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Fletcher Nichol

@fnichol.com
132 followers 102 following 129 posts

I am the human that helps you build better, faster, and more humane product through software. Systems, infrastructure, programming, home automation, smiling, open source, cycling Edmonton, Alberta, 🇨🇦

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 10/09/2026
Great read and I find this hard to disagree with bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/t...
bcantrill.dtrace.org
The revolt of the reader | The Observation Deck
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 14/07/2026
Any recommendations for a book I could read covering the 2001 dot com bust? Lately I’ve read “1929” and now “Too Big To Fail” both by Andrew Ross Sorkin. It’s been illuminating reading the parallels both historical and contemporary
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 10/07/2026
I've been running CachyOS as my daily driver since January & it's been an excellent workstation setup. I can't live without ZFS/boot environments/optional root FS encryption/etc., so I've been maintaining an official installer patcher to help: github.com/fnichol/cach...
github.com
GitHub - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer: An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments.
An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments. - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 07/07/2026
Ok, it's our little secret but…I'm decommissioning a VM that I deployed in April of 2009! Good 'ol Ubuntu 8.10. Honestly, it's amazing it's running anything of value still. Not for long though, time to say goodbye :)
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 17/04/2026
Experience
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Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
The peril of laziness lost bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/04/12/t...
bcantrill.dtrace.org
The peril of laziness lost | The Observation Deck
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 12/04/2026
Fascinating read of how NASA has advanced their computer systems from the Apollo era to Artemis era. Full systems determinism is a high bar and really bucks the trend for us folks working on systems down here in the dirt. cacm.acm.org/news/how-nas...
cacm.acm.org
How NASA Built Artemis II’s Fault-Tolerant Computer – Communications of the ACM
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 11/04/2026
Of course I’m on social media: after checking feeds there’s a lot of porch erections going on
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 11/04/2026
Watching the reentry of Integrity and splashdown this evening. It’s deeply inspiring to see what humans can accomplish working together using science, engineering, dedication, and training. A damn near *perfect* mission. #ArtemisII
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 17/03/2026
LinkedIn: Algorithmic Confirmation Bias. My god friends, please be careful.
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/03/2026
LLMs are currently the technologist’s Rorschach test, and it’s a lot
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/03/2026
LLMs are trivially susceptible to “Don’t think of an elephant” behavior. Now all my agent files will only contain `Elephants.`
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 03/03/2026
There's no better form of time travel than listening to the music of your teenager years.
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apenwarr @apenwarr.ca · 27/02/2026
Do companies not need people to build software anymore… or do people not need companies to build software anymore?
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/02/2026
...the heck, a CLI? Well I mean, if you want to venture into my terminal, who am I to say no?
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/02/2026
Technologists reflect: friction is not a universal liability, but rather a tool.
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 26/02/2026
The first edition is one of my top favorite technology books of all time—cannot wait for this second edition. I’ll also say that due to how it’s written and the content being high level, the audiobook version is my top favorite technology audiobook.
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 25/02/2026
It’s official: I’ve wrapped up 6 years working with the best team of my career at System Initiative. I’d like to thank Adam Jacob, Mahir Lupinacci, and Alex Ethier for putting their trust in me and being their first employee hire. 1/4
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Nick Gerace @nickgerace.dev · 23/12/2025
CachyOS users and ZFS fans: today is your lucky day! My friend @fnichol.com created an installer just for you. github.com/fnichol/cach...
github.com
GitHub - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer: An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments.
An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments. - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/11/2025
Me: I need options to solve X LLM: Great idea! Here's options A, B, C, I prefer B Me: Hm, none of those are great, are you sure there aren't alternatives? LLM: Great point! There's a better approach in option D Me: D is still too strange... LLM: Right, I have a better solution: E! Me: ...
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 18/11/2025
I just blew Claude Code's mind. At least, it's been over 6 minutes since I had an admittedly great idea & it's still "thinking". Human += 1
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 16/11/2025
I still remain highly skeptical of blanket trust in & applications of LLMs but I'm finding an intentionally configured Claude Code with Skills leads to a powerful brainstorming & planning system. I haven't felt this generally creative in a long time & it's mostly due to "writing things down".
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/10/2025
Last night I had a pretty vivid dream of playing the original Battlefield 1942. I remember when my friend showed me this game for the first time. I've never been so blown away by any video game experience as that day. It felt like anything in the environment could be manipulated and used.
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apenwarr @apenwarr.ca · 02/10/2025
Your annual reminder that the "oct" in October is because it's the eighth month
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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 02/10/2025
State files drift, lock, and lie. Real-time simulation keeps infra accurate, collaborative, and safe to change. That’s @systeminit.com Read @stack72.dev 's post to help you realise the pain www.systeminit.com/blog/statefi...
systeminit.com
State Files Are a Crime Scene
State files stall collaboration and punish refactoring. System Initiative fixes both with real-time simulation and change sets.
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Konnor Rogers @konnorrogers.com · 06/03/2025
// Don't ask me why, but this line makes everything 100x faster.
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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 30/09/2025
Most tools promise faster automation. @systeminit.com promises something different: a new way to think about infrastructure. Not just code. Not just pipelines. A system that models reality, simulates change, and shifts how you approach every decision. www.systeminit.com/blog/what-wi...
systeminit.com
What Will Surprise You About System Initiative
Five surprising things that happen when people first see a System Initiative demo - it's not another DevOps tool at all
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Adam Jacob @adamhjk.me · 27/08/2025
Our friends at Cloud Life were directly the inspiration for what SI is today. www.cloudlife.io/resources/in...
cloudlife.io
Blog | How We Rebuilt Cloud Life’s Infrastructure Delivery with System Initiative
This is the story of how we eliminated static configuration files from our infrastructure workflows at Cloud Life, and, in the process, cut delivery times by more than half, improved reliability, and ...
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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 27/08/2025
. @systeminit.com is launching the world’s first AI Native Infrastructure Automation platform. Read more about how to supercharge your productivity on our blog, www.systeminit.com/blog/ai-nati..., and get started today: systeminit.com
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 16/08/2025
Right now 1200 late night show interns are scrambling to get as many zingers in the bag before each show tapes youtu.be/LXQ6Rm9CGTo
youtu.be
Robots run, punch and score at World Humanoid Robot Games in China
YouTube video by Guardian News
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 08/08/2025
I’m fascinated how the concepts in Promise Theory (for me: autonomous agents & the idea that “all you can do is ask another, never command”) apply to complex systems, human interaction, societal cooperation, etc. Thank you, Mark!
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Rust Language @rust-lang.org · 07/08/2025
Happy new Rust! 🎆🦀 Rust 1.89.0 has been released! This release brings you inferrred array length, new lints, u128/i128 in extern "C", NonZero<char>, File::lock, many x86 intrinsics, and much more! ✨ Check out the blog post and release notes for all the details: blog.rust-lang.org/2025/08/07/R...
blog.rust-lang.org
Announcing Rust 1.89.0 | Rust Blog
Empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.
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Andrew Lilley Brinker @alilleybrinker.com · 07/08/2025
In the last Oxide & Friends, @bcantrill.bsky.social argues in favor of dumb questions for getting real understanding, and I feel that one in my bones.
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Mark Burgess @markburgessosl.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Promise Theory is now 20 years old! 🎂
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 30/07/2025
While I'm on the @oxide.computer cheer team, I'd highly recommend their Oxide and Friends podcast. The transparency and detail of the "epic bug hunt" episodes are a true gift to the software and technology community. 1/2 oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm
oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm
Oxide and Friends
Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form. Join ...
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 30/07/2025
Congrats, Oxide!
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/07/2025
Finding speedups in a codebase is always fun github.com/systeminit/s...
github.com
chore(edda): speed up external connection count in ComponentMv by 1000% by fnichol · Pull Request #6576 · systeminit/si
That much huh? Pretty much, yeah. Happy Friday ;) This change implements a method external_source_count() on WorkspaceSnapshotSelector which computes this count using lower level abstractions on th...
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André Arko @indirect.io · 01/07/2025
years after working with a team that was vehemently against deleting any test, no matter how flaky, I have assembled my counter-doctrine: you should delete tests andre.arko.net/2025/06/30/y...
andre.arko.net
You should delete tests
We’ve had decades of thought leadership around testing, especially coming from wholistic development philosophies like Agile, TDD, and BDD. After all that time and several supposedly superseding movem...
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/06/2025
Another case where #rustlang is fast, which can lead to bugs. I forgot to handle this Tokio task cancellation, so the task got locked in a tight loop. Enough to pin CPU cores once deployed. Well *that* explains what happened! github.com/systeminit/s...
github.com
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 03/06/2025
Honestly, if I could figure out how to make *this* a little more a part of my working day…some days the creativity flows like water out on the “road desk”
Picture of Fletcher mid way through his cycle out in the countryside, creativity flowing and brain abuzz with ideas
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Jon Kuperman @jonkuperman.com · 21/05/2025
Sometimes I imagine someone from the past visiting 2025 and being amazed at our technology! - Can't watch the game because the TV is doing a mandatory OS update - Can't make a cup of coffee because the machine can't connect to wifi - Can’t drive the car because the fob battery died
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 28/04/2025
Happy Canada Election Day! It’s our right, our privilege, and our freedom to elect our representatives and leaders. If you haven’t already, please do vote!
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/03/2025
Do I have a problem? I can stop anytime I want to. But now that you mention it, maybe the garage could use some yummy @mikrotik.social power-over-ethernet…
A stack of 6 MikroTik switch boxes which are installed throughout the author’s house
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 17/02/2025
I just found the website of the year: www.allacronyms.com I will be using this site next week
allacronyms.com
All Acronyms - Acronym Lookup and Abbreviation Guide
Discover acronyms and abbreviations effortlessly with All Acronyms, your comprehensive resource for decoding and abbreviating words across tech, health, and more sectors.
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 13/02/2025
I'm kind sad that due to lack of prefs & clear navigation (that I can find), I'm up to 3 browser bookmarks for my primary work GitHub repo. Among those are open/non-draft prs reverse sorted (github.com/systeminit/s...) & active merge queue runs (github.com/systeminit/s...).
github.com
Pull requests · systeminit/si
The System Initiative software. Contribute to systeminit/si development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 10/02/2025
Fletcher's rule of the day: don't pre-abstract, rather repeat yourself then extract
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 13/01/2025
Today in Let's Build A Filesystem: `EOWNERDEAD` "Owner died". Wha... www.man7.org/linux/man-pa...
man7.org
errno(3) - Linux manual page
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Julia Evans @b0rk.jvns.ca · 11/01/2025
what's involved in getting a "modern" terminal setup? jvns.ca/blog/2025/01...
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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 11/01/2025
This accurately sums up my Friday pairing, we went through this script about 3 times
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Synadia/NATS @synadia.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
This is a great example of the evolution of #NATSio implementations, from simple stateless use to JetStream persistence and work queues. Thank you @systeminit.com for trusting NATS and Synadia 🥰
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