lolcat / is on Nostr

remedial polymath

Last Notes

2024-12-28 05:40:32

If anyone has a good source of info on home water softening options, please pass it along. On the enshitified Internet it is no longer possible to find useful information about this or most other things unless you already know the answer.
My town's well water's hardness is literally off the charts. It clogs everything with limescale, acts as a nasty astringent on your skin, and ruins the taste of coffee, etc. I thought I'd get used to it, but I was wrong.

2024-12-28 05:40:32

2024-12-20 15:46:38

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@npub1jg8…03dc @npub19lh…3d6f
So much of this is so familiar to me. Also, you've written it in a way that makes me feel a bit like we're just shoot'n the shit about old times over a nice beer or two. Thanks for all of this!

2024-12-14 17:30:42

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@npub19lh…3d6f @npub17m6…0lxt
Building "cloud native" is like signing an open ended apartment lease that allows your landlord to tear down the building with you still inside, while simultaneously doubling your rent twice a year.
Maybe I'm far too cynical, but, based on the last 10 years, I feel fairly confident in my assessment.
Problem is, how do you *not* do cloud native if the entire talent pool only knows that?

2024-12-14 17:11:14

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@npub19lh…3d6f
So far, it looks like the top three tips are:
Simplicity
- minimize dependencies
- appropriate frameworks
for scale, etc. (?)
- ?
Continuity
- keep the team together
- train new members before
oldsters retire
Transparency
- Document, document, document
- instrumentation?

2024-11-08 19:17:14

For at least a decade, US higher ed has been all-in on outsourcing as much IT to Google and MS as possible. It's been years since the last major US university replaced internally-operated email with one of those two.
One of the few computer-related services not yet completely surrendered to "the cloud" is HPC, but that's not for lack of trying. Years of literally screaming lies into the faces of researchers and IT people has taken its toll - a generation quit/retired/laid off.

2024-11-03 16:15:59

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@npub19lh…3d6f
Yeah, technical debt presents a huge challenge to moving on from MS.
Starting in ~2000, as I moved more into management and interacted more with the management class, I encountered more and more people who could ONLY deal with MS formats. They couldn't even handle plain text.

2024-11-02 15:54:14

@npub19lh…3d6f
Awoke this morning to a random thought:
When five of the six most valuable US companies (by market cap) go bust two to five years from now, based on their misguided gen AI investments, Europe's relatively slow uptake might not only look good, but could also position EU economies as the safest places in the world for business.
I'm still holding out for anonymous micropayments backed finance replacing surveillance capitalism.

2024-10-26 19:44:07

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@npub19lh…3d6f
I remember reading about George Bernard Shaw when I was a teen, and being surprised to learn that his Fabian Society associations made him the target of attacks from the left and right.
Now, as a geezer, I see that is usually the way.