Do not let your CDN betray you: Use Subresource Integrity ✩ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

TL;DR: Using Subresource Integrity hashing/checking can prevent your site from participating in a Great Cannon-style attack.

Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition 43 and other modern browsers help websites to control third-party JavaScript loads and prevent unexpected or malicious modifications. Using a new specification called Subresource Integrity, a website can include JavaScript that will stop working if it has been modified. With this technology, developers can benefit from the performance gains of using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) without having to fear that a third-party compromise can harm their website.

Source: Do not let your CDN betray you: Use Subresource Integrity ✩ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

Let a 1,000 flowers bloom. Then rip 999 of them out by the roots.

The Twitter [Engineering Effectiveness team] motto is: “Quality, Speed, Joy”.
Those are the three things we are trying to affect across all of Twitter engineering.
Unlike that other famous triple, Fast, Cheap, Good, we believe you don’t have to pick just two. In fact they feed into each other: Building things right will let you go faster. Building faster will give you more time to experiment and find your way to the right thing. And everybody enjoys building good stuff and a lot of it.


Source: Let a 1,000 flowers bloom. Then rip 999 of them out by the roots.

The Case of Richard Glossip

Important writing from Paul Graham about the death penalty…

A 2014 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that at least 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent.  As the New York Times Editorial Board wrote about the Glossip case:

This case pretty well sums up the state of the death penalty in America. Supporters like to say it is reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but that is demonstrably untrue. It is more accurate to say that capital punishment is arbitrary, racist and meted out to those without the resources to defend themselves.

[emphasis added]

Source: The Case of Richard Glossip

“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language | Open Culture

 

 

TL;DR: tsundokuis a Japanese portmanteau of sorts meaning “pile of unread books”

It means buying books and letting them pile up unread.

The word dates back to the very beginning of modern Japan, the Meiji era (1868-1912) and has its origins in a pun. Tsundoku, which literally means reading pile, is written in Japanese as 積ん読.

Tsunde oku means to let something pile up and is written 積んでおく.

Some wag around the turn of the century swapped out that oku (おく) in tsunde oku for doku (読) – meaning to read. Then since tsunde doku is hard to say, the word got mushed together to form tsundoku.

Source: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language | Open Culture

Banned Books Week: These are the top 10 books Americans tried to ban last year – Quartz

 

 

Hmm… books good enough to ruffle feathers in Texas? Seems like they might be worth a read!

In an age where kids can access porn from the machines they carry in their pockets, banning books seems like an antiquated means of information control. But that doesn’t keep people from trying.

Source: Banned Books Week: These are the top 10 books Americans tried to ban last year – Quartz

Prison Yoga Is Helping Inmates Transcend Their Cells | VICE | United States

The Prison Yoga Project seems like a great idea. Think about the following quote for a second:

“…93 percent of them are returning to society. They’re coming back. How would you like them to be when they return? We haven’t done a good job of rehabilitating people…”

The Prison Yoga Project is bringing mindfulness, meditation, and physical release to hundreds of prisoners.

Source: Prison Yoga Is Helping Inmates Transcend Their Cells | VICE | United States