Max's Blog

December 31, 2015
Max Life, Technology

The Problem with passwords

Many aspects of our lives are protected in one way or another with passwords.

A Password needs to follow contradictory rules.

  • It needs to be easy for us to remember.
  • It should be close t0 impossible for anyone else to guess.

Many password protected sites attempt to get users to use passwords that adhere to the second rule, yet ignore the first one, by adding a degree of complexity to all passwords.

Ideally you should also add two-factor authentication too, but that is a whole other subject. 

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December 2, 2015
Max Life, Religion

Oil is the Problem

As I type this, there are a bunch of politicians in London discussing wether or not the UK will go to war with the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL. The proposal is that the UK will help with strikes against the training grounds and the control centres.

Given that ISIS/ISIL have pretty much waged war on the west, on the face of it, blowing them to bits and wiping them off the planet seems like a no-brainer.

The problem is that we, the west, created ISIL in the first place.

How about a little history lesson ?

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November 23, 2015
Max Technology , ,

My password is password

IMG_0593Or why you should stop worrying about passwords and just enable two-factor authentication….

If, like me, you have several e-mail accounts, a few forum accounts, bank and credit card accounts, eBay, paypal, Apple, gym and numerous others, you probably have a small number of passwords that have some level of re-use or even variations on a theme.

For example, your gmail might be Pa55w0rd!, your bank account Pa$$w0rd! your credit card P4ssw0rd123 etc.

If you can find any variant of it in the top 500 worst passwords list, then you have a problem.

Unless you are using two-factor authentication that is. 

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November 20, 2015
Max Life

Planet Fret revisited

Something over five years ago, I wrote a post, Planet Fret, in which I pointed out that oil is probably not finite and that using it at the rate that we are is probably not leaving a good legacy for our children.

One thing that I almost entirely failed to mention in that post is of course the potential damage to the environment in terms of global warming.

Much of the blame for that omission is due to my living in the US at the time.

In the US, many of the oil companies have spent significant amounts of time and money leading the general public to believe that climate change is not only not-man made, but actually does not exist at all. Any variations are purely down to cycles, rhythms or bad data.

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November 16, 2015
Max Movies

S.P.E.C.T.R.E

James Bond movies are generally fun to watch, but since just after Roger Moore took over the reigns from Sean Connery, they devolved into a gadget-strewn mess. It was obvious that the gadget that Q had demonstrated at around the 22 minute mark would get Bond out of a fix at the 55 minute mark. It was also a forgone conclusion that the sleek sports car that he was driving would have a number of tricks up its sleeve, but would ultimately get destroyed.

To me, the simplicity of ‘Dr. No’ and the style and sophistication of ‘From Russia with Love’ were simply never matched in later films. I understand that the world turns and moves on and that a spy that operated with such panache in the 60’s would be expected to wear flares in the late 70 and to trade his Rolex Submariner in for a Seiko digital, but it all seemed somewhat unbecoming. 

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November 16, 2015
Max Life, Religion , ,

Terrorism – Again

ParisOn Friday the 13th of November 2015, almost 130 people were killed by a small number of terrorists.

The people that died were simply out enjoying their Friday night in Paris. They were not a part of an army, they were not even joined by a single demographic. The victims of terror were male, female, young and old and spread across their political and religious beliefs. They were a diverse group.

As far as has been reported, none of the victims had any ties to groups that may have been targeting the terrorists. At least no further link than being in a country that opposes terrorism and has taken part in the global action against the Islamic State group in Syria.

On Monday 16th November it was reported that France dropped around twenty bombs on an IS stronghold in Syria. At best this is revenge, this is probably the thing that the French public, and much of the world that is appalled by Friday’s attack would like to see.

I doubt that this will really prevent future attacks. 

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November 6, 2015
Max Life, Technology , , ,

The Perils of (public) Beta Testing…..

HealthyI have always been an early adopter. As far as I can remember, I have always been at the forefront of tech stuff. Quartz watches – check, Compact Disc – Check, MiniDisc – Check, DAT decks – Check, Home computers – check, Android – check, iOS – check, early releases – check, tubeless mountain bike tyres – check, pretty much everything – check.

Friends and colleagues nearly always ask my opinion on things, simply because they know that I will have got it first and they want to know what something is like.

Quite often, it has bitten me, but this does not seem to stop me. 

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October 31, 2015
Max Life, Technology

Apple’s Difficult ‘S’ Release…

iPhone 6S PlusIn apple terms, the ‘S’ release every other years represents an updated version of the previous years phone.  This is the Tock to the regular phone’s Tick, or the Yang to the Ying, if you like.

What is perhaps more accurate is that the S release represents the definitive version of a chassis design, complete with bug fixes and feedback from significant numbers users.

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October 14, 2015
Max fitness, Life, Technology , ,

Apple Watch – A longer term review

I grew up in a very small village, apart from weekly games of cricket, there was very little excitement available. Due in part to the lack of local entertainment, I immersed myself in comic books and science fiction novels from the local library.

Most of the comic books available were American imports, a local newsagent had a small selection for sale, but that selection would vary, so it was never really easy to follow multi-episode story arcs. I would perhaps get Superman issue 487, then the next one available might be 512.

One day I was looking at the import comic shelf and one caught my eye. Somehow the newsagent inadvertently stocked a run of Dick Tracy comics that covered a decent sized story arc. I will admit that I was more a fan of superheroes than a mortal detective. But the chance to follow a whole story, rather than disjointed episodes meant that I spent rather a lot of money on six precious Dick Tracy comic books.

Dick Tracy had several gadgets, but his most famous was his two-way radio (later video) watch. 

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September 22, 2015
Max Cycling, Life, Uncategorized , , ,

The Tweed Ride bike 2015

Yes, I look ridiculous, that is the idea

Yes, I look ridiculous, that is the idea

Last year I was unable to take part in the Tweed ride due to circumstances beyond my control.

This year I decided that I would do it one way or another. I was so determined that I started to look for tweed in January !

Initially I wanted to get a delivery bike, something old, maybe a butchers’ bike or similar. Back in April 2015 the only ones that I could find were very expensive and looked terrible. I realised at this point that whatever I got would require a lot of work.

So, I decided to build something.

Deciding to build a bike was the easy part, deciding what to build was a completely different thing all together.

I took a look at the photos from previous years and it seemed that many people barely bothered about the bike, there were people on mountain bikes and retro styled new bikes. One bike that seriously caught my eye was a Pashley Guvnor. Certainly a beautiful bike, but at £900 it was way out of my price range. 

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