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Started to integrate Micro.blog to this site. Can’t finish because Fastmail is down, but finally overcoming the month long procrastination.
Read moreBlogging and the Anti-Social Bookmarker, Part 2
So, to recap one final time, I've cobbled together an AppleScript that copies blogging related links from my Privacy Locked personal Pinboard to the ReadingGeorgeFox account. While I'm not yet back in NYC—now it's Jersey rather than Upstate—I've found a printer and the the time to annotate the script. Some credit: I used Rafael Bugajewski's DEVONthink Pro Pinboard Importer as a starting point; I have modified it a fair amount, though. Anyways, here goes nothing: 1 Lines 9 thru 11 download the bookmarks via simple curl2 commands. When I began working on the script, I was still confused about the url syntax for tags, so I set up three separate downloads. This ended up making some later processing simpler, and, as the downloads were so small,3 I decided to keep it this way. As for downloading to files instead of passing the data directly to the rest of the script, it was easier to troubleshoot and AppleScript seems to be happier pulling data from a file on disk. Lastly, I'm using Pinboard API tokens instead of passwords. While I could have used Keychain scripting to be extra secure, these scripts are run locally on my machine and I figured the…
Read moreBlogging and the Anti-Social Bookmarker, Part 1
As I mentioned in my last post, I've enabled Privacy Lock on my personal Pinboard account and written an AppleScript to sync blogging source links to the ReadingGeorgeFox account. The script is available for download.1 I'm still upstate so we'll have to wait until Monday for a full account and description. I've commented the script pretty thoroughly if you'd like to use it in the meantime. No promises or warranties attached to it, of course. ↩
Read moreUpcoming Posts
Sorry for the late post. Turns out a 340 mile round-trip drive from Salem to Poughkeepsie and back is not conducive to writing in-depth the next day. Anyways, onto the preview! Blogging and the Anti-Social Bookmarker — A return to tech for those bored of politics and art. Ever since Maciej enabled Privacy Lock, I've set my personal Pinboard to be completely private. I'm not particularly interested in sharing all my personal interests1. However, after starting Reading George Fox, I figured it would be helpful2 to provide an archive of my sources; hence the pinboard.in link on the side. Now, who wants to manage two different bookmarking accounts? Certainly not lazy old me. I've cobbled together a small AppleScript and bash system to automate transferring links from the personal account to the blog's. This will be the story of that journey.3 One Size Fits All — On the Magnum Edition of Lovecast 356, Dan chats with Dr. Joye Swan about condom use and magical monogamy thinking. While Dr. Swan has done some excellent research on the STI/HIV risks of serial monogamy and partner infidelity, her advice for “the re-education we have to go through” is far too dogmatic and narrow…
Read moreRe: Mac Power Users 148: Security Audit
Passwords, Email, Security, Oh My! This post originated as a reply to Ben Brooks’ excellent Encrypting Stuff Against Starbucks Hacker Bob. The Short Version I will be getting into the weeds a bit, so here’s the executive summary: You absolutely should be using a password manager. I recommend 1Password as it has great native apps, gives you the most control over where your database is stored, and has a worst-case scenario backstop, 1Password Anywhere. A select few essential passwords—your master password, your main email account, Dropbox—should be generated with Diceware instead. These memorable passphrases can easily be as strong as a random gibberish one and will easily stick around in your head. LuxSci provides an expensive, but extremely flexible[0] email solution. Their Escrow Messages are a significantly more secure replacement for David’s encrypted PDFs. The Long Version The Problem In their Security Audit, Katie and David provide a comprehensive overview of securing your Mac today; however, their discussion of passwords falls short in a few significant ways. Perhaps the most important is under-weighing the dilemma of losing access to your password store needs a robust solution. As Ben Brooks argues, if you lose access to your physical devices and your…
Read morePersonal APIs & Health
During In Beta #52: Schrödinger's FitBit, Kevin and Gina discuss personal APIs and, while they are intriguing, how it's hard to imagine a common use for them. One possibility down the road could be that personal apis1 would send data to health, especially mental health, professionals. There are already DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) apps for patients to track their actions and emotional states. Moreover, physical exercise and getting out of the house are important elements of getting better. Perhaps even music selection could turn out to informative (one use of aggregate data would be to find out). Especially for patients in intensive outpatient therapy, it could end up helping therapists and facilitators a lot. Of course, there's still the problem of users entering the data, but the more automatable it is (FitBit, etc), the easier it would be. A more user friendly and very secure version. ↩
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