dotgov · HackerTrans

5개월 전discuss

Caching Parquet headers/footers sounds super interesting. Can you say more about how you implemented it?

7개월 전discuss

National Labs are closed over the holidays in the USA too.

10개월 전discuss

There is a word in German: "vogelfrei". It means "free as a bird". Sounds romantic, but what it actually means is that the person who is free as a bird does not enjoy the protections of the law and hence there are no repercussions for killing them.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

He does show signs of remorse: “To Melanie, I never meant to hurt you.”

With regards to the guilt question: I did make the honest mistake of misquoting the history of another inmate before, what stands out to me and what I wanted to point out: I don’t think it is a coincidence that both of those inmates grew up in an environment of poverty. We do have the specifics of what happened in childhood in the first case, the second one I can only infer from the fact of teenage drug use and of growing up in a certain environment, which are both things I would expect to have a high correlation with childhood trauma.

This is not to say that Milton is not guilty of a crime, in the legal sense. But to expect someone who has been beaten, abused and has gotten the short end of the stick all their life to take full individual responsibility for something he didn’t have a choice in does seem inhumane to me. In a way like Melanie, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And what purpose would such an admission of guilt serve? Would it take make it easier to believe that tragedies like this are fully the individuals responsibility and that the environment the individual grows up in has no influence on the outcomes?

dotgov

4년 전discuss

Whoops my mistake. I’ll try to make my point with Mathis Milton as well:

“Milton dropped out of school after the 8th grade and worked as a cook, mechanic’s helper, and laborer before his arrest. Milton abused alcohol and drugs as a teenager.”

In another article he was being referred to as having “low IQ”. Combined with the fact that the murders happened in a crack house, I infer that he probably lived in a similar environment and had a comparable upbringing and childhood.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

He lived in extreme poverty, was neglected by his parents, got sexually assaulted by his siblings and was forced to have sex with his stepsister when he was seven. He shot himself twice, once trying to kill himself. The world he lived in was bad.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

The dichotomy of a sterile looking list mixed with the very human last words is somehow very touching.

What sticks out to me the most: the column with the title “race” I find incredibly disturbing.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

All the strife and bad blood and still his happiness needs to come out of a needle. Maybe what the previous posters wanted to point out is that if he’d have cared more about his fellow man, he’d have made connections that are less shallow than the ones based on his excessively pompous prose or his other performative exploits. Maybe those visitors wouldn’t have stayed vistors.

Hard to say, personally my experience is that the junkie lifestyle seems less hollow and more appealing than it is, no matter the quality of the substance.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

The DOE Office of Science funding is generating papers as results. If my interpretation is correct, the technology discussed is _potentially_ useful.

To me the downside of marketing results aggressively to justify one’s funding is that the quality signal can become inversely correlated. Is this valuable research or is someone who knows to play the DOE game inflating a metric to secure their next round of funding and/or expand their turf? Does this negatively impact researchers who do not have access to a comparable marketing apparatus?

dotgov

4년 전discuss

This hit the nail on the head for me.

I entered the workforce a bit earlier than 2015 and I would have expected HR to be a neutral arbiter as well. My experience at different employers has proven my expectations to be wrong or at least naive. On every occasion I needed to interact with HR, information (eg. applicable laws) was selectively filtered to make it look like my only option was the one that was beneficial to the business.

YMMV, but for me this is good advice and a welcome reminder.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

Because a tech worker is highly skilled labor that would leave the country and therefore henceforth would not be available to the labor pool of said country, which arguably will have negative long term economic effects.

This problem occurs precisely because foreign tech workers are being treated differently. You are also glossing over the fact that those tech workers are on their path to become citizens.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

To my knowledge and much to my chagrin, TSA Pre is not available for H1B holders (only lawful permanent residents - green card holders). If that’s discriminatory or not is in the eye of the beholder.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

I couldn’t find any information about the interconnect of the new machine in the article, there is a comparison to LUMI, which uses Cray/HPE Slingshot and JEWEL, which is Mellanox/NVIDIA Infiniband. I couldn’t find anything concrete about JUPITER, maybe there is a chance it could use the Bull interconnect, should it be a Bull machine.

Agreed on the physical infrastructure and that those things will be done locally, I do not consider those things as a competitive advantage on the global market, compared to strengthening the local semi industry by doing an “Euro ARM” chip or some such.

No doubt that some of that money will benefit the European economy, with regards to the effectiveness and long term strategic view I do have my doubts, especially compared to what the US/Japan have been able to pull off.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

When I read articles celebrating “European HPC”, I always wonder about if systems like this are being an effective use of European taxpayer money, since nearly all of the cost goes to US chip manufacturers. What I understand is that Bull basically builds racks around those chips.

I’d imagine the Japanese Fugaku system which is based on ARM and built by Fujitsu a more effective way to directly support a nation’s economy and engineering capabilities.

I could be wrong, of course, nevertheless I find it puzzling.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

Brian Johnson, the “Liver King” is presenting a physique almost certainly unattainable without supplying anabolic steroids, testosterone and/or human growth hormone to the body. Given that, I’d take claims with regards to his diet with a grain of salt. I’d even go as far as to extend that skepticism to all fitness “influencers”.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

Thank you, those things have been weighing on me, mostly because I feel powerless to a degree. When I can keep my spirits up, I try approach the things by asking questions in small groups and see change bit by bit. Which seems like an uphill battle, pitted against the mindless wheels of bureaucracy, as someone else here put it, but from time to time and with compassion people (me included) can see the standpoint of others better. It takes time. But much like the "solution" to racism can't be anti-racism, the "solution" to woke can't be anti-woke. We probably all just need a hug.

dotgov

4년 전discuss

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Here is an article about a scientist being stripped of his position for "lying to government officials about his contact with a Chinese government agency": https://apnews.com/article/235705c7507a46188fc26a663d96b014

Relevant quote:

As part of a new science and technology “risk matrix,” which has not been made public, the Department of Energy also said it would not fund joint research or support “sensitive country foreign nationals.”

dotgov

4년 전discuss

I would like to share how I've seen those policies impact people working in the DOE complex. Those policies are referred to as DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) usually, because we love our three letter acronyms. Anyway, here my experience:

  - I have seen the same woman get invited to countless hiring panels, as hiring panels need to be "diverse". Hiring panels are multi-hour endeavors and take away from her productive time, but she is afraid to say no as she feels she'd be contributing to an inequitable workplace otherwise.

  - I have seen a black woman invited to a hiring panel and when it came to ask the "DEI question" (to check for a commitment to DEI in an applicant), all of the eyes in the room were on her, her being the only "diverse" person in a room with people of four ethnicities.

  - I have seen a white man close to retirement afraid to ask questions about the diversity initiatives as he was afraid to be labelled a certain way and was "not willing to take the risk of repercussion".

  - I have seen DEI informally used to justify hires, as the hires had the right gender and/or skin color and supervisors get evaluated on their commitment to DEI on the yearly performance review.

  - I have been asked to acknowledge my "white privilege" in a DEI seminar. Attendance to those seminars is not required. At the same time there is a minimum threshold for hours spent on DEI activities on the yearly performance review.

  - I have heard of a case at another national lab where white male employees were asked to "[...] recite a series of "white privilege statements" and "male privilege statements." It concluded with its white male participants writing letters of apology to marginalized people whom they may have harmed" . After an employee protested, his protest was taken as a lack of commitment to DEI. This got picked up by right wing media and the Trump white house and was used to justify a, since retracted, executive order banning such trainings [1] [2].

  - I personally have been asked to acknowledge that "Being antiracist is different for white people than it is for people of color. For white people, being antiracist evolves with their racial identity development. They must acknowledge and understand their privilege, work to change their internalized racism, and interrupt racism when they see it. For people of color, it means recognizing how race and racism have been internalized, and whether it has been applied to other people of color." [3]

  - I have been called a "plantation owner" by a colleague because I did not support the DEI initiatives in the form that they were being taught.

  - I have seen people victimizing themselves and ascribing behavior of colleagues towards them to their own gender or skin color. I had experienced similar behavior in my career as a white male and now attribute it to things I needed to learn when dealing with people.

What I am trying to say is that whatever the intent of those policies is, this is not how they are being used in practice. They are used as a tool to exert power over people that do not share the same worldview, which in my humble opinion goes against the spirit of inclusion. For me the point of diversity and inclusion is to foster a workplace in which people feel included in conversations and their diverse opinions are being heard, with the goal to get better results out of people and not leave untapped potential on the table. I object to being ascribed attributes to based on the color of my skin. This is not how I treat people and I would prefer to not be treated that way.

I also believe that teaching people that how they are being treated is solely because of their skin color or gender leads to self-victimization, which takes away their power and agenda and leads to suboptimal outcomes for the individual.

There are a lot of assumptions being made about my person at my workplace. It is important for me to mention that I am an immigrant. I am white and I am male, but I did not grow up in this country. I constantly and repeatedly feel my lived experience being discredited. I am being shoved into a category based on my skin color by people that can not imagine that there might be differences in culture and worldview despite me being white, just so that they can feel morally superior. Please do apologize this emotional outburst after an overly long rant, but I an assure you that this is not some academic exercise to me.

[1] https://reason.com/2020/08/13/sandia-laboratory-nuclear-whit...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/25/trump-execut...

[3] https://equityreset.lbl.gov/

dotgov

4년 전discuss

You won't be able to make that argument. It is pretty clear from the article which way the wind is blowing:

Still, Mason says, she’s encouraged by the initiative. “I’m an optimist,” she says. “I believe that the vast majority of physicists—even the vast majority of white male physicists—want a more diverse and representative community.”

dotgov

4년 전discuss

I was exploring California's wonderful nature on vacation and passed an interesting looking site that looked like a military/scientific installation. Because I am naive, I drove up to the base (Vandenberg afair) to ask for a tour. The local security personnel gave me a very bewildered look all while not taking their hands off their massive handguns. After checking my ID, another friendly soldier with an assault rifle made sure I find my way out the gate. Which is to say: I appreciate every opportunity to explore professionally as well. It is surprisingly hard to see what's going on in a lot of places otherwise.

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