Chas Emerick
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cemerick.bsky.social
Chas Emerick
@cemerick.bsky.social
110 followers 55 following 210 posts
Making PDFs reliable data sources, talking about PDFs @pdfminute, former Papers We Love / PWLConf co-organizer. Topics: PLT, distsys, future-computing, politics, policy, "tech ethics", and annoying shitposts. Signal: @cemerick.30

https://www.snowtide.com
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cemerick.bsky.social
Day 23 in Berlin.

Finally caved, bought a city-suitable bike, a KTM Veneto. It's uncomfortably different from what I'm used to, but the practicalities of city usage. It's OK, I'll adjust (and probably keep some knobbier tires on hand for trail outings).

This place is beautiful.
September 13, 2025 at 6:02 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Day 21 in Berlin.

Pieces of life are starting to fit back together, even though there's so very much left still on the floor. Nothing glamorous. Very grateful to be here, and grateful for the people that have helped (and keep helping) to make it possible.
September 11, 2025 at 1:14 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Take-a-book, leave-a-book just hits different in Berlin ('Länder-parlamentarismus in Deutschland, Geschichte - Struktur -Funktionen', or 'State Parliamentarism in Germany, History - Structure - Functions')

(Back cover in alt text)
"European integration, German unification, and, not least, the ongoing debate about a reform of federalism in Germany are presenting new challenges to the state parliaments in the Federal Republic of Germany. While the number of studies dealing with state governments or state politics in general has certainly increased in recent years, a comprehensive inventory of the functions, tasks, and status of the state parliaments in the individual federal states is still lacking. This anthology fills this gap. It provides information on the historical development and constitutional requirements of the sixteen state parliaments, presents the respective party landscapes, electoral law, and election results, analyzes the political and social composition as well as the structure and organization of the state parliaments, and finally examines the functional changes of these institutions."
September 7, 2025 at 6:55 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Lady behind me at the end of the TSA gauntlet: "No, thank YOU for everything you do to make us safe! 🫡🫡🫡"

Do TSA agents have a thin $COLOR flag yet?
August 20, 2025 at 10:09 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
aktueller Status, jetzt wird's ernst
setting the default language on das Handy to Deutsch
July 15, 2025 at 9:34 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
this country is totally, thoroughly fucked, Part 836

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

apnews.com/article/army...
May 2, 2025 at 7:09 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
shopify adding *tipping* to bog-standard merch shops is hilarious
April 18, 2025 at 4:12 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Nostalgia and failed alternative histories
a parallella board
April 6, 2025 at 7:04 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Amd we go live to the Gentleman from Iowa
April 1, 2025 at 11:36 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
let's keep this #ocaml thing going
A "buff chad" meme, with orange OCaml logos overlaying each head of the Chad's abdominal heads. Top memetext: "When you start using a language with a strong type discipline, you won't need to tell anyone…" Bottom memetext: "…there will be signs"
March 28, 2025 at 3:24 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
so on my bullshit #ocaml
A "feels good" meme in "OCaml colors", with an OCaml logo, and a code snippet reading `match pain with _ -> Joy`
March 27, 2025 at 9:18 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
time to start manifesting the Greater European Union
March 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
if you want to know how my work is going, it's been a "blocked by reliable JVM segfaults" sort of month 🎉🎉🎉
March 18, 2025 at 9:08 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
when the CENTCOM stans get all lathered up (again, and again, and again), it makes for a bountiful meme harvest
March 18, 2025 at 7:02 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Meanwhile, meanwhile, basically-healthy parliamentary systems, seated within a basically sane and just European system, are demonstrating astonishing nimbleness in the face of once-in-a-century threats

www.politico.eu/article/germ...
March 14, 2025 at 3:27 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
status #lfg
screaming tennis ball with meme text "LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO"
March 11, 2025 at 5:01 AM
cemerick.bsky.social
tech-companies-stop-using-names-from-Lord-of-the-Rings challenge

Also, why tf would you adopt a tragic character's name? Like, who wants to find out what the real-world Durin's Bane is?
March 11, 2025 at 4:20 AM
cemerick.bsky.social
Watching reactions to the Tesla-related vandalism and wanton labeling of senior opposition senators as "traitors" sure feels funny. Feels like two small steps away from a Temu version of a Reichstag Fire-esque pretense, and bellowing of "Volksfeinde!"
March 10, 2025 at 7:02 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Amusing: 'ChatGPT is Bullshit'

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. We argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. We distinguish two ways in which the models can be said to be bullshitters, and argue that they clearly meet at least one of these definitions. We further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems.
March 7, 2025 at 8:26 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
"'Race for security, not war': Donald Tusk says Poland must pursue nuclear weapons for protection"

www.thejournal.ie/race-for-sec...
March 7, 2025 at 3:59 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
😂😂😂 #france #EU
March 6, 2025 at 12:28 AM
cemerick.bsky.social
'Americans apply for UK citizenship in record numbers' #braindrain archive.is/mgBVR
March 5, 2025 at 10:02 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
It will fall on deaf ears, but this statement from Lech Wałęsa (one of the key leaders of the Polish Solidarity movement and former Polish president) re: the grotesque transactionalism around the US' "allyship" with Ukraine hits hard

www.facebook.com/lechwalesa/p...
March 4, 2025 at 5:26 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Here's some fun OCaml memes to lighten the mood

(sorry, I don't have attributions)
February 28, 2025 at 10:54 PM
cemerick.bsky.social
Watching the simultaneously slow-motion yet lightning-fast decimation of scientific research by illiterate and self-dealing MAGA chuds in the US is horrifying. And, ~basically~ no one cares (at least not yet), but I'm crashing out.

https://archive.is/BhuNM
February 25, 2025 at 2:01 PM