Saturday, April 9, 2022

Deutschland 2050: Wie der Klimawandel unser Leben verändern wird von Nick Reimer und Toralf Staud

Dieses Buch ist ziemlich lang – 400 Seiten. Jeder Abschnitt erklärt sein Thema ausführlich. Die Autoren gehen jedoch implizit davon aus, dass sich unsere Technologie nicht ändern wird. Eine weitere implizite Annahme ist, dass keine Bemühungen zur Abwendung der Klimakatastrophe Wirkung zeigen werden. Diese zweite Annahme ist wahrscheinlich wahr, aber die erste Annahme ist mit ziemlicher Sicherheit nicht wahr. Das Buch ist sehr informativ und erklärt unser Verständnis besser als das Buch von Bill Gates. Allerdings fand ich es an manchen Stellen langweilig. 3/5 Sterne.


Wayard Galaxy 3 by Jason Anspach & J. N. Chaney

The authors have said in an interview that they enjoy writing in this branch of their metaverse because of the "Brody" character.  Brody's dialog and rants make this entire book worth reading. I thought Brody was a little over-the-top and silly in the first two books, but he/it has grown on me. 4/5 Stars.

Friday, April 8, 2022

The Sins of our Fathers by James S A Corey


When a professional writer is confused or blocked because she has not developed her character deeply enough in her own mind to write about how her character will react or behave in specific plot situations, she will sometimes write little vignette stories from her character's past to help her develop the character in her own mind.  And, other elements of a book such as B-plot side actions that flesh out a timeline are cut by the editor so fans never get to enjoy them. Both of these unpublished materials are sometimes expanded and completed after a book becomes popular into a complete short story or novella.  The novellas and short stories of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (pen name "James S. A. Corey") appear to me to be from that slush pile of cut material.  This novella centers on Naomi Nagata's son Filip and takes place after the end of the series.  The societal, ethical, and sociological themes are well-written. 5/5 Stars.

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

The Kaiju preservation society


I love all of Scalzi's books, especially the cynical, over-the-top sarcastic comedies.  The tropes in this one were a little too predictable and melodramatic, but the dialog was fantastic, 4/5 Stars.

Monday, April 4, 2022

One Data Engineering Team's Observability journey


Here is an interesting story that is near-and-dear to my heart:  A small data engineering team crafted their systems for modest scale and then suddenly had to deal with hypergrowth.  Glossing over their early miscues, Ricardo  Souza has a good write-up of the elegant methods they are using now.

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Again: There is no attack surface as good as NO attack surface


Here is another reminder about why simple base images are more secure.  The new word for smaller, simpler, more secure base images is "quiet" because they flag fewer false positives in security scanners, are easier to maintain, and typically contain fewer security flaws.

In software & information security, as in software design, simplicity is paramount.  Whenever I read criticisms of microkernels or minimal docker images that do not separate kernel from user space with enough security layers or "security issues" in tiny distros that don't do enough to assure UID 0 separation from unprivileged UIDs, I shake my head.  If your docker container has a remote execution exploit such that bad actors can use all of its resources to access and launch further attacks, none of these "security vulnerabilities" matters.  Even the workhorse 106KB small 300+ commands BusyBox that I personally use frequently can be secured.  In real estate your top three priorities are "Location, location, location." In software design and in software security, the top three priorities are: "Simplify, simplify, simplify."

Better Outline of New Hire Documentation for Developers

Wow!  This "Reverse Onboarding" (as my buddy called it) list of 20 questions a developer should ask when she joins a new team is a fantastic outline for new-hire onboarding and a great, prioritized checklist for getting settled into a new team. 

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Take Back the Sky by Greg Bear


This conclusion to the trilogy is not bad but not great.  None of the main characters, even those with super-powers, has any agency or power over their situations in the entire story. The space opera in the outer solar system is interesting and fun; the characters are great but they are all powerless. 3/5 Stars.

Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky


The author writes well and is very imaginative.  I enjoyed all of the other books I have read by him. This one is not good.  I did not like any of the characters or care about their situations.  The awe-and-wonder space opera at the very end was good but the rest of the story is bad, 1/5 Stars.

Monday, March 21, 2022

Flux vs Argo && Flux with Helm



Here is a short, useful comparison of the strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities of the Flux family of gitops tools versus the Argo family.  Although it appears to me that Argo is currently a little better, flux is catching up quickly and has a few other advantages.

And here is an interesting, in-depth video of using flux with helm.