Author: simon

Audiobooks – June 2018

Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

Well written story of how Wall Street firms didn’t even realize high-speed trading existed while they were losing hundreds of millions to traders practicing it, until a couple of guys told them. 8/10

Woodsman: Living in a Wood in the 21st Century by Ben Law

Write-ups about building his house and the area around it along with various descriptions of traditional crafts, his businesses, appearance on TV etc. Seems to balance well. 7/10

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity’s Chief Engineer by Rob Manning

Interesting stories about the project with the evolution on the landing method, experiments and project problems. A bit on the short side & published soon after landing. 6/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes V by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Read by David Timson

The Adventure of the Reigate Squire, The Adventure of Beryl Coronet, The Boscombe Valley Mystery and The Yellow Face. All good stories, although ‘The Yellow Face’ has not aged well. 7/10

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

The 2nd book in the Three-Body Trilogy. A bit closer to the hard-core Sci Fi that I like although the author isn’t going for high accuracy. Feels real and kept my interest. 8/10

A History of Britain, Volume 1: At the Edge of the World? 3000 B. C. – A. D. 1603 by Simon Schama

Fairly straight history of Britain. An overview of everything so covers the main points rather than going into details. 7/10

Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail by Jonathan Chait

A little overtaken by events (written before Trump elected). Highlights Obama’s wins that the author feels was overlooked. Okay but should have waited 10 years. 6/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes VI by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Stories: The Adventure of the Final Problem, The Adventure of “Gloria Scott”, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, The Adventure of the Resident Patient. More read by Timson. Good as usual. 7/10

Amazing Stories of the Space Age: True Tales of Nazis in Orbit, Soldiers on the Moon, Orphaned Martian Robots, and Other Fascinating Accounts from the Annals of Spaceflight by Rod Pyle

A mix of the missions that never were & dramatic/odd missions 7/10

 

 

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Audiobooks – May 2018

Ramble On by Sinclair McKay

The history of walking in Britain and some of the author’s experiences. A pleasant listen. 7/10

Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan

Very hard-core Sci Fi (all tech, no character) about a 50,000 year old astronaut’s body being found on the moon. Dated in places (everybody smokes) but I liked it. 7/10

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

A good overview of pre-history of human species plus an overview of central features of cultures (government, religion, money, etc). Interesting throughout. 9/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, read by David Timson

Another four Holmes stories. I’m pretty happy with Timson’s version. Each is only about an hour long. 7/10

The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations by Jaime Kurtz

Written by a “happiness researcher” rather than a travel expert. A bit different from what I expected. Lots about structuring your trips to maximize your memories. 7/10

Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin

I’ve read several of Hill’s books of his time in the US Secret Service, this overlaps a lot of these but with some extra Jackie-orientated material. I’d recommend reading the others first. 7/10

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson

The author drives through small-town American making funny observations. Just 3 hours long so good bang for buck. Almost 30 years old so feels a little dated. 7/10

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein

A pretty good overview of the growth of trade. Concentrates on the evolution of  routes between Asia and Europe. Only brief coverage post-1945. 7/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes III by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box; The Musgrave Ritual; The Man with the Twisted Lip; The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. All well done. 7/10

The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (Giants Series, Book 2) by James P. Hogan

Almost as hard-core as the previous book but with less of a central mystery. Worth reading if you like the 1st in the series. 7/10

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 – The Liberation Trilogy, Book 1 by Rick Atkinson

I didn’t like this as much as I expected or as much as similar books. Can’t quite place the problem though. Perhaps works better when written. 7/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes IV by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Case of Identity; The Crooked Man; The Naval Treaty; The Greek Interpreter. I’m happy with Timson’s version . 7/10

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Audiobooks – April 2018

Viking Britain: An Exploration by Thomas Williams

Pretty straightforward, Tells as the uptodate research (no Winged Helmets ?) and easy to follow (easier if you have a map of the UK) 7/10

Contact by Carl Sagan

I’d forgotten how different it was from the movie in places. A few extra characters and plot twists. many more details and explanations of the science. 8/10

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough

My monthly McCullough book. Great as usual. Good picture of the project and people. 8/10

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich

As per the title this spends much of the time on [varied strategies for] Winter adaptation vs Summer World’s more general coverage. A great listen 8/10

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin

Great overview of the Apollo missions. The Author interviewed almost all the astronauts. Lots of details about the missions. Excellent 9/10

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

Near future Sci Fi. Similar feel to some of his other books like Makers. Switches between characters & audiobook switches narrators to match. Fastforward the Sex Scenes ?. Mostly works 7/10

The Neanderthals Rediscovered: How Modern Science Is Rewriting Their Story by Michael A. Morse

Pretty much what the subtitle advertises. Covers discoveries from the last 20 years which make other books out of date. Tries to be Neanderthals-only. 7/10

The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain

Straightforward story of the 1964 Alaska Earthquake. Follows half a dozen characters & concentrates on worst damaged areas. 7/10

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Audiobooks – March 2018

The Actor’s Life: A survival guide by Jenna Fischer

Combination of advice for making it as an actor and a memoir of her experiences. Interesting and enjoyable 8/10

One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith

Based on the journals of Richard Proenneke who built a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness and lived there for 16 month (& returned in later years). Interesting & I’m a little inspired 7/10

The Interstellar Age: The Story of the NASA Men and Women Who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell

Pretty much what the title says. Very positive throughout and switching between the science and profiles of the people smoothly. 8/10

Richard Nixon: The Life by John A Farrell

Comprehensive but balanced biography. Doesn’t shy away from Nixon’s many many problems but also covers his accomplishments and positive side (especially early in his career). 8/10

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Book I – Arthur Conan Doyle – Read by David Timson

4 Stories unabridged. Reading is good but drop a point since the music is distracting at fast playback. 7/10

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson

42 Essays on mainly space-related topics. Some overlap but pretty good, 10 years old so missing a few newer developments but good introduction. 8/10

The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance by David Epstein

Good wide-ranging book on nature vs nurture in sports performance, how genes for athletic performance are not that simple & how little we know. 9/10

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower

Gossipy account from interviewing various ex-staff ( maids, cooks, butlers). A different angle than from what I get from other accounts. 7/10

Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit by Mark Hasara

Account of the author flying & planning aerial refueling operations during the Gulf wars & elsewhere. A bit of business advice but that is unobtrusive. No actual politics 7/10

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

Account of various people who made billions shorting the mortgage market in the run up to 2008. Fun and easy for layman to follow. 8/10

Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead by Hod Lipson

Listening to it the week a driverless car first killed a pedestrian. Fairly good intro/history/overview although fast changing topic so will go out of date quickly. 7/10

Journeys in English by Bill Bryson

A series of radio shows. I found the music & random locations annoying. Had to slow it down due to varied voices, accents and words. Interesting despite that, 7/10

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Audiobooks – Background and February 2018 list

Audiobooks

I started listening to audiobooks around the start of January 2017 when I started walking to work (I previously caught the bus and read a book or on my phone).

I currently get them for free from the Auckland Public Library using the Overdrive app on Android. However while I download them to my phone using the Overdrive app I listen to the using Listen Audiobook Player . I switched to the alternative player mainly since it supports playback speeds greater the 2x normal.

I’ve been posting a list the books I listened to at the end of each month to twitter ( See list from Jan 2018, Dec 2017, Nov 2017 ) but I thought I’d start posting them here too.

I mostly listen to history with some science fiction and other topics.

Books listened to in February 2018

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu – Pretty good Sci-Fi and towards the hard-core end I like. Looking forward to the sequels 7/10

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham – A very nicely done biography, comprehensive and giving a good positive picture of Bush. 7/10

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein – A pretty good version of the classic. The story works well although the politics are “different”. Enjoyable though 8/10

Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars 1955-1994 by David Hepworth – Read by the Author (who sounds like a classic Brit journalist). A Story or two plus a playlist from every year. Fascinating and delightful 9/10

The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy – Very interesting and well written about the author’s life as a long distance mover. 8/10

Mornings on Horseback – David McCullough – The Early life of Teddy Roosevelt, my McCullough book for the month. Interesting but not as engaging as I’d have hoped. 7/10

The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War – Jonathan Dimbleby – Overview of the Atlantic Campaign of World War 2. The author works to stress it was on of the most important fronts and does pretty well 7/10

 

 

 

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Linux.conf.au 2018 – Day 5 – Light Talks and Close

Lightning Talk

  • Usability Fails
  • Etching
  • Diverse Events
  • Kids Space – fairly unstructured and self organising
  • Opening up LandSat imagery – NBAR-T available on NCI
  • Project Nacho – HTML -> VPN/RDP gateway . Apache Guacomle
  • Vocaloids
  • Blockchain
  • Using j2 to create C++ code
  • Memory model code update
  • CLIs are user interface too
  • Complicated git things
  • Mollygive -matching donations
  • Abusing Docker

Closing

  • LCA 2019 will be in Christchurch, New Zealand – http://lca2019.linux.org.au
  • 700 Attendees at 2018
  • 400 talk and 36 Miniconf submissions

 

 

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Linux.conf.au 2018 – Day 5 – Session 2

QUIC: Replacing TCP for the Web Jana Iyengar

  • History
    • Protocol for http transport
    • Deployed Inside Google 2014 and Chrome / mobile apps
    • Improved performance: Youtube rebuffers 15-18% , Google search latency 3.6 – 8 %
    • 35% of Google’s egree traffic (7% of Internet)
    • Working group started in 2016 to standardized QUIC
    • Turned off at the start of 2016 due to security problem
    • Doubled in Sept 2016 due turned on for the youtube app
  • Technology
    • Previously – ip _> TCP -> TLS -> HTTP/2
    • QUIC -> udp -> QUIC -> http over QUIC
    • Includes crypto and tcp handshake
    • congestion control
    • loss recovery
    • TLS 1.3 has some of the same features that QUIC pioneered, being updated to take account
  • HTTP/1
    • 1 trip for TCP
    • 2 trips for TLS
    • Single connection – Head Of Line blocking
    • Multiple TCP connections workaround.
  • HTTP/2
    • Streams within a single transport connection
    • Packet loss will stall the TCP layer
    • Unresolved problems
      • Connection setup latency
      • Middlebox interference with TCP – makes it hard to change TCP
      • Head of line blocking within TCP
  • QUIC
    • Connection setup
      • 0 round trips, handshake packet followed directly by data packet
      • 1 round-trips if crypto keys are not new
      • 2 round trips if QUIC version needs renegotiation
    • Streams
      • http/2 streams are sent as quic streams
  • Aspirations of protocol
    • Deployable and evolveable
    • Low latency connection establishment
    • Stream multiplexing
    • Better loss recovery and flexible congestion control
      • richer signalling (unique packet number)
      • better RTT estimates
    • Resilience to NAT-rebinding ( UDP Nat-mapping changes often, maybe every few seconds)
  • UDP is not a transport, you put something in top of UDP to build a transport
  • Why not a new protocol instead of UDP? Almost impossible to get a new protocol in middle boxes around the Internet.
  • Metrics
    • Search Latency (see paper for other metrics)
    • Enter search term > entire page is loaded
    • Mean: desktop improve 8% , mobile 3.6 %
    • Low latency: Desktop 1% , Mobile none
    • Highest Latency 90-99% of users: Desktop & mobile 15-16%
    • Video similar
    • Big gain is from 0 RTT handshake
  • QUIC – Search Latency Improvements by Country
    • South Korea – 38ms RTT – 1% improvement
    • USA – 50ms – 2 – 3.5 %
    • India – 188ms – 5 – 13%
  • Middlebox ossification
    • Vendor ossified first byte of QUIC packet – flags byte
    • since it seemed to be the same on all QUIC packets
    • broke QUIC deployment when a flag was fixed
    • Encryption is the only way to protect against network ossification
    • “Greasing” by randomly changing options is also an option.
  • Other Protocols over QUIC?
    • Concentrating on http/2
    • Looking at Web RPC

Remote Work: My first decade working from the far end of the earth John Dalton

  • “Remote work has given me a fulfilling technical career while still being able to raise my family in Tasmania”
  • First son both in 2015, wanted to start in Tasmania with family to raise them, rather than moving to a tech hub.
  • 2017 working with High Performance Computing at University Tasmania
  • If everything is going to be outsourced, I want to be the one they outsourced to.
  • Wanted to do big web stuff, nobody in Tasmania doing that.
  • Was a user at LibraryThing
    • They were searching for Sysadmin/DBA in Portland, Maine
    • Knew he could do the job even though was on other side of the world
    • Negotiated into it over a couple of months
    • Knew could do the work, but not sure how the position would work out

Challenges

  • Discipline
    • Feels he is not organised. Doesn’t keep planner uptodate or todo lists etc
    • “You can spend a lot of time reading about time management without actually doing it”
    • Do you need to have the minimum level
  • Isolation
    • Lives 20 minutes out of Hobart
    • In semi-rural area for days at a time, doesn’t leave house all week except to ferry kids on weekends.
    • “Never considered myself an extrovert, but I do enjoy talking to people at least weekly”
    • Need to work to hook in with Hobart tech community, Goes to meetups. Plays D&D with friends.
    • Considering going to coworking space. sometimes goes to Cafes etc
  • Setting Boundries
    • Hard to Leave work.
    • Have a dedicated work space.
  • Internet Access
    • Prioritise Coverage over cost these days for mobile.
    • Sometimes fixed provider go down, need to have a backup
  • Communication
    • Less random communicated with other employees
    • Cannot assume any particular knowledge when talking with other people
    • Aware of particular cultural differences
    • Multiple chance of a miscommunication

Opportunities

  • Access to companies and jobs and technologies that could get locally
  • Access to people with a wider range of experiences and backgrounds

Finding remote work

  • Talk your way into it
  • Networking
  • Job Bof
  • stackoverflow.com/jobs can filter
  • weworkremotely.com

Making it work

  • Be Visable
  • Go home at the end of the day
  • Remember real people are at the end of the email

 

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Linux.conf.au 2018 – Day 5 – Session 1

Self-Documenting Coders: Writing Workshop for Devs Heidi Waterhouse

History of Technical documentation

  • Linear Writing
    • On Paper, usually books
    • Emphasis on understanding and doing
  • Task-based writing
    • Early 90s
    • DITA
    • Concept, Procedure, Reference
  • Object-orientated writing
    • High art for of tech writers
    • Content as code
    • Only works when compiled
    • Favoured by tech writers, translated. Up to $2000 per seat
  • Guerilla Writing
    • Stack Overflow
    • Wikis
    • YouTube
    • frustrated non-writers trying to help peers
  • Search-first writing
    • Every page is page one
    • Search-index driven

Writing Words

  • 5 W’s of journalism.
  • Documentation needs to be tested
  • Audiences
    • eg Users, future-self, Sysadmins, experts, End users, installers
  • Writing Basics
    • Sentences short
    • Graphics for concepts
    • Avoid screencaps (too easily outdated)
    • User style guides and linters
    • Accessibility is a real thing
  • Words with pictures
    • Never include settings only in an image ( “set your screen to look like this” is bad)
    • Use images for concepts not instructions
  • Not all your users are readers
    • Can’t see well
    • Can’t parse easily
    • Some have terrible equipment
    • Some of the “some people” is us
    • Accessibility is not a checklist, although that helps, it is us
  • Using templates to write
    • Organising your thoughts and avoid forgetting parts
    • Add a standard look at low mental cost
  • Search-first writing – page one
    • If you didn’t answer the question or point to the answer you failed
    • answer “How do I?”
  • Indexing and search
    • All the words present are indexed
    • No false pointers
    • Use words people use and search for, Don’t use just your internal names for things
  • Semantic tagging and reuse
    • Semantic text splits form and content
    • Semantic tagging allows reuse
    • Reuse saves duplication
    • Reuse requires compiling
  • Sorting topics into buckets
    • Even with search you need some organisation
    • Group items by how they get used not by how they get prammed
    • Grouping similar items allows serendipity
  • Links, menus and flow
    • give people a next step
    • Provide related info on same page
    • show location
    • offer a chance to see the document structure

Distributing Words

  • Static Sites
  • Hosted Sites
  • Baked into the product
    • Only available to customers
    • only updates with the product
    • Hard to encourage average user to input
  • Knowledge based / CMS
    • Useful to community that known what it wants
    • Prone to aging and rot
    • Sometimes diverges from published docs or company message
  • Professional Writing Tools
    • Shiny and powerful
    • Learning Cliff
    • IDE
    • Super features
    • Not going to happen again
  • Paper-ish things
    • Essential for some topics
    • Reassuring to many people
    • touch is a sense we can bond with
    • Need to understand if people using docs will be online or offline when they want them.
  • Using templates to publish
    • Unified look and feel
    • Consistency and not missing things
    • Built-in checklist

Collaborating on Words

  • One weird trick, write it up as your best guess and let them correct it
  • Have a hack day
    • Ste a goal of things to delete
    • Set a goal of things to fix
    • Keep track of debt you can’t handle today
    • team-building doesn’t have to be about activities

Deleting Words

  • What needs to go
    • Old stuff that is wrong and terrible
    • Wrong stuff that hides right stuff
  • What to delete
    • Anything wrong
    • Anything dangerious
    • Anything used of updated in year
  • How
    • Delete temporarily (put aside for a while)
    • Based on analytics
    • Ruthlessly
    • Delete or update

Documentation Must be

  • True
  • Timely
  • Testable
  • Tuned

Documentation Components

  • Who is reading and why
    • Assuming no one likes reading docs
    • What is driving them to be here
  • Pre Requisites
    • What does a user need to succeed
    • Can I change the product to reduce documentation
    • Is there any hazard in this process
  • How do I do this task
    • Steps
    • Results
    • Next steps
  • Test – How do I know that it worked
    • If you can’t test i, it is not a procedure
    • What will the system do, how does the state change
  • Reference
    • What other stuff that affects this
    • What are the optionsal settings
    • What are the related things
  • Code and code samples
    • Best: code you can modify and run in the docs
    • 2nd Best: Code you can copy easily
    • Worst: retyping code
  • Option
    • Why did we build it this way
    • What else might you want to know
    • Have other people done this
    • Lifecycle

Documentation Types

  • Instructions
  • Ideas (arch, problem space,discarded options, process)
  • Action required (release notes, updates, deprecation)
  • Historical (roads maps, projects plans, retrospective documents)
  • Invisible docs (user experience, microinteractions, error messages)
    • Error messages – Unique ID, what caused, What mitigation, optional: Link to report

 

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Linux.conf.au 2018 – Day 5 – Keynote – Jess Frazelle

Keynote: Containers aka crazy user space fun

  • Work at Microsoft on Open Source and containers, specifically on kubernetes
  • Containers vs Zones vs Jails vs VMs
  • Containers are not a first class concept in the kernel.
    • Namespaces
    • Cgroups
    • AppArmour in LSM (prevent mounting, writing to /proc etc) (or SELinux)
    • Seccomp (syscall filters, which allowed or denied) – Prevent 150 other syscalls which are uncommon or dangerous.
      • Got list from testing all of dockerhub
      • eg CLONE, UNSHARE
      • NoNewPrivs (exposed as “AllowPrivilegeEsculation” in K8s)
      • rkt and systemd-nspawn don’t 100% follow
  • Intel Clear containers are really VMs

History of Containers

  • OpenVZ – released 2005
  • Linux-Vserver (2008)
  • LXC ( 2008)
  • Docker ( 2013)
    • Initially used LXC as a backend
    • Switched to libcontainer in v0.7
  • lmctfy (2013)
    • By Google
  • rkt (2014)
  • runc (2015)
    • Part of Open container Initiative
  • Container runtimes are like the new Javascript frameworks

Are Containers Secure

  • Yes
  • and I can prove it
  • VMs / Zones and Jails are like all the Lego pieces are already glued togeather
  • Containers you have the parts seperate
    • You can turn on and off certain namespaces
    • You can share namespaces between containers
    • Every container in k8s shares PID and NET namespaces
    • Docker has sane defaults
    • You can sandbox apps every further though
  • https://contained.af/
    • No one has managed to break out of the container
    • Has a very strict seccomp profile applied
    • You’d be better off attacking the app, but you are still running a containers default seccomp filters

Containerizing the Desktop

  • Switched to runc from docker (had to convert stuff)
  • rootless containers
  • Runc hook “netns” to do networking
  • Sandboxed desktop apps, running in containers
  • Switch from Debian to CoreOS Container Linux as base OS
    • Verify the integrity of the OS
    • Just had to add graphics drivers
    • Based on gentoo, emerge all the way down

What if we applied the the same defaults to programming languages?

  • Generate seccomp filters at build-time
    • Previously tried at run time, doesn’t work that well, something always missed
    • At build time we can ensure all code is included in the filter
    • The go compiler writes the assembly for all the syscalls, you can hijack and grab the list of these, create a seccomp filter
    • No quite that simply
      • plugins
      • exec external stuff
      • can directly exec a syscall in go code, the name passed in via arguments at runtime
  • metaparticle.io
    • Library for cloud-native applications

Linux Containers in secure enclaves (SCONE)

  • Currently Slow
  • Lots of tradeoffs or what executes where (trusted area or untrsuted area)

Soft multi-tenancy

  • Reduced threat model, users not actively malicious
  • Hard Multi-tenancy would have potentially malicious containers running next to others
  • Host OS – eg CoreOs
  • Container Runtime – Look at glasshouse VMs
  • Network – Lots to do, default deny in k8s is a good start
  • DNS – Needs to be namespaced properly or turned off. option: kube-dns as a sidecar
  • Authentication and Authorisation – rbac
  • Isolation of master and System nodes from nodes running containers
  • Restricting access to host resources (k8s hostpath for volumes, pod security policy)
  • making sure everything else is “very dumb” to it’s surroundings

 

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Linux.conf.au 2018 – Day 4 – Session 3

Insights – solving every problem for good Paul Wayper

Sysadmins

  • Too much to check, too little time
  • What does this message mean again
  • Too reactive

How Sysadmins fix problems

  • Read text files and command output
  • Look at them for information
  • Check this information against the knowlede
  • Decide on appobiate solution

Insites

  • Reads test files and outputs
  • Process them into information
  • Use information in rules
  • Rules provide information about Solution

Examples

  • Simple rule – check “localhost” is in /etc/hosts
  • Rule 2 – chronyd refuses to fix server’s time since is out by more than 1000s
    • Checks /var/log/message for error message from chrony
  • Insites rolls up all the checks against messages, so only down once
  • Rule 3 – rsyslog dropping messages

Website

http://red.ht/demo_rules

 

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