On the ethical use of LLMs
The ethics of LLM use can be reduced to “don’t use it and not expect to get found out”
Computer care
Apple’s MacBooks and iPads, and Microsoft’s Surfaces, have blurred the lines between “computer” and “personal electronic device”, so I feel like we’ve forgotten about those things on our desks at work with Dell or HP written on them. Desktop computers, sometimes called towers, are sensitive snowflakes, with very narrow margins for error. That’s why redundancyContinue reading Computer care
WordPress upgrade failure? Check your AUTO_INCREMENT settings
Recently one of the websites I maintain, which runs WordPress, had not been updated in a while. When I checked, it said the usual: Update WordPress Another update is currently in progress. As you can imagine, there wasn’t another update in progress. Anyone who uses a search engine lately will see hundreds, if not thousands,Continue reading WordPress upgrade failure? Check your AUTO_INCREMENT settings
I closed my Vimeo account
According to Variety, Vimeo is going private: Bending Spoons, based in Milan, Italy, has acquired a number of digital technology businesses, including Evernote, Issuu, Meetup, Remini, StreamYard, Splice and WeTransfer. The company claims its products are currently used by more than 300 million people each month. After Vimeo said they would double their subscription price,Continue reading I closed my Vimeo account
I’m doing a show at Calgary Fringe!
Last year I said I’m writing a comedy show. Well, the script is (mostly) settled, at over 7,000 words, and I’m performing the solo 60-minute monologue on stage from 5 to 9 August 2025, as part of the Calgary Fringe Festival. Tickets are now on sale, and here’s my promo video to get you excited.Continue reading I’m doing a show at Calgary Fringe!
Back in the arms of Hetzner
A long time ago I used to host with Hetzner Africa. After moving to Canada I decided to go with a North American host for my customers and moved to Site5. Then I went to Liquid Web, (and for some time, WPEngine for bornsql.ca). Now I’m back with Hetzner, running on a dedicated box hostedContinue reading Back in the arms of Hetzner
Broken links aren’t broken, after all
Two blog posts in a week! It’s like 2006 all over again. But seriously, I figured out a really annoying side-effect of moving back from WP Engine to my own hosting six months ago, and that is that file and folder permissions were set incorrectly (WPE for some reason uses 700 for folders, and 664Continue reading Broken links aren’t broken, after all
I work at Microsoft
On 24 January 2022, I started what I suspect is the last stage* of my IT career, at Microsoft. I joined the Database Docs team, one of 8 people (including our manager), together responsible for over 16,000 articles on the Microsoft Learn platform. I am the owner of the SQL Server on Linux and SQLContinue reading I work at Microsoft
Reverse engineering WordPress, kinda
Recently, a friend (Janie Larson, A.K.A. the Red Queen Coder) asked me to take over hosting of her website. Unfortunately, because of boring technical reasons, she wasn’t able to back up the WordPress database, and so I used a tool called SiteSucker Pro to download it as-is as a static HTML entity. We would comeContinue reading Reverse engineering WordPress, kinda
On the real meaning of intelligence
(Originally posted on LinkedIn.) OpenAI’s ChatGPT is not intelligent. It is distilling knowledge fed into it by humans mining billions of data points. It’s a glorified chess computer. I am deeply concerned that this will increase the amount of misinformation floating around, because it has the confidence programmed into it by the very people whoContinue reading On the real meaning of intelligence