Why Your SSD (Probably) Sucks and What Your Database Can Do About It
Why Your SSD (Probably) Sucks and What Your Database Can Do About It Database system developers have a complicated relationship with storage devices: They can store terabytes of data cheaply, and everything is still there after a system crash. On the other hand, storage can be a spoilsport by being....
Hasnain says:
“In this case, however, you probably have other, more catastrophic data loss vectors to worry about. In other words: You probably don’t care if the fsync call completed when your laptop burns down in a house fire or gets stolen - the data is gone anyway.
If you are running database systems in a production environment, you (or your cloud provider) are hopefully using enterprise-grade SSDs with capacitor-backed write cache that have great write latency.”
Posted on 2024-07-01T01:57:46+0000
Now is a good time to start a service business
Now is a good time to start a service business. Maybe you should try it! A service business is one where your company sells its work output directly instead of selling a product. Dentists, plumbers, design agencies, pool cleaner, consultants: these are all service businesses. The opposite of a servi...
Hasnain says:
“Service businesses have always been the easiest to start because there’s no R&D phase. But they’ve historically been tough to grow because the main ways to grow were raising prices, hiring, or pruning your service into a product. If AI keeps getting better (a guarantee) but doesn’t quite get to superhuman abilities (big question mark), there will be lots of automation opportunities that let you grow your service business beyond the traditional constraints.”
Posted on 2024-07-01T01:33:35+0000
The Great Database Migration
At the end of Q2 2024, we migrated Shepherd’s pricing engine database with zero downtime.
Hasnain says:
The challenges they hit were eminently predictable - but it was still cool to read about their earlier use of SQLite.
“Overall, this migration proved to be a massive success. Shepherd is now better equipped to handle a higher volume of business and priced risks. We no longer need to worry about application/database coupling, and our engineering team’s velocity continues to grow.”
Posted on 2024-07-01T00:53:55+0000
Weekend projects: getting silly with C
C is beautiful yet full of horrors. Here's to uncovering its hidden depths.
Hasnain says:
“This last snippet is probably not UB-safe and is GCC-specific. But the point stands: you can write completely alien and befuddling code in C without making it unreadable.”
Posted on 2024-07-01T00:47:24+0000
The Dinner Party That Served Up 50,000-Year-Old Bison Stew
When life gives you frozen bison, make dinner.
Hasnain says:
"Guthrie, who is a hunter, says he wasn’t deterred by the thousands of years the bison had aged, nor the prospect of getting sick. “That would take a very special kind of microorganism [to make me sick],” he says. “And I eat frozen meat all the time, of animals that I kill or my neighbors kill. And they do get kind of old after three years in the freezer.”"
Posted on 2024-06-30T05:08:58+0000
Bytecode Breakdown: Unraveling Factorio's Lua Security Flaws
Dynamic languages are safe from memory corruptions bugs, right?
Hasnain says:
"I think this is a very interesting topic, that can serve as an introduction to understand other dynamic languages such as Javascript, where similar ideas are used for exploitation. For this reason, this is an in-depth explaination of the vulnerability, so that it can be used by others as a reference to understand how these attacks work."
Posted on 2024-06-30T04:47:00+0000
Marcus' Blog
I finally have the feeling that I’m a decent programmer, so I thought it would be fun to write some advice with the idea of “what would have gotten me to this point faster?” I’m not claiming this is great advice for everyone, just that it would have been good advice for me. I...
Hasnain says:
"Shipping slowly should merit a post-mortem as much as breaking production does. Our industry doesn’t run like that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t personally follow the north star of Shipping Fast."
Posted on 2024-06-30T04:34:07+0000
XAES-256-GCM
XAES-256-GCM is a new AEAD extended-nonce algorithm designed for high-level APIs and FIPS 140 compliance.
Hasnain says:
"Importantly, you could also describe XAES-256-GCM entirely in terms of a standard NIST SP 800-108r1 KDF and the standard NIST AES-256-GCM AEAD (NIST SP 800-38D, FIPS 197)."
Posted on 2024-06-30T03:51:01+0000
Ezra Klein on Why the Democrats Are Too Afraid of Replacing Biden
The President’s supporters have long treated his age as a superficial issue. The Times commentator explains why that position has become untenable.
Hasnain says:
“There was no vote Ruth Bader Ginsburg cast and no decision she authored that was as consequential as her decision not to retire. ♦”
Posted on 2024-06-30T02:29:14+0000
Former Lehigh University Freshman faked his father's death for full scholarship
A former Freshman at Lehigh University was arrested and accused of faking his father's death to secure a full scholarship to the school, officials said.
Hasnain says:
I don’t get why he had to brag about it online. He had gotten away with it!
“The investigation into Anand started after a moderator on the social media site Reddit notified Lehigh University of a post that was titled, "I have built my life and career on lies," officials explained.”
Posted on 2024-06-29T03:11:18+0000