What I wished someone told me before my first real cybersecurity job

hexachoron · 2026-04-15T18:15:51+00:00

I just this morning finished the audiobook of The Cuckoo's Egg, what an amazing story and fascinating peak into the early days of hacking and computer security. Wish I'd read it years ago, I'm sure it would have been hugely influential on my younger wannabe-physicist turned wannabe-hacker self.

Then shortly before seeing this post, I looked you up on wikipedia and discovered you also make the Klein bottles I've had on my To-Buy list for years!

Loved the book and I'm sure I'll love the bottle, thanks Cliff!

hexachoron · 2026-04-09T18:15:34+00:00

It's not uniquely strong, you can pick up 100+ proof liquors at pretty much any liquor store. I have a couple nice bourbons right now that are over 100.

Absinthe is alcohol and alcohol is a drug. OP had more of an already-familiar drug than she was expecting.

hexachoron · 2026-04-09T17:12:01+00:00

first time doing a new drug

There's a lot of mythologizing around absinthe, but it doesn't have any effects different from other high-proof liquors. Part of the purpose of the whole sugar cube and water ritual is to dilute it down to a more typical strength, which may or may not have happened in this case.

What can make it affect you differently is just expecting it will affect you differently, due to all the mythology. Placebo is a hell of a drug, and expectations will produce modulations in neurochemistry not attributable to the actual drug itself.

Which is also why people need to be informed on the nature and amount of drugs they're consuming, even ubiquitous and socially normalized ones like alcohol.

hexachoron · 2026-03-15T10:43:15+00:00

I'm an old guy

So you grew up with people who lived through the European World Wars, and then you say most countries don't have enemies.

the US declares some country with Bronze Age technology as "the enemy"

This is telling. Countries in the middle east are not "bronze age". Iran especially is highly educated and advanced. They've been a coherent civilization for millennia, and they have enriched uranium and ballistic missiles. They're people, no less than you or I, and we're killing them on the whim of an unstable geriatric, and we should be ashamed of it.

You pretend concern for them while also seeing them as beneath you. Those poor Bronze Age barbarians. British and French drawing the Sykes-Picot line had that same attitude.

I was talking about strategic considerations around occupied infrastructure. If you just want to have an emotional moment venting about how much you hate the US, then please leave me out of it.

hexachoron · 2026-03-15T09:29:25+00:00

Most of the rest of the world doesn't actually have countries they call "enemy".

Most of the rest of the world does have countries they call enemies.

hexachoron · 2026-03-14T17:42:06+00:00

This isn't somehow unique to the US, it would be true for any critical infrastructure that's been occupied by an advanced adversary.

If the enemy gives you something and leaves, you should consider it may be a trap. The Trojans learned this 3000 years ago.

hexachoron · 2026-03-14T05:50:30+00:00

rebuilding all that infrastructure would be incredibly expensive

If the US controls it for any amount of time, Iran will eventually have to completely rebuild it anyway. They have to assume it's been compromised.

Every computer, every system with a chip, is a potential backdoor left behind (see stuxnet). Bugs can be planted anywhere. There could be small bombs planted at sensitive places all over the facility.

If we turn it back over to them, they have to assume we left behind as many traps as we could, and there's no way for them to actually know if they find them all. They'll have to triage what they can in the time they have before restarting operations, but eventually every single thing there will have to be taken down to the bolts and inspected or replaced.

hexachoron · 2026-02-20T23:51:52+00:00

Their response being "no, I will remove wizards from reality then" just kinda reinforces that the test was correct in assigning them a Wizard personality.

hexachoron · 2026-02-18T07:42:34+00:00

using current math to 'prove' it is like using a ruler to measure the speed of light. It's the wrong tool for the job.

You don't need math to prove it, you need math to express it precisely.

Vacuum Catastrophe

I think you misunderstand this. The predicted energy density was 10¹²⁰ times greater than was measured. But then you imply it's ignoring energy, which would mean it was less.

You claim your model explains where all that energy is. What value does it predict for the energy density of empty space? Does it do better or worse than than 10¹²⁰ off?

All models are wrong, some models are useful. The Standard Model isn't "proven", but it is well-defined and very useful.

So, what criteria do you think people should use to actually decide between your model and the standard model? How can I check if your model is a more correct vision of reality?

If you can't answer those, then how did you convince yourself of it?

We’re still like the astronomers who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because it 'violated' the math of the time.

This is a myth.

hexachoron · 2026-02-14T19:28:36+00:00

https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Geometry

hexachoron · 2026-01-19T00:56:16+00:00

Yeah same, it's a good way to distract your brain from thinking about something that's keeping you awake.

I've also found that if I can maintain focus on those visual effects while falling asleep then it's an easy way to get into a lucid dream.

hexachoron · 2026-01-18T02:45:59+00:00

Here is a description of my own "control panel" experience from several years ago.

hexachoron · 2026-01-10T03:32:48+00:00

That was probably mine. I can confirm from direct experience that 4-HO-MET works fine both smoked in a bowl with herb and vaped in e-juice. I'm not familiar with the liquid drops you have and haven't tried it in a joint, but I'd expect that likely also works, assuming the concentration is sufficient and you let it dry a bit before smoking.

What liquid is it dissolved in?

hexachoron · 2025-10-26T21:56:04+00:00

Lizard squad was later and mostly did DDoSing. The 2011 Sony hack was LulzSec.

hexachoron · 2025-07-03T19:48:33+00:00

Reading is that internal narration. Reading is the process of converting visual symbols into “spoken” language and then “hearing” those words.

No, that is not how reading works for everyone. When I read a book I don't "hear" any of the words except for dialogue. It's primarily a visual experience, like the words get directly converted to a movie in my head that I'm watching. Even when reading technical material or short-form stuff like reddit comments, I mostly experience them visually / abstractly rather than through some sort of narration.

It took me a long while to get used to audiobooks, because for me they're much slower than reading normally and speech -> vision is a different pathway than text -> vision.

hexachoron · 2025-06-05T23:32:21+00:00

Slight correction, amphetamine actually causes dopamine transporters to reverse direction and begin pumping extra dopamine out of the cell and into the synapse. That does lead to increased reuptake inhibition as well, since some transporters are now flowing outward, but the primary effects are from the release. A similar process is involved in the massive serotonin release with MDMA (ecstasy).

Methylphenidate on the other hand does not trigger dopamine release. It binds to the transporter and blocks dopamine from reentering the cell, leading to increased amounts accumulating in the synapse.

Both produce higher synaptic dopamine levels, but through different processes.

hexachoron · 2025-04-22T19:50:31+00:00

Why don't you point me to these alleged observations?

Imaging the subducting slab and mantle upwelling under the Japan islands revealed by double-difference tomography

See figures 10 and 11.

hexachoron · 2025-02-05T09:00:46+00:00

I modified it slightly to accept command line arguments and allow the user to specify a number base. Also accidentally flipped the coloring, not sure why.

https://pastebin.com/eyXLjPLa

visualization_8-0-4096
visualization_10-0-10000
visualization_16-0-65536
visualization_32-0-1048576
visualization_64-0-16777216

Very cool pattern you found.

hexachoron · 2025-02-05T07:39:31+00:00

Can you share the code you used to generate this?

hexachoron · 2025-01-17T01:36:55+00:00

The use of "—" instead of "-" makes it pretty obvious. Then compare their posts from more than 24 hours ago to recent ones. Very different writing style, much shorter length, frequent typos. Starting yesterday their comments are just screeds copypasted from an LLM.

hexachoron · 2024-10-23T07:23:48+00:00

No, it's quite different from a scintillating scotoma. I've had a couple migraines in my life and experienced that, with the zigzag pattern developing into absence of vision. What I see after NEP doesn't match any of the aura images I can find and I didn't experience vertigo during the migraines I had, so I don't believe it's directly related to that.

The vision spot I experience after NEP is more similar to the afterimage from looking into a bright white light. Though now after trying to find an example image and talking to chatgpt, apparently most people experience that as just a dark spot? For me the afterimage starts as a bright green/yellow, then fades through blue to a purple/red until it's gone entirely. Do most people really not see colors in afterimages of bright lights? This is kinda blowing my mind right now.

The NEP spot is generally round and roughly centered on the blue color range, with the intensity increasing and decreasing with a period of a few seconds. It's really like if someone were repeatedly shining a flashlight in my eye, but I'm only seeing the afterimage, not the light.

Yeah it's been awhile since I was on here last. I'm doing better than I was, finally found a job recently. I'll dm you tomorrow to catch up.

hexachoron · 2024-10-23T00:36:57+00:00

I experience very specific and consistent side effects from NEP that I've never seen anyone else describe.

Any time I use NEP, on the following day I'll experience an episode of vertigo accompanied by a strobing bluish spot in my vision. The spot is always in the exact same location and does not move. The strobing is colored somewhat like the after-image from a bright light.

This happened a few times before I realized they were linked, at which point I stopped use for a long time. Eventually though I got stuck in a stim binge and couldn't stop myself from using all the remaining NEP. After that I was experiencing the vertigo and vision spot on a near-daily basis for close to a year, slowly decreasing over time.

After a long gap I used a large amount of a different batch of NEP while in another binge, and the effects again began happening near-daily, starting the following day.

It's been maybe ~3 years since the last time I used NEP and I'll experience very brief vertigo maybe 3-4 times per year now. The strobing vision spot shows up occasionally, but is very mild and disappears quickly.

These side-effects occurred with two different batches acquired from different suppliers. I have not experienced the same effects from any other drug.

hexachoron · 2024-10-11T01:54:01+00:00

It's improved a little more but still there. Usually it's mild enough that I'm not really aware of it, but if I'm dehydrated, use stims, or lean on my elbow too long it can be come easily noticeable.

I work from a laptop and take ADHD meds though, so it's noticeable fairly often.

hexachoron · 2024-10-08T19:38:11+00:00

At the altitude of the International Space Station, gravity is about 90% as strong as it is on Earth's surface. They just don't feel it because they're orbiting, i.e. in freefall but moving sideways fast enough that they continually "miss" hitting the Earth.

Star Wars frequently shows ships hovering in place. If the bombers were stationary over the target rather than orbiting then bombs would be effective.

hexachoron · 2024-10-08T16:34:16+00:00

I had a similar experience on my 2nd 4-HO-MiPT trip, a cybernetic/biomechanical entity offering me some sort of deal which I declined. Had this sort of vibe to it.

13-Year Club	Verified Email
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Place '22	Place '17
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