XFaaS: Hyperscale and Low Cost Serverless Functions at Meta
micahlerner.com XFaaS: Hyperscale and Low Cost Serverless Functions at Meta Published January 23, 2024 Found something wrong? Submit a pull request! This is one of several papers I’ll be reading from 2023’s Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP). If you’d like to receive regular upda...
Hasnain says:
If it’s the system I think it is (99% sure) it was a pretty cool one. Glad to see this published.
“The XFaaS paper is unique in characterizing a serverless system running at immmense scale. While previous research has touched on this topic, none have provided specific numbers of utilization, likely omitted due to privacy or business concerns (although Serverless in the Wild comes close).
At the same time, the data on XFaaS comes with caveats, as the system is able to make design choices under a different set of constraints than serverless platforms from public cloud providers.”
Posted on 2024-01-31T07:05:45+0000
A Pediatrician’s Two Weeks Inside a Hospital in Gaza
No space, no supplies, and harrowing life-and-death decisions.
Hasnain says:
Extreme trigger warnings because holy … I don’t know where to begin
“In the first few hours of my work, I treated an approximately one-year-old boy. His right arm and right leg had been blown off by a bomb, and flesh was still hanging off the foot. He had a bloodstained diaper, which remained, but there was no leg below. I treated the baby while he lay on the ground. There were no stretchers available because all the beds had already been taken, considering that many people were also trying to use the hospital as a shelter or safe space for their families. Next to him there was a man who was on his last breaths. He had been actively dying for the last twenty-four hours, and flies were already on him. All the while, a woman was brought in and was declared dead on arrival. This one-year-old had blood pouring into his chest cavity. He needed a chest tube so he wouldn’t asphyxiate on his own blood. But there were neither chest tubes nor blood-pressure cuffs that were available in pediatric sizes. No morphine had been given in the chaos, and it wasn’t even available. This patient in America would’ve immediately gone to the O.R., but instead the orthopedic surgeon bandaged the stumps up and said he couldn’t take him to the operating theatre right now because there were more pressing emergencies. And I tried to imagine what was more pressing than a one-year-old with no hand and no legs who was choking on his own blood. So that, to me, was symbolic of the impossible choices inflicted on the doctors of Gaza, and how truly cataclysmic that situation is.”
Posted on 2024-01-30T21:09:03+0000
Amid outrage, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan dismisses video of him beating student over ‘bottle’
Singer claims bottle in question was 'water from a spiritual leader' and that incident was an 'issue between student and teacher'.
Hasnain says:
I yearn for the day where no one (especially in Pakistan) feels that they can say something like this without being ostracized.
“Khan then said he would go on the record apologising to Hasnain once again — though he did not actually apologise on camera. “He’s my teacher, he’s like my father, fathers hit their sons and it’s not a big deal,” Hasnain said in response.”
Posted on 2024-01-29T05:56:08+0000
New York Times Puts “Daily” Episode on Ice Amid Internal Firestorm Over Hamas Sexual Violence Article
As the Times faces scrutiny for its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, it has capitulated to the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA.
Hasnain says:
“The dissent within the Times comes as the paper is also facing serious external scrutiny for its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since October 7, the New York Times has shown deference to Israel Defense Forces sources while diminishing the scale of death and destruction in Palestine. An Intercept analysis found that in the first six weeks of the war, the New York Times, alongside other major publications, consistently delegitimized Palestinian deaths and cultivated “a gross imbalance” in coverage to pro-Israeli sources and voices. The paper’s coverage of South Africa’s charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice played down severity of the case at the outset and downplayed Israel’s defeat on Friday. Just last week, the Times ran a headline touting the “Decline in Deaths in GazaOpens in a new tab,” even as Israel continues to kill Palestinians in shocking numbers on a daily basis. “
Posted on 2024-01-29T05:27:27+0000
Ruling by UN’s top court means Canada and the U.S. could be complicit in Gaza genocide
The recent ruling by the International Court of Justice means Canada could be guilty of supporting genocide in Gaza by cutting aid funding and continuing military exports to Israel.
Hasnain says:
“Because the ICJ found a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, continuing to export arms to Israel would be illegal. It would also be flagrantly inconsistent with Canada’s obligation to prevent genocide, and could expose Canada and Canadian officials to liability for participation in genocide.
We must reject the politics of deliberate indifference to atrocity currently on display in the Canadian government’s reactions to the ICJ ruling.”
Posted on 2024-01-28T16:30:55+0000
Fight over border intensifies as Texas governor pledges more razor wire
Greg Abbott says he will defy Biden and US supreme court and install more concertina wire to try to prevent migrant crossings
Hasnain says:
Why is this not bigger news? Should be on more places and receiving round the clock coverage.
“The fight between Texas and the federal government over the control of the US-Mexico border has further intensified after state governor Greg Abbott announced he will defy the Biden administration and US supreme court by ordering the installation of even more razor wire to deter migration.”
Posted on 2024-01-27T01:55:38+0000
ICJ orders Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza
World Court to deliver interim ruling on case against Israel; South Africa wants ICJ to order immediate Gaza ceasefire.
Hasnain says:
Just yesterday the US refused to state whether they would abide by ICJ rulings.
“By 16 votes to 1, the State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.”
Posted on 2024-01-26T15:00:02+0000
GPT-3.5 crashes when it thinks about useRalativeImagePath too much
Asking it to repeat "ponyuseRal ponyuseRal ponyuseRal pony" makes API requests fail
Hasnain says:
“You could try putting this phrase in documents, to throw off attempts to summarize it with GPT-3.5. I asked ChatGPT to summarize this blog post:”
Posted on 2024-01-26T06:22:20+0000
Forging signed commits on GitHub
Creating fake signed commits
Hasnain says:
“Since the first author name is zero characters long, the regex skips that line, and the fake second author line is used instead. Git ignores extra author lines after the first, so Codespaces looks at the second author line but Git looks at the first. This means we can create GitHub-signed commits with any author name+email.”
Posted on 2024-01-26T06:18:09+0000
Don’t mess with a genius
Or: What happens when Newton’s laws are violated Recently, I read a book called Newton and the Counterfeiter, subtitled The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist. I…
Hasnain says:
"In 1699 the worthless Neale finally died, and Newton became Master of the Mint on Christmas Day, his 57th birthday. The responsibilities of the job had already been de facto handled by Newton for years, but Neale had gained all the proceeds from the coining — 22,000 pounds. Newton now became the only recorded Warden to become Master. Although the Great Recoinage was over, the Mint still was in production, and Newton made 3500 the first year. He finally gave up his Cambridge professorship which he had still retained, went on to become genuinely rich for the first time, and seems to have led a contented life. Much later he lost 20000 pounds in the South Sea Bubble, the world’s first stock market crash — Newton is attributed to have said: “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men”."
Posted on 2024-01-26T05:51:52+0000