Posts of Interest for November 2023
I was planning to make posts like this more regularly, but I entered into a period where I was thinking, huh, I am not collecting very many links. But I was wrong, I was collecting links. I collected too many. And now look at everything you have to read! I am sure these links will keep you occupied for a while.
Security
- Tech CEO Sentenced to 5 Years in IP Address Scheme (BrianKrebs) [Security] This is an interesting story: five years in prison for stealing IP addresses! I guess you shouldn’t do that.
- Defense in depth: Layering your security coverage (Sue Poremba) [Security] Security isn’t just at the edge. Layers are very important, as this article reminds us.
- How The Thompson Hack Worked (jcs) [Security] Aaaah! This is an amazing look at Ken Thompson’s 1983 Turing Award lecture. How can we trust software? Do we trust software? You’ll enjoy this one and it will tickle your inner computer nerd.
- Pentesting vs. Pentesting as a Service: Which is better? (Josh Nadeau) [Security] What is pentesting and how does it work? Well, now you can know.
Emacs
- Whatever happened to Guile-based Emacs? [Emacs, Mastodon] This thread on Mastodon has some insights into what ever happened to a Guile-based Emacs.
- Andrey Listopadov: You don’t need a terminal emulator (Andrey Listopadov) [Emacs] Andrey Listopadov explains how he stopped using a terminal emulator because he’s all about that Emacs. Nice!
- Emacs Line Wrapping (jcs) [Emacs]
For several years, I have been dealing with a line-wrapping annoyance in Emacs that I just couldn’t
figure out. It turns out it was
filladapt, a package that apparently isn’t used often anymore, but I hadn’t noticed. I disabled the package and everything just works the way I want it to. Arrrgh! - Does Working From Home Damage Productivity? (jcs) [Emacs] I have mostly worked from wherever-I-want for the last 14 years, and I’d have it no other way.
Games
- Kensett: A Free 19th Century Urban Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy Maps (K. M. Alexander) K.M. Alexander shares a lot of cool brush sets for creating maps for fantasy games. I have been trying to figure out how to use them, and this one really caught my eye. Check out all of their brush sets!
- Lovat’s Genesis: City of Darkness (K. M. Alexander) I am once again running a D&D game, with a homebrewed campaign, so I think it will be fun to include a few RPG-related posts every once in a while. Seeing how others get their inspiration is really helpful when I need to find some of my own.
History
- The Silent Treatment: Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins [Pub 20231101] A very curious history of solitary confinement and its origins, presented by the Public Domain Review. This is worth a read.
- What Emoji Tell Us About the History of Tea I love the strange history of tea, and the Smithsonian has managed to tie this history to tea emoji. So that’s cool.
- Divide and Concur: A Radical Plan for Peace in Europe (1920) [History] This is an amazing and bizarre plan for bringing peace to Europe in the 1920s. It is worth looking at and puzzling over.