31 January 2024

54 links · Wednesday

Relational Databases Aren't Paying Off In Payments

Choosing Relational Databases for Payments was the result of a historical accident. Should the payment industry move on to better alternatives?

Rest in Peace Dad – Dan Quach Blog

Around US Thanksgiving, my mom­ let me know that my dad had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with a life expectancy of 1-2 years. In mid December my dad was hospitalized and one of the doctors suggested all family members should come urgently.  When I …

Cryonics Cost-Benefit Analysis – niplav

author: niplav, created: 2019-10-18, modified: 2023-07-22, language: english, status: maintenance, importance: 7, confidence: remote

White Elephant and "fixed time, variable scope" — Bobbie Chen

I recently wrote White Elephant is surprisingly effective (link) with Yee Aun, and I realized I hadn't mentioned it here yet. It's an exploration of what makes a gift distribution "good", including simulation and visualization of how White Elephant distributes…

Don't chase f*** you money

When I was younger, I had one clear goal. I wanted to be a millionaire by the age of 30. I didn't know it then, but this wasn't even MY goal. It was something inherited from the tech-entrepreneurship culture of the early 2000s. Remember this? A million dolla…

Offline-First Editing

I like to check in, every so often, on the state of offline-first solutions. Most of what exists is focused around sqlite. Here are some of the projects that pop up frequently when I search: cr-sqlite mycelite sqlite-sync litesync (not open source) sqlsync The…

A tiny particle simulator

I've become a huge an of a platformer game called Noita, where every pixel is a dynamic part of a simulation. These pixels can interact with each other and the player in complex and often unpredictable ways. You're plunged into a procedurally generated cave, t…

My First Post Mortem

Report of my first serious incident as a software engineer

SBTRKT, a Really Big Zoetrope

I got involved in this project a while back (2015). My friends over at Pirate called me up and told me a gent called Jim Le Fevre needed a strobe, a big strobe. Jim is a BAFTA winning animator and director and had built Zeotropes before, but nothing anywhere c…

From Ephemeral to Everlasting: Understanding Container Volumes

Containers are small, lightweight bundles containing one or more applications and their dependencies, essential for running code. The beauty of containers lies in their ability to package all necessary components, making applications highly portable. Why does …

Azure sneakily hides cheaper option in it's UI

Recently a friend had to set up some cloud infrastructure on Azure. He was trying to create a VPN Gateway through the web UI, but couldn’t find the “Basic” tier (the cheapest on Azure). The only available options started at more than $100 / month! He later stu…

Infinite Craft

A game about crafting

Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

It’s a common occurrence: You’re sitting at your desk, lost in thought, trying to solve a problem that’s been blocking your work all week. Deep in your brain you’re building a structure of thoughts and possibilities undreamed of in anyone’s philosophy:…

How To Use ArraySegment in C#

In this article, we will see how we can use ArraySegment C#. We will see how we can use it to segment arrays for easy work distribution.

Google Search Drops Cache Link From Search Results

After a couple of months of testing, it seems Google has now removed the cache link from the search results page. I no longer see a link to the Google cache within search result snippets but that doesn't mean you cannot access to cache, you can.

AI Unleashed: Decoded Emotions in Text!

Dive into the fascinating world of sentiment analysis and discover how software engineers decode emotions from text! 🚀 In this YouTube short, we break down ...

"It depends" Drives Me Crazy! #shorts

The "it depends" is worthless if it's not followed up by an explanation "on what exactly" it depends on. #programming #software #softwarearchitecture #softwa...

Intel’s Humbling

Intel under Pat Gelsinger is reaping the disaster that came from a lack of investment and execution a decade ago; the company, though, appears to be headed in the right direction, as evidenced by i…