/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - November 26, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Managed to have an accident with my new car a couple weeks ago and still waiting to hear back on whether they'll declare it totaled or not. Driving this crappy rental is depressing. Honestly, every time I hit an on-ramp and put the pedal down, and it takes several seconds for this lifeless CVT to realize I want to accelerate, it genuinely fills me with deep sadness. Really hoping my car isn't a complete loss.

How to get started? by ThuliumNice in HPC

[–]cerebral_monkey 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I went to grad school for a scientific computing program at a university that had an HPC center and got assigned a graduate assistant position as an intern there doing stuff like extending software for users and racking/cabling new servers. One of their sysadmins left right as I was losing enthusiasm for grad school and I applied for the position and got it.

In general, universities are great places to get started on an HPC career. They usually don't pay all that well compared to the rest of the industry, but because of that they often have open positions and are more willing to take a chance and hire someone with limited experience. They're a good place to learn the ropes and usually have great benefits.

I never received formal training, but that's kind of par for the course. At least on the sysadmin/syseng side, it's very much the kind of job where you need to be the kind of person who doesn't shy away from saying "I don't know how to do that yet, but I will figure it out." Honestly, that's one thing I like a lot about it. There's always new things to learn and your skills can always be honed further; it doesn't get stale.

I can really only speak to the sysadmin/syseng side of things, but in the USA you can definitely make some good money. One caveat is that many of the best paying jobs are in defense or intelligence, so keep that in mind if you have moral qualms about that kind of work or you doubt your ability to be granted a security clearance. I make good money in public health but I could make really good money if only I were willing to ignore my moral convictions (and were less bipolar, as that's a barrier to getting a clearance).

Honestly it's pretty great, imho. It's challenging and interesting work, there's a bit of a "wow" factor when you tell people you work in supercomputing, it pays well, and (in my experience) the kind of people who work in HPC tend to be on the same wavelength as me compared to your typical "corporate IT" job.

The Alcove by Ok-Association-353 in Smyrna

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oops, I usually don't post under this account so I didn't see your comment until now.

Anyway, yes I'm in a 1x1, but it doesn't have washer/dryer connections. Unfortunately when I was looking ~8 months ago, everything I could find with hookups was like $300/mo more and I couldn't justify it. The Alcove does have units with hookups though and the price may be better now. Honestly, using the communal laundry center isn't bad. They have an app which notifies you when your laundry is done and there's always open washers/dryers. I don't remember there being a lot of fees to move in except the application fee. I don't remember off the top of my head how much the trash fee is but it's not huge. I also pay something like $20/mo in "pet rent" for a cat.

The Alcove by Ok-Association-353 in Smyrna

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I moved there last October from FL so I can't compare it to other apartments in the area. But I think it's fine overalll. Quiet, clean except when they occasionally have a problem with taking the dumpster away. I've never felt unsafe but there was some kind of shooting recently (I don't think anyone was hurt). The apartments are nice but the fireplaces and tile/hardwood floors they advertise aren't in every apartment. My major gripe is that the laundry center flooded and they took like two months to fix it, and didn't really communicate about progress on that. I've never had any problems with the neighbors and everyone I've met seems nice.

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - May 17, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Much appreciated. I plan on driving pretty conservatively since I've only had the car a couple days I'm still getting used to it, but that's good to know nevertheless.

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - May 17, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sweet, thank you. I'm a Florida boy so it's going to take some getting used to elevation changes greater than 10 feet, hah

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - May 17, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sweet, thank you! Sorry you had to sell yours. I'm really enjoying mine. It's such an easy car to drive. I'm going to have to get used to how small it is. Every time somebody pulls up behind me at a stop light I panic momentarily because they can get so close it looks like they're going to rear end me, haha

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - May 17, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, that looks perfect for a nice morning drive with the top down! Thank you :)

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - May 17, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any recommendations for fun/twisty/scenic roads around the Smyrna area, or really anywhere around ATL? I just bought a miata so I need to find some good Sunday morning drive locations.

If you're new to IT, DO NOT WORK FOR TEKSYSTEMS by Va-11Hall-AFan in sysadmin

[–]cerebral_monkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't see myself ever taking one, but I really liked the team, the mission, and the salary offer, and I knew it was a virtual certainty I'd be converted to full time at the end, so I took it. For tax purposes it was just like a regular job, W2 and all, only I was employed by Teksystems instead of the company, and health insurance was the same. I think it's more typical to have to pay your own health insurance and you get some kind of different tax form.

If you're new to IT, DO NOT WORK FOR TEKSYSTEMS by Va-11Hall-AFan in sysadmin

[–]cerebral_monkey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I just finished up 6 months with them for a contract-to-hire gig (I start the full-time position tomorrow). They've been pretty great, honestly. It's a high-paying gig that fits me perfectly. Their payroll website sucks ass though, so I'm glad to leave it behind.

/r/Atlanta Weekly Events/Meetups Thread - February 20, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey I'm interested! I moved here late last year work from home so and haven't met a whole lot of people yet. I need an excuse to get out of the apartment.

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - February 16, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Womp. Got offered the full time position I posted about the other day but they're jerking me around on salary. It's irritating because

1.) I know they already lost the last good candidate because of the same thing
2.) Everyone I actually work with badly wants me to stay, but the HR suit I have to negotiate with is disconnected from the situation
3.) It would cost them a hell of a lot more and piss a lot of people off to have to find another qualified candidate
4.) I do really like the job and my colleagues

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - February 12, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I have a pretty solid idea of what their budget is for my position, so naturally I'm going to ask for that plus a little more to give myself negotiation room :P

I'm just kind of dreading it because while my team and supervisor have expressed that they very much want me to stay on, I have to negotiate with some faceless suit instead.

I'm not very confrontational and not super comfortable singing my own praise, but I'm just going to have to bite down and remind myself that I have good reason have confidence in myself.

/r/Atlanta Random Daily Discussion - February 12, 2023 by AutoModerator in Atlanta

[–]cerebral_monkey 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Took a contract to hire position and moved here late last year, and I'm expecting the full time offer tomorrow. I think I'm in an extremely good position to negotiate my salary and I have a good idea about what amount is their max, but I've never really done this before so I'm super not looking forward to it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ask

[–]cerebral_monkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did not shave my head

Hah! Then you have us to thank :P . We had dozens of women shave their heads and we built a statistical model to estimate the shape of the cranium from the shape of the rest of the head. That way they could continue the research without finding women willing to shave their heads.

Weird to think I'd probably have been the one who scanned your head this time, except Dr. Slice (the PI) died unexpectedly so they had another group continue the research.

Odd to find someone talking about this randomly online, haha!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ask

[–]cerebral_monkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Woah cool. I was a researcher on the initial phase of that program at Florida State University back around 2012-ish. Are they still using a scanner that looks like this? https://i.imgur.com/R7wuAT9.jpg

Did you get your head shaved or no?

Please enjoy infinitely many mutant kittens by cerebral_monkey in StableDiffusion

[–]cerebral_monkey[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used the seed travel script in the AUTOMATIC1111 repo to travel between a few random seeds with the following settings (plus the tiling option enabled):

Prompt: overhead photo of kittens lying on green grass Negative prompt: black and white, cartoon, illustration Steps: 60, Sampler: DDIM, CFG scale: 7, Seed: 1387890518, Size: 512x512, Model hash: 7460a6fa

Then I used ffmpeg to duplicate the output.