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By
anders pearson
06 Aug 2001
the code red worm is still running rampant. the patch has been out for months. code red has been all over the news for weeks. there are still admins who haven’t patched up their machines.
<p>code red itself is pretty stupid, but i’m getting worried about the ability of the internet to fight back against these things. with a few minor changes, code red could really do some serious damage. currently, it’s blatantly obvious if your machine has been comprimised since it leaves a nice “hacked by chinese” defacement on the webserver. if there are <a href="http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/code-red/">hundreds of thousands of machines</a> whose admins aren’t paying close enough attention to notice something that obvious, i can only imagine what would happen if code red had been written to just infect and spread without defacing. </p>
<p>i’ve seen over 200 infection attempts in the logs for this server (Apache, so it’s not vulnerable) in just the last few days. </p>
<p>maybe people should just stay off the internet until they’re responsible enough to not screw it up.</p>
By
anders pearson
31 Jul 2001
yesterday i got my autographed copy of Joel Spolsky’s new book User Interface Design for Programmers. the whole book is available online but i payed for a dead-tree copy from Joel because i like to support authors who make their writing available for free.
<p>i particularly like to support them when the writing is <em>good</em>. Joel’s book is definately good. </p>
<p>the book is programming language and platform independant; it just describes what it takes to make a program that people will enjoy using. it isn’t really written as a reference book; you can pick it up and read it cover to cover in one sitting. </p>
<p>highlights:<br />
- Joel writes with a very friendly, informal tone that makes the book very pleasant to read.
- he writes from experience. certain other usability pundits have a tendency to make up their own “laws” of UI design without really justifying them. Joel is pretty good about basing everything on examples from his own career as a programmer.
- the book takes a very pragmatic approach. again, certain other usability pundits like to decree that there is a Right Way to do things and you’re damned to the hottest parts of hell if you ever dare stray from blue underlined links on webpages and similar dogmatic bullshit. Joel admits that it can be helpful to break the rules once in a while and that sometimes other factors can even be more important than usability.
- Joel clearly distinguishes “usability” from “learnability”. something that drives me nuts.
- Joel used to work on the Microsoft excel team but treats Microsoft fairly. he rightfully lambasts them for some of the more atrocious crimes they’ve committed against their users, while also praising them for the advancements they’ve made and their commitment to at least trying to write software that does what users want it to.
- by far the best aspect of the book is Joel’s ability to convey his enthusiasm for UI design. since it’s not a reference book, most programmers probably won’t take too much tangible knowledge away from reading the book. but they will hopefully have their eyes opened to the importance of usability and will have a new (or renewed) desire to actually make usable software.
problems:
- it was short. only 140 pages or so. you can easily read and digest it all in a couple hours but it leaves you with the impression that he was just glossing over a lot of the material that he could have gone into much more satisfying depth on.
- GUI oriented. although he at least distinguishes between usability and learnability, there isn’t much attention paid to the design of frequently used software or other UI paradigms besides point and click mouse-based interfaces. i don’t really see this talked about anywhere else though. eg, i still use pine for email, emacs for editing and do a lot of work from the command-line. not because i’m a crusty old unix user who refuses to touch any Microsoft products with a ten foot pole (although that description isn’t entirely untrue), it’s because i use my computer so frequently that the steeper learning curve for more efficiency is a good tradeoff for me. pine does what i need an email program to do and since my fingers have learned all the commands, i can use it without thinking about it or even having to look at the screen. since i’ve taken the time to learn emacs and the command-line, i don’t have to waste time navigating through menus or even locating my mouse to get work done. all i have to do is type ‘emacs’ and i’m set; muscle memory takes care of the rest. i wouldn’t recommend emacs for someone who only occasionally has to edit text; they’d be much better off with a point and click program designed to have a shallower learning curve. but overall, the area of usability dealing with programs that people use frequently and repeatedly seems to be largely ignored. i would love to see a usability book that deals with programs designed for more flexability but with a steeper learning curve.
anyway, go check out the book online and pick up a hard copy if you like it. help support authors who publish online (i’ve personally bought quite a few books that are available online and i’m hoping that more authors and publishers begin to realize that it can actually get them more sales rather than less).
By
anders pearson
24 Jul 2001
this comment on plastic almost resulted in an embarassing loss of bladder control on my part.
By
anders pearson
23 Jul 2001
lani came to visit this weekend while she’s between apartments in DC. in an effort to appear like i actually am cool and have a life besides sitting alone in my apartment reading and watching cable, i managed to find a few things to do while she was here.
<p>on saturday afternoon, we went out to queens to go to the <a href="http://www.ps1.org/">ps1</a> <a href="http://www.ps1.org/cut/press/warmup2001.html">warmup</a> with omar and a bunch of his friends. the line was around the block but once we got in, it was a good time. lots of quality dj’s and cheap beer. pretty much everyone at the show was an attractive, hip 20-something. i felt like i must be in the middle of some weird, mtv created fantasy world. the exhibits at the museum were cool. there were sections focused on military uniform fetishes and on japanese consumer culture (the even brought in a live j-pop band). </p>
<p>after that, we went down to brooklyn to check out an underground show that the <a href="http://www.seemen.org/">seemen</a> were putting on. it was way out in the middle of nowhere in a fairly run-down residential neighborhood. we walked around following the directions to the place and eventually found ourselves outside someone’s garage. we were late so the show had already started. since the show was not <em>entirely</em> legal, they were taking some precautions. they would only open the door to quickly let a few people at a time in during quiet parts. during the not so quiet parts, the entire garage door would violently shake accompanied by bright flashes through the cracks and the sounds of explosions coming from inside. once we made it inside, it became pretty clear why it wasn’t a legal show. in a tiny little garage, there were packed about 75 people (significantly more than any sane fire marshall would sanction) standing and watching the <a href="http://www.monkeyview.net/kal%40seemen.org/very_interactice_pieces/revortex_6.vhtml">fire vortex</a>. the room was about 150 degrees and everyone was drenched in sweat. the fire vortex is an arrangement of 4 propane tanks surrounding a volunteer from the audience, each shooting 2 meter jets of flame in a computer controlled rythm. kind of like the <a href="http://www.lhpo.org/">large hot pipe organ</a>, but on a smaller, more personal scale. every time one fired, you could feel the blast of heat from the far end of the room. the part that really made you feel safe in that little enclosed space was that the propane tanks themselves were in the line of fire of the blasts. when one would go off, the flames would curl up around the bottom of another propane tank. by the end of the show, the tanks themselves were blackened from the fire. there were two fire extinguishers on the floor, but they were pretty much for show; i don’t think they’d have helped much if a propane tank exploded. we were late so we only caught the very tail end of the show, but it was definately one of the cooler (not literally) things i’ve seen in quite a while. easily the most dangerous musical instrument i’ve ever seen.</p>
By
anders pearson
20 Jul 2001
went to macworld expo yesterday.
<p>i was pretty disappointed. just the same boring commercial shit. endless booths of small software companies selling not very impressive products. it seems that this year, instead of announcing new and interesting products or new and interesting features being added to products, every software company had the same announcement: “now available for OS X!!” so i guess everyone’s been too busy porting their apps to do anything new.</p>
<p>Apple themselves didn’t have much to talk about either. their biggest announcement seemed to be that OS X.1 would be coming out in september and would include features that should have been in the original release anyway (<span class="caps">DVD</span> playback, Samba support, etc.). i guess if you hadn’t already had a chance to play around with the tiBooks and iBooks, it could have been interesting.</p>
<p>the new <a href="http://www.apple.com/powermac/">dual 800MHz G4’s</a> look pretty nice though.</p>
By
anders pearson
18 Jul 2001
my coworker just returned from a 3 week trip to northern, rural sweden. he took a bunch of pictures while he was there. i find it remarkable how much the landscape really looks like maine. see: 1,
2,
3, 4
By
anders pearson
17 Jul 2001
apparently cheney’s power bill is $186,000 [nytimes article: use ‘cipherpunk’ as username/password].
<p>what the <em>fuck</em> is he doing?! </p>
<p>i cannot understand how a 33-room mansion could possibly draw that much power. that’s almost $6000 per room. the power bill for my 3 bedroom apartment last month was under $50 (that would extrapolate to $600/year). so cheney’s house, on a per-room basis, is using 10 times more power than my apartment. and we have a growing collection of computers and electronics that are on pretty constantly.</p>
<p>one person i was talking to suggested that the power consumption was due to cheney’s pacemaker and frequent need for defibrillators (those things use a fair amount of juice). someone else suggested that cheney’s just growing lots of pot and it’s all for the lamps in the closets.</p>
<p>i think he’s probably just got a killer 200kw stereo that he keeps blasting gangsta rap 24/7.</p>
By
anders pearson
17 Jul 2001
we’ve been having some issues with postgresql last night and this morning after one of my coworker’s servlets went haywire.
<p>if you experience any more problems, let me know. apologies for any inconvenience.</p>
By
anders pearson
15 Jul 2001
slight redesign. something different.
By
anders pearson
11 Jul 2001
sarah has joined us. hopefully she will offset the abundance of testosterone that thraxil is currently soaking in.
