Archive: September 2024

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Happy September!

Sunday,  09/01/24  08:56 AM


Hi all Happy September!  Wow how did that happen?  One minute it's winter, then suddenly it's Spring, Summer whips by, and now Sept - Fall - Halloween - Thanksgiving - Christmas - New Year.  The Earth's orbit around the Sun is definitely speeding up.

Yesterday I drove my bike up to Arroyo Grande and took a nice out-and-back ride to Avila Beach.  Here's a composite video from the ride:

This is a test, there are several things going on here.  First the video itself is a GoPro time-lapse combined with a Strava GPS flyby, with embedded iPhone pics. Experimental, and I like it.  Composed with Adobe Premier.  LMK what you think.

Next, this video is in my Dropbox, bypassing YouTube which I've historically used to host videos.  I don't like YouTube (don't like Google); they stick in ads and generally cruftify* everything, and who knows when they'll delete my videos forever.  Dropbox is more direct (but does it work?)

* yes of course cruftify is a word

And LBNL, this is my first time posting a video with my new spiffy (shaved-yak) email-to-blog mechanism.  I love it by the way; this is being composed on my iPad, sitting in my den, miles away from my laptop and office.  

{Update: it all worked, yay.  Only thing is it isn't obvious that the pic above is a link to a video.  I added "(click to watch)" but I need some kind of "video frame".  (Huh)}

{Another Update: modified the API to support embedding videos, as opposed to merely linking them. This takes advantage of modern browsers' support for video; in the bad old days I used to embed various video plugins, and in the worse older days used Flash. But now even mobile browsers can play video directly ...}

Well enough of the navel gazing; it was a fun ride watching the masses at the beach, and traversing through Shell Beach which is a beautiful little residential neighborhood tucked in between Pismo and Avila.

Pismo Beach is a real slice of Americana; except for the size of the people and their tattoos, could have been any time in the 1980s; the kids and dogs playing in the surf were just the same.

Speaking of dogs, this has to be the best way to tour around with them, and is my favorite pic from the trip.  Woof.

And onward...

 

perfect labor day

Tuesday,  09/03/24  09:01 AM

a Labor Day spent sailing w your granddaughter is pretty perfect

 

Vuelta Stage 16: revisiting the Lagos da Covadonga

Tuesday,  09/03/24  11:16 PM

Tonight I watched stage 16 of La Vuelta (the Tour of Spain cycling race), which finished atop the legendary Lagos da Covadonga climb in Asturias, the Northernmost province of Spain.  It was a fantastic race on an amazing track.

I rode this very climb myself, way back in 2007; I was in Spain for business and detoured up to Asturias to ride the stage and then watch the pros do it too.  After an improbable series of barriers surmounted I made it, probably the hardest climb I've ever done then or since.  Watching the race today was doubly enjoyable remembering being there which seems like yesterday, 17 years ago...

Rereading my report on the day, I remember feeling a weird sense of inevitability; with each obstacle it felt like something good was going to happen, and then it did.  "How did I get here (!)" indeed ... Quite a day.

My report does not go on to mention the incredible spicy Spanish dinner I had that night in Cangas des Onis nor the Rioja wine which accompanied it, but I remember them too.  I do not remember finally sleeping but I'm sure I did so, like a stone.

Watching pro cycling in Europe is the best - in addition to another Vuelta stage I've been privileged to watch two stages of the Tour de France, and to ride and then watch the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders).  I still have to see a Giro d'Italia stage (Tour of Italy), and would love to see the Strade Bianca (which tours Tuscany and finishes in La Plaza in Siena).  It's nice to have goals :)

Onward !

 

Passing on passkeys

Tuesday,  09/10/24  07:42 AM


Today's rant: passkeys considered bad.  I knew this instinctively, based on their complexity, but David Hansson explains it in detail.  Whew.

Passwords are a problem, for sure, for me as a user as well as for me as an applications developer.  Good passwords are hard to remember, every site has different rules, sometimes you have to change them, sometimes you can't reuse them, and everybody writes them down insecurely.  (Yep, you do too, admit it.)

So when passkeys were invented, everyone said yay.  But they don't solve all the problems and create many new ones.  The difficulty of having them across multiple devices, the difficulty of creating them in the first place, and the difficulty of implementing them.  And the reliance on central authorities.

Whenever there's a new thing, I try to understand it.  (Blockchains!  LLMs!  Etc!)  If the thing escapes me, maybe that's on me - sometimes I'm slow and it has to soak before I get it.  But mostly if I don't get it, it's on the thing - it's too complicated to be good.  (W=UH!)  And so it seems with passkeys.

The best solution to passwords is not to have them at all.  Just send the user a limited time link in text or email.  This is simple to explain, simple to use, simple to implement.  And no less secure than passwords; most of the time you can change or recover a password with a link in text or email anyway.  Oh, and it supports multiple devices easily.

I get the appeal and value of two-factor authentication.  Simple and better.  After you remember your password and enter it, we'll send you a text or email too, just to make sure.  But maybe we skip the "remember your password and enter it" part?  Simpler and betterer.

So long passkeys, we hardly knew ya...

 

never forget

Wednesday,  09/11/24  07:50 AM


Where were you?
23 years ago...

 
 

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