Yael Writes

It’s a short and sweet roundup of posts I wrote that were published in October. (There are about five more in purgatory, though, and I have a half dozen assignments on top of that so November should be a doozie!)

Why Scribd Changes Copy-Pasted Text To 104-Point Comic Sans (Motherboard) I noticed this while cutting and pasting from a legal document to prep for a podcast, and had to investigate.

Figure Out The Best Training Option For Your Unique Circumstance (Performance Menu, paywalled) If you want to get your sweat on but can’t decide between following a workout program from a book, signing up for group training, splurging for personal training, and so forth, this article will help you figure out the best option based on your specific situation.

Podcasts

Texas Withdraws From Federal Refugee Resettlement Program (Interview with Dylan Baddour, reporter for the Houston Chronicle)

The CIA’s Not-So-Covert Plan For (Cyber)War With Russia (Interview with Trevor Timm, executive director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, and columnist for the Guardian)

Friday Buyouts From The Wall Street Journal (Interview with Jennie Phipps, independent writer and editor and the owner of Freelance Success)

But First, Coffee And Puppies

I was also a guest on Episode 31 of the This Makes Me Happy podcast.

This month, I spoke at Tales From the Cybercrypt,  a Jewish tech journo panel moderated by Alan Zeichick, alongside Howard Cohen and Esther Schindler, and Arizona Jewish Life wrote a post about me before the event. Monday Morning Dumpster Dive, my new podcast with Jimmy Jenkins, made it to KJZZ’s podcast page! Check out our old episodes on our page there.There’s also an RSS subscription. My husband and I beat the heat with a quick trip to the White Mountains (hiking! cabins! unplugging due to poor WiFi!), and I started training at an amazing gym with an amazing coach. And yet, I somehow managed to get some work done… Here are nine posts of mine from five different sites that went live in August.

• Interview: Meet Kor Adana, The Man Who Keeps Mr. Robot’s Hacks on Point (Forbes) The writer and tech producer, a former network security analyst himself, explains how he keeps the hacks on the show real, deals with legal issues, and balances the show’s riveting storyline with accurate technical details.

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 5: 5/9 Truth: Wake Up Sheeple! (Forbes) Four tech experts discuss the smarthome hack, two-factor authentication, and Fsociety’s sometimes lax operational security.

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 6: Angela Moss Becomes A Skiddie (Forbes) This episode, we discussed femtocells, Signal, credit card cloners, rubber duckies, and what to do when you get caught committing espionage. (Don’t try this at home, skiddies!)

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 7: What Is Real? (Forbes) This week, we discussed the nature of reality, evil-coin, and the episode’s big reveal. (YES, there are spoilers.)

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 8: Darlene Takes Off The Heart-Shaped Glasses (Forbes) In this episode, we discussed dead body opsec, hacking passwords, conference calls, Stagefright, phone forensics, messaging tools, and so much more.

• Building An MVP That Works (Dice Insights) Determining the right time to release a minimum viable product isn’t easy. You have to be careful not to pack in too many features.

• How VR Will Help Sculpt The Athlete Of The Future (Motherboard) Virtual reality has the potential to improve how elite-level athletes prepare for the big game.

• What Happens At The Gym Stays At The Gym (Performance Menu). The first of a two-part series, focusing on protecting people’s privacy at the gym. (Part two will include technical solutions for gym owners. (This post is paywalled but you can buy the issue for $5.99 or an annual subscription for $30.)

• Coping With Suicide Through Old Chat Logs (Daily Dot) I wrote about what I learned about my friend’s death by reviewing our Google Chat message history.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. We almost got buried since there were five (count ’em) news dumps last Friday. In our fifth episode, we looked at Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign, Ken Starr’s resignation from Baylor, Arpaio being recommended for criminal contempt charges, Baltimore terminating its contract with a government lawyer accused of past neo-Nazi ties–and the man who hired him resigning, and the latest on South Mountain Freeway expansion court battle.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. In our fourth episode, we spoke with attorney Aaron Williamson about a federal judge overturning the conviction of Brendan Dassey for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. In our third episode, we spoke with NPR Business Correspondent Sonari Glinton about Tesla’s Gigafactory woes. We also discussed Trump’s endorsement of Paul Ryan and John McCain.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.