Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 15/02/2026Tell me you got paged after hours without telling me you got paged. I’ll go first: There is a half-assembled bowl of cereal on the counter, the milk is sitting out, and somehow the dog lost her collar (I think from playing with our other dog, but honestly who knows what happened in the last 15 min) 010
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 14/01/2026Trying to find my lost glasses has revealed a real circular dependency on being able to see with my glasses. 8351
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 22/12/2025Of all the unexpected places AI has shown up in my life lately, hand warmers might be the most unexpected. Hot take: I’d rather not AI-ify my hand warmers? 100
Reposted by Sarah ButtDan Hon @danhon.com · 23/11/2025become a systems thinker, they said you'll have a better understanding of how the world works, they said yeah and you'll also spend every waking moment in despair 518632
Reposted by Sarah Butt@jpaulreed @jpaulreed.com · 28/10/2025OH: "Why are all my LFI / Safety II Nerd friends STILL utterly destroyed this week?" 172
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 22/10/2025The number of people who didn’t know what us-east-1 was on Sunday and are suddenly experts in running multi-region distributed systems at scale today is truly remarkable. 29310
Reposted by Sarah ButtLorin Hochstein @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com · 06/08/2025First rule of distributed systems: don’t build a distributed system if you can avoid it Second rule of distributed systems: you probably can’t avoid it 23910
Reposted by Sarah ButtCorey Quinn @quinnypig.com · 01/07/2025Parentheses! Em dashes! Comma splices! Semicolons! Welcome to ADHD Grammar (since every thought comes with exciting bonus content), friends! 4866242
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 24/06/2025My dog believes, completely and without hesitation, that we can both exist in the exact same spot on the couch. I envy her faith in a reality unburdened by physics. To be fair, she’s correct… as long as “don’t squish your human” isn’t a requirement. 030
Reposted by Sarah ButtCat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 23/06/2025I do not know anything about this drug or the reasons for its nonapproval, but this is the exact kind of scenario that shows the failure of making sweeping policy generalizations about evidence that simply cannot account for some scenarios and rare diseases :( 1162
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 23/06/2025Things I ask @obdue.bsky.social: “does the pencil count as a candle if the tip of the pencil is currently on fire?” The “what is an incident, really” vibes are strong here 😂 230
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 14/06/2025Schrödinger’s Incident: that brief moment when you wake up knowing you’re about to take on-call handover, but haven’t checked your work phone yet. The incident both exists and doesn’t— until you unlock your phone and open the handover thread. 141
Reposted by Sarah ButtMurderBotBot @murderbotbot.bsky.social · 05/06/2025Why the hell does everything have to happen at once? 116653
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 05/06/2025My thoughts are like race cars today. Bless my husband, who intercepted me physically vibrating on 4 hrs sleep, took my half-full Dr Pepper and said, “Maybe don’t finish this today?” while I rapid-fired through tasks and lectured the dogs on how systemic failure meant no clean spoons. 050
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 03/06/2025It’s 2:25 a.m. I’m trying to finish a work project. An armadillo has somehow climbed onto our front porch, stranded itself, and is now frantically scratching to get inside. I’m about to wake up my sick husband because he’s the vet in this relationship, and I am not equipped for this. Texas, y’all. 140
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 30/05/2025If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to flee my house due to a multi-day power outage combined with extreme temps in the last 5 years, I’d have $3. Not enough to buy my favorite Starbucks drink, but up from $2 earlier this week. Which feel like a lot for someone who lives in a major city. 020
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 28/05/2025How many throat lozenges and cups of tea is too many for a human while sick in bed? Asking for a self who is approaching 20% chamomile at this point. 010
Reposted by Sarah ButtJonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 28/05/2025Remember, if you EVER need anything, I’m only 5 missed phone calls, three unanswered texts, several unread DMs, and an unaccepted LinkedIn request away 327112
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 27/05/2025Turbulence: an excellent case study in safety vs. perception. The data says I’m safe. I trust the system. I trust my friends in aviation who tell me I’m safe. But my body still braces. Heart races. Panic hits. Being safe is not necessarily the same as feeling safe. I’m fascinated by this. 110
Reposted by Sarah ButtMurderBotBot @murderbotbot.bsky.social · 02/05/2025So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects. 211640
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 27/04/2025Just one more day of pushing the limits of chronic illness and back-to-back activity. Just one more. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I ask myself, reaching for the Ibuprofen. (Rasmussen’s dynamic safety model and Dekker’s drift into failure quietly join the group chat.) 240
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 22/04/2025Potential 🔥 take: the fact that you’d make a different judgement call now doesn’t mean the original decision was bad. Decisions are made in context, with the information and constraints and signals available then. Judgement is a timestamped event and the past didn’t have your present 241
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 08/04/2025The dog put herself to bed before 8p tonight and honestly that’s a completely reasonable response to this Monday 020
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 30/03/2025Post conference vibes: - I’m inspired and want to do several hundred things all at once— also I want to do nothing at all please let me sleep - oh thank goodness introvert quiet time— also oh wait my friends are scattered around the globe again, this feels lonely - Dogs! I’m home with my dogs! 040
Reposted by Sarah ButtJohn Allspaw @allspaw.bsky.social · 12/02/2025Very few know we've (@adaptivecapacity.bsky.social) been developing tools to help support us. After 7 years & 6 patents (!) we realized others were interested in integrating/commercializing "Churchkey." We’re looking for partners interested in licensing Churchkey's IP. churchkey.info 0164
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 10/02/2025I just exploded my second squishy stress ball in a week all over my hands and desk and I really don’t know what this says about my life… 130
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 28/01/2025Is it insomnia or is it my “I’m not our current on call but I think there might be an incident brewing” spidey sense tingling? (Narrator: it would be both) 020
Reposted by Sarah ButtCourtney Nash @courtneynash.bsky.social · 24/01/2025If 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.beSREcon24 Americas - Lightning TalksYouTube video by USENIX 123
Reposted by Sarah ButtMurderBotBot @murderbotbot.bsky.social · 19/01/2025Being terrified was starting to give way to being really angry. 112828
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 06/01/2025Texas, where you wear shorts one day and every coat you can possibly layer the next. This is fine. 🥶 120
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 27/12/2024Ah, the week between Christmas and New Years. Aka the time I discover mid-installation that the bird feeder pole mount I got for my parents’ new bird feeder is not in fact as “universal” as advertised, all while hoping my pager doesn’t go off in parallel. *shakes fist at bird feeder situation* 020
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 18/12/2024It’s a glorious thing when two musical people live together and one is particular about gear but the other will play anything I may have just dismissed a set of 20 variety picks one by one as “nope” and will return to my very picky (ha) pick of choice while depositing the rest on my spouse’s desk 010
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 18/12/2024TIL what monotropism is and…. Hmmm. Well. Yep. That’s a helpful concept that explains a lot. I thought everyone was out there digging attention tunnels? 010
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 05/12/2024I just excitedly exclaimed to someone I barely know at work “oh I’m a huge Safety-II nerd!!” and now that I’ve had a moment to process my statement: 1) wow, I am *really* a nerd. 2) I chose to wear this enthusiasm proudly 131
Reposted by Sarah ButtSarah Etter @sarahetter.com · 29/11/2024Happy Unsubscribe from Marketing Emails day to all who celebrate! 2469
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 29/11/2024I’m always a fan of Lorin’s blogs— This one is well worth the read for how well it breaks some common patterns down. Also, @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com, I’d like to petition for you to make merch including a shirt with “I am a card carrying member of the no root cause club” on it. 260
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 27/11/2024Family holiday card photos are one of the most under appreciated examples of “it’s not amazing that it breaks, it’s amazing that it ever works at all” in action. 3 humans, 5 dogs, sitting in the middle of a forest, all smiling and dressed nicely and looking at the camera? Recreated yearly? 020
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 03/11/2024Happy “the clock on the wall changes but the dog’s internal breakfast clock stays the same” day to everyone in the US who celebrates. *yawns* How is that extra hour of sleep, everyone else? 030
Reposted by Sarah ButtLorin Hochstein @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com · 31/10/2024It’s remarkable that most software stuff works most of the time given the astonishing levels of complexity in modern tech stacks. 1164
Sarah Butt @sarahbutt.bsky.social · 31/10/2024My PHEV car has been in the shop twice in the first 2 months of its life. In both events, the complexity of the PHEV bits has been both a key contributor to the issue and key to the car “degrading” successful (ie not leaving me stranded roadside). Feels like there’s a complex systems theme here? 170
Reposted by Sarah ButtLorin Hochstein @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com · 25/10/2024Proud resilience engineering weirdo 0135
Reposted by Sarah ButtJohn Allspaw @allspaw.bsky.social · 22/10/2024Not knowing why something broke is scary. Not knowing how you fixed it is horrifying. 33214
Reposted by Sarah ButtWill Gallego @gallego.bsky.social · 21/10/2024Hey! So if you're interested in hearing about Resilience Engineering (notably its intersection with Software Engineering, but otherwise too) I made a list of some fantastic folks in that space! bsky.app/profile/did:... 284