Yet another security expert, Dave Aitel - CEO of Immunity in this case, lays out why security training of employees is a complete waste of time and resources. http://www.csoonline.com/article...
In other words, trying to provide security awareness training to employees is like trying to break a concrete wall with your head.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
All these thoughts about consoles makes me think about how, in Star Trek, when the captain has to leave the bridge, he tells the highest officer remaining "You have the con(n)"? I have no idea what "conn" really means.
If they just said it on starships, then I would've assumed it was "console" but apparently it's real nautical terminology, so is it short for "controls"?
- Victor Ganata
I suppose now is not the time to admit that I always refer to my driver's seat as conn and passenger seat as ops. :) #trekkielife#askatrekkie
- Hookuh Tinypants
Well, consider that the iPhone went from the 1st generation to the 3G and the iPad went from 2 to "New", and that Mac OS has been stuck at version 10 for more than a decade, and it's clear that innumeracy is rampant in the tech sector :)
- Victor Ganata
They were to call it the Last One, but the marketing team nixed that.
- Tinfoil 2.0
I am surprised it's not XBox Ultimate Edition, to be honest.
- Victor Ganata
It looks like it's about as big as the old ones, and so. many. ports. I wonder how much longer this antiquated form factor will hang on.
- Tinfoil 2.0
To get smaller, they'd probably need to invent a revolutionary, new cooling system, or figure out how to make GPUs that don't generate oven-like temperatures. Or try to force people to accept that you really don't need that many polygons.
- Victor Ganata
They said it'd be quiet, which further constrains cooling.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
They'd also probably have to do away with the optical drive, which would then probably reintroduce the issue of requiring an always-on Internet connection (which they've confirmed is not required with the XboxOne - it will require an Internet connection, but will still work if the net connection is out-of-commission for a while)
- DAMMIT, MR. NOODLE
Also sounds like they didn't bother with backwards compatibility for DVD based Xbox 360 games.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Yeah, Shevonne, I think you are right, but I also think that with the online stuff they can possibly translate ownership from old platform to new for any online titles that get rewritten. Not that they will do this, just that it's possible.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I was thinking that it could be possible as well, but it seems due to the new hardware architecture...maybe the online games were created using the old one so it won't transfer? Someone know?
- Shevonne
I assume that the PS4 will have the same issue.
- Shevonne
They could always recompile the old games if a software emulation system isn't possible. But it's still noticeable how they didn't even mention it. Used to be backwards compatibility was a key feature (at least at console launches), or if it was left out, they at least had to address it.
- Andrew C (✓)
Yeah, I'm certain Microsoft (and Sony) would rather that developers port their games to the new platform.
- Victor Ganata
Yep, and it would still be possible for Microsoft to swing the licenses to the ports. Unfortunately, for the bean counters, there's little financial reason to do so. The number of sales that good will creates is much harder to count.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
IMHO cross compiling always has, and always will, suck big time
- Jeff (Team マクダジ )
It's got to be better than emulation, though, performance wise, even if the XBox One is way more powerful than the XBox 360.
- Victor Ganata
That depends on the game, but yes, in general that's true, Victor. Jeff, I believe that a lot of modern games are developed chiefly for one console (I think EA mostly develops first for PS3) and then ported to the Xbox. It seems to work well.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
should be interesting to watch now that both platforms will be x86 based, instead of totally different core architectures
- Jeff (Team マクダジ )
These days they're usually not ported after the fact, they're usually developed on the dev team's own abstraction layer (or sometimes licensed middleware) over PS3 and 360.
- Andrew C (✓)
Yeah, I know that Square Enix uses Crystal Tools to develop games for PS3, XBox 360, Windows, and the Wii.
- Victor Ganata
Yes, Sony is doing the same thing with PS4. Regarding MS transferring the licenses, if Windows Phone 7-> Windows Phone 8 is any indication, some games will, but others won't (I was able to download new version of Fruit Ninja when I switched phones, but had to buy new copies of my Angry Birds games)
- DAMMIT, MR. NOODLE
One red ring to rule them all. (a correction to the first comment) I wonder how they will compare to the original XBox, as web servers.
- April Russo
Considering that I don't buy game systems until they've been on the market for at least a year, it's hard for me to get all that excited about these new consoles. Let's see what they do for games after a year and then we'll talk.
I feel more or less the same. I'm also so far behind on the games I currently own that it will be a while before I feel like I need to get something new.
- Jennifer Dittrich
This is a rule I won't break after years of experience buying game systems too soon. No point in throwing away money on a system or systems that are poorly supported.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I'm the same way. I wait a year or so
- Shevonne
from iPhone
I watched one of my roommates deal with the endless RRoD, so I'm a bit shy on initial console purchases as well. Truthfully, most first generation complex technology.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Yeah, I feel like I just got my PS3. I usually don't upgrade until there's a game that I feel like I have to have, and those are really few and far between these days.
- Victor Ganata
I totally understand your position, but with our Xbox (and most likely with the Xbox One) we use it much, much more for the other entertainment than we do for games. Our wii is the game console for us (Nintendo's games are fun for us, only a handful of Xbox games are - and those are mostly XBA games).
- DAMMIT, MR. NOODLE
I remember reports from 2005 that said that Microsoft lost about $125 per Xbox 360 unit sold. They made their cash through XBL and payments from developers. With that as context, Microsoft's move to make you buy all new content isn't that surprising.
Consoles get cheaper to make over time, though. Sony and MS have always lost money at each launch.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
That's pretty much been how every console has been done, they're loss leaders and make up for it on the cut on the game. It's a razor-blade business. And like Andrew said, the tech gets cheaper over time.
- Gimminy
Alex, no they don't... but they also can't be "OMGWTFBBQ HOW IS THIS HAPPENING???!??!?1?"
- Johnny
Well, they can, it just won't gain them much traction unless it is a significant percentage of them.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Actually, it would be a big push on Microsoft if a lot of prospective One buyers were vocal like that.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
MS already had a soft version of backwards compatibility complaints last launch and they ended up fine, though.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
I think the Commodore 128, released in 1985, the same year as the Commodore Amiga, was an object lesson in how slavish devotion to backward compatibility will kill your platform. The Commodore 128 had full Commodre 64 emulation, so hardly anyone developed C128-specific software, and the C128 flopped.
Meanwhile, the Commodore Amiga had zero backward compatibility and survived 7 years longer than the C128 did, and is still the beloved platform of many die-hard users.
- Victor Ganata
A more relevant modern example are iOS devices. If you bought Angry Birds on the original iPhone, you still get to play it on your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 5, iPad 2, etc. And that's really going to be the competition to consoles from here on out. If they can do it with smartphones, why can't they do it with consoles?
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Because smartphones are upgraded every year and therefore use relatively small revisions of ARM architecture each time. Both Sony and MS completely switched architectures.
- Andrew C (✓)
Last time they used custom CPUs - the CELL and a somewhat customized PowerPC. Now both are using x86 derived architecture.
- Andrew C (✓)
Who knows, if the PC falls behind the smartphone in driving chips, maybe the next consoles will be ARM-based.
- Andrew C (✓)
Yeah, incremental change in hardware, incremental change in OS/API. But the only reason why you can still play Angry Birds is because upgrades are free from the App Store. I don't think you could actually run a copy of Angry Birds compiled for iPhone OS 2 on an iPhone running iOS 5 or 6.
- Victor Ganata
It would be nice if MS (or Sony) offered a free upgrade to the XBox One (or PS4) version of a downloadable game, but we'll see if that really happens.
- Victor Ganata
Yes, the key point that I made was that you buy a game from Apple Store once, you have it on all your devices for a long time. The mechanism they use to do this is of little relevance. Most users don't care about how it's done, but only that it is done. To many users the valid question is if Apple can do it, why can't Microsoft?
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Heh, maybe it's a sign that MS and Sony just don't have the clout that Apple does in being able to strongarm their developers into providing free upgrades forever. (I'm sure that some developers aren't happy about this, but are willing to tolerate it for the flood of money coming their way.)
- Victor Ganata
It's not forever on Apple's side even, and that's with a stable architecture and APIs. For example, GLU withdrew some of their earlier games from the App Store because I guess it was too expensive to update them, esp since they predated the company's new freemium business model.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
Yep, Andrew. That's why I said "for a long time". Anyhow, it will be a year and a half at least until I decide to get the One. I don't buy game systems until they've been out for at least a year. You can't tell how viable they will be until then and I've wasted enough money on that industry in my life already.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Yeah, presumably iOS 7 won't run on the iPhone 3GS and maybe not even the 4 or the iPad 2, so it will be interesting to see how that all plays out.
- Victor Ganata
I think I played my old Xbox games for about 3 months when I got an Xbox 360. My nephews will get my old Xbox 360 games when I finally upgrade. It would be interesting if the XBLA games now function like apps, in so much that they current versions won't be compatible but if developers 'update them', you can re download them etc
Yep, I'm not so much concerned with backwards compatibility of DVD based games, but I think it would be a very good thing to provide for backwards compatibility for online purchased games.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
At least I recognize my biases. Thinking that ads are a horrible way to make money because they very rarely, if ever, work on me? Bias. Which of course leads to whether Flickr's new biz model will work or not. If they can make the ad based model work, the new free perks are genius.
If they can't and they just pissed off most of their paying customers, well there's always all that revenue from Tumblr to fall back on. :D
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
This all assumes that Yahoo are looking to draw revenue from Flickr.
- Johnny
from iPhone
It's probably unwise of me to say, but I have pretty much learned to unsee ads. Someone almost has to point out that they are there for me to realize it.
- MiniMage
I don't think they've done a very good job of communicating about all of the changes.
- Katy S
The fact that they are getting rid of Pro accounts and the pricing structure of the new accounts. Not to mention the fact that they still don't have an iPad app.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
And yeah, Tumblr users should view the purchase of that service through the lens of what Yahoo is doing to Flickr.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Wait - they're getting rid of Pro accounts? I totally missed that.
- Brian Johns
I don't think they are getting rid of pro accounts, but I'm hardly qualified to speak.
- Mary B: #TeamMonique
They're getting rid of it but current Pro acct people who opt to be grandfathered in at $25 a year, will be.
- Spidra Webster
$50/yr to get rid of ads is a bit tough to take but I guess they are giving you 1TB of space for free. Majority of users won't come close to maxing that out I'd think. It would've been nice if they had kept it at the old Pro price though.
- ronin
Yeah, as I said on Facebook "We'll see how I feel about this tomorrow, but when compared to the competition, this seems like a step back to me as a paying member. So perhaps there's a bias there as this appears to be good for free members of Flickr, but not so good for new customers who want to pay for increased service."
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
That seems not awesome. Stay at pro (if you have it,) no file size upgrades. Ditch Pro, lose your stats and unlimited storage, and get ads. Pay twice as much as pro, ditch the ads, but don't regain anything else from pro.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Existing pro accounts still get ads. For double the price you can get the ad-free experience. Now I'm understanding the option to downgrade to free, you're being encouraged to go that route.
- Stephan Planken
from iPhone
Hmm, that doesn't seem right. I don't think existing Pro accounts will see ads.
- Stephan Planken
This is odd considering they were at the OpenStack summit last month.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
And they were big ballers at Cloud Expo two years ago. Is the custom server market just that strong?
- Julian
I think Dell is in limbo with their private deal getting blocked by Blackstone. I hear traction with Dell in enterprise accounts is in question as the fate of Dell is in the air.
- Eric - seven eleven
How to make more money. Label your product "For Migraines". Excedrin charges $2 more per bottle of their Migraine pain relief pills vs their "Extra Strength" pills even though they are the EXACT SAME active ingredients and strength.
My understanding was that the large difference was in the dosing directions - Excedrine MIgraine says explicitly that you're not supposed to take more than one dose in a 24 hour period of time (mostly so people see a physician if they need to.) Not that people often read the directions.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Lots of Brands do that. You have to market to the lowest common idiot denominator.
- Jeff (Team マクダジ )
from iPhone
Active ingredients doesn't equal same product. We sell two products with the same active ingredients but one has a surfactant which helps with leaf stick. The other has one the accelerates the penetration. That's not registered cause its not part of the Mode Of Action. The migraine version may have other ingredients not required for listing that could effect translocation
- Johnny
from iPhone
Johnny, medications, at least in the US, are required to list all ingredients and active ingredients especially. If an ingredient has anything to do with the efficacy of a medication it needs to be listed. Since all of the ingredients are the same they are charging more money for the same medication until proven otherwise.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Both have caffeine and both are a mix of aspirin and acetaminophen.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I guess they're hoping people with migraines will read the product name and not the ingredient list and happily pay the extra $2!
- Headless Gnad Kicker
In general, take a product and make it sound especially for your situation. It makes you feel like someone made a product just for your needs, and you pay more. Or make them just slightly different, so that you'll want all of them: a lime squeezer and a lemon squeezer and also an orange squeezer.
- Amit Patel
Sorry, I didn't catch that since I was zesting my Bergamots with my Bergamot zester.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Okay. Marginhancers branding, web dev and photo/video. Now for migraines.
- Mary B: #TeamMonique
Actually, niche-ing a product does build exclusivity. That tells folks who it's for and will increase sales.
- Mary B: #TeamMonique
Re Excedrin: if you really have migraines, Excedrin won't begin to help. Assuming you can get scripts, Vicodin generic is about five bucks for a 55-gallon drum. Course, if you REALLY have migraines, Vicodin just makes them worse after a while.
- Mary B: #TeamMonique
One other thing I learned about git this week: If you are doing development for Linux, don't bother using a Windows git GUI. They will totally mess you up. Just do whatever you have to do using either a Linux workstation or an SSH session. And I say this after trying just about every available Windows GUI for git.
Just don't use a GUI for git. I used to use MSysGit's GUI, but now it's horribly inefficient, and I don't really use Git enough on Windows anyways.
- Gimminy
Let me restate, when doing development for Linux don't use Windows. ;P
- Gimminy
Yeah, that's what I said. :D Although an SSH session from Windows to a Linux terminal is ok.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
What's Windows? Oh, you guys are talking about that legacy system that people run from VMWare. But why would you ssh from it when it should be native on your computer?
- Cristo
Cristo, if you step outside of the bay area a lot of people still use Windows PCs and workstations to do their work.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Sad isn't it? It's like those late night videos of starving children in Africa.
- Cristo
I don't think it's sad or not sad. It is what it is. Windows is a perfectly acceptable GUI.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
It's complete crap. But yes, McDonald's is perfectly acceptable food.
- Cristo
And a lot of enterprise tools require IE. Like Trend Micro OfficeScan.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Good thing that I'm wearing my flame resistant underwear today.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
That's why we have VMWare Fusion, so we can use primitive software tools written by extinct programmers.
- Cristo
You must hate life everytime you use online banking, hehe.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
As in "OMG, I'm using a service built on .NET, the horror! The horror!"
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I can't say that online banking has been the better of my Internet experiences.
- Cristo
First time using a light vignette instead of a dark one. Kind of seemed fitting, but I noticed that you have to be careful as you can very easily overdo it. Whereas, in Lightroom, I can usually go to -30 with a dark vignette, +10 was the most I could go with the light vignette without it making the picture look super funky. In the end, I ended up using +7. Not an effect that I'll use often.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
"But like the cupcake or goji berries, 3D printing is severely overhyped -- I should know, it's what I do for a living."
- Andrew C (✓)
from Bookmarklet
"Strength: 3D printed parts are not as strong as traditionally-manufactured parts. [...] In 3D printing, you are building it in layers -- this means that it has laminate weaknesses as the layers don't bond as well in the Z axis as they do in the X and Y plane. This is comparable to a Lego wall -- you place all the bricks on top of each other, and press down: feels strong, but push the wall from the side and it breaks really easily."
- Andrew C (✓)
"Speed: Many people say that 3D printing is quick -- this is another omission of a suffix -- this time 'for manufacturing processes'. [...] The notion of 'but it'll get faster in the future' is not necessarily true, as we are limited by the chemical properties of materials such as ABS and PLA -- these materials can only be extruded so fast, and at such a rate before you start to destroy the properties of the part. This is happening with the top-end machines right now for FDM (Fluid Deposition Modelling)."
- Andrew C (✓)
"Materials: Generally speaking, you can only print in one material, and this is generally a plastic. Now look around you...how many items are in your room that are made up of a single piece of plastic -- just plastic, nothing else? [...] Most items in the house are made up from multiple materials, and most of them are both metal and plastic. Those two cannot be made together as their melting temperatures are hundreds, if not thousands of degrees apart. I'd not like to smelt in my living room either."
- Andrew C (✓)
"A great analogy I once read was the comparison of 3D printers to the bread machine."
- Andrew C (✓)
I'm guessing that this is from a consumer 3D printing point of view. They are using 3d printers to build large parts of the next generation of heavy lifting rocket engines using metal based processes. But yes, as they point out, modern manufacturing processes are complex and can't be replicated through a single system such as a plastic 3D printer.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I've always imagined that the primary benefit of 3D printing (for quantities of more than a handful) would be in producing and accurate prototype (or set of prototypes) which could then be used to create more traditional molding forms for mass production (using more durable materials.) I suppose direct-from-CAD milling machines can do this as well, but producing a 3D prototype...
more...
- Jkram|ɯɐɹʞſ
My brother Rob bought one. He's still calibrating it. His first project is a replacement lid holder for a saucepan where the knob on top broke. For all the hours he's put into it so far (researching and buying a printer and supplies, assembling and installing it, calibrating -- probably six more hours to go, I'd say, given how warped the current pieces are -- and learning the modeling...
more...
- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
from iPhone
Don't think I'd want a 3D printer, except maybe for printing objects in chocolate.
- April Russo
Might need to crop this one a little bit, but overall not bad. Took a while to do the mask though. I'm probably putting too much effort into making sure that my masks are perfect.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
from Bookmarklet
I was appreciative though somewhat disturbed by how Shatneresque Chris Pine appeared
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
I don't know about the whole Deus ex Real Spock thing.
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
OK and now I hope that Deus ex Real Spock enters into the general lexicon.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I was never disturbed by unobtainium. They could've called it macguffinium and that still wouldn't have been the thing that broke my suspension of disbelief #wrongmovie#OldSchoolSFShoutOuts
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
But now I really want to see Elysium. Just the visuals of a reconstruction of a terrestrial world on the inner surface of a space station look pretty cool.
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
maybe if J.J. does Star Wars up the pooper then Neil Blomkamp can have a whack at saving Trek?
- Hieronymous Boosh
Actually, googling "deus ex Spockina" will yield relevant results.
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
I honestly can't imagine JJ Abrams possibly ruining Star Wars worse that George Lucas already has. I already know I'll enjoy those movies more, because my expectations are already so low.
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
Like, if he literally turned it into a Star Wars/Star Trek crossover based on a fanfic he found on the Internet, that would actually be an improvement.
- Victor Ganata
from iPhone
Three hours later, I'm still thinking about this. The whole inversion of roles *and* the characters' actual awareness to this inversion with regards to [spoilerific title of old Trek movie] so cuts a fine line between clever homage and outright cheesiness. Actually, the more I think about it, the cheesier it seems.
- Victor Ganata
It's no fun arguing with you when you're expecting it ;)
- Johnny
from iPhone
And now I have a picture of you wearing a red cowl and jumping out at me at inopportune times saying "NO ONE EVER EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
We chose git as our CVS because most community written Puppet modules are available on github and there's a lot of Puppet documentation and blog posts about using git with Puppet.
After using it for a while now, I'd say that for a lot of what we do, SVN might have been the better choice just because it handles directory structures/permissions better, although I solved that problem through a git hook that does a Chown -r on the directories managed by git for Puppet.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I prefer Rite-Aid over CVS. *blank stare*
- c.a.j.
Of course, the big downer of SVN is that it isn't distributed and doesn't handle merges and branches nearly as well, from what I've read.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Heh, CAJ, sorry, CVS in this case is a code versioning system.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
<sigh> Couldn't just go with the joke, could ya? :)
- c.a.j.