Just a couple of tasty items today:
- One of my favorite BBQ places in Chicago, Smoke Daddy, will be opening at Hotel Zachary, which is currently under construction next to Wrigley Field. Next season's chow options will be that much better, not to mention excellent ribs a 20-minute walk from home.
- Republican US Senator Mark Kirk sparred with his Democratic opponent, US Representative Tammy Duckworth, at the Chicago Tribune's editorial board endorsement session yesterday.
That's it for now. Back to optimizing software.
Bruce Schneier points out that we software developers have more responsibility to protect users than they have to follow all of our instructions:
The problem isn't the users: it's that we've designed our computer systems' security so badly that we demand the user do all of these counterintuitive things. Why can't users choose easy-to-remember passwords? Why can't they click on links in emails with wild abandon? Why can't they plug a USB stick into a computer without facing a myriad of viruses? Why are we trying to fix the user instead of solving the underlying security problem?
Traditionally, we've thought about security and usability as a trade-off: a more secure system is less functional and more annoying, and a more capable, flexible, and powerful system is less secure. This "either/or" thinking results in systems that are neither usable nor secure.
We must stop trying to fix the user to achieve security. We'll never get there, and research toward those goals just obscures the real problems. Usable security does not mean "getting people to do what we want." It means creating security that works, given (or despite) what people do. It means security solutions that deliver on users' security goals without -- as the 19th-century Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs aptly put it -- "stress of mind, or knowledge of a long series of rules."
I'm sometimes guilty of it, too. Though, I also feel that users can do really stupid things that ought not to be our responsibility. After hearing countless stories about fraud, why do some users give credit card numbers to complete strangers, for example?
My friend Molly's newborn has become world-famous. Last week, Daniel made the cover of Bored Panda, which got picked up by Huffington Post, and now the Daily Mail has followed.
I've met the kid. He really is this cute.
Today is the last day of the Cubs' regular season, and what a season it's been. Regardless of the outcome of today's game the Cubs will have lost fewer than 60 games for the first time since 1945—the last time the Cubs went to the World Series.
They've also won over 100 games, and will finish with either 102 or 103 wins, the most since 1910. (The last time they won 100 games was in 1935.) Keep in mind, just four years ago they lost 101 games.
And then on Thursday, this happened:
As the Pirates and Cubs discovered Thursday night, there is tying in baseball. Their series finale at PNC Park was suspended and declared a 1-1 tie after being delayed by rain in the top of the sixth inning.
The tie game, the Majors' first since 2005, will not be reflected in either club's record. Major League Baseball deemed the suspended game to be a tie because it won't be completed before the end of the regular season on Sunday and won't affect either team in the standings.
he Pirates' last tie was Aug. 24, 1998, a 5-5 game against the Cardinals at Three Rivers Stadium.
The Cubs last played a tie game on May 28, 1993, a 2-2 decision against the Expos at Wrigley Field. They will finish their season with three games against the Reds in Cincinnati before opening the NLDS at Wrigley Field on Oct. 7.
What a weird season. And the Cubs' playoff run starts next Friday, against whoever wins the Wild Card tie-breaker on October 5th (San Francisco, St. Louis, or the Mets).