Author: Dave Farquhar

Statistically predicting successful marriages

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I make my living by trying to statistically measure and present the security of a computer network. The month I started, it seemed nearly impossible. Today it’s merely difficult. So I loved this story about trying to apply statistics to something even more difficult: marriage success.

The strategy to take is to look at the risk factors, then do what you can to minimize them. In my case, we went 6 for 7. And I can tell you we felt the difference as the factors related to earning power declined over the years.

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HP splits in two.

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , ,

Don’t you feel like trying something new
Don’t you feel like breaking out
Or breaking us in two
You don’t do the things that I do
You want to do things I can’t do
Always something breaking us in two –Joe Jackson

After years of buying up companies, HP is splitting up. While that’s probably more prudent that exiting the desktop PC business, which is another idea they flirted with in the past, it’s anyone’s guess how this is going to work out.

But it’s what all the cool kids are doing, so it’s what the investors want, and that means HP is going to do it. Read more

The meaning of “That’s what speed do.”

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , , , ,

You’re probably hearing Royals fans say, “That’s what speed do” a lot. With games on the line, they tend to slap the ball, get on base however they can, and score however they can, and that’s what the line refers to.

The origin was a game on July 27, 2013. Jarrod Dyson led off the 12th inning with a ground ball to Gordon Beckham, who bobbled the ball. The scorekeeper credited Dyson with a controversial single.

“That’s a single,” Dyson insisted after the game. “That’s a tough play. That’s what speed do. If you can’t handle the ball, put it back in the glove.”

Dyson knows speed. He once tagged up and scored the game winning run on a popup to shortstop.

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How to succeed as an IT contractor

Dave Farquhar Careers ,

I met a young IT contractor a little while back. His talent was sky high. So was his potential. And his rawness. It’s not my place to go into great detail about that rawness, but one thing I noticed about him was that he had a very self-defeating attitude about him. It shouldn’t have been hard for him to succeed as an IT contractor, but he was his own worst enemy.

Several times he started a statement with, “If I don’t get fired,” or something to that effect.

It occurs to me that perhaps my experience as a contractor would be helpful.

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CMD.EXE and its shellshock-like qualities

Dave Farquhar security , , , , ,

“So did you know there’s a Windows version of Shellshock?” a coworker asked the other day.

“What, Cygwin’s bash?” I asked.

“No, in CMD.EXE.”

I thought for a second, back to some really nasty batch files I’ve seen that do goofy stuff with variables and parenthesis and other reserved characters. Suddenly it made sense. Those cryptic batch files are exploiting the command interpreter to do things that shouldn’t be done. Then I smiled.

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Do this before hitting send

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

Lifehacker suggests writing e-mail backwards. That’s not exactly what I do, but the effect is about the same.

Most people get way too much e-mail, and working in shops where that wasn’t true got me in some bad habits. In my current job, I quickly learned that I needed to put what I’m asking for right up front. Read more

The Legions of Doom come after a server

Dave Farquhar security, War Stories

I’ve been after this guy to patch his server for a few weeks. He keeps getting sidetracked, which is understandable, but there are ways to deal with that.

Last week, we started getting close to getting it done. On Friday, the plan was together and it was almost ready to go. All we needed was to get final approval on the plan, get a change control in place, and then the work would be scheduled and we’d have a commitment and a set date where the work would be done. And that would end the sidetracks.

Then, on Monday, someone asked me if he was out of the office. He hadn’t said anything about going on vacation, but, indeed, he had an out-of-office autoreply set. Among other things, it said that super heroes need vacations too, and if the Legions of Doom are attacking, to contact this other guy. Read more

What it was like owning a Commodore in the 1980s

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , ,
What it was like owning a Commodore in the 1980s

Since questions occasionally come up, and I remember well what it was like owning a Commodore in the 1980s in the United States, I’ll share my recollections of it.

It was very different from computing today. It was still interesting, but it was different. Technology moved fast in the 1980s, so if you blinked, you missed stuff.

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Remembering Dolgin’s

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, St. Louis , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Remembering Dolgin’s

Growing up in Missouri, a lot of my Christmas gifts when I was young came from a catalog showroom called Dolgin’s. One of my earliest memories is going to Dolgin’s with my mom and aunt, who showed me some Tonka trucks and asked me which ones I liked best.

I know a lot of people remember going through Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, but I remember Dolgin’s catalogs the best. Read more

Need public domain content? Check out dp.la

Dave Farquhar Copyright

The Digital Public Library of America celebrated its first birthday this year. Their archive boasts more than 7 million public domain works.

In this era of over-extended copyrights, it’s good to see a massive collection that demonstrates the value of an active public domain.