It’s an Aperol spritz kind of afternoon.
I found a odd control in AWS Security Hub’s CIS Benchmark 3 findings. It reports “IAM Access Analyzer external access analyzer should be enabled”, even if it is enabled in another account with organization-wide scope. Support’s advice is to disable the control.
Fine. It seems like an edge case, although maybe a common one for orgs with multiple accounts. I’m OK with silencing the false positive since we monitor that other account with its own CIS Benchmark 3 report.
We went to the local swap meet across the channel from the Port of Oakland. Photos don’t do justice to the enormousness of the container ships moored here daily.
All household children deny knowledge of the situation, but I am skeptical.
Today I learned about Emacs’s table handling. Start with a mess:
| *Name* | *Type* | *Flavor* |
|--|--|--|
| Orange | Fruit | Orangeish |
| Water | Liquid | N/A |
| Pineapple | Armored fruit | Summer |
Run M-x table-recognize and press TAB. Now you have:
| *Name* | *Type* | *Flavor* |
|-----------|---------------|-----------|
| Orange | Fruit | Orangeish |
| Water | Liquid | N/A |
| Pineapple | Armored fruit | Summer |
❤️
Literally every time I open the CA DMV digital drivers license app:
- “You need to refresh your license!” Fine.
- “To do that, you need to log back into the DMV website!” Alright.
- “Your password is expired. You need to update it!” Ugh, really, whatever.
- “System Unavailable”. throws phone
Every. Time. If I ever try to use this to board a flight, I’m so sorry for the people behind me in line that day.
Gigi is a happy mess.
If I bought this, “everyday" would mean “…for the rest of my life, and you’ll have to bury me in it.”
Sometimes Rust makes me so happy. I wrote this over the weekend:
let embedded_data = include_bytes!("../static/data.bin");
let my_set: HashSet<&[u8]> = embedded_data[7..].chunks(10).collect();
It does this:
- Read a binary file and embed it in the final executable as an array of bytes.
- Create a
HashSet(Python folks: aset()of items of a specific type) where each element is an array of bytes. - Skip the first 7 bytes of the binary file using Python-like slice notation.
- Create an iterator that emits 10-byte portions of the rest of the file, one at a time.
- Collect all the values from that iterator into… oh!, a
HashSet<&[u8]>because Rust can tell what the type of the target variable is, so why make me repeat myself?
Rust isn’t magic. Other languages can do similar things if you poke at them enough. It’s more that 2 lines of builtin Rust can readably implement a reasonably sophisticated set of operations that get compiled into a static executable. That’s a very pleasant combination of features.
The hen is very curious about my lunch.
Today’s spam starts:
How are you doing? I’ve been following you on LinkedIn for a while now and wanted to reach out to say that I absolutely love your background. I have a Business Opportunity that I would like to discuss with you for mutual benefit.
That’s a new one for me.
My wife took a vow to put up with me 25 years ago today. Since then, she’s been my ride-or-die best friend through our many grand adventures. We didn’t always know how they’d work out. We’ve always gotten through them together. I know there’s nothing too big for us to face side by side.
Here’s to the next 25, my love, and all the others after that.
Project dream 1:
- Toss and turn all night, thinking of a million things to be done, going in deep to solve some hard problems.
- Wake up and remember none of that exists. Relax. Laugh.
Project dream 2:
- Same as above.
- Remember, oh yes it does.
- Desperately make notes before it goes all Xanadu to your Coleridge.
- Sit in a cold, panicked sweat for a little while.
It’s been a long week already, it’s Tuesday, and I haven’t even returned to work yet.
We survived Def Con. Barely. It was about as much fun as I’m physically able to tolerate in 1 week. Highlights:
- Meeting many online friends and finding out they’re all delightful in person.
- Seeing it all through my first-time-attendee wife’s eyes as we meandered through it all.
- Coordinating, conspiring, and scheming face-to-face.
- Being on the team taking 2nd-place in the EFF Tech Trivia contest.
- Oh yeah, the parties.
We’re both happy, grinning, utterly exhausted, energized, and ready for next year.
Best Buy’s new anti-privacy practices are even more awful than before. They’ve lost any business I’d ever be sending them after this.
Def Con badge acquired. Most of the way through the merch line; another 4 hours at most.
Hallway.
We made it to Vegas in 1 piece, ate a deliciously unhealthy lunch, checked in early (pro-tip: pay the $15 extra for a room upgrade if given the option), and set up the WiFi router that lets all our devices connect to the Internet at the same time without paying an arm and a leg every day.
It’s been a buy morning. Now we rest, re-caffeinate, and then hit the strip.
DEF CON is nearly upon us. Today we’re finishing our packing, checking into flights, finalizing plans to meet with friends, and twiddling our thumbs until it’s time to go to bed and wake up early.
Hope to see y’all there!
Amazon sent me an email about their new “Amazon One” service:
Amazon One is a fast, free identity service that allows you to pay using only your palm at all Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Go locations. Your Prime member discounts will be automatically applied when you checkout at Whole Foods Market.
I was raised in an evangelical Christian household, as are somewhere around 25% of Americans. I can say with authority that a huge percentage of the US believes that paying with a “mark” on your hand, or forehead, is a certain indicator that the world as we know it is about to end. I do not believe this. I personally know plenty of people who do.
Things like this from a major brand always surprise me. I find it hard to imagine that the focus groups it surely went past didn’t have at least a few people saying “no, I won’t use this, because it’s literally the work of the Antichrist”.