David Andersen

Computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Co-founder & CTO, Enriched Ag. he/him.

Public Key

npub1rtak3ayg0xry7ps9c4k3809tl3k2fcpvlmyjjtrugmnkmnsz4ths2h9gta

NIP-05 Address

dave_andersen_at_hachyderm.io@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsp47mg7jy8npj0qczu2mgnhj4lcm9yuqk0ajff937ydemdecp24mccr6psf

Author Public Key

npub1rtak3ayg0xry7ps9c4k3809tl3k2fcpvlmyjjtrugmnkmnsz4ths2h9gta

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Last Notes

2024-09-08 15:06:34

I'm all fancy today, bringing my Rolex to 12yo's first XC race of the season.
The Ugandan kind, that is. 🤓
( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_(food) )
#cooking
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/102/542/879/562/012/original/f2d3f60fc8ee635d.jpg

2024-09-03 16:56:36

Another day, another ma po tofu craving. I messed up this time and didn't have enough of the right chili peppers or silken tofu, so I made it with what was on hand and it turns out jalapenos are ok in a pinch. It's not as good as with silken tofu but it's depressingly still better than a lot of what I can buy around here.
#cooking
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/074/671/371/965/251/original/c9fead6f8ccce017.jpg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/074/671/756/922/715/original/4d25bfe43be75c32.jpg

2024-08-29 23:42:33

lol. gotta love crypto. I realized I had about $50 of bitcoin hanging out somewhere, so I transferred it to coinbase to sell and turn into usd.
I used an old address from coinbase's "gdax" exchange, which they merged into their new coinbase advanced.
The money disappeared. Coinbase happily told me "sorry, that product is deprecated, the funds are lost on the blockchain."
These are not serious people.

2024-08-27 12:28:02

It's the first week of school. Most Pittsburgh public schools don't have air conditioning, and the policy is that they go remote if it gets too hot in the buildings. That starts to happen when the outside high temperature is 85 or above.
They've already declared today a half day due to heat.
Climate change sucks.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/033/973/119/870/687/original/07bce442bd253361.png

2024-08-05 00:23:17

It's really bizarre that this election is anything but a landslide.
I'm one corner, a former prosecutor, senator, and current vice president, who is if anything a little more centrist than I would prefer and will likely be a very competent establishment politician.
In the other, a convicted felon and sexual abuser who tried to overthrow American democracy once already
And third <listens to headset> an, um, anti-science wacko who says a worm ate his brain and who hid evidence of a bear killing

2024-07-17 16:44:54

Making amends for my truffle oil heresy.
#food
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/802/836/575/506/765/original/79e95623a44c0e6e.jpg

2024-06-20 17:00:09

Beyond burger as a condiment for the first head of romaine from the garden this year. Mmm.
11yo and I ate the entire head. It was kinda small. And tasty. (And getting shaded by a squash leaf, so it had to go.)
#food #gardening
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/650/008/643/115/836/original/13c55331db699952.jpg

2024-05-26 01:58:34

I'm mildly infuriated at the Washington Post. So - I've canceled my subscription and set up a recurring donation to Union Progress: https://www.unionprogress.com/donate/
Feels like $25/month is going to make a lot more of a difference to journalism than my Post subscription was.
#pittsburgh #washingtonpost

2024-05-24 16:33:54

sigh. I keep seeing these "Google AI summaries are horrible" posts, so I tried to replicate. What I got was ... the Internet is horrible.
Google search for "when is it legal to drive over the speed limit" has a featured snippet (NOT AI summary) saying "under 55mph you can drive over the speed limit by 9 miles per hour"
ok......
let's see the source.
1/5
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/497/026/040/204/610/original/66e55f39c5b9fc22.png

2024-05-22 01:54:06

Wow - I had no idea about this bit of history. [cw: corporation-sponsored violence.]
https://www.unionprogress.com/2024/05/19/birthplace-of-the-middle-class-is-a-doorway-with-a-brutal-history/

2024-05-10 23:22:47

One thing that makes it harder to see an aurora is light pollution. Tonight's a great night to turn off your outdoor lights. I mean, every night is a good night to, but tonight you get a double bonus.
#aurora

2024-05-08 17:48:04

shit shit shit shit shit. Dealt with my first set of AI-generated-code plagiarism cases this semester.
Dear students: LLMs are terrible plagiarists and they do not give a damn (or have any capacity to care or avoid doing so) if they get you in deep doodoo by reproducing verbatim code from existing repositories on github or from web pages. And on assignments, it's quite likely to happen.
We didn't identify these cases by using an AI detector: They were identical to a source on the web!

2024-05-05 02:07:03

Went to dinner at smoke taqueria tonight (both the smoked mushroom and grilled cabbage tacos were excellent). But what really made me laugh was their bathroom decor. Zoom in and read the sign.
#pittsburgh
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/386/031/141/645/053/original/b97cb458227b3335.jpg

2024-04-27 18:40:45

For a mix of work and personal, I decided my life needed an antenna analyzer/ VNA. Amusing to be able to characterize the random Amazon-acquired PCB adsb antenna. (Ads-b receiver shown in its two-year "temporary" indoor location).
It's amazing to me that one can get a ~1ghz VNA for under $100.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/344/637/521/543/663/original/df31985925e496a8.jpg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/344/640/167/034/099/original/782b683b1c5599cc.jpg

2024-04-13 16:57:45

Well, that was a little random. On a whim, i will, as of roughly Tuesday, have a #HamRadio amateur extra license. I barely even own anything that can transmit other than a little modded handheld, so I'm not quite sure what I will _do_ with this thing, but I'm kind of amused to have it, at least. Guess I'll say hi to someone in the CMU radio club one of these months or something.
(Grateful to the four guys who put up with me muttering on zoom for 30 minutes to take the exams.)
1/2

2024-03-25 02:02:02

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@npub1uw8…88kr I wish I had something constructive to add other than: whole foods 365 unsweetened soy and oatley are both delicious (oatley is particularly good with coffee) and I would love if someone in this thread knows the trick to getting those flavors at home!

2024-03-15 17:40:11

We're moving 15-213 exams back to written / no computers or electronics.
You can probably (llms) guess why.
They're not actually good enough to do well on our exams, but they muddy the waters too much and it's becoming too hard / invasive to police.

2024-03-07 18:30:26

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@npub178r…qekt I do wonder how much the synthetic aperture people will have the last laugh. Though presumably there's a limit to how much of the back of your phone can consist of lenses.

2024-03-01 21:09:54

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@npub1xkw…7jwu @npub19d9…f02p I do wonder if Conway and Soifer 2005 would win, but I can't get google scholar to cough up a citation count for it (it is cited). Depends if you count the title or not; the body is two or three words
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/022/479/879/432/917/original/d14243851dfba040.png

2024-02-23 17:25:34

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@npub1a4c…t2kf Is this necessarily an Intel bug, though? Or could it be a "your motherboard is overclocking things behind your back" issue?

2024-01-26 20:56:10

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@npub1sdt…96z3 I believe this is website-ese for "we don't have to, so go fuck yourself."
Which tells a lot about how they view their customers.

2024-01-21 19:57:22

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 @npub1f58…n5rg that's a lot of solder coming from someone who can't conduct himself appropriately.
(Sorry, I'll show myself to the door now. ;)

2024-01-17 21:14:53

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@npub1ua7…rrg3 when you get in trouble there, scat

2023-12-26 00:16:48

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@npub178r…qekt @npub1xmj…39tm If you really want to avoid listening - which, I have to agree, is pretty fun; that classic 1930s/40s radio voice is great - I've used Whisper to automatically transcribe all of them and placed the transcripts here:
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/blaze-radio-transcripts/
Warning: May have errors! I checked two files and found one error (and fixed it), which suggests there are likely more errors. But they seem pretty good overall.

2023-12-12 16:39:16

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@npub178r…qekt I'm caught. I'm an NSA plant. I've hidden the trails well but you can find some evidence of it from before I got better at op-sec and published with some non-covert co-authors twenty years ago.
Guess I need to go change my name and start over.
Probably can't get a job as a CS professor any more though, I think hiring has gotten a lot harder since I graduated.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/568/427/040/008/376/original/adb95e4417779b86.png

2023-12-12 16:32:39

Aggh, why did I read the orange site comments about the "NSA advises move to memory-safe languages" article? Save your brain cells, don't.
But the report is worth a peek. https://media.defense.gov/2023/Dec/06/2003352724/-1/-1/0/THE-CASE-FOR-MEMORY-SAFE-ROADMAPS-TLP-CLEAR.PDF
Note that it's not just NSA; it's a joint report from US/CAN/UK/NZ/AU .. which, I guess being all the five eyes countries doesn't help with the tinfoil brigade. 😜 But seriously, write new code in memory-safe languages if at all possible.

2023-12-07 21:57:08

I retooted a link to this, but seriously, it's worth reading this article by @npub15qw…3p2z Don't let Stefanik's theatrical display turn you into a sucker.
https://popehat.substack.com/p/stop-demanding-dumb-answers-to-hard

2023-11-03 22:34:00

What's the plane circling #pittsburgh right now? It doesn't show up on FlightAware and can't check my ADS-B receiver until I get home.

2023-10-27 18:23:28

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@npub178r…qekt First, that's a cool trick, and second, that is a shockingly impressive level of detail in that photograph. Well worth the trip to flickr to grab the original.

2023-09-25 19:41:50

Purely idle musings. Systems I wish people would rewrite in #rust:
- ntpd
- gpsd
- postgres
tell me why I'm wrong or what I'm missing.
(rationale:
ntpd is critical software with a history of security vulnerabilities and a requirement for tight timing. extensibility would be a very nice thing.
gpsd for basically the same reasons + ESR.
postgres because I like it.)

2023-09-25 18:06:22

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@npub178r…qekt Better resistance to fire/water/acid/small children, too.

2023-09-05 15:49:40

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@npub178r…qekt Vanguard lists a 2038 maturity date. But there's no corresponding listing for it on the bank's own website.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/013/328/828/431/895/original/bbe36b98a0911d4d.png

2023-09-05 14:45:42

Finance folk - out of curiosity, if a bank lists a CD available for brokeraged purchase and they have it listed _wrong_ -- like listing a 15 month CD as a 15 year CD -- ... um, what happens?
(There's a 15 year, 5.5% CD listed through Vanguard that I can't really believe means to be 15 years. I just bought some of it for obvious reasons. But I'm very curious what happens in 15 months...)

2023-08-10 20:48:35

Ok, I know I'm a bit of a #rust fan, but this is really winning me over more. For startup reasons, wanted to familiarize myself with basic functionality of the rp2040. Used it as an excuse to check out rust async + embedded using Embassy, and .. my goodness, it's delightful. This code snippet waits for the PIR motion sensor to trigger and updates some global state. Simple, but:
It's handling all of the awkward rp2040 interrupt configuration automagically. You just "wait". It does it all. Love!
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/110/867/281/698/611/427/original/2a66b9aedef31193.png

2023-05-19 23:51:32

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@npub178r…qekt I got the Tern GSD. But I definitely chose it with carrying little people in mind - my kids are huge and the weight limit of the HSD is cutting it close. If I didn't have kids I'd probably have done what most of the bike shop employees did and get the HSD S11. Class 3, really fun, tons of cargo capacity, can carry one under-11 year old anyway. I was able to bunny hop on it but I'm a little crazy; that's not really its intended use.

2023-05-19 23:44:30

Day 2 of owning a cargo e-bike: WHEEEEEEEE! Wish I'd bought it years ago. Still don't have the proper seat, so can't haul 5yo around, but took 10yo to school (2mi round-trip) and violin (7-8mi round-trip) today and it was fantastic. As fast or faster than using the car (b/c was during rush hour). Totally fun. I'm in love.
Rough estimate is that I'm getting the equivalent of 1,100 MPG. 🤓 Love it.