Category: Technology

I’ve avoided posting on the new Yahoo logo mainly because I don’t care. I’m not a Yahoo user and I think the value of corporate logos is vastly overrated.

I read this quote on Business Insider, which reinforce my lack of interest:

The opportunity for Yahoo to completely reinvent themselves and show the aspirational consumer the new Yahoo’s potential has been sorely missed.

The “aspirational consumer”? Really?

But I am a font geek. I will admit that I am obsessive and ridiculous about it. So if you care about the logo and want a good (but obsessive) discussion of the logo from a font perspective (and to his credit, the post title is “geeking out over the logo”) check out this post.

With the latest “NSA can break encryption” revelations, I think it’s important to know what this really means. Unfortunately, we really can’t because we don’t know the details.

Here is a link to an article from a security tech guy writing for the Guardian. He’s seen Snowden documents. What he says, and what I’ve read in other sources, is that the NSA doesn’t have some incredible mathematical algorithm to hack encryption. They’ve managed to hack the keys that encrypt. They have back doors.

Snowden himself said:

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.

The final paragraph of the article says:

Trust the math. Encryption is your friend.

For most people, this whole subject is overkill. The author has one laptop that he specifically never connects to the internet. But he’s dealing with the Snowden documents. That’s not a normal situation.

If you have real security concerns, his recommendations are very good.

A good overview of Quantum Computing. As Richard Feynman supposedly said:

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.

I spent a large portion of vacation leaving my laptop closed and using only my Nexus 7 (the old version). That says much about how good a vacation it was (pictures to follow) and much about the Nexus 7.

There was one point I was showing someone a video on the Nexus. This was an Apple fan person. Her reaction was, “hey, that’s like the iPad Mini”. I refrained from saying, “yeah, 8 months before it came out”. Or saying, “yeah, funny how Jobs said 7 inch tablets were worthless”.

I was just quiet and said, ‘”yes, it’s very nice”. For your amusement, the video was this, of a sink hole in Lousiana:

On the internet…

In 1980, the American Helicopter Society created the AHS Sikorsky Prize, to be given to the first human powered helicopter. To win you had to fly at least 60 seconds, reach an altitude of 3 meters, with the center of the aircraft hovering within a 10×10 meter square.

33 years later, the prize has been won.

A great quote from Daring Fireball:

We demand magic — a retina iPad Mini with no decrease in battery life, but no increase in thickness, weight, or price. And they need to produce at least 20 million of them by Christmas. Something has to give.