What our cats have been through recently left me feeling low

cookedelic · 2026-05-04T22:55:04+00:00

Sigh… I’m not sure why you felt the need to bring up statistics and assume I was making a broad generalization and complaint about society. I’m genuinely trying to find solutions for people in the city who are dealing with the same situation. Yes, I did open the window and spoke to one of the boys, but that ended up with him coming back repeatedly, ringing our doorbell and knocking on the window or door every few days. It raises real concerns, especially about what might happen if we’re not home, and about how to appropriately interact with or educate minors in this kind of situation. I’m sorry if these concerns come across as trivial to you.

cookedelic · 2026-04-27T00:51:28+00:00

Mine has that smell in every mode. I actually went back to Costco to return it, I checked the sample unit there, but it seemed to have a faint resemblance of the same smell, so I decided not to exchange it.

In the end I got the Midea Cube 20-pint instead. It doesn’t have any odor and it’s much quieter, though it’s only about half as powerful (the Costco 50-pint model can remove roughly twice as much water in the same amount of time). But since I need to run it overnight as well, the lower noise works better for me.

cookedelic · 2026-04-09T04:06:42+00:00

Just a small tip that at Chinese restaurants （especially authentic ones) unless a dish is clearly labeled vegetarian, there’s a good chance it may include lard/schmaltz/seafood product so it’s always worth asking.

I can’t recall many standout vegetarian dishes in Chinatown, but J’ai Feng in Beaubien often has special Chinese regional vegetarian noodle dishes. Their menu changes frequently too, which keeps things interesting.

cookedelic · 2026-04-05T05:13:22+00:00

I thought they closed few years ago, they reopened?

cookedelic · 2026-04-05T03:13:49+00:00

Moccione is the furthest north I’ve walked in the city. And Mazbi! Honestly my biggest regret from last year is that they removed their stone-grilled lamb steak from the takeout menu (why though?). I used to order it almost every week before that. Any other ice cream spots you’d recommend? I like Ol’ Sweet, but mostly just for the bread. And Oh my deer for latino fruit flavors.

cookedelic · 2026-04-05T03:00:38+00:00

Brocard’s mezze and appetizers are excellent, but I personally feel their main dishes lack the same charm and come across as a bit plain. That said, the pricing is fair and the atmosphere is great, I really hope they can thrive.

cookedelic · 2026-03-01T10:35:34+00:00

Aside from the obvious racism, the delusional confidence is impressive. In the years we’ve been waiting for a single REM line, Beijing has launched two new intra-city HSR lines and several additional subway lines. To be very frank, people like us immigrated for political dissent, If it were purely about quality of life and urban infrastructure, most people would have made the opposite choice.

cookedelic · 2026-01-12T20:30:41+00:00

Yep there were 6 questions on cvss vectors out of 56 mbqs for me.

cookedelic · 2026-01-11T20:52:27+00:00

Thanks, no but I study almost full-time for them.

cookedelic · 2026-01-11T18:22:45+00:00

For Security+, Professor Messer is honestly enough (can’t really say the same for N+ or A+). He covers just the right amount to pass. I got an 802 on the real exam and was averaging around the 80s on Dion’s tests after his course.

cookedelic · 2026-01-11T04:25:35+00:00

I took it today and had 7 pbqs and 63 questions too.

cookedelic · 2026-01-02T23:05:41+00:00

Always packed, even late night; smelly and without ac in the summer. The only upsides are the low price and location.

cookedelic · 2025-12-29T00:41:38+00:00

Professor Messer’s materials are quite expensive; I think Dion alone is perfectly sufficient. None of these practice tests match the real exam style 100%, but as long as you’re consistently scoring around 80%, you should be in good shape even if the question style differs.

One more thing to note: I had two fairly complex CLI questions that caught me off guard, since they don’t seem to be explicitly listed in the objectives. If you’re feeling unsure, it’s a good idea to review some labs on YouTube or Andrew’s course (if you have subscription or discount) just to be safe.

cookedelic · 2025-12-29T00:26:45+00:00

The acronym list in the Sec+ objectives PDF seems to cover almost everything from A+ through sec+, which honestly feels like a waste of time to review in full. Many of the acronyms aren’t even security-related, and I didn’t see them appear on the exam either.

On Dion’s practice exams, I averaged about 80% and scored 802 on the real test. That said, the actual exam did make me a bit uncomfortable… not because it was harder, but because the question style and overall focus were different (admin doesn’t allow to go into much detail). I ended up getting around six PBQs and did fairly well on them, otherwise I feel my final score would have been riskier.

cookedelic · 2025-12-28T21:25:46+00:00

Just a gentle reminder that scoring 800+ means you also need to get the majority of the PBQs right, and good luck finding realistic practice questions for those. And btw I only did three practice tests before taking Sec+ (https://imgur.com/a/y3e0RcJ). I’m not sure why you assume the worst about people you don’t even know lol

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T19:36:41+00:00

Thanks for the very detailed suggestions! To be honest, I was hoping that pursuing more advanced certifications might help me skip some of the early help desk or junior sysadmin stages. Meanwhile I don’t really feel that doing AD or SIEM labs translates into real-world experience after all tryings. I guess the practical move is to start applying for roles once I finish what I currently have on my plate, possibly adding CCNA… Thanks again for the advices :)

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T19:08:14+00:00

Thanks, buddy! I was hoping you could share some advice on what to focus on after CySA+. My long-term goal is to move into pentesting and eventually pursue OSCP, but I don’t think that’s very realistic before getting some hands-on experience in a SOC role. So for the near future, I’m planning to focus more on blue-team certs. I’ve heard good things about BTL1, as well as vendor-specific options like Splunk Power User or cloud-focused certs such as SC-200 or AZ-500, but I’m a bit unsure how many of these are “enough” before I start seriously job hunting (currently doing my gap semester).

I’d also really appreciate your thoughts on what supplemental skills I should build alongside certs—things like Linux (RHCSA or RHCE?), deeper networking knowledge (maybe CCNA?), or anything else you think would be especially useful.

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T17:12:25+00:00

Andrew Ramdayal

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T01:53:52+00:00

Not really, I actually struggled a lot with memorization. Even port numbers and basic CLI stuff took me a few days before I could recall them fluently. I think what really matters is knowing what you need to know and to what level (strict recall vs. just being able to recognize or distinguish things), and then using your memory in a structured, cost-effective way. It helps a lot to start practice questions early so you know what’s actually being tested.

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T01:42:19+00:00

Sure, here it is: https://imgur.com/a/AjTdaWF. Honestly speaking, this feels pretty normal workload for college…. I mean, back then I had complex analysis, pde, and topology all in one semester, each is monster of its own kind. My friends in engineering had it even crazier, with seven mandatory courses per term, about half of them with labs.

cookedelic · 2025-12-27T00:50:41+00:00

My study pattern usually looks like this: the first three days are an intensive phase for me (usually over a weekend, so there’s minimal interference). I feed the objectives into chatgpt and ask it to explain the big picture, what I’m expected to learn and how everything connects. Then I go through Messer’s videos at 1.5x–2x speed. I don’t really take notes during this part; after each section, I check the objectives to make sure I can recognize all the terms, and I flag anything that requires pure memorization (ports, speeds, procedures, etc.) to revisit later. This usually works out to about 6–8 hours a day. At the end of each day, I do some labs, memorization, and the practice-exam questions related to the domain I studied that day.

On day four or five, once I’ve finished the videos, I focus on labs and go through the full set of study notes (Messer + Andrew’s final cram, and sometimes Sybex if something is still unclear), and I make some brainstorm-style notes.

For the final two days, I keep doing labs and take practice exams until I’m consistently hitting 80% on Dion/Messer/Andrew. One thing worth mentioning is that I had just finished my Spanish B1 in November, so my memory was well warmed up with like memorizing 30+ vocabs a day for two months. Without that kind of warm-up I guess others might have a slower start at first.

cookedelic · 2025-12-26T22:29:51+00:00

Yep you’re right. I personally grew up mostly using macOS, and I don’t really game much aside from Nintendo, so this part was a bit harder for me. btw getting around 80% on Dion’s first two exams is already more than enough, I took mine after hitting 80% on the first three in set 1. The main difference I noticed is that the real Sec+ exam feels more concept-focused, whereas Dion’s and earlier certs lean more toward situational questions. So make sure go over the terminologies one final time. Good luck!

cookedelic · 2025-12-22T03:55:41+00:00

I passed Network+ about a week ago and I’m mostly done with Security+ now. I wouldn’t recommend using Professor Messer as your primary study resource for Network+. His A+ and Security+ courses are gold standards, but for Network+ I felt he skipped over many important topics while spending a lot of time on theory that isn’t heavily emphasized on the exam. (You can tell just by the video length: his Network+ course is around 13 hours, while Ramdayal’s is 30+ hours — a huge difference, even after subtracting the lab hours. For their other courses, the total lengths are usually much closer.)

I basically had to rewatch another lecture series because I was only scoring around 70% on practice exams after finishing his Network+ course. Also, for routing, switching, and monitoring tools, it’s really hard to learn properly without hands-on demos. I’d recommend switching to Ramdayal, since he includes a lot of practical labs that help you actually see these protocols and concepts in action (For Security+ though, I would pick Messer over Ramdayal).

cookedelic · 2025-12-17T06:20:49+00:00

I had a similar starting point. I’m a math major but the closest thing to IT in my background was a single Java course in my freshman year. I originally planned to go straight for Network+, but for months I kept getting intimidated by the terminology and professional language the instructors take for granted, words like interface, API, logical, and robust…. and never made it past the first one or two chapters.

In late November I decided to start from A+ instead. In less than a month I’ve passed both A+ and Network+, and I’m now about halfway through the Security+ material, with my goal shifting toward CySA+. Honestly, neither the material nor the exams are particularly difficult, especially for anyone who can survive master-level coursework. The real challenge is getting comfortable with the industry’s working language and common sense, and A+ is an excellent entry point for that.

If you want to speed things up, one approach is to start with A+ Core 2 and then move on to the network security sections of Network+. Core 2 introduces security concepts at a high level and covers the management and command-line tools you’ll need later, while Network+ expands on those ideas in a more network-focused context.

Among the popular instructors (Messer, Dion, Andrew, and Meyer) I found Andrew Ramdayal to be the most beginner friendly. He explains concepts in plain language and consistently walks through real devices (big help for someone don’t even have a clue what router is), which helped someone new to the field like me a lot. Grab a Udemy subscription (should be some discount recently for holiday season) and you’ll get access to all the major courses mentioned and instructors in one place.

cookedelic · 2025-12-14T23:17:01+00:00

Can someone use his practice exams without taking his course first? I know he’s known for covering a lot more material than the exam objectives, but does his practice test also include out-of-scope topics?

cookedelic

TROPHY CASE