I worry that people who read my last newsletter may have been left with the impression that I spend all of my free time watching crappy Netflix shows. This is not true. I also watch crappy Netflix movies.
The Netflix Original Project Power is sort of Dangerous Minds meets Taken. In the movie, Jamie Foxx, who plays Michele Pfeiffer / Liam Neeson, delivers this inspiring quote:
You gotta find out what you do better than anybody else and rock that.
Here’s another quote from the same movie:
You’re about to witness a very rare power. Thermoregulation.
So, you know, it’s hit and miss. Also, Jamie Foxx’s character has shrimp superpowers. (This is not a joke. I mean, it’s clearly funny, but it’s actually in the movie and the movie is not a comedy.)
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about that quote recently. Is thermoregulation really such a rare power? Maybe yes! My family is fostering two adorable kittens (obligatory Instagram), and it turns out kittens are bad at keeping themselves warm. This is presumably why they like to sleep on me:
I’ve been thinking about that other quote, too. What is it that I do better than anyone else? It’s a tough question to answer because I’m great at a lot of things, especially modesty. But lately, I’ve been trying to be the best at “technical writing”. I’m even considering being a technical writer when I grow up, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to do the job well.
I have many thoughts on this subject, but I’ll give you a break and share just one for now. My favorite book about writing is Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. His take on the writer’s role in what he calls the “classic style” of writing has become my North Star for technical writing:
The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader's gaze so that she can see it for herself. … [T]he reader is competent and can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. The writer and the reader are equals, and the process of directing the reader's gaze takes the form of a conversation.
Hey, you didn’t do your homework!
In my last newsletter, I gave you homework. You were supposed to do my Capture the Flag challenge! No one’s solved it yet, though I’ve been helping one person over email, and I think he’s pretty close. I’m going to hold off on posting the solution at least through this coming weekend. Let me know if you need any help.
Boy, that was a lot of reading. Here’s some more!
Here are the blog posts I wrote since the last newsletter:
BIP39: Mnemonics for Recording Long Keys – BIP39 is really neat. It solves the problem of “Humans can’t remember or reliably write down 256-bit random numbers.”
Cracking BIP39 Seed Phrases – This was something of a follow-up to the previous blog post. In it, I write about how to use the checksum in BIP39 seed phrases to speed up recovering a phrase that’s missing a word.
Extension Methods in Dart: a Tale of Two Kitties – I pretty much wrote this on a dare from myself at the bottom of the last newsletter. This was great fun to write, and I think you’ll really enjoy reading it even if you don’t care about Dart or extension methods.
And here are a few things I didn’t write but did enjoy reading:
Ethereum Is a Dark Forest – If you’re not into Ethereum, this might be hard to follow, but it’s an interesting story and a great way to understand transaction front running.
Remote Code Execution in Slack desktop apps – This HackerOne report describes a pretty cool bug, but the bigger story might be how small of a bounty Slack paid out.
The 1Password Security Design Whitepaper – I seriously did enjoy reading this. It’s a good technical spec for how 1Password’s security works, but you might be surprised that it also has excellent pacing and personality.
Exposure Notification Cryptography Specification – This is the spec for how the Google/Apple digital contract tracing stuff works. It’s a little dry as compared to the previous link, but it’s informative. I’m working on a blog post that will explain the system at a higher level, with a focus on privacy. Stay tuned for that.