One of my favorite things about Github is that there are repositories that collects and curates a list of awesome things for a specific topic and everyone can submit a pull request and add their own awesome things to the list. Awesome-Selfhosted (a list of things that you can host on your own server) and Awesome Sysadmin (Curated list of sysadmin resources) are some of them, but this new list is also great: Awesome Linux Software. Check it out.
Dropbox Think Open Office Layout is Dead
From the official Dropbox blog:
Clearly, open office layouts aren’t the hotbeds of creativity designers originally hoped they would be. And with office space at a premium, private offices for everyone isn’t a realistic alternative, nor is it ideal
It’s good that people are starting to wake up to the fact that not every workers want to work in an ex-warehouse building that’s retrofitted with hip wall decoration and aeron chairs with hundreds of people constantly walking behind and breathing down your neck. This might signal a decrease in headphones sale, too. Time to sell that Sennheiser stock.
Don’t Be Afraid, This is Just a PDF. We won’t ask for your email.
I was reading Drift somewhat uninteresting report on SaaS companies marketing practice when I came across this:
And I found myself laughing. I don’t know why, but it’s kind of sad/funny how content marketing has reached this stage where a legitimate company like Drift now has to write in very clear terms that they’re not asking their valuable users for any private information to simply get a PDF.
You know, like this one:
Or this one. Want a PDF? Give us your phone number, dude. It’s required.
Unfortunately, like any other perceived as “shady” or “bad” marketing practice on the internet, the truth of the matter is these tactics does work.
Especially for the majority of people who want to have a PDF (for whatever reason) copies of what they read online. They didn’t mind sharing their emails, their phone numbers, or even address. How do I know this? Because it is everywhere.
So props to Drift, I guess.
And by the way, just a reminder that your email list building campaign won’t be complete without a passive aggressive question in a huge box covering all your content:
Maersk Lost 300 Million Dollars Thanks to NotPetya
From LA Times:
A June cyberattack that snarled shipping terminal operations worldwide — and briefly shut down the Port of Los Angeles’ largest cargo terminal — has cost the Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk $200 million to $300 million, the company said this week.
Now that there’s real dollar sign attached to a cyber attack, we’re gonna see more of this in the future, aren’t we?
More Chrome Extensions Getting Compromised
I feel like this is gonna be a new trend. From Threatpost:
The number of compromised Chrome browser extensions is growing beyond the initial Aug. 1 hijacking of the OCR add-on called Copyfish. Added to list are seven additional legitimate Chrome Extensions that attackers took over and used to manipulate internet traffic and web-based ads, according to researchers at Proofpoint.
I first realized that Chrome extensions are a legit vector for Malware after watching my father installing an extension that asks for “Access to all the website that you visit” without even thinking about it. It’s similar to early Android, in which permissions are wide open.
Chrome revolutionized the way browser handles web by introducing the concept of sandboxing. Unfortunately extensions permission-based security, with the majority of users unaware or simply doesn’t care, break all of this. Time for Google to act.
Equilibrium
At one point in my life, i was an undergraduate international relation student. It’s a pretty interesting topic, and i learnt a lot. Mostly, like all social sciences, it’s the kind of subject where people goes, “well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” but there’s always more to everything, and all that seem obvious are usually the ones that are not.
But I wouldn’t say the topic is an exciting one. When dealing with an identity and organisation as big as a nation-state, things tend to move at a glacial pace. But still, if there’s one thing that i really anjoy about IR as a subject is how it tries to adapt (exhaustedly, i should say) to a world that’s changing at a very rapid rate.
You can see human nature there. Those that are afraid, finds peace in the theories of classic realist, where everything is simply about power. Those that just wants to be an academia and not offend anyone finds their place in the economic side of things, while the guy who simply wants to explain to you that we can make this all better, finds their place in the liberalist camp.
But one concept that really stuck in my mind was balance of power, since that one concept proves to be a reliable predictor of where the world is going, no matter who or what held the stick of truth. It’s also one of the first concept that i really learn about, and so i still remember when i was reading about it and got to thinking, “so this is why the world gone to shit since 2000, and it’ll probably get worse”.
And indeed it seems to be, getting worse. The world, that is. But I was born in 1990. So i don’t have the rights to say the world has gone to shit when i have never experienced world war, or a proper dictatorship. Still, in my mind it’s pretty clear what the world lack currently: equilibrium.
equilibrium
ˌiːkwɪˈlɪbrɪəm,ˌɛkwɪˈlɪbrɪəm
noun
a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced.
“the task is the maintenance of social equilibrium”
synonyms: balance, symmetry, equipoise, parity, equality, evenness;
Equilibrium, as the dictionary states above, is the state in which forces are balanced. And we see it everyday right now, the state of imbalance. It’s everywhere. When a teenager doesn’t want to follow their parents direction, contemporary parents tries every single thing but telling the kid that he or she (or they) should probably follow their parents direction until they are adult. The forces of teenage angst is not balanced. In the media landscape, we’re seeing a stage where the bias of the journalist took center-stage, whether it is left or right.
Asks any modern journalist about their bias and they’ll freely admit that they have one. But the issue is they then follow that with, “so what?”. While the old guards would probably at least try and keep the appearances of being fair.
And yes, the fact that any media, whatever their leanings are, can open their own shop and start talking these days can be said as an act of balancing between agents, it is still not enough as the power of truth is contained within their own little boxes of people and their twitter followings. We’re all getting boxed deeper and deeper until our bodies are crushed and our mind trapped into thinking that since it is what we like, it must be the truth.
Truthfully, i’d be scared if what i like to hear is constantly being reaffirmed by everybody that surrounds me as the truth. That means I’m surrounded by the wrong people.
After the events at Charlottesville recently, I have decided to stop reading the news. That’s it. No matter the source, i just stop. This is gonna end in tears, as our hatred of each other is fueled by our unwitting thirst for being right. At some point we must realize that it isn’t about being right, but about living together.
Imagine a brother and a sister who fights constantly when they’re little. Usually they grew up alright, with a little bit of issues towards one another but they understand they’re families. Now imagine that from age 3 they have their own group of journalist constantly following them informing how right they are and how wrong their sisters and brothers are.
If there’s one thing that i’d like right now, is for an individual or organisation with a voice to be a middle ground. That’s it. But it seems that any balancing agent is gone, probably for good.
Shutting Down
Shutting down, and letting electronics “have a rest” is such a human concept. It was born out of our own needs to shut down our brain every single day since we were born until we finally have a permanent rest.
I still remember my dad shutting down my computer without my knowledge when I was asleep. I was downloading some large files in the days of dial up, and of course, I got mad about it.
Computers or electronics don’t need rest. In fact, the hardest part in the life of an electronic is when it starts up. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.
So in the middle of all the noise about a manifesto that a certain engineer wrote, and other ‘seems to be’ really pressing issues in our lives, I think it’s good to remember that we’re all human, and not a computer.
We don’t have the answer to everything. We can’t. We’re programmed to live for a certain time period that is set by our environment, our culture and our lifestyle. It’s not that long. 60, 70, maybe 80 years if you’re lucky.
I understand the issue is upsetting. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this post. It’s hard to gauge whether an outrage is really felt through the lens of social media, but I know that there’s a lot of people who just want to be good, and helpful.
But I really felt that we’re now debating across a huge fire that is fueled by outrage. We’re all gonna get burned in the end.
If you want a change to happen, then stop the outrage and do real action. Speak, start a dialogue with real people, offline if possible. By speaking out, I don’t mean us using the platform that we stand proudly on to let our opinions out. That’s good, but that’s not what’s gonna solve the issue. Talk with the opposing sides. Don’t block them out. Again, offline if possible.
You might disagree, you might get emotionally hurt, but from the dialogue, you can at least admit that the person sitting to you is a human being, and unless the guy or the girl really is the incarnation of the devil himself, he should also admit that himself.
And when you’re done with the dialogue, shut down. Don’t directly post on Twitter. Process it. Really think of the question why. Because we’re human beings. We’re not supposed to be on Twitter 24/7, participating in a huge botnet of human brains that woke up every day just to react to the news.
Be good, be helpful. But be patient, too. It took 8 hours for a brain to get fully rested and be able to process everything healthily. We’re all in the fire together. We’re all gonna get burned together anyway, so rather than discussing who’s gonna get the worse burn, let’s shut down for a bit, and try to find a way to make the fire at least not as hot.