I expect to need a portable way to pull text excerpts out of code output, either text reports or columnar or CSV numerical data files (aka "plotfiles"). Python could do it but that's way too much infrastructure, overhead, and fragility. Perl is possibly better but a bad precedent to set. That leaves sed and awk. I've had some success writing conplex sed scripts; I may need something more powerful but still lightweight so awk is looking surprisingly attractive.

I actually wrote a useful line of awk today. I have a very short term project that requires some text munging and awk and paste are seriously helping, along with a vim macro or two. This isn't worth doing in Python, I'm on Windows so I'm using utilities from msys2.

Kids, don't put diagnostic headers at the top of your CSV files. Repeatedly stripping out those 12 lines of debris is a pain in the ass. `tail -n` helps but it shouldn't be necessary. Just use a single header line containing column headers like a normal person.

It's a weird day at work when I have to pull this down from the shelf:

Anyway, I'm happy to pay an infosec/privacy oriented Toyota sysadmin to minimally activate this car such that maps/GPS and local static audio files work and only those two functions work. #ParentalAutomotiveControls

I refuse to hate the new car because of the execrable infotainment console. I just want the nagging wannabe spybot gone.

What I would like to do: Grant minimum privileges between car and phone and Toyota and their 4.7E+19 partners such that I can view maps and play the static audio files on my phone through the car's speakers AND NOTHING ELSE. No optional services, no trial offers, nothing but music and maps, full stop.

My options seem to be full telemetry to everybody + dog or the surveillance infotainment console is a blue-screened brick with an always-on nag screen that can't be dimmed or turned off.

I mean THIS IS COMPLETELY WHAT I EXPECTED WHEN I BOUGHT THIS CAR. I AM NOT SHOCKED OR SURPRISED, just gravely disappointed that Toyota won't do better.

I'm just so tired of zero-consent coercive phone-oriented computing. In the analog hardware world there would be a breaker I could pull or pins I could jumper to coerce the system into the desired operating mode. This is worse than a brick. Bricks don't actively nag you.

I doubt Toyota is the best or worst in this regard and that there's no modern vehicle that doesn't pull this shit. All roads lead back to Google and Apple so what do you expect?

The missing features aren't going to kill me but I'm stuck with this massive dead-to-me display in the middle of the dash that would be better replaced with a double-DIN bay and third-party non-integrated electronics.

I need a sysadmin for my car and I find this situation terribly depressing.

Very very occasionally I find independent and eerily related threads by people I initially followed for very different reasons Today's topic is electric power safety and security, protecting against different kinds of bad at different scales but requiring engineering rigor, understanding, and attention to detail. There are parallel questions about ratcheting vendors into delivering better (safer, more secure) products by standards, regulation, and legislation.

Lindsay works on ebikes and electric vehicles and is one of the most multifariously talented non-degreed engineers I have met. Here are her current projects and woes (CANBUS, battery protection, and cheap/dumb/ubiquitous power connectors that IMO should be standardized off the market): https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:7e6rye7jke744sqhw4pqsyec/post/3mxe3es4pak2p

Bert is reporting from a higher level European energy system security forum where similar problems are being surfaced and addressed about grid scale devices and systems - thread starts here: https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/117403890256929658

Some takeaways:
* How do we motivate a security or resilience culture around grid-scale systems?
* Budgets don't make it to the people doing the actual security and protection work
* Legislation might motivate boards especially if there were teeth to the laws
* Regulation lags; it can be effective but needs attention in design and implementation. There are also challenges in regulating the parties who need regulation
* Too many suppliers aren't responsive to security and safety issues. Some are better than others at the engineering work of designing problems out of products
* How do you build an industrial culture that values safety and security and how do you do that in less than 50 years?
* How easy is it to brick an EV? Or a million electrical customers?

Thank you both for today's glimpse inside your respective universes. There are some important parallels at different scales. More often than not I feel lucky to meet the people I do on the socials and you two are shining examples of that. #EveryDayIsTellPeopleYouAppreciateThemDay

Ground level looking up at the tenement we see the greenhouse exterior. It covers two-thirds of the roof. It can be expanded to the full span of the roof once I obtain an assload of plate glass. That just takes time, a furnace, and broken glass.

(Warning: There will be a spittle-flecked rant about "the internet" after this brief proud positive moment. Feel free to skip the rant; it's nothing new but it's depressing AF. Like "substantially more depressing than Obenseuer" levels of depressing. But without further ado...)

I have a medium greenhouse! I have photos! Think of this as Zillow But For People Who Drink Fabric Softener.

It took a lot of plate glass but it was worth it - here's the uncluttered interior:

Bob the Void Potato reminded me of misremembered lyrics from a Killdozer song:

And there he lay ...
His head next to a hub
And all I can say to myself is
"therein lies the rub"

"The Rub", from "Little Baby Buntin'" (1987)

#CatsOfMastodon

PS: I think my favorite albums of theirs are Little Baby Buntin' and Twelve Point Buck. For Ladies Only is all covers and it's equally fantastic. Their rendition of Elvis' "Burnin' Love" is AMAZING.

Sausage loaf #CatsOfMastodon

I'm more than a little cheesed at scientists and engineers write code and suddenly forget they need a reference for

every
single
number

in their code. You didn't get your Ph.D playing fast and loose with your technical work, why is it that you completely forget your scientific/engineering fundamentals when you open an IDE?

Maybe software development actually makes you lazy and stupid. It would explain a lot.

It's not a difficult calculation but it's a ton of tedious arithmetic that references a metric buttload of physical property correlations and constants, most of which have no citation or pedigree. None of them are "interesting" enough to discuss in technical reports or academic papers but they are absolutely vital for defending and reproducing the work.

A big part of my code QA effort goes into finding these undocumented and hidden nuggets of joy and trying to reconstruct their pedigree so we have a good reason to believe our code output. It's hella tedious but it's fundamental science & engineering practice and absolutely necessary when dealing with safety significant code.

This is a reason I study software-related incidents and disasters - I'm paranoid of being the main character in a USCSB video, the voiceover part when Sheldon Smith says "... but analysts never verified their safety software was using the correct data." I never want Sheldon Smith to narrate any part of my life https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14185312/

My favorite episode of the The Twilight Zone is "What You Need" which aired on Christmas day, 1959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_You_Need_(The_Twilight_Zone)

I had sort of a What You Need moment at work. I wrote a small program and a large amount of documentation because the process for calculating one of the crucial parameter we need in safety is not well documented and it only exists in one of the codes we use, a code I nominally own. I'm the code custodian not the code author. When I get questions about the code I have to dig through the source and sparse documentation to get an answer. A few years ago I predicted that if we got questions about this parameter we'd have a hard time answering them and it would all fall in my lap. I saw a grim future so I took some steps to head it off. The predicted issue arose about a week ago and I'm being dragged in to help solve it.

I'm no psychic but sometimes I see a risk on the horizon and Present Me lays some groundwork to keep Future Me's ass out of the fire. I'm feeling just a little vindicated today - thanks a bunch, Past Me! :)

Midnight visitor #CatsOfMastodon

We got Donut a few weeks after Pico passed to keep our other cat (Snoz) company. This is the defining picture of Donut and Snoz - Donut with his face buried in Snoz's magnificent fluff and Snoz looking at us with the expression "YOU! YOU DID THIS! WHY?"

Donut adored Snoz, Snoz mostly tolerated Donut. We started calling Snoz "Senpai" because Donut had such "PLEASE NOTICE ME SENPAI!" energy.

I miss Snoz; he was a fantastic and unique gentleman. I was lucky to know him #CatsOfMastodon

RE: https://troet.cafe/@b_rain/117343424627849874

Chatbots are programmed to be approachable and to be nice to you. I can totally see why someone would choose a better socialized robot mansplainer over the regular human kind.

TIL the "Martians" of science (brilliant Hungarian expats fleeing national socialism before WW2) included Cornelius Lanczos (calculus of variations) and John Kemeny (Dartmouth president, designer of BASIC, chair of Three Mile Island commission). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)

I had heard the term describe von Neuman, von Karman, Teller, Szilard, and Wigner but was surprised to see Lanczos, Kemeny, Polya, and Erdős on the list.

Have programmers been this awful and clueless forever or did I just miss that section in "The Psychology of Computer Programming"?

https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Programming_Psychology.html

How much of this stems from driving women and minorities out of programming?

I mean, intro improv classes are _right there_. If you need a psychologically safe space to work through personal interaction and rejection, it's under $300 for 8 weeks. And it's fun! It's no substitute for therapy but it can be really effective at boosting your social awareness and comfort and self-confidence.

Dunno, I just can't accept putting in the work for allegedly smart people who are told and don't want to hear. Grow up, take an improv class, whatever - just don't expect everyone else to do your work for you.