A week filled with martial arts practice, conversations around AI, Copyright, and what it means to be an author in today’s society, and more League of Legends Arena than I care to admit.

Everybody Wing Chun Tonight

I finally decided to get back to martial arts, and have started attending a local Wing Chun school after work two days a week. Even just in my first couple days, I can tell it is a very different style from when I previously studied Choy Li Fut. The classes are about 1.5 hours long and are a mix of form practice, partner practice, and learning new techniques. I know the first third or so of Siu Nim Tao form and have been practicing it a couple times a day outside of class.

I’m really excited to be participating in this class, and it’s nice to get to interact with people who aren’t just purely in tech. I realize that I’ve really over-optimized my life for interacting with people in tech. Most of the people I’ve met in the class aren’t in tech, though I did overhear a couple high school students talking about the latest League of Legends patch changes, and one of them mentioned he was going to study Computer Science starting in the fall. One tech-adjacent person in the class besides me is a pretty good ratio for the bay area, I think.

I’ve also done a few 30 minute sessions of yoga at home, which isn’t really related to Wing Chun but also doesn’t deserve its own section. I’ve never done yoga before this week, but it has been helpful in stretching and increasing flexibility. I still have a long way to go, though, and I might try to start attending a yoga class at the local YMCA.

One other thing that always surprises me, though it shouldn’t by now, is how much I want healthier foods when I’m more active. I went for a ruck on Wednesday and stopped at Whole Foods on my way back just to buy some fruit.

I attended an event at Internet Archive on Friday titled “Authorship in an Age of Monopoly and Moral Panic.” It was hosted by Authors Alliance and covered a variety of topics surrounding the use of LLMs in the production of creative works, copyright implications for the input and output of LLMs, as well as discussion around the open access to media, both scientific and generally published media.

Cory Doctorow gave the keynote and covered topics in line with the theme of the event, and also very familiar topics from The Internet Con, which I finished reading a few weeks ago.

Overall I really enjoyed the event. It was my first time visiting Internet Archive, and I left with new thoughts around how we interact with LLMs as a society. I wish I had written down the names of all the panelists, but I thought every one of them brought interesting ideas to the table.

What I’m Reading

Bruce Lee: Artist of Life

By Bruce Lee, John Little

ISBN: 978-0804832632
Learn More

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I read through the sections on Jeet Kune Do and Acting, and I’m in the final sections of the book, Self-Knowledge followed by Letters. I think one thing that I’ve always really liked is that Bruce Lee’s outlook on life was this sort of blend of taoist and zen philosophies, mixed with practical modern (at the time) philosophies. He aimed to be an “artist of life”, as the title suggests, and I really like this sentiment. Why do I have to be just a hacker, or just a security engineer, or just a rapper, or just an anything? It’s all just part of life.

Interesting Links

• Application Isolation using NixOS Containers - In pursuit of a more perfect system, I’d love to mix the isolation capabilities of qubes with the declarative nature of NixOS. Looks like I’m not the only one who wishes for such, and this post has a lot of useful details in pursuing the desired outcome. I want my Signal desktop app to be completely isolated with an individually encrypted volume, what can I say.
• HTML As She Is Spoke - A post from 20 years ago from the author of Beautiful Soup. It has a quote that I found quite amusing, “A pirate might make you walk the plank, but only a parser would make you walk the whole tree.”
• Puter - What, your mom buy you a Puter for Christmas? It’s a virtual computer in the browser. I haven’t personally used it, but I saw it and think it’s quite a cool project.
• Computers aren’t ready for this - An old college friend sent me this short (12 second) video and it’s fantastic.
• How I experience web today - A chilling reminder of how terrible the web has become.
• Plex-Audiobook-Guide - I haven’t really used Plex for audiobooks, but a friend asked me about it and this looks like a pretty useful resource. I’d love to get my audio books out of Audible so I can retain a copy of them.
• audible-activator - Speaking of retaining a copy of my audible audio books, this project purports to do just that. I haven’t tried it yet or reviewed the source, so use at your own risk.

Upcoming Projects

• BSides Las Vegas Talk - Pending feedback on CFP submission. (Due: N/A - Done)
• OWASP Global AppSec Training - (Due: N/A)
• Defcon 32 Call for Artists - I have a set list playlist on Soundcloud and I know the promotional photo I’d like to use but need to get the high res version of it. Then I’ll have everything ready to submit the application. (Due: 2024-06-01)
• Defcon 32 Call For Soundtrack - I’ve heard the mix on my new song “Oh Dade”, produced by Mikal kHill. It needs to be mastered but is on track to submit by the deadline. If it’s accepted, it will debut on the Defcon soundtrack. If it’s not accepted, I will release it the same day I find out it’s not accepted. (Due: 2024-06-01)