Category: Random

Completely random posts.

Blog Style Refresh

Wow, it’s been a long time since I began this blog. Four years and counting, to be precise, and lots of stuff has happened since that point. I realized I hadn’t touched the blog css or general theme since inception, so I decided to spruce it up a little bit. The style refresh was much needed and I think it looks pretty good!

It’s cool to look over the archives and see what I’ve written since that point.

That’s all this blog is for, after all. 😄 Writing practice, and fun. Hopefully whomever visits gets a small amount of enjoyment from it as well.

Here’s the first post that was ever made on the blog:
https://gmr.dev/blog/2017/02/17/moved-to-wordpress/

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Published 2021-06-18 00:52:11

Is the U.S. already in a recession?

The longest economic expansion the U.S. has ever seen may finally be over, thanks to the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Even with U.S. hiring surging with a 273,000 gain right ahead of the virus, and the unemployment rate residing at 3.5%, the markets have seen steep declines these past weeks.

And, the data that was just released is based on job data from the 12th of February, before the virus started having a major impact on world events.

New research from M.I.T. suggests that the U.S. was vulnerable to a recession even before having the virus. In January, the chance of a recession in the next few months was about 70%.

If stocks give up all their gains that they’ve been enjoying for the past 12 months, the chance of a recession will grow to 80%, says Will Kinlaw, head of a research unit State Street Corp.

And, there were a few other signs a recession was close before the virus even hit. Industrial production was down 0.8% from last year, and the treasury yield curve was close to inversion in January. Inversion of the yield curve, where long-term interest rates are lower than short term ones, is a massive indicator of a recession.

Whether the recent pain in the markets is because of the virus, or the sign of something much bigger to come remains to be seen, but it’s likely the economic impact of COVID-19 will be felt for months to come.

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Published 2020-03-06 15:36:06

Welcome to the Age of Quantum Computers

From Bloomberg:

A team of scientists at Google’s research lab announced last week in the journal Nature that they had built a quantum computer that could perform calculations in about 200 seconds that would take a classical supercomputer some 10,000 years to do.

An age of “Quantum supremacy” was duly declared.

Google’s claim to have achieved quantum supremacy – that is, to have accomplished a task that traditional computers can’t – was premature.

Although the specific problem that Google’s computer solved won’t have much practical significance, simply getting the technology to work was a triumph; comparisons to the Wright brothers‘ early flights aren’t far off the mark.

Congress should fund basic research at labs and universities, ensure the U.S. welcomes immigrants with relevant skills, invest in cutting-edge infrastructure, and use the government’s vast leverage as a consumer to support promising quantum technologies.

A more distant worry is that advanced quantum computers could one day threaten the public-key cryptography that protects information across the digital world.

This is big for a number of reasons but do not get too excited/scared yet! Quantum computing is still a number of years away. IBM was also quick to point out that Google’s estimate for how long “Summit” (the fastest computer in the world currently Google estimated against), was incorrect. According to papers published after Google’s report, “IBM’s engineers reckon, [adjustments would] allow Summit to breeze through the job in a mere 2½ days. Therefore, according to IBM, Google had not shown quantum supremacy after all.”

Well, that was quick.

What does that mean for their supposed success? Well, it’s still impressive. Google demonstrated a monstrous leap in technological prowess and got one step closer to proving a plethora of theories that many computer scientists are still eagerly waiting to take a crack at. P = NP anyone?

But wait, not so fast. Technically yeah, Google was wrong, but you still have to compare and contrast the differing performance results. Two and a half days is, after all, still about 1,200 times longer than 3 minutes.

Second, each extra qubit doubles the memory required by a classical machine put up against it. Adding just three qubits to Google’s challenger machine would have exhausted Summit’s hard disks. Quantum computers do not face such explosively growing demands. Google’s machine may not quite have crossed the finishing line. But it has got pretty close to doing so.

Additionally, Bloomberg has an excellent point when it says the U.S. should invest in this technology, if they aren’t already. They likely are behind the scenes, as a foreign entity such as China being the first to own a Quantum Computer is very scary. As Bloomberg pointed out, Quantum Computers make breaking passwords look like a walk in the park. Our current method of storing passwords would be under direct attack from Quantum Computing, and it’s one of the reasons the research is so dangerous.

Let me end your day off with this badass robot (fair warning, some of the video is fake) that some very talented individuals are developing.

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Published 2019-11-01 11:35:18

The Death of Flash… and the End of an Era.

Every millennial or Gen Z remembers playing Flash games in class on a school computer, or playing Super Smash Flash on your home computer. Those were magical, simpler times. But all of that is coming to an end, very soon. Flash is dead.

But that’s okay. Newer technologies are almost where they need to be to be a full-fledged Flash replacement. WebGL, WebAssembly, and HTML5 canvases have shown great promise and can fill Flash’s absence. There is one question though, what happens to all the existing flash content on the web?

Good question. And there’s no good answer… right now. Some are attempting to immortalize it as best they can, as is the case with Flashpoint, which is focused on saving flash games and making sure you can play them in the future when flash dies. It seems to be a worthy project and I encourage you to support them as best you can.

So, why is Flash being killed? Numerous reasons, chief among them being that Flash player is proprietary and Adobe controls it. Another is that Flash is a gaping security hole.

In terms of websites still using Flash… those websites will simply cease to function in 2020. For most browsers, including Edge and IE: “Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash,” said John Hazen, a program manager on the Edge team. Google has a similar timeline, and by the end of 2020, you will not be able to run Flash on any major browser.

My thoughts on the matter are pretty neutral. I was a flash developer myself, and so it does make me slightly nostalgic and sad to think that all of that is going away. On the other hand though, technology is always evolving, and being a software engineer unfortunately means going with the flow sometimes. I look forward to seeing what advancements WebGL brings.

Again, if you’re feeling nostalgic about all those Flash games you used to play, I recommend checking out one of the numerous services wanting to immortalize them, like Flashpoint mentioned above. Go check out their Discord server and say hello!

Concussion, my last flash game I made, is luckily available online still. 😉

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Published 2018-10-06 14:51:46

Be careful with app signing keys

Recently, I received an email from Google Play services. “Your app has been removed from the Google Play Store for a policy violation”, or something like that. How odd, I thought. I don’t remember doing anything against their terms of service. The email revealed that I didn’t have a valid privacy policy inside the app or on the store listing.

Oh. Right. The whole GDPR thing. It was time to write some privacy policies. After doing so, I began the process of digging up old files to old apps to make the necessary changes to the code. After about 2 hours of reinstalling Android Studio (my hard drive was wiped as some readers may remember), I began the process of exporting the app from Unity to an .APK.

Eventually, I was able to upload the finished .APK to Google’s servers. However, the Play Console threw an error at me; “The signatures do not match”. Wait, what? It’d been too long since I’d actually done this process. I googled the error to remind myself and broke out into a cold sweat.

Apparently, you generate a .keystore file upon first creating an Android app to sign the application with. It prevents people from uploading versions that aren’t originally from you, in the event that a developer’s account got hacked or something. There was no way to recover said .keystore file if you didn’t have it anymore, meaning there was no way to update my app. Ever. A full, in-depth system scan revealed no .keystore files. Luckily, with the two brain cells that were still functioning, I managed to remember that the other day I had deleted the app-which-I-was-updating’s Android version off my hard drive, because there was no real difference between the iOS and Android version, and I thought it was redundant. Perhaps it was in there?

I checked my Recycle Bin and breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t emptied it. It was still there. Opening the folder, the first thing I saw was a “user.keystore” file at the very bottom of the file list. A quick test confirmed that was the one. Phew.

Apparently those things are important. Don’t lose ’em, kids.

HEY, LISTEN! It’d be really cool if you checked out the app here on the play store, since it just got updated. 😉

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Published 2018-09-19 15:02:16

Small PSA: It’s doubtful hackers are watching you watch

This morning, I received an email from a scrambled Outlook email address that claimed they had explicit recordings of me and demanded I pay them Bitcoin. Their proof? A password of mine from a few years ago. They’d probably acquired it in one of the numerous database leaks that happen all the time. Here’s the message with sensitive information removed:

I do know, [OMITTED], is your password. You do not know me and you're most likely thinking why you are getting this mail, right?

In fact, I actually setup a malware on the adult vids (sexually graphic) site and do you know what, you visited this website to experience fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching video clips, your internet browser began functioning as a RDP (Remote Desktop) with a keylogger which provided me with accessibility to your screen and cam. Immediately after that, my software gathered all of your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook, and email.

What exactly did I do?

I created a double-screen video. First part shows the video you were watching (you've got a nice taste lol . . .), and next part displays the recording of your webcam.

What should you do?

Well, in my opinion, $3900 is a fair price tag for our little secret. You will make the payment via Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).

BTC Address: [OMITTED]
(It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it)

Note:

You have one day in order to make the payment. (I've a special pixel within this e mail, and now I know that you have read through this email). If I don't get the BitCoins, I will, no doubt send your video to all of your contacts including close relatives, coworkers, and so on. Nonetheless, if I receive the payment, I will destroy the video immidiately. If you need evidence, reply with "Yes!" and I definitely will send out your video to your 12 friends. It is a non-negotiable offer, so please do not waste my personal time and yours by responding to this e mail.

There are a few things wrong here, which is why I immediately knew it was scam.

  1. A keylogger records keystrokes, it doesn’t provide people with the ability to look at my screen and webcam. There are methods to gain access to these, but it is not called a keylogger. Someone knowledgeable enough to pull this off would know this and use the correct terminology.
  2. I don’t have a webcam.
  3. Browsers do not have the authority to share my desktop, nor did I give any one in the last month or two.
  4. I don’t use Messenger or Facebook.
  5. I have 0 friends on my non-existent Facebook account, not 12.
  6. Numerous spelling mistakes all throughout the email.
  7. The generic mention of “adult vids”. Yeah, sorry. No.

But I do have to wonder how many others fell for, and do fall for this kind of scam. Always make sure your antivirus is up to date, use common sense, and make sure you keep your passwords updated.

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Published 2018-07-11 14:42:21