Liz Balbuena
@balbuena.ca
DevOps engineer. Pythonista. Brazilian-Canadian.
Header by @sacherali.bsky.social
Header by @sacherali.bsky.social
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
the youtube vs yt-dlp arms race is hilarious, because of how lopsided it is.
on the one hand, you've got a company with the GDP of Denmark who has about a manhattan-project's worth of developers they can assign to this.
but on the other end, you've got every bored or annoyed javascript hacker.
on the one hand, you've got a company with the GDP of Denmark who has about a manhattan-project's worth of developers they can assign to this.
but on the other end, you've got every bored or annoyed javascript hacker.
October 1, 2025 at 12:02 AM
the youtube vs yt-dlp arms race is hilarious, because of how lopsided it is.
on the one hand, you've got a company with the GDP of Denmark who has about a manhattan-project's worth of developers they can assign to this.
but on the other end, you've got every bored or annoyed javascript hacker.
on the one hand, you've got a company with the GDP of Denmark who has about a manhattan-project's worth of developers they can assign to this.
but on the other end, you've got every bored or annoyed javascript hacker.
In CloudFront Invalidations, you pay per path. So it's a question between invalidating the entire site and paying for the extra refreshed requests, or just eating up the path cost.
September 16, 2025 at 2:07 PM
In CloudFront Invalidations, you pay per path. So it's a question between invalidating the entire site and paying for the extra refreshed requests, or just eating up the path cost.
So I finally got fed up with the fact that @hover.com's redirect feature is HTTP-only and I set up a tiny nginx server with Let's Encrypt just to do my own redirects. After the entire weekend updating DNS zones, I was talking to @dorival.ca and he was like "hey my provider's redirect does that." 😥
September 15, 2025 at 3:10 AM
So I finally got fed up with the fact that @hover.com's redirect feature is HTTP-only and I set up a tiny nginx server with Let's Encrypt just to do my own redirects. After the entire weekend updating DNS zones, I was talking to @dorival.ca and he was like "hey my provider's redirect does that." 😥
I got 15/26 on the fstrings.wtf quiz.
Wow things are complex these days. I'm pretty proud of this score actually.
Wow things are complex these days. I'm pretty proud of this score actually.
fstrings.wtf - Python F-String Quiz
Test your knowledge of Python's f-string formatting with this interactive quiz. How well do you know Python's string formatting quirks?
fstrings.wtf
July 31, 2025 at 7:44 PM
I got 15/26 on the fstrings.wtf quiz.
Wow things are complex these days. I'm pretty proud of this score actually.
Wow things are complex these days. I'm pretty proud of this score actually.
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Thing ya gotta remember is that bigots talk a big game... but they are intrinsically scared of anyone that isn't like them. They're weak-minded authoritarian cowards one and all. And anyone that defends their intolerance should be treated with the same distain
nazis are no joke. they deserve every piece of shit getting thrown at them. if you defend people who are obviously on the extreme right, you deserve that shit too. easy as that. make nazis afraid again
July 2, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Thing ya gotta remember is that bigots talk a big game... but they are intrinsically scared of anyone that isn't like them. They're weak-minded authoritarian cowards one and all. And anyone that defends their intolerance should be treated with the same distain
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
This is not a comment on this particularly, but I've said on different platforms there are relatively significant portions of humanity that aren't psychologically equipped to understand something that so closely mirrors human intelligence. Thinking through ~how and why it responds just doesn't work.
NEW: People are being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — and even ending up arrested or jailed — after becoming fixated on ChatGPT and other chatbots and spiraling into psychosis.
futurism.com/commitment-j...
futurism.com/commitment-j...
June 29, 2025 at 12:11 AM
This is not a comment on this particularly, but I've said on different platforms there are relatively significant portions of humanity that aren't psychologically equipped to understand something that so closely mirrors human intelligence. Thinking through ~how and why it responds just doesn't work.
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Monorepo: A tight room unfit for the entire team. We keep stepping on each other's toes.
Microservice repos: Each lonely person tends to the fields around them. We communicate to each other by yodelling across long distances. We use every version of every library & tool. What is our product, again?
Microservice repos: Each lonely person tends to the fields around them. We communicate to each other by yodelling across long distances. We use every version of every library & tool. What is our product, again?
June 3, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Monorepo: A tight room unfit for the entire team. We keep stepping on each other's toes.
Microservice repos: Each lonely person tends to the fields around them. We communicate to each other by yodelling across long distances. We use every version of every library & tool. What is our product, again?
Microservice repos: Each lonely person tends to the fields around them. We communicate to each other by yodelling across long distances. We use every version of every library & tool. What is our product, again?
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Remember that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise has to have his eyes replaced just to avoid this shit? That’s the future these tech asshats want.
First came the Amazon One palm reader at Whole Foods checkout stands. Now, Sam Altman wants you to pay for things—and verify your identity—with a scan of your irises via an orb that stores biometric information on the blockchain.
Sam Altman's Eye-Scanning Orb Is Now Coming to the US
At a buzzy event in San Francisco, World announced a series of Apple-like stores, a partnership with dating giant Match Group, and a new mini gadget to scan your eyeballs.
wrd.cm
June 2, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Remember that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise has to have his eyes replaced just to avoid this shit? That’s the future these tech asshats want.
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Bluesky, unlike X, doesn’t punish posts with links. Which means there is no good reason (and frankly no good excuse) for posts with screengrabs of articles that don’t link to them.
It’s bad for readers and bad for the writers whose work you’re using. Posting text? Link to where you got it.
It’s bad for readers and bad for the writers whose work you’re using. Posting text? Link to where you got it.
June 3, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Bluesky, unlike X, doesn’t punish posts with links. Which means there is no good reason (and frankly no good excuse) for posts with screengrabs of articles that don’t link to them.
It’s bad for readers and bad for the writers whose work you’re using. Posting text? Link to where you got it.
It’s bad for readers and bad for the writers whose work you’re using. Posting text? Link to where you got it.
I have no idea why Mongo deemed considered 8.0 a major release. I know release notes aren't exciting reads for most people but absolutely everything in that document feel like corner cases to me.
www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/...
www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/...
Release Notes for MongoDB 8.0 - Database Manual v8.0 - MongoDB Docs
www.mongodb.com
May 22, 2025 at 8:58 PM
I have no idea why Mongo deemed considered 8.0 a major release. I know release notes aren't exciting reads for most people but absolutely everything in that document feel like corner cases to me.
www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/...
www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/...
I love Firefox but enough of the internet is breaking for Gecko that I'm considering switching. Congratulations Google for your monopoly. 😢
January 7, 2025 at 7:41 PM
I love Firefox but enough of the internet is breaking for Gecko that I'm considering switching. Congratulations Google for your monopoly. 😢
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Snobby database people claim Microsoft Excel is a flawed program. I don't know what they're talking about, I rate it October 10th!
December 14, 2024 at 2:06 AM
Snobby database people claim Microsoft Excel is a flawed program. I don't know what they're talking about, I rate it October 10th!
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Last week the Python package "Ultralytics" suffered a supply-chain attack on its build and release process. This is a review of the attack from @pypi.org's perspective.
There's plenty of advice for how Python projects can increase their #security posture:
blog.pypi.org/posts/2024-1...
There's plenty of advice for how Python projects can increase their #security posture:
blog.pypi.org/posts/2024-1...
Supply-chain attack analysis: Ultralytics - The Python Package Index Blog
Analysis of a package targeted by a supply-chain attack to the build and release process
blog.pypi.org
December 11, 2024 at 3:22 PM
Last week the Python package "Ultralytics" suffered a supply-chain attack on its build and release process. This is a review of the attack from @pypi.org's perspective.
There's plenty of advice for how Python projects can increase their #security posture:
blog.pypi.org/posts/2024-1...
There's plenty of advice for how Python projects can increase their #security posture:
blog.pypi.org/posts/2024-1...
Today has been confusing. So turns out there are two big (non-aio) MySQL libraries in Python and only one of them implements connection pooling. Neither of their documentation mention it. I don't know what other differences they have. I don't know if any of them have fork-safety issues either.
December 11, 2024 at 12:59 AM
Today has been confusing. So turns out there are two big (non-aio) MySQL libraries in Python and only one of them implements connection pooling. Neither of their documentation mention it. I don't know what other differences they have. I don't know if any of them have fork-safety issues either.
It is the time of year when I have to wrangle two journals.
December 7, 2024 at 8:12 PM
It is the time of year when I have to wrangle two journals.
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
Reposted by Liz Balbuena
PyCharm's remote IDE is pretty good, but it brings smaller servers to their knees. Because of these forced circumstances, I've been getting pretty comfortable with VS Code in the past few weeks. It's still not my favourite though.
December 7, 2024 at 6:00 PM
PyCharm's remote IDE is pretty good, but it brings smaller servers to their knees. Because of these forced circumstances, I've been getting pretty comfortable with VS Code in the past few weeks. It's still not my favourite though.