Month: May 2016

Can complexity emerge from lower levels of simplicity?

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‘Is there really a Universe that is not designed from the top downwards but from the bottom upwards? Can complexity emerge from lower levels of simplicity?’ It has always struck me as being bizarre that the idea of God as a creator was considered sufficient explanation for the complexity we see around us, because it simply doesn’t explain where he came from. If we imagine a designer, that implies a design and that therefore each thing he designs or causes to be designed is a level simpler than him or her, then you have to ask ‘What is the level above the designer?’ There is one peculiar model of the Universe that has turtles all the way down, but here we have gods all the way up. It really isn’t a very good answer, but a bottom-up solution, on the other hand, which rests on the incredibly powerful tautology of anything that happens, happens, clearly gives you a very simple and powerful answer that needs no other explanation whatsoever.

Douglas Adams — Speech at Digital Biota 2

Using Basic Authentication with the WordPress HTTP API

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Basic Authentication it’s often used as a simple security measure or as a temporary authentication method while developing with certain APIs.

While the WordPress HTTP API doesn’t have explicit support for basic authentication, it’s still possible to use it as a header:

$request = wp_remote_post(
  $remote_api_endpoint,
  array(
    'body'    => array( 'foo' => 'bar' ),
    'headers' => array(
      'Authorization' => 'Basic '. base64_encode( $username .':'. $password )
    )
  )
);

Remember that if you’re sending an unencrypted request, all the headers will be sent in plain text, so you should only use it over HTTPS.

The Cultural Defeat of Microsoft

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Many people (by which I mean “many Windows users”) don’t realize the huge difference between “the Windows way of doing things” and, basically, everyone elses’ way, i.e: the POSIX world which comprises all of the Unices, Linux, BSD and even OS X.

Hugo Landau writes:

From the perspective of POSIX, Windows is “alien technology” […] Windows and POSIX are fundamentally different in many ways, and lead to further “cultural” differences in how software is developed on these platforms. Windows and POSIX, then, are two “cultures”, the technical differences of the core technology itself being only a small part of that.

Read the entire piece at: The Cultural Defeat of Microsoft

You’re never grown up.

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Life is a funny thing, you know. But I’ve always thought thirty was about it. Beyond that would be horrible to be alive. Until I got to be thirty-one. Then, “why, I ain’t so shabby”, you know. “I’ll hang in a while”. As you go along, you realize this whole concept of growing up is… you’re not grown up until the day they put you six feet under. You’re never grown up.

Keith Richards – Under the influence