The Captain’s Log

Consider This Sentence

The following sentence appears in REUTERS on Apple News. “Russian missiles pounded power facilities in central and western Ukraine on Saturday, increasing pressure on the ailing energy system as the country faces a shortage of air defences despite a breakthrough in U.S. military aid.”

So many modifiers: …increasing pressure…as the country…despite a breakthrough…. My goodness.

The alliteration of pounded power is too much for me.

My rewrite: “On Saturday, Russia continued its attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, launching 31 ballistic and cruise missiles at facilities in the central and western parts of the country. Recent congressional approval of fresh U.S. aid to Ukraine comes at a time when the country’s air defense systems suffer munitions shortages.”

Consider This Sentence

The following sentence appears in an article in The Athletic on Apple News. “William Nylander confidently pushed his way through the largest crowd of reporters that have been at a Toronto Maple Leafs practice this season to take the same place he’s been throughout the entire series against the Boston Bruins, despite not having played a minute: At the centre of attention.”

It works, but I want to rewrite it.

The comma prevents despite from modifing Boston Bruins instead of William Nylander, but the comma interrupts the flow of the sentence, and at first, it seems as if have been modifies crowd, which is singular. I would move the phrase to the front of the sentence if I used the phrase.

I will ditch the French/British spelling of center. I would make Toronto Maple Leafs practice possessive instead of treating it as a compound noun. The part of the sentence after the colon is not a complete clause. Why capitalize a preposition? Nylander and Mitch Marner have both been at the center of media attention for this series, so I will make Nylander a focus rather than the focus, but I’m not sure I like using focus in a metaphor.

My rewrite: “William Nylander’s absence from the first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins has made him a focus of attention for the Toronto sport media. After confidently pushing his way through the largest crowd of reporters to attend a Toronto Maple Leafs’ practice this season, Nylander declared that the nature of his illness was a personal matter and that he wouldn’t comment on it.”

The plural of sport is sport, and the plural functions as singular. Singular: It’s his favorite sport. Plural: He loves sport. Sports is a present tense verb: He sports a red tie. He sports among the dolphins. The Great and Terrible Captain Cucamunga will never give-in to the North American usage of sports as a plural noun.

Ransomware attacks are 100% avoidable.

The proliferation of ransomware attacks has not been caused by an increase in the cleverness of attackers. The ultimate cause is badly-coded web servers, their third-party modules, and the third party modules of popular webdev languages. The bad code places client-supplied data in contexts in which the data is interpreted by the shell. This is the cardinal sin of security failures because it allows the attacker to run programs on the host machine.

Examples of attacks that exploit this mistake are described in these blog entries.

The bad coders cannot be held legally liable because all software licenses, whether they are closed source or open source licenses, disclaim liability. The user accepts all risks.

The simple bugs that enable these attacks can be discovered and eliminated through third-party auditing. It is time for webdevs to step up and take proactive responsibility for quality control. Your bugs shouldn’t cost blameless institutions millions of dollars.

Hang your heads in shame.

Preventive and Preventative

Preventive and preventative are synonyms. Both are adjectives, but some also use preventative as a noun: Suntan lotion is a sunburn preventative.