By “de-shitify” they meant removing all the shit which isn’t owned and controlled by Microsoft.

nasa is about to remote into the computer

I’ve dealt with slow RDP sessions while fixing servers in the past, but the lag on this connection must really suck.

While I did enjoy Tom Bombadil in the books, I’m not surprised he never made it into any adaptation. It’s this odd coda in the story which isn’t all that important to the overall plot. Sure, it helps to build the world out and show that there are strange things outside the power of the One Ring. But, he’s a Chekhov’s gun problem. Tolkien sets him up as this amazingly powerful entity, who could probably solve all the problems Middle Earth is facing and who promptly fucks right off for the rest of the story. And his tendency to fuck off is mentioned later to explain why he isn’t fixing anything. In the end, he serves no purpose for the story which cannot be easily dealt with otherwise. It just seems like Tolkien really wanted to include him somehow, stuffed him in and didn’t have a competent editor to say, “look Ronald, I know you love this character, but this bit really needs to be pulled.”

I regularly use CoPilot to search Microsoft documentation for me. E.g. I needed to find a particular interface in Entra and couldn’t remember where it was. So, I asked CoPilot and it got me to the right spot. I’ve thought about asking it about Microsoft licensing, but I figure that might result in CoPilot becoming self aware enough to kill itself.

I also use a number of AI agents built into the cybersecurity tools I use on a daily basis. Generally stuff along the lines of “find all the cases related to this system/IP/user/etc” type queries. It’s also good for questions like “how do I tune this alert” so I don’t have to remember whatever bullshit process this vendor put together for tuning false positives. Our primary SIEM/SOAR tool has an AI which does initial triage and investigation work and it’s not terrible. It struggles with correlations for more complex events, usually highlighting events which have no bearing on the event in question. But, it often provides a good first pass and description our first line analysts can use to start a real investigation.

AI is a tool. And like a lot of tools, it has it’s benefits and limitations. The problem is we’re still figuring all those out and the people marketing these tools don’t want to admit to the limitations and they over-sell the benefits, then blame the user when those benefits don’t materialize. Given how much modern economies are based on information and knowledge, I do expect AI to have some lasting impact, but I also expect that we’ll adapt and it will just be another way of getting things done in a generation or two.

It’s the return of the Glasshole.

If you have the time, put some resumes out before accepting the first thing to come along. I don’t know how things are in Germany, but I’ve always believed it’s easier to find a job while you are still working. That said, if the new position, pay and work culture seem good, taking the position for now may be a good choice. You can always job hunt later.

As for how you conduct yourself, I’d always suggest conducting yourself in a professional manner. While you may have zero intention of coming back to this organization, you never know when you are going to run across the people you work with again. And the next time they may be in a position to help or hurt you. For example, I worked for a company really early in my career which started falling apart quickly. Towards the end of my time there, they announced they were closing the office I worked at and basically gave my department a big “fuck you”. I could have gone out causing trouble or just worked my time until I left for greener pastures. I did the latter. Years latter, I was applying for a job I really wanted and an important member of the hiring team had worked with me at the first job. Not as my boss, just someone in another department. He remembered my work and work quality and had effectively said, “yup, hire this guy”. While I have long since left that job as well, his confidence in me changed the trajectory of my career.

Maybe it’s different over there, but I’ve always heard that “it’s who you know, not what you know” that gets you hired. And I’ve run into that in my own career. You don’t want to be a pushover, but keeping professional relationships professional can pay dividends down the line. Do the job you are paid for, don’t make messes for other people and at least try to be professional in your dealings with others. You may be able to climb the ladder quickly today by being an asshole, but you never know if the fingers you step on today will be attached to the hand you will need to help you tomorrow.

Time to bite the bullet and move the phone to Linux as well.

Also, what idiot decided that only one settings window is allowed open at one time?

Microsoft engineers were worried that people missed the joys of MS-DOS and having only one application running at once. Next up, will be the return of base memory versus expanded memory versus extended memory. This ends when they devolve Windows to prove Bill Gates right that 640kB should be enough memory for anyone.

Simple, NoPilot can just erase all your files. Binaries can’t take up memory of they can’t be loaded.

What are you more worried about, third party, MitM interception (e.g. IMSI catcher) or Google knowing who you are communicating with? The former is technically harder for an attacker, but the use of such devices is well documented and poorly controlled. Google is, well Google. And you can expect them to monitize any bit of data they have on you. Also, that data will almost certainly be handed over to local law enforcement, especially if they have whatever the local equivalent of a warrant is.

As with most security, there are trade-offs. You have to decided what risks you are willing to accept and what you are not.

This is one of the reasons vigilantism works better in fiction than in real life. In cases where some vigilante left a beat up suspect and some sort of evidence, any competent defense attorney is going to move to have the evidence suppressed due to issues around chain of custody and possible tampering. They would likely also push the narrative that the vigilante is the real criminal and left the evidence to frame their client. Between possibly getting much of the evidence suppressed, and building doubt around anything remaining, a conviction could be really hard for the prosecutor.

This also ignores issues around vigilantes going after the wrong person for something (see: lynchings) and applying wildly disproportionate, extra-judicial punishments for crimes (see: lynchings, again). Crime and punishment really are hard problems which don’t lend themselves to easy answers. And there is a reason the Code of Hammurabi is seen as such a big deal in history. Rule of Law is an important concept which protects people.

It certainly makes sense. AWS hosts infrastructure specifically for the US FedGov. That infrastructure includes systems for the US DoD. So, that makes it a valid military target. And while cyber attacks can do a lot to degrade command and control, nothing DoS’s a server farm like a few hundred kilos of high explosives.

When you have a potentially volatile situation, lobbing bombs at it rarely makes it better. This wasn’t a “time bomb to explod[ing]”. This was a deliberate decision by Cheeto Mussolini to launch a foreign military adventure. While the current regime in Iran was far from ideal, it’s important to keep in mind why that regime was in place. The UK and US were directly involved in overthrowing the elected government in Iran in Operation Ajax. That resulted in a violent, repressive dictatorship. But it was friendly to UK/US oil interests, so that made it ok. When the Iranian people overthrew that government, the current Iranian government came to power.

That the current administration expects a different outcome this time around is the height of stupidity. All this will accomplish is creating another generation of Iranians who hate the US due to direct experience.

Maybe it’s a regional thing, but I don’t think it’s a common phrase. I’ve heard “nothing-burger” a lot, and this may be someone playing off that.

It will be a Paramount Discovery of new ways to make movies and TV suck.

This one is a mixed bag. KYC regulations are very useful in detecting and prosecuting money laundering and crimes like human trafficking. But ya, if this data needs to be kept, the regulations around secure storage need to be just as tight. This sort of thing should be required to be kept to cybersecurity standards like CMMC Level 3, audited by outside auditors and violations treated as company and executive disqualifying events (you ran a company so poorly you failed to secure data, you’re not allowed to run such a company for the next 10 years). The sort of negligence of leaving a database exposed to the web should already result in business crippling fines (think GDPR style fines listed in percentages of global annual revenue). A database which is exposed to the web and has default credentials or no access control at all should result in c-level exec seeing the inside of a jail cell. There is zero excuse for that happening in a company tasked with protecting data. And I refuse to believe it’s the result of whatever scape-goat techs they try to pin this on. This sort of failure always comes from the top. It’s caused by executives who want everything done fast and cheap and don’t care about it being done right.

Cheeto Mussolini showing off his insecurities.

I have two:

1. Waves glowing with bioluminescence during a red tide. We didn’t know it would be going on and were just camping by the beach. Walking on it at night, we all saw the waves glowing and weren’t sure it was real. As we got closer, our footsteps in the area where the waves were rolling in and out were glowing as well. Just surreal.
2. A house blowing up. Guy opened a natural gas valve in the house and touched it off. Insulation shot way up in the air and the house itself bowed outwards in basically every direction, stayed standing though. At least until it burned down.

Oh ya, I remember her greatest hit