The Ultimate "Get Psyched" Playlist

I am busily loading up a playlist for DefCon so of course I had to turn to "The Ultimate Get Psyched" Playlist as published by Barney Stinson as a starting point. 

 The problem is, there are three versions of the list with some substantial differences. I published a combined version before, but that wasn't quite doing it for me. 

 What I did to resolve my dilemma was to list out all three playlists and assign each song a get psyched coefficient - since barney believe that a playlist should start high and only go higher this was pretty simple, I just divided the song's position in the list by the number of songs in the list and that gave a number between 0 and 1. Then I averaged the coefficients of each song across the three lists. Unfortunately some songs seemed to be artificially inflated in importance. To solve that issue I weighted the average - If a song only appeared in one of the three lists it was by default less psyched than if it appeared in all 3, so I multiplied the average "get psyched" coefficient by a multiplier based on how many lists the song appeared in. The results, in order from least to most psyched, are below: 

 You're the Best Around - Joe Esposito
Tom Sawyer - Rush
I Wanna Rock - Twisted Sister
The Humpty Dance - Digital Underground
Free Bird (second half only) - Lynyrd Skynyrd
You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi
Change of Heart - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Run Away - Slade
Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
Lick It Up - Kiss
Paradise City - Guns N' Roses
Come Sail Away - Styx
The Transformers Theme Song - O. Prime
Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol
Panama - Van Halen
Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield
High Enough - Damn Yankees
Talk Dirty to Me - Poison
Thunderstruck - AC/DC
Hip Hop Hooray - Naughty by Nature
Dr. Feelgood - Mötley Crüe
Round and Round - Ratt
Rock You Like a Hurricane - The Scorpions 

 I'll let you decide if it worked out or not, personally based on my tastes vs the author of the original lists I would shift a couple thing, but I wouldn't hate it if this list came up on the radio.

(To answer two questions - 1) Yes I really am this bad at math, 2) Yes, this really is how I spend my Sunday mornings.  Church, drinking, or heroin would probably all be more productive but I do this.)

Two Books

Read two new books this week -

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which I had to read for both work and school, and Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints, written by John Ringo and Larry Correia both of whom I am normally fans of. 

Both books sucked, to be honest, but lets start with the Five Dysfunctions first.

I don't know why this book is so highly recommended but it is pure MBA psychobabble bullshit.  A failing company is turned around by CEO who comes in and leads a series of two day seminars in which feelings are explored and trust is built and suddenly all is right with the world.  CRAP! Oh, and it endorse the use of that steaming pile of excrement - The Meyers Briggs Personality Indicator.  This is my personal opinion but the way to build trust in a failing team is to hold people accountable for their work, deal with them honestly, and BE TRUSTWORTHY. 

My advice, if you are interviewing for a job and you see this on the managers bookshelf, excuse yourself, and run, don't walk, run out of the building.

OK, now for the bigger disappointment - Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints.  As I said I generally like both authors, Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata series and Troy Rising series are both a go to when I just need something enjoyable to read, so a re the mainline Monster Hunter International books and the Dead Six series, so I am not just hating on Ringo and Correia.  This book just sucked, the action was weak, one of the major plot points of the three book series of which this was a part was wrapped up halfway thru in a very unsatisfying manner, and it just felt phoned in to me.  That wasn't the worst part though, the main character is just a fucking douche.  He has been all through the series but it is especially pronounced in this book and it made it hard to even finish the book.  The only saving grace is the "afterword" in which one of the main characters from the mainline books explicitly says that the character was a fucking pretentious douche-bag, which kind of subverts the main character of the books story. But, that only partly makes up for it.  If this was my introduction to either author I would never read either one of them again.  Avoid this book and the Monster Hunter Memoirs series in general at all costs.  Do however read Monster Hunter International, Dead Six, Legacy of the Aldenata, and Troy Rising.   

GIAC GCIP Pressure

I am scheduled to take the GIAC GCIP on July 30th.  I am feeling completely unprepared and a bit overwhelmed but I really want to get this done.  Once I have I will completed all three GIAC Industrial Control System certifications, which in the giant scheme of things is not that big a deal, but in what passes for my life would be a huge win.  Additionally at this point if I take the exam and pass I will be in the first 25 to achieve all three.  (Actually if I took it and passed today I would be in the first 5 but I am assuming that one or two people will pass the test per day for the next month and that 50% or so will have the other two certs)  Again not a huge deal to anyone with any sort of real life, but it's high up on my totem pole.

ICS Presentation

Earlier this week I did a presentation on ICS networks for the Oregon InfraGard chapter.  Here are the slides if you are interested

Weird Dream Alert

Very weird dream last night.  I was selected to facilitate a SANS Sec660 course that was being put together at the last minute.  I fly down to San Francisco and the course is being held in what looks like a high school auditorium in the back of the shoe department of  a VERY rundown down department store.I get there and the it turns out my boss's boss and a couple co-workers are also attending and they aren't happy that I am there because this was supposed to be a secret session of this class, but the auditorium is packed.  At least 500 people.  No equipment setup except an old carousel slide projector which the instructor is using to show vacation slides not anything realted to the class.  He does that then calls a break.  I keep trying to get coffee and the cup keeps breaking.  And when I get back there are about 600 messages at my seat all of which are nonsense.  The entire dream was just an exercise in frustration.

Reading "The Great Revolt" by Salena Zito

So today I found an article in the NY Post by CNN contributor Salena Zito - These Harvard kids got the lesson of their life in the Heartland - I knew the name but I don't watch much CNN, I usually listen to NPR for news, sometimes some Fox or CNN (never MSNBC) so I didn't realize until seeing this article that she had been traveling the country examining why Trump had won in the Rust Belt. 

The result was her book  The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics I am about 25% in and honestly it's kind of an eye opener.  I am one of those who believed Trump was unfit to be elected.  I agreed with him on illegal immigration, disagreed on trade, and thought his temperament was completely wrong. 

Turns out it was me that was wrong. 

While I have been an ardent freetrader for years, that's because I was unknowingly one of the coastal elite benefiting from it to the detriment of many of my countrymen.  I don't really think of myself as a member of the elite, and I am definitely opposed to most coastal politics, but really I am.  That caused me to miss a lot of signs that pointed to a Trump victory. 

I knew there was a lot of anger, and a lot of it I agreed with.  We have been on the short end of a lot of trade deals because it's good for companies like Facebook, Google, and Boeing, with out giving consideration to American workers (that also includes H1B visas).  That never sat right with me and I used to argue about it in former jobs.  (moot point in the last two).  Our countries culture is also being overrun and that bothers me a lot.  Stuff like that.  So even though I was (and am really) a Never Trumper, in the sense that I won't vote for him, I kind of got it.  I even tried to explain to some of my very liberal friends that Trump and Sanders were really two sides of the same coin.  Anger at the system just boiling over.  They didn't believe me, but in the book there are a couple quotes from people saying they would have voted for Sanders instead of Trump if he had been on the ballot instead of Hillary. 

Anyway it's been a very interesting read so far.  If you think only illiterate, in-bred, mouth-breathing red-necks voted for Trump it's probably not going to change your mind, but you should still read it.

What I am reading 6/14/2018

Cyberscoop - Forcepoint CEO: Stop focusing on tech and start focusing on people - 

Forcepoint CEO Matt Moynahan says the cybersecurity industry’s focus is flawed.

According to Moynahan, way too much time and effort has been spent on securing technology stacks. If the security paradigm is to change, there must be more effort placed on modifying people’s behavior when they use technology.

 I don't disagree with the need to focus more on behaviors but you can't just ignore the technical side either.  (Or maybe you can, what do I know, I am just a cog in the corporate machine.  No one asks my opinion).

Oracle - Internet Intelligence Map -  Tracks major internet outages, if that's your thing

Gizmodo - Researchers Reach Obvious Conclusion That Bitcoin's Price Was Artificially Inflated - 

Specifically Amin Shams and Professor John Griffin’s 66-page paper looks at the relationship between Bitcoin and Tether, a “stablecoin” supposedly backed by and pegged to the US dollar. The paper, as summarized in the New York Times, “identified several distinct patterns that suggest that someone or some people at [Bitfinex] successfully worked to push up prices when they sagged at other exchanges,” using Tether as the mechanism to inflate those prices.

Wow, what a surprise!