Touching.

The presentation looked fascinating, actually. I am commenting on the format. Note: I actually made a similar mistake a few times in my talk.

My good friend Ken is doing a new video blog and is covering his Every Day Carry (EDC) system for his first installment. Check it out if you have an interest in concealed carry; Ken is the type who does massive amounts of research before he decides a direction to go with his product selections.

As he says in the clip, he’s also going to be posting a lot on information security, personal philosophy, etc. — so not just guns. :)

Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.

Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life, and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today. Sagas are themes and events that touch millions of lives and shape the human story.

Really interesting.

Source2URL is a simple tool (currently bash only) designed to aid the content discovery phase of a web application security assessment. It parses a given directory containing source code and creates a URL list for all discovered resources. Once this is complete it then makes an HTTP request to each URL, through a configured proxy, so that visibility of that resource is attained and spidering can then ensue/continue. A text file containing all the URLs is left behind for use with other tools as desired.

I awoke at 2am last night compelled to make this thing. Next up: a Windows version.

lol

The reasons for the company’s dwindling prospects are easy to find.  Just walk into one of the company’s retail locations or shop online.  And try, really try, not to lose your temper.

I admit.  I can’t do it.  A few days ago, I visited a Best Buy store in Pinole, CA with a friend.  He’s a devoted consumer electronics and media shopper, and wanted to buy the 3D blu ray of “How to Train Your Dragon,” which Best Buy sells exclusively.  According to the company’s website, it’s backordered but available for pickup at the store we visited.  The item wasn’t there, however, and the sales staff had no information.

But my friend decided to buy some other blu-ray discs.  Or at least he tried to, until we were “assisted” by a young, poorly groomed sales clerk from the TV department, who wandered over to interrogate us.  What kind of TV do you have?  Do you have a cable service, or a satellite service?  Do you have a triple play service plan?

He was clearly—and clumsily–trying to sell some alternative.  (My guess is CinemaNow, Best Buy’s private label on-demand content service.)  My friend politely but firmly told him he was not interested in switching his service from Comcast.  I tried to change the subject by asking if there was a separate bin for 3D blu rays; he didn’t know.

The used car style questions continued.  “I have just one last question for you,” he finally said to my friend.  “How much do you pay Comcast every month?”

This makes sense.

They don’t sell anything you can’t get on Amazon or Apple’s stores/site, and there’s a good chance that anything you come there to get will be gone.

Then their website sucks and their stores are staffed by people who don’t know anything about the products.

It seems like it is just a matter of time.

But what’s going to take its place? That seems like the only argument for why they would remain. Sort of like Barnes and Noble. If they’re they last ones in the space of physical locations — even if online is better — aren’t they in a good position to survive?

I don’t know. But it’ll be interesting to watch.

The Constitutional Council approved the new soda tax, announced in August as part of the government’s fight against obesity and within the framework of a broader austerity programme, after it was passed in parliament last week.

The tax, which works out to one euro cent per can of drink, is expected to bring in 120 million euros ($156 million) in state revenues.

The tax has been slammed by beverage firms including Coca-Cola, which in September said it was suspending a planned 17-million-euro investment at a plant in the south of France in “a symbolic protest against a tax that punishes our company and stigmatises our products.”

Answer: lobbyists. Government needs to dominate enterprise when it comes to clear cases of the public welfare. This is something America used to know and has long since forgotten.

Few topics are discussed as much in the tech industry as how to hire great people. There are myriad approaches, from how to look for qualities you want, to how to filter people you don’t want, to how to ignore standard metrics and go with some sort of instinct. Everyone has their favorite pet filter. I’ve spent the last couple of years grappling with this challenge myself and reading most anything I can find on different ways to find good employees.

What follows is a collection of philosophies, systems, and approaches that I’ve encountered during this time that may help guide you in your effort.

My latest /study post.

Brilliant as always.