A neat bit of security from Google

Let's say you're using a PC you've never used before, and you want to use GMail, but you're not sure you want to enter your password on it, because it might have a keylogger.

Simple - well, if you have an Android phone - go to https://accounts.google.com/sesame and it shows a QR code (one of those 2D barcodes). Scan that from the phone and it asks you (on the phone) if you want to allow access. If you say yes then the PC is automatically logged in to GMail.

Works on non-Android phones too, apparently - but they don't have your account info stored on them, so you have to log in on the phone to tell it who you are.

Interesting Links for 16-01-2012

• An excellent interview with Alex Salmond, the man who wants to break up Britain
  (tags: scotland independence uk AlexSalmond )
• A video, starting with a blank image, and searching recursively for similar ones. Fascinating art.
  (tags: video recursive photographs )
• Autistic children learn to communicate using computers
  (tags: autism computers children Technology communication )
• Some recent polling data on Scottish Independence
  (tags: scotland independence polls )
• The amazing salad towers of China
  (tags: salad vegetables food engineering )
• The New York Times wonders if the truth is important.
  (tags: politics journalism nytimes true media reporting )
• They're making a TV series out of Goodfellas!
  (tags: tv crime goodfellas )
• The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives
  (tags: leadership management business failure )
• On dealing with the imperfectibility of your self. I loved this.
  (tags: perfection humanity life comic )
• Rather pretty doodles
  (tags: art )

I'm not (yet) really interested in talking about Scottish Independence

The reason I didn't post a poll about Scottisn Independence last week is
that I couldn't face the ensuing debate. The referendum almost certainly
isn't going to be for another three and a half years and any discussion now
will be reconsidered, reversed, reiterated, and generally be out of date
come that point. I actually hope that setting a date means that we can
stop thinking about it for at least two of those years and move on to
talking about other things.

What _does_ fascinate me is the politics around it, the manouvering, the
reactions to it, etc. The people-watching parts are currently far more
interesting to me than the thing itself. Once it's less than a year away
it will feel worthwhile having an opinion that goes further than "There
should be a referendum so that a decision can be made." For now, I'll
stick to being amused at the press tying itself in knots trying to work out
what it thinks.

Google Reader ate my memory

I noticed at work that Firefox kept taking up large amounts of memory, which it hasn't done for a while (not since the massive improvements in versions 6 and 7)*. So I did some digging in about:memory and discovered that a lot of the memory was eaten up by Google Reader. To be more accurate - by links to Google Plus buttons, which weren't being disposed of over the course of the day.

As I can't even get to Google Plus from work this seemed a tad silly, so I went looking for a solution and discovered that adding plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton to my Adblock Plus filters** suddenly reduced the memory that Google Reader was taking up from 400MB to 9MB. Where it then stayed for the rest of the day.

*Except for when Firebug is running. That thing eats memory.
**I've never added a filter before, ABP seems to be pretty awesome at spotting ads.