APOD picked up a nice cartoon by PHD comics explaining the search for the Higgs Boson at the LHC.
A Programmer
Visited Links
Gefährliches Gras
Reporter zu Tepco-Pressesprecher in Die Fukushima Lüge (bei ca. 20:00min):
Haben Sie Gerade wirklich gesagt, dass Sie radioaktiv verseuchtes Wasser durch Leitungen transportieren, die durch Gras zerstört werden können?
Es ist auch sonst eine interessante Doku, die auch wieder zeigt, dass in der Branche Sinn für Verantwortung und technischer Sachverstand absolute Mangelware sind … :-/
Und dann muss ich auch noch lesen, dass der Betrieb und Ausbau (weltweit) munter weitergeht.
Math vs. Traffic Police
There is an awesome demonstration how knowing your maths can help you avoid a traffic penalty.
Pokémon Reimagined
Howto Renew Your SSL Certificates
So my IMAP server certificate expired today … so I needed to renew it. I use self-signed certificates for services I run myself.
First you need your config file. If you don’t have this you will be prompted to do so. (the Ubuntu Wiki has a nice introduction)
[ req ] default_bits = 2048 encrypt_key = yes distinguished_name = req_dn x509_extensions = cert_type prompt = no [ req_dn ] C=DE ST=HB L=Bremen O=IMAP-Server OU=Automatically-generated IMAP SSL key CN=imap.your-domain.tld emailAddress=postmaster@yourdomain.tld [ cert_type ] nsCertType = server
Then you generate the new certificate (expiring in 365 days) using the config file from above (imapd.cnf) and have it save it into imapd.pem.
openssl req -x509 -days 365 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -config imapd.cnf -keyout imapd.pem -out imapd.pem
Restart your service.
If you need to check the new key’s fingerprint you can get it with the following command.
openssl x509 -in imapd.pem -fingerprint
How Demos Are Coded
It you want to know how demos are coded, farbrausch has released 10 years worth of code.
As a starting point: there is an ongoing series of blog posts showing you around the code.
Harms of Post-9/11 Airline Security
Bruce Schneier on the harms of post-9/11 airline security … and I think he is absolutely right.
Comparing the Security and Privacy of Browser Syncing
Gregory Szorc from Mozilla has put together a great comparison of all the top browser’s synchronization features with regard to security and privacy.

