Notes | Brutkey

I had a discussion with all the other programmers in the world, and we've agreed that it's time we stop creating bugs. I hope this comes as a relief to everyone.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

I maintain, for myself, a "dates in geek history" calendar in my Google Calendar, from where I spot things to post to the fediverse about. If I had tools to maintain it as files in Git, I'd do it that way and then share it publicly, but alas, I've never had the energy to find or write such tool. Maybe some day.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

On this day in 1998 the first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, was laucnhed. That's 26 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station

#OTD #OnThisDay #ISS #space

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

Yesterday I moved 60 terabyte of data in about 15 seconds.

I removed drives from my old file server in my office and carried them to the dining table where I'm assembling the new file server.

Then I carried them back, because I need to shuffle data between drives so I can keep only some of the drives, as the new server is physically much smaller.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

Self-hosting means taking on system administration duties. For some software that's remarkably easy. Most software makes it painful.

The duties include things like vetting software for suitability, installing it, making sure it runs, making the hosted system safe and secure for its users and the rest of the Internet, applying security fixes, upgrading to new versions, making sure backups exist and can be restored, helping users, dealing with spammers, dealing with hostile scrapers, ...

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

All of this is fine, if you're willing to accept the responsibility. It's usually not even difficult, as such, if you're into tinkering with computers and software anyway. But it's almost always tedious and annoying.

Not something anyone should pressure someone else to do, unless that someone will be fairly compensated for their time and effort.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

Self-hosting means taking on system administration duties. For some software that's remarkably easy. Most software makes it painful.

The duties include things like vetting software for suitability, installing it, making sure it runs, making the hosted system safe and secure for its users and the rest of the Internet, applying security fixes, upgrading to new versions, making sure backups exist and can be restored, helping users, dealing with spammers, dealing with hostile scrapers, ...

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

From my "Geek dates" calendar:

On this day in 1988 Dade "Zero Cool" was sentenced to not use computers or touch-tone telephones until he was 18 years old. He'd crashed 1507 computer systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)#Plot

#Hackers #HackersMovie #OTD #OnThisDay

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

I expect the current LLM craze to fade away over the next three years. Some useful tools and services and approaches may survive, just like from previous "AI" fads, if they're useful enough.

We will have lost years of junior software developers who were never given a fair chance to start a career, as well as truly huge amounts of garbage that will take decades to remove.

There will also be many unnecessary data centers, and, most importantly, many people who were hurt helping train models.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

#Introduction

I've programmed computers since 1984 (https://liw.fi/40/). I was part of #Linux from the beginning. I was a #Debian developer for about 20 years (1996-2018). I care about #SoftwareFreedom and #CivilLiberties. I think about #backups. My main hobby is #OpenSource development. I have too many personal projects (https://app.radicle.xyz/nodes/radicle.liw.fi/). I work on #Radicle (https://radicle.xyz/).

My other hobby is classic European men's style. I like to wear a #suit. Preferably with a vest.

Lars Wirzenius
@liw@toot.liw.fi

Be kind. Love your neighbor. Protect those who need it. Try to make the world better for those who are least powerful. Tolerate differences, but not intolerance, injustice, hatred, or violence.

I'm not religious and I don't have a strong personal philosophy, but the things in the previous paragraph I can get behind.