Category: computing

09:19 – As usual this time of year, we’re run ragged trying to ship science kits and build more. We got orders for 17 kits overnight and so far this morning, which wouldn’t be a problem except that we’re running out of stock on some of the kits. So I’ll get the kits shipped that we do have in stock, and then go build more of what we’ve run out of.

It’s funny. I remember the day we sold our very first kit. At that point kit #100 seemed very far away. Then we sold kit #100, and kit #1,000 seemed very far away. Then we sold kit #1,000, and kit #10,000 seemed impossibly far away. But it’s probably not as far in the future as it seemed at the time, particularly once we get our classroom kits available. When that happens, instead of a good month being 100 kit sales, it’ll be 1,000 kit sales. And at that point, we’ll need a lot more space and some employees. I’m still of two minds about that.

15:06 – Wow. Talk about advice so bad it’s scary: Why Your Passwords Should be at Least 24 Characters Long

And this comes from a supposed computer security expert. I have no problem with suggesting a 24-byte password. The issue is the kind of 24-byte password the author recommends. Here’s an example: HarleyDavidsonStarbucks!!!

That’s exactly three dictionary words and three bangs. Better than a six-byte password, but it needs to be a lot better than it is. Crackers use dictionaries, too, and a supercomputer is just as capable of concatenating dictionary words as it is of working byte by byte. As a matter of fact, there are special dictionaries for crackers.

I would suggest a 24-byte password, but using purely random characters generated by a hardware random-number generator (AKA, dice or coins). So you end up with a password that is 24-bytes of random gibberish. Everyone seems concerned that such passwords are impossible to remember. So what? Write them down and let Firefox store them. Sure, doing that creates a gaping security hole, but again so what? If someone has physical access to your premises and your computer, you’re screwed anyway. What you should be worrying about is someone gaining electronic access to the hashed versions of your passwords, either on your own machines or on, say, Target’s corporate servers. If the plaintext of your passwords is 24 random characters, they can crack away to their heart’s content and not gain access to the plaintext for many decades. Unless, of course, someone figures out (or has already figured out) how to quickly factor the products of large prime numbers. If that happens/has happened, all bets are off.

13:24 – Have I mentioned that I hate Linux only slightly less than I hate Windows and OSX?

I spent quite a few hours over the long holiday weekend migrating from my ancient system, a Core2 Quad Q9650X running Ubuntu 9.04, to my new system, a Core i7 980X running Linux Mint 15. I thought I had all the important stuff, including mail and contacts, moved over successfully. That turned out not to be the case. Oh, the data is moved over, and I can even look at it in the new version of Kontact/Korganizer/Kmail. The problem is, the new version is unusable. For example, I was moving a bunch of mail around and it didn’t appear to be working properly. The mail I moved (as opposed to copied) ended up in the destination folder, but it seemed to remain in the original folder as well. So I finally moved just one message from the Inbox to a subfolder. It appeared in the destination folder and was no longer in the inbox. Then, as I sat there staring at the Inbox, the message magically reappeared. Geez. Kmail is a piece of crap.

I finally decided to bag all my old mail and contacts and just start using a fresh installation of Thunderbird. I left Kmail/Kontact installed, so if necessary I can go back and look at mail or contacts if I need to verify something later. Assuming Kmail hasn’t moved or deleted it, of course. So I’ve now spent an entire morning trying to get my mail functioning again. The real goal, of course, has nothing to do with the software. I just want to be able to process orders and ship kits, which I’m now doing with Thunderbird. Eight so far this morning.

10:06 – Thanks to everyone who recommended add-ons to make Windows 8 usable. When I have a spare moment, I’ll install Classic Shell on Frances’ system. If that works as expected, I probably won’t have to install the Windows 8.1 fix once it becomes available.

One of the items on my to-do list is making up solutions for more biology and life science kits. One of those is eosin Y stain, and I’m debating with myself about what to do. Until now, we’ve been supplying a 1% aqueous solution made up with Winston-Salem tap water, which is very soft but does have some calcium ions. We use tap water because eosin Y actually works better when some calcium ions are present. We also add a tiny percentage (~ 0.05%) of glacial acetic acid, again because eosin works better in the presence of very dilute acetic acid.

By “works better” I mean “stains more intensely”, and that’s the problem. Eosin Y is a very subtle stain. When used properly, Eosin differentiates structure types by the intensity of the staining: eosinophilic structures are stained intensely red-orange; erythrocytes a bright pink-orange; muscle tissues a paler pink-orange; and collagen a light pinkish-orange. There are two ways to get this differentiation. First, by progressively staining with a dilute (0.1% to 0.5%) eosin solution. Second, by overstaining with a stronger (1% or greater) eosin solution followed by decolorizing in alcohol or another destaining agent.

The problem is that most (I am tempted to say “all”) beginners are prone to overstaining. They’ll add a drop of stain to the fixed slide, wait 30 seconds, and then decide they’d better wait a bit longer, just in case. After all, too much is always better than not enough, right? And they almost never decolorize. After all, again, why remove the stain you just added, right?

The formulation we’ve been supplying–1% eosin with both calcium ions and acetic acid–has a big advantage: it guarantees results, in the sense that the specimen will indeed be stained. But this concentrated formulation is what I’d use myself, and I’d decolorize after staining. So I’m thinking about changing to a 0.5% concentration in DI water. The downside to this is that it may not stain intensely enough to suit an experienced user, unless they stain for longer than they’re used to doing. The upside is that a typical beginner who uses this concentration will probably “overstain”, as usual, and as a result see some actual differentiation.