Assistant Director, Digital Strategies @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
Dev team lead, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
I also like cats, dogs, bikes, ebikes, roller skating, kayaking, reading, indoor climbing
opinions my own and don't reflect those of my employer
Personal accounts at @nirak (general purpose) and @nirak (Lincoln, Nebraska instance)
| CDRH | https://cdrh.unl.edu |
Dusting off my IT tech hat to give a presentation on personal information security to a group of non-profit employees.
It's sad that an important threat actor is ideological persecution by agents of the government.
Need a trainer? I'm experienced, personable, and I've worked in public advocacy long enough to understand the threat these folks and their families are under.
If you're asking employees or volunteers to do that kinda work, you owe them help learning how to be safe. Reach out.
Duke Library implemented Anubis to try to stem the onslaught of AI traffic many libraries are facing, and wrote up a nice report about their experience with it.
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/items/a99a4736-6542-4ef1-8492-41c80e58e1be
In May & June 2025, Duke University Libraries (DUL) staff successfully implemented Anubis, a configurable open source web application firewall (WAF), in order to stave off persistent onslaughts of AI-related bot scraping activity. During this pilot period (May 1 - June 10, 2025), aggressive bot scraping led to extended outages for three critical library platforms (Duke Digital Repository, Archives & Manuscripts, and the Books & Media Catalog), and in each case, implementing Anubis mitigated the problem.
I continue to be both amused and annoyed by AI rollouts.
A "copilot" agent appeared in teams chat. OK, I'll try it out. Can I make a planner task? A calendar event? a reminder? No.
There is an agent to connect to asana, but there's no way to connect to any other microsoft app.
I really don't understand what they think the use case is here.
I gave up air travel nine years ago, and I wrote about it in this new essay on Substack.
Give it a read and a share. I think I've managed not to sound too self-righteous ;)
'What I’ve realised is that flying isn’t just a seriously carbon-intensive mode of transport, It’s a story we’re sold about what it means to live well.'
https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/grounded-what-i-gained-by-giving-up-air-travel
#Environment #Scotland #Writing #Books #Climate #Sustainable #Article #Writingcommunity
Finished a new blog post: "My Coworkers Don't Want AI. They Want Macros"
An exploration of how we are using macros in our current system, contrasted with what we're getting pitched by vendors. We want to: enter consistent data, avoid typos, improve system design, add conditional logic, and generally save the user repetitive, mindless work. Right now, that seems to require macros.
Kit Malone
Quinn Dombrowski
ksclarke
Molly B
Kristie
Ruth [☕️ 👩🏻💻📚✍🏻🧵🪡🍵]
boss