Entries in Life

It looks like OpenBSD's DARPA grant was cut after the founder of OpenBSD, Theo de Raadt, expressed discomfort about the source of funding, musing that "I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built."

The funding didn't go to OpenBSD directly — DARPA can't fund non-U.S. projects and OpenBSD is based in Canada — but it seems the person who was "laundering" the money for DARPA wasn't happy with Theo's discomfort.

What does all this mean? Perhaps not quite so many drunken design sessions?

I've stopped eating a lot of cookies.

Generally, Mozilla prompts me to accept a cookie and I decline. Sometimes, a website gets upset and sends me an angry message "You have to have cookies to use this site!"

But, there is another way. NetFlix wants you to eat the cookies, but instead of saying "Eat the cookie, goofball!" they give you an ad: "Look at what you can get by using NetFlix. Want it? Eat the cookie!"

The difference, of course, is that they are trying to persuade me to stay instead of scaring me off. Because there are times when I just decide I'm not that interested in what the website has, and I'll leave without chowing down.

Take a lesson, webmasters! Persuade rather than coerce.