New England is still struggling with the aftermath of an early snow-storm that dumped anywhere from six to 24 inches of snow on the region on Saturday. The snowfall downed many tree limbs owing to the fact that they still had live leaves on them and retained far more of the wet snow than limbs with no leaves.
Because much of New England has old-fashioned overhead lines, many in the region are still without power and will continue to be so until the weekend. That unfortunately includes much of the LGOD editorial crew, so conten updates may be a little light from us of the next couple of days.
You know it really takes a storm like this to put things in perspective and helps you realize what is really important to you, like why someone hasn't invented a gasoline powered modem, TV, and Xbox yet.
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At the Black Hat conference FusionX's Tom Parker was able to use Google to hack into a water treatment facility's control systems.
The ability to do so lies in the fact that remotely accessable Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems were visible on Google search. SCADA systems are used in industrial controls such as power plants, water plants, nuclear generating stations, and the like. Parker was able to access the plant and log into a pumping control using a password of "1234."
Parker reassured the crowd that ouside attacks would require substantial effort and coordination and would be extremely challenging to pull off. However, the past few months of hacking have demonstrated that substantial effort and coordination are not beyond the realm of possibility. So in the future, if your power goes out or your municipal water supply has to be shut down, you might have Anonymous or more nefarious groups to blame.
Earlier this week Cisco announced it was laying off 14% of its workforce. Now an Ars Technica story reveals how Cisco deals with its competitors and makes us a little less sad about the networking company's decline.
A story in today's Boston Globe reports that technology graduates of Boston-area schools are seeing increased hiring compared to past years.
The story focused on graduates from Wentworth University and MIT, who are reporting increases in employer recruiting and job offers. The National Association of Colleges and Employers stated that 19% more employers will be hiring college graduates this year, the biggest increase since the economic downturn. Hopefully graduates will be able to find jobs in their fields and bring an innovative attitude to their prospective employers.
Photo Copyright the Boston Globe.
If you haven't heard of TED, it is a series of conferences hosted by the non-profit Sapling Foundation. It is devoted to promoting "ideas worth spreading," and has been the source of some fascinating talks.
Today I came across a great talk by David McCandless, who recently published the book Information is Beautiful. McCandless is a former journalist who became a designer and who seeks to use design to make data easier to understand, or explore the relationship between sets of data.
Sometimes I wonder if having a greater-than-normal awareness of technology can be more of a blessing than a curse. Over the past 30 years we've seen a quantum leap in technology and how it enriches our lives. Yet mixed in with that enrichment is the nagging feeling that things could be even better, if only for a certain factor that appears to be holding things up. One of my recent experiences illustrated that point.
I no longer buy Apple products, based on my own experience with their products, and also on principle because I don't like their business practices—which was true even before this iPhone issue and their abysmal handing of it.
I am not an IT professional. I'm a graphic designer and used Macs exclusively throughout the 90s. The reason then was simple: Windows systems just didn't have the graphics hardware or software capabilities of Macs.
Then at the turn of the millennium, it came time for me to upgrade from my solid, dependable Power Mac 8600. I had a choice: spend $5000+ for a G4 that had what I needed, or let Justin build me a Windows PC for about $1000 -- not to mention with many more personal software options, bells and whistles. It was an easy decision. I've been using Windows since then and love it, not least because Windows XP made the OS interface bearable for artsy types like me. And of course now there is virtually no difference in the graphics and software quality between the two systems, at least for print/web purposes. I have used Macs at contracting assignments here and there, and at one job in particular that I did for several months, we had almost daily issues with OS X, plus several crashes every day. It drove me insane...