The Death Of Ad Blocking (2025, Colorized)

Every junior dev thinks they've invented encryption when they discover Base64. The number of times I've had to explain that encoding ≠ encryption is probably why my hair's thinning. Base64 is just fancy dress for your data – anyone can undress it with zero effort. It's like hiding your house key under the doormat and calling it a security system. And the response is always the same: "Fine! I'll just use Base128 then!" Sure buddy, throw more digits at the problem. That'll fix it. Just like how writing your password in bigger letters makes it more secure.

Someone searching for "c++ c style strings" with SafeSearch turned OFF. Just like C strings with no bounds checking, this search is about to overflow with exactly the kind of memory corruption you weren't expecting. Nothing says "living dangerously" like null-terminated arrays and unfiltered search results.

That awkward moment when your kid's teacher can't pronounce "$2Y$10$UgTh9EyUvedMTndo0PvF4.YkZaHx6OsMirqjR6ApgAsnPrRikwBgs" during roll call. On the plus side, absolutely no one is stealing this kid's identity. The ultimate security-minded parent move: not using your kid's name as your password, but using your incomprehensible bcrypt hash as your kid's name. Modern problems require modern solutions.

The dual-species taxonomy of Gen Z developers has been documented with scientific precision here. On the left, we have the Hackerman Cosplayer - running Kali Linux purely for aesthetic, posting terminal screenshots at 2:58 AM like they're dropping a mixtape, and claiming they could hack NASA with a toaster while struggling to deploy a basic API. They've got a ProtonMail account that's never received a single sensitive email and a collection of AI waifus that would make a neural network blush. On the right, we have the Career-First Minimalist - a blank terminal that's opened exactly once per quarter, a LinkedIn profile that's as barren as their passion for coding, and a copy of "Cracking the Coding Interview" that's still in mint condition. They know Kubernetes exists but would rather discuss their 401k strategy. Their meetings are just daydreaming sessions with screen sharing. The beautiful irony? Both types are getting hired anyway because the job market is desperate for anyone who can spell "JavaScript" correctly.

Remember when "hacking" meant editing the HTML in your browser and taking a screenshot? Nothing says "elite hacker" like right-clicking, hitting inspect element, and changing NASA's homepage text to "I'm in the mainframe!" The number of relatives who thought I was one keyboard shortcut away from jail time after showing them this trick was truly concerning. Bonus points if you added some green text on black background for maximum "Hollywood hacker" aesthetic.

The true essence of network administration distilled into a single container: cigarettes and a "GOOD LUCK!" note. Because when the entire company's VPN goes down at 2PM on a Friday, or someone accidentally runs rm -rf on a production server, or the CEO can't connect to WiFi during a board meeting—nicotine and blind optimism are your only reliable protocols. The cigarettes aren't for smoking; they're for bartering with the server gods who clearly hate you today. Network admins don't need fancy disaster recovery plans—just chemical coping mechanisms and the crushing acceptance that DNS is probably lying to you again.