bcantrill

bcantrill, 15 days ago to random

The next Oxide and Friends is on May 13th, when @ahl and I will joined by molecular biologist Greg Cost to discuss @philipcball's extraordinary book, How Life Works. Read the book and bring your comments and questions -- or join just to listen to the discussion! On Discord on May 13th at 5p Pacific:

https://discord.gg/besjcERf?event=1233892673023246387

And recorded and syndicated as always:

https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/

bcantrill, 20 days ago to random

Recently, we saw an embarrassingly ham-handed (and false!) allegation against OpenTofu. While the specifics were new, the tactic is nearly as old as computing: this is FUD -- the "fear, uncertainty and doubt" made famous by IBM when used against the upstart Amdahl. Today on Oxide and Friends, @ahl and I are going to talk about this latest FUD -- as well as FUD's storied history in our industry. Bring your own examples, and join us today, 5p Pacific!

https://discord.gg/cEEnJhT2?event=1232017174307012658

bcantrill, 27 days ago to random

Oxide has been called "a startup on hard mode", but today on Oxide on Friends, we are going to talk to co-founders of the Oakland Ballers, a startup that is not only on hard mode, but is doing a speed run. Join @ahl, @sdtuck and me, 5p Pacific:

https://discord.gg/tgmyE2NS?event=1227111016681443389

Those who happen to like both baseball and startups will naturally love this (@timbray, @sogrady: looking at you!), but I think this story is ALSO incredible if you haven't ever enjoyed baseball -- or even sports. Join us!

dpp, 1 month ago to random

Jean Luc is doing his version of Schrödinger’s cat… he wants to be inside and outside at the same time

bcantrill, 1 month ago to random

Recently, the software world was rocked by the discovery of a backdoor in XZ Utils. The backdoor represents many stories, but behind all of them is the story of a single Postgres developer, vexed by a relatable problem: "why is it taking so long to login?!"

On the next Oxide and Friends, @ahl and I are thrilled to be joined by that developer, @AndresFreundTec, the discoverer of the XZ backdoor. Join us on April 8th at 5p Pacific to hear this extraordinary story!

https://discord.gg/SAsE6G6W?event=1224880997762338856

bcantrill, 1 month ago to random

In the conversation @ahl and I had with @simon in January, he mentioned work on adversarial attacks on LLMs that proved surprisingly universal. On today's Oxide and Friends, we will be joined by Nicholas Carlini, one of the authors of "Universal and Transferable Adversarial Attacks on Aligned Language Models" to talk not only about this specific work, but about adversarial machine learning in general -- and how it guides thinking on LLMs. Join us, 5p Pacific!

https://discord.gg/dkzxxNQs?event=1221829306112675952

bcantrill, 1 month ago to random

The most galling part of Don Lemon's interview with Musk was when Elon implied that Boeing's safety issues are somehow due to diversity initiatives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhsfjBpKiTw#t=47m28s

This is not just brazenly racist, it is factually wrong: the people to blame for Boeing,'s decline are the McDonnell executives that destroyed its engineer-driven culture, starting with Harry Stonecipher.

bcantrill, 1 month ago to random

As it apparently needs to be said: An organization that both eschews traditional hierarchy and mandates stack ranking is a guaranteed hot mess

bcantrill, 2 months ago to random

I apologize to my co-workers who had to endure me howling at my own gnuplot prowess

bcantrill, 2 months ago to random

Moore's scofflaws: The tyranny of per-core licensing
https://oxide.computer/blog/moores-scofflaws

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

Nate Silver trolled the internet last week with an inane tweet about the putative stagnation in the pace of innovation -- and @ahl and I are apparently incapable of not spending an episode discussing it. Join us, 5p Pacific today!

https://discord.gg/7hg4eNyr?event=1204152925509918890

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

In the conversation that @ahl and I had with @jmc last week, we talked quite a bit about RFD 26, which explains the rationale for Helios and Propolis, our illumos-based host OS and bhyve-based hypervisor, respectively. By popular demand, we have made that RFD public:

https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0026

And if you didn't catch the conversation last week, you can listen to the recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ejokdrByUs

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

The Book of Genesis, as written by GenZ 🤣🤣🤣

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

Open source AI is the hottest of hot topics -- with a recent IEEE Spectrum op-ed calling it "uniquely dangerous" -- but what is it, exactly? Today on @oxidecomputer and Friends @ahl and I will be joined by @simon, one of the leading practitioners in showing what open source LLMs can (and can't!) do. You can read Simon's end-of-2023 AI roundup here:

https://simonwillison.net/2023/Dec/31/ai-in-2023/

This will be a terrific discussion; join us, 5p Pacific:

https://discord.gg/D2r7QJJq?event=1196517681910784170

Recorded and syndicated, as always!

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

Over on the birdsite, a long-time Microsoft exec and now venture capitalist has tagged me into anti-AMA/pro-Russian agitprop, and I feel I'm getting what I deserve, really

bcantrill, 3 months ago to random

This IEEE Spectrum piece is absolutely unhinged -- and by the same absurd logic, we would have banned BBSs in the 1980s because kids (🙋‍♂️) were using them to find copies of The Anarchist Cookbook.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-source-ai-2666932122

bcantrill, 4 months ago to random

Look, I know I'm a cheap date on a Friday night -- but this stress test is just way too much fun to watch