Status Update
Seven days in sunny June.
What This Is
This section contains a number of subheadings where I can archive and organize the various things I’m studying/working on from a month-to-month basis. It’s essentially a long list of tersely formatted status updates that I collect and maintain along with some commentary.
Reading…
Books:
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach - Mark Richards. (9781492043454) (in p.)
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition - Robert B. Cialdini PhD. (9780061241895) (in p.)
Eldest - Christopher Paolini. (9780375840401) (in p.)
The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - Cliff Stoll. (9781416507789) (fin)
The Enchiridion - Epictetus. (gutenberg) (fin)
Online:
Cameron Kaiser - So long, home T1 line; hello, hacking the T1 router.
Bill Mei - Friendships form via shared context, not shared activities.
Tim Alex Jacobs - DDC OLED - Did you know that, nestled among its many high-speed differential pairs, HDMI apparently has an I2C bus? The author exploits this to directly drive a small OLED screen with no additional hardware.
Computers are Bad - Amateur Hour - How and when does FCC equipment authorization apply to amateur radio equipment? Like any regulatory conundrum, it depends.
Dennis Burke - All Circuits are Busy Now: The 1990 AT&T Long Distance Network Collapse.
Sam Altman - How to Be Successful - I detest Sam Altman and his absurd retina-scanning ponzi scheme. However, this piece contains some genuinely valuable advice.
Malcolm Harris - The Zen Playboy: The life and times of Stewart Brand.
WJAZ engineering staff dressed as 'wave pirates'. Source: Wikipedia.Founding…
Squeak Records: a small, independent record label/media company based in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Squeak has officially launched, both legally with the formation of an LLC and digitally with the advent of our online storefront.
Big Huge Giant’s first EP should be completed sometime within the next 8 weeks to 3 months. The label’s next order of business involves preparing for this release: organizing bookings, promotional campaigns, and merchandise sales channels.
Despite my revulsion at Facebook, Google, and the overall Social/Ad-Industrial Complex, the success of Squeak depends on my ability to effectively employ these tools.
Listening…
- See last.fm.
Watching…
I’ve been bingeing documentaries from the AT&T Archives.
TOPES: Telephone Office Planning and Engineering System, from Bell Labs, 1978 - TOPES was an online planning and engineering interface with realtime collaborative capabilities, much like what you would see in modern online office suites like Google Docs. Extremely impressive technology for the time.
AT&T Archives: 600 Million Calls A Day - An internal informational piece from Wisconsin Corporate Telephone discussing the structure of the Bell system as it relates to call flow management in times of high load.
AT&T Archives: Nassau Recycling Corp - A subsidiary of Western Electric, Nassau returned roughly 1/3 of the Bell system’s material needs (particularly copper) from recycled equipment. This video provides an in-depth look at the industrial processes occurring in Nassau’s plants.
Reconnecting 170,000 Phone Customers in NYC After a Major Fire - Documentary following recovery efforts after the 1975 New York Telephone exchange fire.
AT&T Archives: Live From Bell Labs (1993) - This educational program is targeted at secondary school students to showcase Bell Labs’ technologies and outreach initiatives. It’s only worth mentioning on account of opening with one of the most ridiculous skits I have ever seen.
1979: Will WORD PROCESSORS start a HOME WORKING revolution? | Past Predictions | BBC Archive - Telecommuting in 1979? The BBC’s Luke Casey takes a closer look.
1980’s Computer fraud | Computer Hacking | TV Eye | 1983 - A Thames TV report on computer crime, circa 1983.
Hacking
I recently started collaborating with the USF Whitehatters security club as a mentor and coach.
I’ve become heavily involved with the Tampa Devs meetup group. I’ll be giving a talk on application security at the August meeting.
Playing…
- Drums