Kind: Reposts
Reposting of content from another site, often with commentary.
-
RFC-20
...
The choice of this encoding has made ASCII-compatible standards the language that computers use to communicate to this day.
Even casual internet users have probably encountered a URL with “%20” in it where there logically ought to be a space character. If we look at this RFC we see this:
Column/Row Symbol Name
2/0 SP Space … -
Evaluating the GCHQ Exceptional Access Proposal
...
In a blog post, cryptographer Matthew Green summarized the technical problems with this GCHQ proposal. Basically, making this backdoor work requires not only changing the cloud computers that oversee communications, but it also means changing the client program on everyone's phone and computer. And that change makes all of those systems less secure. Levy and … -
The Route of a Text Message
With each tap, a small electrical current passes from the screen to her hand. Because electricity flows easily through human bodies, sensors on the phone register a change in voltage wherever her thumb presses against the screen. But the world is messy, and the phone senses random fluctuations in voltage across the rest of the …
-
Security Checklist
Be safe on the internet.
An open source checklist of resources designed to improve your online privacy and security. Check things off to keep track as you go.
...
SecurityCheckli.st
I'm pretty impressed with this resource. It's a little US-centric and I would have put the suggestions into a different order, … -
The most unexpected answer to a counting puzzle
3Blue1Brown (YouTube)
Summary: if an idealised weight slides into another, bouncing it off a wall then back into itself, how many times will the two collide? If the two weights are the same then the answer is 3: the first collision imparts all of the force of the first into the second, the second … -
The Mystery
BriTANicK (YouTube)
Brian and Nick are back for the first time in, like, forever. Do you remember what happened before this? It was The Faux Pas, two years ago. And before that? And before that? And before that? The short of it is that it's been a long time since your mom's butthole was … -
There's lots of ugliness in the world right now, so I think it's important to share these photos...
There's lots of ugliness in the world right now, so I think it's important to share these photos of what happened when my friend Marvin called me & said: "I'm getting married & we can only invite 100 people. You didn't make the cut. But you can come if you come … -
Iraq's Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge
...
The next suspect insisted that he had been arrested by mistake—that his name was similar to that of someone in ISIS. A private defense lawyer explained that his client had confessed to ISIS affiliation under torture—he had a medical examination to prove it—but none of the judges appeared to be listening. As the lawyer spoke, … -
Toddler Feelings Helpline
Hello, you have reached the Toddler Feelings Helpline. Please choose from the following options:
— If Mama went to the store for a minute but you are pretty sure she’s never coming back, please mash all of the keys but mostly 1.
— If you still feel pretty messed up about how they were just going to … -
Ungulation
Oglaf -
Elemental haiku
Chlorine
Low road or high road?
World War I. Gas in trenches.
Or salt shared, tears shed.
Science Magazine
A haiku for every element on the periodic table up to atomic weight 103, and also one for the as-yet-unsynthesised ununennium, I especially like magnesium's. -
Fixing Social Media
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Also: awesome news. -
Making single color SVG icons work in dark mode
In a project I work on, we had a couple of buttons that consisted of just icons (with visually hidden help text). The awesome QA engineer I worked with, found some of those did not show up in dark mode, which rendered the buttons unusable for users of that mode. Using inline SVGs with currentColor …
-
So, a shipment of crickets for the lizard arrived via FedEx today...
So, a shipment of crickets for the lizard arrived via FedEx today. It was my first time ordering bulk crickets off the internet, and I naively assumed that they would be in like, a bag or some other contraption to facilitate easy transfer to another container. They were not.
They were in a cardboard box. And … -
Additional Processors
Computerphile
Computerphile at its best, here tackling the topic of additional (supplementary) processors, like FPUs, GPUs, sound processors, etc., to which CPUs outsource some of their work under specific circumstances. Even speaking as somebody who's upgraded a 386/SX to a 386/DX through the addition of a "math co-processor" (an FPU) and seeing the benefit …