Today I Learned

Cover of The Alan Parsons Project album, Pyramid, via Wikipedia.org The Alan Parsons Project is one of those acts where many people don’t “know the band”, but will recognize several songs, such as Eye in the Sky , or Prime Time . Those familiar with progressive rock from the 1970’s and 1980’s, on the other hand, likely know them well. The only official members were Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson , augmented by a large group of session musicians who worked in various capacit

Boötes Void , aslo known as the “Great Nothing”, via Wikipedia.org “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Ch IV, Section 146, Via Project Gutenberg Nietzsche is a very interesting figure, whose work is often admired and/or criticized, but seldom understood. It does not help that he suffered bouts of ill health throughou

Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone, Auguste Rodin, via Cleveland Museum of Art When I first read Stranger in a Strange Land , I was too young to fully understand much of it. Of course I only realized that when I read it again, several years later. Over the years, I have read the book a dozen or so times, and picked up a bit more each time. This is the nature of good books – you can read them again, and pick up something new. Sometimes, you pick up some subtlety in the story o

This is my honest opinion of Donald Trump. It’s been redacted, in order to avoid offending anyone due to language or, um... physical impossibility. I just hope I did better than the US Department of Justice (DOJ), when they released the tiny, first-drip of files related to Jeffrey Epstein . Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Epstein is pretty concise. “Jeffrey Edward Epstein (January 20, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American financier, child sex offender, serial rapist

“Martha Root”, dressed as Pink Ranger, Chaos Computer Club, 2025 I feel conflicted. On the one hand, it was illegal. On the other hand, they were bad people and it was very cool. I once attempted to describe the “ hacker mindset ”, which is less about technology, and more about trying to find innovative ways to do things – for many “old-school” hackers, it was far more about solving puzzles. Over the years, the word “hacker” has become more and more difficult to define. Depen

Linus and Sally in class, from Peanuts, via YouTube.com Far too often, if you ask an InfoSec professional how to be more secure, your answer will be similar to that of Charlie Brown’s teacher, as you hear a bunch of technical jargon and details of specific vulnerabilities or attacks. This is not really specific to InfoSec, but more a general issue with experts - an occupational hazard, where people understand their field of expertise, but don’t yet understand it well enough t

Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner, via Wikipedia.org Wile E Coyote is one of my favourite Looney Tunes characters. I love the wonderfully absurd plans he comes up with in order to catch the Roadrunner. These range from such simple things as pulling the pin from a hand grenade, then throwing the pin, to ridiculously complicated, Rube Goldberg-like plans (often with blueprints) that fail spectacularly. A common element of many of these plans is some product from Acme Corporation .

Page from Diamond Sutra, 868 CE, British Library, London, via Wikipedia.org I like Rhianna , but had never really dug into her music in any serious way. Maybe it’s partly because she’s such a young artist – she only hit the world stage about 20 years ago, after all – but I think it’s probably more because the song “ Umbrella ” was overplayed (in my opinion) to an incredible degree. I don’t particularly like the “-ella, -ella, -ella...” refrain, and it really gets on my nerves

Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), from The Princess Bride, via YouTube.com “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” For anyone not familiar with The Princess Bride , go watch it. I’ll wait. (The tragic death of director Rob Reiner may lead to many new people watching this wonderful film, and many others to re-watch it. A true masterpiece.) For everyone else, just enjoy the exchange between Inigo Montoya (played by Mandy Patinkin ), and Vizzi

Mumble, from Happy Feet, via YouTube.com It seems obvious in retrospect. Look at the way penguins walk, then watch Happy Feet , and tap seems like the inevitable style for a dancing penguin. But maybe that’s just because of the masterful dancing (via motion capture) by the amazingly talented Savion Glover (who was also co-choreographer). For any not familiar with him, Glover got his start on Broadway at age 11, appeared on Sesame Street in his teens, and was called “possibly

Cover art for the single “Revolution”, by The Beatles, via Wikipedia I didn’t realize there were two Revolutions. Of course I knew the song Revolution , but unlike people who owned the White Album , my exposure to the Beatles was almost entirely through the “ Red ” and “ Blue ” compilation albums, and whatever I heard on the radio. Thus, I was only familiar with a relatively small part of their total output. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there were TWO “Revoluti

Cartoon by Tom Gauld, 11 th April 2013, for @newscientist One letter can make a big difference. Or one number. I’ve mentioned You Are Not So Smart (YANSS) before. It’s a podcast created by David McRaney , who is a science journalist, author, and speaker who is fascinated by brains, minds, and culture. I’ve been listening to YANSS for years, and it’s well worth the time. On episode 313 , David McRaney and his guest, Erica Chenoweth , discussed the work done by Chenoweth and