> Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.
I’ve had a Blitzortung Blue sitting in a box just waiting to be soldered up - maybe this post kicks me into finally believing in my soldering iron skills and doing it.
Agreed entirely. My grandfather’s 5513 desk diver was passed down to me. It had scuffs and scratches and the lume had long since stopped glowing and turned to a mustard color.
And while I never planned to have any of that changed because I thought it added to the cool factor, the appraisal guaranteed that decision. I was recommended a local watchmaker who could service the movement only and ensure the seals were all intact. Or I could send it back to Rolex for servicing where they’d polish the case, relume the numbers, and swap the acrylic dome for sapphire - and by doing so chop ~50% off the value of the watch.
It turns out collectors love patinas and scratches and for a 60 year old watch to look its age.
One important note with mpox is that there are two distinct lineages of the virus at play: the outbreak in the US in 2022 was clade IIb, which seems to be difficult to spread - hence the “close physical contact” attribution. It also had a low observed CFR.
Clade I mpox is the current outbreak under discussion. It spreads far easier - most pathways are likely not sexual contact - and has an observed CFR 10x higher than IIb.
In other words: this is a very different virus than what we saw in 2022.
Anyone offering a discount of over 2500 basis points to participate in what might be one of the most accessible markets across the world isn’t offering actual value, they’ve just found a good mark.
Probably not enforceable != enforceable. Are you worth suing or does everyone sign? Are your state laws and jurisprudence going to back you up?
If you are ever going to sign an employee agreement that binds you, consult with an employment attorney first. I did this with a past noncompete and it was the best few hundred I ever spent: my attorney talked with me for an hour about the particulars of my noncompete, pointed out areas to negotiate, and sent back redlines to make the contract more equitable.
The single best professional decision I ever made was to get a business degree. The degree itself wasn’t worth a damn, but the network was invaluable. I have very close friends who are the exact kind of attorney who you would expect to have an undergraduate business degree. They’re greedy, combative people who absolutely relish these sorts of opportunities. And as a bonus, they are MY greedy, combative people who relish these sorts of opportunities.
They’re great partners when confronted with this kind of contract. And fundamentally, if my adversary/future employer retains counsel, I should too. Why be at a disadvantage when it’s so easy to pay money and be at even?
There are some areas my ethics don’t mesh with, but at the end of the day this is my work and I do it for pay. And when I look at results, lawyers are the best investment I have ever made.
And if you do need to touch Java for reasons Clojure doesn’t impose, the interoperability story is really good.
I’ve done this with internal libraries - it’s easy to get them pulled into a Clojure code base, wrap them in such a way that the ergonomics of the rest of your code aren’t ruined, and still treat them as a first class citizen for stuff like your build system, artifact stores, etc.
Clojure 1.12 (which is nearly done) is going to add a bunch of interop support - method values, array class syntax, Clojure fn -> Java functional interface conversion, stream support, etc.
Yes — and thank you for this work! Java functional interfaces were the only thing I was wishing for in the Clojure/JVM story. They will help me simplify code that interfaces with FoundationDB.
That’s enough to cover a typical Playing>Uncle John’s>Drums>Space, and probably not get all the way through the reprises. You’ve easily got another two hours of jam.
AWS pricing and optimization is just capacity planning, which doesn’t go away if you run on prem - it just looks different, with longer time horizons & financial implications.
“Will my data center run out of floor space & I need to expand?” (years+)
“Will I have enough cooling & power to support the new racks we need?” (6 months+)
“When do I need to get the server order out to ensure we meet our capacity needs?” (6+ weeks)
Every one of those are capital expenditures, so line them up with the annual budget cycle - be sure to keep enough spare capacity to be responsive for last minute asks.
Don’t think my intent is to romanticize the cloud, either. It’s not better, nor worse, just a different way to manage things.
Of course if your company is sufficiently small, do whatever you know and can do quickly - customer acquisition will be more important than debating the cost of either infra in aws or a colo’d server or two in some racks somewhere. But the complexity doesn’t go away if you go to the cloud, OR if you are all on prem. TINSTAAFL.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...
> Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.