IT Insights Blog — certification

Ordinarily everyone here at TestOut Continuing Education carries on the work of dispensing highly effective simulation-based IT training from our global HQ, which is located inside a pineapple under the sea. For some reason, in addition to preaching the gospel of certification far and wide, we spend a lot of time dealing with legal documents and formal complaints from a yellow guy in a white shirt with oddly-configured pants. Who knows what that's about?

There's a new movie directed by and starring Clint Eastwood that will arrive in theaters just two weeks before Christmas. Most people have certain expectations of Eastwood, who was an established movie action hero when the empty chair he scolded at the 2012 Republican National Convention was barely a footstool. Eastwood has gotten a little long in the tooth since the good old days, of course, and doesn't beat up quite as many bad guys as he used to.

Welcome to October! We can probably all agree that the most exciting thing about October is the prospect of eating a lot of cheap candy and staying up late to watch scary movies. There will be office Halloween parties, costumes for revelers both young and old, and pumpkins with crooked grins and glowing eyes as far as the eye can see. If Netflix were really on the ball there'd be an all new Stranger Things, like, now, instead of probably sometime in March or April.

When discussing the overall state of information security, it's commonplace to suggest that everyone is at risk, and that hackers will eventually manage to get past anything put in place to stop them. Commentators frequently assert that the question is not whether this or that business or organization will be hacked, but when the hack will occur. It's a gloomy worldview that sometimes feels not just pessimistic, but wholly defeatist, in a "What's the use in even trying" sort of way.

There was a big scare in the pancake community earlier this year when International House of Pancakes announced that it had decided to officially change its name to International House of Burgers, making a one-consonant transition from IHOP to IHOB. Rarely has a single letter generated so thunderous an outbreak of hysteria and consternation. A month later, the IHOP braintrust was all, "J/K, LOL, U ppl R so fragile and unequipped to deal with our hilarious marketing stunt."