The Actuator – November 29th

This week's edition of The Actuator comes to you direct from Las Vegas and AWS re:Invent. This is my first time at this event, and I am fortunate to be here as an attendee. For the past 15 years or so, I have been working events, not attending them. This week I have been hanging around the data folks, trying to soak up some knowledge on RDS, Aurora, Redshift, and I also attended a workshop on building Alexa Skills. So, yeah, I'm in data geek heaven here.

As always, here are some links from the Intertubz that I hope will hold your interest. Enjoy!

Amazon launches new cloud storage service for U.S. spy agencies

“Amazon says it is the only commercial cloud provider to offer regions to serve government workloads across the full range of data classifications, including unclassified, sensitive, secret and top secret.” Well, except for Azure, which has offered this for more than a year already. But, hey, with AWS re:Invent happening, why not embellish the truth a bit, right?

Google admits it tracked user location data even when the setting was turned off

Remember when Google wasn’t the evilest company on Earth? Neither do I. Now we can only imagine what horrible things they are doing to user data stored in Google Cloud.

Decision making under stress

I read this and remembered every triage call I participated in through the years. This is why we have things like checklists and automated scripts to remove the human element and lower stress in group situations where we feel we have no control.

Uber Concealed Breach of 57 Million Accounts for a Year

Remember when Uber wasn’t as evil as Google? Yeah, that was three minutes ago. When I woke up today I didn’t need yet another reason to dislike Uber, but here we are.

Run the First Edition of Unix (1972) with Docker

“I bet people from the 1970s were really good spellers because not being able to move your cursor is pretty brutal.”

Microsoft is Bringing VMware to Azure, VMware Is Not A Happy Camper

One thing I learned a long time ago is that “unsupported” really means “you pay extra for support." Of course, VMware will tell you that this is unsupported. They have to say that because of their agreement with AWS. But at the end of the day, VMware wants to survive, and the best way to do that is to allow their software to run on any cloud.

Gambling regulators to investigate 'loot boxes' in video games

I was thinking of getting Battlefront 2 as a gift this year, but I’ve decided that I’d be better off buying actual lottery tickets instead.

If you have never been to re:Invent, here's a sample of what you should expect for the week: Standing in lines.

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Thwack - Symbolize TM, R, and C