You don’t have to read it, but you just might learn something.
Leading Thought
Prime
Carbon dioxide removal: the tech that is polarising climate science
Interesting article here about how two groups that are trying to do the right thing can have such different visions. In this case, the argument isn’t that Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technology isn’t worth pursuing, but more so that the technology isn’t sufficiently promising enough to alleviate the problem in the estimated time frame. While there is a lot of money being poured into CDR tech, a majority of climatologists believe that the promise of a CDR solution will only give people a false belief that we can put off drastically cutting carbon emissions.
Whether you believe the climate is changing or not, this is worth a read if only to understand the arguments. Also important is understanding which groups are firmly behind CDR being the solution; it’s probably not too surprising that the oil industry is pushing here.
It’s very important to highlight that we still can keep to 1.5C – we have the knowledge and the tools to do it. But what we do not have is a sense of urgency and political will.
Your Company’s Bossware Could Get You in Legal Trouble
This is a really interesting look at software aimed at surveilling employees in the name of security and productivity. The approach is a thoughtful one, looking at the evolution of practices and tools, the expected benefits of such tools and the opposite effects they can have, as well as the potential legal issues. The article talks not only about potential domestic (U.S.) legal jeopardy, but also about how these laws look in other countries – a much bigger concern in a global economy.
Especially if you are in management or infosec, this is an important read. While the laws may have not caught up with all of the available technology, time and again it has been proven that existing laws can be extended to cover new cases by similarity. The vast majority of people want to do good, quality work; trusting this is true is important. If you feel the people you employ need constant monitoring, you may have a much bigger problem than you know.
The NLRB is taking a stand against bossware because of how frequently it is used to suppress or discourage workplace organizing. For example, a “productivity tool” that tells bosses who each employee speaks to and for how long has a clear potential for misuse.
Coming Soon
Juneteenth Conference
(June 15th and 16th | Chicago, IL and Virtual)
The conference to celebrate Black Excellence in technology, promote Black technology professionals, and to encourage future Black technologists to explore careers in the field is back! For $300 (in-person) or $100 (virtual), this is steal. Definitely give it a look.
Test Automation & Digital QA Summit
(MAY 31, 2023 | DETROIT, MI)
Test Automation & Digital QA Summit is a testing conference that focuses on software testing, test automation, and digital quality assurance. The Summit will encompass Strategies, Tools, and trending Technology in the Software Quality Assurance and Test Automation area where Quality Assurance Leadership, Management, and Strategy converge.
Humble Bundles
Python Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Python Software Foundation – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $36 you get 18 titles, including:
- Python for Kids, 2nd Edition
- Object-Oriented Python
- Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd Edition
- Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition
- Serious Python
- And more!
The Complete Cloud Computing Bundle Software Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Alzheimers Research UK – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 20 items, including:
- AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01) [Updated for 2021]
- AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification - 2021
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C01: Exam and Beyond
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03)
- Cloud Computing for Beginners - Database Technologies and Infrastructure as a Service
- And more!
Architecture
Scaling up the Prime Video audio/video monitoring service and reducing costs by 90%
I have to thank Bhavi Kamineni for pointing me to this article ahead of catching wind of it in the Twittersphere. It’s interesting to see that a lot of takes were simply See, microservices suck! or Amazon isn’t even using Lambda, but that’s definitely not the message here. The takeaway: architecture is hard and there is no silver bullet.
I’ve been banging this drum for quite a while now (along with quite a few others): starting with a distributed architecture is going to cause pain and increase cost; start with a well-organized monolith and iterate. Look for the places that may need to scale independently and then begin to break down smaller bits. This may be mini-monoliths, or it may be serverless functions (ymmv). The key is understanding the tradeoffs being made.
We realized that distributed approach wasn’t bringing a lot of benefits in our specific use case, so we packed all of the components into a single process.
So many bad takes — What is there to learn from the Prime Video microservices to monolith story
This is a good post that goes counter to my thoughts on monolith-first architecture. The author makes a good argument for using serverless-first as an iterative, low-barrier-to-entry prototyping strategy. Under this approach, Prime Video follows an established pattern of refactoring the architecture once more is known.
Very much worth a follow-on read from the original Amazon post.
If you built it as a microservice to start with, it would probably take longer (especially as you have to make lots of decisions about how to build and run it), and be less able to iterate as you figure out exactly what you are trying to build.
Engineering
How Async/Await Really Works in C#
Wow, there is a lot here digest! The author takes you from the earliest days of asynchronous programming up through the current patterns we use. There are definitely a lot of things here that stir up bad memories of the pain that needed to happen in order to get what we now simply do with async/await. Whether you work in C# or not, this is a fascinating read about how the patterns and technology has evolved.