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Monthly Archives: November 2009
Visual Notetaking
I’m a big fan of the book “Back of the Napkin” which is all about using pictures to help with problem solving. Yesterday, I was introduced to a related concept “visual notetaking” where you use images to support other notes you are taking during a meeting. I’m at a two day workshop and we have a professional notetaker who is using this. It really makes the notes much more powerful and useful then just text. Imagine having notes with visual cues to (including but not limited to network diagrams) help you remember what happened. I’m sitting here looking at the posters, the notetaker made in real time with our discussions and it’s amazing how much more useful they are.
“As far as I know, effective immediately”
Asked about the timing, the unbriefed propaganda minister mumbled: “As far as I know, effective immediately.” When that was reported on television, the Berliners were off. Baffled border guards who would have shot their “comrades” a week earlier let the crowd through—and a barrier that had divided the world was soon being gleefully dismantled. West Germany’s chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was so unready for history that he was out of the country.
The destruction of the Iron Curtain on November 9th 1989 is still the most remarkable political event of most people’s lifetimes: it set free millions of individuals and it brought to an end a global conflict that threatened nuclear annihilation. For liberals in the West, it still stands as a reminder both of what has been won since and what is still worth fighting for.
The Economist has two excellent articles about the wall. “So much gained, so much to lose” and “Walls in the mind.” They do a great job of capturing both the ups and downs of the chaos that has replaced the Politburo and its puppets.
It’s also worth remembering that it’s the 61st 71st anniversary of Kristalnacht.
Mini Metricon 4.5 Call for Participation
[Posting this here to help get the word out - Chris ]
Mini MetriCon 4.5 will be a one-day event, Monday, March 1, 2010, in San Francisco, California. Through the cooperation of RSA, the workshop will be held at the University of San Francisco, within walking distance of the Moscone Center, the location of the RSA Conference, to be held during the same week. Mini MetriCon attendees are eligible for free RSA exhibit passes.
Like its predecessors, Mini Metricon 4.5 is an informal workshop designed to facilitate exchange of new ideas as well as practical experience in using metrics to drive better security, compliance, and risk management. The day will be divided between open/moderated exchange and short presentations. Participants are expected to come prepared to actively interact as either presenters or active listeners (or both).
Place: University of San Francisco (walking distance to the Moscone Center)
Time: 8:30am to 4:30pm
Participation: by invitation.
Attendance: Limited to 80 people
Additional details, including links to past workshops, presentations, and digests, as well as a calendar with important dates and instructions for submitters is available at securitymetrics.org
Pay for your own dog food
At Microsoft, there’s a very long history of ‘eating your own dogfood’ or using the latest and greatest daily builds. Although today, people seem to use the term “self-host,” which seems evidence that they don’t do either.
Eating your own dogfood gives you a decent idea of when it starts to taste ok, which is to say, ready for customers to see in some preview form.
Apropos of which, there’s a really interesting post at the Inkling blog, “Pay for your own dog food:”
Using your own product comes with a ton of benefits, because you become your own customer. The quality of your product likely increases because you can’t ignore it’s problems. They aren’t just your customers problems. They are your problems.
…
We’ve gotten in the habit of actually taking out our own credit card and using it on our own account sign up page. Yes, it’s a bit silly when the credit card processing takes some money off the top. But it makes the feeling very real that you are paying for this, and now it’s an expense just like it’s going to be an expense for your clients.
Detecting Malice
I just finished reading RSnake’s new book Detecting Malice and I can say without a doubt that it is one of the best technical books I have ever read. Furthermore, I can tell you that it is, without a doubt, the best web security book I have ever had the pleasure to read. Imagine a book that is as engaging as RSnake’s or Jeremiah’s blog, but even more so.
This is not a book on how to build secure websites, there are plenty of those already. This is a book for security practitioners who get to deal with the site after it’s been built and deployed. It is full of great advice and information about not just how to detect attacks, but also how to distinguish between human attackers, regular users, bots and spiders.
This book should be on the purchase list of every security geek and if Rob hadn’t graciously given me a copy, I’d have already sent him my $40. Send him your money and make him a rich man.
Tabletop Science
Mordaxus emailed some of us and said “I hope this doesn’t mean MG has jumped the shark.” What was he talking about?
Apparently, ThinkGeek now has a “Molecular Gastronomy Starter Kit.” For those of you who’ve been hiding in a Cheesecake Factory for the past few years, molecular gastronomy is the art of using science to do things to food beyond your typical applications of heat with fire or its close analogs, acids baths beyond marinades, combinations harder to achieve than hollandaise, and whipping things without egg whites. See, it’s really a continuum and continuation of what chefs have been doing for years. Really, poaching eggs and poaching jolt cola are all about understanding and using the chemicals available in your kitchen in new and interesting ways. Ten years ago, not a lot of people brined their chicken, and twenty years ago everyone but the Japanese overcooked their tuna. Wasabi wasn’t a normal ingredient. Kitchens change. There’s chaos and experimentation. Some of what emerges is good, and some of it’s embarrassing. Some of it’s the home Sous Vide kits, and some of it’s the starter kit.
The real question is what’s going to emerge next in the market, and what’s going to emerge in your kitchen?