2021#12 Readings
4 minutes read | 796 words by Ruben BerenguelNot much to report. I’m still in kind of an article reading slump (my backlog is larger than 50 right now).
The post-slide tiredness means my non-work hours are mostly devoted to non-brain work (playing and idly watching Netflix). The available brainpower I have focused in reducing my backlog of books: first by removing a bunch (around 40) and also by finishing some (here shows: I have finished 4 only this week). My “pending” list is now at 89 pending books. That’s around 3-4 years at my usual reading rhythm.
đ Extreme Ownership
There are a lot of interesting things to get from this book, but I’d love an abridged version. There’s a lot of repetition that could be avoided. Part of it is to be expected (to hammer the message) but other is superfluous (repeating already mentioned events of their deployment in Iraq)
My Corona year
Using Nightingale plots is sometimes a good choice, like here.
Scaling Reporting at Reddit
TL;DR they moved to Druid, which pre-aggregates on read. Looks like a solid choice.
Compiling Containers - Dockerfiles, LLVM and BuildKit
The parallels between building docker containers from Dockerfiles and building executables from source code.
đŠ I’m fascinated by this simple formula to create bit fields that look like alien art
Generative stuff here.
Why Coiled passed on Jupyter Notebooks
Users today expect to run distributed computing systems, like Databricks/Spark, within hosted notebooks, like Databricks notebooks.
Huh?
European Parliament Gender Balance / KDO
This is a beautiful visualization. And it’s nice to see it’s approaching equality.
Content-aware image resizing in JavaScript
How seam carving (which I have mentioned before) works, and a Javascript implementation.
Noise in Creative Coding
Wow, goes from Perlin noise to shaders. Incredibly complete and full of live examples.
Hosting SQLite databases on Github Pages - (or any static file hoster)
This gets my vote as genuinely impressive.
Engineering Optimizes Araâą by Running Roaring Bitmaps
What an interesting rabbit hole.
French police are investigating an international Lego crime ring
This is worth just with the title.
I could build this during the weekend
As the “data branch” of our virtual “infrastructure team”, fully agreed.
How fast Koalas and PySpark are compared to Dask
This comes from Databricks, so should be taken with a small grain of salt (I trust them, but of course they should be biased). I’m surprised Koalas/Spark trounces Dask by such a margin.
Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes
This is a surprisingly old post to find. Some Python and some clustering on colours give an impressive result.
Programar es de pobres: por qué el mundo del software estå roto en España
Probably only relevant for Spanish developers (also, in Spanish).
Article series: Unpacking Interview Questions
If you are a hiring interviewer or are ever interviewed, you should read these. I.e., read these.
When Real World Mapping Meets Tolkien
You know it, I love maps.
How I Practice Piano
I have essentially ignored my piano for 2 months, while finishing slides of a talk. After finishing them (and having presented them twice already) I’ve been so drained that I have either read or played in VR on the now again available time. Hopefully this week I’ll have some energy back for it.
đ The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams
This has been (so far) the last of the books on the series that I read. All are very quick reads⊠full of annotations I have added. This was in paper, too: I didn’t remember you needed a marker to annotate paper books. Kindle is more convenient!
đ The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You
Following my trend of management/leadership books. This is kind-of-biographical, including experiences and tips found. Got some ideas from it, but they appear also elsewhere. Works well as an audiobook though, it’s a good listen.
đ Leadership and the One Minute Manager
Of the three books in the series that I have been recommended, this has probably been the most eye-opening.
