Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 17

Online TLS talk, 16 November 2023

I’ll be presenting on TLS at the St Louis Unix Users Group next Thursday. The meeting starts about 6PM CST, but they have a few things to take care of before I start.

It’s on Zoom and open to the public. Connection instructions will be on their web site once they’re ready.

As you probably suspect, the talk is based on my book TLS Mastery.

20: The More Obscure Additional Protocols of the Geneva Convention

Trying to get this dang book done, so pushing forward.

If I receive another email from a particular recruiting firm offering me the magnificent opportunity of a position as an entry level help desk flunky I will violate several state laws, many national ones, and a few of the more obscure Additional Protocols of the Geneva Convention. I would prefer to avoid spending my so-called “retirement” “savings” on a criminal defense attorney desperate enough to take my case, so prudence suggests I avoid ...

My new “FreeBSD Journal” column has escaped

Once again, the FreeBSD Journal requested that I discuss the ports and packages system. While this is a FreeBSD-specific publication, my comments are true of any BSD. Or Linux. Or operating system.

I’d advise you to avoid the cooties, but if you’re reading this it’s almost certainly too late.

If you want to hear me a specific part of this, you’re out of luck. Unless you want the one minute’s worth that previously appeared in my podcast.

October’s Ornery Sausage

(This post went to Patronizers at the beginning of October, and the public at the beginning of November.)

If you’re in a country that has Halloween, you need to read A Night In The Lonesome October. It has thirty-one chapters, one for each day of October, and that’s how you’re supposed to read it. If you’re starting late you can catch up, but after that? One chapter a day. This isn’t a recommendation, it’s full-on necessary.

Anyway. Writing.

Run Your Own Mail Server grinds on. I’m digging throug...

19: Accidental Deployments

I’ve been trying to focus on Run Your Own Mail Server throughout October, and making some progress.

Greylisting is a divisive technique. The first time a site mails your server, greylisting delays messages from ten minutes to a couple hours. If people in your organization insist that email is instantaneous despite all evidence to the contrary, that’s a problem. If some web site uses email to send authentication codes that are valid for only ten minutes, that’s an problem. (The problem is that th...

My Web Store Features

“Hey Lucas, what all do you offer on your web store?”

I have had to answer this question three times, mostly from other authors looking to build their own web stores. A couple of the big ebook-selling platforms are clearly embracing enshittification, and interest in disintermediation among creators is greater than I’ve ever seen it. I don’t mind sharing the information, but I do mind writing out the answer more than thrice.

I had some rules in building a web store.

NO CUSTOM CODE. I can write ...

18: The Yoda of the Primordial Internet

Today we’ve got a chunk of Run Your Own Mail Server.

For many years Jon Postel, the Yoda of the primordial Internet, suggested that software should be strict in what it sends but generous in what it accepts. When you wrote an SMTP client you should make it adhere to the standards, but your SMTP server should accept that other people would screw up. In other words: accept the foibles of others.

Spammers’ goal is to deliver the most junk in a minimum of time. Accepting the foibles of others offers...

“Apocalypse Moi” Patronizer and Kickstarter copies shipped

If you backed Apocalypse Moi on Kickstarter for a signed book, or if you’re a print-level Patronizer, one of these has your name on it. All the signed books, ready to go out.

This should finish up all the rewards for the new Kickstarter and get Patronizers caught up on everything.

Some of y’all are crazy. Pretty sure that box on the bottom can only be hauled by a First Wildebeest. But hey, y’all asked so you get.

17: The Math Department’s Chief Bastard

In recent years I’ve discovered a talent for Christmas tales. No, not happy cheerful Christmas tales. The other kind. My story The Last Multivariable Differential Christmas is part of WMG’s Holiday Spectacular. Here’s one minute from it.

Bill and Rosie and I were cramming for our multivariable differential equations exam. Of the fifteen students who couldn’t afford tutors, they were the ones who didn’t treat me like a dangerous freak. Doctor Valencia, the math department’s chief bastard, wrote t...

Lucas-Adjacent Kickstarters

I’m not running any Kickstarters right now, but I’m in two of them.

First off, there’s the inimitable ZZ Claybourne’s Breath, Warmth, and Dream campaign. Full disclosure: Zigs is a dear friend. We get barbecue, solve the world’s problems, and watch Star Trek. He’s also written several well-reviewed books. His new book is the best of them all. It’s a fantasy, complete in one book! I hesitate to call it a cozy, or low stakes, but this book makes one village the world and that world is in peril. A ...