irrationalengineering
@irrational.engineering
Computer Science & Software Engineering. Open source. Opinions are my own. No random DMs. https://blog.irrational.engineering/
I finished reading Dr. John K. Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design and wrote a short review of it. Overall, I found it to provide a good overview of design at a level appropriate for junior engineers. Still worth reading for seniors, too! blog.irrational.engineering/Book-Reviews...
A Philosophy of Software Design (Ousterhout)
A Philosophy of Software Design by J. K. Ousterhout.
blog.irrational.engineering
June 24, 2025 at 1:39 AM
I finished reading Dr. John K. Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design and wrote a short review of it. Overall, I found it to provide a good overview of design at a level appropriate for junior engineers. Still worth reading for seniors, too! blog.irrational.engineering/Book-Reviews...
System upgrades seem to take exactly as long as it takes for you to get nervous that it didn't work, plus one minute.
May 4, 2025 at 3:34 AM
System upgrades seem to take exactly as long as it takes for you to get nervous that it didn't work, plus one minute.
Reposted by irrationalengineering
the shift from “I never thought leopards would eat MY face” to “eat my face harder leopard daddy” must be studied
April 9, 2025 at 1:49 AM
the shift from “I never thought leopards would eat MY face” to “eat my face harder leopard daddy” must be studied
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Can you believe that until just a few months ago, @tarah.org and I had *never* given a presentation *together* on a stage?
MSP GeekCon event was officially our diner scene from "Heat"... at long last, here we are together on a stage, passing the mic back and forth...
youtu.be/_-GuGE-_koY
Enjoy!
MSP GeekCon event was officially our diner scene from "Heat"... at long last, here we are together on a stage, passing the mic back and forth...
youtu.be/_-GuGE-_koY
Enjoy!
Tarah & Deviant - "He is the one who Knocks, I'm the one who Makes You Comply" [MSP GeekCon 2024]
YouTube video by DeviantOllam
youtu.be
April 8, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Can you believe that until just a few months ago, @tarah.org and I had *never* given a presentation *together* on a stage?
MSP GeekCon event was officially our diner scene from "Heat"... at long last, here we are together on a stage, passing the mic back and forth...
youtu.be/_-GuGE-_koY
Enjoy!
MSP GeekCon event was officially our diner scene from "Heat"... at long last, here we are together on a stage, passing the mic back and forth...
youtu.be/_-GuGE-_koY
Enjoy!
Reposted by irrationalengineering
new video
youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI?...
youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI?...
CONSPIRACY | contrapoints
YouTube video by ContraPoints
youtu.be
March 24, 2025 at 6:59 PM
new video
youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI?...
youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI?...
Great quick post about EBS volume limitations. If you have any EBS volumes, you should definitely alarm on latency.
PlanetScale has deployed millions of EBS volumes in data centers around the world.
@nvw.io shares insight on the real failure rate of these volumes, and how even minor failures can have a large impact on production workloads.
@nvw.io shares insight on the real failure rate of these volumes, and how even minor failures can have a large impact on production workloads.
March 24, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Great quick post about EBS volume limitations. If you have any EBS volumes, you should definitely alarm on latency.
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Paul Graham's latest piece is the hottest piece of garbage he's ever written -- which honestly is really saying something. But I take solace in the HN comments, the most upvoted of which observes that his mind has turned to mush. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4268...
The Origins of Wokeness | Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com
January 13, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Paul Graham's latest piece is the hottest piece of garbage he's ever written -- which honestly is really saying something. But I take solace in the HN comments, the most upvoted of which observes that his mind has turned to mush. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4268...
Reposted by irrationalengineering
==Training Lesson==
INVESTIGATION NARRATIVE: SSH Kill la Killed 🧵
My job is to solve the Weird Problems as the Final escalation tier. I do this with generalist knowledge and practical experience.
New InfoSec/IT entrants often ask what this looks like in practice. Follow below.
INVESTIGATION NARRATIVE: SSH Kill la Killed 🧵
My job is to solve the Weird Problems as the Final escalation tier. I do this with generalist knowledge and practical experience.
New InfoSec/IT entrants often ask what this looks like in practice. Follow below.
January 11, 2025 at 7:12 PM
==Training Lesson==
INVESTIGATION NARRATIVE: SSH Kill la Killed 🧵
My job is to solve the Weird Problems as the Final escalation tier. I do this with generalist knowledge and practical experience.
New InfoSec/IT entrants often ask what this looks like in practice. Follow below.
INVESTIGATION NARRATIVE: SSH Kill la Killed 🧵
My job is to solve the Weird Problems as the Final escalation tier. I do this with generalist knowledge and practical experience.
New InfoSec/IT entrants often ask what this looks like in practice. Follow below.
Nvidia must be keeping driver installation near-impossible to get right to hold back AGI because the world is not ready yet
January 13, 2025 at 4:40 AM
Nvidia must be keeping driver installation near-impossible to get right to hold back AGI because the world is not ready yet
Reposted by irrationalengineering
after days of grifters and con men at CES we stumbled upon the booth for VLC. they were all dressed as wizards and told us, "we have nothing to sell, we just decided to show up". i told them I'd been using their software to pirate media for 15 years and they said "keep doing that"
January 10, 2025 at 9:24 PM
after days of grifters and con men at CES we stumbled upon the booth for VLC. they were all dressed as wizards and told us, "we have nothing to sell, we just decided to show up". i told them I'd been using their software to pirate media for 15 years and they said "keep doing that"
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Cybersecurity people loves to focus on zeroday exploits instead of basic security hygiene, but in a lot of cases where threat actors do actually use zeroday exploits, their impact would have been significantly blunted by basic security hygiene.
Neuberger explained that, in one telecom company’s case, a single administrator account had access to over 100,000 routers, so when the Chinese compromised the account, they gained broad access across the entire network.
therecord.media/nine-us-comp...
therecord.media/nine-us-comp...
December 27, 2024 at 9:58 PM
Cybersecurity people loves to focus on zeroday exploits instead of basic security hygiene, but in a lot of cases where threat actors do actually use zeroday exploits, their impact would have been significantly blunted by basic security hygiene.
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Yes! The credible exit is SO important -- and is exactly what is annhilated by these license changes. I would love to magically appear in board meetings of OSS companies and read this post aloud to them...
We chose CockroachDB because it was open source and happily paid for the cloud version. The important part of open source for us is the 'credible exit' where we can't be shaken down at some point in the future. We had just started exploring ScyllaDB...
December 20, 2024 at 5:44 PM
Yes! The credible exit is SO important -- and is exactly what is annhilated by these license changes. I would love to magically appear in board meetings of OSS companies and read this post aloud to them...
And now that Casey's explainer is getting some visibility, Ben doesn't engage with it all, simply replying "I welcome improvements". Ben, you are making a fool of yourself, quit while you are ahead. This microbenchmark is utterly useless, no improvements can be made!
@cmuratori.bsky.social did a great, short explanation of why that stupid languages benchmark from Ben Dicken is terrible x.com/cmuratori/st...
x.com
x.com
December 20, 2024 at 9:36 PM
And now that Casey's explainer is getting some visibility, Ben doesn't engage with it all, simply replying "I welcome improvements". Ben, you are making a fool of yourself, quit while you are ahead. This microbenchmark is utterly useless, no improvements can be made!
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Building Shitty Gingerbread House Just Making Depression Worse
theonion.com/building-shi...
theonion.com/building-shi...
December 19, 2024 at 8:20 PM
Building Shitty Gingerbread House Just Making Depression Worse
theonion.com/building-shi...
theonion.com/building-shi...
Reposted by irrationalengineering
I (finally) wrote up my thoughts on "Founder Mode" and the Brian Chesky morality tale about how he turned around Airbnb company culture.
This has made it into the Silicon Valley water table; it must be dealt with. There are some good nuggets within; let's dig them out.
charity.wtf/2024/12/17/f...
This has made it into the Silicon Valley water table; it must be dealt with. There are some good nuggets within; let's dig them out.
charity.wtf/2024/12/17/f...
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking
I’ve never been good at “hot takes”. Anyone who knows anything about marketing can tell you that the best time to share your opinion about something is when everyone is all worked up about it. Hot …
charity.wtf
December 17, 2024 at 5:56 PM
I (finally) wrote up my thoughts on "Founder Mode" and the Brian Chesky morality tale about how he turned around Airbnb company culture.
This has made it into the Silicon Valley water table; it must be dealt with. There are some good nuggets within; let's dig them out.
charity.wtf/2024/12/17/f...
This has made it into the Silicon Valley water table; it must be dealt with. There are some good nuggets within; let's dig them out.
charity.wtf/2024/12/17/f...
Reposted by irrationalengineering
"What radicalized you?" Hospitals, schools, libraries, SLTT govs getting disrupted. My sister impacted by ransomware *four different times*, disrupting her work and life. Watching criminals get away with it for so long.
I wrote about why we need to change our thinking. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
I wrote about why we need to change our thinking. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
Why Biasing Advanced Persistent Threats over Cybercrime is a Security Risk
Once reserved for nation-state actors, advanced and persistent cyber tactics are now common among cybercriminals, making them equally devastating in today’s threat landscape.
www.rusi.org
December 17, 2024 at 4:41 PM
"What radicalized you?" Hospitals, schools, libraries, SLTT govs getting disrupted. My sister impacted by ransomware *four different times*, disrupting her work and life. Watching criminals get away with it for so long.
I wrote about why we need to change our thinking. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
I wrote about why we need to change our thinking. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Latest OxF is up on the pod—AND we’re back again monday when @pfrazee.com joins me and @bcantrill.bsky.social! share.transistor.fm/s/081bb0ed
Conferences in Tech | Oxide and Friends | Episode 31
share.transistor.fm
December 14, 2024 at 8:58 PM
Latest OxF is up on the pod—AND we’re back again monday when @pfrazee.com joins me and @bcantrill.bsky.social! share.transistor.fm/s/081bb0ed
Reposted by irrationalengineering
devin stuck in vim rn he just like you
December 11, 2024 at 10:16 PM
devin stuck in vim rn he just like you
The AWS console's new Cloudscape UI is one of the worst UIs I have ever had the displeasure of using. So much money spent on engineering this crap and for what? It's a regression in every way (for the customer, not that AWS cares anymore). @quinnypig.com save me patron saint of AWS
December 11, 2024 at 7:08 PM
The AWS console's new Cloudscape UI is one of the worst UIs I have ever had the displeasure of using. So much money spent on engineering this crap and for what? It's a regression in every way (for the customer, not that AWS cares anymore). @quinnypig.com save me patron saint of AWS
Reposted by irrationalengineering
it's kinda sad that digital work is so hidden
like there's no messy study room or bookshelves full of works you've read or letters from people and gizmos and widgets you've built or stacks of drawings and diagrams
it's all just, hidden in folders, already lost in space, and eventually lost to time
like there's no messy study room or bookshelves full of works you've read or letters from people and gizmos and widgets you've built or stacks of drawings and diagrams
it's all just, hidden in folders, already lost in space, and eventually lost to time
December 10, 2024 at 10:12 AM
it's kinda sad that digital work is so hidden
like there's no messy study room or bookshelves full of works you've read or letters from people and gizmos and widgets you've built or stacks of drawings and diagrams
it's all just, hidden in folders, already lost in space, and eventually lost to time
like there's no messy study room or bookshelves full of works you've read or letters from people and gizmos and widgets you've built or stacks of drawings and diagrams
it's all just, hidden in folders, already lost in space, and eventually lost to time
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Dear friends, I'm rejoining Redis. It's a long story, so it deserved a blog post to explain all the details: antirez.com/news/144
From where I left - <antirez>
antirez.com
December 10, 2024 at 4:40 PM
Dear friends, I'm rejoining Redis. It's a long story, so it deserved a blog post to explain all the details: antirez.com/news/144
Reposted by irrationalengineering
Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intel
bcantrill.dtrace.org/2024/12/08/w...
bcantrill.dtrace.org/2024/12/08/w...
Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intel
By all accounts, Pat Gelsinger is affable, technically sharp, hard-working, and decent. Those who have worked for him praise him as a singularly good manager. In January 2021, when Gelsinger was abrup...
bcantrill.dtrace.org
December 9, 2024 at 12:15 AM
Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intel
bcantrill.dtrace.org/2024/12/08/w...
bcantrill.dtrace.org/2024/12/08/w...
Reposted by irrationalengineering
things ppl on the internet got angry at me for in 2024 🧵
December 7, 2024 at 10:43 AM
things ppl on the internet got angry at me for in 2024 🧵
Reposted by irrationalengineering
absolutely incredible attack vector
December 6, 2024 at 3:27 AM
absolutely incredible attack vector