New Year Eighteen

[Pic0o]

Reporting in for another year of computer stuff, video games and general contemplation and rambling.  Holy shit though, the whole Spectre and Meltdown turned into more than just an Intel issue and they even got the branded vulnerability treatment.  Patches continue to release and be tested, while it looks like you can count on some performance hits in the mitigation of these flaws.

If you have read some of my recent benchmark review threads, you will notice I used the Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark utilities for a couple of years.  My laptop seems to have taken a score hit of about 2000 points / 20 FPS but I also have to make sure that's not just the Oculus 2.0 Beta killing my GPU.

Even stepping aside of the CPU issues, patching has been getting way more rapid.  Looking back on 2017, I can remember when devices like QNAP storage servers semi-rarely having firmware updates, to having a new firmware drop monthly.  Between all the vulns at *nix kernel levels and core software packages last year, it has been an intensifying ride.  Getting all armchair here, but it seems like the days of your biggest concern being default passwords, are getting side--stepped by core component flaws.  Not saying default passwords are not still an awful practice, but more that the level of these core vulnerabilities are making the passwords irrelevant in scope.

Other than that, I keep reading tech and various other articles and books when I can.  I'm also a big fan of trying to relax in the world of games.  I have been spending most of that time on Nintendo titles, Indie Games and VR Content.
I also caught that crazy cold that was going around this week and it had my sinus' in a knot for at least 2 days straight.

If you work in tech, be sure to take care of yourself.  Speaking as someone in a role with limited funding for obsolete equipment, I can say I feel the trying pinch of keeping legacy gear spinning.
Enjoy the new year!