This is a fictional imagining of what could be. Dear Journal, I took a refreshing break from my staff job today to keep up my “mission qualification”, and it really re-centered me. Sim time is something only pilots used to talk about, but the new “cyber sim” concept has brought that idea into the info ops world. Stupid name, great concept. I took my laptop out to the local library and sat in a back room one of the squadrons borrows regularly.…
Read more »The broken windows theory of policing suggests that when police target small crimes like “vandalism, public drinking, and fare evasion,” and reduce visible signs of “crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder” they reduce the likelihood of further and worse crime. This can certainly be taken too far, as in “stop-and-frisk” policies, if those are examples of broken windows policing, as some suggest. When applied to a team you’re leading, broken windows policing looks like: making sure uniforms are still sharp and worn properly, office common spaces are kept tidy, individuals are shown respect in each interaction, promises are kept, report and presentation standards are being met, and people generally meet the requirements and standards of each of their duties.…
Read more »Commanders of operational units maintain their flying qualification. Most units in the Air Force aren’t flying units, but all have some mission they’re responsible for. Remain Qualified on your Mission System Once a quarter I should spend a day making sure I’m up to speed on the mission my folks are doing, and if possible I should get some practice actually doing it. At the least I should sit alongside folks as they execute the mission.…
Read more »A couple tips about getting an Android phone working again when you’re on the road are down below, along with tips about TOTP codes when your phone dies. I set those apart. But first, the background. Recently, my Google Pixel stopped working for phone calls. That’s a big deal when you’re trying to move across the country. Not to mention the fact that failing to work for phone calls is an existential crisis for a cell phone.…
Read more »Be deliberate. When the feeling in my organization is just a little… off; when someone reacts to my words in a way that I didn’t expect; when someone doesn’t come through with that task they said they’d finish; when my organization isn’t cutting it by some metric; when I let someone down; when I get any negative feedback; when I need to give any negative feedback. Be deliberate. Do some research about how other folks have handled the situation.…
Read more »How do we assess an individual’s fluency with computers? We’re gonna go a little deeper than ability to use Microsoft Word… There’s a point, in knowledge and skill in the field of computer science, when programming languages mostly start to look and feel similar. “Learning a new language” is more like learning the peculiarities of a dialect of some language you already speak, than switching from English to Russian. When laypeople ask if you know a certain programming language, one which you do not already know, it occurs to you that answering in the negative would not be entirely correct.…
Read more »I recently read this cautionary tale about shell scripts. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/writing-secure-shell-scripts It’s cautionary in two ways: it is intended to cause shell programmers caution, and I caution against you taking the article too seriously. One of the biggest threats to the shell in memory was the Shellshock vulnerability. This wasn’t typically a direct threat to shell scripts, but one caused by a bug in a shell, and by other programs exposing parts of the shell to external input, often in unexpected and unlikely places.…
Read more »If you were at our wedding, you already know that you looked awesome. But now you can see it in photos, too! Wedding photos are done, come see how great you looked! https://sarahandkarl.sickendick.com/…
Read more »Some trucks have testicles, mine has a Hitchcock. The Hitchcock on the truck. Yes, that’s supposed to be the outline of Alfred Hitchcock. It looks a lot like Harambe though… If you want to make one, check out the Thingiverse thing here. Download all files, open the zip up, and under “files” you’ll find an “stl” file. Hop on over to https://www.hubs.com/, click “start manufacturing”, and upload that “stl” file. I used regular PLA plastic and printed in white to try to avoid any discoloration due to sunlight inevitably breaking this thing down.…
Read more »In computer security, there are three main axes for consideration - confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). These are commonly thought of as things you desire out of a secure system. You want your communications to only be available to the intended agents, you want them to remain unchanged except when you intend them to change, and you want them to be available when you need them. Preferably, you want your communications to have all of those properties.…
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