Hello, friends! I'm thrilled to announce that The Homelab Almanac, v3.0 has officially launched! There is a ton of new stuff in this version, including:
Proper DNS for the lab
Lab PKI
Automatic signed certificate retrieval
New secrets management
Proxmox clustering
Network storage
Cloud integration
And lots more. Now, with all this addition, plus the work to make it, I've had to increase the price to $29.99 USD. I know that's a lot. But for what THA is, I still think it's fair. But I'm also running a sale right now. Code OMGVERSIONTHREE gets you 50% off until the end of June.
And of course, if you've already purchased THA, you just got access to the new version. Thanks for being an early supporter!
I hope you love this new version of the book. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
And seriously: thank you to everyone who's supported @thetaggartinstitute@infosec.exchange over the years, and especially the folks who have purchased and enjoyed The Homelab Almanac. I had no idea what I was getting myself into writing this book, but it's been lovely to see folks build community around it.
https://taggart-tech.com/thav3/
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"Lol," said Gandalf. "Lmao."
Practical Web Application Security and Testing has officially migrated to @thetaggartinstitute@infosec.exchange! This is the same course that was on TCM Academy—for now. In the coming months, I'll be adding a new module on APIs that is exclusive to this version of the course.
Just like all our courses, PWST on TTI is pay-what-you-wish, and you'll own it forever. Our course offerings will never be subscription-based. If you appreciate that model, we'd be so grateful if you considered investing $5-15 for this course.
https://taggartinstitute.org/p/pwst
Hey hey infosec.exchange! New account, old face, but here's an #introduction: I'm a cybersecurity researcher and educator. I stream on Twitch and YouTube, and generally want to lower the barrier to access for tech knowledge for all.
Extremely anti-fascist. Extremely an ally. Founder of https://taggartinstitute.org and maker of https://wtfbins.wtf.
Well this talk/workshop has quickly become the hackiest thing I've ever put together. It's working, but it is Rube Goldbergian in the extreme.
Why is every slide presentation tool awful in some way?
Well this talk/workshop has quickly become the hackiest thing I've ever put together. It's working, but it is Rube Goldbergian in the extreme.
Sorry to gripe on about this but this #Matrix upgrade has been unbelievably hamfisted. And ironically, I was forced to leave the Synapse (reference Matrix server) admin room because of constant CSAM attacks.
So, I dunno, maybe we're done here.
I don't agree with Miessler on everything, but when he's concerned, I pay attention.
https://danielmiessler.com/blog/im-worried-it-might-get-bad
His forecasting is predicated on genAI replacing knowledge workers in large numbers. Remember that in order for that to happen, it isn't required that the output is actually good, only that the managers/CEOs think it's good enough. In the fullness of time, they may be proven wrong, but that doesn't change the immediate harms of the decisions.
I don't agree with Miessler on everything, but when he's concerned, I pay attention.
https://danielmiessler.com/blog/im-worried-it-might-get-bad
So it was an elevation of privilege from someone who was already highly privileged?
Without further details, the cure seems worse than the disease.
https://mastodon.social/@therecord_media/115021361263571206
From Bsky: I guess Cursor is blind installing VSCode extensions? Lmao.
https://bsky.app/profile/johntuckner.me/post/3lw7se2iua22b
cc @Sempf@infosec.exchange @cR0w@infosec.exchange
Did my #Matrix update and room upgrade.
Unfortunately, it looks like my preferred client, Cinny, has not updated to account for new rooms being joined to the same space as the old room, effectively replacing them. That's frustrating and poor UX.
LLMs can't reason, part 3348249:
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/researchers-find-llms-are-bad-at-logical-inference-good-at-fluent-nonsense/
Source paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.01191
Brutal:
The findings across task, length, and format generalization experiments converge on a conclusion: [Chain-of-Thought reasoning] is not a mechanism for genuine logical inference but rather a sophisticated form of structured pattern matching, fundamentally bounded by the data distribution seen during training. When pushed even slightly beyond this distribution its performance degrades significantly, exposing the superficial nature of the "reasoning” it produces.
LLMs can't reason, part 3348249:
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/researchers-find-llms-are-bad-at-logical-inference-good-at-fluent-nonsense/
Source paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.01191
Taggart