In another Lite version of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart agreed to come on and explain the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. This is a regulation that will take effect across the European Union starting on 25 May 2018. Bart first gives us an overview, outlining the main objectives, the 7 core principles, and explains how a regulation differs from a directive. From there he defines the terminology and concepts which are critical to understanding the regulation. He explains the legal grounds, what consent means and what rights individuals will have. Then he covers data processing objections, how automation decision making is affected, and people’s right to erasure. Finally, he goes through what kind of data breaches are mandatory to be disclosed and to whom. It’s a really impressive bit of work that the EU have done here, and Bart does a great job explaining it.
In this “Lite” version of Chit Chat Across the Pond (within a NosillaCastaway’s definition of Lite), Bart teaches us about DNS Resolvers and helps give us the information to choose the right one for us. To get us there he starts by explaining the background technologies. He explains DNS and how there’s two kinds of servers, he explains DNS Name resolution and why caching is important, and the security problems (and solutions) of DNS. Then he explains how third-party DNS providers can solve some of these problems. He explains their motivations which will inform your own decision. Finally (at about the 1 hour mark) he walks through the solutions offered by OpenDNS, Google, Quad9 and Cloudflare. I loved this episode and you can tell Bart really loves talking about DNS.
Joe Dugandzic of smarterhomelife.com joins us again, this time in a crossover episode. We start by him asking me to describe my progression in Home Automation from my first smart lightbulb to the more advanced capabilities Steve and I enjoy today. But then we turn the table around and I ask Joe a series of questions submitted by NosillaCastaways.
As many times as I’ve talked to Joe about Home Automation, I continue to learn from him. There are at least two moments in this episode where I had an “aha” moment of learning.
We’re finally back after spring break, and we’re going to be moving on from JavaScript while we learn about Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a set of open source libraries which provide pre-built foundations for creating responsive and good looking websites. It’s an easy episode with easy and fun homework I think you’ll enjoy.
Before we got started I talked about a fantastic post Will (aka @beiju) wrote to me to help me understand JavaScript objects better. If you’ve been struggling like I have or just want a nice reference written in conversational style, check it out at Objects in Javascript Explained (for PBS) – by Will aka @beiju.
The following explanation is from an old friend of the show, Will (also known as @beiju). Unbeknownst to us, he’s been following along with Programming By Stealth all this time and just popped his head up for the first time in quite a few years.
Will wrote the following in an email to Bart and me:
In recent episodes Allison has been audibly frustrated about objects. I noticed a disconnect in Allison’s understanding of objects that I think is causing all of this. I wrote up a short explanation (at least, it was short when I started) that I think will close the gap. I attached it as an HTML document, complete with imperfect syntax highlighting and tiny font to make you feel at home. It’s written in a conversational style talking directly to Allison. I start with restating things that I think you (Allison) are already comfortable with and take a series of small steps, each with some code examples that you can use to prove that I’m telling the truth, until I arrive at the link that Allison’s missing.
I liked it enough I wanted to make sure it was shared with the entire Programming By Stealth family. So here is Will’s fantastic explanation of objects.
As our last episode of Programming By Stealth before our spring break, Bart wraps up our Cellular Automaton. He goes through his solution to the PBS 49 challenge first, and then he walks us through three examples of how a user could produce three different representations with our code. He demonstrates how to build a Conway Game of Life, the Maze Rule, and Brian’s Brain. It’s fun to see it all wrapped in a bow ending this long project. We’ll be back on March 31st with a whole new project.
I asked Mike Potter to join us on Chit Chat Across the Pond this week with the express purpose of trying to convince you to come to Macstock Conference and Expo on July 20th and 21st. Do not listen to this episode if you don’t want to be talked into it because I guarantee you’ll want to after hearing Mike and me talk about how interesting and fun and inclusive and geeky it is.
Macstock Expo is a fantastic opportunity to watch tech talks by great speakers, and to hang out with regular people who love the same technologies you do. If you think you’re too young, Ian’s son came last year and I think he’s around 12 years old. If you think you live too far away from Chicago where the conference is held, Martijn comes in all the way from the Netherlands!
During the show Mike gives us the special coupon podfeetbonus10 for NosillaCastaways to get $10 off the $179 early bird price.
This week Bart and I celebrate 50 episodes of Programming By Stealth. As Bart points out, we’ve been at this for two years now. I’m so happy he’s stuck with me on this and he says he’s got literally years of material yet to go. To commemorate this occasion, Bart got the crazy idea to build a web app live on video. We used a YouTube Live Hangout on Air while he shared his screen. He started with a blank canvas and when he was done we had a working web app. The video is probably a better experience but the audio is supplied for those who prefer it. We did try to narrate what was going on to help with the audio.
As promised last week, Bart Busschots brings us the second half of Programming By Stealth 49. We start by going through a lot of revision on JavaScript objects. It’s really great to have all of this all in one place, and I got to ask a few questions that have been bugging me for a long time. I understood every bit of this and really enjoyed it, but I’m not going to lie, his little 6-part test after the revision baffled me a bit. But after we slog through that part, Bart gets us back on track improving our Cellular Automata. I never realized that we didn’t actually define whether our cells are dead or alive!
Bart’s tutorial for this lesson is at bartbusschots.ie/… starting where he inserted the line, “Note: This is the point in the notes where the first podcast episode ends and the second begins.”
In this week’s episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart had intended to work on improving our Cellular Automata, but we ended up spending a lot more time on reviewing the challenges from last week that we stopped before getting to the new stuff. The good news is that we’re going to do the Cellular Automata improvements in only one week (it will be PBS 49B), and we have no homework for the week! As always, Bart’s excellent tutorial shownotes are available at bartbusschots.ie/….
