Former Diaspora core team member, I work on various fediverse projects, and also spend my time making music and indie adventure games!

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  • 19 Comments
Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: November 29th, 2019

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  • I was working at a tool checkout in my shop for a while, and the sheer amount of ignorance and repetition blew me away.

    People would come in, see signs stating things like “Don’t throw your hazardous waste in this trash can!”, and people would straight up ignore it. Things got so bad that we had to stop offering a trash can in our part of the shop.

    A lot of people would also just repeat the same statements, day after day, week after week. For example, we have iPads that contain maintenance manuals. We have to update those manuals every week, on the same day. Without fail, the same people always forget which day Update Day is, and have to ask.

    The worst ones happen when people come to turn in their gear before end of shift. Most people are fine, but every toolbox has to be thoroughly inspected before being scanned back in. Often, somebody misplaced a tool, left garbage in the box somewhere, or there’s some other undocumented discrepancy.

    Most people are cool about it, and willing to make things right. But, some people act like you’ve purposely screwed them over, or react with total apathy and disrespect. I don’t make the rules, man, I’m just trying to do my job.


  • While I think shareholders can be a driving factor, I see it way more often with VC-funded companies. The “2.5x year over year” growth mantra that places like YCombinator stipulate have disastrous effects on small tech companies. Often, these startups have an incentive to keep taking additional funding rounds, which appears to tighten the grip the VC has over them.

    Try growing the next Microsoft or Google or Amazon out of that model. I’m not convinced that it’s possible. At least if you bootstrap your own company, you don’t have the same binding obligations…even if it takes way longer to get to a place that’s self-sustaining.


  • Honestly, this really resonated with me. Running an open source project on its own can be hard, running a popular one that gets used by tons of people and companies, while giving free labor, is extremely hard. Acting as free tech support to a large company, for nothing in return, is ass. Full stop.

    I’ve seen some people make the statement that “maintainers owe you nothing”, and I’ve seen people state that “your supporters owe you nothing.”

    While I believe there’s nothing wrong in a person willingly running a project on their own terms, just as there’s nothing wrong with refusing donations and doing the work out of some kind of passion… there’s only so many hours in the day, and developers need to feed themselves and pay rent.

    I think a lot of people would love to be able to work on open source full-time. I’d devote all of my energy and focus to it, if I could. But, that’s a reality only for a privileged few, and many of them still have to make compromises. The CEO and founder of Mastodon, for example, makes a pittance compared to what a corporate junior developer makes.



  • Thank you. ❤️ I know, and I’m doing my best. It’s just my first real experience of dealing with any of this as an adult, and I don’t think I’ve ugly cried harder in my life.

    I’m about to fly East next week, to bury my grandfather. I think it will be good for me, but it hurts to let go of someone that so many of my happy memories stemmed from.

    It’s also a horrifying thought to me that this is the logical conclusion of “growing old with someone”. One of you is going to go first, and it’s going to be the worst pain the other person has ever felt.


  • I’m a trainwreck right now.

    My grandfather suddenly passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer, multiple strokes, and COVID. It was brutal, he was in so much pain for months. What really hurts is that he was a wonderful person, a source of great joy and insight, and most definitely the person who got me into computers at a young age. My youngest coherent memories are of him, and the loss is exceedingly painful.

    My stepfather pointed a loaded gun at my autistic little brother and basically kicked him to the street. My little brother has had his fair share of problems with holding down any kind of job, and can barely take care of himself. He was kicked out of a shelter for a messy living space, and living out of a tent next to a YMCA.

    My mom was living in fear for a while, as my stepdad increasingly became more paranoid and violent, to the point that she was no longer allowed to talk to us on the phone if he came home. She managed to give him the slip and take the kids with her to go take care of the grandfather on the other side of the country…but, she’s in for a messy divorce.

    These three things have kind of converged, and a lot of it is starting to resolve finally, but it’s been a massive strain on my mental health and my marriage. I’m barely taking care of myself most of the time, and trying to live with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation…and all of the fun side effects of trying to treat those things with therapy and medication.

    I’m so tired. I’m barely eating. I have six months left in a maintenance squadron before I get out of the military, and all I want to do is scream.






  • Alright, bit of an update: after investigating my hardware, doing a fresh OS install, and trying just about everything that everybody’s suggested to me so far, I have logs. Definitely amdgpu related, but not 100% sure what is going on yet. This was on Wayland, searches for similar error messages suggest a possible driver bug, maybe issues with particular kernel versions? Still investigating.

    amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131efe000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00201031
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: TCP (0x8)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x1
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x3
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131efe000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00201031
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: TCP (0x8)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x1
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x3
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131efe000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00201031
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: TCP (0x8)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x1
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x3
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131eff000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00000000
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: CB/DB (0x0)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131eff000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00000000
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: CB/DB (0x0)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: [gfxhub] page fault (src_id:0 ring:24 vmid:2 pasid:32785, for process Starfield.exe pid 71830 thread vkd3d_queue pid 71960)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:   in page starting at address 0x0000800131efe000 from client 0x1b (UTCL2)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS:0x00000000
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          Faulty UTCL2 client ID: CB/DB (0x0)
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MORE_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          WALKER_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          PERMISSION_FAULTS: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          MAPPING_ERROR: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:29:50 Asmodeus kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu:          RW: 0x0
    Sep 24 02:30:00 Asmodeus kernel: [drm:amdgpu_job_timedout [amdgpu]] *ERROR* ring gfx_0.0.0 timeout, but soft recovered
    
    







  • Just cross your arms, smile wryly, and comment on how pathetic the Interviewer’s pen is. Cheap material, runny ink, a grip that’s painful to hold. Wish him good luck in taking notes on subsequent interviews.

    Then lean in, and say “But, you know? I’ve got a premium writing utensil. It’s crafted in the Netherlands by a Space Age engineering firm. It’s designed to fit comfortably between your fingers. And the Indian ink that runs through it glistens and glides smoothly through a specially crafted tip.”

    Pull out a business card with absolutely beautiful handwriting on it. Just as he expresses surprise and interest, sigh and say “But… It’s really not for you. It’s really more of a thing for your boss, or your boss’s boss.”

    Start getting up to leave, and wait for him to come running after you.