I have a 'study' setup using a Boox Mira (portable 13" eink screen) for exactly this kind of use; not polyphasic in my particular case but late evening use. Yes, the screen is expensive, but _totally_ worth it.
SEEKING WORK - Remote, travel possible depending on location and duration.
Location: North-east UK
What I do: Senior backend dev / tech lead / fractional CTO
Most recently CTO of a regtech startup, in the past I've been a network engineer, run large-scale Debian installations doing devops before it had a name, and been responsible for servers in Antarctica. I have experience with a wide range of different Unix tools and technologies, at various levels of the stack. This gives me the ability—and the perspective—to pick the best combination of tools for any particular project, rather than simply treating everything as a nail because all I have is a hammer.
Previous work:
* Deterministic AI for medical device regulations and other complex legal systems, including novel language and runtime for regulatory computing (Elixir, Raku, Rust)
* EDI message passing / reconciliation for US dental health insurance market, including X12 parser (Clojure, Common Lisp, Perl, XQuery)
* Custom domain specific language (DSL) to encode business rules for computer vision system (Common Lisp)
* University library data migration project, with a focus on completeness and validation. (Clojure, Elixir, Ruby)
* High-reliability, long-term timelapse platform for inaccessible locations. (FreeBSD, Arduino, Python, Shell)
* Migration of existing Node.js+Firebase service to Golang+PostgreSQL on AWS
* Feasibility study investigating the possiblility of writing custom code to interface with a biometric timeclock (Common Lisp)
Got something you think is a good fit? Drop me a line at mike -at- lambdafunctions -dot- com
SEEKING WORK - Remote, travel possible depending on location and duration.
Location: North-east UK
What I do: I take MVPs that you’ve outgrown and upgrade them to support the next stage of your growth.
There could be any number of reasons why your current system is holding you back. Wherever you’re starting to feel the pinch, the price of ownership is that you don’t have the luxury of saying “that part’s not my problem” or “I don’t get involved at that level.”
You won’t hear it from me, either.
20 years handling a wide variety of IT roles and projects mean that I can help through the whole process from high-level strategy right down to code, all based on a deep technical foundation.
In the past I've been a network engineer, run large-scale Debian installations doing devops before it had a name, and been responsible for servers in Antarctica. I have experience with a wide range of different Unix tools and technologies, at various levels of the stack. This gives me the ability—and the perspective—to pick the best combination of tools for any particular project, rather than simply treating everything as a nail because all I have is a hammer.
Buzzwords: Debian, Ubuntu, AWS, PostgreSQL, Clojure, Elixir, Perl, Raku, Common Lisp, Rust, Ruby, Go
Got something you think is a good fit? Drop me a line at mike -at- lambdafunctions -dot- com
I just tried logging in and found that it hangs indefinitely. This seems to be because shhhbb.com has a AAAA record that the BBS isn't listening on:
> debug1: Connecting to shhhbb.com [2a01:4ff:1f0:8a78::] port 2223
If I connect with `ssh 5.78.86.154 -p 2223` instead I get in fine.
Maybe either have the server listen on v6 / adjust the packet filter or stop shhhbb.com resolving its AAAA address, which is currently taking priority for me.
Ah that's my mistake, thanks for finding that. I'll remove the record until I can get that added in later tonight, family time is in full effect right now - we're making enchiladas :)
edit: removed the AAAA for the moment, again thank you!
SEEKING WORK - Remote, travel possible depending on location and duration.
Location: North-east UK
What I do: I take MVPs that you’ve outgrown and upgrade them to support the next stage of your growth.
There could be any number of reasons why your current system is holding you back. Wherever you’re starting to feel the pinch, the price of ownership is that you don’t have the luxury of saying “that part’s not my problem” or “I don’t get involved at that level.”
You won’t hear it from me, either.
20 years handling a wide variety of IT roles and projects mean that I can help through the whole process from high-level strategy right down to code, all based on a deep technical foundation.
In the past I've been a network engineer, run large-scale Debian installations doing devops before it had a name, and been responsible for servers in Antarctica. I have experience with a wide range of different Unix tools and technologies, at various levels of the stack. This gives me the ability—and the perspective—to pick the best combination of tools for any particular project, rather than simply treating everything as a nail because all I have is a hammer.
Buzzwords: Debian, Ubuntu, AWS, PostgreSQL, Clojure, Elixir, Perl, Raku, Common Lisp, Rust, Ruby, Go
Got something you think is a good fit? Drop me a line at mike -at- lambdafunctions -dot- com
The soldiers who go abroad and commit murder and rape are also taking their civilization with them. Civilization is vital for our species’ continued success but it requires specific conditions to maintain. Each of us is capable of atrocious things.
We enforce rules in our society because they make that society better. Basic shared rules of behaviour are a precondition for social cohesion and prosperity, _not_ a luxury that we can only afford when everything else has been taken care of. This goes 10x in small groups in rigorous environments.
I wouldn't call resources in the Antarctic winter "incredibly scarce"; expeditions have been wintering South for decades now. We know what's required, and it's available, in quantity, with backups. It's true that people are trapped together for months at a time; we also rely on each other for survival. Under such circumstances, it's entirely backwards to claim "local society can't afford to have such strict standards." Just the opposite; strict standards of social behaviour are _required_ for the group cohesion and trust that's necessary for collaboration and survival.
A candidate who demonstrated this attitude would never get through BAS' hiring process. If, by some mischance, they did manage to make it South, they certainly wouldn't be overwintering.
Source: Wintered in Antarctica. Did not regress to the state of a caveman clad in penguin skins, nor did I become "prone to sexually harassing women."
I certainly won't claim that no harassment ever takes place; every wintering team is different, and I have no doubt that plenty of women _do_ experience some form of harassment or unwanted attention. When you live in a small, close-knit community with (generally) a large gender imbalance, there will be tensions.
What I object to is the unsubstantiated claim that Antarctica "brings out the animal in each of us"; that the environment is one of such privation that all those who venture there necessarily regress to some more basic form and that standards of civilized behaviour become something we can't afford, sacrificed on the altar of survival.
This is patently false, and frankly a very limited and limiting view of the human condition.
What you like to dismiss as a "personal anecdote" I'd prefer to call "multiple seasons of lived experience in the environment under discussion."
While I can't speak for the hiring procedures of other nations, the majority of the interview process for the British Antarctic Survey centres around the interpersonal side. If you're sitting in the interview in the first place you're assumed to be technically competent; once that bar is passed they select primarily for people who will survive the isolation and be able to work as independent members of a small society. Are the results perfect? Of course not -- failures happen and bad winters happen. But they are well aware of how important social dynamics are to the overall success of the winter.
So much preventative process and yet so much violence still occurs. The environment must be truly stressful. The concept of the animal within each of us isn’t metaphor—we are literally animals. Our environment strongly affects what sort of behaviors appear in the aggregate. This isn’t to disparage your character. This is to be aware that we are all capable of evil and we must be aware of it. Process alone cannot snuff out our instincts.
There are often openings for people with electronics engineering backgrounds for roles supporting science and met, as opposed to comms and base IT. It doesn't hurt to apply.
> Winterovers enjoy a variety of job duties during their estimated 12 to 13 month deployment at the South Pole. Technical duties include operating and maintaining the IceCube detector subsystems; operating and maintaining complex computer data systems at the South Pole; uploading the research data via satellite to the northern hemisphere; analyzing and resolving problems with the detector electronics; providing critical hardware and software support; writing and submitting weekly reports to the collaboration and monthly reports to the National Science Foundation; and participating in Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center outreach activities.
(Note that if that does interest someone, the application deadline is March 1)
