Author: shacker

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Center for Investigative Reporting

cir A year and a half ago, I left the Berkeley J-School to experience life in a high-energy web development shop with central campus. I learned a ton in that short time – the Agile process, Angular.js, building sites as Single Page Applications, strict separation between back-end and front-end systems, rigorous code review processes, and much more. And I had the opportunity to work with a crew of Java, Ruby, and Javascript rock stars, from whom I’ve learned so much.

Since my career to date had been as a web tech generalist (i.e. one person wearing all the hats), I found the experience incredibly illuminating. And yet… the project and I had some “creative differences” which ultimately resulted in me leaving the department at the end of May.

I’ve spent the past month working on personal and freelance projects, studying, and job hunting. I longed to work with journalists again, and really missed working with Django, which still feels like the most natural and effective way to build highly customized data-driven web sites I’ve ever encountered. At the same time, I wanted to make sure that my work had some kind of higher purpose – I wanted to be part of something with social and political impact.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything on campus that really fit my requirements, and finally made the tough decision to start looking off-campus.

Today, I’m thrilled to say that I believe I’ve found the perfect fit, as a full-time Django developer at the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley.

At The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), we believe journalism that moves citizens to action is an essential pillar of democracy. Since 1977, CIR has relentlessly pursued and revealed injustices that otherwise would remain hidden from the public eye. Today, we’re upholding this legacy and looking forward, working at the forefront of journalistic innovation to produce important stories that make a difference and engage you, our audience, across the aisle, coast to coast and worldwide.

CIR recently merged with the Bay Citizen and California Watch, two excellent journalism organizations that have had myriad overlapping projects with the J-School over the years. In fact, walking around the CIR offices today, I’m meeting former J-School students and instructors I haven’t seen in years – kind of a homecoming!

I’ll be enthusiastically starting work in mid-July. Yes, it’s tough to say goodbye to the University, but it really is an ideal evolutionary step for me right now.

Onward!

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Slippery Slope

Unfortunately, THE WEEK magazine didn’t publish this excellent blurb on their site, but it ran in the 6/28/2013 print edition. I thought it was such an excellent critique of a too-common rhetorical technique that I wanted to post it here:

Logicians call the slippery slope a a classic logical fallacy. There’s no reason to reject doing one thing, they say, just because it might open the door for some undesirable extreme; permitting “A” does not suspend our ability to say “but not B” or “certainly not Z” down the line. Indeed, given the endless parade of imagined horribles one could conjure up for any policy decision, the slippery slope can easily become an argument for doing nothing at all. yet act we do; as George Will once noted, “All politics takes place on a slippery slope.”

That’s never been more true, it seems than now. Allowing gay marriage puts us on the  slippery slope to polygamy and bestiality, opponents say; gun registration would start us sliding into the unconstitutional morass of universal arms confiscation. An NSA whistle-blower, William Binney, said last week that the agency’s surveillance activities pus on a “a slippery slope toward a totalitarian state.” And this week we’re hearing a similar argument that President Obama’s decision to arm Syrian rebels, however meagerly, has all but doomed us to an Iraq-style debacle. These critics may be right to urge caution, but in their panicked vehemence, they’ve abandone nuance and succumbed to the summoning up worst-case scenarios.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh points out that metaphors like the slippery slope “often start by enriching our vision and end by clouding it.” Decriminalizing marijuana doesn’t have to turn the U.S. into a stoner nation, nor does sending M-16s to Syrian rebels inevitably mean boots on the grond in damascus. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t watch our footing.

 

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MapStack

From the amazing team at Stamen design, a gorgeous new way to view maps of your area. Go to MapStack, select “Watercolor” from the drop-down, and type in your city or address. So cool.

east bay

sf_watercolor

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Ziso gods

Very interesting conversation with my 10-yr-old son tonight about karma, gods, and belief systems. He was describing an aspect of his imaginary world Ziso, which he’s been constructing in his head (and in a wiki) for the past five years.

Me: What kind of economy do they have in Ziso?

He: None. But if you do good deeds, Zisocoins just appear in your backpack the next day.

Me: Who puts them there?

He: One of the Ziso gods.

Me: Tell me more about religion in Ziso.

He: There is no religion in Ziso.

Me: But you said there were gods!

He: Yeah, but you don’t need religion to have gods. In Ziso everyone knows they exist. The gods are real facts, so there’s no need for belief. And since there’s no need for belief, there’s no need for religion.

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Happy

Wonderful, wonderful movie. What is happiness? What makes us happy? Probably not what you think. Spoiler: Your predisposition to happiness is:

  • 50% Genetic
  • 40% Being social, being kind, exercise, and slowing the hell down
  • 10% Achieving success / accumulating money / status / fame

So many great stories in this, don’t even know where to begin. Couldn’t help thinking about the stranger on the frisbee golf course today who took us under his wing, gave us expensive discs to keep, tips and pointers. He wanted us to be happy. And in doing that, he made himself happy.

Super-duper recommended.

happy

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The NSA’s Massive Data Center

When Wired published their piece on the massive Utah Data Center (“The Matrix”) more than a year ago, designed to capture and process data from virtually every sort of phone and internet transmission imaginable, I thought the story would explode. It was a fascinating expose’ on a government project with immense implications for privacy. It got some retweets in the technosphere at the time, but never rose to public awareness. That baffled me.

The datacenter had been ten years in the making (so be careful about blaming it all on Obama):

“It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration”

… and was funded by the tens of billions of cash thrown at the NSA in post-9/11 budget awards.

The facility consists of four 25,000 sq ft buildings packed top-to-bottom with servers and data pipes, all kept chill by *60,000 tons of cooling equipment.* They’re not messing around.

nsadatacenter2

Just read it. We can’t say we didn’t know this was coming.

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Password Hygiene for Regular People

Even the passwords we once considered “strong”  have become almost trivially easy for sophisticated crackers to break. With massive arrays of very-fast processors, lightning fast graphics cards, and extremely sophisticated cracking techniques, hackers are making mincemeat out of stolen password databases, and openly trading them on the black market.

Most “average user” passwords now fall so easily that some in the security community feel the username/password mechnanism itself must be traded in for something entirely different, like biometrics. But until that time comes, you need to be doing everything you can to make your passwords as secure as possible.

correcthorsebatterystaple

The purpose of this piece is not to scare you, but to give you the tools you need to stay safe.

There’s a ton of advice floating around out there on what makes for a good password, how to create memorable (and easy-to-type) passwords, and how to keep track of lots of different passwords. Unfortunately, a lot of that advice is written by geeks for geeks, while the people who generally need the advice the most are “regular” (non-geek) users. If you’re a geek, chances are you’re probably already doing most of this stuff. This article is an attempt to summarize the best password hygiene advice out there for your parents, bosses, aunts and uncles, and non-geek friends.

There’s a twist at the end, plus an explanation of the graphic above, so please read all the way through.
Continue reading “Password Hygiene for Regular People”

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Maker Faire 2013

I’ve been taking Miles to Maker Faire every year since it launched in 2006, making this our 8th. It’s different every year – sometimes better, sometimes worse. No question it’s become more popular (for better and for worse) and less dangerous over time. With every passing year, there are fewer exhibits that can take your head off, singe your eyebrows, or help you lose a limb. And there’s an increasing emphasis on crafty stuff, things you can do with kids, etc. The maker movement has become more mainstream, less Burning Man, and more accessible. But there’s still no better place to experience such an awesome array of things to do with your kids, concentrated in one place. Despite the crowds and the impossible traffic, we still consider it worth going.

Tough Art

A few highlights from this year’s event:

  • Giant vat of the stuff they fill disposable diapers with. Neither wet nor dry, it feels surreal and rubbery to the touch. Amazing in large quantities.
  • The usual amazing Tesla Coil demonstration
  • Guy playing a homemade didgeridoo/drum kit rig
  • Cupcake cars driving around
  • Biggest bin of iron filings and rare earth magnets I’ve ever seen
  • Immense arrays of bubbles being dispensed from long loop/string invention
  • Giant replica of Milton Bradley’s original Mousetrap game, including 400-lb steel bathtub and real bowling balls.
  • Adam Savage in person!
  • Miles got to make a bizarre vuvuzela-type noisemaker
  • Bike-like vehicle driven by the motion of the rider pumping up and down rather than pedaling
  • Solar powered cars
  • Mind-blowing 3D printer creations
  • Hands-on metal stamping with 1-lb brass hammer
  • Pedal-powered llama-shaped cars with articulated head
  • The usual assortment of crazy bicycle-like inventions
  • Entire city made of tightly wrapped masking tape (hard to describe, but incredible)
  • Make your own steampunk goggles booth (for kids)
  • Biggest paella cooking trays you’ve ever seen
  • Blue Man Group-style PVC acoustic marimba
  • Stilt walkers everywhere

… and we didn’t even get to see 50% percent of it.

Mousetrap

Flickr set