Coming Soon to Dhole Moments

A couple of weeks ago, I started a blog called Dhole Moments. I'd planned on writing about a few topics of interest, such as elliptic curve cryptography, FIPS-186-5, and "hedged" signatures (deterministic signature algorithms with additional randomness).

However, I ended up writing a post about source code leakage and endpoint security that got spread around by popular Twitter accounts and even ended up cited in The Register.

I received some hate comments in response to that post (mostly for being a furry), which led to me writing a piece on why the furry fandom is great.

Suffice to say, I'm having a fun time with it!

But I want to do more than laugh at weak trolling attempts or gain the attention of tech news publications. I want to make a difference to my community and hopefully the world.

And right now, folks are hurting. An estimated 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the COVID-19 outbreak began, but a further 14 million have been unable to file (but need to).

In the coming days, I will begin publishing a series of blog posts on Dhole Moments that should help people with zero professional technology experience land a job in the tech industry, for $0 (but a moderate time investment; nothing is really free in this world). I call it Furward Momentum. 

Not counting the introduction, the series contains 9 entries.

The first three are about forming a support network/think tank to pursue this journey with, looking at the technology landscape and one's own strengths/interests to find areas you'd like to work in, and quickly gaining the fundamental skills needed for the roles you're interested in.

The fourth is about choosing your path (employee or entrepreneur).

The fifth and sixth entries outline a strategy for quickly gaining experience and reputation within the technology industry and one's local business communities through open source software. At this stage, teams are encouraged to collaborate and seek critique from other teams. People pursuing the entrepreneur path can use this time to test simple solutions to some of the problems faced by local businesses in order to earn trust.

The seventh entry is all about getting your first tech job.

The eighth entry is all about starting a tech company from scratch, including some hard-earned wisdom shared with me by friends in the security industry over the years.

The final entry is about career growth and paying it forward.

This is, to put it mildly, my most ambitious writing project ever. I'm writing it in the hopes that it will help people affected by the economy and/or COVID-19 keep food in their mouths and a roof over their head. It has a special emphasis on frugality (n.b. none of my prescribed solutions should cost you any money).

Oh, and each and every article is furry as hell. There's even special consideration given throughout my current draft for the relationship styles more common in furry than outside of it.

Why? So people who hate queers and/or furries find the entire series insufferable and self-select out of the pool of people potentially helped by the series. Furries, and the people who at least do not mind furries, are both valid and deserving of help.

I don't have a release date yet; I'm still waiting on art to be completed (and I'm terrible at drawing, myself). But it will be very soon.

When it's public, please use it if you need it, and pass it onto as many people as you can.

I recognize that tech work isn't everyone's first choice, but in the wake of social distancing and the danger imposed by COVID-19, tech jobs are generally safer and I feel everyone deserves an option to escape from the Republican plan to sacrifice "essential" workers to sustain a voodoo economy in the interests of the oligarchy.