Rob Cummings

@opsrob.com

Tech, introvert, curious about all the things

"From him I learned that writing requires an unending effort at something resembling authenticity. Most mistakes come from not being yourself, not saying what you think, or being afraid to figure out what you really think." (obvious conclusions left to my reader)

Sarah Emily Duff@sarahemilyduff.bsky.social · 2w ago

‘writing crystallizes previously half-formulated or unformulated thoughts, gives them form, and extends chains of thoughts in new directions’ As everyone has already said, this 2010 essay by Lynn Hunt is utterly wonderful:

I asked my daughter Beth what keeps her up at night. Not the robots doing whatever they want. The robots doing exactly what some people tell them to. We're building tech that could be a personal army, where you no longer need anyone else's help to do great harm.

Mike & i recently tested 295 ft of uncoiled CAT6 for science TL;DR - the heat caused both coiled & uncoiled tests with the same cable to fail CAT6, but otherwise the results between them were so close we came to the conclusion that coiled vs uncoiled makes very little difference in performance 👍🏼

Yesterday I facilitated a tabletop exercise focused on an earthquake at our main facility. Today there was an actual nearby 5.6 magnitude earthquake. The takeaway, I think, is I should no longer choose the tabletop scenarios.

Dragged ..err...brought... the family to the Vintage Computer Festival PNW this weekend specifically so I could show my kids my first computer. Didn't get any other pics because the venue was packed, but it may have inspired me to acquire a TI99 4/A in the very near future.

A vintage silver and black TI99 4/A connected to a 4:3 LCD display showing a file system list

I have observed in the tech space exactly the issues described, particularly with teams doing user interviews for complex requirement gathering. Post interviews synthesizing becomes overwhelming. I am ok with AI scribes as a backup, but I still rely on notes I write in my reMarkable tablet.

Camille Fournier@skamille.themanagerswrath.com · 4mo ago

This is something I worry about with all kinds of auto-notes. On the one hand, being in the moment and not having to worry about note-taking yourself is useful! But what do you lose when someone or something else is taking the notes? substack.com/inbox/post/1... via @biblioracle.bsky.social

Yes but how long will releasing full new versions with multiple non security changes be enough noise to slow down AI analysis when AI can systematically diff entire version updates to find the security holes? We have a serious update problem ahead, & we don’t have a safe AI answer to speed it up yet

Lea Kissner@leak.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Security folks: have we considered *not* releasing security patches for the avalanche of bugs we're about to deal with? Hear me out. Given how much faster it's getting to reverse engineer an exploit from a patch and that we're expecting to fix *so* many bugs at once, maybe do a full release.

Automation can only solve your reliability problems if that automation is perfect. But if you were capable of writing perfect software, we wouldnt be talking about your reliability problems. Automation is only part of the reliability story, you’ve got to be ready for when it breaks, too.

OH: the fastest way to show to your board that your company is really using AI? Sign up for a Claude enterprise plan and pay 5X the cost!

> Maybe this is our future world. But I'm opting for something different. The doubling down on the people. To be more human than ever. To light that candle and help others see that we've barely touched the surface of what community can be.

I don't think either political party -- or anyone in politics, really -- is thinking in ambitious enough terms about the electricity grid. We need to start thinking of it as the foundation of our 21st century economy & prosperity. It needs to be rethought, rebuilt, & made a solid base for growth.

Dealing with exclusively copilot written and incorrect technical emails from vendors and other execs trying to show up as more knowledgeable in a space I have been in for (check notes) 30 years is exhausting and...not fulfilling.