A digital garden: interconnected notes on security, systems, and quantitative curiosity. Ideas here grow over time; some are seeds, some are evergreen. No trackers, no ads, just a map of what I'm thinking about.https://mz7x.comen-ushttps://mz7x.com/garden/adhd-htb-hacking-playbookhttps://mz7x.com/garden/adhd-htb-hacking-playbookTen friction-bypassing study methods for grinding HackTheBox with an ADHD brain, plus the two of them I turned into real tools: a Swipe-to-Pwn Anki deck and an htb-operator shell.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/learning-in-publichttps://mz7x.com/garden/learning-in-publicThe operating philosophy of this whole garden: publish the process, not just the conclusions.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/metacognition-eileen-gu-and-going-publichttps://mz7x.com/garden/metacognition-eileen-gu-and-going-publicThe thing elite performers and good thinkers share is not raw talent; it is metacognition, the skill of watching your own mind. Here is what it is, why putting yourself out there feels so irreversible, and why the spotlight effect means it matters less than you think.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/you-will-never-know-enoughhttps://mz7x.com/garden/you-will-never-know-enoughImposter syndrome in security isn't a character flaw; it's an accurate readout of an unbounded field, misfiled as a personal deficiency. The fix is a traversal strategy, not more knowledge.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/ai-slop-and-the-cost-of-foraginghttps://mz7x.com/garden/ai-slop-and-the-cost-of-foragingMaggie Appleton calls it jetspraying the web with AI slop. Here is why that cheap flood is so exhausting, told through Information Foraging Theory, and why your tiredness is a rational response, not a personal failing.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/birthday-paradox-23-strangershttps://mz7x.com/garden/birthday-paradox-23-strangersIn a room of just 23 people, it's better than even odds that two share a birthday. The Birthday Paradox, and why your brain is hopeless at counting pairs.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/dead-internet-and-your-pattern-hungry-brainhttps://mz7x.com/garden/dead-internet-and-your-pattern-hungry-brainThat creeping sense that the internet is mostly bots talking to bots has a name. Here is why the feeling is partly real, partly a trick your own mind plays, and what apophenia and the illusory truth effect are doing to you while you scroll.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/explaining-without-the-lecturehttps://mz7x.com/garden/explaining-without-the-lectureI got called a bad explainer, and I think I earned it. The fix isn't reading minds. It's the curse of knowledge, Grice's maxim of quantity, and treating an explanation like a game of catch instead of a monologue.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/hero-shooters-paladins-to-rivalshttps://mz7x.com/garden/hero-shooters-paladins-to-rivalsI started with Paladins, not Overwatch. A love letter to hero shooters like Marvel Rivals and Overwatch, and why their living game of rock-paper-scissors, with tanks, DPS, supports, and ultimates, is so stupidly fun.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/morality-the-invisible-scoreboardhttps://mz7x.com/garden/morality-the-invisible-scoreboardImagine an invisible scoreboard over your head: buy a friend a mango, +5; be cruel, −50. The catch is nobody handed you the rulebook. A tour of ethics: consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, and moral luck.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/philosophy-the-why-gamehttps://mz7x.com/garden/philosophy-the-why-gameA toaster never asks whether it should toast. Humans do, and that pause has a name. A tour of philosophy: first principles, the Socratic method, epistemology, and why the annoying 'Why?' game is a real superpower.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/post-quantum-cryptography-the-diamond-lockhttps://mz7x.com/garden/post-quantum-cryptography-the-diamond-lockQuantum computers will slice through today's internet locks like a laser through glass. Inside the race to build math even a future super-machine can't crack: public-key crypto, Shor's algorithm, and the diamond lock.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/tasting-life-twicehttps://mz7x.com/garden/tasting-life-twiceI've been a bad writer since primary school, all mimicry and dread. Then a line from Anaïs Nin reframed the whole thing, and I decided to write every day, in public, badly at first.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/the-pseudo-intellectual-fearhttps://mz7x.com/garden/the-pseudo-intellectual-fearThe terror of sounding smart instead of being smart, and accidentally becoming the very thing you dread. A look at processing fluency, the Dunning-Kruger trap, and why jargon is so easy to mistake for understanding.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/prompt-injection-is-untrusted-inputhttps://mz7x.com/garden/prompt-injection-is-untrusted-inputWe've spent thirty years learning to separate code from data. LLMs gleefully merge them again.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/ctf-field-notes-webhttps://mz7x.com/garden/ctf-field-notes-webA running log of web challenges: patterns that repeat, traps I fell into, and the meta-skill CTFs are secretly teaching.Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/the-attackers-mindset-is-systems-thinkinghttps://mz7x.com/garden/the-attackers-mindset-is-systems-thinkingAttackers don't break rules; they discover that the rules compose differently than the designers believed.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/fuzzing-is-evolutionhttps://mz7x.com/garden/fuzzing-is-evolutionBridging theoretical biology and systems security in a way that isn't just a superficial metaphorMon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/cloud-iam-blast-radiushttps://mz7x.com/garden/cloud-iam-blast-radiusThe security of a cloud account isn't the sum of its policies; it's the reachability graph they create.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/threat-modeling-this-gardenhttps://mz7x.com/garden/threat-modeling-this-gardenEating my own dog food: a security person's website should survive its own methodology.Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://mz7x.com/garden/kelly-criterion-for-bug-huntinghttps://mz7x.com/garden/kelly-criterion-for-bug-huntingA half-formed hunch: allocating research time across targets is a bankroll problem, and Kelly might be the right lens.Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT