Assorted Nerdery

Prior to moving in our house, we replaced the old coil burner stove with a nice fancy GE Profile Induction range - their PHS930SL2SS model. I grew up with a coil burner and don’t really want to relive the experience! Overall, we’ve been happy with the stove, but we’ve had several issues addressed under warranty - mostly minor.

Minor issues:

• The convection fan’s nut came loose and it flew off while cooking - easy repair.
• The temperature probe and jack required replacement after some usage - easy repair.

However, we have had one major issue with the stove – while using the oven, the induction burners on the left side will turn themselves on. When this happens, the burner controls for the misbehaving burners won’t work reliably. In order to turn the burners off you have to engage the “lock mode” on the stove, which has the unfortunate but understandable side effect of turning off the oven. This has happened many times over the past year - and has persisted even after a new control panel.

After our old Ford Fusion went for a swim in a rainstorm, we brought home a 2016 Chevy Volt. We’ve enjoyed driving the car over the past year. It’s a lot of fun to drive - and we really appreciate almost never needing to stop at a gas station. My wife likes the car as well.

We’re coming up on the 45,000mi service checkpoint. In general, electic vehicles don’t have much to maintain. At this checkpoint, GM suggests changing the engine air filter and the passenger cabin air filter.

Happy New Year to All!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year - loving family, good job, etc. There’s an awful lot wrong with the world, but there’s an awful lot that’s improving also. [1]

I’m looking forward to doing my part to keep the ship afloat for another year!

[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Progress-Watch **

I saw recently that Paypal would start blocking VPN and SmartDNS services. Their rationale is that VPN services can be used for copyright infringement.

They are correct in that VPN services can be used for copyright infringement – they can be used to shield your IP address from others and to make it appear that your traffic is coming from some other location. However, this isn’t the only use of a VPN service. I use a VPN service to shield my traffic from being intercepted and modified by my local Internet providers.

Back in December, Ed Felten and the White House asked for public comment on the EFF’s pro-cryptography petition. This is the letter that I had sent. I urge you to file a comment.

Dr. Felten and President Obama,

I strongly urge you to support the unfettered deployment of strong encryption without compromise or backdoors.

The fact of the matter is that people have a right to be secure in their persons, papers and effects. The UN Declaration of Human Rights, to which the United States is a signatory specifies in Article 12 that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.” In today’s world, strong encryption is a necessary component to prevent arbitrary interference with our privacy and communications – by both state and commercial actors.