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Here are some things that I found today that provided nuance: John Green’s Post Election Thoughts (youtube.com)

Statement from California Legislative Officials (senate.ca.gov)

Obama Addresses Election Results (youtube.com)

Stephen Colbert Election Sign-off (youtube.com)

Michael Moore’s 5 point plan (good.is)

I vote for humanity (medium.com)

My Portfolio (theirrelevantinvestor.com)

“Brexit and the Trump election share the same root causes:

Inequality within developed countries, leading to dissatisfaction among working-class voters.

Globalization benefits accrue largely to capital owners, leaving a lot of workers behind. Many blame immigration since it is the most visible cause. The blame is partly backed by human's xenophobic instincts.

We're all at our wit's end from this viscous election cycle. Not a single person I know is satisfied with the state of American politics. There is no middle ground, no last bastion of sanity. We need to create one. 

After such tumultuous coverage, such polarization, vitriol, demonization, we owe it to ourselves as well as our fellow citizens. We've lost the 'consent of the governed’ required for a free society to function. If your preferred candidate doesn't win he/she's 'not my president'. This attitude is how we got here. That, and the inevitability of a system designed to cater to the smallest majority possible. 

The good news is we can do something about it. Now is the time to discuss some aspects of our political system we overlook. Mainly, I'd like to shed light on how our system of voting contributes to a 'lesser of two evils' decision making process. If we don't change how we vote, we will forever be bound to this cesspool of senseless tribalism. 

Filling in the bubbles the way we do, you only vote for one candidate, It's all for one. Though basic, and democratic, this system will always lead back to no more than two political parties. 

Luckily, there exists alternatives. They are just as democratic. Preferential voting is a system where you rank all available candidates from Most preferred to least, this immediately depowers the polarization that we have with only two choices as the second most preferred candidate gains importance. This would enable moderate positions to arise and gain popularity. 

I for one am disappointed in everyone. I'm disappointed in the DNC, the RNC, myself, the media, reddit, et al. We've allowed for such devolution of discussion. We remain nearsighted. We don't trust experts. We don't challenge our own ideas. We march along, mired in our own self-loathing. 

Editor's Note: I wrote this after watching the State of the Union Address two years ago. In this I say what I wish I heard from our Commander and Chief.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans:

We've experienced a tumultuous start to the 21st century: Witnessing terror turn to war, banking turn to gambling and then to bankruptcy.

Our nation may be strong, but the state of our Union is unacceptable. Though each branch of government is here tonight in a factitious display of solidarity, we are not representatives of the will of the people.

I stand before a Congress, ready to acclaim itself as the largest majority of R’s next to names since Herbert Hoover held my office. I've heard the sound bites claiming the American people spoke emphatically at the polls this past November, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Americans are tired of gridlocked party politics. Only 36% of eligible voters decided their voice mattered. This is unacceptable.

Most Congressional districts have been gerrymandered to death. They resemble shapes only found in Rorschach tests. This is unacceptable.

We are the only high income country to not provide maternity leave by law. This is unacceptable.

We have a security agency that won’t stop at any morality checkpoint. We chase the only one brave enough to shed light on the monstrosity that the NSA has become, insisting he’s a coward and a traitor along the way. This is unacceptable.

We have ambassadors who don't speak the language of the very people they are to engage.

We have a media, so hell bent on delivering an agenda that we have literal shouting matches in lieu of investigative journalism.

We have a government that can shut down by approving a budget but not the borrowing of funds needed to support said budget.

We don't have a manned space program. We treat politics like a sports game but worse, there's no salary cap, and the athletes don't have to be smart or talented or articulate or considerate.

The stock market proliferates dark pools where HFTs syphon liquidity out of the market and into the pockets of those wealthy enough to control them.

We treat corporations better than the people they employ. We need to be planning for the future, not just keeping par with the past. We aren't even keeping par with the past: The value of a house as a ratio of median household income has increased and the real minimum wage is down while the consumer price index is up. I am, quite frankly, astounded by the stigma associated with raising the value of an American life.

There are questions that need raising, problems that need addressing, but we're sitting here attacking across the aisle.

We're attacking across a SINGULAR aisle. There is no possible method by which two parties can represent 300 million people. There isn't a party that represents a woman who demands equal pay for equal work and believes life begins at conception.  No party for the social libertarian that harbors hawkish foreign policy views, no voice for a mixture of perspective of any kind.

Our insistence on first past the post voting leaves us with the lesser of two evils rather than real representation. I am not content being the lesser of two evils, I am not content being a last resort. I, in the twilight of my presidency, will work to bring choice, civility, and honor back to our Union. And even if I am unable to overcome this bastion of belittling and bickering, know this, America, I've tried.

To those of you that voted for me as a last resort, not out of hope, but out of fear, I'm sorry. I am your president, and I know you exist. You matter, and you shouldn't have to feel so trapped in the voting booth.

My world’s on fire, how ‘bout yours? Technology is a blessing and a curse. It’s an accelerator. We’re picking up speed and going in the wrong direction. 

Social media is everything and nothing all at once. Day after day, I see people using technology to further insulate themselves from productive discussion. 

Don’t like Kelly’s views? Unfollow. Blake piss you off with yet another ‘murica post? Block. Who to follow on twitter? How about the news sources that most fit your parents’ political party. Perfect. Best not to rock the boat to which you’ve become accustomed. 

Guns? Good or bad. Gay Marriage? Good or bad. Foreign Intervention? Good or bad. Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists? If the label doesn’t fit you, you probably think all of its positions are untenable.

Consistently, we choose to accept the binary political climate our parents carefully crafted. It’s a healthy exercise to watch videos of political candidates from the major parties over the last 40 years. Republicans idolize Reagan, but I’m convinced he would have lasted less time than Rick Perry in a primary today. Ford’s State of the Union address featured a man not afraid to address the nation as adults. There were no side stories about Gladys, mother of three, with a gluttony of situations to which a potential voter can relate. Facts aren’t affected by feelings, but voters are. Macroeconomic trends are not beholden to the average person’s opinions, and they certainly don’t care which issue is your ‘hill to die on’.

In light of the recent violence, one can’t help but be enraged. I’m angry, I’m hurt. I’m sure there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said surrounding police brutality and it’s unending tendency to fall along racial lines. Anger is warranted, cries for change are imperative. 

With the ubiquity of camera phones, we will only be more and more confronted with the realities of our modern society. We will have more tools. They will enable us to yell, cry, and laugh louder. It’s important that our outrage is met with measured calls for appropriate change. 

With brutality, accountability is paramount. Respect for police is a necessity. These are not mutually exclusive elusive goals. Somewhere along the way, police moved from being members of society to being enforcers and outsiders. We’re equally to blame for that move. We’ve allowed the militarization of police to progress unchecked. We let the media spin police motivations. We watch the news because being scared is a drug. 

We are a part of the solution. Anger needs channeling. Good police work needs applauding. Police need to be brought back into our communities through creative means.

Body cameras are a must, but we must not treat them like the holy grail they’ve been touted to be. With a camera, accountability is accompanied by the death of leniency. I, for one, am not comfortable with the letter of the law in many circumstances. I think we’re capable of designing systems that don’t further remove police from the policed. There is no easy recipe for change, but respect is one of the first ingredients. 

The News sucks. To the average consumer, the world has never been darker. Republicans, Democrats, the President, Congress, Everyone has never been more wrong. Your neighbor is out to get you, pregnant women only get abortions to let someone sell their fetus, only guns stop guns from gunning. We're headed down the worst path deviating from any semblance of truth. Truth is, the kids are alright. The world isn't entirely okay, but we're doing a particularly terrible job at focussing our efforts on things that matter. We're doing an even worse disservice to ourselves tempering our discussion so as to function with a modicum of decorum. 

Television news pauses between every segment to sell LifeAlert. It's become an obvious fact that TV news only focuses on self-serving topics and relies on scare tactics to drive viewership. Radio news only comes in the form of an angry, late-aged, and overweight white man; pausing only to remind me of the impending doom of identity theft. 

Traditional mediums of news have run their course away from both relevance and objectivity. I am sadden that too many in modern society still pay heed to its messages and those who deliver it. "News brings you: expert opinion edited, mediated, and minimized by non-experts who ask questions designed to elicit the most alarming responses."[0]

So where does one turn? the box in the living room is useless, the car dashboard offers little value beyond an aux cable (and A/C). If only there were some other big form of consumption that stands as a bastion of reality and temperament. 

Oh right, the internet! That thing that has the ability to connect us all, but only serves as yet another tool to divide and conquer the masses. What could be the great level playing field ends up being used as an echochamber. Log on to Facebook, see what your like-minded friends have shared. Maybe like a post or two that share your views, and you'll see more of them tomorrow. Remove that one friend who posts things you don't like to think about, hide he who shares too many cats. Narrow your exposure, hone your reinforcing mechanisms to further limit your mindset.

Even if you make it out of your bubble, you're inundated with noise. Noise is anything frivolous you might encounter consuming the modern web. We're constantly barraged by things that don't matter. Sites are engineered to 'drive engagement', titles have become entirely formulaic. "Share this post, you won't believe what happens next!". I know what happens next. 

I'll be suckered into clicking on a post that leads me to a site that uses a layover to ask me a stupid question. "Do you think racism is bad? Like if you agree. Share this video if you don't torture puppies." 

I could go on about how put off I am with the state of things. But as I said earlier, we're smarter than we've ever been, we're better than the avenues of media we're generally presented. There's plenty of good conversation to be had about important topics. I'm starting to work on a project to bring thought, insight, and relevant discussion to one place where I find it online. I'll post again about its details, but for a first look you can go to news.samverhasselt.com

Cruise control is an excellent concept. it keeps your foot on the gas without the effort. In 20 years, will children ask what the phrase ‘Foot on the Gas’ means? If we think of life as a journey, there are plenty of times to use cruise control. Unfortunately for me, the vehicle I’ve affectionately called Truck for the past 5 years had no such feature. Truck is a 1991 Ford Ranger XLT. 

My life hasn’t had much cruise control in the last 5 years either. I’ve gone to college. I’ve lived in a garage. Interned. Worked. Traveled. And now, I’ve moved. 

Three weeks ago, I loaded the belongings I hadn’t sold or put in storage into Truck and drove to San Francisco. This departure from Los Angeles was not a spur of the moment fly-by-night decision. I opted to move in order to help my beloved DataPop team integrate into the larger Criteo family. Personally, I thought the move would be good. I have an opportunity to experience a new city, and with it, a new lifestyle. As an LA-lien, I’d gotten used to the beach, constant sunny weather, driving everywhere, and loving life with the friends I’d come to know and love. None of these activities, however regular, ever felt like cruise control. There was always some new curve up ahead-never time to set and forget the speed I was traveling. 

Truck has what we’ll call... character. Although it had value, its worth was sentimental in nature. Truck and I simply could not weather the parking fees in the city of San Francisco. After a week, half of trucks actual value was spent just keeping the option to drive it. 

I find myself now, a proud member of a car family, carless. I’m in a new city, and again I have no option to put things on cruise control. 

As a millennial, I'm more inclined to watch television shows on my schedule rather than the network's. My news is sourced from the internet, not the 11 o'clock scare hour.

The Late Show was never directly on my radar. This week, seeing the entire entertainment industry give pause and reflect on David Letterman's influence on their careers was extraordinary. Jimmy Kimmel went as far as to not tape a show to run in the parallel timeslot on ABC. He requested that his viewers tune in to Letterman's final hurrah.  In turn, I opted to watch his timely last show.

During the montage of clips airing after his final send off, I thought about how Letterman might've directly affected me. Surprisingly, some fond memories came to mind. 

Freshman year of college, my roommate and I were fortunate enough to get a *gasp* 32'' 720p capable TV. Immediately after unboxing and placing it in the middle of our cramped dorm room, we decided to track down an HD video. Sure, nowadays every cameraphone is equipped with an HD camera, but in 2009 it was a challenge to find a video that could test the new screen.  The first one we could find? A Kid Cudi live performance on the Late Show. We must've been responsible for dozens of views in the coming month.

Letterman's segue from the commercial break was... odd. I remember thinking the man was just plain weird. But hey, normal is boring, right? 

From time to time, a top 10 list would bubble up and I'd see a Letterman clip here and there. But more often than not, I enjoyed the enthusiasm David showed towards the live performances he had on his show. I think the Future Islands Late Show performance was a career catalyst. His reaction was similar to my own

after seeing their rendition of seasons. 

I started seeing a lot of jersey’s the first day, and thought it’d be cool to see what teams/players were represented at the concert festival. The pictures could be better. I am no professional photographer and NBA throwbacks weren’t my main concert objective. I tried to not repeat, there were far more Bryant jersey’s than anything else. Also my phone was dead for the last day… So this is really just the first two days of the festival. Hope you enjoy!

Recently, I was asked to make a list of all the open source libraries I was using in a project at work. I realized that pip freeze and pip list both only returned version numbers of the python modules in my python environment.

To remedy this, I used pip search to get the descriptions of those modules so that I could give a more descriptive list of packages used in my project.

The bash 'one-liner' I used to generate this list is as follows.

pip freeze --local | grep -v '^\-e' | cut -d = -f 1 | xargs -n1 pip search | grep -B1 INSTALLED | sort | uniq | grep -v INSTALLED

The output yields something like this:

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was studying for the CISA, an accounting certification for information systems. His book did a less-than-stellar job of describing the process of ensuring data quality with checksums.

His question originally was:

can you explain hash data?

Well, yes, if you elaborate on what type of hash data you need explained.

The process of applying a mathematical algorithm to the data that travel in the network and placing the results of this operation with the hash data is used for controlling data integrity

Ahhh yes, the use of a checksum. For some, the aforementioned definition is all you need.

Here’s how using checksums should be explained

Checksums Explained

The Goals

You want to send a file.

You want to make sure that the whole file is sent, and that nothing changed while that file was sent.

The How

Before you send the file, using an algorithm, make a combination of letters and numbers based on the file contents.

Send that unique string of ‘595f44fec1e92a71d3e9e77456ba80d1’ along with the data.

When it gets to where it’s going, apply the same algorithm to the file contents and see if the combination matches.

The Followup

So if it doesn’t match, there is likely a virus or some type of attempted hack?

Exactly! Either the file contents were maliciously tampered with, or some of the data didn’t get transferred accidentally. It’s important to remember that files get transferred in little packets.

I followed this tutorial to set up my SSL certificate on verysuchmuch.com.

The formatting made it a little difficult to read so I decided to repost and explain the steps myself. In the following comands, replace "example.com" with your domain name.

Generate SSL Key

sudo su

openssl genrsa -des3 -out example.com.key 2048

openssl rsa -in example.com.key -out example.com.key.nopass

openssl req -new -key example.com.key.nopass -out example.com.csr

Here you'll be prompted to enter some information about your site. All questions marked with '[]' are optional, however, 'Common Name' must be the same as your domain name. Also, don't enter a Challenge Password.

cat example.com.csr

Namecheap Steps

Now, navigate to the Your SSL Certificates page of your Namecheap account. Select 'Activate Now' on your certificate.

Select server type: Apache/OpenSSL*

Copy the entire contents of example.com.csr into the text area, this includes the -----BEGIN---- and ----END--- tags.

Enter the additional information Namecheap asks for and submit the form. 

After 30 minutes to a few hours, You'll receive an email with a zip file containing 3 files. Unzip the file, and then open a terminal in the directory where you placed them. 

cat example_com.crt PositiveSSLCA2.crt AddTrustExternalCARoot.crt > example.com.crt

Copy example.com.crt and example.com.key.nopass to a place on your server where nginx can access them. For me, I chose: /usr/local/etc/nginx/ssl/

Nginx Configuration

In your nginx configuration for example.com place:

ssl on; ssl_certificate /usr/local/etc/nginx/ssl/example.com.crt; ssl_certificate_key /usr/local/etc/nginx/ssl/example.com.key.nopass;

in the server {} block.

You should be set to restart nginx and be certified! (sudo service nginx restart)

Further consideration: 

I didn't have https set up prior to purchasing a certificate, so I needed a new server {} block in my configuration listening on port 443 instead of 80. 

server { listen 0.0.0.0:443;

ssl on; ssl_certificate /usr/local/etc/nginx/ssl/example.com.crt; ssl_certificate_key /usr/local/etc/nginx/ssl/example.com.key.nopass;

server_name example.com; access_log /var/log/nginx/example.access.log; location / {  # redacted  }

}

To force people that hit example.com on regular http over port 80:

server { listen 0.0.0.0:80; server_name example.com; access_log /var/log/nginx/example.access.log; return 301 https://example.com;

}

Nancy Pelosi was once again a guest on the Daily Show on January 30th. My thoughts are somewhat corralled below.

The Daily Show

Stewart begins the interview by asking if there is a systemic issue to how the government functions inside the beltway. He points out how our politicians are constantly asked about the political implications of any decision, rather than the substance on which the decision is based.

To me, our political system has deteriorated into something that resembles a reality television show. The media from all fronts focusses on petty and pedantic things by posing questions such as, "Will this hurt Chris Christie's chances to run in 2016?" WHY THE HELL DO PEOPLE CARE? STOP FEEDING THE FUCKING FRENZY!

The constant badgering by the media to determine who 'won' a particular battle on the hill is terrifying. Nancy is the most prime example of politics as usual. I qualify this statement by her responses in this interview. Her response to Stewart's question about "the mechanics of governance" demonstrates her unwillingness to own up to failure. She spins her response to attack across the aisle. Did she answer his question? No, she never intended to. She claims democrats have vision, and she's right. In general, they want to fix things. That really doesn't matter when their execution of their vision is sloppy, corrupt, and inefficient. 

She uses every opportunity to make her Us vs. Them mentality known. She cannot own up to failures by addressing the issue. There is too much corruption for any plan to be executed efficiently. 

Stewart tries so hard to have her admit there is a problem with how Washington governs, and she can't admit it. 

I've followed this debt ceiling tragedy very thoroughly. Throughout this event-that can only be described as idiotic and completely avoidable- I've become even more disenchanted by our federal government structure. Here I'd like to go through what happened with a fact based analysis. 

What is the Debt Ceiling?

After a plethora of efforts attempting to explain what the debt ceiling is, I've determined the quickest and most logical approach is to watch this video and discuss it afterwards: 

Hopefully, this sheds some light on just how dumb the concept of a debt limit is in our modern society. 

But isn't debt a bad thing?

Like most things, debt is good in moderation. Think about most families you know, they probably have a mortgage. Does that make them a bad person? No, they have a roof over their head and make payments for it every month. 

But, But... credit cards have limits for a reason!

Right you are, Ken. Credit cards have limits to stop a borrower from over spending. Here's where the debt limit is different: Congress determines how much yearly debt it will take on when it passes a budget. Passing a budget that spends more than it gets in revenues should inherently raise the amount the government allows it to borrow. The debt limit is not anything like a credit card. A credit company sets your limit, but the government is it's own credit company in this situation. A smart governing body should know the consequences of its budgeting. 

If someone wants to take a stand about government spending, it should be done when budget deliberations take place. WHERE NORMAL PEOPLE DISCUSS SPENDING AND IT'S IMPLICATIONS.

No matter what your political leaning is, you should see how this government shutdown negatively affected the economy. This entirely unnecessary and outright stupid political maneuver should never happen again.

What's the solution?

The debt limit as a concept needs to be abolished. The government already sets how much it spends with budgets. If we want to get the debt back to a reasonable level, we do it logically and methodically during budget deliberations. 

Final Thoughts

Roulette is a sucker's game. The house advantage is listed in this table:

As you can see, the house wins more often than not, and thus the world continues to spin.

However, there is a method of playing such that you have a near 99% chance of walking away a winner. The key is managing expectations, starting funds, and bet size.

My esteemed colleague (and friend) Quin and I put together a quick roulette simulator to test the Wesley Snipes advice of "Always Bet on Black."

The internet is riddled with confusing advice about how to really win at roulette, but as you can see from the table above the house advantage exists for every kind of bet. So let's take a look at the 'bet on black' strategy.

The simple premise is as follows: 

Place a bet on black

If you win, collect your winnings and place the same starting bet on black. If you lose, double your bet so that if you win this next roll, you win your money back plus the starting bet you originally wanted.

Because the ball lands on black 47% of the time, you will always lose with this strategy if you play for an infinite amount of time. Eventually, a string of all red and/or 0, 00 results will occur and you will be out of funds.

So, how do you win? It's simple, have a large starting fund, and only entertain the notions of modest winnings. 

Here's a scenario where you win ~96.95% of the time. Start with $10,000, make your initial bet as $10, and walk away after winning $100. That being said, when you lose, you walk away from the table with an average of $4934. This means you have a 3.05% chance of walking away with half of what you started.

Is the risk worth it? That's for you to decide. 

When you click 'Run Simulation', Your winning percentage is calculated by simulating 100k attempts of playing roulette with the aforementioned strategy*. Try out different combinations of starting funds, starting bet, and net winning and see if you like your odds!

I've recently acquired a bicycle from a coworker. It's a 70's Schwinn 12-speed. Needless to say, there are faster bikes on the road. I've taken to riding to work and showering upon getting in the office. This amounts to a ~6.5 mile ride in both the morning and evening.

My friend Quin has been very helpful setting up my route to work and giving me tips. So far I've been able to travel those 6.5 miles and only encounter 2 stop lights the whole time! Thus, biking to work has been both a healthy and safe addition to my work day. 

As a nerd, my love for data never ceases. I've been chronicling my biking activities with a mobile app called Strava. 

Here's a helper function for displaying numbers with the correct ordinal suffix (st, nd, rd, th) : 

https://gist.github.com/SaymV/5833429

I've been doing a little Python development lately. As someone who doesn't have much experience with the snake language (I'm not a parselmouth) I've been googling pretty much everything to find the best way to approach each new problem.

That being said, I found many ways of dealing with query strings at the ends of URLs. The first being the urlparse module. That seemed like the obvious solution, and definitely the most pythonic.

But I'm using the Flask web framework and it has it's own request object.  I decided to try and use it for my benefit. From the flask.Request documentation:

args¶

A MultiDict with the parsed contents of the query string. (The part in the URL after the question mark). 

Now, this is awesome for me because mongo's collection.find() method takes a dictionary as a parameter. Here's my final solution:

@app.route('/json/campaigns', methods=['GET', 'POST']) def json_campaign_handler(): campaigns = db['campaigns'] if request.method == 'GET': return get_documents(campaigns, request) elif request.method == 'POST': _id = campaigns.insert(request.json) return json.dumps({"_id": str(_id)})

Where get_documents is

def get_documents(collection, request): if request.args: queryDictionary = request.args.copy().to_dict() if '_id' in queryDictionary: queryDictionary['_id'] = ObjectId(queryDictionary['_id']) return get_json_from_cursor(collection.find(queryDictionary)) return get_json_from_cursor(collection.find())

So, after turning the possible _id parameter  into the mongo friendly ObjectId, the flattened args dictionary can be used to query your database!