Author Archives: jonathan

Stay Classy Microsoft

Apparently wanting to appeal to brogrammers, Microsoft presented the “Meet Azure” dance show for this year’s Norwegian Developers’ Conference party. That would be raising booth babes to another level, but what really takes the cake of course are the lyrics [Ed. Note: coloring original].

The words “micro” and “soft” don’t refer to my penis (or vagina)

Classy. Way to be inclusive there Microsoft. They way you slipped in “or my vagina” in parentheses and then wrote it in girly pink was magnifique! Not only do girls like pink, and like talking about genitals in public, but society especially like vaginas that are described as large and hard.

Kudos, my man. Kudos.

Stone Tree

Jordan Mason and Eric Landman built this tree into a wall for Island Lake Conservation Area in Orangeville, Ontario.

I particularly like how the moss on the round fieldstones added to the illusion of leaves. It seems like walled yards are pretty common in the SF Bay. If I had a wall, it would be nice to have something like this. It’s much better than a blank wall, and it probably would take less maintenance than a painted mural.

via Dark Roasted Blend

Efficiency

I have 12 posts sitting in the drafts folder.
I have 2241 links flagged in NetNewsWire waiting to be posted.
I have an unknown number of links sitting on my desktops and browser tabs, waiting to be turned into posts.

Clearly, I need to be more efficient.

“Don’t Worry. Your Data is Safe.”

I took my laptop to the Apple Store to get it repaired. (The keyboard doesn’t work.) After explaining to the guy at the store, he starts taking down my contact info. When he’s done, he says. “And what’s your username and password? Don’t worry. Your data is safe.”

Aghast, I say “But my data is NOT safe if I give you my password!*”

“Uhh….”

“Can’t you just boot off an external drive or something?”

“Well, umm… yeah, but this is how that prefer we do it.”

Sure enough, the Apple form has blanks for username and password.

In the end, I gave them Ming’s password, because really it didn’t matter. I was giving a perfect stranger an unencrypted drive. It does make me think though. After decades of telling users not to share they’re passwords. Not to give them to people saying they’re from IT. Not to trust anyone with your password, Apple is undoing this as part of standard operating procedure. Or maybe I’m just old, and I’m supposed to think of Apple as a parent.†

* Yes, I recognized the naivete of believing a simple password provided adequate security in this situation.

†My parents never read my stuff. I see no reason to read my child’s.