Losing Players

2017-03-01

When you have a group that’s been playing for a long time, it’s hard to lose a player. I’ve mostly been running our Friday nights over the last 6 years and during that time we’ve had a minimum of player loss. After our first major campaign we ended up losing one of our players. There was some real life issues and I think there might have been some lingering hard feelings between two of the players.…

VR in Linux working!

2017-02-23

This week Valve released the beta for their SteamVR on Linux . It’s not quite ready for general consumption yet, but with a little bit of effort I was able to get it working on my Arch Linux install. At launch there appear to only be two functional applications, Destinations and DOTA2 (spectator) . I’ve tested both, and it’s working well, although it’s definitely a first pass. Performance was passable, but still needs a lot of work.…

Krebs: House Passes Long-Sought Email Privacy Bill

2017-02-07

Everyone should check out this article by Brian Krebs. This bill a long overdue update, let’s hope they can get it past the Senate.

The complex discussion around anti-virus software

2017-02-02

Does anti-virus make you more or less secure? It seems like an odd question to ask, but it’s an important one and the conversation around it has been growing more nuanced in the last year. On it’s face, and for someone not steeped in internet and network security discussions it seems like the answer would be simple. I probably wouldn’t be writing about it if it was a simple answer.…

Preparing for an Internet of Things with UniFi

2017-01-27

Last year a couple of things came together. First, a friend and I had renewed our efforts to create a site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) tunnel between our homes. We don’t have anything super exciting to do with this newfound ability, other than occasionally setting up some multiplayer games or file sharing. Second, I started to get fed up with the lack of updates and support in DDWRT (more on that in a minute).…

All the best!

2017-01-02

I wish us all the best in 2017. May your burdens not be more than you can carry.

Looking at Tails

2016-12-28

I’ve been using Live Image distributions of Linux for well over a decade now. Sometimes to do tech support, sometimes just to clean up old systems and get them running again, and once in a while to disinfect a machine toasted by cryptoware. It’s very useful to be able to boot up a fully functional operating system with tools that allow a professional to get things done. Enter Tails . Tails has a different focus and a different goal than other live distributions.…

Anti-censorship brought to you by Google and Signal

2016-12-28

Bruce Schneier has some good comments on how Signal is using Google to circumvent UAE censorship blocks . Great move by both Google and Signal. Over the holidays I spent some time explaining to my family why I’m asking them to communicate with me through secure channels (like Signal) by default. At one point the question came up, “Why do you care if email is unencrypted, and why do you need to have privacy on the internet”?…

Signal by default

2016-12-20

Odds are good that if you’re reading this you already know this about me, but I care about privacy. As a general guideline, I don’t trust companies or other large entities to keep my secrets or have my personal best interests in mind. I’m not the only one who feels this way (or as Levar Burton would say, “You don’t have to take my word for it”) “BY the time you finish reading this column , you would be foolish not to download the messaging app Signal onto your smartphone and computer.…

Third (and fourth and fifth) parties have no place here.

2016-12-13

Initially after setting up codemichael.net I had a ghost blog theme that had some nice options, and disqus enabled by default. Disqus seems like a good idea for allowing comments because it’s got all the social login features and I don’t have to host code that is likly to be abused (plus they handle spam etc). Except I don’t like third parties. I don’t like relying on them and I don’t like the access that they get to my site by using their hosted code.…