Michael Collins

I will have to watch this, we have a Lexus hybrid suv that is 100% a fancy rav4.

I hope it’s useful despite bugs! I am absolutely not a frontend person so I would love feedback. I find it useful but I’m also used to the quirks and foibles.

It’s still rough, I need to spend a bit more time figuring out to get a decent search - I’ve built a 2gb set of vectors using a local embedding model and MLX but it doesn’t fit on a 1gb/1vcpu VPS so I need to experiment with PCA and quantization, plus fix bugs.

I’m still gathering my thoughts on vibe coding. To see if there is a difference between $work tools and and competitors I built a small website for a personal niche with Claude code. If anyone is into biking and skiing in around Vancouver www.vbss.ca might be helpful.

Thanks for sharing this widely, if was super useful when you shared it with the PE community in December. I wish I had it when I joined AWS or at another big tech co a decade before that.

The neurodivergent Big Tech survival guide Editor’s note: This was the last internal document I wrote at Amazon. It was written with the mentees, mentors, and friends I left in mind. But the response was really positive, and it seems to have r...

I wrote a thing. Actually I wrote it in December. But now I made a public home for it.

nikkipin.ski/the-neurodiv...

Watch this space. Coming later this week: A Practical Guide to Agentic Engineering.

Spreadsheet screenshot showing: Power 1000kw Power Cost $100Kwh Space $20k Month Rack Power 15Kw Facilities cost $120k month, $30k day Also similar calculations for racks, servers, switches etc working out to about $17m in Capex which works out to ~$475k/month and ~$16k/day depreciated over 3 years. Total daily cost for 1MW idle compute roughly $20k/day

I used to run services in large colo cages and halls in a past life. I estimate $20k/day wasted for 1MW of idle capacity compute capacity with air cooling (excluding setup costs, shared infrastructure etc). GPUs and water cooling will change these numbers.

It’s all a blur, long ago and I was on a ton of meds including strong painkillers - I think the anaemia was either just generally being super sick or maybe low bloods after a big surgery? 🤷‍♂️

I was sick with messed up lung stuff and in hospital for months, I think they drew blood at least 2x day. Regular bloods weren’t a big deal - I was on IVs so they took them through a cannula. Arterial blood samples and/or the poking when veins got inflamed and they had to move IVs sucked.

My mom, a now retired nurse, told them to wait until I passed out then hook me up. When I woke up a very patient nurse or registrar explained that the blood products I got were a different product and from a different blood board. Even as a grumpy sick teen I had to admit I was feeling better

I spent months in hospital as a teen, at one point I was super anaemic but there was also a ton of coverage about tainted blood products in the news* so I refused transfusions and said they should just stop taking so many blood samples. * en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTSB_an...

They have been struggling for a few weeks, firefighting and grabbing tickets off the backlog - what I hacked together was absolutely nothing magical, it was just something thar they didn’t have time to even consider.

I’m helping a team with some scaling issues for a beta launch, I had a few hours to hack on something that helps run a chunk of code needing profiling on a dev cloud workstation so you can use a debugger or profiler more easily. Nothing magical but when I shared it with devs they were amazed

Hammock Driven Development - Rich Hickey YouTube video by ClojureTV

Just one of the many joys of living in the era of late stage capitalism. Rich Hickeys old talk on Hammock Driven Development rings truer year after year - youtu.be/f84n5oFoZBc?... - people genuinely don’t have time to think.

Unnerving, especially after I already had to brake and swerve to avoid a car trying to squeeze east across Ontario on 7th when a gap opened up in the long tailback of traffic on 7th. (I have good lights and wear a reflective helmet, hi viz vest and clothes with reflective details in this weather)

I biked by a motorbike crash this evening at Broadway and Ontario. It dint look good, a motorbike on its side on the side of the road, a motorbike helmet and gloves on the sidewalk and two ambulances blocking the intersection plus lot of VPD officers assisting.

I was already frustrated but the uptick this week after broadway closure is impacting the entire neighbourhood and frankly I’m worried about, the many cyclists who use 10th, Ontario and the kids walking to their elementary school or to a bus stop to head to high school in low light conditions

Do you have any suggestions on how I can report the multiple traffic violations I witness daily living on a block rat runners abuse? Unfortunately VPD does not have an online reporting form for traffic incidents unlike the RCMP.

I’ve donated to Hub many years running, and should do the same for Vision Vancouver.

I have tried contacting the broadway subway project and the ministry of transport but they claim we are outside of their area of concern - I live just off 10th between Main and Cambie so technically outside of their area of remit.

I have tried contacting the city traffic data department directly to gather violator data but they don’t take requests from citizens. I have contacted council via email to raise this as part of appropriate motions multiple times, but unfortunately I don’t have time to try speak in person.

I have tried the VPD, they promise to send patrols to do spot enforcement but nothing happens. I have tried reporting to ICBC but they can’t help. I have tried reporting to the city but they redirect me to the VPD for moving vehicle violations. I have tried roadsafe BC who refer me to the VPD.

I live a few blocks away and have tried multiple times to report rat runners who fragrantly and routinely violate the No Entry except for bicycles sign on my block to drive the wrong way up the street. Do you have advice on how to report this and raise the issue?

There’s a reason why my default answer when asked about a problem is to say it’s either reading comprehension or something at the intersection of humans and computers.

I should be clear it’s probably not that they could not - but rather they were under time pressure do could not spend half a day or whatever it took to fully debug a complex issue. I imagine they also did not feel they could safely push back, so instead they file a crap high priority bug

I feel this. In a past role when I was being asked to debug hard problems repeatedly, it bugged me until I realized that reading comprehension was a challenge for many people. They could not read a full stack trace or take the time to spelunk through logs or follow code across multiple packages

It’s at least honest - it has been this way for years. Part of the best writing advice I saw was to take last sentence of your email/paper - make it the subject/title and then expand on it newspaper article style. Don’t bury the lede etc

You just gave me flashbacks to swim team training at the US embassy pool when I was in elementary school in Africa

@anibyl.social.coop.ap.brid.gy being of European origin, tech worker and on a Canadian passport I have had no issues travelling for work - but I do only stick to major cities. I still try to either get the train or fly so I can do pre clearance in Canada, just in case.

The train may be a good if slow option - pre clearance in Vancouver, comfortable and $10 extra for a bike.