Misc

Talking about something fishy :D

A Casino’s Database Was Hacked Through A Smart Fish Tank Thermometer:

A cybersecurity executive has revealed that hackers used an Internet of Things (IoT) connected fish tank thermostat to gain access to a casino’s high-roller database. Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan told the story to an audience in London last week.

“The attackers used that to get a foothold in the network,” she explained. “They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud.” The incident raises awareness about the security of IoT objects.

I’ve had video calls for 71 hours this year. A friend had 900+ hours.
And I’ve talked to 28 people. My friend talked to 800+.
My longest call was 1 hour (that’s actually not bad!).

And I only had family calls during the weekends. At least this is what my Google Calendar is telling me.

I used YourCalendarLife.com to put together the stats (a site my team built, that doesn’t save your personal data, does everything in browser, so your privacy is protected).

My friend that tried the site had 900+ hours of calls. 900!!!. With 800+ people!!!

Of course, my numbers above are not the full picture, since some calls (with my sister, with my mom and my father, for example), were not on the calendar. But still, that’s a lot of calls.

This year was weird for me. As I’m sure it was for everybody. One of the things that happened was that I started to use video calls a lot more than I used to. Especially in the last few months of the year, as I started to look more into starting a new business. When I started MavenHut, a lot of the people that you wanted to talk to (potential partners, investor, whatever), would want to see you in person. Not in 2020, of course.

And, if in my MavenHut years, the most common call was 45-60 minutes, my most common call in 2020 was 30 minutes. It seems that people realized that you can say in 30 minutes what you used to say in 1h.

But the biggest change was using more video calls for personal connections. Friends, family. We used to see each other so much, but all of a sudden they were too far away. I live in a different country now and travel was not really an option, as you probably now. So when I had a VIDEO call with my mom, who doesn’t care about technology, I could confidently say: something’s different in 2020.

How was my year, then? Well, I can see that I genuinely started to have a lot more calls in October of 2020. Not because I necessarily had more calls, but because I put more in my calendar. I actually expected December to have more calls the October, but I forgot how everything stops after the 20th of December. Even in a year where people are not really meeting and traveling.

Finally, I now know who I talked to the most. In group calls and 1on1, as well. A good friend is on the top, since he’s been helping me with starting the business, as well. But the most interesting for me is the people I stopped communicating with: people that kinda fell through the cracks. People I would’ve loved to keep in touch, but life happens. At least this way I will remember to tell them “Happy New Year!” :)

If you want to check out how your year looks like, go here: YourCalendarLife.com. Again, we don’t save your personal data. We don’t see your emails. You’re safe from us.

A lot of people pride themselves on being efficient. And this is not bad. Unless you’re efficient about the wrong things. Which means you’re not being effective.

Take this: you have a business selling a hat. And you devise the most efficient marketing plan for selling the hat. But truth is, the hat is bad. SO BAD! And you just spent 3 months creating the best and smoothest marketing plan. And you don’t sell anything. Because people can see that your hat is bad.

Effective = successful in producing a desired or intended result.

Obviously, what you need to do is make a better hat and THEN create the best marketing plan. And, I know, sometimes it’s not that clear.

Basically, what you need to do is to become effective instead of efficient. You’re being effective once you move things forward, once you put your energy in the RIGHT things. Like improving your product. Or creating a great marketing plan ONCE you have the right product.

To sum up, effectiveness is the combination of good efficiency and good prioritizing.
It’s being efficient about the right things.. Once you have these, all you need to do is put in the work.

Anytime you hear someone saying “I’m very efficient” ask “what about?”. Because you want effective people around you. Those that are efficient about the right things.

n example from my own history was when we tested if people wanted to play Solitaire Arena in a very efficient way – time and money wise.

Image from Canva

This post was previously published on my personal blog.

I liked Prince when I first played it, when I was a kid, but I never had a great affinity for it. I enjoyed adventure games more than action or arcade games and I only finished the game later in life.

Anyway, I LOVED the re-imagining of the franchise by Ubisoft, especially the Warrior Within. I think this is the game that made me play the action/adventure games so popular now, like the Uncharted series, God of War series or The Last of Us.

About 2 weeks ago I saw that Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince, published an illustrated version of his book: The Making of Price of Persia: Journals 1985 – 1993 — Illustrated Edition. I love these kind of books, so I ordered immediately, in hard copy.

The reason I ordered it in hard copy and not on Kindle, as I usually read, is that Jordan Mechner added notes on the edges of his journals, updating the information and explaining the “cast of characters”. As an aside, he tells a story of meeting Halle Berry at a shoot in NYC, in 1991-1992. And he says something like “Halle, the lead actress in this low budget rom-com, told us what the story was about”. And the present note, on the side: “Yes, that was Halle Berry”.

But aside from celebrity meetings (which weren’t that many, unless you’re a gaming history fan), the story of the 4 years it took him to make the game is more than interesting. At times, it sounds like the story of a freelancer trying to create his first product. Which, if I think about it, he was. A sort of a freelancer, that is.

Anyway, if you have the time, read the book. Not a lot has changed in the gaming world: from the crunch before the launch, to the ups and downs of the creative side and the despair of your product not being good enough.

The second half of the book is more dedicated to the author’s quest to get a screenplay made into a movie, so I skipped some bits, but the first half is really worth it.