51–60 of 107 posts
I was sound asleep when my Siamese woke me up by pawing my face… he then went and sat on the edge of the bed and growled aggressively (very out of character)… Not 30s later, things started shaking.
No idea how he knew, but it was pretty wild. He passed away in 2020, still miss him.
We don’t have very many earthquakes in Kansas… but I remember the first/only one I felt. I was sound asleep when my Siamese woke me up by pawing my face… he then went and sat on the edge of the bed and growled aggressively (very out of character)… Not 30s later, things started shaking. No idea how he knew, but it was pretty wild. He passed away in 2020, still miss him.
In the recent NYC ones there are videos of dogs howling before any of the tremors are noticeable by people. This is a common phenomena I believe.
Quite some time ago, someone from my family was alerted by their cat when the dishwasher was leaking. Their conclusion was that the cat was either trying to save them or the cat was trying to kill them.
An inverted Schrödinger cat.
And here I thought your somehow hooked up a cat feeder to alerts. Regardless, very cute - what’s your cat’s name?
Writing this post did make me think that if someone had a well-trained dog, they could hook up a monitoring service to something that makes a particular sound, which tells the dog to alert the person. Her name was (I sadly lost her to cancer) Bamboo! Because one of the first things she did after I adopted her was to try to eat my bamboo plant.
“Sir you need to leave that mutt outside!”
“He’s a service dog”
“Why? You don’t look like you have any disabilities”
“Wow. First of all – rude! Second, yeah you are right I don’t but you see he’s my DDoS dog and I need him with me at all times to protect the company servers”
Quite some time ago, someone from my family was alerted by their cat when the dishwasher was leaking. Their conclusion was that the cat was either trying to save them or the cat was trying to kill them.
One of my all-time favorite novels, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, includes an anecdote: a crow's call wakes up someone who's sleeping outdoors, just as a large cat (a tiger, perhaps) is sneaking up on him. One character suggests the crow was trying to warn the man. Another posits the bird was bringing the sleeper to the tiger's attention so it could enjoy the scraps after the meal.
Don't want to spoil. It's nice and short and a must-read for cat lovers. "The Price".
Maybe the phone was silent but still flashing a screen? Mine does that in that mode. At my first job we had a guy who could spot incidents coming on the monitoring dashboard before they happened. He never managed to explain or even understand what he was looking for and no-one else picked it up, but he would just see something that made him say things were odd, and most of the time we'd get an alert shortly after.
Make or get a human to stare at streams long enough and they’ll attune to the patterns. We’re wired for patterns. It doesn’t even have to be conscious and explainable. The signals just suddenly aren’t right.
Maybe the phone was silent but still flashing a screen? Mine does that in that mode. At my first job we had a guy who could spot incidents coming on the monitoring dashboard before they happened. He never managed to explain or even understand what he was looking for and no-one else picked it up, but he would just see something that made him say things were odd, and most of the time we'd get an alert shortly after.
Make or get a human to stare at streams long enough and they’ll attune to the patterns. We’re wired for patterns. It doesn’t even have to be conscious and explainable. The signals just suddenly aren’t right.
Somewhere deep in my brain, there are neurons that developed for some more evolutionarily-relevant purpose and which are now a little disgusted with how they’re being used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with paying extortion or ransoms is that you incentivize the attacker to come back and do it again. It may have been $5k to pay off one attacker and more than that to build the defense, but now you have defenses and are less likely to suffer attackers in the future. And as you say, not paying money to criminals is inherently worthwhile.
On the other hand the attacker may actually have incentive to follow through and hold up their end so as to build a reputation. Making their next victims more likely to just pay. Somewhere I read that some ransomware had excellent "customer" service for helping you transfer over the payment and promptly restore your files.
We don’t have very many earthquakes in Kansas… but I remember the first/only one I felt. I was sound asleep when my Siamese woke me up by pawing my face… he then went and sat on the edge of the bed and growled aggressively (very out of character)… Not 30s later, things started shaking. No idea how he knew, but it was pretty wild. He passed away in 2020, still miss him.