tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59377162013079917332026-06-17T03:20:29.895+10:00Random MusingsKim's BlogKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-14444614102531947392026-04-05T17:10:00.003+10:002026-04-05T17:11:53.783+10:00 The Problem of Passkeys The Problem of PasskeysThis is not a deep study of passkeys, I am interested in how useful and usable passkeys actually are. In particular by trying them myself in a limited way.I have many issues with passkeys. Asymmetric encryption is hard, technical and not suitable or secure for most normal (ie non-technical) people. But clearly it's possible to use it to make Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-7326143127501994952026-03-30T17:49:00.003+11:002026-03-30T17:50:38.167+11:00A Random Annoyance - magnetic USB connectors A few weeks ago I bought a watch, perhaps a smart watch, perhaps a not very smart watch. Anyway this is not really about the watch. The watch had an interesting USB charging port. The USB "socket" has two plates also surrounded by two magnets. The USB connector has 2 pins and the pins are surrounded by two magnets. I found it interesting. Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-40618647902183811782025-10-12T17:19:00.003+11:002026-03-30T17:50:56.089+11:00Torch Review: Fenix E30RI'd like to review my best torch ever. I've had this torch for several years now. It is my almost constant companion for working around the house, repairing electrical devices, installing computing equipment, fighting fires at night. I have no connection with the company other than being a happy customer. The Fenix E30RSmall, bright and tough:This torch is small, not Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-7897587782865154372023-02-11T11:21:00.001+11:002023-02-11T11:21:25.705+11:00That horrible rubbery plastic coating that turns sticky I hate that horrible rubbery plastic coating, that they sometimes put on small electronic devices, that turns sticky after a year or three . If I want to keep using the device, I have to remove the coating which has turned sticky, which is a major undertaking.To clean the rubbery coating I need to use eucalyptus oil, ti tree oil, citrus oil, alcohol, propyl alcohol or a mixture of oneKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-33176741320391094882022-09-03T16:55:00.006+10:002025-04-12T10:01:06.717+10:00Browsing slightly more safely and privatelyCompanies and governments glean massive amounts of data from users on the web. This data gets to huge data warehouses where it's matched together and used by many companies and not for your benefit. Part of the issues are the secrecy and lack of oversight and control by the users themselves. Often you are paying in multiple ways for them to collect your data. Remember if Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-62219022437920578932019-10-14T13:24:00.000+11:002019-10-14T13:35:55.756+11:00Review of Neal Stephenson's "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" (spoilers)
Neal Stephenson - Fall, or Dodge in Hell
Warning Spoilers
I really love some Neal Stephenson books, but some I find unreadable. I think his book "The Diamond Age" one of the best science fiction books I have ever read. I loved Anathem, although I had issues with the ending. His endings are often strange. I can't actually read his "Baroque Cycle" trilogy - only ever got aKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-52563058444984518302019-07-20T21:30:00.001+10:002019-10-07T12:10:36.188+11:00The basis of randomness
I was thinking today about the basis of randomness.
I'm still thinking about how to write this down so bear with me here.
After the invention of calculus, mathematicians saw the world as a sort of giant clockwork machine. "Give me the initial conditions and the law of motion, and with calculus I can predict the future -- or better yet, reconstruct the past." Einstein's spacetime Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-62623395209905326292018-10-22T12:03:00.001+11:002018-10-22T13:56:32.197+11:00Trampolines from oztrampolines online are dangerous. Don't buy them.
Trampolines from oztrampolines online are dangerous. Don't buy them.
Here is my experience.
In March of 2014 bought a 7 x 10ft Rectangular Trampoline from
Oztrampolines online. It was delivered fairly promptly but when I got
it here is a picture of what I got.
Actually a 6ft x 9 ft trampoline with an extra rail 1 foot around the outside. But this is just disappointing Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-5627097915288771222017-05-20T23:36:00.000+10:002017-05-22T11:45:19.623+10:00Bots, Metadata, big data, linkity and that time I broke the family googles.
I guess this started a long time ago when companies started collecting data from users on the internet. What triggered me to write linkity was our government deciding to make ISPs collect and store our metadata.
I wrote linkity to create lots of metadata. It looks at lots of things at random on the internet. I wanted a program that didn't download much and so cost the user Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-69212471577968758462016-07-12T21:05:00.002+10:002016-07-13T10:34:41.704+10:00randword: Generating memorable random passwords
This started when I decided to learn python by rewriting one of my old perl scripts in python. randstring is a script to generate a random string of characters. I use it sometimes to generate passwords, but password strings or random characters usually can't be remembered, at least not easily. Passwords like that can be useful at times. You need to store them in an Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-84044565604269079782016-01-11T14:45:00.000+11:002016-03-06T17:29:43.271+11:00In memory of my mother, Marjorie Pizer Holburn, 3rd April 1920 - 4th January 2016
Marjorie Pizer died on the 4th of January 2016. She is sadly missed.
It's impossible in a short time and with my limited time and writing skills to summarise her. Here is my brief message. In time I will perhaps add links to other people writing about her. If you knew her please feel free to add a comment.
My mother was a poet, artist, psychotherapist and a deep thinker. SheKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-56626377973370929112015-11-15T17:07:00.000+11:002015-11-15T17:07:34.205+11:00Conception, the twin problems and souls.
People used to believe that women were like a field and men plowed them and planted a seed and those seeds grew into babies. There are echoes of this belief in the current right to life movement when they say "life begins at the moment of conception." Apart from the obvious: "so sperms and eggs aren't alive?" What does this really mean? That at the "moment" of conception Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-31974809204846655512015-07-04T10:04:00.001+10:002015-07-05T14:38:03.851+10:00Allow only one program at a time to access a resource in linux
I had several programs I needed to run but I wanted to make sure only one program got access to a resource at the same time. So I wrote a short and simple perl script that would do this. This script needs a directory in /var/run that it can write to. Since the script doesn't run as root, I have to create this directory after each reboot.
The script is invoked like this:
Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-13618704261650686662015-07-04T00:26:00.004+10:002015-07-05T14:35:01.541+10:00Detecting Rogue DHCP servers 2
So my script detecting rogue DHCP servers worked and worked well but having two or three DHCP servers covering the same scope is somewhat problematical. So we eventually gave in and changed configuration to having a main DHCP server and failover servers. I had to change the logic slightly to get the script to cover that. The new version has a mode where it will only alert if itKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-83774151088590875232014-10-29T12:50:00.000+11:002014-10-30T09:09:14.650+11:00The myth of competition and the free market.
Mathematically the free market is not a stable environment. It quickly becomes an oligopoly and from there it's only a step or two to a monopoly.
The point is that whenever and to the extent that there is a free market, companies must become efficient to compete.
But free markets only exist when companies compete, when they agree to compete, when they cooperate to compete. The bulkKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-10671706521917698742014-05-07T22:26:00.002+10:002014-10-30T09:07:19.124+11:00ngraph: another random text generator.
In my series of scripts to generate random text for fun and for helping create secure passwords this is my latest. This new set of scripts generate text based on frequency weighted random choice of ngraphs. I use it sometimes to generate word-like things to create passwords. There may be other uses, for instance creating random text with English characteristics.
ngraph:&Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-27687359457266810182013-07-11T19:58:00.000+10:002015-07-05T14:36:06.522+10:00Detecting Rogue DHCP servers
I don't know why there aren't more simple ways to detect rogue DHCP servers. It can have nasty effects on a network and can be difficult to diagnose and it's easy for it to happen. Someone can plug in a machine set to share its internet connection and bam.
I wrote a perl script to detect rogue DHCP servers in nagios. I found one on the web here but I wanted it a bit more flexible soKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-40991700015775107512011-12-17T14:22:00.004+11:002014-10-30T09:12:28.852+11:00Government control of ideas
From before 1AD to around 1400AD (I believe there is no zero AD because we didn't have zero till much later - an Indian invention!) there were three main centers of civilization - Europe, China and India. They were of similar population and developed culturally and technically quite similarly. Then around 1400, Europe started an unprecedented scientific and technological development Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-55368050339315474672011-10-15T09:09:00.009+11:002014-10-30T09:11:34.540+11:00A Million Monkeys: who owns the copyright?
The random sentence program that I wrote about in my last blog entry can output stories. It's my version of the million monkeys.
As before, it can be downloaded as a simple perl text file from here or in the zip file with the other programs and the source frequency list from here.
I will add instructions for creating the database soon. The database is not necessary Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-86178629666602721932011-09-26T22:31:00.019+10:002014-10-30T09:13:18.739+11:00More random passwords, entropy and words
Following on from my previous blog post I have written a new perl program, this time to create kind of sentence like structures. It is very simple at the moment but I will continue working on it on and off. As with the previous programs it is written in perl and like randword it uses Adam Kilgarriff's BNC list from here http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk/BNClists/all.al.gz albeit in a Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-48476037827667557512011-09-15T21:29:00.009+10:002014-10-30T09:13:07.768+11:00Random passwords, entropy and words
The concepts of passwords and entropy have generated a lot of discussion especially since the xkcd comic. One of the basic results is that a small additional password length can add as much entropy to a password as adding a larger range of characters and could be much easier to remember. Think of it like this if you like: each character in a password might be one of say 26 charactersKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-37490911642880534802011-01-21T19:42:00.003+11:002014-10-30T09:15:41.330+11:00Random musings on Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga
Peter F. Hamilton Commonwealth Saga:
Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained
This is really a single book published as two volumes but as each is around 1200 pages, it would be way too big as a single book. It's a pretty good read, complex with many threads.
I have some issues with the "technology". Given of course that in reality advanced technology is not always completely understood by most Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-35985970292863557642010-12-10T10:53:00.002+11:002014-10-30T09:18:40.349+11:00Too big to fail
Part of the fallout of the last couple of wikiweeks is the sudden realisation that on the internet there are only really two major companies that allow you buy stuff over the internet internationally. They are US companies that have been carefully nurtured by the US government with special agreements in various countries around the world and they are beholden to the US government will do their Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-34761330104020700742010-11-08T04:14:00.003+11:002014-10-30T09:14:30.779+11:00Free will and determinism as part of a continuum
Sometimes I am filled with a forbidding mortality.
I'm thinking of my life from the point of view of a Buddhist or Hindu soul at the beginning and the end of a life. Perhaps it's the same as the view of one day in our lives.
If everything is determined then a life is like a book, a play, a movie, predetermined, lived over and over, the same.
It seems as if we have free will and if we have, Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5937716201307991733.post-20944321949285307342010-09-06T14:47:00.002+10:002014-10-30T09:19:16.434+11:00The Internal Language of the Mind
I'm sure this has been thought of before and it is not so simple to put into words.
I was thinking, musing if you like:
Perhaps we really translate language somehow into a kind of internal language in our minds. A language of a symbols which are a complex of related memories and meanings.
Suppose someone gave a speech to three people.
One of those people didn't understand the language andKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09301824945391664889noreply@blogger.com0