iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 07/10/2026

Not to mention that image makes me think server-rack rails, not laptop.

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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 07/10/2026

brb making this ashbaber.com/salted-caram...

salted caramel chocolate cake looking absolutely divine

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 06/10/2026

Gotta keep the overtime running somehow? yeesh.

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Aftermath @aftermath.site · 06/10/2026

Dungeons & Dragons, Duel Masters, and Magic: The Gathering teams unionize at Hasbro aftermath.site/magic-the-gath...

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 06/10/2026

My biggest claim to Google-results fame was due to ServerFault. Someone asked what a PEM file was. I answered. It was in the Google top 3 for nearly a decade. A large percent of my site reputation from a single question. serverfault.com/a/9717/3038

serverfault.com

What is a Pem file and how does it differ from other OpenSSL Generated Key File Formats?

I am responsible for maintaining two Debian servers. Every time I have to do anything with security certificates, I Google for tutorials and beat away until it finally works. However, in my search...

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 06/10/2026

You might have forgotten I'm a Mod on ServerFault, understandable since the site largely dropped out of mindshare around 2015, but I've posted my end-of-service date there. meta.serverfault.com/q/11016/3038

meta.serverfault.com

It's been a time, coming to a close

I was elected in the very first ServerFault election in January of 2011 so I've been at this over 15 years. I'm now out of the industry, but more importantly the site is a pale two dimensional shad...

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 06/10/2026

It turns out the language of automation is itself automatable.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

Now I see things like "Claude did this entire research project for me, I merely tied some loose ends up and made some conclusions Claude didn't see, and validated the ones Claude did," and I think back to that project I stole.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

Interviewers made positive noises, since getting paid to do code is almost entirely looking at some existing Jank and trying to contribute to it. Yay.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

Fast forward 15 years to me trying to get a job in software after 14 years in operations. For some interviews (this was well before the code-screen was mandatory before talking to a human) I sometimes brought this anecdote up to prove I had experience taking a broken codebase and fixing it.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

I took that early broken code and made it work. It removed the hidden surfaces! It did Z-ordering! Yay! Prof. reviewed it, passed me, and had a few comments. 1. The structure was odd, but it clearly works. 2. Your Z-ordering was broken, but it didn't seem to matter.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

Yep. I stole code. That code was also pretty broken. I did the usual serial number scrubbing things like renaming variables and functions, tweaking logical flow for no reason other than to make things look like me instead of my roommate.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

The final assignment was a rotating thingy written in TCL/TK and a few more transforms. Like, dark-ages comp-graphics. We did some ray-tracing earlier. No rasterization. I was seriously behind, but I had an advantage. My roommate was in the same class.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

My weird college ran quarters not semesters. That quarter I overdid it on classes in a bid to not add an extra year of college (and all the debt that would come with it). I was flat out and wasn't going to finish everything, so I took an Incomplete with the Computer Graphics class.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

Story time. How I spun cheating on a CompSci assignment into interview material. For context, the CompSci assignment was the same year Toy Story 1 released, because we watched it in the theater as part of class.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 05/10/2026

I donno, when you throw out an occupying federal force you tend to want to keep them out. However, MN is more purple than it seems. Klob for Gov is getting people to not vote for that race that otherwise would. Could flip on that.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 03/10/2026

Granting Claude some variety of legal personhood above and beyond *corporate* personhood has some profound implications, not the least of which is the role of Anthropic as Guardian, and the role of Guardianship in general.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 02/10/2026

*sighs wearily* Show me a show/movie where all the characters die, and I'll show you the next installment that undoes all of that. There are no total party kills, only momentary cessation of breathing.

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Bill Childs @billchilds.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A new daily routine is taking photos on the ride home and then uploading to @bikelaneuprising.bsky.social

A GMC parked in the bike lane. Is there an open parking spot directly next to it? You know there is

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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Android has rolled out some new features for Advanced Protection, including intrusion logging, which is especially useful for survivors because nearly all commercially-available Android stalkerware is installed by a person with physical access logging in: blog.google/security/and...

blog.google

6 ways Advanced Protection on Android keeps you safe

Discover new Advanced Protection features on Android designed to defend against sophisticated threats and keep your data safe.

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ChicagoVintageTileFloors @chicagovtfloor.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Here is a nice mosaic wall

Three panel wall mosaic tile of Lake Michigan on the exterior of an Evanston grade school below a leafy branch of an old tree.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 30/09/2026

I am sufficiently Brust-brained to see Yentl and read Yendi.

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Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

In the autumn of 1883, a national paper reported that "an Iowa woman has spent seven years embroidering the solar system on a quilt." Ellen Harding Baker used her stunning quilt to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college www.themarginalian.org/2018/12/06/e...

themarginalian.org

Cosmic Threads: A Solar System Quilt from 1876

A serenade to the universe in wool and silk.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I know Rahm Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 30+ years. Be warned. robertreich.substack.com/p/the-rahm…

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 28/09/2026

Let us not forget that Levar Burton said that when the bomb drops he's making a B-line for ground zero. Those were weird times.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 28/09/2026

I threw the series against the wall when Xenocide came out, Speaker was just weird in a way I wasn't wired to interpret yet. But the whole sister thing was really creepy.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 28/09/2026

Ah, Ender's Game. My BBS handle was drawn from that book. I picked something else entirely once I found the internet.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 27/09/2026

By this logic, humans failing to photosynthesize means we eat negative food.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 26/09/2026

one who is very full of thanks

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 25/09/2026

had to get that anyway. That translates directly to figuring out the integration between your engineer's stuff and the whole ecosystem they operate in. That gets promotions, especially if you can do people too.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 25/09/2026

The sysadmin work often involved gluing together three different off the shelf systems with paid licenses, and building robust mental models about all three rich enough to keep them running and build running documentation. We didn't build it, so didn't have builder's intuition; but

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 24/09/2026

I've been hearing "Phil" this whole time.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 24/09/2026

With bonus "macho mfer" too!

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 23/09/2026

Do the rich paintball the football players, or hurl boche balls?

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 23/09/2026

Sumarian is more than Ea-Ñasir

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 23/09/2026

Huh. I'm used to Bigfoot cutouts.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 23/09/2026

I know the term as Clueless Het Uber Dom, not sure what the new one is short for.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 22/09/2026

And it was split-brain after all.

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Mary Sue @marysuesays.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

HAND. STITCHED. WOW.

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ESA Earth Observation @esaearth.esa.int · 21/09/2026

What if we could 'see' beneath the desert sands? 🏜️ Designed primarily to study forests, @esa.int’s Biomass mission is also helping scientists investigate ancient river systems hidden beneath the Sahara, thanks to its unique P-band radar. Read the full story🔗 earth.esa.int/eogateway/su...

earth.esa.int

Biomass helps study ancient rivers below deserts - Earth Online

Scientists have been using satellites for decades to study hydrological structures hidden below the sand in deserts. Now, with its unique P-band synthetic aperture radar, Biomass is playing a role too...

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 20/09/2026

This Metropolitan Opera production of Tristan und Isolde is like @cjward.bsky.social was the set designer.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 18/09/2026

Vance & Co would focus WAY HARDER on that than the guy rebuilding DC in his image. Risk analysis is all about probabilities, Vance has a lot of work to do to be effective an earn followers. But he has something Trump doesn't have: reliable attention-span.

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 18/09/2026

took A LOT of wind out of the sails of advancing risks. Trump started visibly failing, and shifted to vanity projects. Then the Birthright Citizenship loss blocked a big threat. The move to make "radical gender ideology" a "domestic sponsor of terror" is the current threat that's advancing, and

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 18/09/2026

Risk analysis: For 24 of my 27 year tech career, my job included forecasting threats to my infrastructure and mitigating them. In Feb 25 I started doing that for my trans ass as a way of getting out of a panic spiral. I update once a month. Risks peaked in Sept 25, the fed shutdown then

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StaffSRE1138 @sysadmin1138.net · 18/09/2026

The linked article goes pretty far in describing why Vance is as much of an existential threat as Trump is. My flee the country risk analysis has regressed in threat in the last 9 months. If Vance rises to the big chair, they advance a lot.

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Luis @lbruno.org · 18/09/2026

yeah, but the root cause of their mistake is also interesting on its own: the original premise that “slavery was a theft of labour” is arguably correct [and incomplete], but became “solely a theft of labour” at which point someone should've stopped to think they kept going, veering into a ditch ;)

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