tag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:/feedElliott Kember2014-05-07T08:46:02-07:00Elliott Kemberhttp://blog.elliottkember.comelliott.kember@gmail.comSvbtle.comtag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:Post/journeyman2014-05-07T08:46:02-07:002014-05-07T08:46:02-07:00The Journeyman<p>I was drifting through Wikipedia the other day and I came upon a fascinating article about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman">journeymen</a>. In medieval times, the process for becoming a master craftsman was well-established, and the process for becoming a guild-certified tradesman turns out to be quite an ingenious way of ensuring competence.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/wdhhqnxvf6mmlw.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/wdhhqnxvf6mmlw_small.jpg" alt="Apprenticeship_image.jpg"></a></p>
<p>The first step toward mastery was to become an apprentice. An unpaid position, this involved becoming a member of your master’s household, and being paid in food and lodging. You were not allowed to sell your work, charge for your time, or change masters. From there, an aspiring worker could choose to become employed, or to train to become a master craftsman himself. Training as a master craftsmen is where it gets interesting - because to become a master, you would first have to be a <strong>journeyman</strong>.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/tqq0tkvxuaifa.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/tqq0tkvxuaifa_small.jpg" alt="Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1990-1210-001,_Erfurt,_Zimmermänner_auf_der_Walz.jpg"></a></p>
<p>The German word for the next stage of your career is <em>Wanderjahre</em>, or “wandering years”. It’s not so much a “gap year” as it is a kind of pilgrimage - <em>three years and a day</em> is a traditional duration for a journeyman’s journey. The journeyman gets a little book, and stamps it wherever he goes - this <em>wanderbuch</em> becomes the passport for your craft, allowing you residence and documenting your travels.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/gwldopzpwgazq.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/gwldopzpwgazq_small.jpg" alt="761px-Wanderbuch1.jpg"></a></p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>At the beginning of the journey, the wanderer takes only a small, fixed sum of money with him; at its end, he should come home with exactly the same sum of money in his pocket. Thus, he is supposed neither to squander money nor to store up any riches during the journey, which should be undertaken only for the experience.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are still journeymen in Europe. You can recognise them by their uniform - complete with golden earrings and bracelets, to pay the gravedigger, apparently, if something goes wrong during your journey. </p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/nprooalbljakvq.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/nprooalbljakvq_small.jpg" alt="This is everything I took when I left home. That suitcase fell apart in the last mile."></a></p>
<p>When I left New Zealand 6 years ago, I didn’t think of myself as a journeyman. I probably would have, if I had heard the term before - I love this kind of weird tradition. But what better way to certify as a craftsman than to learn from many, far and wide? It’s a practical solution. I think it’s relevant to my field of work, too - the industry is just starting to address certification and education for thousands of people who are starting to see a bright future in programming. </p>
<p>To me, programming is a craft. A skilled trade, difficult to examine for and impossible to grade. The way to become a really good programmer, in my opinion, is to work in several places - with people whose talents far surpass your own. But you have to keep moving. And I’m excited to say that I’m taking the next step in my own <em>walz</em>.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ec8qpdzfobebiq.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ec8qpdzfobebiq_small.png" alt="Untitled-1.png"></a></p>
<p>From 2014, I will be working at Dropbox. I’m going to be working in a new department doing prototyping and building interfaces. Becky and I are moving to San Francisco. To everybody I’ve known in Bath and in the UK, I will miss you dearly and I’m sure I’ll visit again soon. To everybody I know in San Francisco, I’ll be seeing you soon, let’s do brunch. To my friends and family in New Zealand, I’ll only be 4 hours ahead so maybe we can talk on the phone again.</p>
<p>Our company Riot, and our products Hammer, Anvil and Forge will live on. <br>
We will no longer be available for contract work.</p>
<p>It’s been a wild ride, and now it’s time for a new one.</p>
tag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:Post/amazon-versus-the-drone-industry2013-12-02T02:12:20-08:002013-12-02T02:12:20-08:00Amazon vs The Drone Industry<p>There’s been a lot of talk about Amazon Air. Of course there has - they demoed it on Cyber Monday. It looks great and all, but the key takeaway was this:</p>
<p><strong>“Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.”</strong> You see what they did there? They announced something before it was ready. </p>
<p>There have been a few great examples of rushed-to-market products recently. Google Glass is a great example - if you’ve used one, you’ll know what I mean. It’s interesting and all, but it’s not good enough for regularly everyday people to use - yet. </p>
<p>In fact, anything Microsoft have announced in the past few years suffers from this, including <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0">this absolute masterpiece of drivel</a> - which, if you’ll pardon my language, is just straight-up bullshit.</p>
<p>So there’s been a lot of this, but Amazon Air is the most egregious example of jumping-the-gun to date - because the restriction on their product is external. In other words, <em>they don’t have control over the requirements</em>. The FAA has to allow them to do this.</p>
<p>I don’t like these “visions of the future.” I think they push back the industry. Whenever you fake something in advertising, the public expectation of the product ends up being years ahead of where the technology actually is. Take Siri, for example - and the articles about <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5864293/siri-is-apples-broken-promise">it being useless</a>. </p>
<p>These articles were, without exception, based on expectations of the technology rather than observations of the product. Siri worked exactly as planned, and still does - but when people are expecting a Star Trek phone, anything realistic is disappointing. Siri isn’t “The first true consumer-grade AI”, it’s a voice-command system.</p>
<p>The real problem with the Amazon Air situation is that Amazon is forcing the FAA to do something about it. I don’t think that’s a good thing for the drone industry. By promising things to customers, you force the FAA’s hand one way or another - and if there’s pressure to deliver a decision, they’re going to swing to caution and restrict everything. </p>
<p>I think you’re nuts if you think the FAA are going to allow autonomous, spinning-razorblade delivery robots to land in people’s gardens at the press of a button. I just don’t think they’re going to green-light it. It’s a touchy scenario, there’s not a lot of regulation around it, and I think they’d rather err on the side of caution than allow it.</p>
<p>It’s only a matter of time before restrictions are placed on the drone ecosystem. It’s bound to happen as these things get cheaper and more useful. I just wish we could wait a few years before it happens, because whatever ruling we see, it’s not going to change for a while.</p>
<p>Until then, you can check out my drone photography at (elliottkember.exposure.so)[<a href="https://elliottkember.exposure.so">https://elliottkember.exposure.so</a>] and on (Instagram)[<a href="https://instagram.com/elliottkember">https://instagram.com/elliottkember</a>].</p>
tag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:Post/flight2013-09-24T13:24:09-07:002013-09-24T13:24:09-07:00Flight<p>I have a hobby. </p>
<p>A few friends and I once found ourselves gripped by radio-control fever. Our particular flavour was slope soaring - where, after painstakingly assembling a foam aeroplane, and taping it up in a beautiful colour-scheme (mine was red and blue), you hurl the thing off the side of a mountain. Flying into an oncoming breeze means there’s a headwind, and the slope of the mountain generates lift. In this way, you can fly the thing for hours and hours, as the batteries on board only have to move the control flaps around.</p>
<p>This is a great hobby to have in Auckland, where the place is dotted with volcanoes - huge, smooth conical giants jutting hundreds of metres up in the air. This one, Mount Mangere, has a 180-degree face - marked with lines where the Māori tribe dug kumara pits and built fences to protect their mountain fortress.</p>
<p><img src="http://archaeopedia.com/wiki/images/4/42/MangereMountain.jpg" alt=""></p>
<p>This is pretty much the perfect slope. The fact that this mountain was a thirty minute drive from home only made it far more tempting - as a teenager, and therefore without a car, this mountain was like some far-off paradise. Alone at the top of the world, your beautiful creation tumbles and wheels in the clear blue sky, as you stand with your friends and look out over the city. The wind was cold, but we didn’t mind.</p>
<p>Fast-forward a few years, and I live in England - with not a mountain in sight. The hills, locals tell me, “would be perfect for that sort of thing” - but nobody really understands when I rave about conical slopes and wind shear. The wind has to be just right, you see - pointing straight at the mountain face for that perfect, consistent lift.</p>
<p>These days, I content myself with electric flight: four hundred watt park flyers that can fly straight up, first-person-view spy drones in matte black, and quad-copters that buzz, like wasps, ducking and diving just out of reach - glittering with camera lenses and bristling with tiny antennas.</p>
<p><img src="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/bx-lYJzZgow/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="The antennas aren't visible in this picture."></p>
<p>The quad-copter is the most interesting by far. Like a tiny, stable helicopter, it’s just large enough to carry a decent camera, and just small enough to fly indoors. A fascinating intersection between art and science, these gadgets use computer chips, GPS and accelerometers to smooth their flight, which makes them perfect for shooting video. </p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/2b3u3X0t453m/Unknown.jpeg" alt="I like the way the kid in the background is blurred out to protect his privacy. And what did they use to take this photo?"></p>
<p>But the quad-copter is a robot: a machine, constructed from parts, to do your bidding. Unlike an aeroplane, it cannot glide - and does not require momentum to fly. Rather than tracing long, smooth arcs in the sky like an albatross, it hovers like a dragonfly, alien - and somehow foreboding, as though of some dystopian science-fiction future.</p>
<p>The science involved is incredible. These days, a combination GPS / stabiliser / heads-up-display fighter-pilot box is only a hundred quid, and smaller than a pack of cards. Lithium-polymer technology allows for lighter batteries, capable of delivering more current and carrying more charge. They’re also highly flammable, and best treated with the utmost care - one false move and they go up in smoke. And then there’s the FPV gear.</p>
<p><img src="http://distilleryimage6.ak.instagram.com/a10c0368189411e3ada522000ae911d4_7.jpg" alt="Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law."></p>
<p>The interesting thing about flying machines is not the complexity of operating them - anybody can do it, given the willingness to practice - rather, the feeling of operating something remotely. Like some of science-fiction avatar, the model is you, shrunk and personified in time and space - and capable of flight! Put on the goggles, and the singularity is complete. It’s quite breathtaking.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em> you, though. Even as you’re watching the plane, you’re also flying it. The plane has your full attention, and will do your bidding, like an extension of your own self - a pen, maybe, or a knife. The feeling of being the only thing keeping your plane aloft is a zen-like tranquility, a calm, smooth feeling of concentration - a lot like playing an instrument.</p>
<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/73286779?color=ffffff" width="500" height="366"></iframe>
<p>This tends to have a profound effect on the operator. In my case, anyway: the feeling is hard to describe. It’s thrilling to know that with one false move, your beautiful model and all its expensive equipment will leave you forever, drifting into the sunset - or, far more likely, crash into something and break. A crash is often an expensive, and always a devastating event. A feeling of helplessness as the thing screams at the ground, a stomach-turning thump as plane meets pavement - a rush to find out what’s broken, what isn’t, and whether you’re done for the day.</p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/233N1t1Y453H/web700.jpg" alt=""></p>
<p>The gliders never minded crashing. Built from durable polypropelene, and strapped like mummies with reinforced tape, they were indestructible. Crashes were frequent, and combat - hunting your friend’s plane, twisting and turning before delivering the final blow, the exultation as your adversary, defeated, clambers down the mountain to retrieve his plane while yours basks in victory, looping and rolling high overhead in triumph.</p>
<p>Even now, it’s thrilling to remember those days. As students we had no money - but the planes were cheap, the wind was free, and the equipment was so basic that nothing ever went wrong. They were simple aircraft, but you wouldn’t say they were boring. With no bulky motors or propellers, they were sleek and aerodynamic - and fast, too, diving hundreds of feet in seconds, slipping effortlessly through the air like dolphins on a bow wave.</p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/1l0P0G2j1A0B/DSCF0002-r.jpg" alt=""></p>
<p>One day I will move back there. I’ll tell everybody it’s because I want to raise children. I’ll tell them how beautiful the country is, or how the food is always fresh, or how people are happy there. These things are all true, but that’s not why I’ll move. I’ll move for the mountains.</p>
<p>You see, I have this hobby.</p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/0R2o263Z3g1i/DSCF0009.JPG" alt=""></p>
tag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:Post/chromes-insane-password-security-strategy2013-08-06T01:18:00-07:002013-08-06T01:18:00-07:00Chrome's insane password security strategy<p>Chrome does something interesting when you first run it. </p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/jKqH7XJARTg1SLkJJYz8hE0xspap.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/jKqH7XJARTg1SLkJJYz8hE0xspap_small.png" alt="Image 2013-07-31 at 12.28.00 PM.png"></a></p>
<p>The other day, I was using Chrome in development for an Ember.js app. I use Safari for day-to-day browsing, but it has a habit of aggressively caching files when I least expect it, so from time to time I switch to Chrome.</p>
<p>I decided to hit Chrome’s “Import bookmarks now” link and see whether I could import my bookmarklets from Safari, so things would be nice and consistent between the two browsers. I didn’t expect this:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/pqXsYFhakm7pJR4kSdVpqh0xspap.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/pqXsYFhakm7pJR4kSdVpqh0xspap_small.png" alt="Chrome asking me to import my content from Safari"></a></p>
<p>This struck me as particularly odd. Why is “Saved passwords” greyed out, and mandatory? Why have a check-box? This is <u>the illusion of choice</u>. I think it’s deeply misleading, and this is why:</p>
<p>This is a page in Chrome’s settings panel:</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/oozn2mUhTKJTBHzo7j64yG0xspap.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/oozn2mUhTKJTBHzo7j64yG0xspap_small.png" alt="Passwords in Chrome"></a></p>
<p>See that “show” button? It does what you think it does. </p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/7JLgveAD2hLD1ByYdQ1tsG0xspap.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/7JLgveAD2hLD1ByYdQ1tsG0xspap_small.png" alt="Passwords in Chrome, in plain-text"></a></p>
<p><strong>There’s no master password, no security, not even a prompt that “these passwords are visible”.</strong> Visit [chrome://settings/passwords](chrome://settings/passwords) in Chrome if you don’t believe me.</p>
<p>There are two sides to this. The developer’s side, and the user’s side. Both roles have vastly different opinions as to how the computer works. Any time I try to draw attention to this, I get the usual responses from technical people:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Just use 1Pass</p></li>
<li><p>The computer is already insecure as soon as you have physical access</p></li>
<li><p>That’s just how password management works</p></li>
</ul>
<p>While all of these points are valid, this doesn’t address the real problem: Google isn’t clear about its password security. </p>
<p>In a world where Google promotes its browser on YouTube, in cinema pre-rolls, and on billboards, the clear audience is not developers. It’s the mass market - the users. The overwhelming majority. They don’t know it works like this. They don’t expect it to be this easy to see their passwords. Every day, millions of normal, every-day users are saving their passwords in Chrome. This is not okay.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ggwmRuR1a8Xxjv49nFsP6M0xspap.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/ggwmRuR1a8Xxjv49nFsP6M0xspap_small.png" alt="A Google Chrome prompt showing the words 'confidential information', and 'in your keychain"></a></p>
<p>This dialog is even more misleading. By using words like “confidential information” and “stored in your keychain”, OSX describes the state of your saved password’s current security. It’s the very security Chrome is about to bypass, by displaying your passwords, in plain-text, outside your keychain, without requiring a password. When you visit a website, Chrome prompts for every password it can find for that domain.</p>
<p>Today, go up to somebody non-technical. Ask to borrow their computer. Visit [chrome://settings/passwords](chrome://settings/passwords) and click “show” on a few of the rows. See what they have to say.</p>
<p>I bet you it won’t be “That’s how password management works”.</p>
<p><strong>Updates</strong>: </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/justinschuh">Justin Schuh</a> who is head of Chrome security and called me “a novice”, says I’m wrong, and that <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6166886">this is not going to change</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/364839351651274752">Sir Tim Berners-Lee</a> is with me. Is there a higher authority?</p>
<p><a href="https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95606?hl=en-GB">This</a> is Google’s page on “saving passwords”. Nothing about this feature. Why?</p>
<p>Covered in the press by: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/13/chrome-google?INTCMP=SRCH">The Guardian</a> … <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/07/google-chrome-password-security-flaw?INTCMP=SRCH">twice</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://atp.fm/episodes/25-thrustmaster-joystick">The Independent</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/10228714/Google-Chrome-flaw-exposes-user-passwords.html">The Telegraph</a></p></li>
<li><p>Reposted on <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/08/07/chrome-password-security/">Mashable</a> and <a href="http://gizmodo.com/google-chrome-s-insanely-open-password-security-strateg-1052344786#replies">Gizmodo</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://atp.fm/episodes/25-thrustmaster-joystick">Accidental Tech Podcast</a> nailed it</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/chrome-password-manager/">Wired</a> didn’t read the article properly</p></li>
<li><p>Thomas Fuchs drew an <a href="https://twitter.com/thomasfuchs/status/365293355430731776">excellent diagram</a></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Update</em></p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/3L453G0J1l0v/Image%202014-04-10%20at%2012.05.39%20pm.png" alt="YES"></p>
tag:blog.elliottkember.com,2014:Post/just2013-07-31T09:05:00-07:002013-07-31T09:05:00-07:00"Just"<p>I was reading about <a href="http://layervault.tumblr.com/post/56891876898/psd-rb">PSD.rb</a> the other day. For me, this is one of those really ground-breaking, big <em>big</em> projects. I haven’t had a play yet, but already I’m itching to get stuck into messing with PSDs. I’ve been super-impressed with <a href="http://macrabbit.com/slicy/">Slicy</a>, which is constantly in use here at Riot. </p>
<p>I’ve always found it interesting that Photoshop, a photo editing application, is used so heavily in application design. The lack of quality export tools has cemented my opinion of it as a mis-used but useful application. It also saves out to that most awful of formats - the <a href="https://code.google.com/p/xee/source/browse/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#108">.psd file</a>, which is probably the reason there are so few decent helper applications available. The difficulties of dealing with this format are legendary. So this is actually a really big deal, for a lot of people.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, I decided to read the <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6129237">Hacker News comments</a>. </p>
<p>Hacker News, for me, has reached Eternal September status. My pet theory is that every application on the Internet strives towards more - more users, more content, more value - and in doing so becomes less refined, and less special. While it’s great for the founders of a site to show upward-sloping graphs, I feel like the pay-off is this slow, long-tail entropy towards YouTube-level commentary. One comment thread immediately stuck out to me:</p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/091V2I2D3745/content.png" alt="Hacker News thread"></p>
<p>This unassuming comment really sums up the developer mindset for me. Why use something new, when another product can already do it? Why not use what’s already there? Why can’t you just use ImageMagick?</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong - ImageMagick is a wonderful library. But that’s it - it’s a library. It needs to be wrapped in libraries like Paperclip to really be user-friendly. I don’t know any of the flags, and would have to look them up to use ImageMagick in this particular way. Worse, an ImageMagick command is by no means self-documenting.</p>
<pre><code class="prettyprint"># reference to PNG data
png = psd.image.to_png
# writes PNG to disk
psd.image.save_as_png 'path/to/output.png'
</code></pre>
<p>It’s blindingly obvious what this does. It’s self-documenting code, with documentation. A double-dose of readability. A more people-friendly, human interface. Better yet, I know that if I need to figure this out, I can fire up a REPL and interact with it. I can run through this recipe line-by-line and discover what other cool stuff is available at each stage. That’s not something I can do with ImageMagick.</p>
<p>For giggles, I looked up <a href="http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16550&start=0">how to do the same thing with ImageMagick</a>. First result? A comment thread expressing uncertainty about why, given </p>
<pre><code class="prettyprint"> convert test.psd out.png
</code></pre>
<p>as a command, two files were created: <em>out-1.png</em> and <em>out-2.png</em>. </p>
<p><img src="http://up.elliottkember.com/image/1n0P3E05301U/content.jpg" alt="wat"></p>
<p>This is what I like to call Arcane Code. It’s a fun word, and makes me think of wizards and witchcraft and magic spells - which I think is a reasonably accurate depiction of remembering ImageMagick flags. In fact, replacing flag arguments with quasi-latin might even make things easier to remember. Anything would be better than <em>-coalesce</em>. What is <em>coalesce</em> actually going to do? I don’t know. That’s ImageMagick talking.</p>
<p>But we’ve evolved from this machine servitude. Today there’s no reason you can’t have a GUI that does command-line things for you. We’ve even built two ourselves - <a href="http://hammerformac.com">Hammer</a> and <a href="http://anvilformac.com">Anvil</a> - based on other people’s libraries, and designed to ease the mental process of learning their intricacies.</p>
<p>Once you’ve learned something, it’s important to remember what it was like before you knew. That wonderful moment between the knowing and the not-knowing. If you remember that you too were once baffled by ImageMagick flags, it’s easier to be empathetic.</p>
<p>My favourite way to spot an unempathetic response is to look for the word “just”. In context: <em>why not just use ImageMagick?</em> or <em>can’t you just add this feature?</em> It sounds innocuous enough, but to me it’s the <a href="http://jsomers.net/blog/it-turns-out">“It Turns Out”</a> of put-downs. The quickest, easiest way to anonymously assert intellectual dominance. A good feeling, if that’s what you need. I suppose many of us do.</p>