These long trains are preventing Amtrak trains from getting through on time. We only sat behind it for 3 minutes, but we couldn’t even see the start of the train in the distance. Thanks to all of the graffiti artists who keep our coal trains looking so much less boring than they otherwise would. ...
Eventually this blog post is going to work around to being a review of “Microservices Pros and Cons” by Curtis Poe. It is going to meander a bit before it gets to the review, but I haven’t found a way to leave out this “preamble”. In some sense it is beside the point, but in other senses it is the whole point. YMMV. Presumption of bias I would guess that most innocent bystanders reading a title like “Pros and Cons” would assume that the author intended to present a balanced view of the topic at hand. Having been in the computer business for the last thirty years I presume every author has some ax to grind. ...
It was an honor to be part of the excellent team at #Tubi! I saw amazing efforts from folks across our engineering org to ensure that this would be a success. We all learned something new. 😃 The above was my comment while reposting Pascal’s post which said: Tubi streamed Super Bowl LIX flawlessly. That is a real accomplishment, not the result of luck but very hard work from a large group of people across a wide range of activities. Especially, I could not be prouder of my Infra and Security team who provided a super solid setup for that to happen, at a scale 20 times what we had ever done. Our work might not be the most shiny and glamorous, but without this team there would be no service at all. So huge kuddos to ...
My reaction to getting this posted I’m so happy and relieved to have my first technical video on youtube. There are a few things I wish I had included, particularly more on decorators like OS and groups. Yet the video is also longer than I was hoping for and there’s nothing I wish I had cut out. ...
I am so pleased to see that my favorite news weekly (The Economist) has decided to cover the icon of American journalism we all know and love: The Onion! The Ecoonomist and The Onion are probably in distinctly different categories in most people’s minds. The Onion is clearly satire and The Economist is clearly sober, serious news. Right? It is not so easy actually. The Onion covers news with humor and does not limit itself to the facts. Facts have become so much less fashionable in American politics lately, so their choice probably won’t prevent The Onion from continuing to grow like a bean or prevent random publications from reprinting their articles as real news. And then The Economist also covers the news. The Economist does maintain factuality quite earnestly, but it isn’t afraid to poke fun at silly leadership or appreciate the humor readily apparent in our crazy world. ...
Check out the ties I wore in July 2024. Through various means I have ended up with an extensive collection of ties. I haven’t counted them, but someday I might. I’m guessing I’ve got a hundred neckties or so. One of the traditions I took up a few years before Covid struck was to wear a tie and sports coat to work every day when I was going into the office. I’ve been known to carry this motif into virtual meetings now and then. It has been fun and led to lots of good conversations and interactions. ...
So, we drop in to Tous Les Jours in our beloved Pacheco and we see this sign on the window. I’m still a bit traumatied from this song showing up in the Viral 50 list on my Spotify. But those baby sharks are inescapable! Lol. Meta Shot on my Samsung Galaxy S24+ phone. Uploaded straight to youtube and google maps without any editing. Edited with good old vim although I did try Zettlr recently.
I have the opportunity to play pool with some folks that I’ve never played pool with before and so I thought it would be timely to share my ruminations on the pool rules I’ve experienced in the US and the rules I recommend for friendly games. Bar Pool Rules The default that I’ve seen in most bars in the US is that you shoot 8-ball and you have to call every shot. If you call it off of another ball and it goes in without touching that ball, it is still a miss and you’re giving up control of the pool table. This can lead to debates on whether what actually happened adequately matches what was called. Compared to other alternatives there is a much higher chance of rules arguments like this. Those debates are not fun for me. It also feels pretty unforgiving and not what I’d want for a friendly game of pool. ...
Howdy friends! I’m happy to announce today that I am launching a rebuilt https://www.chicks.net/ . Hopefully you can already see the difference. It has been a long time. This is the first redesign in a very long time. Most of the changes over the last decade have been minor. Going back further gets us before git to September 2004 in the wayback machine and we can see that the old design lasted for 20 years. ...
Recently, I’ve been trying out compact computer keyboards to get things to fit better in my keyboard tray. I started off with a few cheap $50 keyboards from Amazon and they were all disappointing in some way. Then I came across an article talking about the Akko Gaming Keyboard MOD007B-HE Santorini. Right off the bat, the design intrigued me. I’ve honestly never seen a set of key caps that is this gorgeous! I would never have suspected that I would be encouraging you to ogle key caps with serif letters, but here we are. Then you can’t help but be amazed at the seaside scenes on the space bar, shift keys, and enter key. The feel of the keys is excellent. The lights are pretty. Finally, $140 was a great deal if it worked for me and luckily it has. ...