IT Insights Blog

Happy Halloween to one and all! The IT Insights Blog is suspending normal operations in honor of All Hallows' Eve so that we can eat candy and play tricks on our unsuspecting coworkers. Speaking of Halloween pranks, and tricks in general, there's a fun holiday feature up at the Certification Magazine website, in honor of the final day of National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Before heading out for trick-or-treating or other festive revels, test your knowledge of malware, viruses and famous hacks!

Earlier this week I stopped at a roadside fruit stand to buy some apples. A teenager was working there who I know to be an honor student at the local high school. I bought a case for $12 and handed her a $20. She paused for a second and then began searching for her phone. An older worker asked what she was doing. She responded, “I’m getting my calculator.” The older worker rolled his eyes and said, “Change is $8.” I thanked them, pocketed my change and walked away more worried than ever about the quality of education in America.

Halloween began as a celebration of the western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It was a time of year dedicated to the remembering of the dead, especially saints, martyrs and other departed faithful. Over the years, pagan influences built upon the religious foundation of All Hallows’ Day, leading to the modern-day Halloween celebration.

Every so often, something happens to remind you that you're not the spring chicken that you used to be. Everybody out there raise your hands if the last high school reunion that somebody told you about had a double-digit number assigned to it. Time passes all of us by, and usually this is right about the moment in discussions of this nature that we start to hear the opening chords of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" spewing from our mental jukebox.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Giamatti. His performances John Adams and Cinderella Man are spot on. Whether screaming pugilistic encouragement to Russell Crowe or reluctantly accepting acting advice from a family of cinephiles, he always seems to sum the situation up with a sentence or two. In the 2015 disaster flick, San Andreas, Giamatti (son of former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti) plays Caltech seismologist, Dr. Lawrence Hayes.