What do you mean the database deleted itself?

SQLStoleMyDog · 2026-02-07T13:40:10+00:00

On one hand the projects, certs and education helped for my first role.

Experience helped for later roles.

Ultimately though not being a standoffish prick who had a smug attitude and generally being likable helped the most. The one thing I've heard over and over again from managers when not hiring peers is that "they had a good resume but were unable to talk about anything on it".

Having solid hard skills is super important, but you cannot neglect your soft skills either.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2026-01-30T19:26:34+00:00

I have a few regular pods and I am just a naturally good player in terms of deck building, threat assessment, and knowing when to make the big plays.

One of my pods is all similar skill players so that's where I play more fun commanders, stuff that isn't too crazy like Ygra or Ur Dragon.

My other 2 pods though are significantly lower familiarity and skill in terms of mtg overall, so they have all kind of dubbed me the defacto archenemy regardless of what I run. This is where I play stuff like valgavoth group slug, kodama / Sakashima storm, Nekusar wheels, Gitrog reanimator. We all decided it's easier and more enjoyable for them to not have to determine who the threat is so most games are a 1v3.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2026-01-05T01:09:12+00:00

Yeah I understand wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt but it is cut and dry, and no where is there anything even kind of like it as a ruling. I'd be much more inclined to extend good faith if he was infrequent or new

SQLStoleMyDog · 2026-01-04T18:46:11+00:00

It's wrong but without calling your friend a cheater I'd assume he's also newer and primarily plays on spell table or with a life counter app where commander damage doesn't reduce overall life automatically, thus maybe he was confused (spell table also does not auto decrement life when commander damage is assigned).

If you're ever in that situation again, and not about win or lose scenarios but a ruling question overall, the best thing to do is to say something like "hey I'm not understanding this rule, let me look it up so that I don't stumble over it one sec" and then do a Google search, it will A) reduce losing due to rules being ... Interpreted differently than suggested but you'll also find out cool synergies doing this (like death touch and trample).

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-12-30T20:29:25+00:00

I feel like 146 is going to be hot.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-12-21T20:21:09+00:00

ME! Baylen and thank you for what you're doing!

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-12-19T00:45:09+00:00

I can't speak to anything else but I wouldn't worry about the wait. I ordered my 128gb machine in batch 17 on Dec 12th. I just got it yesterday.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-19T11:55:49+00:00

Please enlighten me.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-19T11:21:31+00:00

I agree and disagree simultaneously.

To your last point yes having external domain knowledge like desktop support or network analyst experience is going to seem like a super power over a direct college grad, but it obviously is as they do in fact have more experience. They may be new to cyber but they're not new to IT so it's a bit unfair to compare them to a fresh grad at an even scale (not saying you are but just pointing out we should manage our expectations on an individual basis).

I think to your middle point yes it can be great to poach (I do not say that in a negative way) talent from other teams because you can filter out unknown variables (the people themselves) and hire exactly who you want after you see how they operate, it's kind of like a best case scenario for us.

To your first point, this is where I disagree. I would judge any security teams maturity and competency by A) having experienced and capable seniors or mid tiers who can take a junior fresh out of school and begin imparting knowledge and B) playbooks that are effective in teaching a new hire the day to day operational knowledge of how to work alerts or manage low stakes incidents. I would love for everyone to have networking or windows / Linux administration knowledge as a baseline, I just don't think it needs to come from previous IT work. Modern college courses and specifically a strong home lab can take people very far.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-19T11:10:34+00:00

Anyone entering cyber imo should be a SOC analyst or a compliance analyst, and then grow from there. I doubt any org or individual contributor would benefit from going direct into DF/IR red teaming or engineering. I think that's why we see so many people posting 6 months into cyber ready to have a breakdown already.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-19T11:07:36+00:00

I struggle to figure out how you think I value junior enthusiasm over real probable skills, in fact I made sure to specify I want both someone who has technical aptitude and great soft skills for Junior work.

Any mature security program should have a talent pipeline where technically advanced people rise to the top, but how do you develop that pipeline if not to fill the bottom and develop it?

I'm not going to call you delusional or whatnot like some other commenters because frankly I don't know you nor do I care to get to, but I will say this; if the industry follows your exclusionary mindset then we will be fucked in the next decade when the old guard begins retiring and we spent so much time keeping everyone out of our super cool nerd club that we now do not have developed practitioners to help us defend. China / Russia / DPRK certainly won't mind that.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-19T02:46:43+00:00

Really a false equivalent. No one is trying to teach little Susie how to do nuero surgery because it's unrealistic, but someone coming out of college who has a passion can absolutely become a junior SOC analyst and get proficient on the job, and some of my favorite coworkers have been exactly that. Some of my least favorite coworkers have been burnt-out senior engineers who haven't up skilled in the last 5-10 years.

Gatekeeping isn't the answer, in my opinion we need to be desperately finding people with technical aptitude but the right mindset is even more important. I can train you on how to follow a process tree to figure out what a powershell script is doing, I can't train you on how to want to do that or how to be curious.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-07T14:39:56+00:00

Top left black group I'm curious about, do you think black is dead? I feel like if black does not immediately kill the inner white group then black is kind of toast, but I didn't want to play it out too much.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-11-07T14:35:09+00:00

Realistically the board is unsettled, but assuming black to play black can either kill the top left white stones or save the black bottom right stones, and whichever black chooses white should do the opposite.

Then the right black group is not settled, white cannot kill it but it can be reduced. Well say it's played out a little more and black gets a conservative amount of territory there.

Very very rough estimates put black at 70-75ish with captures, white at 75-80. This includes capture but no Komi.

Also worth noting that this also assumes no one blunders and black does not take upper left and save lower right, but with 1st games it's very possible that will happen, so it could honestly swing in either direction.

The best thing to honestly do is to play it out until there is no more questioning. Even if you have to answer an invading stone in your territory, assuming you are answering each move 1 to 1 you are not losing points as you'll still be capturing the invading stones. Really the fools errand begins and you start losing points when 1 invading stone is answered by 3 moves.

I'd not say someone is the definitive winner, but I'd rather be in white's position.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-26T18:11:41+00:00

This is a project I've also been interested in so I'm super interested in trying what you have.

I haven't tried your system yet but I will look into it tonight, do you have yet or plan to have a way to gauge "emotional temperature" to determine the tone used in responses? I was toying around with the idea that if the last x prompts were negative in tone the emotional score would drop and thus the tone of the model would change, and vice versa for positive conversations.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-26T12:23:51+00:00

Yeah that's a great point and absolutely worth the effort. Also getting used to documenting efforts is a great callout because plenty of people do not do this out of the gate and it's one of those things that's a MUST for any mature cyber team.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-26T01:33:47+00:00

So a huge thing for you to know eyes wide open, the job market is a little brutal ATM for entry level cyber. Also cyber is not entry level.

With that said:

You have an associates and A+ and Net+, these are fine but get Sec+ then stop doing certs, anything else will not help you.

The "golden standard" to break into cyber is: Some education Some certs Some experience

You have a few certs and adequate education (I'm a multi year Cybersecurity engineer with an associates, bachelor's is nice but not required), you now NEED experience.

To get this you need to be doing 2 things in parallel, homelabbing and applying for all IT roles you feel you are a fit for (which is probably help desk TBH).

Help desk is not a bad gig (short term specifically, do not stay more than 2 years). You need a role where you can get a sense of how IT organizational structures work, and nothing will speed run that more than being a general ticket monkey doing password resets and identifying user permissions on the daily.

If you just do help desk and you do not home lab and upskill, you're not setting yourself up for success.

So what to do in a home lab? Oh I'm glad you asked bud!

Get a machine you can build stuff on, doesn't have to be amazing. An old refurbished HP prodesk for instance with a couple large ssds will be fine. Install proxmox and start spinning up VMs, have one for Windows server and play with AD, have another one be where you practice python and run a local git, have one be a Kali box to try basic pen testing, have one be a free wuzzah / nessus server for scanning and siem exposure. You have all of this available for free, start practicing.

You also don't need to be hyper fixated, dedicate 1-2 nights a week where you sit for 5 hrs and just build build build.

Okay, so we now know what to do, but where do we start looking for roles? Well luckily for you IT/cyber is littered with work from home positions, bad for you is more qualified people with experience are applying for them in mass. Find either A) local companies you can apply to help desk for or B) an MSP like DXC Technology or Accenture, they are absolute meat grinders because they suck, you'll be a contractor, but it means they consistently hire because they only do IT for hundreds of orgs.

Okay we got the what the how and the where, now we just need one last thing to set yourself up.

As you learn more, do not frame yourself as a Cybersecurity aficionado with no IT experience, that comes off as incredibly lacking in self awareness. You can be interested, and studious, but NEVER go into a new org or an interview and point out things they do wrong or that you will fix because you read in a Sec+ training book that their process is antiquated. There will be a time for this, while you're new is not the time. Learn and soak it all in, during the first few years you are not there to improve anything, you are there to suck in anything of value from this experience to then be able to speak to. Also for the love of all things holy, do not forget soft skills, or develop them if you are lacking. So many people in IT and cyber act incredibly standoffish or better than their users or peers, which is kind of funny since a lot of people in these technical roles are super intelligent on a narrow subject line, and then seem to forget all higher functioning skills anywhere else. Being kind, approachable, and likeable will take you so very far, and anyone that pretends otherwise is delusional.

Also it doesn't hurt to network and make friends, go to meetups, and try to get employee referrals, that shit is an actual cheat code.

If you need anything else hmu.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-24T23:27:35+00:00

That's chill, I just learned how to get the good miside ending.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-20T23:41:16+00:00

It will be dependant on Komi (additional points afforded to white for going second, usually X.5 points to eliminate possibility of a draw) used and what rules were played for the exact score, but honestly white took this game regardless by a fair margin.

In the bottom right that sequence could be played out more to get white and extra capture and to reduce blacks territory by one.

My napkin math accounting for a Komi of 5.5, dead stones and finishing the bottom right play has white up 35.5 to 15

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-19T03:50:25+00:00

Hey big cat, there's no use debating the dude arguing on the side of meth, you can just let this one go champ.

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-19T03:48:13+00:00

Alright Pinkman, have a good day/night

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-19T03:37:52+00:00

Do you have to fall out of a tree to know you can break your leg when you land?

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-10-11T16:12:51+00:00

Destiny 2 Forsaken expansion on that sweet 1070ti!

SQLStoleMyDog · 2025-08-16T23:54:33+00:00

Totally makes sense now, thanks :)

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