Canopyflyer

30 year IT professional here, whose company is starting to utilize AI. So far for my workflow it does not provide any benefit. With that said, I am working with my team to find somewhere in our business and technical processes to make things better. It just hasn’t happened yet.

I am against it, but not dead set. What I am against are the insane things that are happening due to the over zealous investment into LLMs. The Three Mile Island #1 reactor is in the process of being brought back into operation by Microsoft, just to power an AI data center.

That is absolutely insane. TMI #1 is a 60 year old reactor design that was built over 50 years ago and that is at least two generations behind modern reactors. TMI #2 experienced a meltdown back in 1979, hence why it is not an option to bring back into operation. There are several documented issues with that reactor design (remember that #2 melted down? It was due to one of these issues.) that will require monitoring and processes in place to make sure the reactor stays safe. Monitoring that is not needed on more modern reactor designs.

Western Digital has announced that their entire production run of hard drives is completely sold out. Micron exited the consumer market in order to supply AI. So hard drive and memory prices are going to get even higher than what they are now. That means computers, phones, and any consumer device that uses memory or HDD storage will see massive price increases.

That’s the issue I have with LLMs. If the role out was anywhere near sane, then my attitude would be different. Right now it just looks like massive amounts of resources and money are being thrown into a pit with a dim hope that there would be some kind of return. Instead of a deliberate and planned role out that is sustainable in the long term.

Sometimes the complication is a smoke screen too.

Case in point… I picked up a contract to be the corporate Change Manager for a manufacturing company just before COVID. It’s the type of company that makes appliances and other things that are destined for the garbage pile. Not really anything of note.

The guy I was taking over for had put in his notice and was moving on and had 2 days to train me. Fortunately, the ITIL system they used was ServiceNow, which I already had a lot of experience with. He got to the monthly report and in his own words he called the method of generating it “byzantine” and it was a horrible process that took almost an entire day to finish. Fortunately, he gave me step by step instructions that were accurate.

Side note, the process for generating came from my boss. She was one of these people that had just enough intelligence to be dangerous. Yeah, this contract was a fun one.

So I used my decades of reporting experience and broke down how all the reports were generated. It turned out that the Director had never really learned how to use Pivot tables and that was why there were dozens of steps in generating about 7 different reports. I took about two days to write an Excel spreadsheet (because SNOW Reporting was not capable of generating some of these reports) and automated the entire thing. I ran the original process concurrently with my new spreadsheet for another month and they both generated the exact same numbers, I canned the old process.

But I did NOT tell a soul about it. Everyone, including my boss, thought I was still taking a full day to generate those stupid reports, when I was actually doing it in 5 minutes. 4 of which were waiting for ServiceNow to run its report and download it into a CSV file.

Oh I had tried to let my boss know that I had made myself a lot more efficient, she just got angry and actually yelled at me for a couple of minutes, then she promptly forgot about it. So I just kept it to myself after that. My plan was to just pass on the old process to the next poor schmuck to get this contract, but instead the reporting part of it was handed over to someone I actually liked. She told me flat out when she found out she was taking the Change Reporting piece that she was terrified of that process. So I had her sit with me at my desk and showed her the new spreadsheet. You would have thought I bought her a puppy.

So sometimes the complications in the business world are defense mechanisms for people’s time.

I am unable due to having signed an NDA.

But let’s just say the world is still here. You’re welcome.

I completely disagree that it’s not an issue.

That reactor is an OLD Babcock and Wilcox design that is at least two generations behind. The money and resources going into that pile of junk would be better spent on a new plant. Yes I’m well aware of the issues surrounding building new nuclear plants in the U.S. That’s a different conversation and not one I will enter into here. Sure in the short term, maybe even in the mid-term restarting that plant looks good on paper. However, that is still a reactor design that is over 60 years old and physically it is 50 years old. Not to mention the design has several documented short comings that require monitoring and processes that a new generation reactor would not need. Sure they’re not RBMK level of issues, but that reactor really should stay decommissioned.

It does not matter how many nuclear, solar, or wind plants that are built. The fact of the matter is that all of these resources, not just money, is being put into a technology, AI, that is of limited use at best at the present state of the technology.

The idiots are restarting Three Mile Island #1. All to power an AI data center.

Absolute insanity.

One of the most interesting words in the English language is the word “fuck.”

It can be used as:

As a transitive verb: “John fucked Mary.”

As an intransitive verb: “Mary was fucked by John.”

As a noun: “Mary is a fine fuck.”

As an adjective: “Mary is fucking beautiful.”

It can be used as a greeting: “How the fuck are you?”

Surprise: “FUCK! You scared the shit out of me.”

Anxiety: “The day is really fucked.”

It can even be used as nearly every word in a sentence: “Fuck the fucking fuckers.”

Je ne parle pas Francais.

We took a trip to Maui in 2024 and visited the Maui Pineapple farm where we got 3 pineapples. The tour also went into the pineapple’s lifecycle and how new pineapples are grown.

So… We potted the top of one of our pineapples. It’s been growing for just over a year. Actually, just this morning I noticed it is in need of replanting as it’s used up the soil.

Thank you dirthawker0 for giving me hope that we may one day have a pineapple.

Not my video, but I did ride it that year at the World Freefall Convention.

Quincy Helicopter Ride 1998

One time, this was back in my skydiving days so a very long time ago, the drop zone’s CASA 212 was down due to a bad hydraulic pump. The pump finally arrived and the DZO asked me to help him install it. He was a certified A&P, I just had a lot of experience wrenching on cars but it allowed me to get a lot of free jumps due to helping him out on things like this.

He handed me the pump, which was a LOT lighter than I expected and told me with a smile: “Don’t drop it.”

In inquired as to how much it cost and he replied: “$10,000.”

I was holding a pump in my hands that weighed barely 10 pounds that cost more than my car (this was circa 1998 or so).

A couple years later the igniter box on the port engine died and I helped him replace it… That was a cool $15000. The engines were about $250,000 a piece back in those days.

In 2016 I was hired onto a team at a national insurance company. We did Problem Management and Major Incident Management. When I was brought aboard there were five people on the team.

Problem Management, by its nature is not all that high stress. It can get sticky especially if you’re working a Problem that has the C-Suite’s attention, but most of the time you’re working with techs that just want to get things fixed.

Major Incident on the other hand is a baptism in fire. That brought that team together and we all got to the point that we watched each other’s backs and stepped in automatically when needed without having to be asked.

6 years after leaving that job, it was a contract position, I’m still in contact with almost all of the team.

I can smell them too.

It was fun to take a hammer and hit the entire roll at once. They actually made quite the noise.

For reference, I was born in 1970 so yeah I grew up with those things.

You are ready to own an airplane if you can wake up in the morning, burn a $100 bill and flush it down the toilet without feeling anything.

You are ready to own a helicopter when you can do the same thing, except with ten $100 bills.

Tush

With their albums:

Moving JPEGs with the #1 hit “Huckleberry Finn”

A Farewell to Wings with the top hit “Plane Crash”

Permanent Daves

Pesto

You’re probably correct… For most people’s mothers. No, I know mine and I’m positive it was a power play on her part. The reason why I say that is because when she died, my brothers, Dad and I went through her things and guess what we found?

If you guessed items that actually had value, either sentimentally or financially you’d get a prize.

So she purposely separated anything of value from the junk. Then gave the junk to me and my brothers. My brothers also went through their items and sure enough it was all junk. Of course the apples don’t fall too far from the tree. So when our Dad died two years ago my two brothers kept everything. We are all now permanently estranged as far as I’m concerned.

So yeah, I had a fun family growing up. My wife and kids are now fully protected and will never see those people again.

But just to be clear, my family is not rich. I’m not talking about enough money to make dealing with narcissistic power plays worth it.

When I took a class to get my Concealed Carry Permit, on the very first day the instructor made a very interesting statement.

“If you are somewhere where you feel you need a gun to feel safe… Why are you there in the first place?”

While I did go on to get my permit I never once carried. I never went anywhere where I felt I needed it. If I became uncomfortable at a location, I left.

Honestly, I just wanted that junk out of my house and my life. These were several very large and heavy boxes that I had been obliged to haul around for nearly 30 years, all because my mother was playing one of her power games over me. My mother was so far up Cluster B that they probably should add a letter.

I did not want to shackle anyone else with it, because who would have bought it? Other assholes to keep around till they foist it off on their kids or some other unsuspecting schmuck. It was all mass produced garbage. The “China” dishes that were supposed to be “fine” were listed on Ebay and a couple of other sites for $1 each. My mother insisted they were extremely expensive and sought after. I never used them because I was afraid of breaking them. The crash they made when I flung the box into the dumpster was cathartic and healing.

So while it might have been a bit of a waste, it wasn’t as much of a waste as you might think and nobody needs it.

She still asks on occasion, but she takes me more seriously when I say it’s nothing all that important.

Oh if I’m thinking through something that we both need to have a say in I absolutely share my thoughts as she does with me. j

I had just bought a Camry Hybrid and my wife and I were driving in it doing errands… I have a tell when something is on my mind and my wife invariably asks what it is. Usually it really isn’t anything significant and that time was no different…

Except…

I launched into a very detailed explanation as to how the Toyota Hybrid Synergy system really works and it lasted till we got home… Did I mention we had three stops and we’re on our way to the first?

She has not asked what is on my mind since.

LOL. That would be funny.

But no, my wife and I went through every piece, opened all the lids. No fortune.