Colm

Technology Architecture Strategy, Electrification, Windsurfing, he/him/his

[Colm @oreilco]

Continuing resolutions for 2024
- be a critical thinker
- be a communicator

[Colm @oreilco]

Resolutions for 2023
- be a better critical thinker
- be a communicator

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

This is so true. Practically all the assholes I know support Israel. And all the compassionate, justice minded people I know have empathy for the Palestinians and are bothered by their suffering.

[IT Unprofessional @it_unprofession]

My former director just endorsed me for Microsoft Word on LinkedIn.

We worked together for 4 years.

I built the entire incident response process model that got him promoted to VP.

He denied my raise twice because of budget constraints, then immediately bought a Tesla.

Now, 3 years later, he's publicly vouching for my ability to use basic word processing software.

It feels like a calculated insult.

Endorsing someone for Word in 2026 is like endorsing a chef for knowing how to chew.

I thought about deleting the endorsement, but that's letting him off the hook.

Instead, I went to his profile and endorsed him for Punctuality.

He was notoriously late to every all-hands meeting we ever had.

I hope his new executive team sees it.

I also endorsed him for Data Entry.

It's the most entry-level administrative skill I could find in the dropdown menu.

[Colm @oreilco]

Why ‘glue work’ can finally shine in the age of AI - https://t.co/m5Q6qagTlM via @FT

[Bill Badbody @Bill_Badbody]

I remember years ago when my friend Denis got the water meter contracts and the whole country started protesting and we couldn’t divide and conquer at the time. Good to see we can now neatly label protests by political ideology thanks to a handful of hijackers. #fuelprotests

[Shane Corr ☘️ @Default69202648]

There are no fuel protests at Trump Doonbeg, which is just a coincidence.

[Andreas Steno Larsen @AndreasSteno]

Just to add some nuance to the propaganda here.

If you look at the median rather than the mean, which is what actually reflects how most people live, the picture changes quite a bit. Once you also account for unavoidable out of pocket costs like healthcare and education, life in the US looks much more average, and often falls behind Northern European countries for the typical person.

The US model clearly creates immense wealth at the very top, but for the vast majority of people, median living standards are what really matter. And by that measure, the story is far less impressive than it is often made out to be.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

So many of you are shocked by Trump's behavior & methods.
But this is what Israel has been doing almost continuously for 80 years & you fucks kept looking the other way.

[Colm @oreilco]

@elonmusk @alojoh Wen Ireland ?

[Tara Ann Thieke @TaraAnnThieke]

When I was 19 I found out a Zionist had made a list of every American he could find who had criticized Israel. There were tens of thousands of people on the list w/ reasons given for why they deserved to be labeled an enemy target. I was shocked to find my dad on the list because he had signed an anti-war petition. It is laughable to suggest my father is an anti-semite, but he is strongly anti-war.

I, being 19 & extraordinarily naive, contacted the maker of the list to explain this was about war, not anti-semitism, and asked him to take down such a dangerous "enemies" list. He responded cheerfully that I was obviously also an "enemy of Israel" because I was opposed to making "enemy lists" and so he added my name to it and wished death upon me.

The next 20 years taught me that wasn't a fringe character - that is contemporary media & political policy. The deliberate mixing of criticism of Israel with antisemitism is the actual revolting bad-faith practice and has no place in a polite, free, or (dare we hope one day) loving society.

[Redacted @ScribeOfArden]

@pmarca

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

All of you MAGA influencers and the rest mocking the seriousness of women who were trafficked and raped as teenagers and young women look like cult fools.

Good luck trying to get women to vote for Republicans in the midterms you insensitive clowns.

The Republican Party already has a woman voting problem.

Keep mocking those of us who take rape and pedophilia seriously and demand accountability for corruption.

[Normal Island News @NormalIslandNws]

Here is the proof Epstein was a Russian asset:

- his girlfriend was the daughter of a Mossad agent
- one of his best friends was Israel's lawyer
- another of his best friends was a former Israeli prime minister
- he met with the current Israeli prime minister
- a senior Israeli spy would stay at his house for weeks at a time
- a friend invited him to bring his girls to Israel
- he fled to Israel when he was charged with sex crimes against a minor
- he was pictured wearing an IDF shirt
- he was funded by pro-Israel fanatics
- he worked for the Rothschilds
- he donated to pro-Israel student groups
- he was responsible for the Wexner group's "pro-Israel philanthropy"
- he supported Israeli settlement projects
- his friends were all Zionists
- he scathingly referred to non -Jews as "goyim"
- he was involved in Israeli diplomacy efforts
- he brokered security deals for Israel
- he aimed to profit from regime changes in the Middle East
- a former Israeli intelligence officer said he ran a honeypot for Israel
- his business partner confirmed he ran a honeypot for Israel
- one of his victims confirmed h ran a honeypot for Israel

As you can see, all of this was done for the benefit of Russia. There is no other explanation.

[JD Vance @JDVance]

Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it.

[Colm @oreilco]

@ProfBrianCox @PhilosophyOfPhy Reported and blocked

[Meredith Whittaker @mer__edith]

I read it. And I'll engage here in good faith. But before I get into substance, I implore you to open the window, touch grass, and let yourself connect with the reality of what’s happening right now. This is a world historical moment. Please recognize what ICE is at this time, what it’s doing, and what it really means for your company, Palantir, to be supporting them with targeting and surveillance technologies that aid their attacks on freedom, liberty, and the constitution.

Now to the substance of your post. I’ll address the three key claims you make in defense of your work with ICE:

1. The post spends a lot of time pushing back on the claim that Palantir is building a “master database.” But in my view this is a red herring. It’s an easy claim to rebut. For one, because there’s no technical definition of “master database” and whether you are building one or not is beside the point. Indeed, injecting multiple data sources from disparate databases that are then processed and synthesized by your system doesn’t require One Big Database. The effect—synthesizing data in service of creating target lists of people in the US—is the same, whether or not this is All of the Data. And that’s the problem, not the size and the scope of a given database.

2. On claims that ICE is using Palantir’s ELITE tool—which shows ICE a map with addresses and other information about people to deport or otherwise menace—you claim that this is not “the purpose of this tool.” I can only read this pushback as cringe ‘neutrality washing.’ Especially in the context of the current moment, it takes a lot of contorting to say this as if it exculpates you. There are hundreds of court orders being disobeyed by ICE; people are being summarily shot in the street and otherwise menaced and brutalized for exercising basic constitutional rights—the first amendment high on the list. Not to mention that whatever the tools’ ‘purpose’ as your engineers imagined it at a whiteboard in a clean office somewhere, 404 media reports ICE officers discussing their use of the tool in exactly the way you say it’s not meant to be used. It also seems clear that many at your company know this, and are upset about it, as recent whistleblowing revealing internal dissent about contracts with ICE shows.

3. Similarly, you point to your tool’s “indelible audit log” as a feature that makes it, implicitly, more safe and lawful. But, just like body cams, the question is not whether it has this audit capacity. The question is what mechanisms exist to ensure this capacity is used to discipline misuse? Whom, in particular, can access such a log? Who’s auditing? God? The referee? In the context of the evidenced lawlessness, and lack of accountability, this reads as an almost intellectually insulting claim.

Again, this is a grim and critical moment. I know you and a lot of people are probably scared, feeling some “am I the baddie?” tremors at the level of your core identity. I know this is hard! But as someone who claims to love privacy and liberty, I invite—implore!—you to find the courage of your convictions and at least sit quietly and consider what this work is really supporting.

[Colm @oreilco]

Hey @grok, can you enable users to block and ignore all content from accounts with flag emojis , they are all low/no signal NPCs

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

I impeached Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, those were my articles of impeachment that passed in the House of Representatives. I unapologetically believe in border security and deporting criminal illegal aliens and I support law enforcement.

However, I also unapologetically support the 2nd amendment.

Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm.

I support American’s 1st and 4th amendment rights.

There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.

MAGA, consider it like this.

We lost our minds when we watched Biden’s FBI track down and aggressively carry out home invasions and arrest on peaceful J6’ers who walked in the Capitol through open doors.

Imaging if one of our MAGA independent journalists or even just a MAGA supporter stood in the street outside a J6’ers house while Biden’s FBI carried out a law enforcement operation, home invasion, and arrest.

Then Biden’s FBI goes to the MAGA guy videoing it all and shoves a woman with him to the ground and sprays them with bear spray then throws the MAGA guy to the ground as MAGA guy was trying to help the woman off the ground. Then Biden’s FBI beats MAGA guy on the ground, disarms MAGA guy, and then shoots him dead.

What would have been our reaction?

Both sides need to take off their political blinders.

You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Even if you take the conservative defense of each ICE killing, you’re left with “We haphazardly scaled up a poorly trained police force to storm into neighborhoods that voted against the president, where we antagonize the local population until someone resists arrest, and then we kill them,” which is morally horrendous on top of being an absurd way to do immigration policy.

[Colm @oreilco]

@frantechno @rorysutherland @grok @grok Why would 1971 be an interesting choice for a comparison point ?

[Colm @oreilco]

@JohnLeFevre you can't make me