coreysnipes.com2026-04-17T08:27:35-04:00Coreyhttps://coreysnipes.comiPhone to GrapheneOSCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/iphone-to-grapheneos.html2026-04-17T08:27:35-04:00
A new phone protector arrives in the mail today, which means I can finally activate my GrapheneOS device for everyday carry. I will keep the iPhone around the house for working with family screentime and media rental stuff, at least for now. Probably this moves to an iPad on the shelf eventually. I'm using a Pixel 8a from eBay, $150 (with a minor crack on the glass). Setup required a bunch of steps, but I just walked through them as…
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A new phone protector arrives in the mail today, which means I can finally activate my GrapheneOS device for everyday carry.
I will keep the iPhone around the house for working with family screentime and media rental stuff, at least for now. Probably this moves to an iPad on the shelf eventually.
I'm using a Pixel 8a from eBay, $150 (with a minor crack on the glass). Setup required a bunch of steps, but I just walked through them as directed in Graphene's install docs and had no issues at all.
I appreciate the security and privacy orientation, but I'm equally interested in whether it provides a better UX (not sluggish, settings easily found, not filling up my storage with useless junk).
I had not considered Graphene until recently, because why would I want a Google device when I'm trying to de-Google? This Reddit thread put my mind at ease.
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Add a 'human.json' file to a Publii WebsiteCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/add-a-humanjson-file-to-a-publii-website.html2026-03-28T07:40:11-04:00
I use Publii for website content management. This week, inspired by the flurry of activity around the new human.json protocol, I decided to add it to my website. Here’s the process I followed.
Gather some urls you want to vouch for
Use Tools -> File Manager to add the file in your website root
Use Tools -> Custom HTML to add a new header
Rebpublish your site
Confirm with the human.json plugin
I'm currently editing the human.json file by hand, which you'll need to do as well. Stepping through...
1. Gather URLs
Make list somewhere convenient. Start with a couple of websites that you know and trust. Don't forget to include the leading 'https://'. At the time of writing, this is required by the protocol. (So, 'https://foo.com' not just 'foo.com')
2. Tools --> File Manager
Open the File Manager tool and add a new file in the root directory. Name it 'human.json' (all lowercase). The format of the file is simple and readable. See the protocol page for examples.
In Publii, there's no obvious "view" vs "edit" option for these files. If you click it, the OS just uses the default association to open it. In my case, this opens the file in a browser which is not what I want. However, if I hold down the shift key and click, it opens in an editor. I'm on Linux. YMMV.
After you make your edits and save the file, you don't need to do anything in Publii. The latest file will get picked up and used during the site build process.
3. Tools --> Custom HTML
Open the Custom HTML tool and add the following line in your HTML headers.
<link rel="human-json" href="/human.json">
4. Republish Your Site
This will regenerate and re-upload every page on your site, because you've added a new header.
At the time of writing, I'm using Publii Version: 0.46.3 (build 17008) for Linux.
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Misney Makes Us SmileCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/misney-makes-us-smile.html2026-02-28T07:52:36-05:00
Normal Cleveland things. This is an advertisement is for Cleveland-area attorney Tim Misney, whose original advertising campaign featured Tim looking sternly at the camera with a raised eyebrow saying. "Misney Makes Them Pay". It is so well known the he now has a whole series of billboards that don't say anything about law or attorneys. Some have holiday messages, some are in the style of Andy Warhol, some implore kids to study and stay in school. Misney is part of local Cleveland lore.
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Celsius Quick Reference for Farenheit PeopleCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/celsius-quick-reference-for-farenheit-people.html2025-12-26T10:08:21-05:00
Many people (like me) who grew up with the farenheit temperature scale have trouble thinking about celsius temperatures, and either resort to looking it up as needed or just throw up their hands. Knowing the conversion equation isn't helpful. These are the mental anchors I use, to help me relate to the celsius scale.
Superhuman above this
40c
Extreme high end for outdoor activity (104 f)
30c
Feels hot (86 f)
20c
Feels comfy (68 f)
10c
Sweater weather (50 f)
0c
Freezing (32 f)
-10c
Bundle up well for outdoor activity (14 f)
-20c
Extreme low end for outdoor activity (-4 f)
Superhuman below this
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1970 GE DryerCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/1970-ge-dryer.html2025-12-15T17:57:39-05:00
Six years ago we adopted my mother's old GE dryer temporarily when she moved to independent living. Not long after, the motor gave out so we had a small shop repair guy out for a look. Surprisingly, he was still able to get a new replacement motor (not cheap, but available) and belt.
After telling us that a new dryer would be cheaper, and giving us a few raised eyebrows, we convinced him to repair it so he took it away, gave it a good disassembly and cleaning, then brought it back. It's been working great ever since, and runs 8-10 loads a week for us. Which is basically what it's been doing all the way back to the day my mom bought it... in 1970.
1970 General Electric "Automatic Clothes Dryer"
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Small Project: Simple Gift BagsCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/small-project-wood-blocks-2.html2025-12-01T10:55:22-05:00
I had a go at figuring out the sewing machine this afternoon, and made some re-usable gift bags out of scrap material. They're incredibly simple, just basic seams along the sides and bottom, and a bit folded over at the top for the yarn cinch.
We used bags made by my grandmother every Christmas when I was a kid. I'm not sure where they ended up. Probably a casualty of my parents' house cleanout. I wish I had them now, but I'm glad to be able to make more.
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Small Project: Wood BlocksCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/small-project-wood-blocks.html2025-11-23T21:34:55-05:00
I spent some quality time with the Craftsman table saw today, making these wood blocks for Susan. They'll eventually be sanded and painted as stands for jewelry and small art pieces in her studio.
Because I have no tools to deal with 4" wood directly, I made rough cuts with a circular saw to get them to the right general size, then used the table saw to make straighter and more properly aligned cuts. The faces aren't perfectly straight, but they're pretty close.
I used to wonder "who needs a benchtop belt sander, anyway" ? Now I get it.
This saw is great. The motor, belt, and blades are replaceable with common standard items that have been manufactured and sold for decades. All the rest of it is heavy, durable, satisfying iron and steel.
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1971 Smith-Corona Office Electric 215Coreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/1971-smith-corona-office-electric-215.html2025-11-15T08:46:53-05:00
I picked this up at the thrift shop this summer. I was eyeing it for a while, but what pushed me over the edge was my daughter's observation. "You should get it." It's such a delight. The intentionality involved in using it, the mechanical-ness, the maintainability, fact that it still works as well as it did in 1971. I just love it. There's more information on this model here. Fortunately, there's a small but robust community of typewriter enthusiasts like…
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I picked this up at the thrift shop this summer. I was eyeing it for a while, but what pushed me over the edge was my daughter's observation. "You should get it."
It's such a delight. The intentionality involved in using it, the mechanical-ness, the maintainability, fact that it still works as well as it did in 1971. I just love it.
There's more information on this model here. Fortunately, there's a small but robust community of typewriter enthusiasts like Joe Van Cleave out there. I should send a letter. 📨
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Why I Ended our Bug Bounty ProgramCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/why-i-ended-our-bug-bounty-program.html2025-11-13T12:15:16-05:00
My company offered an experimental bug bounty program for a few months during 2024 as a trial with three goals: A) engage with the infosec community, B) assess the effort and cost required to support a bug bounty program, and C) improve the security of our systems. Twomile is a small company with a small staff, funded 100% by customers. We do not have venture capital money or Big Company money to devote to experimental programs. While the bug bounty…
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My company offered an experimental bug bounty program for a few months during 2024 as a trial with three goals: A) engage with the infosec community, B) assess the effort and cost required to support a bug bounty program, and C) improve the security of our systems. Twomile is a small company with a small staff, funded 100% by customers. We do not have venture capital money or Big Company money to devote to experimental programs.
While the bug bounty program provided us with a number of useful reports and overall improvements to the security posture of our infrastructure, the effort required to process and verify new security reports was substantial and took us away from other important tasks in running the business. While some reports were very useful, we often received duplicates from multiple sources, especially for low-risk findings that we chose to live with (e.g., “your HTML doesn’t make use of X-FRAME-OPTIONS so someone might iframe you”). Regardless of quality, many security reports take a great deal of time to investigate and assess.
There’s a lot of tooling to automate vulnerability scanning and reporting now, so the effort for a researcher to submit an lengthy report can be quite small. AI has supercharged this problem, and Daniel Stenberg has described it well. Security research remains an honored and valuable endeavour, but the red team industry is drowning in individuals and companies who have automated the process to maximize reporting and bounty income (frequently, with little or no interest in benefitting the report recipients). As a result, small organizations with bug bounty programs must endure a flood of low quality or useless reports, in order to identify and make use of the good ones. Additionally, we found bounty payment to countries outside the US to be very challenging, particularly when paying a bounty to a freelance individual.
It is a far better use of our limited time and money to occasionally hire a security audit in a formal engagement. The process is significantly more efficient, the signal to noise ratio is better, and while it tends to require a larger financial commitment, the time savings and clarity are worth the extra cost. We still welcome security research and issue reporting, but the bug bounty model was not sustainable for us.
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Light Switch TechnologyCoreyhttps://coreysnipes.com/light-switch-technology.html2025-10-25T07:45:49-04:00
My yardstick for personal tech (laptops, phones, operating systems, software, and apps) is to be like a light switch:
Do what I need, when I need it, with zero fiddling or thought required.
Aluminum or copper wire? Push connectors or screws? Doesn't matter. I can think about those things occasionally if I want, but I can *use* a switch on autopilot.
Technology should efficiently and unobtrusively extend my abilities.
