Valerie Aurora / is on Nostr

Systems consultant, writer, cat appreciator

I post about computers, nuclear stuff, science fiction, and science fact. I have ADHD so I'm into things that are Novel, Interesting, Challenging, and Urgent.

Personal: https://valerieaurora.org/
Work: https://bowshock.nl/
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Where: Amsterdam

Last Notes

2025-01-08 15:04:59

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this sounds familiar - the newsletter pace preventing you from thinking about bigger questions while also not helping with business. One pattern in my life is avoiding bigger questions by inventing work for myself that doesn't help me (and often doesn't help others). Stopping that was really hard and admire you for the newsletter pause

2024-07-31 12:36:41

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Several of us had some form of the question, "How do I successfully warn an organization about an impending crisis that I foresee but the organization does not?"
The answer is both depressing and freeing: you can't, so don't try. Instead, wait for the crisis to become apparent to the organization and then show up with your ideas for what to do to solve this crisis now—and change things so that the organization CAN see this kind of crisis approaching in the future
#CrisisEngineering

2024-07-31 07:25:54

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Highlights from the first day of Crisis Engineering from Layer Aleph:
Crisis engineering is more accurately named than I realized.
"Crisis" is in the sense of the crux; the point where things are definitely going to get better or worse depending on what is happening at that moment.
"Engineering" in the sense that an organization in crisis is in the unusual state of being open to transformative change - which is usually impossible

2024-07-19 08:34:41

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Reminder: you can still register to attend the Crisis Engineering Workshop from Layer Aleph on July 30 - August 1:
https://layeraleph.com/event/
Might be a teensy bit easier to convince your manager today... :)

2024-07-07 10:03:59

Where can I rent an extra large bike in Amsterdam? I have a friend visiting who needs an XXL/61cm frame for a week and google search is of course totally useless

2024-06-16 12:10:38

I read _The Unaccountability Machine_ by Dan Davies on the train yesterday and wow. Attempted summary: society is in crisis because our current systems of governance and feedback are unable to hear the signal that is the vast majority of people screaming, "My life is intolerable." This signal gets routed into any channel available: Brexit referendum, far-right parties, protests against masks or wind turbines or housing - anything to signal rebellion
https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

2024-05-14 16:50:06

Remember that blog post "I got robbed of my first kernel contribution" where a maintainer slightly rewrote a patch and took credit for it? Well, I decided to do something about it.
I co-authored a guide with Maria Matějka and some other folks on documenting how your project gives credit and otherwise handles contributions. If your project's policy is to lightly rewrite contributions and take credit for them, say so! Subscriber link (free) to the LWN article:
https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/971817/ae5fbbbc8cd1cf18/

2024-04-27 17:36:15

Academic journals can price gouge because universities are relieved to be able to outsource performance reviews of PhD students and faculty to them
(From https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/ )
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/344/377/835/924/644/original/ee49d8bb16ec82ad.jpeg

2024-04-16 09:10:10

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The client had an application where latency was critical. Occasionally the latency was enormous. They wanted me to track down why and fix it. I said, oh, of course I can't run tcpdump on the latency-critical production system, I'll have to figure out a different way. They said, that's no problem. It turned out that the org was proud of having few rules and any of several people could log in to production and run anything they wanted at any time. It was politically impossible to stop this.

2024-04-16 09:06:03

Have you ever hired a consultant, or been hired as a consultant, to fix a technical problem that turned out to be a non-technical problem? If so, what do you think the early warning signs were?
My (anonymized) stories of being the consultant in this situation are in the replies

2024-04-01 17:09:13

So how would one prepare a consulting business for the wave of businesses realizing they need someone to fix their incomprehensible unmaintainable AI-damaged code in about a year?

2024-03-25 15:31:57

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not having strace is my number one regret about using a Mac 💔