Hiring System Administrators

My friend Bjorn wrote a series on hiring programmers, which made me think about the similarities and differences in hiring system administrators at non-profits. One thing I worry about is team diversity. I have never had to worry much about diversity, because my teams (which have been led to some degree or other by women) …

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D&D: Level 5 Bastion Special Facilities

After my DM pointed out an error on crafting time, I recalculated the production of Level 5 Bastion Special Facilities. At Level 9 Bastions can craft a range of magical items, but at Level 5 they’re almost all mundane.

D&D Bastion Notes

The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons has a whole chapter on Bastions, character homes/fortresses with special abilities and characteristics. We’ve been discussing them extensively and I have thoughts. The Maintain Bastion Order is broken. It prevents the Bastion from conducting any business (generating income or performing other useful tasks), and invites attack. …

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D&D 5E 2024 Multiple Attack Rules

The 2024 revisions of the D&D 5th Edition rules make many changes, and complicate multiple attacks per round even more. I spent some time trying to disentangle it all, and here’s what I came up with. Extra Attack Dual Wielding Example Notes

National Grid’s Amazingly Awful Autopay

A few weeks ago I changed my National Grid (NE US gas utility) autopay settings. When I finished the status was “Pending-Enrollment”. I was a little disconcerted, since I had no confirmation that I’d configured it correctly or it would work. So today I checked the website to make sure it was active, and saw …

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iPhone 15 Resolution Weirdness

For years iPhone camera resolution has been 3,024 × 4,032 = 12 megapixels. Last year the iPhone 14 Pro Main Camera (previously called Wide) was upgraded to 6,048 × 8,064 = 48MP, but actually seeing all those pixels required RAW mode, and those images could be 80 megabytes each. This made everything slow and awkward, …

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Tiv’s Banjo Jams

Our friend Tiv played banjo and guitar at Freddy’s last Friday. She started and ended with covers but the middle tunes were original. https://www.freddysbar.com/events/tivs-banjo-jams I hope to see more soon. Video Tiv’s Banjo Jams (playlist) Tiv’s Banjo Jams #1 (Instrumental) Tiv’s Banjo Jams #2 Tiv’s Banjo Jams #3 Blue Banjo Pickin’ Nails If the World …

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Great Soundtracks

Great soundtracks for great movies Blues Brothers Breakfast Club Buena Vista Social Club Chef From Dusk Till Dawn Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai Grosse Pointe Blank Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1 Hamilton Kill Bill Natural Born Killers Pulp Fiction Purple Rain Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Great soundtracks …

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Austin BBQ

Achievement unlocked I flew to Austin, TX for the SC15 conference. I had two personal goals: to eat BBQ for lunch or dinner every day, and to stay within Austin. Aside from visits to small towns around Austin (Wimberly for crafts, Johnson City for LBJ’s home, and Driftwood for the Salt Lick), I accomplished my …

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The Doubleclicks at The Way Station, with Sarah Donner, April 4, 2014

Photos Sarah Donner opened: Rogue Heartbreaker Bitches You Can Steal My Shit The Motherfucking Pterodactyl (see also the Oatmeal’s great animated video) The Rebuttal of Schroedinger’s Cat (no video available) The Kickstarter Song With Pride Signal Going under (in a Way) All My Guns Then The Doubleclicks played: Will They or Won’t They Worst Superpower …

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