Daniel Lange's blog (Entries tagged as fun)

I think we need more creativity in statistics

nospam@example.com (Daniel Lange) — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 08:42:00 +0000

" 'Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion.'

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing.

My Drawing Number One.

It looked something like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered: 'Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?'

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained.

My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.

That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

from the Corona Fun with Statistics department at Worldometers (source, archive.org link)

Tales from the Edge. #Security.

nospam@example.com (Daniel Lange) — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 00:05:00 +0000

Late 2017, King county, Washington

An overworked team with an impossible mission, to create a secure Internet browser, on Windows, is called to the weekly ~~time-waster~~ product team meeting.

Product Manager:
Team, you know that Edge needs to be the most secure browser on the planet, right?
So how can this thing segfault if some dude from the security consultancy fuzzes the Backup.dat?

You MUST make sure this is protected. It MUST be a violation of Windows Policy to modify the file. Go, make it happen! Report back next week!

The team disperses.

Early next morning, at a set of tables in the middle of a dimly lit cube farm...

Developer:
Hey, team lead, do you know what the PM meant with "Windows Policy"? I never heard about a "Windows Policy". Is this the "Group Policy"? Or did he mean the product license? Like the shrink-wrap contract? Do we need to consult legal?

Team lead:
Oh, ffs, Bob. No time for discussion. The requirement is crystal clear. Implement it. You're the security lead. We have a deadline approaching.

Developer:
O.k., boss. I'll see what I can do.

Continue reading "Tales from the Edge. #Security."

Summer Fun II

nospam@example.com (Daniel Lange) — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 17:30:00 +0000

The BMW K1300S is only homologated to Euro 3 standards which means you can't buy a new one and get it on the road next year anymore. At least in Europe. Thus BMW has already removed it from its home page and sells off the remaining stock. Probably until the end of the year (they could license it and sell into 2017 but stock seems to be quite low).

I had the bike since 2009 as a company bike and when I returned to Germany that was the thing I found to have missed abroad the most. This is a bike from the time when the company strived to built the best motorbike technically possible. A time that has since passed in most of the automotive industry. Sad but true. Lifestyle products anyone?

So ... I've already bought mine last year.

It hasn't changed much from 2009 so there is no reason to buy a 2016 model year, buy any in good condition.

Double check that the handlebar switch units have been replaced with the improved versions (both sides). The stock ones don't like heat and stop working when it gets really hot. I got stuck at a friend's house after going for a long swim in the warm summer of 2015. BMW had a free replace-if-customer-complains (silent) recall until the end of last year. Prod your dealer to get some good will out of BMW Motorrad. Esp. before you buy. Also check the cardan drive for excess degrees of freedom. It doesn't take "binary" road racers too well. So make sure you get to know the previous owner.

As Motorrad 17/2016 put it:

In last years' sportstourer concept comparison the K 1300 S [..] still blew the competition away.
Brutal while well honed, that's the lasting impression. [..] Extra-ordinary stable, tight and still comfortable.
And still today the K 1300 [S] is the reference in breaking, because of the wide wheel base and because she stays up when breaking.
[The K-BMWs of the last generation] are cold perfection, executed into each detail. Just different.

That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

855 years and counting

nospam@example.com (Daniel Lange) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:50:00 +0000

Dear marketing managers:

Test your scripts before using them on real customers
Server images don't show in emails these days anymore

Dear developers:

Test your scripts before deploying them in production
Add (configurable) sanity checks to customer visible output according to the underlying business logic

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