For the 26 of you that are following me...

First of all, thank you!

Second, I was laid off by Atlassian last week. I would appreciate if you can share with your followers that I am now open to opportunities and help increase my follower count.

Some more information about me: https://gerardkcohen.me/hire-me.html

Thank you, all 26 of you!

There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic for Kat, but it will be close. If you're in IL09, vote or same day register and vote. Your vote is NEEDED. Seriously Kat could lose by one vote, don't let it be yours.

New IL09 poll from M3 Strategies, among voters who already cast ballots by mail or early in person:

Kat Abughazaleh 29.5%
Daniel Biss 26.2%
Laura Fine 19.7%
Phil Andrew 7.9%
Mike Simmons 6.6%
Bushra Amiwala 5.1%
#IL09 #KatAbughazaleh #DanielBiss #IllinoisElections #DemocraticPrimary

I'm a software developer and sysadmin who could really use being #fedihired.

What I'd really like to do is Rust, but once you ignore the dubious crypto and AI stuff, there seems to be nothing out there. Prove me wrong with a counterexample!

I've spent decades fixing Enterprise mudballs mostly written in #Perl. If you've got a crufty legacy system that everybody else is too scared to touch, I'm your man. I love fixing stuff like that.

I've also done commercial #Scala, #Python, #C/#C++, and although I don't usually admit it on my CV but these are now Trying Times when everything is on the table, even #PHP (the longest six months of my life).

Perl naturally leads into Unix system administration and infrastructure. I've built and maintained mail clusters, VoIP systems, network monitoring, DNS management platforms, that sort of thing. If it's non-sexy but something which needs to be done, I'm there.

Available immediately, for contract or permie, onsite in Amsterdam/Randstad or remote to anywhere.

Drop me a private mention or mail [email protected] if you have or know of something.

So, I recently saw some quiet discussion about a paper where researchers reverse-engineered and disclosed some attacks against PhotoDNA, the very-super-duper-secret algorithm used by tech megacorps to scan for illegal images.

They didn't make any code public, and so... I did: https://github.com/ArcaneNibble/open-alleged-photodna

A _complete_ reverse-engineering and commented Python reimplementation of the algorithm from publicly-leaked binaries.

This means that studying the algorithm and any potential flaws is now much more accessible.

This took only about two days (once I knew that there even _was_ a leaked binary to compare against), which just goes to again show that security through obscurity never works.

🔁 encouraged

Today is Long COVID Awareness Day and I wanted to write something positive — something like: we’re not weak, we’re fighters.

But honestly, today I don’t have the energy. Sometimes the fight feels almost impossible, and the grief doesn’t go away.

To everyone living with Long COVID or another PAIS: wishing you strength.
And to all caregivers: a sincere thank you.

@longcovid
#LongCovid #PAIS #niethersteld #LevendVerdriet #CovidIsNotOver #LongCovidAwarenessDay

RE: https://mastodon.social/@ninlyricbot/116230962327277829

How I feel about the AI bubble

Unclench your jaw.

Relax your brow.

Go get a drink of water.

See if you've taken your meds

Eat something.

Doesn't matter what you look like right now, i think you look amazing.

Because you do.

You're a wonderful person.

And have this. 🫂🖤 you did great today. You made it through