Middle of November

Programming

• Laser-Based Audio Injection on Voice-Controllable Systems

  TL;DR:

  By shining the laser through the window at microphones inside smart speakers, tablets, or phones, a far away attacker can remotely send inaudible and potentially invisible commands which are then acted upon by Alexa, Portal, Google assistant or Siri.

  or, as they say in Russia, РЕШЕТО

• Text Rendering Hates You

  Fun quote:

  Also have you heard of Animated SVG Fonts? No? Good.

• Also, Text Editing Hates You Too

• How can I have a C++ function that returns different types depending on what the caller wants?

  TL;DR: [picture of a possum screaming in anxiety]

Articles

• The Fantasy of Opting Out

  TL;DR: Can’t run away from the monopolists

• The Lost Key of QWERTY

  TL;DR: it’s ⋮

• Samsara

  A nice short story/koan by Alexander Scott

Art/Pictures

• Photographs of Japanese sword guards

Music

• Slobber Pup - Black Aces (discogs)

  An hour of hard psychedelic rock improvisations by some very skilled jazz musicians. I have a CD, and do not regret buying it in the slightest.

  (Their second album is more of a free jazz thing than this one; not as recommended)

Books

• Goliath by Matt Stoller

  Speaking of monopolies, here’s a book on the history of fighting them.

Games

• The History of Faery Tale Adventure (speaking of the games I’d love to strim some day)

  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3

Random

• What is the maximum number of weapons you can draw in one turn? #dnd #hard-science