Category Archives: Misc

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March 21, 2019

What is the California Consumer Privacy Act?

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In 2018, the California legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  Set to go into effect in 2020, the CCPA arose out of a compromise between legislators, privacy advocates, and a California businessman who had proposed his own ballot measure.  How the CCPA came to be is a very interesting story – I encourage you to read more about it.  

What is the CCPA?

In a nutshell, the CCPA is a law that gives all California residents the right to access any data that companies collect about them, know how their data is used, and exercise control over whether and when their data is collected.  

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March 5, 2019

Using Headless Chrome to Detect XSS Vulnerabilities

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What are XSS vulnerabilities?

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, commonly referred to as “XSS” vulnerabilities, allow a third-party attacker to run arbitrary Javascript on a website. XSS vulnerabilities might allow a website to be used for crypto mining, for example, or could allow an attacker to steal auth tokens and other sensitive information.

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September 24, 2018

A Brief Introduction To Quantitative Finance

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Interest in the stock market has never seen such diversity as it has in recent years. Technologies have extended interest to a range of demographics that previously did not give much thought into investing and the public markets. Instead of requiring large account balances, persistent fees and unintuitive interfaces, digital first brokerages like Robinhood have proliferated access to the markets in a manner never before seen. Modern “robo-advisors”, like Wealthfront, provide easy access to financial advice to those who would previously not seek it, and micro-investing apps like Acorns make investing a passive, but profitable experience. While these solutions work great for those just getting started in the public markets, how do investment firms with billions of dollars on the line find appropriate investments?

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August 23, 2018

Motion & UX Design

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In recent years I have noticed mobile and web apps starting to include motion design in their user experiences. One example of this is Facebook reactions. Instead of the reactions instantly appearing on hover, they gradually appear to the user’s eye and animate to help the user further understand and choose their reaction. If the user hovers over a certain reaction it becomes larger to help signify to the user that that reaction will be the one they choose if the click or tap on it. The motion being used here keeps the user engaged in the app and is included in a meaningful and playful way.

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June 22, 2018

Emerging Tech Inspired by Self-Driving Cars

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Self-driving technology is even more fascinating when applied to things other than cars

Alternate Title: The Self-Driving ABCs

My boyfriend’s dad’s car was recently broken into. By itself, this would be a pretty low note to start a blog post with, but rest assured that nothing was stolen and only one window of the car had to be replaced. The situation was made 100 times better by the fact that he was lent a Tesla Model X while his own car was being serviced.

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June 6, 2018

Decentralized Applications

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The general definition associated with decentralized applications (DApps) is an application that functions through a peer-to-peer network as opposed to a single source or computer. The existence of such an app in cyberspace does not depend on a single authority. It can operate under a blockchain network or any other form of the peer-to-peer system (read more about blockchain here). Moreover, it is important to understand that the definition of these applications can differ with respect to the institution. The notion of blockchain originates from the concept adapted by bitcoin which uses cryptographically-stored records. There are limited tokens in the system as a means of checking the value of the currency. Different DApps exist for different purposes but the key property of the application is the independence from a traditional single server database.

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May 25, 2018

Near Future Tech – Opportunities in Software Development

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My goal for this post is to share how I answered a seemingly simple question — what should I learn in my free time?

While developing software in Silicon Valley is educationally rewarding on a daily basis, there is still so much more to learn. Tech news is constantly bombarding readers with new technologies like blockchain, machine learning, and autonomous-(insert vehicle type here).  Staying ahead is exciting for me, but also critical to my career.

I considered a few ways figure out what is “hot”:

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April 23, 2018

Cybernetics: A cyborg-free introduction

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It has been observed that the acceleration of Moore’s Law has left tech culture with a tendency to discount the past, which leads to issues when building for the long-term. If everything we do is going to be circular filed in a few years anyhow, why bother? I think we’re starting to see some of the limits of ahistorical strategies, especially because building for internet scale means that systems can affect higher-order aspects of society and culture in unexpected ways. This is why I want to talk a little bit about cybernetics.

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