What is Identicon?
Word identify has two meaning: Establish or indicate who or what (someone or something) is. Recognize or distinguish. I chose the name Identicon with second meaning in mind to convey that Identicons’ intended applications are in helping users recognize or … Continue reading →
Identicon and QR Code
I was recently asked to provide some information on identicons, a good excuse to restart blogging. This post, more like notes actually, compares Identicon to QR code which may seem similar visually but are not. WARNING: I think in random … Continue reading →
Decentralised Currencies Are Probably Impossible (But Let’s At Least Make Them Efficient)
How time flies. Following my admittedly somewhat rambling posts on Bitcoin, I decided to write a proper paper about the problem. So, here’s a preprint of “Decentralised Currencies Are Probably Impossible (But Let’s At Least Make Them Efficient)”. It’s short! Enjoy.
I may submit this to a conference, I haven’t decided yet. Suggestions of where are...
Bitcoin is Slow Motion
OK, let’s approach this from another angle.
The core problem Bitcoin tries to solve is how to get consensus in a continuously changing, free-for-all group. It “solves” this essentially insoluble problem by making everyone walk through treacle, so it’s always evident who is in front.
But the problem is, it isn’t really evident. Slowing everyone down doesn’t...
Completely Redundant Disks with ZFS and FreeBSD
A while back, I bought a ReadyNAS device for my network, attracted by the idea of RAID I can grow over time and mirrored disks.
Today I just finished building the same thing “by hand”, using FreeBSD and ZFS. At a fraction of the cost. Here’s how.
First off, I bought this amazing bargain: an HP ProLiant...
The Personal Cloud, Take 2
There’s been a wonderful discussion of “personal cloud” on the VRM mailing list this week. So far feedback is running about 80% positive on the term. But if there’s one point on which everyone has consensus, it’s that our collective … Continue reading →
The Personal Cloud
The hallmark of a rapidly growing new space is new terminology. Craig Burton goes so far as to posit that the growth of the space will be constrained until it has a lexicon that successfully incorporates its key concepts. All … Continue reading →
FreeBMD Seeks An Executive Director
I don’t often mention the FreeBMD project on this blog, perhaps I should. Anyway, we (the trustees of FreeBMD) have decided that it’s time to hire an Executive Director. It occurred to me that some of my readers might be interested, or migh...
TLS Renegotiation, 7 Months On
It’s been 7 months since the TLS renegotiation problem went public and Opera’s security group have a couple of interesting articles about it. The first is about adoption of patched versions and the verdict is not good, as this graph shows…
At this rate it will be two years before the fix is widely adopted!
The second...
kd lang: Hallelujah
I’ve been meaning to say this on my blog ever since the opening ceremonies in Vancouver. But since I just had the chance to recreate the experience on the Web, let me say it loud and clear for the record:
kd lang: Hallelujah.
Comments on the Google account problem
First, my apologies to everyone who commented on Fixing the Google Account Problem. For some reason WordPress stopped notifying me about comment approval (I’m using Akismet but I still find the majority of comments that get through it are spam, so I moderate comments). So I just logged in and found a bunch of great...
The Incredible Internet Answer Machine #2
I receive an email from a friend:
Drummond,
As my Word expert, how do I turn off the “balloon” captioning of redline changes?
I think, “Good question. I have no idea. I’ve often wondered that myself.” I’m about to start typing that answer to his email when I remember The Incredible Internet Answer Machine
I open a browser tab...
