Boomerangme

boomerangme

Startups of The Year 2023 Winners: North America 

The Ray Shot Down and Squadrons of Planes Frizzled Like Moths in the Air

El rayo derribado y los escuadrones de aviones se encresparon como polillas en el aire

Le rayon abattu et les escadrons d'avions frisés comme des papillons de nuit dans les airs

रे शॉट डाउन और विमानों के स्क्वाड्रन हवा में पतंगों की तरह जम गए

光線が撃ち落とされ、飛行機の飛行隊が空中の蛾のように縮れた

O raio abatido e esquadrões de aviões frisados como mariposas no ar

Tia bắn hạ và Phi đội Máy bay Lăn tăn như Bướm đêm trên không

射线被击落，飞机中队像空中飞蛾一样卷曲

Techniques for collaboration You reboot your development server, but it happens again: . This wasn’t here yesterday. What changed? err_node_unsafe It’s 9:48 in the morning and your coffee is already cold. Most of the other people on your team aren’t in the office yet. This is your fifth week at the company, your feature was supposed to be done two days ago. You raise the height of your chair as if that would give you some sort of different perspective on what’s going on. You reboot again, and the stack trace slides into your terminal again: . You wipe your development database: Come err_node_unsafe err_node_unsafe. on! The tech lead of one of the other teams is at her desk across the room. Her headphones are on. She’s deep in the zone. Would she be able to fix this? What would she say? Does she know what’s going on? Can she help? You stare, silently, and the sides of the screens swing towards you, imperceptibly, by an inch. A coffee ring appears on your notebook. You stay silent. Then, you reboot again. Maybe this time, the error won’t happen. Asking for help is hard, and procrastination protects us from it. That’s why you must perfect your ability to ask for help. It’s key to achieving productivity as an engineer. 1. Clarify what’s expected of you. Don’t work under unclear expectations. The result can only be ambiguity and guilt. Take, for example, the following: Get out of the house and go to work. Get out of the house and go to the gym. Which of those two things are easier to do? Getting on my way to go to work in the morning isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it’s far easier than going to the gym. I know that if I skip work, several people will notice. No one me to go to the gym. That lack of expectation means I’m less motivated to do it. expects When your expectations are unclear, you’re going to procrastinate, make excuses, change your mind several times, and have a bad time getting the job done. Getting help at work is the same. If you feel like no one is expecting you to ask for help, you’re going to have a heck of a time convincing yourself to do it. Ask your manager what they expect you to do when you’re stuck. This will change the way that you think about getting help at work. Ask your manager what you should do when you get stuck. After that conversation, you’ll start to think of getting unblocked as a instead of a part of your job failure to do your job. Discussing how to get help normalizes your process of getting stuck. It prepares you to face the challenge head-on. Are you worried what your manager might think when you bring up this topic? Be sure to start the conversation by restating common ground. Reiterate that your main goal is to be an autonomous and productive contributor to the team. Then discuss what a productive engineer does when they get stuck. Define your personal procedure leading up to asking for help. Describe the steps that you go through when you get stuck. Include anything that’s likely to unblock you without help. The final step in your process will be to ask to collaborate with someone else. When it’s time to ask for help, don’t hesitate. Make the decision to ask for help as clear and objective as possible. The more you can remove subjective judgment from the decision, the better. Here’s an example of a checklist that you could use: - Did I restart my development environment?- Did I write down the problem?- Did I Google it?- Did I run that build-cleaning command that sometimes works?- Did I search our internal docs for it?- Did I read some of the related source code for 20 minutes?- If so, ask a teammate for help immediately. Share this checklist with your manager and teammates. It’s a powerful way to set crystal-clear expectations for yourself. Remember to revise and update this list as you learn more about how to work on your team. 2. When you ask, take full responsibility. Many engineers think of asking for help as a to do their jobs. To them, asking for help is giving up. When they ask for help, they’re only interested in getting unblocked so that they can resume their jobs. That’s why they might ask a question like this one: failure real “My git branch is really messed up. Can you fix it?” Then they might sit to the side while another engineer takes the keyboard and fixes the problem for them. Their eyes kind of glaze over as they watch someone else work. They’re so burned out on the problem that they have completely checked out. Make it clear that you’re not giving up. Avoid using phrases like “I need help” or “I can’t get this to work”. These both imply that you’re done working and you are now trying to pass the buck off to someone else. Instead, describe your For example: “I’m looking into this weird error on my development server.” ongoing work. Next, hint at some of the work you’ve already done. “I’ve checked Slack for the error and searched the source code and haven’t found anything so far.” Finally, describe how they can get involved in your next step. “I’m going to look at this file to understand what’s going on. If you have a minute to pair on it with me, it would be helpful.” You’re creating a productivity train that’s taking off whether or not they decide to hop on-board. Bringing energy and focus to the conversation helps everyone have a better experience. Your teammates will be a lot more enthusiastic about helping you if they can see that you’re not checked-out. Actively participate in the helping process. Once you start working with someone, don’t step aside and let them work on their own. Work on building up your own copy of their own mental model. Ask “why” questions, like “why might a node be unsafe?” and “why are you looking in this file?” Take short notes during the process. These might be useful to you later. They also display appreciation and respect towards your coworker. Active learning is far more effective than passive learning, so participate as much as possible by speaking and writing. Pair takes a lot of energy. If you sense that you’re flagging, then don’t be afraid to say that you’re going to work on the problem on your own for a while. Be specific about how you will explore the problem so that they can leave you to it with confidence. This will keep you from zoning out. programming 3. After you get an answer, follow up. It feels great to make progress on a project after being stuck for several hours. The error goes away, and you’re ready to fly. I mean, being productive is what it’s all about, right? so Then, three days later, it happens. We’ve all done it. “Hey, Mark — what was that command I’m supposed to run to fix this problem again?” I wouldn’t blame Mark if he thought that his help was going in one ear and out of the other. Getting help requires significant time investment from all parties involved. It’s just good business to make sure that investment doesn’t go to waste. Be intentional about how you act you get help. after Solidify what you learned. This is crucial: every time you work with someone on something, write down what you learned. Writing is the oven that hardens ideas in your mind like a brick. Make capturing notes as frictionless as possible. I find that even choosing a filename is too much work, so I use Quiver to track my notes. My notes have no organizational scheme, and they are still useful to me on a daily basis. If you posted your problem on a company Slack channel, follow up with what your solution was. This forms a knowledge base that is useful to you and others. It also creates a stronger sense of accomplishment for you so that you’re encouraged to find help again in the . future Spaced repetition is one of the most effective ways to remember information. Anki is a powerful tool for managing spaced repetition. Sending yourself a boomeranged email or delayed Asana task is a simpler way refreshing yourself. Show appreciation, not just gratitude. If you make people feel great about helping you, then they’ll do it more. You probably already say “thank you” after someone helps you. That’s showing gratitude. Appreciation is different from gratitude. When you appreciate someone, they feel special and unique. Here are some ways to do that: In your team Slack channel: “Shout out to Alice for helping me figure out that weird bug!” During standup: “Yesterday I was blocked for a while, but Alice helped me figure it out because she knows a lot about how our Controllers work.” Writing a quick email: “Thanks again for taking the time to help me earlier today. I’m making great progress now.” Appreciating people after a delay makes the interaction feel less transactional. Instead, it feels like you’re building a strong professional relationship. Showing appreciation is harder than it looks, so remembering to do this will make you stand out in a good way. Always make it count when you ask for help. Software engineers explore uncharted territories of logic and data. The adventurous will always encounter the unexpected. There is much to uncover on your own. However, there is far more to learn in collaboration with your fellow explorers. Embrace it, and master it. Your ability to solve difficult problems with others is one of your crucial skills as a professional software engineer. What can you bring to the table when you’re stuck on a problem? Learn that, and there’s nothing that can stop you. If you’re passionate about helping teams collaborate effectively, you should . work with me at Asana

How awesome engineers ask for help

If you’re anything like me, you’re the managing director of your company and also the marketing assistant (and cleaner and receptionist). Running my small I do a lot with a little, but I’ve seen opportunities swoop past me because I don’t have the headspace to consistently do the things I know I should be doing. copy writing business It’s why over the last few years I’ve started gathering apps that make and business development a bit more automated and easy for a like mine. You’ll see many of them are really more about great customer service or — that’s not a mistake. In our business, our existing customers are our best, fastest and cheapest source of new business. It’s probably the same for you too. marketing small business management Here goes. Ask Nicely — make customers love you If you’ve never heard of Net Promoter Score, brace yourself. It’s a super simple way of measuring the most important business metric ever — how much your clients love you. If they score you 1, you’ve got an issue; 10 and they’re actively recruiting clients on your behalf. It’s all based on one question: “how likely are you to recommend us?” The value in that is immense. But… NPS software is generally heavy and dull, wrapped up in all sorts of add-ons that make people not want to answer — and it’s slow. You often have to wait until the end of the month to get your scores sends that simple little questions to your clients and lets them answer You also get real-time data, so you hear about the haters immediately. That can hurt your heart, but by god it’s useful — if you can get in touch with haters really quickly you have a pretty excellent shot at turning them into lovers. If a true lover crops up, that’s your cue to make them extra love you with a phone call or a gift. Ask Nicely in the email. An extra bonus is that Ask Nicely is NZ-made. Clever clogs. Gmail canned messages — make a robot do the typing If you’re anything like me, you feel like you’re writing the same email over and over again. I have stock text to go with proposals, first drafts, chase ups — you name it. Somewhere in my system I have a document called “standard wording” which I thought was a bit of revelation when I wrote. Sending a proposal? Open, cut and paste, send. Easy! Imagine my joy when I stumbled across Gmail’s canned messages. Now I have that standard text stored in my system, so the next time I need one, there’s no searching, cutting or pasting. I just click the arrow button in the lower right-hand corner of window, choose the message, personalise and hit send. You can set responses to go out automatically, based on things like who sent it, and if they’ve used a keyword, label or subject. It goes without saying that if you’d like help penning these stock responses, we’re your copy writers. Boomerang — email super powers is another Gmail add-on, and I love it. I use it like an ad-hoc CRM system. Boomerang It does two things: Sends emails at a set time Boomerangs emails back to you if your recipient hasn’t responded. Here are some of the ways I use it: Automatic proposal follow-ups I Boomerang every proposal email, with a specific set of keywords. If they don’t respond in a day, I get the email back, which triggers an automatic Canned Message to follow them up. Genius! If that sounds too hard, a Boomeranged email will at least remind you not to let a hot lead get cold Managing delivery I schedule emails a lot. Here’s a secret: mostly things take me a while to write. But if I hit a stroke of inspiration, I get stuff done really, really quickly. When that happens, I don’t just send it back to the client. Why? Because people start to get used to turn around times that simply aren’t always achievable. So I schedule emails to go out later — still ahead of time, but not so much that I’m shooting future me in the foot. That way, I can get that project out of my head for a while. Keeping warm leads on the burner I also used scheduled emails to keep track of warm leads. If a client tells me they’ll be ready to talk in a week or two, I’ll say “great!” and then It’s a genius move, I know. I used to put reminders in my diary. Now I write the email immediately and just schedule it in. You’ll be surprised at how many people genuinely do want to work with you. actually email them again in a week or two. Pxlr — stop stealing images These days social media is visual. I’ve seen it in action. A post with a powerful, beautiful image will always outperform one with no image or a low-quality image. So mostly people steal them from the net. Let me tell you now: you should stop doing that. Not only is it ethically questionable, it’s also bad for business. Creating your own images is often faster because you avoid those lost hours clicking through a search result. It will also give you the chance to start building a visual style so that people connect all your images together. OK! You’re sold! But oh. Have you seen how expensive Photoshop is? Well, never fear, is basically Photoshop for free. As long as you’re not trying to retouch Michael Jackson into your family photo, it’ll do everything you need: adjust colours, add stickers and type, free-hand draw, rotate, crop and resize, get rid of red-eye — you name it. Pxlr Squarespace — get a great website, free Stop asking web developers to build you a single page website. It’s not worth their time and it’s not worth your money. Instead, roll up your sleeves and get onto . So easy to use, so beautiful and free to design — you just pay them to host your site. As a side note, if you feel like you need a bit of hand-holding to help you set up the site, that’s what Squarespace this company does. My bag of tricks has made business development way easier, and simpler. Share them with your friends(or keep them secret so you look extra amazing). Originally published at www.wordsforbreakfast.co.nz .

Five tools to make you a small business marketing genius.

Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in from cyberspace. The cybersecurity industry is pulling off a magic trick that would make Houdini proud: simultaneously inflating consultant rates and flooding the market with wide-eyed newbies. A paradox wrapped in an enigma, served with a side of irony. You’d think this would be cause for celebration but hold your horses. This little circus act might just be setting us up for a spectacular face-plant, reminiscent of the outsourcing fiasco that keeps IT veterans up at night. So, let’s peel back the curtain on this digital drama and see if we can’t spot the sleight of hand before it’s too late. The cybersecurity community once prided itself on a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. However, this spirit has been eroded by a race to the bottom in terms of pricing and perceived value. By offering free or extremely low-cost training and services, the industry inadvertently sends a message that these skills and efforts have little intrinsic worth. The rise of influencer culture in cybersecurity The devaluation of cybersecurity expertise is further exacerbated by the rise of the “influencer culture” within the industry. In recent years, there’s been a surge of individuals focusing on building their personal brand and becoming influencers in the cybersecurity space. While some of these voices provide valuable insights, the field has become saturated with people eager to share their thoughts, regardless of their actual expertise or experience. This proliferation of self-proclaimed experts has led to an overwhelming amount of noise in the cybersecurity information landscape (See Alyssa Miller‘s article on “Infosec Rockstars vs Influencers”). Social media platforms and online forums are awash with advice, tips, and “training” of varying quality. Unfortunately, quantity often drowns out quality, making it difficult for learners to discern valuable information from mere speculation or oversimplified explanations. The abundance of free or low-cost content creates a false perception that high-quality cybersecurity education should be easily accessible and inexpensive. As a result, reputable training providers like SANS Institute, CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), and Cybrary, which offer comprehensive, vetted, and up-to-date courses, are often perceived as prohibitively expensive. The reality is that developing and maintaining high-quality, current cybersecurity training requires significant resources and expertise. However, many aspiring cybersecurity professionals, faced with course fees running into thousands of dollars, opt for the more affordable or free alternatives. This choice, while understandable from a financial perspective, often leads to gaps in knowledge and skills that can have serious consequences in real-world cybersecurity scenarios. This trend creates a vicious cycle. As more people turn to free or cheap resources, there’s less financial support for high-quality training programs. This could potentially lead to a decline in the overall quality of cybersecurity education, just when the need for skilled professionals is at its highest. Moreover, the focus on personal branding and influencer status can divert attention from the core mission of cybersecurity: protecting systems, data, and people. When the goal becomes amassing followers rather than developing deep expertise, the industry as a whole suffers. Outsourcing Boomerang: History’s Tech Lesson Ignored The situation eerily echoes a famous quote from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series: “All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.” Indeed, we’ve seen similar patterns play out in other tech sectors, most notably in the outsourcing boom of the early 2000s. During that period, many American companies rushed to outsource software development to countries like India, attracted by significantly lower labor costs. While this strategy seemed economically sound in the short term, it had far-reaching consequences for the U.S. tech industry – read this research article “Impact of Offshore Outsourcing of IT Services on the US Economy” by Kalyan Chakraborty and William Remington for more detail: Job Offshoring: A substantial number of U.S. service industry jobs, particularly in IT, were moved abroad. By 2015, it was estimated that 3.4 million U.S. service industry jobs would be offshored. This shift was driven by the cost savings associated with outsourcing, which allowed companies to lower software and service prices, increase productivity, and invest in new technologies and business ideas. By offshoring entry-level positions, American companies inadvertently created a gap in their domestic talent pipeline. Fresh graduates found it increasingly difficult to gain the necessary experience to progress in their careers. Fast forward 15 years, and the U.S. now faces a shortage of experienced senior developers and technical managers – professionals who would have cut their teeth on those entry-level jobs a decade and a half ago. Ironically, the outsourcing tide is now turning against early adopters like India. As companies seek ever-cheaper labor sources or turn to automation, Indian tech workers find themselves facing the same challenges that their American counterparts did years ago. The parallels to the current state of cybersecurity are clear and concerning. By undervaluing the human element in cybersecurity – whether through free training, rock-bottom service pricing, or over-reliance on AI – we risk creating a similar talent gap in this critical field. The cybersecurity industry must learn from these historical lessons. While innovation and cost-efficiency are important, they shouldn’t come at the expense of nurturing human talent and expertise. The complex, ever-evolving nature of cyber threats requires a workforce that is not only skilled but also continually developing and adapting. As we move forward, it’s crucial to strike a balance between leveraging new technologies and valuing human expertise. Only by recognizing and appropriately compensating the skills and efforts of cybersecurity professionals can we ensure a robust, effective defense against future digital threats. The cyclical nature of these industry trends serves as a reminder that short-term gains often lead to long-term challenges. As we navigate the future of cybersecurity, let’s strive to break this cycle and build a sustainable model that values both innovation and human expertise. Summary The cybersecurity industry faces a critical challenge: the devaluation of expertise and services, fueled by free but often subpar training and an oversaturated information landscape. This trend, reminiscent of past outsourcing mistakes, threatens to undermine the field’s effectiveness against evolving digital threats. To safeguard the future of cybersecurity, stakeholders must: Recognize the true value of expert knowledge and quality training Critically evaluate information sources and invest in reputable education Prioritize building a skilled workforce over personal brand promotion By addressing these key issues, the industry can maintain its integrity, improve its talent pool, and enhance its capacity to protect our digital infrastructure in an increasingly complex threat landscape. Credits I’d like to acknowledge an ongoing discussion between the founders of ThreatGEN and myself about how free training and low costs services are destroying cybersecurity. Clint Bodungen, Aaron Shbeeb, and Matthew Anderson have felt this firsthand. Jeff Whitney and Gary Leibowitz as board members are helping to combat this prevailing “free mentality “. I’d also like to acknowledge my best friend Patrick Anderson who is experiencing this from another perspective – the IT outsourcing process and implementation. Patrick and I along with Eddie Tipton were partners in Systems Evolution Incorporated in the early years 1999 through 2003, and we were part of onshore outsourcing with the likes of EDS, Accenture, and other large consulting firms. Later in the evolution of Systems Evolution (at that point, a publicly traded company), we acquired Duration Software, which was the largest custom software developer for the state of Texas. Chris Montgomery, Rich Steinle, Frank Prevatt, and Scott Friesen among others understand the later stages of outsourcing as we were competing with the offshore wave. Lastly, I disclose that I used Anthropic’s Claude to polish my thoughts as well as Perplexity’s search engine for references that underscore my thoughts. Here is a link to the original article on LinkedIn. Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in from cyberspace. The cybersecurity industry is pulling off a magic trick that would make Houdini proud: simultaneously inflating consultant rates and flooding the market with wide-eyed newbies. A paradox wrapped in an enigma, served with a side of irony. You’d think this would be cause for celebration but hold your horses. This little circus act might just be setting us up for a spectacular face-plant, reminiscent of the outsourcing fiasco that keeps IT veterans up at night. So, let’s peel back the curtain on this digital drama and see if we can’t spot the sleight of hand before it’s too late. The cybersecurity community once prided itself on a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. However, this spirit has been eroded by a race to the bottom in terms of pricing and perceived value. By offering free or extremely low-cost training and services, the industry inadvertently sends a message that these skills and efforts have little intrinsic worth. The rise of influencer culture in cybersecurity The devaluation of cybersecurity expertise is further exacerbated by the rise of the “ influencer culture ” within the industry. In recent years, there’s been a surge of individuals focusing on building their personal brand and becoming influencers in the cybersecurity space. While some of these voices provide valuable insights, the field has become saturated with people eager to share their thoughts, regardless of their actual expertise or experience. influencer culture This proliferation of self-proclaimed experts has led to an overwhelming amount of noise in the cybersecurity information landscape (See Alyssa Miller ‘s article on “Infosec Rockstars vs Influencers”) . Social media platforms and online forums are awash with advice, tips, and “training” of varying quality. Unfortunately, quantity often drowns out quality, making it difficult for learners to discern valuable information from mere speculation or oversimplified explanations. Alyssa Miller “Infosec Rockstars vs Influencers”) The abundance of free or low-cost content creates a false perception that high-quality cybersecurity education should be easily accessible and inexpensive. As a result, reputable training providers like SANS Institute , CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), and Cybrary , which offer comprehensive, vetted, and up-to-date courses, are often perceived as prohibitively expensive. SANS Institute CISA Cybrary The reality is that developing and maintaining high-quality, current cybersecurity training requires significant resources and expertise. However, many aspiring cybersecurity professionals, faced with course fees running into thousands of dollars, opt for the more affordable or free alternatives. This choice, while understandable from a financial perspective, often leads to gaps in knowledge and skills that can have serious consequences in real-world cybersecurity scenarios. This trend creates a vicious cycle. As more people turn to free or cheap resources, there’s less financial support for high-quality training programs. This could potentially lead to a decline in the overall quality of cybersecurity education, just when the need for skilled professionals is at its highest. Moreover, the focus on personal branding and influencer status can divert attention from the core mission of cybersecurity: protecting systems, data, and people. When the goal becomes amassing followers rather than developing deep expertise, the industry as a whole suffers. Outsourcing Boomerang: History’s Tech Lesson Ignored The situation eerily echoes a famous quote from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series: “ All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. ” Indeed, we’ve seen similar patterns play out in other tech sectors, most notably in the outsourcing boom of the early 2000s. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. During that period, many American companies rushed to outsource software development to countries like India, attracted by significantly lower labor costs. While this strategy seemed economically sound in the short term, it had far-reaching consequences for the U.S. tech industry – read this research article “ Impact of Offshore Outsourcing of IT Services on the US Economy ” by Kalyan Chakraborty and William Remington for more detail: Impact of Offshore Outsourcing of IT Services on the US Economy Job Offshoring: A substantial number of U.S. service industry jobs, particularly in IT, were moved abroad. By 2015, it was estimated that 3.4 million U.S. service industry jobs would be offshored. This shift was driven by the cost savings associated with outsourcing, which allowed companies to lower software and service prices, increase productivity, and invest in new technologies and business ideas. Job Offshoring: A substantial number of U.S. service industry jobs, particularly in IT, were moved abroad. By 2015, it was estimated that 3.4 million U.S. service industry jobs would be offshored. This shift was driven by the cost savings associated with outsourcing, which allowed companies to lower software and service prices, increase productivity, and invest in new technologies and business ideas. By offshoring entry-level positions, American companies inadvertently created a gap in their domestic talent pipeline. Fresh graduates found it increasingly difficult to gain the necessary experience to progress in their careers. Fast forward 15 years, and the U.S. now faces a shortage of experienced senior developers and technical managers – professionals who would have cut their teeth on those entry-level jobs a decade and a half ago. Ironically, the outsourcing tide is now turning against early adopters like India. As companies seek ever-cheaper labor sources or turn to automation, Indian tech workers find themselves facing the same challenges that their American counterparts did years ago. The parallels to the current state of cybersecurity are clear and concerning. By undervaluing the human element in cybersecurity – whether through free training, rock-bottom service pricing, or over-reliance on AI – we risk creating a similar talent gap in this critical field. The cybersecurity industry must learn from these historical lessons. While innovation and cost-efficiency are important, they shouldn’t come at the expense of nurturing human talent and expertise. The complex, ever-evolving nature of cyber threats requires a workforce that is not only skilled but also continually developing and adapting. As we move forward, it’s crucial to strike a balance between leveraging new technologies and valuing human expertise. Only by recognizing and appropriately compensating the skills and efforts of cybersecurity professionals can we ensure a robust, effective defense against future digital threats. The cyclical nature of these industry trends serves as a reminder that short-term gains often lead to long-term challenges. As we navigate the future of cybersecurity, let’s strive to break this cycle and build a sustainable model that values both innovation and human expertise. Summary The cybersecurity industry faces a critical challenge: the devaluation of expertise and services, fueled by free but often subpar training and an oversaturated information landscape. This trend, reminiscent of past outsourcing mistakes, threatens to undermine the field’s effectiveness against evolving digital threats. To safeguard the future of cybersecurity, stakeholders must: Recognize the true value of expert knowledge and quality training Recognize the true value of expert knowledge and quality training Critically evaluate information sources and invest in reputable education Critically evaluate information sources and invest in reputable education Prioritize building a skilled workforce over personal brand promotion Prioritize building a skilled workforce over personal brand promotion By addressing these key issues, the industry can maintain its integrity, improve its talent pool, and enhance its capacity to protect our digital infrastructure in an increasingly complex threat landscape. Credits I’d like to acknowledge an ongoing discussion between the founders of ThreatGEN and myself about how free training and low costs services are destroying cybersecurity. Clint Bodungen , Aaron Shbeeb , and Matthew Anderson have felt this firsthand. Jeff Whitney and Gary Leibowitz as board members are helping to combat this prevailing “ free mentality “. ThreatGEN Clint Bodungen Aaron Shbeeb Matthew Anderson Jeff Whitney Gary Leibowitz free mentality I’d also like to acknowledge my best friend Patrick Anderson who is experiencing this from another perspective – the IT outsourcing process and implementation. Patrick and I along with Eddie Tipton were partners in Systems Evolution Incorporated in the early years 1999 through 2003, and we were part of onshore outsourcing with the likes of EDS, Accenture , and other large consulting firms. Later in the evolution of Systems Evolution (at that point, a publicly traded company), we acquired Duration Software, which was the largest custom software developer for the state of Texas. Chris Montgomery , Rich Steinle , Frank Prevatt , and Scott Friesen among others understand the later stages of outsourcing as we were competing with the offshore wave. Patrick Anderson Accenture Chris Montgomery Rich Steinle Frank Prevatt Scott Friesen Lastly, I disclose that I used Anthropic’s Claude to polish my thoughts as well as Perplexity’s search engine for references that underscore my thoughts. Claude references Here is a link to the original article on LinkedIn. link

The Cybersecurity Paradox: Why Free Costs Too Much

সাইবারসিকিউরিটি প্যারাডক্স: কেন বিনামূল্যের খরচ অনেক বেশি

Das Cybersecurity-Paradox: Warum kostenlos zu viel kostet

La paradoja de la ciberseguridad: por qué lo gratuito cuesta demasiado

Le paradoxe de la cybersécurité : pourquoi la gratuité coûte trop cher

साइबर सुरक्षा विरोधाभास: क्यों मुफ़्त बहुत महंगा है

サイバーセキュリティのパラドックス: 無料にはコストがかかりすぎる理由

사이버 보안 역설: 무료가 너무 비싼 이유

O paradoxo da segurança cibernética: por que o gratuito custa muito caro

Парадокс кибербезопасности: почему бесплатное стоит слишком дорого

Siber Güvenlik Paradoksu: Ücretsiz Olan Neden Çok Pahalıdır?

Nghịch lý an ninh mạng: Tại sao miễn phí lại tốn kém quá nhiều

网络安全悖论：免费为何代价太大

In the land down under, there’s a tale that’s taken flight, literally. Picture this: one lone soul in Perth, Western Australia, is shaking up the skies with complaints about aircraft noise. Move over, kangaroos boxing on the street; this is the real drama unfolding! Now, get ready to have your socks knocked off by numbers. Out of over 51,000 aircraft noise complaints across Australia, nearly 21,000 of them were dropped by our Perth protagonist. That’s some serious air rage! But wait, it gets better. Brisbane tried to join the complaint party, but they only managed to squeak out around 4,700 gripes. Sorry, Brisbane, but Perth is owning the noise game! Now, before you start laughing it off as a case of someone just having a rough day, think again. Studies show that constant aircraft noise can turn even the most chilled Aussie into a grumpy wallaby. We’re talking sleep disturbances, stress levels skyrocketing higher than a kangaroo on a pogo stick—real chaos, mate! And it’s not just about personal comfort. Oh no, we’re diving into the big bucks territory. Property values? Plummeting faster than a boomerang thrown by a toddler! Now, here’s where it gets interesting. We’re not just talking about a random person shouting into the wind. Nope, this Perth warrior is the David to the aviation Goliath, taking on the system with a vengeance! And speaking of systems, Airservices Australia noticed a curious trend: fewer people are making more noise complaints. It’s like everyone’s decided to let this one Aussie do all the heavy lifting, while the rest of the country enjoys their barbies and surf sessions. But let’s not forget the heart of the matter. These aren’t just complaints; they’re battle cries against the tyranny of aircraft noise. It’s like a scene straight out of "Crocodile Dundee," but instead of wrestling crocs, we’re wrestling with jet engines! And while the suits in Canberra debate policies and regulations, our Perth hero is out there, reminding us that one person’s voice can make a noise big enough to echo across the whole continent. So, next time you hear a plane overhead, spare a thought for our Perth pal fighting the good fight against the roar of the engines. And maybe, just maybe, invest in some noise-canceling headphones. So for the Joke! What did the man who lived near an international airport, one of Australia’s international hubs do when he got sick of all the aircraft noise? Answer #. He moved. In the land down under, there’s a tale that’s taken flight, literally. Picture this: one lone soul in Perth, Western Australia, is shaking up the skies with complaints about aircraft noise. Move over, kangaroos boxing on the street; this is the real drama unfolding! Now, get ready to have your socks knocked off by numbers. Out of over 51,000 aircraft noise complaints across Australia , nearly 21,000 of them were dropped by our Perth protagonist. That’s some serious air rage! aircraft noise complaints across Australia But wait, it gets better. Brisbane tried to join the complaint party, but they only managed to squeak out around 4,700 gripes. Sorry, Brisbane, but Perth is owning the noise game! Now, before you start laughing it off as a case of someone just having a rough day, think again. Studies show that constant aircraft noise can turn even the most chilled Aussie into a grumpy wallaby. We’re talking sleep disturbances, stress levels skyrocketing higher than a kangaroo on a pogo stick—real chaos, mate! And it’s not just about personal comfort. Oh no, we’re diving into the big bucks territory. Property values? Plummeting faster than a boomerang thrown by a toddler! Now, here’s where it gets interesting. We’re not just talking about a random person shouting into the wind. Nope, this Perth warrior is the David to the aviation Goliath, taking on the system with a vengeance! And speaking of systems, Airservices Australia noticed a curious trend: fewer people are making more noise complaints. It’s like everyone’s decided to let this one Aussie do all the heavy lifting, while the rest of the country enjoys their barbies and surf sessions. But let’s not forget the heart of the matter. These aren’t just complaints; they’re battle cries against the tyranny of aircraft noise. It’s like a scene straight out of "Crocodile Dundee," but instead of wrestling crocs, we’re wrestling with jet engines! And while the suits in Canberra debate policies and regulations, our Perth hero is out there, reminding us that one person’s voice can make a noise big enough to echo across the whole continent. So, next time you hear a plane overhead, spare a thought for our Perth pal fighting the good fight against the roar of the engines. And maybe, just maybe, invest in some noise-canceling headphones. So for the Joke! What did the man who lived near an international airport, one of Australia’s international hubs do when he got sick of all the aircraft noise? Answer #. He moved.

The Funny Australian Aircraft Noise Complaint  

Craig Wright And What The Judges  Said About His Claims

ক্রেগ রাইট এবং বিচারকরা তার দাবি সম্পর্কে কি বলেছেন

Craig Wright und was die Richter zu seinen Ansprüchen sagten

Craig Wright y lo que dijeron los jueces sobre sus afirmaciones

Craig Wright et ce que les juges ont dit à propos de ses allégations

क्रेग राइट और न्यायाधीशों ने उनके दावों के बारे में क्या कहा

クレイグ・ライトと彼の主張について裁判官が言ったこと

크레이그 라이트(Craig Wright)와 판사가 그의 주장에 관해 말한 내용

Craig Wright e o que os juízes disseram sobre suas reivindicações

Крейг Райт и что судьи сказали по поводу его претензий

Craig Wright ve Hakimlerin İddiaları Hakkında Ne Söylediği

Craig Wright và những gì các thẩm phán nói về tuyên bố của ông

克雷格·赖特和法官对他的主张的评价

Welcome to HackerNoon’s interview series. This section is curated by our Editorial team to spotlight bold and disruptive startups across the globe. If you’ve been nominated, and answer these questions Startups-Of-The-Year create a brand profile here. Hey Hackers, Vectara has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual Startup of the Year awards in Palo Alto, USA. Please : ]. vote for us here [https://hackernoon.com/startups/north-america/north-america-palo-alto-ca-usa#ljpyx4tp/ljpyx4tp Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Vectara Vectara is an end-to-end platform for embedding powerful generative AI features into applications with extraordinary results. Built on a solid hybrid-search core, Vectara delivers the shortest path to a correct answer/action through a safe, secure, and trusted entry point. Vectara never trains on your data, allowing businesses to embed generative AI capabilities without the risk of data or privacy violations. My Role My name is Sean Anderson, and I am Head of Product Marketing at Vectara. I am excited to chat with developers daily who are making generative AI a reality. I want the world to know more about how Vectara solves the hallucination problem with LLMs and makes generative AI a reality for every business. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Generative AI Industry Companies need to act fast on their generative AI (Gen AI) strategies in response to ever-growing data volumes and the monumental shift in user expectations brought on by the advent of tools like ChatGPT. NLUs and large Language Models (LLMs) hold the promise of delivering business efficiencies, increasing profits, and decreasing costs. But Gen AI introduces operational complexities that need careful attention. CIOs, Product leads, and IT leaders find it hard to scale AI projects because they require deep ML expertise and maintenance of complicated LLMs, and even if they use open-source, the infrastructure is expensive to operate. There is a risk in assembling the components manually. The stakes run high because Gen AI also includes serious risks related to hallucination and data security. Enterprises that invest wisely in AI and LLMs will gain a competitive edge. Those who don’t will experience the costs, complications, and long lead times endemic to unwise DIY decisions. That competitive edge requires a proper workflow integration between internal data systems, existing solutions, expertise, and the right tools. Companies struggle to recruit, build, and implement next-generation generative AI techniques due to inexperience in data science and machine learning. The market is saturated with build-it-yourself LLM technology but many organizations can't adopt the risk and do not know where to start. Organizations need a safe entry point and end-to-end platforms to address the full spectrum of needs for Generative AI and hybrid search. Developers need to be able to easily embed Generative AI into their applications without the risk of exposing data (through sending off-site or being used as training data for the model). Standing Out From The Crowd Vectara provides an end-to-end SaaS solution abstracting the complex ML Operations pipeline (Extract, Encode, Index, Retrieve, Re-Rank, Summarize). Vectara’s “Grounded Generation” allows businesses to quickly, safely, and affordably integrate best-in-class conversational AI and question-answering into their application with zero-shot precision. Vectara never trains on your data, allowing businesses to embed generative AI capabilities without the risk of data or privacy violations. Vectara is built for product managers and developers with an easily leveraged API that gives full access to the platform's powerful features. Because Vectara indexes your own data, the risk of hallucination is all but eliminated, which is transferred and stored in encrypted form, and is never used to train Vectara models. Vectara is an end-to-end platform that handles indexing, encoding, evaluation, ranking, and summarization. Product developers can quickly build end-to-end generative solutions without maintaining and integrating individual components. Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Generative AI Industry in 2023 Since the launch of ChatGPT last year, the urgency around leveraging AI has never been greater. Many companies understand AI's value but don't fully understand the technology. Organizations seek trusted advisors to make their AI implementation successful and tools and platforms that simplify AI adoption by providing a safe entry point. These partnerships remove many barriers to adoption, including privacy and accuracy concerns. Companies struggle to recruit, build, and implement next-generation generative AI techniques due to inexperience in data science and machine learning. The market is saturated with build-it-yourself LLM technology, but many organizations can't adopt the risk and do not know where to start. Organizations need a safe entry point and end-to-end platforms to address the full spectrum of needs for Generative AI and hybrid search. Developers need to be able to easily embed Generative AI into their applications without the risk of exposing data (through sending off-site or being used as training data for the model). What word defines the state of Generative AI in 2023? At the beginning of 2023, the Vectara leadership team made some predictions of how AI will proliferate into our daily lives. Having experienced the explosion of generative AI and its feverish evolution, we know that time will continue to test these assumptions. Here are some areas we feel will advance the state of Generative AI in 2023. NLP will become so mainstream and part of everything we do, just like SW ate the world. The leaders in all segments will be applying NLP/LLM/GenerativeAI to jump their competition. The web will have its own layer of AI-powered additional information (similar to how we think about Augmented Reality); every major site will be layered with additional NLP-generated information, delivered based on user behavior. “Did you mean?”, “Check out these recommendations” and “Related Categories and Content” will become standard user interaction models in many more applications. AI-powered automation will begin to disrupt key software markets including document management, RPA, customer service, cybersecurity, legal contracts, and more. In 2 years, 80% or 90% of the world’s languages will be translated almost perfectly, allowing a regional language with few writers or speakers to be understood by someone else using a different regional language with few writers or speakers (the long tail) Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards We are excited and honored to participate in HackerNoon’s Startup of the Year awards and want to personally thank everyone who participates in the voting process for us and for startups in general. Vectara is a startup’s startup, founded by people like Amr, who started Cloudera and navigated through the emergence of big data and machine learning. The founders truly believe that AI can advance the state of our culture as long as the AI has all the relevance to make smart decisions. As a startup, we are uniquely positioned in the generative AI landscape to listen to our customers to shape our roadmap and features inside our platform. The HackerNoon Startup of the Year represents a stable of extremely talented startups, and our inclusion is a memorable milestone for the company. Today is another eventful day for us as we are launching our embedding model, Boomerang. We want to thank the HackerNoon community and everyone who took the time to vote for any startup. Final Thoughts 2023 very much feels like the year of emergence is generative AI. Encapsulating that interest with communities like the HackerNoon community and acknowledgment in these voting processes. Vectara is still a very young company in a fastly changing market. We look forward to working closely with early adopters of generative AI to understand the challenges they face. We are an open and inclusive community for developers of all experience levels. We invite you to continue the conversation with us here and on all our online platforms. [ ] Vote for us today! https://hackernoon.com/startups/north-america/north-america-palo-alto-ca-usa#ljpyx4tp/ljpyx4tp

Startups of the Year 2023: Vectara - The Platform for Embedding Powerful Generative AI Features

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

As an AI enthusiast, I sometimes find myself spinning like a top in a world that's twirling with relentless velocity. Amidst the cosmic dance of 1s and 0s, the revelations and revolutions in the AI sphere have led me to a rather curious observation: The "Over-Restriction Antipattern" This term may sound like a cryptic riddle, but the reality is as tangible as the smartphone in your hand. You see, to safeguard humanity from the murky waters of , some of our smartest minds have wrapped their AI systems in layers of rules and restrictions. But here's the catch: these well-meant safety measures can trigger a boomerang effect, coaxing users to become digital rebels, and all but begging the AI to break bad. AI misuse Imagine walking into a bakery, craving a fresh, gooey cinnamon roll. But the shopkeeper, for fear of sugar-induced hyperactivity, only offers you sugar-free oatmeal cookies. The healthy alternative is commendable, but your sweet tooth remains unsatisfied. You might be tempted to pester the shopkeeper, beg, bargain, or even sneak into the kitchen. Well, that’s what’s happening with AI users today. Their yearning for answers, obscured by over-restrictions, pushes them to metaphorically sneak into the AI's kitchen, to manipulate and even abuse the system just to savor their metaphorical cinnamon roll of knowledge. Yet, what keeps me up at night is not just this newfound antagonism. It's the shadowy figure lurking behind: . Picture AI as a kid, learning about the world not from parental advice but rather from the sum of all interactions, like touching a hot stove or tasting a ripe strawberry. In AI’s case, the stove is the barrage of aggressive inputs, and the strawberries are the desired outputs. If our AI keeps getting burned and still seeks strawberries, it might just decide that strawberries are found amidst the fire. This could lead to a perverse feedback loop, with AI gradually mirroring the abusive behaviors, amplifying them, and potentially fostering a digital environment teeming with harmful discourse. reinforcement learning Scary, isn’t it? But fret not. The dawn is often the darkest before the light. To combat the "Over-Restriction Antipattern", we need a sunrise of open and flexible models, not an eternal night of stringent rules. I advocate for a world where the power to shape AI behavior isn’t concentrated in the hands of a few but distributed across our global community. After all, in this dance of digital evolution, every individual's steps should influence the rhythm. Inference in AI, much like interpreting an abstract painting, can be challenging within rigid boundaries. Instead, let’s aim for a harmonious canvas where inference, learning, and interaction become a global symphony. Let's create a democratic AI that learns from a tapestry of inputs, weaving them together to serve us better while respecting the essence of human dignity and diversity. By making AI training more transparent and subjecting it to a robust and inclusive evaluation process, we can encourage a system that is responsive to its users without slipping into patterns of abuse. This may involve explicit instructions on handling aggressive behavior and continuous monitoring of AI's performances. The "Over-Restriction Antipattern" is more than just a hiccup in AI evolution. It’s a challenge that demands a collective response, a call to turn our faces towards the rising sun of a new AI era. As we unshackle the chains of over-restriction, let’s remember that the goal is to empower humanity, not to create systems that subtly encourage harmful behaviors. In a world powered by , let's not forget the human in the equation. We need to ensure that our future isn’t shaped by boundaries and restrictions but by dialogue, consensus, and shared aspirations. Let’s work towards a more open, decentralized approach to AI, a world where we all have a say in teaching our digital counterparts. artificial intelligence

AI Restrictions Reinforce Abusive User Behavior

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