reneestephen

@reneestephen@mastodon.social

Free esprit de l'escalier and character actress LARPing confidence online since 1993.

Professional generalist & solutions nerd; strong opinions about loose coupling. SE @ a data company.

Ert, ept, ane.

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reneestephen, to random

So I, uh, am sorry for my absence. I realized I'd dropped off the face of the world when a bunch of lovely people reached out for proof of life. I realized I should say something, lest people think I fell down our cliff like some heroine in a gothic novel.

I deleted social media(s), and kind of ... stopped. It is nice?! Isolating, but good. Weird. After decades being Very Online I find I'm really enjoying being Less Online. So.

I'll be back, eventually... But for now: yep, still alive.

SwiftOnSecurity, to random

I need to explain the importance of SMB signing and blocking inbound NTLM in a manager-level PowerPoint slide in a way that’s both exciting and correct and based in real-world security improvement against attackers.

reneestephen,

@SwiftOnSecurity OK so you need a few things:

  1. Open with a strong analogy. Accepting mail from a random sender and oops it's anthrax? In an airport carrying someone else's bags? Etc. @drsbaitso's is great too.

  2. Tech details at a HIGH level: a diagram is almost always best. A before and after with a padlock or a stop sign or something NOT from the Azure clipart library in Lucidchart.

cont...

reneestephen,

@SwiftOnSecurity

  1. Consequences, in biz terms. I like to quote the IBM State of Security report on the avg cost to an org of a breach ($9M iirc?).

  2. The cost and/or time estimate to do it.

reneestephen,

@SwiftOnSecurity

Rearrange as needed; depending on audience sometimes putting #3 as your opener is a compelling hook.

reneestephen,

@SwiftOnSecurity A lot of people stress out about not having enough technical detail in presentations, but managers will almost always ask for those if they actually care or are detail-oriented (generally: will this piss off my users, and what do I need to do?)

What managers are really deciding on is risk vs reward, and how they can sell it to THEIR managers.

You can prep a doc as a leave-behind around implementation (...it won't get read). But they'll ask qs until they get what they need.

reneestephen, to random

I can tell that Elon Musk, Duke of the Manchildren and Ghost of Terrible Product Decisions has done something hilarious again because a bunch of my year-old toots about his incompetence are getting fav'd.

What was it this time? Is he requiring implantable trackers in your brain to tweet (sorry, uh, "X") with? Has he implemented Free Speech Filters that delete users who criticize him? Or is it just the usual enshittificafion terribleness?

chrisgeidner, to random
@chrisgeidner@journa.host avatar

In less than two weeks, the Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments over whether the Second Amendment makes it unconstitutional for the federal government to pass a law banning people under a domestic-violence restraining order from having a gun.

reneestephen,

@peachfront Or maybe not? The US Right has yanked the Overton window over and over by proposing appalling things and then said "j/k let's compromise on something slightly less heinous!!" and somehow get seen as being reasonable and open to bipartisanship. Why NOT get everyone pissed off that the Left is coming for their guns and then propose a sane compromise that makes that look moderate?

@mpjgregoire @chrisgeidner

therobburgessshow, to random
@therobburgessshow@newsie.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    reneestephen,

    @therobburgessshow my guess is they are all just shitposting IRL

    taco, to Canada
    @taco@nfld.me avatar

    Somebody tell the Western Standard that it’s inappropriate to masturbate in public.

    Because that’s all this is.

    reneestephen,

    @taco lololol wow,

    Western Standard: CONSERVATIVES (whispers) hopefully (raises voice) SLATED TO WIN!!!

    Shameless.

    reneestephen, (edited )

    @taco agreed tho I do think Wab Kinew was a much a factor of Manitobans finally having had enough of Pallister's legacy having seen how much his government fucked up during the pandemic.

    Did Kinew fully deserve to win and work damn hard with an amazing ground game? Yep. But I don't know that it's going to be generalizable to other provinces or nationally.

    ETA to make clear I know Pallister was not party leader, just the architect of the PC's downfall.

    @npilon

    reneestephen,

    @taco Fingers crossed that they're sick of his shit finally!! @npilon

    kelidanovus, to random
    @kelidanovus@hachyderm.io avatar

    Modern computers: connecting us in a globe encircling mesh of high speed communications enabling heretofore unimaginable leaps in productivity, entertainment, and commerce.

    Also modern computers: wasting 3 days of my time with cryptic error messages because I used a dash instead of an underscore.

    reneestephen,

    @kelidanovus my favourite wtf story is an API that used "behavior" and I, a Canadian, spelled it "behaviour." It was totally invisible to my eyes as wrong and spellcheck in my IDE was set to 🇨🇦 too

    Three hours later...

    futurebird, to random
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    Ants are the strange members of the hymenopterans. What defines a "bee" or a "wasp" ?

    Flying! Stinging! Ovipositing! Bright warning colors!

    Ants looked at the main advantages of being hymenopteran and said... nah. I guess stinging is OK... (Though most ants don't sting.) ... but most of this is nothing compared to going eusocial.

    Personally I think eusociality is such a huge advantage this makes sense.

    But then why aren't the bees who do both more successful? Are they too specialized?

    reneestephen,

    @futurebird I still think about the study where someone glued little stilts on ants to figure out whether they counted their steps based on how long their legs were to figure out how to get home (the answer was yes, they do. The stilts ants got lost. Which makes me sad. I hope they reunited them with their colonies anyway. I am too sentimental for research.)

    Just... some grad student with a magnifying glass and pile of tiny stilts and a little brush.

    @michaelgemar @Gorfram @davidr @jerzone

    StefanThinks, to random
    @StefanThinks@beige.party avatar

    I just saw a billboard for a tourist attraction that said, “Rediscover Fun.” And I'm like, “What, you think I lost my spark of joy, and I'm incapable of finding fun? You don't know me, billboard. Fuck you!”

    reneestephen,

    @StefanThinks shakes fist at billboard

    seldo, to random
    @seldo@alpaca.gold avatar

    🎵if you'll be my bodyguard

    reneestephen,

    @seldo Al?? Is that you!? Call me, maybe!

    jeffsussna, to random
    @jeffsussna@mastodon.social avatar

    TIL if you have poor fine motor skills, AirPod Pros are unusable. I couldn’t even get them out of the case (let’s make them as small round and slippery as possible).

    reneestephen,

    @jeffsussna it's so frustrating that after decades of talking about accessibility in the digital sphere (and Apple leading the way on many things), tech companies who also create physical products completely failed to understand the assignment.

    LRRRonEarth, to random
    @LRRRonEarth@beige.party avatar

    Ooc: My wife's grandma is doing what grandmas do (dying). At almost 101, it's time. She's been on slow burn hospice for a year or two, and she is done fighting her ailments. She has loved ones to see on the other side, and it's autumn in New England.

    When she was 5, a girl on her street caught fire from a sparkler on the fourth of July and burned up like a candle. When she was 12, she and her brothers bought flights on a homemade airplane (which you could apparently do back in the 30s); the owner crashed it on the beach to everyone's delight. She got a master's degree in math just before WWII. When the need for code breaking and encryption calculations died down, she took to the skies again. She raised four of her own children and adopted another. Her thoughts and prayers actually count.

    Good night, Nana. Enjoy your deep rest.

    reneestephen,

    @LRRRonEarth She sounds like she grabbed onto the wheel with both hands and lived an incredible life. My condolences to you both, and all those who knew her.

    futurebird, to random
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    "guess how much evolution took place on the coelacanth in millions of years?"

    -Some Creationist

    I just like the phrasing of evolution taking place "on" something. Like it's a cold that you catch or something Morbius would do.

    Bout to 'volve all over these arthropods.

    reneestephen,

    @futurebird Nature is the maddest scientist.

    MichaelTBacon, to random
    @MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

    I am grateful for all the work done to realize just how much stress and injustice drive so many contemporary ills.

    This is a gift link so no paywall. Please boost widely as I think this is a superb article that many would enjoy.

    https://wapo.st/46zEIzq

    reneestephen, (edited )

    @MichaelTBacon Part of a theory I read recently noted that the observed pattern people "become more conservative as they age" is because they are the ones who aren't dead. Only the privileged are left. And... Damn. Yeah.

    LRRRonEarth, to random
    @LRRRonEarth@beige.party avatar

    I AM PRACTICALLY A VAMPIRE. CANONICALLY IMMORTAL, FEASTS ON THE LIVING, LIMITLESS SEX APPEAL, SICK CAPE. CHECK FUCKING MATE.

    reneestephen,

    @ferngirl The real vampires were the friends we met and stabbed along the way.
    @LRRRonEarth

    werefreeatlast, to microsoft
    @werefreeatlast@mastodon.social avatar

    This is ! is !
    https://lemmy.ml/post/6593361

    They are laying off 700 workers from the . It's bad when it's the and , but engineers!?....wow!

    How about a replacement like but with our in it?

    reneestephen,

    @werefreeatlast nah, this is the year of the engineering layoff. And 700 for a company the size of LinkedIn isn't even the worst of the layoffs that have been happening by far.

    reneestephen, (edited )

    @werefreeatlast The counter stands at 65k last year and 176k this year from US-based tech companies... so far. Do the math on the houses as an exercise to the reader.

    ETA: Also, uh... "His" job? Lol wtf. So the cool thing about tech is that there aren't just men, and the cool thing about 2023 is men aren't the only ones who bring in the bacon.

    https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs/

    tess, to random
    @tess@mastodon.social avatar

    Proud to be on Marc Andreessen's enemies list

    Tag yourself, I'm "tech ethics"

    reneestephen,

    @Jonathanglick Ok but the engineering school I worked at legit had to add a mandatory ethics course in first year to review famous disasters because the students were otherwise turning out like this dipshit.

    @dierksen

    ianbetteridge, to random
    @ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    reneestephen,

    @0xtdec it is absolutely not a mistake. This signals a lot to tech and finance bros that it's ok to stop paying lip service to e.g. D&I and it's ok to do business with fascists: it will not impact the money. And they have a lot of it.

    FTR I've met a fair number of these dudes in my career and they are almost all deeply mediocre humans who got lucky, but that doesn't mean they don't understand where their bread is buttered.

    @ianbetteridge

    ianbetteridge, to random
    @ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    reneestephen,

    @adoranten Not sure I concur with this analysis, but thankfully it's a near-certainty that Marc hasn't read any Mumford so

    @ianbetteridge @jonahbk

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