LISA17 Talk - Your Secrets in Cloud-Based Key Management

Getting Started with Appengine

My brother asked about building web pages on Google AppEngine.  A while back I recorded this getting started tutorial.  The expectation is 0 knowledge of how AppEngine works and brings you from empty folder to working website in under 45min.

Password Mindfullness

No one likes changing their password.  Memorization requires wrote.  Most password policies create passwords that are hard for people to remember, and easy for computers to guess.

Password change can be fun, and even useful outside of improving security.  I'd like to suggest the idea of "Password Mindfulness".  Use your password change as an opportunity to focus on something you want to improve.






Create a simple phrase that makes you mindful of a goal.
  Some examples:

Managing Stress:

• MyProblemsAreSmall
• SipTheCoffee.EnjoyTheTaste

Building Relationships:

• AskOthersAboutTheirDay
• TheGreatestJoyIsTakingAnInerestInOthers!

Regarding the 2016 Election:

• ThisTooShallPass!2016
• The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.
• (Keep in mind most passwords can include spaces, so the above sentence is long, hard to crack and includes special characters)

Mindful Passwords can be strong, and call us to an awareness of something.  (An added bonus is that as your priorities change, you can update your password.  No need to wait for that 90 day roll over!) 

Hello, PC - Leaving Apple Hardware

Part of working at Stack Overflow means refreshing a desktop or laptop build every 2 years.  For the better part of the last year, I've been waiting on my refresh, and proclaiming the good word about the upcoming Macbook Pro 2016 refresh. Sadly, MBP 2016 refresh is generally underwhelming.  As a result, I went with a Razer Blade 2016 with  Razer Core docking station.

Razer Costs:

• Blade QHD+ 1Tb - $2700
• Razer Core - $500
• GTX 1080 - $680
• ASUS 27" PQ278QR - $699

Total: ~4600

(The 2016 MBP, with considerably less power comes in about $600 higher)

Setup:

The Razer Core acts as a docking station connecting the PQ278QR, a second vertical document monitor, and my assorted USB peripherals (USB hub / mouse / keybaord / headset). 

  Only 2 leads connect to the laptop - USB C on the Right, and the laptop charger on the left.

To keep my host OS as agnostic as possible, a majority of my work day is compartmentalized into VM's.  Any kind of web development is done in my Ubuntu VM.  OSX Development for Simian / Caulflower Vest is done in either my OSX Development VM, or an OSX Testing VM (Simultaneous running of these VM's has been the greatest strain on the 16GB of system ram.  Bumping my paging file to 32gig seems to have resolved most issues).  I offloaded my domain joined Windows VM to a Vmware View Pool running on a remote ESXI cluster (Although this could have easily run locally as well.)

All local VM's are backed up daily to my Synology, and the Synology copies that volume to AWS.  

With very little customization to the laptop OS (aside from aesthetics / workflow tools like Divvy and Pussh) I can easily remain host agnostic.  In researching this build I discovered that the Intel NUC is compatible with the Razer Core.  The NUC could easily replace my laptop in the event of physical damage or repair.

  

Disappointments:

Windows

Windows 10, while a huge improvement over 7, still has significant use issues.  Working with multiple monitors with varying DPI is a nightmare.  Moving a window from screen to screen results in a stutter.  At high DPI, windows 10 is not pretty.  (Where native windows fails, a multi-monitor ubuntu VM works just fine)

Ram

Going with the Razer meant the same ram limitations as the MBP at 16GB.  While this was a major factor in pushing me away from the Macbook Pro, I reasoned that I could get by with less demanding Linux VM's, than running Windows in a VM on OSX.  

The Bezel

Razor hardware is nice overall, but the bezel is just hideous.  I'm not someone who would have thought I'd care greatly about bezel size.  The bezel on the Razer is over 1" in place.  

Overall impressions

Portable

With the pull of 2 cords, I can take my gaming and development systems anywhere.  The Razer has an onboard GTX1060, which is GREAT for most games.  Using Duet I can turn my ipad into a second screen, or use my AOC 16" monitor.  

Powerfull

Part for part, the Razer 2016 has better graphics, Ram and CPU compared to the Macbook.  Not much to say on this, other than I'm getting much more machine for less.  

In conclusion - Never again Apple.  I was so ingrained in the Apple ecosystem that I nearly forgot what it was like to freely choose the hardware and software I wanted.  Some things are done very well by Apple  - OSX is a beautiful OS that looks great even in my VMs.  It's disappointing that a few marginal hardware improvements (32 gig of Ram, a reasonable battery, working with NVidia to put a substantial card in their system...) could have kept the MBP as my primary device; I am happy to be reminded by this "Brave" move that Apple does not care about Gamers, or developers with strong opinions about hardware.

Dear Blizzard: Please fix competitive play.

You don't have to look much further than /r/overwatch to see that competitive play is broken.  Matchmaking is a terrible joke, and Blizzard has acknowledge the problem.

After losing around 15 straight matches this weekend, while playing with very competitive friends, I've concluded ranked play is just not functional, much less enjoyable.

Below are some simple ideas, in patch note form, that would make play less terrible.

• General
• Player location data, and other exploitable information is treated more securely in the game client. 
• We also intend to treat the use of aim-bots and other trainers much more severely.  We've hired 1 team member to create new detection methods for Governor on a weekly basis.
• Heros
• [Competitive]
• Hero choice will now be a draft pick.
• Players will be assigned draft picks randomly (similar to HotS)
• Heroes must be unique per teams. 
• Players with less than 8 hours on a given Hero will not be allowed to select that Hero in draft.
• As a result, players must have 8+ hours of play on 7 unique heroes before entering competitive play.
• Players can still switch to available heroes during the match.
• Competitive Play
• [Party System]
• Players can "Search" for filler players based on criteria:
• Minimum number of hours as a certain hero
• Willingness to play certain class types
• Hours since unlocking ranked play.
• [Rank Experience]
• Winning a match after a team mate leaves will result in a 2x reward
• Leaving a match will result in a 2x rank loss for the leaver
• Players that  lose with a level 25 on PUG will suffer no penalty*.
• 
  
• BUG FIXES
• Sudden Death has been removed*.
• 'Suffer No Penalty' has been removed from the early leaver text.
• We apparently didn't understand what those words meant*.
• 
  
• *Tongue in cheek, but seriously these issues need to be addressed.

Multi-threading and Web Requests

I'm writing a tool that needs to make over 200 API calls using the requests library in python.  The function is doing little more than asking for information and then appending that information into a list.  The current run time results look like this:

[Finished in 209.3s]

I think I can do better.   The main delay is caused because each request must be made after the previous request has finished (or in 'consecutive' order).  This happens because a single python script runs as a single thread, processing things consecutively.

Running multiple threads would resolve this problem.A quick search for python multithreading points me to the Pool class in the multithreading library. Using a pool of "workers" (threads) I can run each web request concurrently.

My first attempt at implementing a pool results in the following error:

Can't pickle

Stack Overflow had an answer pointing out that in order to pass the work around to multiple threads, the job for each thread needed to be converted into a standard format (serialized or 'pickled').  the particular serializer used by this library dosen't understand how to serialize an instanced method, so we'll help it out:

Placing the above script in my class means that it will add understanding for instanced method pickling.  

The next hurtle was the need to pass multiple values into a function called by a Pool instance.  While there seem to be many suggested ways of doing this, I found building a helper function to be easiest.  

This helper function takes the a tuple of arguments handed to it, and then calls the "real" function passing the tuple values in.  Putting everything together looks something like this:

In the end pool.map is handed the helper function to call, and a payload.  The payload consists of a list of tuples.  Each tuple contains the arguments needed for 1 call of the function doing the work (sometimes called the 'Critical Section').  The end result:

[Finished in 16.3s]

Running with 32 processes, the task took only 16.2 seconds.  I'd say that's a solid improvement.

Student Debt is America's Giving Tree

I'm not an accountant.  I'm not a bureaucrat. I am a 31 year old with a mountain of student loan debt.  Understanding student debt requires bureaucratic and accounting skills (neither of which were part of my college education.)  The real problem of student debt is the problem of 'fake money'.

To understand fake money, lets say two people decide to purchase an apple tree sapling.  Lets call them Bob and Sue.  Bob and Sue each pay $1 for 50% ownership of the sapling.  Bob and Sue are investors, so they're really in this venture for apples.  They agree that every year, they will each take 10 apples and leave the remaining apples on the tree, allowing the tree to reproduce, improve society, and other things that trees with apples do.

The rub of this problem occurs in year 1 when the sapling has yet to yield any fruit.  Bob and Sue arn't sure what to make of this, as now neither of them have yielded their annual apples.  They agree that they'll just each take 21 apples next year (with an additional apple for interest).  Unfortunately 2 years in the apple sapling is still not yet a fruit bearing tree, and this problem persists until the apples + interest owed Bob and Sue is greater than the tree could ever yield in 1 year.  Without apples to spread seed, the tree will never produce, local wild life will not be able to glean fruit from the tree and small ecosystem to which the tree belongs is all the poorer.

Bob and Sue generated this problem by relying on 'Fake Apples'.  Just because they agree to a certain yield per year does not mean that yield will occur.  Counting missed yields as a debt (and worse, a debt with interest) only compounds the issue.  The tree is depraved basic fruit bearing freedom, and Bob and Sue come across as greedy uncaring apple investors.

Rather than 'Fake Apples' Bob and Sue could have agreed to a percentage of apples each year.  This agreement eliminates the problem of fake apples by ensuring that Bob and Sues' yield is always a known number of 'real' apples.  If Bob and Sue agree to 25% of all apples yielded annually each, then that would leave 50% for the tree and local ecology.  Further, since the tree is able to bear fruit Bob and Sue might also to invest in future saplings and see even more return.  The local ecosystem is improved by a greater number of available apples, and Bob and Sue are now investors deeply concerned with the health of their tree and that trees children.

Translating the above problem to student debt is very easy.  In our current system investors give freshly minted adults and sometimes even 17 year olds (children!) a choice.  That choice is 'Don't go to school', or instead borrow from the limitless well of student loan money.  This situation is cyclically worsened as Universities increase cost of attendance due to inflated demand, brought on by highly available 'cheap' money (student loans).

The reality is that student loans are anything but cheap.  While they offer nice incentives like "deferment while in school" and 'low' interest rates of 6%, these loans have hidden and obscured costs.  Inability to pay student loans can result in interest rate increase, penalty fees and destruction of credit worthiness.  Attempts to find information on loan consolidation and repayment will point the average apple tree (sorry, American consumer) towards predatory companies that charge fees in exchange for assistance applying to free government programs.  Worse yet, an apple tree could end up in a consolidation program that combines payments into 1, but increases interest overall.  Even Bankruptcy is not an option for student debt.

The problem of student debt repayment is less about people wanting to repay a debt, and more so about being handed a debt they are unable to repay.  Much like fake apples, student loans rely on fake money.  There is no guarantee that a given individual will earn a given amount, or that a fee repayment schedule will allow them to make payments and still prosper.  I propose a new loan structure that would make lenders take on a modicum of risk (of which they presently take none).

Student loans should a 'real' apples loan policy.  This policy would work both for new students and past borrowers looking to convert their debt.  An example 'real' apples policy for a student with an estimated $80000 in student loans would look like this:
On average it is safe to say most 22 year olds leaving college will be employed at least 25 years.
'real' apples approach looks at that $80000 and 25 years, while considering that they would like to make their money grow by 20% in that time.(These numbers can and should fluctuate with the students choice of major, school of choice, and estimated future wages)

$80000 * 1.20 = $96000

$96000 / 25 /12 /2 = $160

current minimum wage ($7.25) * 40 * 2 = $580

$160 is about 27% of a paycheck at minimum wage

Edit: I just re-read this.. WOW my %'s are off. $160 *2 would actually be $320 a month, or %54 percent of income at minimum wage.  That's WELL over the generally accepted 36% debt-to-income ratio lenders use for the purchase of homes, and WAY higher than anyone could afford to exist on while paying.  It seems as though more thought is required here. 

Here is where 'real' apples loans save education and all of society.  If the agreed repayment is capped at %20 of pre-tax income (and really, if you're earning minimum wage you should be well below tax) then anyone that is employed should be able to afford bi-monthly payments.  Lenders gamble that they will receive their entire return on investment over the course of 25 years at a rate of 20% of taxable income per year; Not to exceed the original $96000.  

The lender is incentivized in this model because they can potentially see their return faster.  The borrower is incentivized because as they earn more debt is eliminated faster while remaining a constant, payable, percentage of wages.  Society is a better place because debt is repaid faster, with the added bonus of incentivizing lenders to increase educational lending as the minimum wage increases.  I'll say that again - increasing the minimum wage would organically increase educational funding at a safe and sustainable rate.  

How could someone earning minimum wage be asked to give up 20% of their paycheck?

The reality is they are already being asked to pay that much and more.  Worse yet, student loan repayment is often at a rate a majority of millennial cannot afford (many of whom are in their 30's and still struggling with the payments).

Twenty percent is a terrible return on a potentially 25 year investment.

Since repayment occurs faster as income increases, lenders would also be incentivized to encourage things like job placement, career advancement, selective of lucrative majors and generally "Caring" about the people whom they're presently financially abusing from a young age. (Much like apple tree)

But if lenders get to pick and choose what to fund - THE ARTS WILL FAIL!

Schools will be incentivized to charge according to the cost of the program, and not a flat cost per credit fee in all courses.  Charging fees according to major, based on available money a student can borrow for that major is more respectful to the student than charging $40,000 over 4 years for both an electrical engineering program, and a communications degree.  Schools are creative and full of very smart people, they'll figure it out. 

So.. How about them apples?