arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
mastodon
4.5.6+glitch
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™
My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
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Joined January 03, 2023
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@kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
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@kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
Wow, who would have expected a Dunkelflaute in March? But here it is: #Germany - the “energy transformation leader with the most renewables in Europe” - 604 gCO2eq/kWh #Poland - old coal baseline coun
Current reply
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
1d ago
@kravietz I thought decarbonization was all about smashing capitalism, degrowth, and expanding energy poverty - what the hell are those nuclear people doing? Clearly someone didn't get the memo... /s
View full thread on oldbytes.space
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
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6d ago
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Mar 04, 2026
Why the hell does this exist on my phone?
I mean, I could do a whole series on Baffling Shit I Find On My Phone That Exist To Monetize Me or Boost Some Manager's KPIs.
I think I filmed video on my phone once, accidentally because I touched the wrong icon.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Mar 04, 2026
"Hot Car" (1958) https://youtu.be/W7bGYxk3Ax0
This one's ripe for MST3K'ing. The comments on the video are well worth the time.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Mar 03, 2026
It is my professional opinion that except in very limited simple cases, Excel should not be used to perform numerical calculations used for safety purposes.
I wish this view was not considered so controversial or heretical among my peers.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Mar 02, 2026
Today's light reading is Sidney Dekker's "The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'". I tend to see the term "human error" as the point when analysts stop looking at an incident without acknowledging or investigating systemic and organizational contributions to incidents. Either through inexperience or limited training or for political reasons, investigation stops just before critical questions about organizational behavior and culture are asked. To me, the phrase "human error" is a huge red flag, specifically from reading authors like Dekker and Hollnagel who often dig deeper to find uncomfortable truths and insights behind accidents and near misses. I always enjoy Dekker's writing as fascinating and depressing and infuriating with a tiny amount of hope at the end that we'll have the opportunity to do better having read the book and absorbed its lessons.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 27, 2026
While it's appropriate given Gracie's view of the situation, we should probably not name the kitten Perkele. Also, who knew Gracie knew how to curse in Finnish?
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 26, 2026
There are about twice as many transgender folk in the US than there are Freemasons. #Insomnia
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
When I started in the nuclear safety field, my focus was on Generic Letter 88-20, the Individual Plant Examination (probabilistic risk assessment) program for building and analyzing detailed statistical/logical models of nuclear plants, looking for subtle vulnerabilities not caught by traditional methods. Generic Letters are "shadow" regulation - issues some people in the NRC think are important but nothing the Commission wants to go through the effort of explicitly regulating. So they issue "Generic Letters" which don't _technically_ require a response but act as a gently coercive wink-wink-nudge-nudge "it'd be cooler if you did..." ... suggestion. The same way "Nice powerplant - it'd be a terrible shame if anything happened to it..." isn't technically a threat.
Anyway, I was wandering down Memory Lane and looked at some of the othe GLs the NRC issued around that time.
May I present to you Generic Letter 88-19 "Use of Deadly Force by Licensee Guards to Prevent Theft of Special Nuclear Material" https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/gen-letters/1988/gl88019
I'd like you to compare the suggested response to people actively trying to steal plutonium, etc. (circa 1988) with how ICE treats children and bystanders during non-criminal immigration investigations.
You are literally safer trying to break into a nuclear plant to steal plutonium than you are standing within 500' of an armed member of ICE minding your own business.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
@catalot@urusai.social sent a link to the developer's website for the now-vacant lot next door, showing the "Serving Suggestion" ad for the not-yet-built house they're selling.
The listing belongs on Steam because it's essentially a Unity asset-flip. None of the images bear any resemblance to material reality nor to any potential timeline, fantasy, dystopia or otherwise.
If Bland Modern was an architectural style, this would come in third place in the Realtor Participation Trophy Olympics.
Seriously, it looks like half the new homes built in this neighborhood - a generic black-and-white box with all the character of a bus tub at Applebee's to be sold to people with enough money to not care about their insane air conditioning bills in the dead of central Texas summers.
It's probably a good thing I know very little about realty, house-flipping, and land developers and speculators. I'd have to make more space in my vocabulary for expletives and obscenities.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
Clearly I am in A Mood today.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
In other news, I have a new pair of Baofeng UV-5R radios unpacked, assembled, and on their chargers.Hopefully this pair will stay together long enough to get charged and tested.
Increasingly I feel the need for personal communication technology independent of capital-I Internet and cellular infrastructure. The very little I know of actual radio technology is that it very much does not work like its presented in the movies. There's actually a somewhat steep learning curve involving weather, line-of-sight, sunspot activity, the ionosphere, and a bunch of other middle school science topics that have very practical importance. Not insurmountable but nothing you're going to sort out in 15 minutes with a README and typical professional white male computer toucher overconfidence. You have to read the manual and another manual and actually push turn things on and push buttons. Like starting a dirt bike or a cheap lawnmower or learning to drive stick. You actually have to step away from the computer and _do_ it.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
Today is "National 'Block Unsolicited Text Messages From Political Organizations' Day" in the US.
Engage with your local groups, volunteer, donate directly, to causes you support - do what you will. Just remember that all those texts begging for money, emails, messages, whatever, all of that is in service of the political consultancy industry. Any positive outcome is an accidental byproduct. You owe the temple moneychangers precisely nothing.
So get off your ass and do something however small if you are so inclined. Do not let cynicism win. Just remember, we are in this situation precisely because we've let this industry "participate" on our behalf. Pull their remit, use what power you have, and don't cede it to those whose primary goal is to get paid.
You can't complain that "both parties are the same" unless a) you stop funding the people who make them the same, and b) you get off your personal ass and do something. You don't have to take up arms in violent revolution (ignore the Very Online Royal Vermonter accusing you of being a Nazi sympathizer if you don't) - just do something that's in your power that isn't actively harming. Be the helper that Mr. Rogers talked about however you can.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 25, 2026
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 24, 2026
Backup Bob is incorrigible. A week ago we couldn't get within 5 feet of him, now he wraps himself around our legs and dumps himself ass over teakettle on our shoes. He's a sweet doofus and our neighborhood void stray. #CatsOfMastodon
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
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Feb 24, 2026
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 24, 2026
If programming a computer is like playing guitar
Are you Paul Gilbert or are you MC Lars?
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 24, 2026
Updated Firefox. Disabled all AI. We'll see how long that lasts.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 19, 2026
I cannot stress enough the importance of lubrication.
Fun fact: The study of friction and lubrication is called tribology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribology
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 19, 2026
Risk vs risk perception except in this case it's what shapes risk perception. There's a reason the principals at my former employer generally did not talk to the NYT when called. They had plenty of stories about talking to the NYT to find their quotes taken out of context to support a predefined narrative detached from reality.
I'm not sure we'd be worse off without the NYT (and WaPo while we're at it). Wordle and the crossword puzzle would live on, good investigative journalism would move on as it has been doing for decades, and chumps like Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens might have to find a real job (just kidding: those types always find another far-right sugar daddy to prop them up; grifters gonna grift). Dumping the opinion and editor class at the NYT and WaPo would be the biggest win.
Remind me again why we lament the state of US journalism.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 19, 2026
"A History of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES)" https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01720R000200120001-2.pdf
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 16, 2026
Jeff Goldblum is the Keanu Reeves of Eugene Levys.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 15, 2026
I just learned about SOUL.md as a chatbot configuration file and I cannot express how deeply disturbing I find it. Delusion at scale.
What's worse is letting the bot modify its own configuration. Open-loop genetic programming with prion disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 09, 2026
High quality software addresses real user needs, is designed, written, documented, reviewed, evaluated, and tested by humans under a comprehensive process, released on a schedule that ensures critical lifecycle management activities are performed.
It's not magic, it's not impossible, it's tedious, detail-oriented work that often cannot and importantly -- should not -- be rushed.
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arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space
Engineer (nuclear, safety analysis), scientific software developer, rehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN, recovering sysadmin, marginally competent solderator. Occasional Bond Villain (Card Overpunch). Nuclear Scoundrel™ My internet claim to fame was livetweeting the Fukushima reactor failures on the Birdsite. I'm pretty chipper for one spending so much time looking at sad melty reactors and sad creaky software.
oldbytes.space
@arclight@oldbytes.space
·
Feb 07, 2026
Because my brain is essentially a pinball machine, I was thinking about that era in Western history when grave robbery was a serious problem due to the lack of cadavers for medical students to disect. See for example the 1788 "Doctors Riot" in NYC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1788_doctors%27_riot
It got to the point that there was a brisk industry in securing and booby-trapping coffins to thwart graverobbers and explains once and for all that fences around cemeteries were meant to keep visitors out, not keep the residents in.
Anyway, my brain started drawing a large number of disturbing parallels between18th-19th century grave robbery and the US AI industry. Entitled rich white male technologists engaging in creepy, gross, and very clearly illegal behavior woth the main justification that they don't feel bound by others telling them "No" - flagrant rejection of consent. Rather than human bodies, it's the body of human creative work being disenterred, carved up, rearranged, and dumped when the smart rich white boys have extracted all the value they can.
I am also available for childrens' birthday parties.
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