Category Archives: General

Google and Gmail Privacy

The Internet is ablaze with reports of a Google lawsuit filing claiming that Gmail users have no expectation of privacy. After all the pixels I’ve spilled lately bloviating about privacy and the misdeeds of large Internet companies, including Google, you’d … Continue reading

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The Lighter Side of NSA Surveillance

Actually, there is no lighter side to what the NSA is doing. One thing that every politician knows is that they’re in trouble when the late night comics start making them the butt of their jokes. That’s already happening with … Continue reading

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Emacs Keybindings in OS X

I think I’ve mentioned this before but a recent post by Anton Nikishaev reminded me that this is useful information if you fall into the intersection of Emacs and OS X users. OS X has a very configurable keybinding facility … Continue reading

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A VimGolf in Emacs Challenge

I’ve been obsessing and writing about the continuing NSA scandal and as a result we haven’t had any fun with VimGolf for a while. Just in case you’re as rusty as I am, here’s an easy one. Starting with one … Continue reading

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Mega Mail

There is so much to love in this announcement. Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz is going to offer secure, encrypted email and house the server out of the reach of the illegal snooping of the NSA. Not content to make the US … Continue reading

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A Bit More On Lavabit

Forbes has a bit more information on the closing of Lavabit. They provide additional clues that Ladar Levison of Lavabit was indeed asked to monitor users’ logins in order to capture their keys. Among other things, we learn that Levison … Continue reading

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A Lisp Bookshelf

Mozart Reina has a post up about his Lisp bookshelf. It’s a nice collection of books that anyone wanting to master Lisp should read. My favorite, SICP, is there as is Lisp in Small Pieces a book I very much … Continue reading

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The Price of Integrity

Those of you who who follow Irreal daily know that I recently migrated the email that was going to my Gmail account to Lavabit. All of that mail was from technical mailing lists so it didn’t really matter much except … Continue reading

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No Exceptions

Personally, I think the only thing to do is to go back to the original sense of the Fourth Amendment and say, no warrantless wiretapping, no general warrants, no surveillance without specific probable cause, no exceptions, ever. There shouldn’t even … Continue reading

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Open Access: A Tipping Point

For some time now there’s been a movement within academia for open access to their research results. Many professors, especially those in Mathematics, have pledged not to publish in closed journals. The paid journals, of course, hate this and have … Continue reading

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