I saw a mention of this oldie but goodie this week on recognizing good quality furniture. It applies to more than just furniture; the same rules apply to kitchen cabinets and anything else made of wood.
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E-books have taken over
This year, in terms of revenue, e-books are now the best-selling book format. E-books now outsell trade paperbacks, mass market paperbacks, and hardcovers. Hardcover sales haven’t declined in the past year, but trade paperback sales (think how-to nonfiction titles) are down 10.5% and mass market paperbacks (think popular fiction) are down an astounding 20.8%.
I don’t think this is a big surprise to anyone. We like our instant gratification, and e-books certainly are that. And besides instant gratification, e-readers allow one to carry an entire library of books in a device small enough to fit in a pocket. And publishers like them because it destroys the secondhand market. Read more
Did I violate my code of ethics?
The CISSP exam (and any other (ISC)² exam) asks a few ethical questions. This question isn’t quite clear-cut enough for the test, I don’t think. But if you’re wondering what the test is like, this actually isn’t a bad thing to work through. My ethical questions on the test were more clear-cut than this, but the security questions weren’t.
It’s not about the money
I made my resignation official on Friday. It was a hard decision to make, but I had a nagging feeling, on a couple of fronts, that I didn’t have a lot of choice.
But I’ll be OK. I had a new gig lined up long before I handed in my resignation. I’ll make a smooth transition and I’ll find some way to contribute on my new job almost immediately. I’ll be working closer to home, in my home state of Missouri, with a better schedule and more options for professional advancement. Still, I’m leaving the best place I ever worked, and that’s difficult. The only thing that made it possible for me to leave was the hostility.
This will be the least professional thing I’ve written in a long time, but I’m upset. Read on, and you’ll see why.
For 3/8 of a million dollars, I think I’d rather have a replica Apple I instead
A working Apple I motherboard with manuals sold this week for $374,500. Not bad for something that originally sold for $666.66. Read more
Entry-level troubleshooting
Ars Technica offers a very good, brief guide to troubleshooting computer hardware. Being two pages long, it doesn’t tell you everything, but includes some good tricks, including one I don’t always remember to tell people. To fully discharge a device, unplug it from the wall, remove the battery if it has one, then press and hold down the power button for 10-15 seconds. This discharges any power that could be lingering in the capacitors inside. Read more
Microsoft just priced its Windows 8-based tablets out of the market
Microsoft just priced its Windows 8-based tablets out of the market.
Extremetech reports that they expect Windows 8-based tablets to sell for $600-$900. I think Microsoft is forgetting its history.
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Confessions of a hacker for hire
A story on Slashdot yesterday encouraged IT departments to hire a hacker, in spite of the stigma.
I’ve been that guy, and I suspect I’ll be that guy again. I’ve also had to clean up after that guy, so I may be able to add some perspective.
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Bacon and ice cream
So Burger King decided that a bacon sundae is a good idea. I have to mention it because this blog’s original name, back in October 1999 was, believe it or not, Bacon and Ice Cream. No kidding, though I’m not sure many people are still around who remember that. A week or two later, I decided that was too weird and re-launched as The Silicon Underground.
The name was a reference to an obscure Lou Reed song called What’s Good, which contained the line, “Life’s like bacon and ice cream. That’s what life’s like without you.”
So the question is, if life’s like bacon and ice cream, does Lou Reed think life is something good, or something bad?
Some lessons from cracking the compromised Linkedin password database
Here’s a blow-by-blow account of a security researcher’s attempts to crack the compromised Linkedin database as a result of its 2012 breach. This is a very good example of ethical hacking.
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