. This is found in the Java Control Panel > General tab > Temporary Internet Files: Settings. I…