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Courtney Nash

@courtneynash.bsky.social
435 followers 304 following 108 posts

Internet Incident Librarian. Founder of the VOID. VP of the Resilience in Software Foundation

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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
We can talk ad nauseum about the technical details of software incidents, but what about the human side of people's experiences when things hit the fan? The emotions we experience influences how we view incidents and what we can learn from them. www.thevoid.community/blog/inciden...
thevoid.community
Incidents and Their Discontents
Software incidents rarely yield positive emotions. We don’t see or hear about them in public writeups, but strong emotions are a defining feature of incidents. It’s important to talk about the way inc...
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Happy Halloween fellow incident nerds.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
I've been mapping the companies impacted by the AWS outage on October 20th, and trying to find the secondary interdependencies—when companies or services that other companies rely on go down from the outage (e.g. Slack). This is just a snapshot, here’s the interactive version: www.thevoid.community
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Hey can y'all do me a favor? If you run across any post-incident write-ups from companies affected by the AWS outage, could you send those to me?Feel free to leave a link in the comments, or you can drop them here: www.thevoid.community/submit-incid... Thanks!
thevoid.community
Submit an Incident Report
The VOID is a community-contributed collection of software-related incident reports.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Software incidents are painful, and we're trying to help change that. If you deal with incidents in your work, please help us help you! Take the survey here: www.thevoid.community/survey
thevoid.community
VOID Survey
The VOID is a community-contributed collection of software-related incident reports.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
If you have anything to do with software incidents in your job and wish things were less chaotic, stressful and burnout-inducing, please help us help you by taking this survey! www.thevoid.community/survey
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Software incidents are painful, and we're trying to help change that. If you deal with incidents in your work, please help us help you! Take the survey here: www.thevoid.community/survey
thevoid.community
VOID Survey
The VOID is a community-contributed collection of software-related incident reports.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
People worshipping execs was one of the strangest things from when I worked @ Amazon. People regarded Jeff like a fucking rock star—he said jump they didn’t even ask how high. If I ever pushed back on vague edicts from above, people acted like I was shit-talking the Pope. It was WEIRD. Very cultish.
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Lorin Hochstein @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com · 23/03/2025
Using MTTR tends to evaluate if your incident response is improving is like using stock price trends to evaluate if your software development productivity is improving. Sure, it’s an input, but hoo-boy are there a bunch of other factors that move those numbers!
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InfoQ @infoq.com · 05/03/2025
🎧New on the #InfoQ #podcast! @courtneynash.bsky.social explores the unintended consequences of automation in software systems, the importance of learning from incidents, and why human expertise remains essential in complex systems. Listen now: bit.ly/3F5zGlo #Observability #Monitoring #Resilience
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
People throw this word “algorithm” around like it’s just something someone can create in a snap if they’re smart/tech-savvy. But creating a proper, useful algorithm means you have to understand the way the entire system works in more detail than anyone looking in from the outside possibly could.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Episode 8 of the VOID podcast is out! Nick and I discuss near misses, what an incident is, and why understanding "normal" work helps us better understand how our systems really work so we're better prepared when the next incident rolls around. podcast.thevoid.community/1793843/epis...
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
"What IS an incident?" Tune in tomorrow to find out.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Coming tomorrow, the next episode of the @voidincidents.bsky.social podcast.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Resilience ≠ Reliability
media.tenor.com
a man says " you keep using that word i do not think it means what you think it means . "
ALT: a man says " you keep using that word i do not think it means what you think it means . "
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
How many 9s do you need, and how do you get there? @spamaps.org has some advice over on the @resilienceinsoftware.org blog. resilienceinsoftware.org/news/1148335
media.tenor.com
a woman is talking on a cell phone and says nine times ?
ALT: a woman is talking on a cell phone and says nine times ?
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Near misses are also a valuable source of information about how things *actually* work in your org/team, versus how people *think* things work.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Friend or foe? If friend, probably 2 or 3 (because I'll tell you when you're being a dingus), if foe go straight to 10 do not pass go I'm the person people call when they need to scare someone.
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Ben Waber @bwaber.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Stop 👏 using 👏 LLMs 👏 for 👏summarization www.theverge.com/news/610006/...
theverge.com
AI chatbots are distorting news stories, BBC finds
News summaries from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity contained ‘significant issues,’ a BBC study found.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Spent all day correcting a machine-generated interview transcript. Feel like doing it from scratch may have taken less time?? What are you qualitative people doing these days...
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
“[A] key irony of automation is that…you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise” www.404media.co/microsoft-st...
404media.co
Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”
Researchers find that the more people use AI at their job, the less critical thinking they use.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Someone in the @resilienceinsoftware.org Slack just asked a really savvy question about this Cloudflare incident report: blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-i.... Their question was: “Is it ‘human error’ if the system allows it?”
blog.cloudflare.com
Cloudflare incident on February 6, 2025
On Thursday, February 6, 2025, we experienced an outage with our object storage service (R2) and products that rely on it. Here's what happened and what we're doing to fix this going forward.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
“In an internal meeting…staff were told that [Carstensen] would not be replaced and that his responsibilities would be spread across the rest of the organization, a source said.” This might seem smart cost saving but those of us who’ve been in the industry long enough know exactly how this plays out
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Ashley Juavinett, PhD @ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Dear biologists & neuroscientists -- I'd like to collect some cursory data on what the "typical" breakdown of funding between federal & private looks like in labs. If you run a research lab or know enough about yours, could you fill this small form out? forms.gle/PEzWEYojBjfj...
forms.gle
Neuroscience & biology lab funding
What is the current rough breakdown of funding sources for your lab? The answers below should add to 100%!
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
This is an important idea! I grew up in an academic family and had a bizarrely detailed understanding of grant processes (on my dad’s side) and IRB/conflict of interest (on my mom’s side) that it never occurred to me that grad students generally wouldn’t know any of this…
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
People need to stop saying “there’s no way that will happen” and plan how to pressure the adults in charge to stop using the same playbook they have been using for decades.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
NTSB briefing: We’ll collect facts, evaluate the evidence, report our results. This takes time and we don’t speculate about what happened. Reporters: Could you please speculate about X?
youtube.com
NTSB Media Briefing - PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 and Sikorsky H-60 military helicopter collision
YouTube video by NTSBgov
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
The VOID podcast is back! Get an insiders view on what dealing with software incidents/outages is really like. podcast.thevoid.community/1793843/epis...
podcast.thevoid.community
Episode 7: When Uptime Met Downtime - The VOID
We took a bit of a hiatus from recording last year, but we're back with an episode that I think everyone is really going to enjoy. Late last year, John Allspaw told me about this new company called Up...
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Tired: DEI hires Wired: DUI hires
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
If you're attending #SREcon Americas in March, please consider submitting a Lightning Talk! www.usenix.org/conference/s.... If you've never seen a Lightning Talk, allow me to introduce you to one of my all time favorites by @jpaulreed.com : youtu.be/pavDzPLGVrY?...
youtu.be
SREcon24 Americas - Lightning Talks
YouTube video by USENIX
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
This might be my fav new Podcast, and not just because they asked me to be on it. 🤣
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
I’ll spare you having to listen to/read this by saying I’ve known a handful of men who were liberal, went on to make so much $ it’s irrational, & abandoned any of their prior beliefs which they felt threatened their ability to continue making absurd amounts of $. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms
Marc Andreessen explains the newest faction of conservatism.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
“Hey, hi @bsky.app team. So I’ve successfuly named a few things in my life/career and just putting it out there that I’d happily help out, pro bono.” —A mid-life woman who really doesn’t want to refer to anything I use to share photos as a “Hot Flash”
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Annie @fatbottomgirlbakes.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
The Altadena seed library needs all of the help it can get- if you have native plant seeds to share, please make sure they find their way to this group. Monetary donations are also hugely welcome via gofund.me/6643efc6
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Inside you are Little Women
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Camille Fournier @skamille.themanagerswrath.com · 11/01/2025
I'm increasingly pissed off at men in leadership positions posting here that companies backsliding on DEI etc is inevitable, and treating people who are angry about it as naive children. All you are showing is that you are a leader who either a) doesn't care or b) lacks the guts to fight against it.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
“Unprecedented disasters will always strain resources to the breaking point.” jabberwocking.com/just-give-it...
jabberwocking.com
Just give it up. There’s no one to blame for the LA fires. - Kevin Drum
For God's sake, can we stop this nonsense? People gobsmacked by empty fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades have wondered, why not just stick a hose in the ocean? Well, salt water can be very damaging to...
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Finally fully deleted my inactive FB account. I’m sad about IG, where all my interactions are just happy dumb normal shit about mountain biking and gardening (okay and feminism and menopause), I don’t want to leave there too but I will if it is necessary.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Internalized homophobia is a helluva drug. Hope that 8-figure compensation package helps him sleep well at night.
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Rebecca Brückmann @historleans.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Dystopian does not begin to cover this.
Screenshot from the NYT. Isabelle Taft
Jan. 8, 2025, 11:02 p.m. 

Bryce Wagoner, a director who lives in Hollywood Heights in the evacuation area, stepped onto his third-floor balcony to see the Hollywood Hills ablaze in the distance. Helicopters carrying water churned overhead and sirens blared. He planned to monitor the situation and leave if the fire seemed to become more of a threat. He was waiting for a $300 Amazon Fresh delivery that was still scheduled to arrive in about an hour.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
What if we used AI to replace Millionaire/Billionaire CEOs in order to create companies that people enjoy working at and empowers them to do things they really enjoy?
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Tucker Cawley @tuckercawley.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
For Your Consideration: Make this year’s Oscar ceremony a fundraiser for LA wildfire recovery. Studio budgets for Oscar campaigns should all be donated to relief funds. Put the industry’s glitz and glamour to good use for once.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
If you are on that one businessy networking “thought leadership” site, I’m writing more over there now. (I know, I’m as surprised as you are.) This one is about the most pervasive myth I see regularly when it comes to automation (and now increasingly AI). www.linkedin.com/posts/nashco...
linkedin.com
Courtney Nash on LinkedIn: Automation and The Substitution Myth
At the end of last year, I shared a talk I gave at #SREcon along with a short post about the Substitution Myth related to automation, along with a promise to…
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John Allspaw @allspaw.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
In 2015, I attended my first Resilience Engineering Symposium. I felt excited and nervous sharing our domain of software with such accomplished audience. A decade later, I’m part of a fast-growing community of others in software passionate about RE, committed to creating a better future.
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
If you're interested in Resilience Engineering, learning from incidents, and increasing the safety of our software, come join us!
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Anthropology. Thought it was old dead civilization stuff—was proved very wrong by one of the most impressive profs I had ever—and now I’m basically a software failure anthropologist (and librarian).
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Courtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
If you followed me over on that other place, you might know how much I love to occasionally hatch really sneaky, super evil plans. And tomorrow, I’ve got some really good plans to announce. Stay tuned…
media.tenor.com
a gifwave.com animated image of a witch peeking out from under a table
ALT: a gifwave.com animated image of a witch peeking out from under a table
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