Blog/June 2020/Jun 12th
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< Blog | June 2020
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We had a reasonably useful week. Esther kept plugging away at clients’ tax returns. Sarah had her first week at the new branch, and met with considerable success. Daniela, Jeremy, and the babies returned to their home after almost three months; the babies are happy. I did a bunch of things, including work.
Our “drip irrigation” was installed by the previous owner, probably 20 or 25 years ago. It’s been a constant low-level irritant, since it springs a leak every now and then. This week, the gardener came and fixed a major subterranean leak. As a result, the pressure in the system was higher, and we ended up with lots of other leaks at the same time. The lines are old.
So we went out and got replacement lines and fittings. I replaced one length which was particularly bad, only to feel like I was in a game of “whack a mole” — new leaks popped up in other locations. I’ll have to replace all the lines. Sunday, B”H; to prevent having a flood over shabbat, I’ll turn off the irrigation.
In the event you think you’re “just a person”, be aware and get “woke”! Take this quiz to establish just how “privileged” you really are. Our thanks to “Buzzfeed” for that valuable service! If only J K Rowling had taken that quiz, she could have avoided making a major faux-pas of saying (only) women menstruate, and she wouldn’t have had to endure being chastised by Harry Potter himself.
The Cultural Revolution is afoot, comrades! Science must serve politics! In today’s America only goodthink is permitted! In today’s Seattle only communist-anarchist thugs are permitted! Damn, but I’m glad I left the US when I did!
Tech:
- Intel’s CPUs are a goldmine for hackers. A new(ly released) vulnerability subverts the SGX “secure enclave” system, meant to be the ultimate protection against attackers with physical access. Apparently it’s not that great.
- Another vulnerability was patched; but the patch makes the random-number generator on the CPU perform around 3 percent of its nominal speed.
- Availability attacks against neural networks.
- And (thanks, Art!) an article about the balanced-ternary machines of Soviet Russia.
The language “PHP” is 25 years old. But it’s still pretty awful, so this week I worked on converting the API I wrote for a client from PHP to 8th. I know, there are very few 8th programmers. But since security is a primary concern, I feel justified in getting rid of the insecure and inconsistent PHP version in favor of something I can personally vouch for (and fix if needed!). In the process, I’ve been finding “edge cases” to fix in 8th, which is useful (if annoying).
Sarah and Yarin will be visiting us this morning, so we need to get ready. She’ll be picking up her formerly broken graphics drawing tablet, which her incredibly talented and modest father fixed, no charge!
The weather has been warming but reasonably pleasant. We’re looking for a bit more warming over shabbat, followed by ups and downs next week.
This shabbat we’ll have: homemade ḥalla, pargiot, oven fries, various salatim, and fruit.
Until next time,
shabbat shalom!
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