As I had mentioned previously, this year, I’m going back to school. Not to take classes, but to teach a course at my alma mater, Fanshawe College. I did this about a decade ago and thought it was interesting, so I was excited to give it another go. Additionally, after a friend mentioned that their kid wanted to learn Python, I developed an Intro to Python aimed at high school students that I’m teaching weekly. I thought that this would be good fodder for the State of Security. So, whenever I have something interesting to discuss, expect to find it here.

This week, I thought that it would be fun to discuss tools of the trade and picking the right tool for the job. Almost everything I’ve done over the years has involved working with tools. Although the tools and jobs have changed, I’m not sure that my approach to selecting the tool has.

Backstory

Before I could drive, I was working in the sheet metal shop with my dad. I had working knowledge of the brake, Pittsburgh machine, and rolls before I knew how to make a bowl of soup (I’m sure my parents would love to tell you about the time I burned tomato soup). I think the most important lesson I learned was working with tin snips (aviation or compound snips). Think of these as heavy duty sheet metal scissors with handles in green, red, and yellow. I’ve seen people fight with these because some people just don’t realize that green snips cut to the right, red snips cut to the left, and yellow snips cut straight. Depending on how you are cutting your metal, you want to pick the correct pair of snips. Later in life as I worked at call centers (headsets and phones), (Read more...)