Generic white guy SysAdmin
@westbynoreaster.bsky.social
#HPC #SysAdmin & aspiring #DevOps headed to Charlotte in the new year. #dHTC evangelist, and labor history nerd. #BLM! Opinions my own. he/him
The holders of capital, even with essential infrastructure, will wait until folks die before spending money to do long overdue required maintenance. Always, and maybe not even then.
“A leaked internal memo shows UPS' entire fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 cargo planes will be grounded longer than expected because they need more extensive repairs than previously thought.”
(The reason for these repairs and maintenance is the recent deadly crash near Louisville.)
(The reason for these repairs and maintenance is the recent deadly crash near Louisville.)
November 29, 2025 at 8:30 AM
The holders of capital, even with essential infrastructure, will wait until folks die before spending money to do long overdue required maintenance. Always, and maybe not even then.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
In case you’re wondering why Pete Hegseth is freaking out about a congressional video reminding the military not to participate in illegal orders:
To put a finer point on this whole thing: "Two people with direct knowledge of the operation" — presumably uniformed military leaders — are accusing the U.S. Secretary of Defense of personally ordering specific war crimes. That's a historic accusation.
Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing
"Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."
Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social
"Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."
Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 12:14 AM
In case you’re wondering why Pete Hegseth is freaking out about a congressional video reminding the military not to participate in illegal orders:
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
I had to use this today
7. the kinda appealing, but substantively indefensible, idea that somehow AI is different to other technology, like calculators, in a pedagogical context — but we totally ban a great deal of technology in the classroom.
(Section 3.7 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...)
9/n
(Section 3.7 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...)
9/n
November 28, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I had to use this today
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
I am not writing a thing about gender and math ability and programming because I think it will prevent horrible arguments from resurfacing. I'm not even writing it because I want confused men to hear it.
I am writing it because I want the young women in technical spaces to have what I wish I'd had:
I am writing it because I want the young women in technical spaces to have what I wish I'd had:
November 28, 2025 at 5:24 PM
I am not writing a thing about gender and math ability and programming because I think it will prevent horrible arguments from resurfacing. I'm not even writing it because I want confused men to hear it.
I am writing it because I want the young women in technical spaces to have what I wish I'd had:
I am writing it because I want the young women in technical spaces to have what I wish I'd had:
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
This raises a very real question about how we talk about AI. To call this slop is to downplay the fact that it was published in an esteemed journal. We used to call such things fraud, but this suggests the publisher is innocent. AI has changed the terms of debate. We urgently need new norms.
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
November 27, 2025 at 6:59 PM
This raises a very real question about how we talk about AI. To call this slop is to downplay the fact that it was published in an esteemed journal. We used to call such things fraud, but this suggests the publisher is innocent. AI has changed the terms of debate. We urgently need new norms.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
I hate how this whole industry keeps gaslighting us into thinking this is fine and normal, and none of this is their responsibility. No, really, this isn't normal. We do not accept such lacking safety standards in any other product. We're not losing our minds or acting irrationally. It's not us!
November 27, 2025 at 6:10 PM
I hate how this whole industry keeps gaslighting us into thinking this is fine and normal, and none of this is their responsibility. No, really, this isn't normal. We do not accept such lacking safety standards in any other product. We're not losing our minds or acting irrationally. It's not us!
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research.
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Today's biggest science news: Doomed comet explodes | Comet 3I/ATLAS course alteration | Dark matter detected?
Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines.
www.livescience.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:01 PM
NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research.
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
there’s an entire resilience engineering thesis waiting to be written in the way that financial market participants refuse to stay within the safety envelope because they inevitably accrue the resources to let them push the system into dangerous states
November 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM
there’s an entire resilience engineering thesis waiting to be written in the way that financial market participants refuse to stay within the safety envelope because they inevitably accrue the resources to let them push the system into dangerous states
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
"So they’re destroying higher education in the US. It was maybe the thing we should have been proudest of."
samuelscohen.com/2025/11/24/t...
samuelscohen.com/2025/11/24/t...
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
So they’re destroying higher education in the US. It was maybe the thing we should have been proudest of. For decades after the Baby Boom filled campuses to bursting and the National Defense …
samuelscohen.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:18 PM
"So they’re destroying higher education in the US. It was maybe the thing we should have been proudest of."
samuelscohen.com/2025/11/24/t...
samuelscohen.com/2025/11/24/t...
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
As you’re preparing for your Thanksgiving meal, remember the skilled work it took to get that food to your grocery store.
Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.
Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.
November 26, 2025 at 6:03 PM
As you’re preparing for your Thanksgiving meal, remember the skilled work it took to get that food to your grocery store.
Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.
Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
Connection to the users and their desire paths is the most important path of working in security and nobody goddamn does it. You are gonna make compromises. And they're all gonna be worth it. Because you understand what they want and you're gonna deliver it and they're gonna stop doing stupid shit.
November 26, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Connection to the users and their desire paths is the most important path of working in security and nobody goddamn does it. You are gonna make compromises. And they're all gonna be worth it. Because you understand what they want and you're gonna deliver it and they're gonna stop doing stupid shit.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
Ok so.
"The Genesis Mission will build an integrated AI platform to harness Federal scientific datasets — the world’s largest collection ... — to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs."
"The Genesis Mission will build an integrated AI platform to harness Federal scientific datasets — the world’s largest collection ... — to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs."
"the president has directed the Department of Energy to launch an AI project called the genesis mission" sounds like something out of a technothriller
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Launching the Genesis Mission
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose.
www.whitehouse.gov
November 25, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Ok so.
"The Genesis Mission will build an integrated AI platform to harness Federal scientific datasets — the world’s largest collection ... — to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs."
"The Genesis Mission will build an integrated AI platform to harness Federal scientific datasets — the world’s largest collection ... — to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs."
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
chop from the top www.independent.com/2025/11/24/u...
UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Gets New $7.8 Million Home
University of California regents purchase a multimillion-dollar Hope Ranch manor to replace the old campus facilities as the chancellor residence.
www.independent.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:17 AM
chop from the top www.independent.com/2025/11/24/u...
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
To be fair I read this and the article it's commenting on quickly so I may have missed something. What I like in this is that it notes that a big driver of faculty AI usage is overwork, which is partly an artifact of understaffing (and overstaffing at the management level, since management consume
About 25 percent of faculty members have used AI to save time in creating more engaging in-class activities or generating quizzes and other assessments. Yet talking about AI use is taboo in some quarters. https://chroni.cl/4rjLxQp
Why Professors Are Using AI in Course Design
Some believe in the technology’s promises; others are simply desperate for help.
chroni.cl
November 25, 2025 at 10:40 PM
To be fair I read this and the article it's commenting on quickly so I may have missed something. What I like in this is that it notes that a big driver of faculty AI usage is overwork, which is partly an artifact of understaffing (and overstaffing at the management level, since management consume
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
To bear out this rosy projection, HSBC assumes that OpenAI will become "as ubiquitous [...] as Microsoft 365" (345mm users worldwide) while bringing in 10x the number of users (3bn).
November 25, 2025 at 11:11 PM
This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
somebody who is good at the economy please help them budget this, their bullshit factory is dying
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates on.ft.com/4ij0yh8
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates
A burning platform
on.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:49 PM
somebody who is good at the economy please help them budget this, their bullshit factory is dying
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
Within @aaup.org, there's a lot of advocacy chapters who wonder what power they have without a CBA. We're here to say it doesn't matter. Organizing is organizing is organizing. You want the contract but if you act like a union then you're a union. I call this The Newsies Principle.
November 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Within @aaup.org, there's a lot of advocacy chapters who wonder what power they have without a CBA. We're here to say it doesn't matter. Organizing is organizing is organizing. You want the contract but if you act like a union then you're a union. I call this The Newsies Principle.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
We @uam-umd.bsky.social won. Faculty packed town halls, talked to their colleagues and collected hundreds of petition signatures. Now UMD is coughing up $8.75m, during a deficit, to fund faculty whose research is under attack. Not enough, but a helluva thing for a union the state calls illegal.
$8.75M Investment Supports ‘Research Resilience’… | Maryland Today
UMD, MPower Funds Combine to Help Preserve Institutional Capabilities, Lab Operations and More
today.umd.edu
November 25, 2025 at 2:32 PM
We @uam-umd.bsky.social won. Faculty packed town halls, talked to their colleagues and collected hundreds of petition signatures. Now UMD is coughing up $8.75m, during a deficit, to fund faculty whose research is under attack. Not enough, but a helluva thing for a union the state calls illegal.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
It bears constant repetition that expertise is nurtured slowly over a very long time. It doesn’t bounce back like a rubber band with every flex of a spreadsheet. Once it is gone, it can’t be rapidly rebuilt overnight or on demand.
P.S. a lot of Research and innovation happens at unis.
P.S. a lot of Research and innovation happens at unis.
"A system built on specialisation, efficiency", that right there is the death knell for the current university system in the UK, if (big if) government pushes it through. They actively don't want HE to grow, they will intervene, apparently, to help it shrink.
per this morning's education committee.
per this morning's education committee.
November 25, 2025 at 11:02 AM
It bears constant repetition that expertise is nurtured slowly over a very long time. It doesn’t bounce back like a rubber band with every flex of a spreadsheet. Once it is gone, it can’t be rapidly rebuilt overnight or on demand.
P.S. a lot of Research and innovation happens at unis.
P.S. a lot of Research and innovation happens at unis.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
It’s such a funny shibboleth that both MAGA Trumpists, and Silicon Valley dragons, who equally show disdain for and just got finished with deconstructing the ability of the US to engage in any meaningful scientific endeavors, still have to explain AI investment as a scientific project.
November 25, 2025 at 3:38 AM
It’s such a funny shibboleth that both MAGA Trumpists, and Silicon Valley dragons, who equally show disdain for and just got finished with deconstructing the ability of the US to engage in any meaningful scientific endeavors, still have to explain AI investment as a scientific project.
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
"Maximize profit at all costs," or "maintain a fine product loved by all," can't have both
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 2:17 AM
"Maximize profit at all costs," or "maintain a fine product loved by all," can't have both
Poor #LucentTechnologies get's no respect in the annals of the late 90s SPVs accounting frauds. AND It's CEO went on to destroy #HP via a merger with #Compaq. 👹🐑
In the memo, “Nvidia also responds to claims that the ‘current situation is analogous to historical accounting frauds (Enron, WorldCom, Lucent) that featured vendor financing and SPVs [special purpose vehicles.)’”
@barrons.com $NVDA
@firstadopter.bsky.social
www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...
@barrons.com $NVDA
@firstadopter.bsky.social
www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...
November 25, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Poor #LucentTechnologies get's no respect in the annals of the late 90s SPVs accounting frauds. AND It's CEO went on to destroy #HP via a merger with #Compaq. 👹🐑
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input
November 24, 2025 at 10:35 PM
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input
Reposted by Generic white guy SysAdmin
There actually has not been enough reflection in the tech community about DOGE
November 24, 2025 at 4:10 PM
There actually has not been enough reflection in the tech community about DOGE