Michael Collins

Michael Collins

@ookb.bsky.social

Formerly @ook on twitter @ook@hachyderm.io on Mastodon Lurking here Work: Principal SDE at AWS (Computers and stuff) Non work: family, bikes, music, ski, coffee, dogs

105 followers303 following201 posts

Michael Collins reposted

Phreak: "Alright, what are the three most commonly used private keys?" Joey: "156, 115, 55. But not in that order, necessarily, right?" Cereal: "Yeah but don't forget 4. System operators love to use 4. It's that whole male ego thing."

Proportional Representation for the BC provincial elections would be amazing. I am in a 3 candidate riding and would happily have gone to vote early this morning if I could vote 1, 2; instead I’m looking at local news and stewing on if I need vote tactically or how I want to.

I am getting quite a few automated reach outs for exciting opportunities that are targeting the wrong person. Hopefully this new default reply will work!

@christineboyle.bsky.social as a councillor representing @onecityvan.bsky.social you were a pleasure to vote for. The NDP appear to be unaware of the climate crisis so it’s a much harder pill to swallow voting for you this month. Has no one from the NDP spent time in BC forests this summer??

David Eby@davidebybc.bsky.social

Today in Surrey I committed to cutting gas prices by up to 30 cents a litre.

A lovely article. It also makes it clear that bike courier probably isn’t a good fallback option if computers don’t work out…

The Tyee@thetyee.ca

Forty years ago, hundreds of bicycle couriers traversed the city’s streets, carrying cheques, court filings and needed-it-yesterday documents. Then came the fax machine. And the internet. And e-transfer, Docusign and Uber.

With some friends I am known for “fun” adhd moments like wearing mismatched shoes to work and not noticing until someone pointed it out in standup. Those friends will laugh at this mornings mixup - making an espresso tonic with an alcohol free beer instead of tonic. Not recommended.

Michael Collins reposted

‼️My bike was stolen last night from 41st and Main in Vancouver ‼️ It's a tan electric Muli, very unique. No battery on it when stolen. Please keep an eye out in your alley, bushes, or Fb Marketplace etc. I rely on this bike and really hope to be reunited! project529.com/garage/bikes...

Michael Collins reposted

ICYMI: the VPD budget increased by 48% from 2018 to 2024, but the number of traffic tickets they issue has fallen by 59% over that same time period. Why has traffic enforcement evaporated in Vancouver?

Vision Zero Vancouver@visionzerovancouver.ca

Can a municipal party claim to care about public safety if they neglect road safety? We take a look youtu.be/EEkmgteIkK0

I mean maybe 1.1 GB would have been enough, but it definitely needed > 1 GB. I really should have bought that extra stick of ram for my synology NAS at home in the before times.

Michael Collins reposted

With the closure on Broadway, drivers are rat running along 10th and completely ignoring the modal filter on Manitoba St, so we tried adding our own sign maybe it will help 😭 Or... the City could actually do something? (Meeting with them tomorrow!)

Michael Collins reposted

Days since someone on a bike was last hit at 10th and Main: re-set to 0 again. We have a meeting with the city about this in 6 days. Hopefully we can hold at 5 cyclist crashes (that we know of) between now and then.

Michael Collins reposted

Replying to @visionzerovancouver.ca

I live two blocks from the detour on Manitoba a block west of Ontario and I’ve biked by after two accidents at Broadway and Ontario. I just emailed them with this video clip showing 40 vehicles ignoring a no entry sign to rat run up to 10th during a 30 min period last month.

Today I have been unable to shake the idea that there is significant overlap between the Ralph Wiggum Loop and William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Speaking of which I need to clear out some junk records and pick up the reissue on vinyl.

Working on a side project I realized my fast personal machines are aarch64 (M1 MacBook Air and a few rpi4s with ssds). The x86_64 ones are slow (a 1 vCPU/1 GB ram VPS and a NAS with an old Celeron and HDDs). I installed Fedora on my kids old laptop this evening, hearing cpu fans is quaint.

It’s still rough, I need to spend a bit more time figuring out to get a decent search - I’ve built a 2gb set of vectors using a local embedding model and MLX but it doesn’t fit on a 1gb/1vcpu VPS so I need to experiment with PCA and quantization, plus fix bugs.

Michael Collins reposted

Michael Collins reposted

I just found out about @bccla.bsky.social through bccla.org/2025/09/reve... - I have donated and will send real letters this weekend. Multiculturalism is special. I fondly remember being told “you can call Canada home, we are multicultural” by a stranger at a party a year after I moved here!

bccla.orgReverse Kneecap Travel Ban - BC Civil Liberties AssociationBCCLA condemns the Liberal government’s unfounded, biased, and authoritarian decision to bar Irish-language rap group Kneecap from Canada, preventing them from performing their scheduled shows in Octo...

Ahhhh! I lost my daily streak on Good Sudoku! This and a slight sunburn are honestly the only downside to deciding to ignore my phone and spending a day outside in the sun while jet lagged on a work trip, heading to the office this morning so hopefully I can ignore my phone again today!

This is a truly magical project that reminds me of what the Internet is good for. (I haven’t listened to it all yet, but I will next time I have a quiet evening/night to myself)

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