Does something technical in the Boston (MA, US) area. He/him.

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  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • -dsr-toFreeAssemblyPost your IT redundancy tales here
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    42 months ago

    My semi-serious suggestion:

    “That sounds great. I’m going to need to take a course in how to best utilitize AI, and the existing timeline will probably need to change. To really engage at expert level, I will go look at best-practices from experts. You’ll sign off on reasonable expenses, right?”

    Then book a trip to [interesting place] and get it expensed. Then look for a new job while promising great things in a few months time, maybe a year or so.


  • The history of technology teaches us that every non-trivial problem – and a large fraction of trivial problems – require specification beyond the bounds of conversational language.

    Greek geometers may have invented the idea of formalizing language with specific definitions, and inventing new symbols to represent special meanings. When important consequences accrue from getting things wrong, people develop jargon: knitters and sailors and shepherds and farmers; engineers and lawyers and plumbers. If you want to convey your knowledge and intentions, you can’t chat informally and expect a human to really understand what you want.

    For about a century now we’ve had devices that turn instructions into actions. Everyone who uses these becomes an expert in the particular form of instructions that the device needs, or else they don’t get what they want.



  • -dsr-toSneerClubwe're not Nazis btw
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    116 months ago

    Grew up in fairly rural upstate New York, where you can expect lots of snow and you can unironically envy neighbors who have working Franklin stoves when the power goes out.

    I can confirm all of the above, plus: if you are lucky enough to have an Army-Navy surplus store around, one of your handmedowns is likely to be an N3B parka. Definitely not Russian or German or stylish. But it will keep everything above your thighs warm, except your hands. The pockets are uninsulated.











  • -dsr-toSneerClub"hey wait, EA sucks!"
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    911 months ago

    Mike is a fed, yes.

    So is Steve. The snack thing is left over from his previous undercover assignment at NORML. That didn’t end well, but he’s pretty sure he can get Mike to agree to buy explosives, which will be a good bust.