I sometimes feel like indies are in a weird place when it comes to stuff like the #HugoAwards. On one hand, it’s a trad industry thing and we’re unlikely to ever even be nominated.
(Seriously, has an indie ever won a Hugo? I might have asked this before.)
On the other hand, it’s also sort of... none of our business, when the Hugos turn into a shitshow? Like there are conversations happening about what the Hugos should be and what Worldcon should be, but do we have a place in that?
I don’t know.
Could just be me tbh. I’m feeling a lot of stuff this morning, reading reaction threads. Mostly disconnected.
I’m an outsider to everything, for better or worse.
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I think maybe now is the time to talk about DDOS attacks, for everyone who's not techy, and how we can use them to perhaps hose the Texas anti-abortion law, a thread
Any website you visit sits on a tech stack that consists of servers, network connections, databases, that kind of thing. Each website is built with a certain level of traffic in mind.
It's best to envision this as a road leading to a business, let's say. The google.com homepage has a dedicated 20 lane highway, and a parking lot that can fit thousands of cars at the same time.
Your local pizza shop is off a side street and has maybe 3 spots.
I went looking for info on the idiots who organized the anti-vax protest at VGH today. They're basically a bunch of nurses and former nurses who appear to have gone off the deep end into woo woo Gwyneth Paltrow GOOP nonsense.
We have, in turn:
- a former nurse who is now a "holistic nutritionist" and totally anti-vax, who is also against masks for no goddamn reason
- a former nurse who was fired from her job and whose license is now under investigation, who appears to think you can cure illness with positive thinking and "natural healing"
I swear, at this point I'm still on LinkedIn because the messages I get are HILARIOUS.
Case in point: some marketing guy inviting me to a seminar that will supposedly teach me about this new data analytics platform
It will apparently teach me how to create databases, run queries, and "receive actionable insights"
Whyyyy do these guys all sound the same
Like... Sir, I have written database layers for everything from MySQL to Neo4j to ElasticSearch, could you please describe how yours is different and why I should use it as opposed to any of the many, many tools I already know
Right, I did some reading and here’s what likely happened with Parler. Lots of crossed wires here.
First up: someone noticed that Parler uses sequential integers in the API endpoint to get content.
An API endpoint is just a URL with a value added onto the end that tells the system what you want to get back.
Using sequential integers means that a hacker can set up an automated script to start at 1 and count up, trying API calls over and over again, to get back content from Parler.
Okay something I’ve been thinking about this morning: WTF was the actual intention of the MAGAts who stormed the Capitol building?
There’s all these people on Reddit/here saying that this was an organized coup. And TBH I keep thinking that “organized” is a strong word. 90% of them had no aim other than showing up and shouting.
The other 10% are the ones that should worry everyone.
So Trump does his stupid rally, having fired up the MAGAts for actual months, then says they should march on the Capitol and of course they do, then sympathizers among the security forces let them through to the building itself.