Author | Lightnews

Generic white guy SysAdmin

@westbynoreaster.bsky.social

510 followers 140 following 2.3K posts

#HPC #SysAdmin & aspiring #DevOps headed to UNC-Charlotte in the new year. #dHTC evangelist, and labor history nerd. #BLM! Opinions my own. he/him

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · Nov 5

So I have taken an #HPC sysadmin job at #UNC Charlotte, starting around inauguration day. 😬 Please let the next two months go well. 🫣 oneit.charlotte.edu/urc/

University Research Computing – Office of OneIT

oneit.charlotte.edu

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 7h

Fear, Greed, Civic Virtue and the Fall of the Elites talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fear-...

Fear, Greed, Civic Virtue and the Fall of the Elites

Members of America’s founding generation had an ambivalent and evolving understanding of...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 2h

There are many good science fiction novels. Not a single one that I have read delivers a happy vision of the future in which aged right-wing billionaires control the media.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1h

😑

a close up of a man 's face in a car with a woman behind him .

Alt: From "Max Max, Fury Road" Max himself played by Tom Hardy points upwards while driving and says "That's Bait"

media.tenor.com

Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 2h

Also by NY Upstaters for calling Dutchess County, Upstate.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 2h

Heart breaks and stomach sinks at that. 🤢 Like I can see how freshmen here in Charlotte in AD 2025, but damn... 😭

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 11h

Congratulations to Tim Mellon, the far right billionaire who just volunteered to become the literal poster child for ads about billionaires whose tax cuts are a primary reason why the govt is shut down.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/u...

A 1981 black and white photo of Tim Mellon, from the NYT story. He is wearing a nametag and a tie with Christmas trees.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 4h

They give any explanation as to why to exclude pay? 😕 Like the *literal* main driver of the conception of collective bargaining.

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Trevor Aleo @mraleosays.bsky.social · Apr 29

Student: Teacher, why do we learn?

Socrates: For life!

Freire: For liberation!

Dewey: For democracy!

Neoliberal EduWonks: To mitigate overhead costs for employers and increase future projections of GDP!

Trevor Aleo @mraleosays.bsky.social · Apr 29

It’s really absurd that we’ve reached a point where the “common sense” view of education is that its primary purpose is to lower the future onboarding/training costs for companies hiring new employees.

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Cailin O’Connor @cailinmeister.bsky.social · 1d

Who today is influencing science a la Big Tobacco or Oil and Gas?
In our new preprint we show how tech companies like Meta are capturing research on their product, using mechanisms that subtly (or not so subtly) shape what science gets produced

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 1d

Saw this the other day, and kind of made me sad because I realised it's not even generally"other people's" really, it's companies with very dubious everythings. ☹️

There is no cloud, just other people's computers.

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 1d

This is not coming from the youth. They don't want this. See this excellent editorial written by students at Notre Dame.

www.ndsmcobserver.com/article/2025...

Editorial: AI-proof the Core Curriculum

The Core Curriculum is an essential part of a Catholic education that must be saved from AI.

www.ndsmcobserver.com

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1d

It’s such a good encapsulation and also frustrating that it’s over 25 years old, so lots of folks will just look at you blankly after its Use.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1d

Will also say that uni staff workers don’t get those vaunted free speech protections when it comes to open discussions about unionizing at *many* institution.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 1d

I buy this argument and you all know I'm very critical about studies about the effect of using AI but this one makes a ton of sense. The design of total ease and agreeableness has always been bad for our rigorous thinking. It is bad when it comes from people too!

Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 20d

Preliminary results show that the current framework of "AI" makes ppl less likely to help or seek help from other humans, or to seek to soothe conflict, and that people actively prefer that framework to any others, literally serving to make them more dependent on it.

Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence

Both the general public and academic communities have raised concerns about sycophancy, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence (AI) excessively agreeing with or flattering users. Yet, beyond isolat...

arxiv.org

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Benjamin McKean @blmckean.bsky.social · 1d

Not that it will stop people from making tired assumptions about what the real American working class is like (white guy in hardhat 4eva), but if you want a handy synecdoche for the changing face of labor, note that the new president of the United Steelworkers Union is a Black woman born in Jamaica

New USW Leaders Prepare to Take Office - United Steelworkers

A historic new slate of officers will take over leadership of the United Steelworkers (USW) in March following the union’s regular four-year nomination and election process that took place this fall.

usw.org

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Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social · 1d

Shouting into the void here but in general, if an article is interesting enough to post a screenshot of, it's interesting enough to post a link to so the people you're sharing with can actually read it, tell who wrote it and where it's from, assess its credibility, etc.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1d

”It’s always a grift“ is such an integral part of ring-wing politics that it’s a little irritating how much predictive power that phrase has.

Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1d

Can’t help but conjure up Wayne’s (from Letterkenney) disgust for Dierks when reading this guys shit.

Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 1d

The Finnish love of spiral staircases. 🤬 Like OK, sometimes it’s aesthetically pleasing but always such a horrible hazard. ☢️

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America is a Pastoralpunk Dystopia @pastoralpunk.bsky.social · 1d

It is quite remarkable this thing is a Dunning-Kruger machine, it makes you worse at something *exactly as much* as you think you're getting better at it

Horrific Ali @grissallia.bsky.social · 1d

…and didn’t give a shit?

There’s been at least one study I’m aware of that tested experienced developers and their use of AI. They estimated their productivity had improved by 20%

When actually tested? It lowered their productivity by 20%.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 1d

Attended panel on what’s up with US at Oxford featuring my pal @antheabutler.bsky.social, author of WHITE EVANGELICAL RACISM, & queer historian Colin Johnson. Kinda thing that might normally be sleepy, a few history nerds. So packed there was no standing room. People are alarmed.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 2d

As IT staff maintaining computing infrastructure, I F’ing 🤬 hate all of it myself, TBC.

And I don’t want to set up the crap screener software from the same company that created the slop generators in the first place.

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Generic white guy SysAdmin @westbynoreaster.bsky.social · 2d

We already see the “I wish to train gen-AI on ___” a lot in requests to use university compute resources from PhD candidates. If they are using it in their “research” 🙄 makes sense that prospectives will be using it in their applications.

redrum scare(d) corncob is fleetingly victorious @inquiline.myatproto.social · 2d

I also believe we're gonna see a lot of GenAI in this PhD admissions cycle. Again, please don't do this. Use your own voice even if you're unsure of yourself

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 2d

oh fuck yes

Justin Raden @jraden.bsky.social · 2d

Wrote a thing on the hot summer of uni AI adoption for @defector.com

A huge thanks to @nathankhensley.bsky.social and @anniemcc.bsky.social. @brandyjensen.bsky.social is a legend. And anything smart in hear is thanks to hours of discussion, texting, and draft reading by @smosment.bsky.social

Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI | Defector

If you don’t work at a university or have college-age kids, you may have missed the flurry of news stories and social media banter about AI adoption in higher ed, stories which have snowballed into th...

defector.com

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2d

At some point it has to become clear that this tech exists is to create a more toxic society and enrich its owners. These uses are not aberrations but rather the entire purpose.

OpenAI's Sora 2 Can Generate Videos of Celebrities Appearing to Shout Racial Slurs

OpenAI's Sora 2 video generation model can be exploited to push misinformation and depict public figures behaving badly despite promised guardrails.

www.rollingstone.com

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