Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

An amazing fact about this calculator: not only does it work without batteries, it works without access to my address book, location, and photo album! They were advanced in the olden days. #privacy #technology

Today's antique store find: an Addiator Duplex mechanical computer!

They were made in Germany from 1920 to the 1980s (obsoleted by electronic calculators). This one is from the '50s or later, due to "West Germany" reference in the instructions.

My son successfully navigated my "MacGuyver obstacle course" featuring a lockpick set high out of reach, bomb-diffusing clues inside a padlocked bag, and a snap circuits "bomb" behind a locked bathroom door. #prouddad #lifeskills

Sure, Spot is creepy, but on the plus side I'd be one step closer to owning my own "Rat Thing" and turning my van into Ng's "wheelchair" from Snow Crash! #vanlife https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlkCQXHEgjA

Beat SMB1 in front of my family and almost beat it second time through in crazy fast beetle mode (died at 8-4). #stillgotit

Confession time: I used to put on the Hackers soundtrack when skating to work in SF. I also put on Master of Puppets when working on centralized config management. #dork #soundtracks

It's strange that config files transitioned from key/value pairs into complex data structures at the same time that databases transitioned from complex data structures into key/value pairs. #devops

I told you I was super serial...

But the flood that remained when it barely rained is not going to drain as soon as you close your eyes. NO!
And every time I scratch my pen to pay my city tax I hope you spend it. WHERE DID YOU SPEND IT?

Cuz I'm HERE to remind YOU
of the mess you left whenever it rains
It's not fair to deprive me,
of the kids I bred cuz the flood won't drain
YOU YOU YOU OUTGHTA KNOW

In honor of those of you dealing with Houston's infrastructure:

I want you to know, that school's out for you
I hope that you have, a raft or a boat

I know a normal city can handle when it's rainy
It won't go down on you in a river
It drains it elegantly, so you can get your baby
And prove you are a very excellent mother

I just heard from my school district that because our local utility hasn't maintained their lines for years and have a policy now of cutting power if winds are high enough, that the school (and we by extension) have to prepare for county-wide outages lasting upwards of 3-5 days at a time!

My copy of the Snowden memoir, Permanent Record arrived! Can't wait to dig into this tonight!

I'm really missing Linux Journal today. This RMS/FSF news would have had us editors working together to publish a well-thought-out story...

I'm reading through many of my old (some a decade old) Linux Journal articles right now and I'm uncovering all of these really interesting and still-useful articles I had forgotten about.

Someone just referred to warrant canaries as a dead man's switch, so my brain went immediately to this. Apologies to Oingo Boingo:

I was struck by lightnin'
Walkin' down the street
I was served with warrants that I had to meet
It's a dead man's switch
Who could ask for more
Government is coming, leave canary at the door
Leave warrant canary at the door

Don't run away, it's canary
Don't be afraid of what you can't see
Don't run away, it's canary
Don't be afraid of what you can't see

Look what arrived! Excited to read this book. While today fascism and the far right is the existential threat that justifies any means to eradicate, it wasn't always this way. 18 yrs ago today it was radical (and non-radical) Islam and in the 1950s it was communism and the far left. This book documents CIA studies into mind control to counter the communist threat that resulted in torture of US citizens, death, and countless other atrocities.

Why is it that the best minds in our industry seem unable to improve security without creating products that coincidentally give their employer more control over people and their data? Vendor lock-in is preventing real innovation in infosec.