Augusto Tijerina

I have tested AI tools to see if they were useful to me, yes. Both at work and for my personal operations. I've even built and hosted my own from open-source components (llms for agentic usage, stable diffusion for image generation). I do not use them anymore since they have been pretty useless at the tasks I need them.

This is a common question from a lot of non-technical people in different industries. They somehow bought into the hype and think they really provide some value. They do not, at the level where I require them. In fact, they are actively pernicious and damaging in the big picture.

At work, I deal with Infrastructure issues. Large data volumes where accuracy is required and precision is a must. If I write down a single character wrong, then entire landscapes will, for example, lose all connectivity. Hundreds of servers, thousands of services, millions in currency will be lost if I make that kind of mistake.

Gemini CLI

Perplexity AI agent.

And in this, they fail terribly. Inaccurate. Hallucinating. Actively wrong.

Hell, I can actually build the infrastructure AI needs, while AI itself cannot. I've built them for my own homelab, to see what use or entertainment they provide.

easydiffuse framework container installation.

For non technical tasks, yes, AI might be useful. Maybe you want to waste thousands of watts trying to slim down and ghiblify your ugly fat face in a selfie, or help you writing a paragraph because you don't care about your words or your interlocutors or your own understanding. Maybe.

I hoped to see AI in the real role it was meant to: in Assistive Technology. A helpful corrective to those language-impaired, a godsend automating tasks for the mobility impaired, a nurse to those fighting terrible diseases and a carer for those no longer in control of their own brain.

It's a bit sad isn't it? Wasting AI in pointless "entertainment" and trivial tasks when it could be making the world a better place.

This is CachyOS x86_64, running in a SER (V1) mini pc. This is the time it takes to load an X.org session with Plasma 6, then you can add 2 extra seconds to connect to wifi and start my VPN.:

❯ date && doas systemd-analyze critical-chain
    Fri Mar 28 05:34:00 PM CST 2025
    The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
    The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.
                            
    graphical.target @2.655s
    └─sddm.service @2.655s
      └─plymouth-quit.service @2.629s +24ms
        └─systemd-user-sessions.service @2.605s +22ms
          └─network.target @2.604s
            └─wpa_supplicant.service @2.568s +34ms
              └─basic.target @1.793s
                └─dbus-broker.service @1.755s +36ms
                  └─dbus.socket @1.748s
                    └─sysinit.target @1.743s
                      └─systemd-update-done.service @1.718s +24ms
                        └─ldconfig.service @1.346s +370ms
                          └─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @1.297s +48ms
                            └─local-fs.target @1.293s
                              └─boot-efi.mount @1.257s +35ms
                                └─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-473E\x2dC8D5.service @595ms +160ms
                                  └─dev-disk-by\x2duuid-473E\x2dC8D5.device @594ms

❯ date && doas systemd-analyze blame
Fri Mar 28 05:3:00 PM CST 2025
  787ms NetworkManager.service
  375ms ldconfig.service
  356ms dev-nvme0n1p2.device
  182ms plymouth-start.service
  156ms [email protected]
  102ms bolt.service
   83ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.service
   77ms dev-zram0.swap
   76ms systemd-journal-flush.service
   76ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
   69ms systemd-vconsole-setup.service
   69ms udisks2.service
   65ms upower.service
   64ms chronyd.service
   58ms systemd-journald.service
   51ms systemd-resolved.service
   49ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
   48ms [email protected]
   48ms polkit.service
   47ms systemd-sysusers.service
   47ms systemd-logind.service
   46ms lvm2-monitor.service
   45ms systemd-udevd.service
   41ms wpa_supplicant.service
   40ms bluetooth.service
   37ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
   36ms systemd-journal-catalog-update.service
   36ms dbus-broker.service
   36ms systemd-random-seed.service
   34ms systemd-userdbd.service
   33ms avahi-daemon.service
   33ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
   32ms systemd-hostnamed.service
   32ms rtkit-daemon.service
   31ms systemd-sysctl.service
   30ms [email protected]
   29ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-473E\x2dC8D5.service
   27ms boot-efi.mount
   26ms systemd-update-utmp.service
   25ms systemd-rfkill.service
   25ms plymouth-quit-wait.service
   25ms plymouth-quit.service
   22ms systemd-user-sessions.service
   21ms systemd-modules-load.service
   21ms alsa-restore.service
   21ms dev-hugepages.mount
   20ms dev-mqueue.mount
   20ms power-profiles-daemon.service
   20ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
   20ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount
   19ms systemd-update-done.service
   19ms kmod-static-nodes.service
   18ms modprobe@dm_mod.service
   18ms scx_loader.service
   18ms [email protected]
   18ms [email protected]
   18ms [email protected]

My similarly specced work laptop, with Windows 11 takes 2 minutes or so. Now, this is a clear example of why I specialize and decide to use Linux at all times.

I document things compulsively. Multiple long comments in tickets, dates, sections, screenshots, URLs, paragraphs of relevant data are always stored.

I've gone through many different standards of documentation, tools and platforms and I end up going back to the simplest due to the horrible limitations of the most sophisticated tools.

There is a very important lesson in complexity management when we always come back to the conept of text files and linking relations between these files. Quite often, the simplest, oldest solutions just needs some updating to beat the newest, most complex ones.

Keep it simple.

Windows admins are a breed of their own.

During a Disaster Recovery Exercise some years ago I was troubleshooting stale DNS referencing in some Linux servers pointing to an Active Directory ***spit** server. That is, after changing the IP on their end, the hostname still pointed to the old one.

"Is the server in the Forest of Trust?", tentatively asked me the Windows big-gun.

For a second I had flashbacks of moving up-left-down-left in the Lost woods in the first Zelda NES game, never reaching the damn end. Spiky red blobs chasing me.

No it isn't, the server was not even registered to an AD domain, the mockery of DNS that is that Microsoft crap was stale-caching stuff as it often does. TTLs are mistreated by that thing like an angry end user to a clueless helpdesk guy on the phone.

That marked the beginning of some weird shenanigans involving DNS, and me working around it with hosts entries.

up-left-down-left

Accurate representation of the Forest of Trust

Just noticed this, it's been 19 years since I started mainlining Linux. There's a long, convoluted history of me playing with OS before getting on track with it, but at this point I was pretty much using it exclusively.

I've been asked this a few times, and most recently last month, hinting I was doing it out of arrogance, as if to show off. The easy, short response is practice.
I simply need to practice.

I have to read, write and speak in English to communicate in my daily work, mostly with a mixture of Americans from Southern states and people from India/Bharat with English as a second language. Add our multinational workload like our beloved Polish team and you get nice idiomatic expressions and different flavors of technical and business idioms in the stream.

Most of the people I've met does not like to read or write (due to poor Educational methods that used it almost as a punishment), specially in non-native languages. This usually means their reading and writing skills plateau at the point where they can understand and be understood enough to get by, and they leave it at that.

The problem with that is it's way easier to get worse than it is to get better.

I love reading and writing, sometimes listening and talking, and my goal is to be able to express and understand as much as possible.
It's one of my prime mandates: communicate the best you can, be as clear as you can.

Anecdotally, it's a bit sad to see the slow decline of language skills in some of the best technical people I know. Engineers with longer careers and wider knowledge bases than me make such silly, embarrassing mistakes in emails, chats or meetings that I cannot help but feel a bit of self awareness and try to recognize and correct my own.

A little bit of practice would be good for all of us.

It's common practice in polite conversation to lie on small issues by omission or to avoid friction. Small things that are largely inconsequential aren't a big issue. However, I have found a common lie in my socio-cultural environment: "You've dissappeared or are hard to contact."

This usually happens when meeting people casually in public places. I find it a bit surprising because I try to respond to communication attempts whenever I receive them. After asking for details, it seems that no one actually uses anything else but Meta-based apps to communicate (Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram), and if they don't see me there, they just don't care enough to check any other way and it becomes a convenient excuse for inaction.

Needless to say, I am not interested in keeping in touch with that kind of people. Not only are they lying, but they are also actively engaged in an erosive practice that I do not condone. To put into easier to understand terms: Use whatever you want to communicate, and I'll use whatever I want.

There's a contact box right here, you can use it to get in touch with me. I do write back, and I also keep several Instant Messaging platforms accounts that I consider both useful and safe.

I do not dissapear and I am not hard to contact.

I won a Silver Accolade. Feels good to be recognized.

I will not abide these toxic elements in my Network. To hell with them.

No DNS resolution for Social Media

I've pondered a bit on a subject, I admit I look at it a bit too rationally to weigh emotions into this:
When is having family present in your life an obsessive impulse?.

I look at some of my peers, acquaintances and teammates and I can't help but wonder about it.

They are living physically present with their nuclear family:

• They are in constant physical contact with their extended family.
• They spend most of the time with their nuclear family.
• They are in constant communication with their nuclear family when not present; ie, messages at work.

They are present in their digital life:

• Pictures on their phones.
• Pictures on their computers.
• Pictures on their devices.
• Videos on their devices.
• Pictures on their consumer social media.
• Mentions of them in their devices.
• Pictures on their instant communication applications.
• Mentions on their instant communication applications.

They are usually brought to attention in their work life:

• Mentions about family in teams communications.
• Pictures about family vacations or events in teams communications.
• Noise of family activities during team communications.
• Video of family activities during team communications.
• Sometimes they even work in the same company, or geographical area or directly related-business.

Family is present in their recreational activities:

• Free time is spent with family.
• Family activities comprise most of pleasurable actions.
• Most activities are meant to be shared.

They are present in their physical life:

• They have pictures of their family in their family home.
• They have pictures in their wallets.
• They have pictures in their office.
• They have decorative family objects away from the family home.
• There are family stickers in the family car.
• Property ownership is based around family ties.
• Sometimes, there are family tattoos.
• There are also family scars, of course.

Isn't it a bit too present?
Isn't it too much?

Family is a relationship. A shared bond between people, and sometimes animals and objects.
It is frequently the source of our greatest joys. And of our greatest sorrows.
It shapes human mind. But it also twists it.
It builds great things. And it also destroys them.

It's not an end goal of itself.

To me, they look like they don't have a family. They have an obsession with forming part of one.
An obsession to feel that they belong, and constantly, maddeningly reassure themselves of membership.

This is me. This is my {son,daughter,wife,husband,brother,sister,father,mother,uncle,aunt,niece,nephew,pet,property}. This is our relationship. We are doing something together. That is who we are.

Oddly enough, this obsessive trait does not seem to be helping the status of most families.
Families still break and bend and deform at the same rate as they always have.
Loss, and pain, and suffering and misery still seep out of groups of humans at the same constant, beating rate as they always have.
You don't need to believe me, look around you, observe, and tell me this world is even affected by this obsession.
Tell me if this world is a bit better because of this.

Defining oneself by relationships ends up removing key characteristics of the self.
You lose choice, you lose will and the enrichment that comes from multiple individual variations and permutations in favor of a single amorphous blob of identity.
An amoeba of all joined without identity beyond being inside.
And it has cilia and it tries to reach and eat everything, your work, your love, your mind, your body, your self all the time.

May they never lose their family. They no longer have even a sense of self.

I still find messing around with Linux distributions enjoyable.

Multiple Linux Distributions

I made my yearly count of how many books I've read last year. The total came at around 63, depending on the length of some novellas and smaller publications. My problem is, I have stopped tracking them in goodreads because of the same issue I had with booklikes: A lot of the things I read are not yet in their database, regardless of the format or information I input there to track.

I frequently read some light novels, not very widely distributed technical publications or even obscure older books that aren't present in goodreads when I search. This leaves me stuck with a few choices: I can either try to add it, at least partially, with slightly incomplete data, or I can just track them in my personal literature.md file.

I'll be looking at some other services as alternatives (which appear to be fewer and proportionally smaller), but in the meantime, a text file in my repo will have to fulfill my requirements.

I have won another recognition accolade.
I'm grateful as always.

Champagne Accolade.

I have just found out I won this, it's a small award given by Managers at atos as a recognition of one's performance.
It does feels good to be recognized.

The Accolade.

I'm a Linux enthusiast through and through. I frequently install and test distros for fun, and I like to learn about their lore and community culture besides the obvious technical specifications that identify and differentiate each one.

There is a company called System76 that makes Linux-based personal computers, laptops or desktops. I've always wanted to try one, since their design appears interesting.
Years ago they announced they would release their own linux distribution.

I'm such a damn nerd that my first thought was: "It's brilliant. They can use the name and nomenclature of the 76th element of the periodic table for their distro!. It matches perfectly— Osmium, OS, element 76, a transition metal, it even looks cool in crystal form."

They named it Pop!_OS.
And its colorscheme accent is cyan.

Why.