Billy Smith @BillySmith@mastodon.social

After losing my job to covid last March I've had a hell of a time trying to find tech work. I gave up for a bit and did some bike wrenching but it's not making ends meet so I'm back on the job lookin train.

I have 18 years experience, mostly in systems administration, mostly in windows, but my experience is really all over the place. I've worked for government, university, fortune 100, small firms, consulting, data analysis, information security, kind of a Jane of All Trades. I have an associates degree and a bachelor's degree, and nine certifications that are still mostly relevant, one of which is the MCITP.

What I'm most proud of is my ability to figure stuff out. I'm real clever. I'm also able to communicate with non technical staff as well as super nerds.

So what's up, fediverse. You got any jobs?

Does anyone know if there are good simple tools on Linux to detect network issues such as jitter, UDP/TCP dropped packets, ping issues over time?

Can be command line or gui but need to be slick and easy to install.

#networking

One day, I'd like to be an Unfluencer

I want to be able to crash any stock by just mentioning that I use the products/services of the company

Does anyone need another reminder not to use Google or bring anything but a non-identifiable burner phone to a direct action, and maybe not even that?

"The search warrant compelled Google to provide police with the account data on anyone who was “within the geographical region” of the AutoZone store when the violence began on May 27, two days after Floyd’s death."

https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/06/minneapolis-protests-geofence-warrant/

Minetest is a FOSS alternative to Minecraft, and has just received a major update. Follow at:

➡️ @Minetest

It's available for Linux, Mac, Windows, Android and BSD from the official site:

https://www.minetest.net

The update makes it much easier to access game modes and mods. If you haven't tried it in a while, it might be worth another look.

Also check out this world-building project called Illuna:

➡️ @illunaminetest

https://share.tube/videos/watch/d84239ab-55c0-4c19-bf5e-e1dd6a7b4b17

#Minetest #Minecraft #Alternatives #FOSS #Gaming

♲ @diane_a@pluspora.com:

❝Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.❞ — Jeremy Knowles, discussing the complete lack of recognition Cecilia Payne gets, even today, for her revolutionary discovery. (via alliterate)

OH WAIT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT CECILIA PAYNE

• Cecilia Payne won a scholarship to Cambridge.

• Cecilia Payne completed her studies, but Cambridge wouldn’t give her a degree because she was a woman, so she said to heck with that and moved to the United States to work at Harvard.

• Cecilia Payne was the first person ever to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe College, with what Otto Strauve called “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”

• Not only did Cecilia Payne discover what the universe is made of, she also discovered what the sun is made of (Henry Norris Russell, a fellow astronomer, is usually given credit for discovering that the sun’s composition is different from the Earth’s, but he came to his conclusions four years later than Payne — after telling her not to publish).

• Cecilia Payne is the reason we know basically anything about variable stars (stars whose brightness as seen from earth fluctuates). Literally every other study on variable stars is based on her work.

• Cecilia Payne was the first woman to be promoted to full professor from within Harvard and the first woman to head a science department at Harvard. She also inspired entire generations of women to take up science.

• Cecilia Payne is awesome and everyone should know her.

Interesting call with a guy from the Colorado Employee Ownership Office. Seems like there is more potential government support than there are actual projects looking for it. Interesting opportunity for coordinated grassroots efforts if we can organize them. @ntnsndr @clayton @ssvette @GeorgeCheney @care_save
#Cooperatives #colorado

This is how the lake freezes over

also here's what I was thinking when I was talking about dust bowl tarot.

(6/6) We will fix this. #pixelfed

How about a #TutorialTuesday !

Have you made a tutorial you'd like to share? What was the last tutorial you watched that was useful, that helped you and that you learned something from?

@cybernomad All nine of the energy management agencies in the USA are non-profit. ERCOT is one. All they do is manage the distribution of power at the top level and report data to the EIA. They have little or no direct authority over the utilities themselves and ERCOT is, of course, populated by cronies chosen by the utility companies.

The State of Texas sold all of its interests in the electrical grid (which is on public land) to private parties. Everything is owned privately in Texas. The impetus for this came from the private parties themselves -- a handful of wealthy investors who bribed politicians to get what they wanted, as usual in the USA.

They did this because if Texas as made independent from the US national grid, then federal regulations would not apply and they could build infrastructure more cheaply. That's how we ended up with non-winterized power plants and wind generators in Texas. The private owners wanted all the income but without making the investments in high quality equipment required by federal regulations. And, that's what they got.

When the winter storm was coming, utility officials lied right up to the last, when everything failed. They deliberately ignored the winter storm possibility -- something that's happened before. So they can't say they didn't know it was possible.

In the summertime especially, I watch this page on the EIA site that gathers real-time data from the nine agencies and breaks it down. www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/g…

In a recent toot I posted my #FreeCAD 3D model of my old (but still functional) Lulzbot AO-100 3D printer with mods I plan on doing.

The model actually links most of the parts from 75 external files. I was wondering whether the TechDraw workbench could generate views from it.

Apparently it can 😄 but it is extremely slow! It's no doubt partly due to extruder's herringbone gears (such complex surfaces are murder to compute), but the used HLR algo from OCC is also not very efficient.

1/x

mfw i realise Hawkwind have been going for 52 years

Hey everyone, do you know of any helpful tools/items for the home or kitchen that help with memory issues and/or ADHD?`

Building my desk and simultaneously considering the day I will take it apart and sell it.

More and more I see the things I do and make as sand mandalas. Something will come along and blow it all away.

It is still worth it to make it beautiful

I'm currently offering free future telling sessions by reading the numbers of your credit card. Also need to see the numbers on the back to be super accurate