Nat Torkington

I've been compiling a set of mental models, approaches, schema, hacks, whatever you call them, as I figure out how the world works. So much of the anguish and torment of my youth was unnecessary and self-inflicted. Changing how I thought about the world let me get to happy.

@mjasay @yegordb @AlonzoWins @deedydas Nope. I feel like they were filling the funnel: lurid press release and tweets > news stories > website > enrol to participate in order to get current research

@gnat @yegordb @AlonzoWins @deedydas Did you ever get a reply on this? I see the same thing when I try to read their paper.

I’m at Stanford and I research software engineering productivity. We have data on the performance of >50k engineers from 100s of companies. Inspired by @deedydas, our research shows: ~9.5% of software engineers do virtually nothing: Ghost Engineers (0.1x-ers)

@yegordb @AlonzoWins @deedydas Where can I read your paper? If I visit …eengineeringproductivity.stanford.edu and hit "Read our Paper" then I just see the paper "Predicting Expert Evaluations in Software Code Reviews". Nothing about productivity, ghosts, etc. Thanks!

@AlonzoWins @deedydas We go way deeper than that - read our paper & check this out:

Hey Auckland, we're playing a gig this weekend! undertheradar.co.nz/ticket/25177/Y… It's bluegrass, folk music's death metal. Vocals are much easier on the ear, though. We're raising $ for our new album by playing these gigs, and there'll be a sneak preview of some of the new songs ...

@genmon Eventual consistency would be nice.

Belatedly realising that the Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet system is a GAN and so maybe there are constitutional innovations available from recent developments in software architecture

@ryancrawcour "Let me create a ticket on our backlog to create your ticket." "Did you just tell me to go fuck myself?" "I believe I did, Bob."

So, ChatGPT is not a dirty minded teenager, but it is a nerd... Here are the results of asking it to choose a random number between 1 and 100.

@radionz re the VUWSA tank rnz.co.nz/national/progr… The Internet Archive shows the $2000 tank story has been there since the page was created in 2016. web.archive.org/web/2016030304…

@IanTLS You were on the right track but fell off the path of righteousness at "and starting again" ...

@gnat I was thinking about just deleting the entire 365 tenancy and starting again. Your solution has merit though

Every year I get this notification that it's someone's birthday. I think it originated in an ex-staff member's calendar, but even making Outlook show ALL calendars (I have no idea why there are 24 of them), I can't find it, much less remove it. Happy birthday, Timaru car guy.

@IanTLS My solution to Outlook problems is to sell up here, buy a dilapidated villa in Italy for $1, move into it, spend the rest of my money, and grow old drinking wine and eating prosciutto and never ever thinking about Microsoft software ever again. Let me know if it works for you.

@gnat I’ve dismissed it so I can check next year. My clue came by looking at the scheduling tab - I can see which former staff member (who has long since been deleted from 365) is scheduled on it.

@IanTLS When you double-click on it, if you look at the bottom of the window it says which folder that event is stored in. Does that give you a clue as to where it is?

And before anyone points out I can just double-click the reminder and delete it from there... nope.

@conways_law I've slowly found some interesting people on bluesky, it's where NZ's political lefties went and some of the interesting accounts from here. I've fallen off using Mastodon but that's where a lot of the tech people went from here. Nowhere is like what Twitter was.

Pornbots seem to be taking over my notifications and this site is looking more and more terminal. Where should I go to maximize genuine interaction?

@simonyoung @oharris69 Nope. Extended hiatus, so never say never.

@gnat @oharris69 Very good! Is Foo still a thing?

Having a senior moment. I read about a NZ-based tech conference that’s coming back after a lengthy absence. I don’t think it’s Webstock. But it’s got the same kind of vibe. And for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. Anyone?

@simonyoung @oharris69 Lurking!

@oharris69 No, but good reminder. I wonder if @gnat is still active here?

@eloise_gibson Courteous, gentle, soft-spoken, but clear-eyed and relentless. I paid my respects on BlueSky. bsky.app/profile/did:pl…

@tamineilson @Meatstockfest Fired your band or fried your band?

Fired my band on stage at @Meatstockfest yesterday. (Ok, I didn’t, but we are officially changing our name to Tami Neilson and The Pyrotechnics.) (Ok, we’re not but definitely adding flame throwers to our rider, henceforth.) 🤘🏼🔥 #thisgirlisonfire

@kimmmyparsons Jelly Tip

topsy

@cassieroma Welcome home!

@cassieroma We're here for you whenever you need to recharge the aroha!

@BeeFaerie It sounds like the kind of info that a researcher could glean from the IDI. Does any of the report require info that only the government can access?