... what? Data centers are literally the original form of computer facility. How are they different from the computer rooms mainframes, etc were housed in?
Sounds like an opportunity! One thing about these 'sadistic casino' domains is that small edges can have outsized impact. Even imperfect data that's swamped in noise can work. As long as the noise is consistent enough to be modeled, you can glean actionable insight.
Outdoor billboards are often priced based on raw traffic count. Imagine using a cheap license plate reader to sample traffic looking for enough identity data to map back to actual consumer behavior. Even if you can only do it for a few days and only a fraction of percent of your samples correlate to partial data, given high enough stakes and noise - just adding that as a correction overlay on your existing shitty model can yield a winning edge. In the land of illusions, any ground truth can be gold.
The comment you were replying to was about school kids, not foreign students in post secondary programs looking for work/immigrant visas.
Also, foreign students enrolling in American colleges are (a) here as a result of decades of conscious policy choices (b) provide a not insignificant portion of the operating budget of many institutions (c) would go elsewhere if America wasn’t an option - so you aren’t really gaining much by keeping them out.
What would this new system look like that doesn’t involve the trade offs between having cabs on demand if you need them and having a walkable city if you don’t that the person you replied to spoke about?
Uber and friends have indeed democratised giving rides to people - though where I am, a few rich people have bought numerous cars and have daily wagers driving them finding fares via Uber - but at the cost of far more cabs on the road.
Others, notably motorbikes and scooter ride aggregators have emerged to replicate Uber. These motorbike cabs are even harder to regulate than cabs.
Uber, imo, has broken the equilibrium that existed before.
You make the medallions non-transferrable/rentable, and use a lottery system to grant them.
Uber has absolutely increased traffic levels in the places where they operate. I don't personally think it's to a level that is actually a problem, but I also avoid driving myself around in cities whenever I can, so I may not be the best at observing this.
I blame apps and products like WhatsApp and Nextdoor. We've created these online means of connection (and conflict) which allows us to communicate without having to actually meet anyone in person.
Absent these forced meetings, parents barely know their neighbors and consequently, their kids barely know anyone even two doors down.
FD - I pay Insta to advertise a product for parents.
The results of above mentioned advertising have been great. I get inbound enquiries, parents get their curiosity about the usefulness of what I offer whetted. I don’t understand how the ad was unhelpful to the parent and me.
As a web developer, you’re the like the guy standing with a clipboard outside a fancy club checking if people requesting entry are allowed or not. Basically, level 1 security.
If someone is not on the list, your job is to default to declining them access, not granting them access assuming level 2 security will handle them at a deeper layer.
It’s possible that the teams you work with expect fuzzy behaviour from the website but that’s a choice, not a practice.
The first layer of any web security should never be checking someone against a list, unless this can be done in less than a few milliseconds. It should only be sanity checking for basic compliance. In the analogy, this first layer should be denying entry to obviously drunk people, zebras, and a stampede of protesters.
>It’s possible that the teams you work with expect fuzzy behaviour from the website but that’s a choice, not a practice.
This is how the vast majority of websites work. The practical reason is obvious: when we model the behaviour our code depends on, we want to create the simplest possible model that allows our code to work as expected. Placing requirements on it that our code doesn't actually depend on is useless, unneeded, complexity.
> As a web developer, you’re the like the guy standing with a clipboard outside a fancy club checking if people requesting entry are allowed or not. Basically, level 1 security.
there is no security benefit to filtering out unneeded url parameters.
> there is no security benefit to filtering out unneeded url parameters.
there is - security in depth.
If a url parameter would've been a vulnerability because something lower down the stack misinterprets it (and the param wasn't necessary for your app in the first place), then you've just left a window open for the exploit.
If the set of url params are known ahead of time (which i claim should be true), then you could make adding unknown params an error.
>If a url parameter would've been a vulnerability because something lower down the stack misinterprets it
By assumption, you are using this url parameter. So you have a bug where you've forgotten to allow this parameter, which will quickly be discovered in your logs and fixed. Then the vulnerability, which you are thus far unaware of, will quickly be exposed. Those url parameters you are not using cannot hurt you.
> there is no security benefit to filtering out unneeded url parameters.
What about passing extra data to fill the server memory with either extra known junk or a script / executable to use with a zero day in an internal component or something.
To misuse the nightclub analogy: it’s like checking for bags not being larger than A4 and disallow knives and other weapons.
I strongly believe increasing the rate at which one produces code misses the point.
If engineers already know up front with clarity what they need to build, and, the leadership are very focused and concentrate resources on doing a few things.. then increasing the rate at which LOC is written is not beneficial - because getting the product built right is what matters.
I did a degree in comp sci but my focus through my career is at the intersection of product design, economics and corporate finance/valuation whilst working with software engineers.
Im beginning to realise people who are too concentrated on one dimension (e.g software engineering) can’t see how things actually fit together. You only know what you know I guess.. but it’s blindly obvious to me.
After reading your comment, I was reminded of my first and last visit to a zen meditation center where we had to meditate by staring at a wall sitting on some sort special cushion designed for this sort of meditation.
A datacenter (earthbound or space) itself is a fantastical idea until a mix of events and inventions made it feasible to build them to sell compute.
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