Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

“Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People” is a nice little roundup of statistics from a several large sites like Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, Reddit, etc. These stats support the viewpoint that on these huge sites, most of the content is generated by a very small number of users.

Inequalities are also found on Wikipedia, where more than 99% of users are lurkers. According to Wikipedia’s “about” page, it has only 68,000 active contributors, which is 0.2% of the 32 million unique visitors it has in the U.S. alone.
Wikipedia’s most active 1,000 people — 0.003% of its users — contribute about two-thirds of the site’s edits. Wikipedia is thus even more skewed than blogs, with a 99.8–0.2–0.003 rule.

Some of these numbers are staggering. And the people who do the work, are indeed – insane. Not medically, but by deviation of how much they do and for how long, as compared to the rest of the user base, or even population.

By the way, pretty much all posts in this very blog have been written by one person. Me. Almost 10,000 posts over 19 years. So yes, I’m also probably a little bit insane.

Why does APT not use HTTPS?

In the ever changing world of technology, people often rush to get the latest. Hype for new features, improved performance and security is everywhere, and anybody rarely stops to think about things in depth.

Use the best tool for the job, they say. And the latest is always the best.

In that, I found it surprising that APT (advanced packaging tool) used for a variety of popular Linux distributions, such as Debian, does not use HTTPS, no matter how much people push for it. For all the arguments of HTTP/2 performance and Let’s Encrypt free certificates, APT developers have their own counterarguments.

“Why does APT not use HTTPS?” is a simple website that explains the reasons behind that decision. And they kind of make a lot of sense for their particular use case.

SpaceVim – extended Vim configuration bundle

There are many different configuration bundles for Vim, which easy the discovery, installation, configuration, and documentation of different plugins and features of this powerful text editor. SpaceVim is yet another one of these.

If you are new to Vim, or have grown tired of trying to tweak it to your liking, please give it a try. It might just work for all your needs.

fx – command-line tool and terminal JSON viewer

fx is yet another command-line tool for working with JSON data. Some of the supported features:

  • Formatting and highlighting
  • Standalone binary
  • Interactive mode 
  • Themes support

This looks like a good alternative or a complimenting tool for both jq and jo.

The Millions Silicon Valley Spends on Security for Execs

There’s plenty of talk about security when it comes to giant technical companies, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. But that’s all usually from the perspective of the software security and end-user privacy. Here’s a different perspective on the subject – “The Millions Silicon Valley Spends on Security for Execs“.

Apple’s most recent proxy statement, filed earlier this month, shows the company spent $310,000 on personal security for CEO Tim Cook. But that’s a fraction of other tech giants’ expenditures.
Amazon and Oracle spent about $1.6 million each in their most recent fiscal years to protect Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison, respectively, according to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. And Google’s parent company, Alphabet, laid out more than $600,000 protecting CEO Sundar Pichai and almost $300,000 on security for former executive chair Eric Schmidt. In 2017, Intel spent $1.2 million to protect former CEO Brian Krzanich. Apple, Google, Intel, and Oracle declined to comment; Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was the costliest executive to protect; Facebook spent $7.3 million on his security in 2017, and last summer the company told investors that it anticipated spending $10 million annually.

Well, that’s pretty impressive in terms of money! But do they need it really? They do, at least, to some degree:

While Silicon Valley firms haven’t disclosed many threats to the safety of their executives or offices, they have good reason to take precautions. In December, Facebook evacuated its headquarters after the company received a bomb threat. Last year an unhappy YouTube user entered the company’s San Bruno, California, headquarters and shot three employees before killing herself. And in 1992 the president of Adobe, Charles Geschke, was kidnapped at gunpoint and rescued by the FBI.

Do you still dream of being an executive in a large company?