ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

  • Sunday Links: Deep-Sea Diving, Spotting Fake Reviews

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    Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable

    In 2010, artist Damien Hirst funded an undersea exploration of a mysterious ship wreck, seemingly on a whim. Netflix just released a documentary about the expedition that ended up uncovering one of the biggest finds of ancient art ever seen. Growing up I loved watching afternoon CBC documentaries about this sorta thing and this film is one of the best I’ve ever seen. If you’re looking for something to scratch that Jacques Cousteau, Steve Zissou itch, I’d highly recommend this one.

    Spoiler alert: there is actually a very huge twist that is so well done, I did not fully understand it until Googling specifics about the film before writing this blog post. If you’ve never heard of this one, definitely do not research before watching and absolutely do not read this article.

    Fakespot.com

    Ever wonder if Amazon product reviews are legit? Wonder no more. Fakespot.com uses an algorithm to give a product review section a confidence grade. As i find myself buying more and more things on Amazon, I think I’ll be using this more often.

  • Sunday Links: Hackers, Hot Dogs and Rhinos

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    A scary story, a funny video and an interesting photo for your Sunday afternoon pleasure.

    Scary story.
    Hackernoon contributor writes a very plausible story about how a bad actor might go about injecting password/credit card stealing code into any number of websites. In a way that would be extremely undetectable. Spoiler alter: It relies on NPM.

    Looking back on these golden years, I can’t believe people spend so much time messing around with cross-site scripting to get code into a single site. It’s so easy to ship malicious code to thousands of websites, with a little help from my web developer friends.

    I’m harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Here’s how. by David Gilbertson.

    Video.

    I’m not really int to prank videos, but this one is supremely funny and so innocent.

    Picture.

    Elasmotherium

    A giant unicorn rhinoceros named Elasmotherium roamed the plains of Siberia 29,000 years ago. In many ways, I find these prehistoric animals much more interesting than  dinosaurs. (I couldn’t track down the original source of this photo unfortunately)

  • 2017 Podcast Picks

    2017 Podcast Picks

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    I haven’t done one of these lists in a few years, looking back through my archives I found my first list from 2008. Many of those podcasts have faded out of existence and I no longer listen to any of the others — with the exception of Daily Tech News Show, a spiritual successor to Buzz Out Loud. If you’re curious, here are my lists from: 2009, 2011 and 2012.

    I subscribe to a lot of podcast, so I’ll just highlight a few shows I added to my subscriptions in the past year or two.

    99% Invisible

    Hosted by smooth voiced Roman Mars, this weekly show is ostensibly about architecture and design. Almost every week I find myself learning a bit of trivial or a little behind-the-scenes information that changes how I think about the way the world is constructed.

    Website
    Wikipedia

    Episodes to check out:

    Oyster-techture — Surprising importance of Oyster’s in NYC’s past and future.
    Coal Hogs Work Safe — How stickers promote workplace safety in mining.
    Half Measures — The history of metrification in the USA.

    Reply All

    Reply All is kind of like a cross between “behind-the-music” and Encyclopedia Brown for the internet. I previously highlighted their episode covering the history of Livejournal in Russia and the real possibility that it’s now an FSB spy tool.

    Website
    Wikipedia

    Episodes to check out:

    Long Distance – Part I & Part II — Host Alex Goldman receives a call from a telephone scammer, befriends him and travels to India to investigate their operation.
    Antifa Supersolider Spectacular — Hosts discuss the origin of “Milkshake Duck” and other twitter weirdness.
    The Case of the Phantom Caller — A woman in New Jersey is getting strange phone calls to her office from unknown numbers. The hosts investigate and uncover an interesting scam.

    Stuff You Should Know

    This show has been around since 2008, I’m really surprised I have not heard of it until this year. Twice per week the hosts spend about 45 minutes doing a deep dive on a pretty-much-random topic. I’m not sure how else to describe it.

    Website
    Wikipedia

     

    Episodes to check out:

    Cake: So Great. So, So Great — The history of cake is more interesting than I would have guessed.
    Who Committed the 1912 Villisca Ax Murders — A murder mystery from 1912 and possibly the origin of the Ax murder trope.
    How Multiple Sclerosis Works — The title says it all.