Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Apportez l'epee

























"Those who have been made, can be unmade."

Sunday, February 22, 2015

I shall profit from this lesson

G. Boleyn : "I trust a lesson has been learned. You are not a gentleman born. You should not meddle in the affairs of those set above you..."

Cromwell: "I shall profit from this lesson... I assure you, Sir."


Monday, February 16, 2015



FT - Productivity growth in the rich world started slowing down around the same time that the financial sector’s share of economic activity started rising rapidly

In other words, it means nothing

"We inform you about government access to data... unless this disclosure is prohibited by law"

Uh, hello National Security Letter?

MS adopts first international cloud privacy standard

Security through obsolescence... Ho!

The primary aim of my blogging platform choice has always been archival. Hosting my own blog and having to update certain aspect (i.e. security) to simply keep it running are not-inconsiderable distractions.

There are other things, such as storage, that merits trying out the bleeding edge (ZFSonLinux). But when portability is possible for a range of commodity services (blogging platforms), I chose one that is (presumably) Too Big to Fail. Though Blogger may yet one day meet the same fate as Reader.

Lack of CSPRNG Threatens WordPress Sites

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

and in it, we'll be the fools and oppressors

Cromwell: "... and do you know what I hate most? He's writing an account of today for all of Europe to read and in it, we'll be the fools and oppressors, and he'll be the poor victim with the better turn of phrase. He wrote this play years ago, and he sniggers every time I trip over my lines."
Consider, for a minute, that you were brought up with a not-insufficient awareness for a certain philosopher, statesman and humanist, and perhaps this awareness even extends to acknowledgement and admiration. What would it take for such an idol to be brought low? For this, a devastating scene of Thomas More's trial in Wolf Hall:

More: "Ask yourselves, gentlemen, why would I open my mind to a man like Richard Rich? Why, when the learned and the pious have implored me, when the King himself with weighty reasons has sought to persuade me."

Rich: "Because you think I don't matter."

Monday, February 09, 2015

Sunday, February 08, 2015

Most of the issues, however, are eternal

'When due to deliver her daughter, 26 years ago, she wrote six weeks’ columns in advance to cover her maternity leave. The morning she was due to have her baby, her editor called her to ask for an extra piece. “I said, ‘I’m just about to go and have a caes­arean’.” To which he replied, “It’s just routine surgery.” She wrote it.'
  The joys of being a newspaper agony aunt

'Most of the issues, however, are eternal: loneliness, difficulty in forming and sustaining relationships. '