PWN3D
I made it through Stripe's CTF. Here, CTF is a game where you move to levels by exploiting security holes in software built for the game.
I had a lot of fun working through the levels and I learned a lot about web security exploits in practice. I think Stripe did a really good job designing the levels (especially some of the later ones), and hosting the event.
Don't worry, I'm not a l33t hacker, I needed lots of hints to move through the game. However, I think the "cheating" was worth it to learn what the exploits were and to try my hand at implementing them. One of the things I found was that even when you know the exploit, implementing it can still be tricky. Especially since you are typically running exploit code in an environment that you have limited information and/or control over.
Twitter Nostalgia
Back in college I created a Twitter client for a GUI class I was taking at the time. This was in 2008 when I still had to explain to people what Twitter was. You can see the UI in the image above. For this project, I wanted to create a way to quickly move from timeline to timeline. It's hard to imagine without seeing it in motion.
I wrote this in Java and, surprisingly, the JAR I built back in 2008 still runs today. However, the Twitter API has changed enough that login is broken.
Looking back at this project, it's interesting for me to see how little the core functionality of Twitter has changed in the past 4 years. I even remember hitting API rate limits while trying to demo this project. I also remember a sense of excitement about what Twitter, and its community, might evolve into.
Twitter created a big stir today by announcing new restrictions for anyone using their API. I'm left wondering how this will affect them in the long run. It's easy to see how this could start a trend of "early-adopter" types moving to other platforms.
For me, Twitter has always been a sort of frivolous fun. I do get enjoyment out of it, but how much real content or engagement can you squeeze into 140 characters? Not to mention there are still many usability issues, such as following conversations (especially among more than 2 people) and handling external content and links.
That said, I think Twitter is amazing for its real-time feed; something I can tap into on just about any device I care about. However, as this type of tech becomes commonplace, I wonder what Twitter has in store to continue to delight users and improve as a platform for communication. The Web grows larger every day, but Twitter seems to be trending toward a smaller community by cutting out third-party developers. I can't help but wonder: for what purpose?
Cardinal $ins
I found this article on mongolab about query performance for ranges very useful. It gives a nice view into what MongoDB is doing as it executes queries of this type.