Did not update this Blog in a long while.
Why is that?
Facebook? Twitter? Too busy?
Not sure, but it doesn’t look like it is gonna change any time soon.
My Local Bar
Photo from last Friday.
A Guy just took out his Guitar, Harmonica while his wife (?) played the flute.
Gotta love my Local Bar 
Radiation scans Narita airport
Photo was taken on April 1st, when I took an Austrian Air flight to Vienna.
All Passenger had to go through a radiation test. Needless to say, all Passenger passed the test and boarded the plane.
(I kind of enjoyed it)
Aftershocks? – Earthquakes
What is the difference between an Aftershock and an actual Earthquake?
Who cares? they feel the same.
Anyway, see below a snapshot from yahoo Japan of earthquakes we had today, April 12.
Alvarion 2010 report
Alvarion just released their 2010 report:
Highlights:
- Q4 decrease – revenues and shipments
- 2010 shipments “increase” of 0.4% – let’s call this “flat”
- 2010 revenues down 16.3%
Management comment:
“We continue to see attractive, profitable business in the 4G RAN market, albeit on a smaller scale than we previously expected”
2011 Guidance is not provided
I wish all the best to Alvarion, but they keep bleeding money while future is not promising.
WiMAX is not being deployed as it was supposed to; Can’t see Alvarion competing in the LTE market against the Giants.
Blog
It seems I don’t find the time to blog.
Quite active on twitter (@telyas) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/telyas), it sometimes feels redundant to maintain this blog.
But, will do my best to post at least one entry per week.
Stay tuned
Damage Control 101 – Blow out of proportions
I may be speculating here, but the Iran Virus story and media coverage made me think.
Facts:
- Siemens SCADA systems around the world were hit by Stuxnet virus.
- Some of the systems are in Iran
- From BBC report: “Stuxnet was first detected in June by a security firm based in Belarus, but may have been circulating since 2009.”
- “Siemens was neither involved in the reconstruction of Bushehr or any nuclear plant construction in Iran, nor delivered any software or control system,” he said. “Siemens left the country nearly 30 years ago.”
- “Siemens said that it was only aware of 15 infections that had made their way on to control systems in factories, mostly in Germany.”
Yet the Media speculates:
- “The sophisticated super virus Stuxnet” – Deutche Welle
- “One of the most sophisticated pieces of malware ever detected was probably targeting “high value” infrastructure in Iran, experts have told the BBC.”
- “Stuxnet’s complexity suggests it could only have been written by a “nation state”, some researchers have claimed”
- “The fact that we see so many more infections in Iran than anywhere else in the world makes us think this threat was targeted at Iran and that there was something in Iran that was of very, very high value to whomever wrote it,” Liam O’Murchu of security firm Symantec, who has tracked the worm since it was first detected, told BBC News.
Facts seem to contradict the speculation, but the story becomes more interesting, doesn’t it?
However, Mr O’Murchu and others, such as security expert Bruce Schneier, have said that there was currently not enough evidence to draw conclusions about what its intended target was or who had written it.
And now my speculation:
As Siemens are obviously do not actively involve themselves in the PR and reports of “some researchers have claimed”, it looks like Symantec are doing all they can do to blow this story out of proportions. This is not a story of “Symantec software failed to identify and stop a malware”, but “Symantec cannot possibly identify and stop such a sophisticated Super Virus written by a Nation State”.
Getting a Japanese Driving License
Wanted to write about my experience getting a Japanese driving License, but found this Get a Driver’s License guide to be quite complete.
I actually wish I read it before the process. It took me one written tests and two driving tests to get my license.
Two observations:
- It felt that the driving test is not really about testing my driving skills, but checking that I studied well.
- Waiting, waiting, waiting. Foreigners are tested in one group at the end of the test period. Which means, you arrive earlier to register, wait for about 2 hours for the test. Then wait again for the results.