Oh, now *that's* a great way to inspire trust...

The latest buzz is that Microsoft, having entered the consumer-security market, is planning on diving deeply into the enterprise-security one as well, selling their own security software in competition to Symantec and the like. Quoting the article from ZDNet:

"This is a rather safe play," said Charles Kolodgy, an analyst at IDC. "It is easier than building the security into products and not being able to directly capture revenue."

Uh-huh. So let's rephrase this -- Microsoft has decided that it's too expensive and difficult to ship secure products. Okay, yes -- we all knew that they felt that way. But tacitly admitting it, and then charging people extra to get the fixes to those broken products is rather breathtakingly cynical, even by Microsoft standards...

Oh, now *that's* a great way to inspire trust...

The latest buzz is that Microsoft, having entered the consumer-security market, is planning on diving deeply into the enterprise-security one as well, selling their own security software in competition to Symantec and the like. Quoting the article from ZDNet:

"This is a rather safe play," said Charles Kolodgy, an analyst at IDC. "It is easier than building the security into products and not being able to directly capture revenue."

Uh-huh. So let's rephrase this -- Microsoft has decided that it's too expensive and difficult to ship secure products. Okay, yes -- we all knew that they felt that way. But tacitly admitting it, and then charging people extra to get the fixes to those broken products is rather breathtakingly cynical, even by Microsoft standards...

For cellio, and anyone else deeply into the Talmud:

Since I suspect you aren't yet following the mozilla_exts feed, check out this entry, which starts out: "Combining the power of Firefox, Google and the Mechon Mamre textlibrary, this extension allows you to search the Hebrew texts ofTana"ch, Mishna, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Tosefta and MishnaTorah. You can search as broadly as all of these sources or asspecifically as a single book of Tana"ch, a single tractate of Mishnaor a single set of Halachot of the Mishnah Torah." Which I suspect means significantly more to you than it does to me...

For cellio, and anyone else deeply into the Talmud:

Since I suspect you aren't yet following the mozilla_exts feed, check out this entry, which starts out: "Combining the power of Firefox, Google and the Mechon Mamre textlibrary, this extension allows you to search the Hebrew texts ofTana"ch, Mishna, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Tosefta and MishnaTorah. You can search as broadly as all of these sources or asspecifically as a single book of Tana"ch, a single tractate of Mishnaor a single set of Halachot of the Mishnah Torah." Which I suspect means significantly more to you than it does to me...

Boredom War; Heralding; Curious Tournament Format

This Saturday rates a diary entry, despite my current laziness about the diary.

Boredom War can mainly be characterized by two words: "Wet" and "Bugs". The new site is quite decent, and I suspect is downright nice in good weather. After six weeks of nearly continuous rain, though, pretty much everything squidged underfoot. (The only exceptions being the enormous puddles that one had to navigate around while walking.) Even that wasn't so bad -- it drizzled most of the day, but largely held off from real rain -- but the mosquitos were murder. I eventually got some relief thanks to a megadose of Deep Woods Off; some folks weren't even helped much by that. I believe I have received my yearly supply of bug bites, thanks.

Despite that, though, it was a fun day. I had been expecting to have a pretty dull time of it; to give myself a little something to do, I resolved to assist by heralding one of the lists for the King's and Queen's Armored Combat Champs. More fool I -- it turns out that I was the only person who showed up with any intention of doing anything of the sort, so I wound up in charge by default. Having eight lists to deal with by myself wasn't exactly what I'd intended. Fortunately, the massed forces of Carolingia (mainly Casa Moomba) were around, and many were able to help with the project, with each of us taking a two-list corner of the field. Thanks to msmemory and oakleaf_mirror for heralding essentially all day, and umbran, new_man and Eowyn for doing much of it, as well as tpau and Greg for list-running for us. It was a bit hectic at times, but between us we managed quite decently, I think. (And it's the first time I've ever heralded the finals of a major tournament. I think I've added List Heraldry to my collection of "SCA Arts I am at least Adequate in".)

The tourney format was unusual, and while it probably wasn't even slightly period it was pretty interesting. Gregor ran it as four successive single-elimination tournaments, each requiring a different specific weapons form. (First two-weapon, then great weapon, then poles, then sword-and-board.) For each fight you won, you got one point. The top four point scorers went on to the semi-finals, which were three bouts, with the combatants agreeing on a different form each time. The top two there went into the finals: three *different* forms than what they had used in the semis.

Overall, it seemed like a worthwhile experiment. It focused on weapons depth more than any other tourney I've ever seen, and gave everyone at least four bouts. It didn't go as quickly as one might wish (at least in part because the listmistress didn't find out about the format until she got on-site), but we still managed to get through a lot of fights in about four hours.

Finished off the day by buying a couple of armor legs from Klaus, who doesn't want to haul them to California. They're heavier than what I'd been intending, but I think I'll be happier for having really good leg protection, especially if I do try out a bit of tourney fighting. (Which I'm thinking about for next year.) Now I need to start seriously thinking about the arming shirt that they'll want to hang from...

Boredom War; Heralding; Curious Tournament Format

This Saturday rates a diary entry, despite my current laziness about the diary.

Boredom War can mainly be characterized by two words: "Wet" and "Bugs". The new site is quite decent, and I suspect is downright nice in good weather. After six weeks of nearly continuous rain, though, pretty much everything squidged underfoot. (The only exceptions being the enormous puddles that one had to navigate around while walking.) Even that wasn't so bad -- it drizzled most of the day, but largely held off from real rain -- but the mosquitos were murder. I eventually got some relief thanks to a megadose of Deep Woods Off; some folks weren't even helped much by that. I believe I have received my yearly supply of bug bites, thanks.

Despite that, though, it was a fun day. I had been expecting to have a pretty dull time of it; to give myself a little something to do, I resolved to assist by heralding one of the lists for the King's and Queen's Armored Combat Champs. More fool I -- it turns out that I was the only person who showed up with any intention of doing anything of the sort, so I wound up in charge by default. Having eight lists to deal with by myself wasn't exactly what I'd intended. Fortunately, the massed forces of Carolingia (mainly Casa Moomba) were around, and many were able to help with the project, with each of us taking a two-list corner of the field. Thanks to msmemory and oakleaf_mirror for heralding essentially all day, and umbran, new_man and Eowyn for doing much of it, as well as tpau and Greg for list-running for us. It was a bit hectic at times, but between us we managed quite decently, I think. (And it's the first time I've ever heralded the finals of a major tournament. I think I've added List Heraldry to my collection of "SCA Arts I am at least Adequate in".)

The tourney format was unusual, and while it probably wasn't even slightly period it was pretty interesting. Gregor ran it as four successive single-elimination tournaments, each requiring a different specific weapons form. (First two-weapon, then great weapon, then poles, then sword-and-board.) For each fight you won, you got one point. The top four point scorers went on to the semi-finals, which were three bouts, with the combatants agreeing on a different form each time. The top two there went into the finals: three *different* forms than what they had used in the semis.

Overall, it seemed like a worthwhile experiment. It focused on weapons depth more than any other tourney I've ever seen, and gave everyone at least four bouts. It didn't go as quickly as one might wish (at least in part because the listmistress didn't find out about the format until she got on-site), but we still managed to get through a lot of fights in about four hours.

Finished off the day by buying a couple of armor legs from Klaus, who doesn't want to haul them to California. They're heavier than what I'd been intending, but I think I'll be happier for having really good leg protection, especially if I do try out a bit of tourney fighting. (Which I'm thinking about for next year.) Now I need to start seriously thinking about the arming shirt that they'll want to hang from...