Michael Ekstrand

@md

Info sci prof @ Drexel, trying to keep the machines (esp. RecSys & IR) from learning bigotry and discrimination. ADHDS9. Usually self-propelled. Opinions those of the Vulcan Science Academy. 🐰x2. 🏡 🧪

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Michael Ekstrand@md· 15d

origin story for Robert De Niro’s character in Brazil.

Robert De Niro as Harry Tuttle, rogue HVAC repairman, in Brazil.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Jun 2

New campaign, new character! Started this concept for a runner in @reverierebels.bsky.social Echoes of the Veil system/setting a while ago, and get to play her in a new run starting this month. Paladin of a faith built around 1985–2010 video gaming (that is forgotten myth by the setting’s time).

Duchess grew up in an isolated cult commune/village deep in the Echo’s Fringe. Several generations ago, scouts found some ancient archives from the pre-Abyss world that included, among other things, an extensive collection of PC Gamer magazines (and probably a few other similar ones), which they started to interpret as religious texts. Duchess is Sparked, the first in the village to manifest inherent WEIRD abilities (they’ve had a few Attuned). The elders take her WEIRD visions as a sign that she is blessed by the ancient prophets for her piety.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 31

I would really like to know the full context for this quote. Is a bunch of stuff elided, or is the line really that this isn’t so bad just because it preserves indirect? The OMB proposal is far more destructive than screwing with indirect.

At the same time, professional and higher education organizations that have lobbied OMB not to overturn the current system of indirect cost reimbursement are grateful for its decision to maintain the status quo. “It provides us some breathing room for further discussions about a better solution that is fair and that increases accountability and transparency,” says Debbie Altenburg of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 29

I've beaten Balatro on most of the decks but then I see people out here on the 42nd Ante and how do you even? I don't think I've gotten past 10th.

The Wadi leader from DS9 “Move Along Home”, with the caption “Forty-second shap”.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 29

Ok, if Dats is cheating, I’ll work with Madame Vastra.

A screenshot of a green-skinned reptilian woman and a human woman in a Victorian snowstorm, with the caption “Good evening. I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time and this is my wife.”

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 24

A Star Trek Enterprise title card, reading “Post-9/11 Militarism (Part XIV)”.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 23

Deep Space 9 title card saying “Revenge of Pope Karen”.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 23

Deep Space Nine title text over a picture of the station, saying “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.”

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 19

New things are coming! #recsys

A screenshot of a terminal, showing the command "lenskit pipeline diagram" producing an in-terminal diagram of a recommender pipeline.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 16

I don’t have a good Bond handy, but Shohreh Aghdashloo for M?

A photo of Chrisjen Avasaralla in The Expanse, wearing a red leather jacket, saying “sometimes I fucking hate being right”.

Michael Ekstrand@md· May 14

Michael Ekstrand@md· Apr 28

I haven't put $$ on it yet, but pulling 50% from my ass, this is probably about what I would need to bring LensKit CI on-prem.

- 2-5x x86-64 (V3/Haswell/Zen or later) boxen
- 1-2 w/ in-support NVidia GPU
- SFF fine
- non-GPU can be mini PCs
- all with at least 256GB SSD, more is better
- Windows Server license
- 1-2x Mac Mini, 16+GB RAM
- older ARM Mac Mini w/ good Asahi Linux support (or comparable ARM Linux box)
- can consider running in VM on Mac Mini instead
- Optional and expensive: Dell GB10 (or other DGX Spark)
- Optional, relatively cheap, but low priority: Intel Mac Mini
- Future: Windows ARM box

Coordination server and storage can live on current NAS.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 29

This passage broke me then, and still sits with me. “Good guy with a gun” designs for social safety amount to giving up on the concept of civilian life. No thanks.

One in three Americans knows someone who has been shot. As long as a candid discussion of guns is impossible, unfettered debate about the causes of violence is unimaginable. Gun-control advocates say the answer to gun violence is fewer guns. Gun-rights advocates say that the answer is more guns: things would have gone better, they suggest, if the faculty at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Chardon High School had been armed. That is the logic of the concealed-carry movement; that is how armed citizens have come to be patrolling the streets. That is not how civilians live. When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 27

I am reminded many times of this exchange from A Man for All Seasons. Laws and legal frameworks that protect Meta and YouTube also protect smaller social platforms that may be trying to provide the safer experience we want.

William Roper: "So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!"
Sir Thomas More: "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
William Roper: "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
Sir Thomas More: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 27

This is really important. The consequences of legal theories and legal rulings matter. I want to find ways to hold tech companies accountable for the harms they inflict, but product liability seems to me like an own goal for that effort.

And it gets worse. Some of the most damaging evidence in both trials came from internal company documents where employees raised concerns about safety risks and discussed tradeoffs. These were played up in the media (and the courtroom) as "smoking guns." But that means no company is going to allow anyone to raise concerns ever again. That's very, very bad.
In a sane legal environment, you want companies to have these internal debates. You want engineers and safety teams to flag potential risks, wrestle with difficult tradeoffs, and document their reasoning. But when those good-faith deliberations become plaintiff's exhibits presented to a jury as proof that "they knew and did it anyway," the rational corporate response is to stop putting anything in writing. Stop doing risk assessments. Stop asking hard questions internally.
The lesson every general counsel in Silicon Valley is learning right now: ignorance is safer than inquiry. That makes everyone less safe, not more.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 16

Me: I’m in the mood for a period film. Maybe a gangster movie? No, a musical. Wait, a vampire flick. Ryan Coogler:

The pawn shop guys, with the caption “best I can do is all four”.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 15

My photos have quite a few matches, including a Calvin & Hobbes strip, stat blocks for Descent into Avernus war machines, various GIFs and screen caps. And this.

Hawkeye and the chaplain in MASH, masked in an operating theater as Hawkeye operates.

C: Oh, everybody knows war is hell.

H: War isn't hell. War is war, and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

C. How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

H. Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to hell?

C. Well, sinners, I believe.

H. Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in hell.
But war is chock full of them-little kids, cripples, old ladies.
In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 15

#ides

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 10

This is how I access Bluesky.

Sam Lowry and a colleague in the film Brazil, talking by a strange CRT teletype.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 8

4-pane image of Bashir and Garak

B: we’re watching all the Star Trek?

G: yes, my dear doctor

B: even the bad Star Trek?

G: especially the bad Star Trek.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Mar 7

God forbid a man have hobbies.

The vampire Lord Harkon from Skyrim, scheming from his lair to acquire a magic arrow that will blot out the sun and let vampires rule the land

Michael Ekstrand@md· Feb 14

This is a really good read, but IMO may underestimate MAGA depravity here. Jan Mickelson, WHO radio talk show host, proposed enslaving undocumented immigrants. Doug Wilson, leader of Hegseth’s denomination CREC, downplays slavery’s evil and called the antebellum South the last Christendom.

Like many “ideas” that have been issued from the Oval Office, this one doesn’t seem to have been thought through with any clarity or even common sense. Even the most diehard Maga supporters would probably agree that slavery is, by definition, “bad”. It’s not a delusional fantasy of woke ideologues to suggest that it’s wrong to whip and shackle, to buy and sell our fellow human beings.

Consequently, the only way to avoid making slavery look “bad” is not to mention it at all, not to admit that it ever existed, not to acknowledge that from our country’s inception to the end of the civil war, this crime against humanity was perfectly legal.

Michael Ekstrand@md· Jan 26

Michael Ekstrand@md· Jan 18

#DS9 specifically I did not remember if the Irishman suffered, but he isn’t going on then ship, so I think he’ll suffer another day. It’ll be The Horrors of War! (Also, it’s E13, not E12.)

From wongbal on Tumblr.

Hello and welcome to Deep Space Nine. We are a space station, not a starship, so you'll be spending a lot of time with all these delightful side characters like: bisexual fashion lizard. hologram of Frank Sinatra. goblins. goblin comes in 3 varieties: bartender, nephew, and idiot. our doctor is a twink, our commander is antifa and the captain talks to the gods sometimes. our policeman is sometimes a liquid and the science lady is part worm. we have many fine storylines, such as: Goblin Does A Crime, Watch The Irishman Suffer, or The Horrors Of War. As you stroll along our promenade enjoying a raktajino or delicious jumja stick, watch out for our nefarious villains: Pope Karen. clones of Jeffrey Combs. and a horny bastard reptile man who seems convinced this is actually his show. we suspect he may be possessed by demons. Have fun!
Deep Space Nine: now with Worf™!

Michael Ekstrand@md· Jan 14

Hey Firefox, why are you recommending stenographed official attempted slander on my new tab page?

A screenshot of the New Tab page in Firefox. Under "Popular Today", the first and largest article is from CBS News, with a headline and lede quoting Donald Trump saying that murdered Minnesota mother Renee Good's actions "were pretty tough".

Michael Ekstrand@md· Dec 28

Would love a painting of this goofy little guy! (Not sure which pic works best as reference.)

Michael Ekstrand@md· Dec 24

I was looking for how to manage secrets in Woodpecker CI.

"Search Assist", claiming "Woodpecker secrets refer to the unique adaptations of woodpeckers, particularly their long tongues, which help them access food hidden in tree crevices. These specialized tongues can be coiled inside their heads and are essential for their feeding habits."

Michael Ekstrand@md· Dec 20

The #1 movie the year you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go: Chaotic, full of questionable aesthetic choices, and generally remembered as an inferior offering? I hope not, I’m going up for second tenure. (Yes, Batman Forever out-grossed Toy Story, according to Wikipedia.)

Michael Ekstrand@md· Dec 13

who wrote an unnecessary opinionated web server?

The Ghoul from Fallout (TV series), having captured Lucy, explaining the wasteland’s golden rule: “thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time.”

Michael Ekstrand@md· Dec 9

You will be visited by three spirits.