Sourdough fermented three days.
I have no idea what this complicated mixture is that Amira made for Squishyface to rub on the turkey, but it’s delicious.
Every year we drink for Thanksgiving this stunning amber wine called Veto — both made by our wonderful friend, Sara Meneguz, whose winery is in the Prosecco Hills district of Veneto (just north of Venice). The color of Veto is mind-blowing. The taste is indescribable, unlike any other wine I have ever tasted. And it’s the only wine I know of that pairs with all our Thanksgiving foods. I always try, but fail, to capture the color in photographs. But I love the way this Italian wine sparkles in the California sunshine. I’ll keep trying.
Mac-n-cheese (by popular demand), cranberry sauce (cranberries cooked in orange juice with spices), mushroom green beans, saffron wild rice pilaf, Amira’s mind-blowing salad dressing.
Pumpkin pie made with fermented emmer and whole spelt crust and butternut squash (which tastes better than pumpkin).
Fermented whole spelt, white spelt and emmer flour crust. “Nutty bottom” is pecans with kefir drizzle. Apple coated with cinnamon, brown sugar, home-made chai spice mix and corn starch and topped with butter. Egg wash for the top of the crust.
If you drive around the parts of Morocco where they grow argan trees for argon oil, you'll always find herds of goats that love to climb the trees. They're cute and I miss them. But the good news is that we'll be going back to Morocco in February!
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a powerful boon to business. But it also represents a massive potential expansion of the cybersecurity attack surface. So far, IoT inclusion in many organizations has been poorly organized, haphazard and poorly planned. This needs to change. After all, IT security depends on IoT security.
Cybersecurity threats, risks and challenges vary a lot from one region to the next and one nation to the next. Targets vary based on local resources to exploit. Cyber criminals and nation-state attackers zero in on specific nations, companies and organizations for varying incentives.
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated cybersecurity threats. Attackers might launch remote work-enabled attacks or social engineering attacks using COVID-19 fears as the content. The pandemic caused supply chain and economic woes, too.
Here are the top cybersecurity issues in each corner of the globe today.
Getting breached is the surest way to learn your organization’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities. And that’s why you need to hack yourself before threat actors do. A cyber breach and attack simulation, also called red teaming, is best to understand vulnerabilities in practice, rather than just theory. What can you do before, during and after a simulated attack to boost your defenses?
This is going in the oven in a few hours.
Saw it in San Francisco last night.
Here I am capturing a wild lamb cooked underground in agave leaves for 7 hours before being devoured by a ravenous horde of Gastronomads.
It’s actually an art installation called Vermonica. The lamps are from 1925.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been making news lately by talking about the “metaverse.” Zuckerberg says it’s the future of Facebook — and the internet. He’s so committed to the idea that he intends to hire 10,000 Europeans to work on it, and even change the name of his company from Facebook to a metaverse-related brand.
Are we all going to live and work in Facebook’s “metaverse”?
Most organizations take what you might call an active approach to cybersecurity, They’re prepared to do certain things once an attack happens. Or, they take a reactive approach, taking action after an attack is completed. A proactive cybersecurity strategy is about acting before any attack occurs; it’s a good cybersecurity posture of readiness.
Take a look at the policies, tools and practices that make up proactive cybersecurity measures.
Amira and I went hiking with a friend near Monte Alban, which is a fantastic ruin and the site of the Zapotec capital for a thousand years or so. Our friend told us that the whole mountain is used by local witches, who come up at night and perform rituals at specific places. This one, he said, was the site of a fertility ritual.
Engineering and cybersecurity are two distinct disciplines, each demanding its own rigorous education and training. But should there be crossover? Should engineers or engineering students invest in cybersecurity education as well? What are the opportunities for engineers to gain expertise in protecting against threat actors in the software realm?
As the world becomes more complex and the use of cyberattacks grows, the world of cybersecurity benefits more and more from engineering expertise, and vice versa. Here’s why.
Ransomware is an expensive cybercrime and getting more so all the time. Payouts have risen massively in the past few years. But while ransomware payment amounts make headlines, the real costs go far beyond what’s paid to the attackers.
During World War II, my grandparents had a friend, a Japanese American who had a farm that grew greenhouse flowers. They lived in Long Beach, California.
When troops came to drag their friend and his family to an internment camp, my grandparents bought his farm for one dollar. After he was released, they sold it back to him for one dollar after having taken care of it during his internment.
Later, the friend went back to Japan to visit relatives and upon his return gave these plates to my grandparents.
I wonder why they labeled them as “occupied Japan,“ instead of just “Japan.“
The new Mike's List is here!
In this issue:
- Why Facebook’s epic crash should change everything
- Drone light show in China fails; drones drop out of the sky
- Trick or treat. Smell my feet. These flipflops smell like chocolate!
- Billionaires with their own space programs get eviscerated on SNL
When Steve Jobs died I was moved to write this piece for Cult of Mac about what Steve Jobs meant to Silicon Valley. An excerpt:
"Steve Jobs’ career is the gold standard for how to launch a startup, how to invent a product, how to give a presentation, how to market consumer products, how to design a web site, how to design anything, how to develop and build products, how to build a company, how to create a retail experience, how to create a development ecosystem and above all, how to create passion in the hearts of users. He always gave Apple fans everything they wanted. And then one more thing.
Everybody in Silicon Valley is trying to do what Steve Jobs did. But Jobs was the perfect person at the perfect time in the perfect place to accomplish what he did in his incredible life. He can never be equaled.
Steve Jobs was born and raised a child of Silicon Valley. But he died in a Silicon Valley that was in many ways a child of Steve Jobs."
Read the rest.
The new Mike's List is here!
In this issue:
- Why we're about to face widespread and random shortages (and what to do about it)
- How is flipping garages a video game?
- Finally, a wristwatch made out of garbage!
- Carmaker wants to put the dashboard on the steering wheel!
And more!!
Read Mike's List free now.
A portmanteau of "physical" and "digital," the word "phygital" is about to blow up in the retail marketing space as an over-hyped buzzword. Like "phablet." Ugh.
The Adventures of Pinocchio was written by Carlo Collodi in 1883. I just read the hardcover version with Robert Ingpen illustrations to my granddaughter, and we finished it last night. The original story is almost as random and bizarre as Alice in Wonderland. All the animals talk. In this scene, the "monkey" is a judge that sentences Pinocchio to prison for being the victim of a crime. The fairy dies and takes different forms. Pinocchio murders the cricket in the first scene where he appears, but he reappears alive. As with most Victorian-era children's stories, it's designed to be instructive to children: Be obedient to your parents and work hard in school, or your life will come to devastating ruin. In general, the story is totally bonkers, but highly recommended.
Well, they did it. Amazon announced a home robot, as rumored.
Amazon’s Astro is priced at $999.99 for the invitation-only promotion, which you can request. The actual retail price will be $1449.99.
The Astro is described by some as essentially an Amazon Echo Show smart display on wheels. But that description fails to capture what a radical product this is.
In addition to wheels, they added artificial intelligence navigation and a host of sensors — plus the mission to use your home’s WiFi connection to upload much of that data to Amazon’s servers for “processing” and indefinite storage.
I predicted back in April that this product would be a bad idea. Now that Amazon has announced more details, I’m still convinced of everything I wrote.
Here’s what Astro can do. The robot can carry or deliver things around the house; a bin can be converted into two cup holders for schlepping up to 4.4 pounds of whatever.
The Astro can be used for video calls; the 12-megapixel camera sits at the end of a telescoping pole that raises the camera to a height of 42 inches. The base unit has two speakers.
Astro integrates with Amazon’s Ring doorbell and security system, as well as a service called Alexa Guard, which detects the sounds of breaking glass, smoke alarms and other sounds that may signal an emergency situation. If Astro detects a “stranger” in the house — someone not recognized using face recognition, it will follow that person around the house. (As a security tool, the follow-the-intruder feature is easily defeated when there’s more than one intruder or when a burglar drop-kicks the Astro across the room.)
The robot returns to its charging bay to charge itself, much like a Roomba does. It can “patrol” the house on a schedule, checking for motion. It will follow you around like a hungry dog if you tell it to. A feature called “hangout” prompts Astro to stay near where people are in the home (“in case it’s needed”), unless someone says “Astro: Go away.”
The two-foot tall Astro contains cameras and sensors that create a 3D map of the inside of your house. You can name the rooms, so later you can tell Astro using voice commands to go into specific rooms. It uses face recognition, so it knows who’s in your house. (It will only recognize users who explicitly register their faces with the device.)
In short, the Astro duplicates other Amazon products and, beyond rolling around, doesn’t do anything for users that can’t already be done by other Amazon products.
And I predict that rolling around will be a problem. Sure, the Astro can easily navigate the fake homes in the Amazon promotional videos — clean, dry wood floors and tight, low carpets. I doubt it will fare well in real homes, with toys and laundry on the floor, thick throw rugs and other real-life obstacles. It can’t go up or down stairs, or outside. It can’t go over bumps or level changes in a house. Despite the AI hype, it almost certain will get flummoxed over navigational issues.
The other user “benefit,” is cuteness. It’s designed to simulate a pet, to some extent.
Astro’s “eyes” are just animated images on a screen, which at launch may convey limited information by blinking and expressing cartoon emotions, but which could be software-upgraded in the future to show more facial expression and intentions. The robot also turns its head constantly to feign consciousness and to anticipate turns. Amazon designers worked hard to give Astro a simulated “personality.”
Unfortunately, Astro’s “personality” is really just a spoonful of sugar to make the surveillance capitalism go down.
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As businesses grow, so does their attack surface: more network-connected devices drive innovation and efficiency, but with more devices comes more cyber risk. Protecting the ever-expanding attack surface is more important than ever, with high-profile vulnerabilities being exploited more frequently—and with more impact. One of the most effective ways to mitigate cyber risk is by creating and maintaining a robust vulnerability management program.