@hrefna@hachyderm.io
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

hrefna

@hrefna@hachyderm.io

SRE at Google. Queer. Poly :potion_polyamory: Trans :verified_trans: :nonbinary_potion: Engineer. Ace :flag_ace: Member of AWU-CWA. #ActuallyAutistic :rainbowinfinity: #UnionStrong

Opinions my own. Does not suffer fools gladly.

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hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

While researching fairy stories I stumbled into the story of Childe Rowland—which involved a child of Guinevere, Merlin showing up, etc in this story of the fairylands—and was chatting with my partner about it and how Arthurian characters are basically "stock characters" of a certain era: they have certain traits and show up together in certain ways to tell whatever story.

My partner then sent me this from an intro to Perlesvaus.

is really just fanfic all the way down.

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

It goes without saying, but explicitly, if you show up on me saying something like this to say that "almost everyone at Google is incompetent down to the rank-and-file" I am just going to block you.

You aren't being even remotely rational in your approach and I question whether you are here in good faith.
https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/112470793925252496

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I have NOT read this paper yet so this is not a Cat endorsement yet but the title and premise is good enough to share 👀

https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(24)00105-0

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina This has a lot of very strong parallels and resonance with a presentation I recently saw from Prof. Steven Bird about non-extractive methods of training language models (based on this paper https://aclanthology.org/2024.eacl-long.50.pdf).

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@grimalkina

I can just see Quijano going:

Thank GIF

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

I find it worthwhile to go back now and again and look through analyses of why a piece of software succeeded or failed.

It's always particularly illuminating to look at three things:

  1. The role of leadership in the failure.
  2. How much leadership got paid regardless/what happened to leadership afterwards.
  3. What happened to the rank-and-file who actually build the software.

The story is always basically the same, with a few variations on the themes.

https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

People will occasionally poke at Google's developers for something about one of Google's products and its like… I agree with you, as do most developers I know (not that I talk about specifics publicly in the moment).

You have to look above the team who is doing the work. They've probably already said their piece and were simply ignored.

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

People who know nothing about ecology hear about something that requires no work or understanding on their part but where they can "spread awareness online": "YES THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER."

Applies to more than just ecological activism, of course

Rather than saying "I'm not going to mow for a month!" take a while and actually learn what is in your yard. Don't just hop on arbitrary bandwagons with no understanding of what you are looking at

But learning is complex, "not mowing" is easy 1/

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

You can do significant damage to your ecological system by just doing things like "not mowing" arbitrarily, especially depending on where you live. You can also cause more damage by leading various things in the environment to "take shelter" in your yard and then resuming mowing come June.

What's more, just letting things grow will usually invite in invasives and noxious weeds and will promote invasive monocultures.

Grass laws are terrible, but "ignore it" isn't the solution.

2/

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

What can you do instead?

Learn about native plants, learn about noxious weeds, learn about water conservation in lawn building, look into strategies like xeriscaping. If you need a lawn then look into local grasses and legumes

Be prepared for this to take a long, long time/

You may have to water, you will have to do maintenance, but it will be better for the environment than just letting your lawn go with whatever invasives happen to be in your area

Not all substitutes are created equal 3/

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

If you need to keep a lawn for your HOA there may be nothing you can do about it, but again the solution is not "just let whatever grow" (if you would even be allowed to do that, many of them specify grasses).

The solution is learning the soil, learning the land, and learning the plants.

That is the way.

4/4

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@joby I feel that saying in my bones.

I've been learning pasture management and it is a lot. As you say a lot of it is building a solid intuition about plants (and conquering "green blindness," but that goes along with developing that intuition).

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

I hate -.-

The root fragment on the right is a remnant from last year that is mostly dead except for about once inch on the end. I just pulled it.

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

This is really, amazingly cool work. https://recurse.social/@lindsey/111180369571322649

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Holy… 5.5 hours of lore x_x Well that's my freetime for a few days.

https://youtu.be/4n9eakXNsIQ?si=WFmeJeZfEhGVn84N

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

slams desk emphatically THANK YOU. This matches my exact experience with small talk and gives me a good analogy for it.

The one comment on cockatiels is just chef's kiss, because that is exactly how it works with birds (and in people, though we like to deny it).

It's not my favorite mode of interaction, but if you understand its purpose as a social ritual it seems a lot less meaningless.

The other thing: I like to stick it at the end of the conversation.

https://www.tumblr.com/thetetra/750913052342419456/i-figured-out-i-was-autistic-when-i-was-explaining

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Like I used to help run these study groups that would involve discussion and an exercise

I would let people do small talk at the beginning but wouldn't participate, because some of the other participants were more extroverted and liked to do their "Are you a dog!" "I'm a dog!" exchanges early. When it lulled I would step in and we could run the group, but then we'd return to small talk and I would participate in that as part of the social ritual

Because it is important as a piece of the ritual

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Stupendium's Production Line is like "yes yes, eldritch monsters, but have you considered the horrors of capitalism?"

https://youtu.be/HYdOZOdjXnI?si=tGjbnxdiBYj4aPn6

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Why are horses?

ami_angelwings, to random
@ami_angelwings@urusai.social avatar

wait what year is this

https://youtu.be/OHpiIAJiExo

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

@ami_angelwings my immediate response as well

Robin Williams What Year Is It GIF

hrefna, to twitter
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

After watching execs talk about the , all I can really say is this:

If you are in tech you need a strong union.

If you are in tech you need a strong union.

If you are in tech you need a strong .

After seeing what happened at , after seeing yet another round of nonsense layoffs across so many good people at so many companies, we need unions and we need them yesterday.

If you are in a union already, build strength. We are going to need it.

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Are a perfect tool? Frak no. Any given union or collection of unions is going to have a long history of shitty decisions and problematic behaviors if they have existed for more than a few years. Unions are comprised of people are not immune to any of the things that make people people.

But I would rather stand with my fellow workers in an imperfect alliance than get fraked over by unchecked corporate greed again and again without recourse and without any resistance.

hrefna,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Every worker in every industry deserves a union, and tech right now is having a clear demonstration of how our lack of unions hurts us.

I just heard an exec say that it was "unfortunate" that we couldn't fire people faster in other parts of the world because of labor protections. Sit with that for a moment.

In the US unions are one of our very very few tools to give us any chance at all.

We need strong unions to push back against this sort of callous insensitivity backed by unchecked greed.

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

It always bemuses/annoys me when some smug ass sails into a theological debate with "who cares it is all made up anyways."

My brother in clearly-not-Christ, have you been in fandom spaces on the internet? Ever?

Go ask a Tolkien group about Tom Bombadil and see what happens, or ask any group of straight male genshin players if any given character is a lesbian.

It's especially annoying when those debating aren't actually followers of said faiths and are just borrowing the lens.

hrefna, to fediverse
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

This statement is going to live rent-free in my head for a long time to come, I suspect.

hrefna, to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Everyone wants to do the fun work, everyone wants to play with grand ideas, but getting people to actually do the gritty, challenging, in-the-weeds work is really difficult.

Getting people to agree on how to do the in-the-weeds work is really difficult.

Then, getting people to acknowledge that you did the work is further complicated.

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