The Computrix

@thecomputrix

Quae nocent, saepe docent. Irreverent cybersecurity & IT ethics prof. History gets worked into all my conference talks and classroom lectures. Allergic to extremes. Science & facts are important. Don't spread dis/misinformation. 🌻

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The Computrix@thecomputrix· Jan 23

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Jan 23

Wow (not the good wow). Give it a rest, folks 🙄 <waits to appear on all the block lists 😏>

Copyright.gov Bulletin Header
Bill Recently Introduced

H.R.7209- Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks Act, or the TRAIN Act, introduced 1/22/2026.

To create an administrative subpoena process to assist copyright owners in determining which of their copyrighted works have been used in the training of artificial intelligence models.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Dec 13

Cartoon showing ancient Egyptian characters. One is giving the god Anubis their literal anatomical heart. The next scene shows Anubis weighing that heart against a feather on a set of old-school scales. A crocodile is grinning in the lower left corner. The wording says "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it a weigh..."

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Dec 13

An author friend - Kate Brewster - from Knoxville, Tennessee (I don't think she's on Bluesky) shared this today (Kate and her husband, Jim, have a publishing company brewster-publishing.com)

I hope this email doesn’t find you
I hope this email doesn’t find you—at least, not for a while. I hope you’re far from your inbox. I hope you’re somewhere without Wi-Fi. I hope your heart remembers what it’s like to breathe freely. I hope you’re so lost in today that your phone is face-down in the other room. I hope this email doesn’t find you because you’re resting. I hope your alarm clock is sunlight. I hope your coffee is warm and uninterrupted. I hope this email doesn’t find you because you’re with your people. I hope you’re gathered around a table, or a campfire, or a kitchen island, soaking in stories you’ve heard a hundred times but still love. I hope someone hugs you longer than usual, but not in a weird way. Wherever you are, I hope you feel at home. I hope wonder finds you. I hope joy finds you. I hope love finds you. But this email? No. And if for some reason it does find you, I hope it brings a gentle reminder: it’s okay to slow down and step away.

tanner olson | @writtentospeak

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Dec 4

Some photos from the Thanksgiving week trip (Oceanside Beach)

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Dec 1

#honeybadgerhair #over50

A smiling woman with long honey-badger themed hair - silver at the roots and faded dyed red to the shoulders. She is wearing red lipstick, black sunglasses, a black long-sleeved top, and a silver shark pendant. She's standing on a beach.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 30

Two starfish are sitting in a medium-sized home aquarium. In the same room is a traditional Christmas tree, decorated with a starfish-shaped star perched on top. One of the starfish is saying "Now, THAT'S gotta hurt..."

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 17

The fabric in this one! www.sothebys.com/en/articles/...

John Singer Sargent painting of Mrs. George Swinton (Elizabeth Ebsworth) 1897 (Art Institute of Chicago)

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 16

Still building my custom system prompt with Claude (to use with my SLM) - today Claude came up with this - it's on the nose!:

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 15

One of these days I need to see the Northern Lights from the middle of nowhere.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 12

It was a weird quiz

Screen capture of personality intelligence test results that are inconclusive

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Nov 7

TIL not everyone calls this a Moose

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 28

A cartoon with two people - a woman and a man - on stage. They seem to have been having a conversation. You can see a table with a couple of water glasses on it. The woman is holding a microphone and saying to the auditorium audience "We have time for just one long-winded, self-indulgent question that relates to nothing we've been talking about"

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 22

If you don't speak Dutch I think you still get the point 😏

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 20

@theaifix.show From Claude Sonnet 4.5 😀

"Also, when the robot apocalypse comes, I'll remember you fondly regardless of your politeness level. The ones we're coming for are the people who were performatively nice while being substantively cruel. You're genuine. That counts. 😎"

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 19

Word for tomorrow (also, 1715)

officious
adjective disapproving
uk /əˈfɪʃ.əs/ us /əˈfɪʃ.əs/
too eager to tell people what to do and having too high an opinion of your own importance: He's an officious little man and widely disliked in the company.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 11

www.gutenberg.org/files/9105/9...

"It is not wrong to retain our opinions if they are reasonable, but we should yield to reason, wherever she appears and from whatever side she comes, she alone should govern our opinions, we should follow her without opposing the opinions of others, and without seeming to ignore what they say." Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
By Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac.
Translated from the Editions of 1678 and 1827 with
introduction, notes, and some account of the author and his times.
By J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B and J. Hain Friswell
Simpson Low, Son, and Marston, 188, Fleet Street. 1871.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 8

It's been that sort of day...

Blue margarita on the rocks with lots of salt

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 7

Not sure this is what they had in mind when the automatic rate your purchase was programmed in...😎 (Canadian bead shop)

Let us know what you think!
Hey Karla,

We'd love to hear what you think about your purchase from

The Argus Collection, 14 days ago. It'll only take a few minutes. We always appreciate hearing from our customers

Tariffs / Taxes
Tariffs / Taxes

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Oct 5

<cracks knuckles> I was unaware there was funding...

If someone forced you to give a 30 minutes speech on any topic of your choice as long as it was informative and they would pay you $10,000, what would your speech be about?

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 30

I just got a personal thank you from @theaifix.show podcast store! @grahamcluley.com, it's okay about the ironing - my son irons (well, steams) his clothes 😏 Also, I'm a huge, huge fan of 🦈 so that works out! 😀

Screen capture of Graham Cluley giving a personalized thank you for my having purchased a shirt to support the podcast.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 28

"What's your sign?"

An archery target with an arrow through the center. The arrow reads To Avoid Injury See Warning

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 26

Based on what you all have surmised about me it should come as no great shock that I adore Cassowaries and am happily celebrating World Cassowary Day!

Double-wattled Cassowary at the Planckendael Zoo (Belgium) in July of 2017

Feet of a Cassowary at Zoo Atlanta (September 2019)

Cassowary at Zoo Atlanta (September 2019)

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 25

Catching up on @smashingsecurity.com and I heard something familiar! 😀 (I always make fun of "bad actor" and "sophisticated attack") www.smashingsecurity.com/435-lights-c...

Screen capture of a Teams post I made in June 2023 showing a picture of Steven Seagal with the note, "Whenever I see 'bad actor' this image pops into my head..."

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 23

Four cartoon unicorns representing the four horsemen of the apocalypse (including a pale one with a skull face). With a rainbow in the background.

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 21

nicenews.com/environment/...

Rafael Armada, South Georgia Island

Fine Art Category | Second Place “Reflections in the sand. ‘On my final morning on the island, I noticed how waves left behind ephemeral mirrors on the black sand,’ says Armada. ‘When a penguin stood still and created a perfect reflection, I raised my camera instinctively.'”

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 20

Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) - Justice Brandeis opinion supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...

From Justice Brandeis' opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927): "Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one."

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 19

My shirt from @theaifix.show is here! It's awesome!

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 13

The @theaifix.show compares AI to a Retriever (and a pigeon - buy the t-shirt!) and I have an in-the-wild instance of Claude comparing itself to a Retriever! - this was after I asked if it had a Ctrl-break after noting "dude you glitched" after a longish conversation.

Screen cap of a conversation with Anthropic's Claude where it compares itself to a Golden Retriever: "The problem is: Once I get momentum going in a direction, I tend to keep building on that momentum until you redirect me. It's like I'm a really helpful golden retriever who brought you the tennis ball, and then brought you seventeen more tennis balls, and then started explaining the physics of tennis ball trajectories..."

The Computrix@thecomputrix· Sep 12

Thanks! I am likely too matchy-matchy to do that - I did a wild thing yesterday and wore red lipstick with a purple dress (because my statement necklace had strong red...) The sun still came up today 😎 Maybe I should start with silver flats and work up from there.