David Andersen

David Andersen

@daveandersen.bsky.social

Computer Science Professor, CMU; co-founder and CTO, Enriched Ag Energy-efficient computing, a dash of security, and a pinch of databases. Also on Mastodon (https://hachyderm.io/@dave_andersen ) signal: dga.48 he/him

1.3K followers902 following3.7K posts

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Broke a spoke on the e-bike and have had to drive the kids around on the most beautiful Pittsburgh cycling week imaginable. 😿 (On the bright side, I've gotten in a little more time on my road bike, which has been languishing, and that's been nice. Except it reminds me that uphill is hard. 🤓)

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Me: ha-ha, I'm so glad my blog runs on a static site generator and the pi-searcher is in Rust so I don't have to worry about all these vulnerabilities announced yesterday Also me: oh fuck you mean that things uses PHP internally? And that? And -that- too? So many updates So so many updates

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

<'ironic' playing in the dentist's office> dang, I love alanis morissette and still hate this song 30 years in. Guess not everything grows on you. (Isn't that ironic. 🤓)

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

(Leap seconds were a mechanism to try to keep one of our international time standards - UTC - in synch with astronomical time. They've caused far more headaches than they've ever solved and if they ever had to add a negative leap second, Shit Would Break(tm). So, fin. Good riddance.)

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Made the matcha chiffon cake from serious eats. It is good and surprisingly easy. 14 yo found the recipe and made it to bring to school, so clearly we needed one for the family too.

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

There are some ways in which I don't envy my kids these days---<gestures at contemporary US politics fuckitude>---but the varicella and HPV vaccines are so awesome for them. Shingles and cervical cancer can jump in a lake, good riddance.

Dan Vergano@danvergano.bsky.social

First Birth Cohort Eligible for Chickenpox Vaccine Had a Sharp Drop in Shingles Cases www.epicresearch.org/articles/fir...

epicresearch.orgFirst Birth Cohort Eligible for Chickenpox Vaccine Had a Sharp Drop in Shingles CasesThe share of adults diagnosed with shingles between 2019 and 2026 rose steeply with age, from about 7 per 10,000 among those born between 2006 and 2008 to 182 per 10,000 among those born between 1968 ...

David Andersen reposted

Stuart McDaniel
@stuartmcdaniel.bsky.social

“For four decades, the United States has run one of the most profitable trades in the world economy… import young people that the global labor market has underpriced—graduate students whose ability outruns their résumés—give them a place to prove themselves, and keep much of the upside”

Michael Clemens@mclem.org

A sobering, clear assessment in @pnas.org of the current US policy of international student exclusion. "The damage would not end with academic careers. A discovery becomes a vaccine, a company, and an industry only when someone commercializes it, and that work runs on the same imported talent."

pnas.orgTaxing the talent that builds American science | PNASTaxing the talent that builds American science

David Andersen reposted

Dan Garisto
@dangaristo.bsky.social

Good end-of-FY coverage by the Times. The amount of unspent funds has wiggled but it was pretty clear for some time now that NSF was simply not going to spend a substantial portion of its congressional appropriation this year.

nytimes.comNational Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by CongressThe move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

ooh tomorrow's going to be fun, isn't it? 😆 Trying to thread the timing needle - hopefully shoulder is better for climbing on Sunday, and still functional for class today. I've never gotten them together before, but it was certainly convenient. (And the nurse had mad shot skills. Zero pain. Woo.)

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Unions are good, reason #57313: When your asshole upper management decides for you whether you need a chair or not instead of listening to employees and medical experts.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

TSA says it is removing chairs at document checks in airports, requiring staff to stand for their shift. TSA explained the reason as twofold: to ensure its employees meet its fitness standards and to create an amiable environment for travelers.

washingtonpost.comTSA officers must now stand up on the jobThe agency is removing chairs from document-checking stations.
David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

I don't know what it is about this semester, but I'm leaving my grad class daily being just astoundingly impressed with the students. We may^H^H^Hwill be be facing an AI education crisis or already are, but this crop of students (early Ph.D., MS, a couple of ugrad seniors) still have the juice.

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

I wonder if it precludes the computer science department from selling our own naming rights. I'd like to work for the Heinz Dofenshmirtz Department of Computer Science. Anyone have a few hundred million to use to make that happen? Asking for a friend(-ly department)

David Andersen reposted

Dave DiCello
@davedicello.bsky.social

So many film images to go through as of late, but I love how this one came out. The way the clouds are reflecting off of PPG Place in #pittsburgh almost look connected with the clouds in front, making for such an interesting view.

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Nice thread to read. My colleagues in HCI (human computer interaction) like to point out that not only is none of us (CS people) normal, most people we know aren't either, by proximity to a Ph.D. computer scientist. It's risky to look at ourselves and say "oh, this is surely useful!" 1/

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

I can’t say strongly enough that these are not realistic scenarios for the people I observed and, based on data about family lives, almost anyone else we might consider normal and/or not rich.

View full thread
David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Weirdly, I've semi-automated family movie suggestions: I have a spreadsheet where I record some of what we've watched and I dump it into gemini sometimes when my usual google searches for "best family movies of <pick year>" fail me. Which, again -- brainstorming more than actually planning. 7/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

But to the point of the thread: It's a huge mistake to think we can approach most of these problems with a complete and accurate list of the constraints and desiderata. Just trying to write them down is frustrating because it's so messy and .. human. 🤓

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Nice thread to read. My colleagues in HCI (human computer interaction) like to point out that not only is none of us (CS people) normal, most people we know aren't either, by proximity to a Ph.D. computer scientist. It's risky to look at ourselves and say "oh, this is surely useful!" 1/

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

I can’t say strongly enough that these are not realistic scenarios for the people I observed and, based on data about family lives, almost anyone else we might consider normal and/or not rich.

View full thread
David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

actual meal planning involves a lot of mostly informal constraints. T/Th? 14yo has climbing after school, so I have to have something I can get done before 5pm. Oh, but this week I'm not cooking Sunday because we had a block party and I made (very tasty, if I may say so myself) gougeres for it. 5/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

But I wasn't sure on Sunday when I was prepping the shopping stuff how many I'd have leftover, because god only knows how many people will show up to the block party, and will there be any healthy food there for the kids to eat or do I need to make second dinner after? Brb tearing hair out. 6/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Nice thread to read. My colleagues in HCI (human computer interaction) like to point out that not only is none of us (CS people) normal, most people we know aren't either, by proximity to a Ph.D. computer scientist. It's risky to look at ourselves and say "oh, this is surely useful!" 1/

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

I can’t say strongly enough that these are not realistic scenarios for the people I observed and, based on data about family lives, almost anyone else we might consider normal and/or not rich.

View full thread
David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

I had gemini add all the special days from the pittsburgh public schools calendar into our family calendar. That was generally a win, except that it also unearthed some errors in the PPS online calendar and I then spent 30 minutes tracking down which of those days was wrong. Not AI's fault but 3/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

the 10-15 minutes I saved manually creating a lot of calendar entries was less than the time it took to solve the problem of bad data on the internet. It's been useful for "I have such and such and such and such in the fridge, suggest some dishes". As @tressiemcphd.bsky.social notes, though, 4/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

Nice thread to read. My colleagues in HCI (human computer interaction) like to point out that not only is none of us (CS people) normal, most people we know aren't either, by proximity to a Ph.D. computer scientist. It's risky to look at ourselves and say "oh, this is surely useful!" 1/

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

I can’t say strongly enough that these are not realistic scenarios for the people I observed and, based on data about family lives, almost anyone else we might consider normal and/or not rich.

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

I've been trying to find ways to use various AI tools to make my life as lead house parent easier, and the wins are there but they're ... kind of small? Like "take this fucking _image_ listing the spirit week clothing items for 7yo and put entries in the family calendar". A win, but only 5min? 2/

David Andersen
@daveandersen.bsky.social

made gougeres to bring to the block party. It turns out there is such a thing as eating too much puff pastry. don't think I'll be making those again for a while. 🤣