Here are some good questions to ask when you are being interviewed for a job. They lean toward interviewing for a technical poistionin IT, but should give you some good ideas for questions to ask regardless of the position you are interviewing for.
Finishing Questions
Is there anything about my application that concerns you?
Is there any reason at all that you would hesitate to offer me the job? If so, I'd appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns head-on before we finish.
General Questions
What do you like most about your job and what do you feel sets the company apart from others in the industry?
How long do people tend to stay at the company?
How big are project/product teams?
Do people tend to work with the same people, or switch around? How long do they stay on a single project/product?
How long have the most senior and most junior members of my team been here?
Do employees support each other across product/project teams?
Do engineers tend to discuss technical things unrelated to specific product/project work? (e.g. brown bags, forums, mailing lists).
Do they tend to promote from within? How many of the managers have a technical background?
Do people socialize outside of work?
Are there official/unofficial events?
What is the typical daily schedule like for this position?
On the way out, could you show my where my work area would be?
Can I meet any members of the team?
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Friday, July 26, 2013
First World Problems and Being Human
Most of us feel resentment when we see a rich person behaving badly, a spoiled celebrity angry because someone forgot to pick out the green M&Ms, or some other tinyy, ridiculous thing.
When it comes to celebrities or other wealthy people who (we see) living such a priviliged lifestyle, the problem is that the millions and luxury lifestyle have been part of your life for so long that they become invisible, and then the only things that are visible are the little annoyances.
To be like this is not being an asshole, it's only being human.
Consider most people who become petulant and annoyed over such little things; whether the new amazing console coming out will allow them to share games, or that the new super-hero film didn't match their precise expectations, or any other first world problem.
The vast majority of these people don't have to worry about whether there will be a roof over their heads today, if they will be able to feed themselves, will they be able to save their child's life from a preventable disease.
To a significant portion of the human population these are still genuine problems.
From our point of view, the difference between us and someone very wealthy is significant. Someone rich should should know how lucky he is and never ever complain or behave with petulance. We (from our point of view) are nowhere near the level of wealth and success where we should consider ourselves so lucky that we should never complain about anything.
However, from the point of view of many people on earth, the difference between us and someone we see as rich might as well be imperceptible. By that logic, we should never ever complain about anything either.
Which is impossible, because we are all human.
When it comes to celebrities or other wealthy people who (we see) living such a priviliged lifestyle, the problem is that the millions and luxury lifestyle have been part of your life for so long that they become invisible, and then the only things that are visible are the little annoyances.
To be like this is not being an asshole, it's only being human.
Consider most people who become petulant and annoyed over such little things; whether the new amazing console coming out will allow them to share games, or that the new super-hero film didn't match their precise expectations, or any other first world problem.
The vast majority of these people don't have to worry about whether there will be a roof over their heads today, if they will be able to feed themselves, will they be able to save their child's life from a preventable disease.
To a significant portion of the human population these are still genuine problems.
From our point of view, the difference between us and someone very wealthy is significant. Someone rich should should know how lucky he is and never ever complain or behave with petulance. We (from our point of view) are nowhere near the level of wealth and success where we should consider ourselves so lucky that we should never complain about anything.
However, from the point of view of many people on earth, the difference between us and someone we see as rich might as well be imperceptible. By that logic, we should never ever complain about anything either.
Which is impossible, because we are all human.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Capitalism and Opportunity
The difference is, nobody is exerting power over anybody else in a consensual sexual experience.
When you have a finite amount of resources and they're all privately owned, the wealthy begin to incur natural advantages (at its most basic; "economies of scale"). Those with money have much more freedom than those without; that includes freedom to make money. If there are one hundred people under capitalism, the one with the most amount of money is going to come out on top so long as he doesn't do anything stupid. When everything has a dollar value, those with more dollars are able to take more opportunities for themselves than those with no dollars. Because this includes opportunities to make more dollars, the process is a type of positive feedback loop. Wealth continues to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands and inequality gets worse. This, too, is a positive feedback loop. As inequality worsens, the laboring class becomes more and more desperate and are more and more at the mercy of the capitalist class just to find a way to procure bread and a shirt and a roof.
It's like picturing economies of scale for a business... except for an individual person. Oh... you have enough money to make a downpayment on a house? Now your monthly expenses are cheaper and you get to save some of your house payment as equity in your home. Don't have money? Pay out the ass to a landlord and accept that in this economy, you'll probably never be capable of saving up enough for a downpayment.
Have money? Go see the doctor when your insides are hurting you and straighten everything out right away.
Don't have money? Hope it goes away, and if it sticks around for several months, maybe try and pinch on the groceries for a month to save up enough to ask a doctor a few questions and then get a bill for an unknown amount sent to you in the mail at an unknown point in the future when you hope no other emergencies have arisen to clear the little bit of a rainy day fund you have.
Have money? Pay for your child's education so they can focus on their studies completely, perform well in school, and land one of the few good jobs.
Don't have money? Tell your kid to go terribly into debt and to work his ass off while also trying to do his best to attend to his studies. Tell your kid it's okay and that he tried his hardest when one of the privileged children who never had to work a day in their lives graduates with honors and gets that cushy job and your kid graduates with an acceptable GPA, thousands of hours flushed down some shitty wage job, and an assload of debt left on top of him, which severely limits his options for the future and leads him in his desperation to start serving tables at a restaurant because there is nothing more productive for society that he could be doing, since the ONLY way anything gets done under capitalism is if a wealthy person stands to make a good amount of money off of others by doing it.
The women that manufactured the clothes you're probably wearing right now live like slaves. Cramming into garment factories for long days and grueling hours, and in many places for less than $100/month. That isn't freedom. That isn't anything but exploitation rooted in prior exploitation. That is what the natural coercion of market forces has done to her.
Being forced to sell your time, energies, and (in a service job) yourself for barely enough to scrape by while the man who owns your time, energies, and yourself makes much more off of you than what he pays you isn't like a consensual sexual relationship between equal partners. If you want to use a parallel, it's like being forced into prostitution.
A further note on the positive feedback loop nature of capitalism: How is it possible for a human being born into this society to make money to try and escape that trap?
A] Work for wages -- which means do labor that has some level of value, and then have your boss take as much of that value for himself as he can get away with based on how desperate the other possible laborers in the economy are at present. It is fundamentally impossible for one laborer to move up in the economic food chain without further enriching a very wealthy individual already ahead of him.
B] Have a great idea and want to start your own company? Great! Go take out a massive loan from a bank and whether you succeed or fail, pay the bank more money than they gave you. You cannot create wealth for yourself without necessarily paying a portion of it up the ladder. Thus, social mobility for a few of the many poor entails further enrichment of the few wealthy, which means a smaller proportion remaining for the rest of the impoverished. The growth of inequality is absolutely inevitable (when it gets so bad we're forced to either intervene or simply let the wealthy come in like vultures and pick everything off the desperate workers at discounted prices during the recession).
What happens when you mix the necessity of property ownership in? What does a man do who is born into this society? He needs access to land in order to provide for himself -- either by growing food, building a shelter, or having a space to perform some skill/trade/craft. What happens when all of that land has already been stolen from those who originally used it and dwelt upon it and scooped up by the Boomers and those who came before them?
The poor in this country are fucked. The young in this country are poor. The assets of this country are firmly in the hands of the older and wealthier generations who got theirs when America had access to half the world's resources and then kicked out the ladder from beneath them, began privatizing everything, and began pumping out all of this neo-liberalism horseshit about "free markets."
Pro-tip: America likes free markets because America has the most money and influence, which means in any "free" trade, America is going to come out on top. That's how the coercive power of money works. If you have a lot and other people don't, but they desperately need it to survive, grow, and thrive, then they are going to be in a position where they are willing to work for much less or pay much higher prices, simply because they are desperate.
Adam Smith outlined this clearly; while two nations can each trade in their comparative advantage to their mutual benefit (i.e. one is better at making textiles, one is better at making wine), if one nation is better at making both textiles and wine, then the other nation can do nothing to compete. The only thing it can do is be exploited. Especially if we can cheaply pay to transport goods across the world so that we can abuse perpetually existing desperate pockets of the globe by forcing them to "compete" the only way they can: BY BEING WILLING TO WORK FOR SLAVE WAGES. This willingness then deflates the cost of their labor, even though the value of the labor is identical to what it would have been if the factories were located somewhere where the human beings doing the labor were required to be paid human living wages rather than treated like animals in cages.
From this place of exploitation, the nations become trapped. Workers in places like Cambodia can protest their >$100/month pay [EDIT: LESS THAN $100 PAY] and ask for an extra $14 and then be harassed by the state for going on strike and have a company like Nike (which profits immensely off the exploitation of these women) simply wash their hands of the blood and say, "Sorry; we don't set the prices, that's the job of the factory owner." As though the supply chain isn't one, continuous process that Nike is actively benefiting from. The factory owner is caught in the middle. The major corporations and banks, posting massive profits, are the ones who ultimately have all of the "slack" in the system. That's the only node in the chain where anybody has true "freedom" to do as they choose, and they wash their hands, go on luxury vacations, live sinfully wealthy lives, and stomp their boots in the faces of the slaves that made them, all while boldly declaring that they are improving the quality of those slave's lives, because the slaves "voluntarily" chose to enter the garment factory and work for whatever impossibly small rate "market forces" have decided the factory owner is required to let her keep.
source
When you have a finite amount of resources and they're all privately owned, the wealthy begin to incur natural advantages (at its most basic; "economies of scale"). Those with money have much more freedom than those without; that includes freedom to make money. If there are one hundred people under capitalism, the one with the most amount of money is going to come out on top so long as he doesn't do anything stupid. When everything has a dollar value, those with more dollars are able to take more opportunities for themselves than those with no dollars. Because this includes opportunities to make more dollars, the process is a type of positive feedback loop. Wealth continues to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands and inequality gets worse. This, too, is a positive feedback loop. As inequality worsens, the laboring class becomes more and more desperate and are more and more at the mercy of the capitalist class just to find a way to procure bread and a shirt and a roof.
It's like picturing economies of scale for a business... except for an individual person. Oh... you have enough money to make a downpayment on a house? Now your monthly expenses are cheaper and you get to save some of your house payment as equity in your home. Don't have money? Pay out the ass to a landlord and accept that in this economy, you'll probably never be capable of saving up enough for a downpayment.
Have money? Go see the doctor when your insides are hurting you and straighten everything out right away.
Don't have money? Hope it goes away, and if it sticks around for several months, maybe try and pinch on the groceries for a month to save up enough to ask a doctor a few questions and then get a bill for an unknown amount sent to you in the mail at an unknown point in the future when you hope no other emergencies have arisen to clear the little bit of a rainy day fund you have.
Have money? Pay for your child's education so they can focus on their studies completely, perform well in school, and land one of the few good jobs.
Don't have money? Tell your kid to go terribly into debt and to work his ass off while also trying to do his best to attend to his studies. Tell your kid it's okay and that he tried his hardest when one of the privileged children who never had to work a day in their lives graduates with honors and gets that cushy job and your kid graduates with an acceptable GPA, thousands of hours flushed down some shitty wage job, and an assload of debt left on top of him, which severely limits his options for the future and leads him in his desperation to start serving tables at a restaurant because there is nothing more productive for society that he could be doing, since the ONLY way anything gets done under capitalism is if a wealthy person stands to make a good amount of money off of others by doing it.
The women that manufactured the clothes you're probably wearing right now live like slaves. Cramming into garment factories for long days and grueling hours, and in many places for less than $100/month. That isn't freedom. That isn't anything but exploitation rooted in prior exploitation. That is what the natural coercion of market forces has done to her.
Being forced to sell your time, energies, and (in a service job) yourself for barely enough to scrape by while the man who owns your time, energies, and yourself makes much more off of you than what he pays you isn't like a consensual sexual relationship between equal partners. If you want to use a parallel, it's like being forced into prostitution.
A further note on the positive feedback loop nature of capitalism: How is it possible for a human being born into this society to make money to try and escape that trap?
A] Work for wages -- which means do labor that has some level of value, and then have your boss take as much of that value for himself as he can get away with based on how desperate the other possible laborers in the economy are at present. It is fundamentally impossible for one laborer to move up in the economic food chain without further enriching a very wealthy individual already ahead of him.
B] Have a great idea and want to start your own company? Great! Go take out a massive loan from a bank and whether you succeed or fail, pay the bank more money than they gave you. You cannot create wealth for yourself without necessarily paying a portion of it up the ladder. Thus, social mobility for a few of the many poor entails further enrichment of the few wealthy, which means a smaller proportion remaining for the rest of the impoverished. The growth of inequality is absolutely inevitable (when it gets so bad we're forced to either intervene or simply let the wealthy come in like vultures and pick everything off the desperate workers at discounted prices during the recession).
What happens when you mix the necessity of property ownership in? What does a man do who is born into this society? He needs access to land in order to provide for himself -- either by growing food, building a shelter, or having a space to perform some skill/trade/craft. What happens when all of that land has already been stolen from those who originally used it and dwelt upon it and scooped up by the Boomers and those who came before them?
The poor in this country are fucked. The young in this country are poor. The assets of this country are firmly in the hands of the older and wealthier generations who got theirs when America had access to half the world's resources and then kicked out the ladder from beneath them, began privatizing everything, and began pumping out all of this neo-liberalism horseshit about "free markets."
Pro-tip: America likes free markets because America has the most money and influence, which means in any "free" trade, America is going to come out on top. That's how the coercive power of money works. If you have a lot and other people don't, but they desperately need it to survive, grow, and thrive, then they are going to be in a position where they are willing to work for much less or pay much higher prices, simply because they are desperate.
Adam Smith outlined this clearly; while two nations can each trade in their comparative advantage to their mutual benefit (i.e. one is better at making textiles, one is better at making wine), if one nation is better at making both textiles and wine, then the other nation can do nothing to compete. The only thing it can do is be exploited. Especially if we can cheaply pay to transport goods across the world so that we can abuse perpetually existing desperate pockets of the globe by forcing them to "compete" the only way they can: BY BEING WILLING TO WORK FOR SLAVE WAGES. This willingness then deflates the cost of their labor, even though the value of the labor is identical to what it would have been if the factories were located somewhere where the human beings doing the labor were required to be paid human living wages rather than treated like animals in cages.
From this place of exploitation, the nations become trapped. Workers in places like Cambodia can protest their >$100/month pay [EDIT: LESS THAN $100 PAY] and ask for an extra $14 and then be harassed by the state for going on strike and have a company like Nike (which profits immensely off the exploitation of these women) simply wash their hands of the blood and say, "Sorry; we don't set the prices, that's the job of the factory owner." As though the supply chain isn't one, continuous process that Nike is actively benefiting from. The factory owner is caught in the middle. The major corporations and banks, posting massive profits, are the ones who ultimately have all of the "slack" in the system. That's the only node in the chain where anybody has true "freedom" to do as they choose, and they wash their hands, go on luxury vacations, live sinfully wealthy lives, and stomp their boots in the faces of the slaves that made them, all while boldly declaring that they are improving the quality of those slave's lives, because the slaves "voluntarily" chose to enter the garment factory and work for whatever impossibly small rate "market forces" have decided the factory owner is required to let her keep.
source
Monday, June 24, 2013
Thoughts create emotions (and emotions create thoughts). I have benefited alot of a technique I learened from a book called 'Feeling Good' by David Burns. It's a book that uses cognitive behavioural therapy to challenge irrational thoughts.
1 - You write down your (negative) thoughts about the situation/yourself/whatever it is that you think
2 - You try to recognize any of the cognitive distortions which makes your though irrational http://www.nancycarterlcsw.com/sitebuilder/images/Cognitive_Distortions-650x910.jpg
3 - Once you found out which type of thinking errors are at the base of your thoughts, you can challenge it.
Example:
Thought: I'm a big loser, I failed the test like I do always, I will end up homeless.
Thinking errors: Labeling (loser), generalization (like i always do), jumping to conclusions, all or nothing thinking.
Rational response: I sometimes mess up, but that doesn't make me a big loser. I also have a couple of really good grades and it looks like I'm going to pass this class easily. If I don't pass it I won't end up under a bridge, I will just try again and I will most likely pass the test then.
It's a simple example, but maybe you can work with it. if you want to know more, download the book 'Feeling Good' by david burns. It's easy to download. Of course you can combine this technique with a meditation. You closely monitor your thoughts during meditation without interfering. just observe the negativity/irrationality of your thoughts.
1 - You write down your (negative) thoughts about the situation/yourself/whatever it is that you think
2 - You try to recognize any of the cognitive distortions which makes your though irrational http://www.nancycarterlcsw.com/sitebuilder/images/Cognitive_Distortions-650x910.jpg
3 - Once you found out which type of thinking errors are at the base of your thoughts, you can challenge it.
Example:
Thought: I'm a big loser, I failed the test like I do always, I will end up homeless.
Thinking errors: Labeling (loser), generalization (like i always do), jumping to conclusions, all or nothing thinking.
Rational response: I sometimes mess up, but that doesn't make me a big loser. I also have a couple of really good grades and it looks like I'm going to pass this class easily. If I don't pass it I won't end up under a bridge, I will just try again and I will most likely pass the test then.
It's a simple example, but maybe you can work with it. if you want to know more, download the book 'Feeling Good' by david burns. It's easy to download. Of course you can combine this technique with a meditation. You closely monitor your thoughts during meditation without interfering. just observe the negativity/irrationality of your thoughts.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Bitcoin Guide
Buying bitcoin
Please be careful with these. Read up on reviews before you trust your money to strangers, making sure you don't get your own coins back and that the operator is trustable or not.
- Bitinstant - https://bitinstant.com/ - Deposit USD Cash at locations like Walmart, CVS, and others. Deposit slip for Moneygram requires name, address and usually isn't checked. CVS may require ID, depending on regional policy and clerk's mood. Rate is guaranteed at time of deposit. Combined deposit fee of variable 3.99% (Bitinstant fee) + flat $3.95 (Zipzap fee). No signup required. DELAYS BEING REPORTED upto weeks in time due to high volume of transactions. BEWARE. (April 24, 2013)
- Localbitcoins - https://localbitcoins.com/ - Buy & sell with cash in person. Signup required to contact buyers/sellers. Status varies with individual buyer/seller. Take appropriate safety measure when meeting someone in person. (April 24, 2013) Use a guide: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=155689
- Blue Sky Traders - http://ok2yri46aaptiu2d.onion/index.htm - Deposit USD Cash at any Bank of America location, no ID or bank account required. (April 24, 2013)
- Sugarmama on Silk Road - http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/silkroad/user/aace915f06 - Buy moneypaks/reloadit cards from various stores (moneypak cards cost $4.95, reloadit cards cost $3.95), No ID required. Sell the cards to Sugar Mama for bitcoins. Fee % decreases with larger moneypak/reloadit cards: 12-20% for moneypak, 10% for reloadit. Check her listings for availability (April 24, 2013)
- bitcoin-otc on freenode - irc://irc.freenode.net/bitcoin-otc - http://bitcoin-otc.com - Buy/sell bitcoins from individuals in exchange for various options depending on ads. Accessing freenode IRC over tor requires a registered nickname, and SASL setup. Fees depend on individual ads. Tor friendly. (April 24, 2013) Use a guide: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=155689
- Canadian Bitcoins - https://www.canadianbitcoins.com/ - Send CAD Cash by mail or in person ?
- Coinbase - https://coinbase.com/ - ?
- Cryptocurrent - https://cryptocurrent.com/ - Website says they are registering with US FinCEN to comply with anti money laundering laws. They are accepting orders for pre-existing clients (May 10, 2013)
- Bitfloor - https://bitfloor.com/ - Deposit USD Cash at any Bank of America location using out of state deposit slip (New York), no ID or bank account required. Deposit fees % decrease with larger deposits. Buy/Sell USD for BTC at the exchange as needed. Sign up required. Tor friendly. Bitfloor has stopped trading indefinitely (April 17, 2013)
- Bitcopia - http://bitcopia.com/ - Deposit USD Cash by mail at the moment for his regular clients (Wells Fargo account closed, Bank of America funds locked for 10 days since April 24, 2013), no ID or bank account required. Bitcopia's bank accounts are closed and no longer operational (May 1, 2013)
Please be careful with these. Read up on reviews before you trust your money to strangers, making sure you don't get your own coins back and that the operator is trustable or not.
- Silk Road Tumbler - http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/silkroad - ?
- Bitcoin Fog - http://fogcore5n3ov3tui.onion/ - ?
- Blockchain Send Shared - https://blockchain.info/wallet/send-shared - ?
- Bitcoin Cache - https://www.bitcoincache.com/tools/scrambler - ?
- Bitcoin Laundry - http://bitcoinlaundry.com/ - ?
- BitLaundry - http://app.bitlaundry.com/ - ?
- The Bitcoin Washing Machine - http://xqz3u5drneuzhaeo.onion/users/corydolt/ - ?
- Trading bitcoins - Trade private keys or physical bitcoins (bitbills or casascius coins) with someone, preferably using some form of escrow. The transaction would trade ownership and their relevant transaction trails on the blockchain
- Trading altcoins - Trade bitcoins for altcoins and then trade altcoins back to bitcoin. This will remove your connection to the original bitcoin address after you sell the bitcoin for altcoins. After selling the altcoin for bitcoin, you will acquire the reputation of the new bitcoin address
- Blind Mixer DR - http://blindbtc6dnbo5x5.onion/ - Provable anonymity that doesn't require trusting the owner; trust-free. Not operational yet: in beta (April 24, 2013)
- Zerocoins - http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/04/zerocoin-making-bitcoin-anonymous.html - protocol extension to make bitcoin anonymous without needing to trust any central authority
- MtGox - https://mtgox.com/ - Not tor friendly, may require you to verify account to withdraw funds.
- Bitstamp - https://www.bitstamp.net/ - Not tor friendly. Will flag your account with "your IP is associated with criminal activity." Multiple flags will probably result in further investigation, and verification. (April 24, 2013)
- BTC-e - https://btc-e.com/ - Not tor friendly
- CampBX - https://campbx.com - ?
- Virtex - https://www.cavirtex.com/ - ?
- Bitfloor - https://bitfloor.com/ - Tor friendly. Trading suspended indefinitely (April 17, 2013)
- Localbitcoins - https://localbitcoins.com/ - Buy & sell with cash in person. Signup required to contact buyers/sellers. Status varies with individual buyer/seller. Take appropriate safety measure when meeting someone in person. (April 24, 2013)
- Sugarmama on Silk Road - http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/silkroad/user/aace915f06 - Sell bitcoins for moneypaks/reloadit cards. Apply moneypak/reloadit cards to prepaid debit cards and spend like a credit card/paypal or withdraw cash from ATM. No fees to sell bitcoins. Check her listings for availability (April 24, 2013)
- Canadian Bitcoins - https://www.canadianbitcoins.com/ - Sell bitcoins and get CAD cheque by mail or CAD Cash by mail or in person - ?
- bitcoin-otc on freenode - irc://irc.freenode.net/bitcoin-otc - http://bitcoin-otc.com - Buy/sell bitcoins from individuals in exchange for various options depending on ads. Accessing freenode IRC over tor requires a registered nickname, and SASL setup. Fees depend on individual ads. Tor friendly. (April 24, 2013)
- FastCash4Bitcoins - https://fastcash4bitcoins.com - Sell bitcoins and get USD via ACH (Direct Deposit), Bank Wires, Paypal, Dwolla, or check in mail. Not sure about ID requirements. 1% fee for Paypal, and anywhere from $1-$21 depending on other methods of sale. Tor friendly or not? (April 24, 2013)
Monday, June 10, 2013
Online Privacy Tools: Take Your Privacy Back
Don't ask your government for your Privacy, take it back:
Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or the EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Project.
Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.
Some have suggested I should also include: Cryptocat, Startpage, DNSCrypt, and I think Bitmessage is currently being developed.
Here is a good list of VPN providers that take anonymity seriously. Also, if you don't want your data stored in the cloud anymore, check out BitTorrent Sync.
- Browser Privacy: HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus + EasyList, Ghostery, NoScript (FireFox), NotScript (Chrome)
- VPNs: BTGuard (Canada), ItsHidden (Africa), Ipredator (Sweden), Faceless.me (Cyprus / Netherlands)
- Internet Anonymization: Tor, Tor Browser Bundle, I2P
- Disk Encryption: TrueCrypt (Windows / OSX / Linux), File Vault (Mac).
- File/Email Encryption: GPGTools + GPGMail (Mac), Enigmail (Windows / OSX / Linux)
- IM Encryption: Pidgin + Pidgin OTR
- IM/Voice Encryption: Mumble, Jitsi
- Phone/SMS Encryption: WhisperSystems, Ostel, Spore, Silent Circle ($$$)
- Google Alternative: DuckDuckGo
- Digital P2P Currency: BitCoin
- Live Anonymous/Secure Linux: TAILS Linux
Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or the EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Project.
Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.
Some have suggested I should also include: Cryptocat, Startpage, DNSCrypt, and I think Bitmessage is currently being developed.
Here is a good list of VPN providers that take anonymity seriously. Also, if you don't want your data stored in the cloud anymore, check out BitTorrent Sync.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Data Visualization
Theory
Although you could just wing it, knowing some of the why's and why not's of data visualization will help put your creations an inch or two above the rest.
I highly highly recommend picking up Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. After you read it you'll be able to make jokes about inside jokes about pie charts and be everyone's best friend. On a first read-through it might not make too much sense, but once you start working on projects light bulbs will start going off.
Practice
These days the major thing to learn in the world of data visualization is D3. It's a big hunk of JavaScript code that can help with everything from drawing maps to making graphs.
If you want to learn D3 (which you now should), the best place to start is Mike Bostock's Let's Make A Map. The end result is a pretty boring map of the UK, but it steps you through the hows and the whys of every single piece of code. When I first started with D3 I could have saved myself a lot of headaches by reading it closely.
Once you get your feet wet, [http://bost.ocks.org/mike/selection/](How Selections Work) is great for
clarifying some of the concepts behind how D3 deals with data display.
There's also a tutorials page on github, but the shortest and most efficient path to making cool visualizations is just plain copying. How to make great visualizations, in 3 steps:
1) Visit http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock 2) Scroll around until you find a couple examples of the kind of visualization you want to make 3) Copy the code, then hack away at it until it does want you want
Since you've already got some coding background you might be all set. JavaScript can be an insane beast at times, but if you start simple and from existing code you should get the hang of it without too much work.
A Brief Introduction To Coding For The Web
OK, so maybe you do need to learn a little HTML/CSS/JavaScript first. But let me stress the little - it's easy to get bogged down in the details, and the skills you need to edit a visualization to do what you want aren't exactly the same as when learning JS from scratch.
Fundamentals: HTML, CSS and Javascript. HTML is the information on a page, CSS is what makes it look nice. JavaScript it what makes it move around or be interactive. JS is the toughest, while HTML and CSS are easy (the basics, at least).
Go ahead and learn HTML and CSS from Codacademy first. I disagree with the way that every single place on the Internet teaches this stuff, but so it goes.
Check out these recommendations or these recommendations for JavaScript. If you don't feel like reading through them I'll just blindly point you toward Codecademy - JavaScript track, jQuery track.
Sidenote: jQuery is a big hunk of JavaScript that makes common web programming tasks easier.
But really, honestly, truly, you should read the links that aren't Codacademy.
What do I make visualizations about?
Any time you hear something interesting or read an interesting article or just think, "could I make a visualization out of this?"
Other resources
Pretend you're a developer for a news organization. Read up on Source, Data for Radicals, and a million other things I'm neglecting. If you want to get real crazy subscribe to the NICAR email list to see how people who do "computer-assisted reporting" think.
But honestly, just do it! That singles map was the very very first visualization I ever made, and 5 years later it's still getting plenty of traffic. Throw a bunch of nonsense up on a site, submit it to reddit, and eventually you're bound to have something work out.
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