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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸

@scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy

30 followers 10 following 518 posts

Dad. Husband. Cisgendered male. Apple 2 computer enthusiast. SAS and Python programmer. Data analyst. Scientist. LGBTQIA+ ally. BLM. The content posted by this […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mstdn.social/@scottmiller42, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

@futurebird Cephalopods be all hrmph. 🐙

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

@futurebird #FoodForLLMs Found in the wild

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Achievement Unlocked: 80/20 rule You added 650 lines (250 + 400 unit tests) to a 310 line module (190 + 120 unit tests) to remediate massive pack of vulnerabilities. Offscreen voice: “You know, our lives would be a lot simpler if everyone wasn’t out to get us.” #ScottSoftwareDevelopment […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

Having been deep in the weeds in git PRs the last week, on both sides, I can tell you there’s a lot to be said for staging and grouping PRs in a way that they are human-reviewable. One mega PR is a nightmare to make sense out of. On top of that, Claude bot just loves to rewrite code for no damn […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

It’d been a million times easier just to copy the files someplace (manually make my own stash), make the second edits and commit them, then use the tools of my choice to compare and hand copy selected bits of the first edits into the the final file with both changes, then finish the first set of […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

I just spent over an hour wrestling with git and I’m still not done. The git stash seems like a good idea, and in the simplest case, it is. It got complicated when I stashed edits to one file I wanted to set aside for a moment so I could make different changes to the same file, commit those […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

I see an allegorical pot slowly heating up aspect to the general population’s reaction to AI news. Each development is normalized or forgotten before the next one, thus the trajectory and pace of change goes unnoticed. Even “10% extinction event” is forgotten by the next news cycle. Most people […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

Up until this point, I’ve been carefully measured in my AI statements so that I can influence the conversation, instead of being dismissed as overzealous. But I think I need to go a step farther today. 4/x

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

There’s too much I could write here, and I have other things I need to do today. But I didn’t want yo go any much longer without saying something. An imperfect, incomplete start is better than never starting. 3/x

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

Many AI news items the last 18 months have reminded me of Person of Interest. I’ve thought I need to write something, but so much to say. Where to start? The show is excellent science fiction writing of the form of “this is one potential outcome…” Now in 2026, even the more pessimistic and […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

I really like the TV show Person of Interest (2011). The premise is that Harold has created an artificial intelligence computer system that (without authorization) taps into data and surveillance systems with the intent to detect terrorist activities.The premise seemed plausible, although a bit […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

For ecological and geopolitical reasons, I am inclined to buy an electric or plug-in hybrid, but I think cars like that are most likely to have a sophisticated computer controls that collect and sell your driving telematics to the highest bidder(s). Finding a model that has both a […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

My family has 2016 and 2017 cars that are potentially up for replacing soon, but one issue holding me back... is it even possible to buy a 2026 or 2027 model that does not have manufacturer-controlled "insurance telematics", aka driver surveillance? #ScottCars #ScottAutomobiles #InsuranceTelematics

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

@futurebird I agree with the idea of collection evidence, but FWIW, I’d add a concept from Cold War counter-counter intelligence. If you record a conversation where you are one of only a few parties, you’re identifiable as the leaker. I’d be inclined to type up a rough outline with bullet points […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

@futurebird Interesting idea. Hotel vacuums would have heavy use by people too rushed and underpaid to be gentle, carrying them many times farther in a day than any ordinary home owner would carry them in a month.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Oh you already patched and tested the wrapper functions for that cloud storage platform. That you should know we discontinued use of 9 months ago. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why the frack you were doing that? Oh you don’t like that I deleted the code you patched this week because that […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Hey. 👋 Instead of just blindly following the AI tool suggestion to add 100s of lines of AI-generated remediation code, how about using the same fracking tool to scan the repo for dead lines… and even entirely dead files? Oh it says it’s still used… by code files in the tests directory? I guess […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Achievement unlocked: deleted over 1,000 lines in a single PR. Pro tip: you don’t have to remediate unused code if you just delete it. #ScottSoftwareDevelopment #ScottProgramming

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

This probably sounds great, but the reason diesel prices are high is because of reduced supply, and this rule doesn’t change that. Shifting usage to dyed diesel may form a new higher price equilibrium with the net effect that road users may pay a little less while off-road users pay a little […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

[I do not think I like pictures of dressed women marked #NSFW] @Urban_Hermit I’m 100% agreeing to everything in this post. I would add that there are sometimes deliberately suggestive non-nudes that are NSFW in my opinion. As an example, I’d say many non-nude shots from a bedroom-oriented […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

@Urban_Hermit I wonder how many of them have a kill switch in their LLM, but not for the conventional purpose of what most people would expect a kill switch to do. #AltText

This picture mimics the Obama “Hope” campaign poster art. It is a picture of Bender from the animated TV show Futurama, with the slogan “Kill All Humans”.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Dear junior code writer, The word “refactor” is not a synonym for “modify” or “update”. When you add your email address to the list of addresses to be notified of a change, and say “refactored email list” as your commit message, you look like a jackass. #ScottSoftwareDevelopment #ScottProgramming

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I pointed out how most of the new unit tests were just running code internal to the test and then passing, and thus weren’t actually testing anything at all. They said they’d just remove those tests then. I said “Ok but for this entire code module, you’ll be left with one test and it hardly […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Then I took a hard look at the actual tests and most of the ones for one module didn’t actually call any the new code it was supposed to be testing! So I asked “did you look at any of the test unit code?” Them: “Copilot made the tests.” Me: “Yes but you’re the one at the keyboard. Did you […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I pressed a bit and got them to admit they hadn’t run any of the tests before submitting the PR. I said “I added about the same number of new unit tests for my part and they all passed. They’re very thorough tests too, verifying both positive and negative outcomes. I ran them before submitting […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I was reviewing a PR this evening at work for something urgent. All of the ~30 new unit tests this person added to cover their edits failed. I looked at the tests and started figuring out what needed to be fixed, and provided the first fix. Then they failed for a different reason. I asked the […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

@schamschula @sundogplanets I’m howling here. #MakeAIDoSillyThings

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

@schamschula @sundogplanets Funny example I just dreamed up. Write about the characters Jay and Nick of The Great Gatsby. (Compare and contrast their lives to the lives of the Duke Boys from the Dukes of Hazard.) How did their characters change from the beginning to the end of the story?

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

@schamschula @sundogplanets Have you tried something like the invisible text trick? (White text in a white background.) I wonder if that still works. I’ve heard of profs having more than 50% of work turned in with strange ideas that only make sense if you’re an LLM following the hidden […]

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Reposted by Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Planning out my teaching schedule for 2 years in the future and thinking fondly of the not-very-distant-past when Chegg was the biggest problem I had to deal with to make sure students were actually trying to learn my course material. Fuck LLMs.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

Wait! What do you mean there’s no way to search the committed code in a feature branch on github.com? GitHub.com is Microsoft’s all-in-one enterprise source control platform, and you’re telling me searches can only be done on the repo’s default branch? Are you f***ing kidding me with this […]

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Reposted by Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

In Iowa, the 2026 elections are going as I predicted they would. This is the first time in 10+ years the GOP looks like they might lose some important seats. There are tons of attack ads on the Democratic Party candidates using transgender issues as a wedge. Meanwhile I see progressives who […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

I started another pass through Taxi (1978) this week. I don’t know how it’s taken me 35+ years to figure this out, but Bronson Pinchot playing Balki in Perfect Strangers is essentially performing the same bit that Andy Kaufman did as Latka Gravas. 😔 #ScottTelevision

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@dlakelan Illegal Opcode I put the kil in kilobytes.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha You're very smart and technically aware, so you may be doing something similar already.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha Writing a different pattern the second time is my thought that due to a peculiarity of a certain spot on the drive, different bit patterns might be retrieved with more or less bit errors. The 3rd write just triggers the remap process on the second bit pattern. Also I've found this […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha One thing I've done with new-to-me spinning disk drives is write a bit pattern to entire drive, read to /dev/null, write a different bit pattern, read to /dev/null, then write zeros. The rationale is the write/read tests every sector write/read ability with sufficient redundancy […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@dlakelan You could "jail break" Android devices to run side-loaded applications. Freedom (to run the apps of my choosing).

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha I’ve come to the conclusion that hard drives made in the last ~15 years are exceptionally well-engineered devices with the occasional design flaw that will cause some designs to tank early.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha I just did some reading. Apparently “pending” sector count is the number of sectors that the drive knows have problems, but for which it hasn’t been able to successfully read to “reallocate” yet. So that might be the number to look for.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha I’m not an expert, but what I vaguely recall is hard drives started getting real stingy about reporting bad sectors. I can sympathize a bit as I’m sure they’d get warranty demands for drives with a handful of bad sectors, but it’s also dishonest. What I recall was I saw the number of […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

@brouhaha Is this system using a traditional spinning disk hard drive? This sounds like a system I had once upon a time that started stalling during boot and launching some apps, that I eventually deduced was due to some marginal sectors on the hard drive (at least partially confirmed with a […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

A lot of folks are litigating this over the value to society of some of the majors, particularly social workers. I support social workers. They do very important work. The work doesn’t tend to pay super well. If a student completes a BA and MSW in social work at a very expensive private school […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

There’s news in the USA that student loans will be limited based on the earning potential of the degree. I think that yes, it does make sense to cap loans based on data showing the expected earning power of the degree (and not politics). Students should have a clear plan to pay off their loans […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

@simonzerafa @mattblaze Well they could’ve put a preloaded Artifactory server behind the air gap as well. It’s SOP for hackers to use an exposed system as a bridge to access unexposed systems. I’d think if someone was testing their autonomous hacking tool, this is an entirely foreseeable outcome.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

@simonzerafa @mattblaze I’m not a security researcher, but with respect to the earlier Hugging Face revelation, do you have any thoughts on why the system (the LLM and the test target) wasn’t air gapped? mstdn.social/@scottmiller42/1169680…

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

@mattblaze Strong “the passive voice was used” energy.

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

Ad for Great Courses: “How Jesus Became God” Me: self-help guides have become ambitious. #ScottHumor

Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

On some level, Taylor has a point, if a company did something that only affects them, it’s their choice. However, big data centers typically request local government rezoning, exemptions, & tax breaks, and make noise, & spike demand for water & electricity. The #xAI Memphis data center uses […]

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Scott Miller 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 @scottmiller42.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

@thetnholler.bsky.social On some level, he has a point. Except that these big data centers often demand tax breaks and community investments, and will spike demand for water and electricity. The xAI data center near Memphis is using unregulated power generators that will create a lot of […]

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