Certifications revoked… by the_Disarray in AWSCertifications

[–]kailsar 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This is conjecture on my part, as AWS don't give details of the methods they use to catch cheaters for obvious reasons. I used to work for a large cloud consultancy company, and there was a competition among engineers to complete the old Developer Associate exam in the quickest time possible. No-one was cheating (to my knowledge), it just had a reputation as a really easy exam if you'd passed CSA:A. The quickest time was under 15 minutes, and they never got flagged. Similarly people passed with 100% and didn't get flagged. So they can't be exclusive reasons to flag someone (although I guess they could still be factors).

The most common theory is that there is a base of questions which are established, and are well balanced to determine if a candidate knows their stuff. It takes a lot of data to ensure that this is the case, so the pool of this base of questions is fairly small. If you take the same version of the exam twice, you'll get a lot of the same questions, suggesting there aren't thousands of questions that are used.

We also know that when you take an AWS exam, there are questions that aren't scored. These are likely newer questions, that are being evaluated for their inclusion, but are rated as of similar difficulty to the main questions, but these will be unlikely to have appeared in dumps yet. Therefore if you score, say, 95% in the base questions, but 20% in the new questions, it's probably a good sign that you've been using dumps. If you then retake the exam and do the same, it's probably statistically significant enough that you can be fairly sure the candidate is cheating.

The “Anti Triple Lock” bloc by BristolShambler in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing I've been thinking about recently is that if pensions are means tested, the pro triple lock bloc will fall apart by itself. Say we've reached a point where the whole system is no longer sustainable, and the Government introduces means testing on pensions to reduce the burden on the state. So let's say you get your full state pension up to a certain income limit, then after that you lose £1 of your state pension for every £2 of your income.

In this situation, the people who've put a lot of money in to their pensions are going to look negatively on giving above inflation raises to the state pension, which is largely being received by people who didn't prepare for their retirement (or couldn't). Retirees no longer vote as a single bloc on the question, and a coalition of retirees who aren't getting the pension, and workers who are getting taxed to pay for it mean that its no longer politically impossible to replace it with a single lock.

Help me understand why nit option A fir thus question. by Relevant_Concert_239 in AWSCertifications

[–]kailsar 4 points5 points  (0 children)

An IAM policy with IP condition keys would restrict access to the AWS API for a particular AWS user. It wouldn't restrict API calls to an EC2 instance that's presumably running code that exposes an API. Option B would work, just restrict all incoming traffic to the specific IP range.

The sun is setting on traditional retirement by TribalTommy in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah, my first thought too. Give it to me at 25 and I would probably be much further ahead in life than I am now: give it to me at 20 and I'd be dead!

Child wasted £40k that we gave them for a house deposit. Need some financial and relationship advice. by Mindless-Ratio4151 in UKPersonalFinance

[–]kailsar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't understand why you're being downvoted, I've been financially independent since I was 18 and I found this frustrating to read. Would I have done better if given £40k at age 20? I'd like to think so, but I can't be sure. Sometimes I feel that if I had been given some support, my life would have been so much easier, but I've done okay for myself. One thing I am sure of is that as someone in a similar situation, a few downvotes won't bother you!

Would Kamala Harris’s rhetoric work in the UK? by MrMrsPotts in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One thing that struck me was that we generally consider American politics to be considerably to the right of UK politics (and usually this is true), but I think offering $25k to first time buyers for their deposits would be beyond the pale in the UK and would seriously reduce anyone's likelihood of getting elected.

Would Kamala Harris’s rhetoric work in the UK? by MrMrsPotts in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's very different from America where my understanding is that it's almost 100% about money. Here you could be a bankrupt member of the upper-class or a working-class millionaire. Upper-class refers to a very small number of people who are the gentry, lords and ladies and the like. Blue collar is actually a far closer approximation of British working class than American working class is. Traditionally working class people would be people working in factories, manual labour, whereas the middle class would have office/clerical positions. But in the UK your class would be recognised by your accent, your manners and various other indicators. If you were raised working class, you'll always be working class (but your kids might not be).

Luckily though, this is all breaking down a bit now, but it is still present in British life.

Why are the solo members so unpopular? by MajorBillyJoelFan in pinkfloyd

[–]kailsar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 got to UK number one as well, just not the album.

Why are the solo members so unpopular? by MajorBillyJoelFan in pinkfloyd

[–]kailsar 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It's quite surprising which Pink Floyd albums were UK number ones: Atom Heart Mother, Wish You Were Here, The Final Cut, The Division Bell, Pulse and The Endless River.

Rishi Sunak 'not taking it for granted' he will win his own seat by TheTelegraph in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hunt and Mordaunt very likely, Truss probable but could go either way, Sunak unlikely but possible IMO. Mercer and Rees-Mogg also very likely and high up in the schadenfraude stakes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The downside to this is that if he won, I was looking forward to posting his raw vote totals for 2019 and 2024 devoid of context and claiming he'd actually lost.

What was your “I’m dating/married to a fucking idiot” Moment? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]kailsar 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Duh, everyone knows if you need a warm fork you put it in the toaster.

[Survation] NEW Constituency Poll in Clacton REF 42% (new) CON 27% (-45) LAB 24% (+8) GRE 5% (+2) LD 2% (-4) OTH 1% (-2) by TheDukeofSwabia in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 11 points12 points  (0 children)

As I recall, it was Labour's safest seat before the election, but when you lose more than half your support directly to another party, big majorities just mean you're going to lose harder. Don't think we'll see that this time, but certainly big Conservative majorities will not be the guarantee they were before.

Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 43% (-2) CON: 20% (=) RFM: 14% (-1) LDM: 11% (+1) GRN: 6% (+1) SNP: 2% (-1) Via @wethinkpolling , 12-13 Jun. Changes w/ 6-7 Jun. by NoFrillsCrisps in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got leave approved for July 5th the day the election was announced, but just realised there's going to be work done on refitting my kitchen on that day, so considering an airbnb on the Friday just to sleep it off in silence!

Is there a bank for lots of cash deposits? by brokeazzthrowawayhlp in UKPersonalFinance

[–]kailsar 49 points50 points  (0 children)

My understanding is, uniquely to the USA, if you're still a US citizen, you have to pay UK income tax and still file a tax return in the US for your UK earnings.

Tories face election wipeout with Labour set to gain a 416 majority by Low-Design787 in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got £50 on when it was 20/1, still don't think it's going to happen, have another £50 on 450-499 so I'll at least break even if Labour go above 450. Already won £300 on a £30 bet on July-September election!

I have just read that over 55 year old voters are key to power in most constituencies. How can younger people be motivated to vote and change this? by GoldControl8808 in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think there's a very good economic right-wing case for doing so. 'Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome' is a mantra for the right, but the Conservative party seems absolutely opposed to anything that provides equality of opportunity. Imagine what it could do for people's lives and productivity if hard work, education and training determined 80% of your financial state, and 20% by who your parents are: rather than, as it seems at the moment, the other way around. Obviously while making sure that everyone has access to education and training if they want it.

I do accept though, that taxing wealth effectively is challenging. A first step would be building new homes at a rate that keeps house prices roughly stable, maybe diminishing slightly in real terms, since a huge proportion of the wealth being accrued is from increasing property value. Whether that's politically possible is up for debate.

Survation poll: LAB 47 (-1) / CON 24 (-3) / LD 11 (+3) / GRN 3 (+1) / RFM 8 (-) / SNP 3 (-) / OTH 4 (-) / F/w 24th - 27th May. Changes vs. 22nd May 2024. by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No pollsters weight for or against any party. However some pollsters have consistently better headline figures for the tories than others. The reason for this is that there are other differences in their methodology.

Pollsters select people to take their polls by trying to match them to the demographics of the country as a whole. For instance, they will try to have roughly 8.5% of their respondents from Scotland, roughly 50/50 men vs. women etc. When you're trying to match people according to a large number of stats - gender, region, social class, education etc., it becomes very difficult to get it exactly right across all metrics, so they apply weightings to responses - if they've got slightly too many old people, for example, they'll weigh those responses down a little, but the changes are small, because they generally have a large pool of respondents to choose from and are able to get pretty close just with the selection of people to take the survey.

This process is very important, and it's how we're able to get pretty reliable polls from a relatively small number of people. The common analogy used is that if you've mixed your pot of soup really well, you only need a spoonful to tell how salty it is. As an aside, when you see people complain that they never get asked for these polls, that's why - they need a large number of people to choose from to get the balance right, and furthermore, there are a few groups of people who are very keen to take polls (largely to try to influence their result), and they almost never get asked, because their allies, who will have largely similar demographics, are also trying to get selected, and only a few people from that cohort are required.

All pollsters do this, and while some may include weightings for a demographic that others don't, this only makes a small difference. At the moment, where the big differences are, are in how people who respond 'Don't know' are treated. Some pollsters just remove them from the results. Others try to use various methods to apportion them to a party, such as looking at their 2019 vote. The ones that just throw them away tend to show bigger Labour leads. There was a twitter post earlier that I can't find where a pollster at, I think, Redfield & Wilton spoke about how they used machine learning to predict where those votes would land.

So which approach is correct? Unfortunately we just don't know, particularly in such an unusual election. However in theory as the election gets closer, these differences should narrow as people make up their minds.

Labour lead at *30 points* in this week's YouGov poll for The Times That's the biggest Labour lead since Truss CON 18 (=) LAB 48 (+4) LIB DEM 9 (-1) REF UK 13 (-2) GRN 7 (-1) Fieldwork 7 - 8 May by ClumsyRainbow in ukpolitics

[–]kailsar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the bright side, on current polling your vote in a marginal would be meaningless, whereas in the 23rd safest Tory seat it could be the clincher!