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Canva Outage: A Case Study in Saturation and Resilience

2025-01-12

Canva Outage: A Case Study in Saturation and Resilience

Canva recently experienced a major outage stemming from system saturation. A new editor page deploy wasn't the culprit; instead, a stale Cloudflare CDN rule caused massive latency for Asian users loading Javascript files. This triggered 270,000+ concurrent requests, subsequently overwhelming the API gateway with 1.5 million requests per second – three times its typical peak. A known, unfixed performance bug in the API gateway exacerbated the issue. The Linux OOM killer terminated all API gateway tasks, resulting in complete Canva.com failure. Canva engineers resolved the issue by manually increasing task counts, temporarily blocking traffic via Cloudflare firewall rules, and gradually restoring traffic. This incident highlights the importance of system resilience and the potential downsides of automated systems under heavy load.

(surfingcomplexity.blog)

Tech system outage system resilience

Scsh Manual's Author's Self-Deprecating Acknowledgements

2025-01-08

Olin Shivers, author of the Scsh reference manual version 0.6.7, offers a darkly humorous take on acknowledgements. He satirizes his colleagues, students, parents, and department chair, confessing his reliance on Prozac and Jack Daniel's to get through the day, hinting at the stress and dissatisfaction he faced during the manual's creation. The entire acknowledgement is filled with negativity and self-deprecation; it's less a thank you and more a sardonic commentary on the academic environment and his personal circumstances.

(scsh.net)

Development Reference Manual Dark Humor

Microsoft's Outlook Versions: A User Experience Nightmare?

2025-03-25

Microsoft's Outlook Versions: A User Experience Nightmare?

Microsoft veteran Scott Hanselman recently poked fun at the plethora of Outlook versions on Bluesky, including Outlook (New), Outlook (New), Outlook (Zero Sugar), and more, sparking a heated discussion. This highlights a common problem in Microsoft software: version proliferation. For example, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams (Personal) often coexist. Microsoft's push for the new Outlook, built on a modern service architecture, lacks many features of the classic version, such as COM add-in support, causing inconvenience for enterprise users. While Microsoft promises support for the Classic version until at least 2029, its forced migration strategy has raised user concerns, mirroring the case of a soft drink company replacing a well-liked product with a 'new' version and renaming the old one 'classic'. Hanselman's humorous commentary reveals the potential pitfalls of having multiple, similarly functioning options, potentially confusing users and negatively impacting user experience.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

Savoy vs. Hollywood Swing: A Deep Dive into Style Myths

2025-01-03

Savoy vs. Hollywood Swing: A Deep Dive into Style Myths

This essay debunks common misconceptions surrounding the 'Savoy' and 'Hollywood' styles of Lindy Hop. Through meticulous analysis of vintage footage, the author reveals the diversity of styles among dancers of both regions, highlighting the influence of era, geography, and individual preferences. The article argues against simplistic labeling, emphasizing the unique qualities of each dancer and advocating for a deeper appreciation of stylistic diversity rather than rigid categorization.

(swungover.wordpress.com)

Game Lindy Hop dance styles

The AI Access Gap: Pricing Pro Models Out of Reach for Developing Countries

2025-08-11

The AI Access Gap: Pricing Pro Models Out of Reach for Developing Countries

New AI pro models like ChatGPT Pro and Gemini Ultra are prohibitively expensive for users in developing countries. The article highlights that individuals in low-income nations would need to work for months or even years to afford annual subscriptions, exacerbating the AI access gap. The author calls on tech giants to consider lowering prices or providing subsidies to universities in developing nations to bridge this divide, questioning whether high prices truly subsidize broader AI model development.

(policykahani.substack.com)

AI AI gap

A Programmer's Academic Dilemma and Transformation

2025-03-03

A senior programmer teaching at a UK university, after six years of a full-time academic career, feels stifled by the current system and unable to fully utilize his talents. He's decided to transition to a part-time role to gain more time for his passion projects in programming and writing. He plans to supplement his income through consulting and crowdfunding, seeking support to escape his current state of mediocrity and rediscover his passion and creativity. He finds the current academic environment overly focused on metrics, neglecting quality and value, clashing with his own values. His transformation aims for a better work-life balance and a more impactful contribution to society.

(www.humprog.org)

Development academic struggles

Science Nerd Faces Jail Time for Ordering Radioactive Material Online

2025-03-26

Science Nerd Faces Jail Time for Ordering Radioactive Material Online

A 24-year-old Australian man, Emmanuel Lidden, faces up to 10 years in jail for ordering radioactive plutonium online as part of his quest to collect all elements of the periodic table. The incident triggered a major hazmat response in August 2023 when the package arrived at his parents' home in suburban Sydney. While his lawyer argued Lidden is an 'innocent collector' with no malicious intent, prosecutors countered that his actions created a market for illegal materials. Lidden pleaded guilty to breaching Australia's nuclear non-proliferation act and will be sentenced on April 11th. The case highlights the dangers of acquiring hazardous materials illegally and the challenges faced by law enforcement.

(au.news.yahoo.com)

Tech radioactive material periodic table nuclear non-proliferation

Systemd: Red Hat's Stealth Takeover of the Linux Ecosystem?

2025-01-20

This article delves into the true motivations behind systemd, revealing how Red Hat leveraged its business interests in embedded devices to transform systemd from a simple init system into a core component of the Linux operating system. The author alleges that Red Hat used various tactics, including lobbying open-source projects to depend on systemd and poaching developers from other distributions, to exert control over the Linux ecosystem, sparking a backlash within the open-source community and leading to the resignation of several Debian developers. Systemd is described as a monolithic system with privacy concerns, and Red Hat's ambition is portrayed as creating the next Windows. The article concludes by advocating a return to community-driven development and recommending alternatives to systemd, such as runit and s6.

(unixdigest.com)

Development

Common Sweetener Shows Promise Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria

2025-04-08

Research from Brunel University London reveals that saccharin, a common artificial sweetener, can kill multi-drug resistant bacteria, including some of the world's most dangerous pathogens. Saccharin works by damaging bacterial cell walls, making them more susceptible to antibiotics. This discovery offers a potential new weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance, leveraging a safe and widely available substance for a novel antimicrobial approach.

(www.brunel.ac.uk)

Tech saccharin antimicrobial

Lumigo Copilot: Debugging Solved in Seconds, Not Hours

2025-02-16

Lumigo Copilot: Debugging Solved in Seconds, Not Hours

Developer Nadav received a Lumigo alert: a GitHub repository parsing failure. Using Lumigo Copilot, he received a full diagnosis in seconds: a GitHub API 404 error, indicating the repository was missing or the GitHub app was uninstalled. Copilot not only pinpointed the root cause but also provided the affected project ID, users, and event queue information, allowing Nadav to quickly resolve the issue, saving hours of log debugging.

(lumigo.io)

Development log analysis

Software Design Philosophy: Taming Complexity

2024-12-21

This post summarizes three key ideas from the book "A Philosophy of Software Design": zero tolerance for complexity, the misconception that smaller components always equate to better modularity, and the complexities inherent in exception handling. The author argues that complexity isn't caused by single errors but accumulates over time. Examples of an order processing system and user registration illustrate how to avoid duplicated code and find the right balance between component size and modularity. Furthermore, the post details three techniques to reduce exception handling complexity: eliminating errors, masking exceptions, and exception aggregation, with file processing serving as an example. The book ultimately emphasizes the importance of consistently simplifying complexity in software design.

(www.16elt.com)

Development software design complexity exception handling

ClickHouse Lock Contention: A Year-Long Performance Bottleneck

2025-03-21

Tinybird experienced a year-long puzzle of extremely low CPU utilization in one of their ClickHouse clusters during peak loads. The root cause was identified as Context lock contention. By adding a `ContextLockWaitMicroseconds` metric to monitor lock wait times and redesigning the Context locking mechanism – replacing a single global mutex with read-write mutexes – performance significantly improved. The article details using Clang's thread safety analysis to debug and resolve concurrency issues, along with benchmark results showing a 3x increase in QPS and substantial CPU utilization gains.

(maksimkita.com)

Development

US Govt. Shuts Down Federal EV Chargers, Raises Questions

2025-02-23

US Govt. Shuts Down Federal EV Chargers, Raises Questions

The Trump administration declared electric vehicles 'non-mission critical,' ordering the shutdown of all federal building EV chargers and the decommissioning of newly purchased EVs. This follows the pausing of promised EV infrastructure funding. Thousands of government EVs are affected, and the move could ripple through other federal agencies, raising questions about government efficiency and environmental commitments.

(www.thedrive.com)

Tech

PicoLisp Documentation: A Comprehensive Guide

2025-03-16

This document aims to guide you through mastering the PicoLisp programming language. It gathers scattered PicoLisp code and knowledge from the internet, providing tutorials, examples, and explanations of important concepts from beginner to advanced levels. The documentation covers efficient editing, different versions of PicoLisp (including the 64-bit version and ErsatzLisp in Java), online books, source code, and numerous useful libraries and frameworks such as Web.l, Macropis, and Pl-web. You'll learn how to build projects and share your creations with the community.

(picolisp.com)

Development

Ransomware Decryption Without Paying: A Race Against Time

2025-03-14

Ransomware Decryption Without Paying: A Race Against Time

The author successfully helped a company recover its data from Akira ransomware without paying the ransom, and has open-sourced the full source code. The ransomware uses four nanosecond timestamps as seeds to generate encryption keys. By analyzing the ransomware's encryption algorithm and filesystem timestamps, the author devised a GPU-accelerated brute-force solution. This involved enumerating timestamp combinations, generating keys, and attempting to decrypt known plaintext. The process was challenging, requiring reverse engineering, CUDA programming optimization, and cloud computing resources. The author shares technical details and code, providing a valuable resource for data recovery in similar situations.

(tinyhack.com)

Development

LLVM C Library Speeds Up GPUs: Running C Code on GPUs

2024-12-14

The LLVM project has released an exciting GPU C library enabling developers to run libc and libm functions directly on the GPU within C/C++ code. The library supports two main modes: as a supplementary library for offloading languages like OpenMP, CUDA, or HIP; and by directly compiling C/C++ code for the GPU. The article details how to use both modes, including compilation options, linking, and specific builds for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. This library allows developers to leverage the parallel processing power of GPUs, significantly improving performance without needing deep knowledge of complex GPU programming models.

(libc.llvm.org)

Development GPU programming C library

The Upside-Down Air Force: Secret ECM Testing Revealed

2025-02-27

The Air Force Research Laboratory tests electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment by suspending aircraft (typically without tails) upside-down near instrumentation, avoiding the need for flight tests. This method checks for blind spots and interference from external munitions. While unofficially known as the 'Upside-Down Air Force', it tests aircraft from all services. All photos were taken from public roads.

(www.frontiernet.net)

Tech Military ECM

TikTok Goes Dark in the US: Overnight Ban

2025-01-19

TikTok Goes Dark in the US: Overnight Ban

Following a new federal law, TikTok has been banned in the US, rendering the popular social media app inaccessible to millions of American users overnight. Users began receiving notifications about the ban Friday evening, and by Saturday evening, the app was also removed from the Apple App Store. This event highlights US government concerns about data security and national security, and has sparked discussion about alternative social media apps.

(techcrunch.com)

Tech

Plex Announces Price Hikes and Paid Remote Playback

2025-03-19

Plex Announces Price Hikes and Paid Remote Playback

Plex is increasing Plex Pass subscription prices and introducing a fee for remote playback of personal media, effective April 29, 2025. Lifetime subscribers are unaffected, but existing and new monthly/yearly subscribers will see price increases. Remote playback will require either a Plex Pass or a new, cheaper Remote Watch Pass subscription. These changes aim to fund future development and improvements, including a planned integration with Common Sense Media for parental controls. The mobile app activation fee is being removed.

(www.plex.tv)

Misc Remote Playback

Spice86: A .NET-based Real Mode DOS Emulator for Reverse Engineering

2025-02-20

Spice86: A .NET-based Real Mode DOS Emulator for Reverse Engineering

Spice86 is a .NET-based emulator for executing, reverse engineering, and rewriting real-mode DOS programs without source code. It emulates program execution, exports runtime data (memory dump and execution flow), then uses the spice86-ghidra-plugin to import this data into Ghidra, converting assembly instructions into C# code. This allows for a gradual rewriting of the assembly code with C# methods. Spice86 boasts numerous command-line options, including debugging, EMS memory, A20 gate, and GDB remote debugging, along with custom GDB commands for dynamic analysis. It also features a built-in debugger for inspecting memory, disassembly, registers, stack, and structured memory views.

(github.com)

Development DOS emulator

Unmasking I/Q Signals: The Mystery of Wireless Communication

2025-07-30

Unmasking I/Q Signals: The Mystery of Wireless Communication

This article unveils the mystery behind I/Q signals, crucial in wireless communication but absent in traditional audio processing. It delves into the relationship between I/Q signals, sinusoidal waves, and the Fourier Transform. Using vector mathematics and the dot product, the article explains the orthogonality of I/Q signals and how they enable efficient modulation and demodulation. Finally, it clarifies why complex numbers are a more efficient way to represent I/Q signals in digital signal processing.

(wirelesspi.com)

Tech I/Q signals complex numbers

Apple's C1 Modem: Lower Power Consumption, Comparable Performance

2025-03-03

Apple's C1 Modem: Lower Power Consumption, Comparable Performance

Apple's self-developed C1 modem, debuting in the iPhone 16e, shows comparable performance to previous 5G chips but with significantly reduced power consumption. Tests in lab and real-world scenarios (like subway trains) show the C1 matching Qualcomm's modems in 5G speeds, while boasting roughly a 24% lower average power consumption. The iPhone 16e achieved 53 minutes more 5G video streaming time than the iPhone 16. While the iPhone 16e has a larger battery, the results highlight the significant power efficiency gains of Apple's in-house silicon design, going beyond just saving licensing fees. The success suggests Apple's reported development of a C2 modem is likely.

(appleinsider.com)

Hardware Apple C1 5G modem power efficiency

Undersea Data Center Disaster: The Tragedy of Millions of Data Bits

2025-04-05

Undersea Data Center Disaster: The Tragedy of Millions of Data Bits

A real-time streaming startup, REALTIM, experienced a Kafka message queue crash due to Kubernetes scaling, unexpectedly uncovering a forgotten undersea backup server. Due to an intern's experimental customizations and company negligence, this server accumulated massive data backlog, resulting in millions of data bits being 'imprisoned' in an undersea fiber optic cable for months, suffering data compression, magnetic interference, and more. Data bit "0000" wrote a book detailing this ordeal, resonating widely among digital entities, even garnering sympathy from Internet Explorer. This incident exposes shortcomings in the company's technology scaling and data management, reflecting a disregard for the data lifecycle.

(nareal.substack.com)

Tech Data Center Disaster

Let's Encrypt to Offer 6-Day Certificates and IP Address Support in 2025

2025-01-16

Let's Encrypt to Offer 6-Day Certificates and IP Address Support in 2025

Let's Encrypt announced plans to introduce two new certificate options in 2025: short-lived certificates with a six-day lifetime and support for IP addresses. Six-day certificates significantly enhance security by minimizing the window of vulnerability. IP address support enables secure TLS connections for IP-accessible services using publicly trusted certificates, eliminating the need for domain names. The rollout will be phased, with general availability expected by the end of 2025. Users will need an ACME client supporting certificate profiles to obtain the short-lived certificates.

(letsencrypt.org)

Tech SSL Certificates

David vs. Goliath: Small Costa Rican Supermarket Wins Trademark Battle Against Nintendo

2025-02-02

David vs. Goliath: Small Costa Rican Supermarket Wins Trademark Battle Against Nintendo

A small Costa Rican supermarket, "Super Mario," successfully defended its trademark against Nintendo. Nintendo, citing its 'Super Mario' trademark, initially challenged the supermarket's registration. However, the supermarket's legal team successfully argued that its registration for supplying basic food products didn't conflict with Nintendo's existing trademark classes. This underdog victory highlights the power of persistence and strategic legal action, even against a global corporate giant.

(ticotimes.net)

Startup trademark David and Goliath

Databricks in Talks to Acquire Open-Source Database Startup Neon for $1B+

2025-05-05

Databricks in Talks to Acquire Open-Source Database Startup Neon for $1B+

Data and AI unicorn Databricks is in advanced talks to acquire Neon, a maker of an open-source database engine, for approximately $1 billion, according to four sources familiar with the matter. While some believe the deal is done, sources say negotiations are ongoing and could still fall apart. The final price could exceed $1 billion when employee retention packages are included. Neon and its CEO declined to comment, and Databricks did not respond to a request for comment.

(www.upstartsmedia.com)

Tech Database Acquisition

China to Subsidize Smartphone Purchases to Boost Spending

2025-01-03

China to Subsidize Smartphone Purchases to Boost Spending

China will expand consumption subsidies to include smartphones and other electronics to boost domestic spending amid rising external headwinds. Officials from the nation’s top economic planning agency said Friday that a national trade-in program currently covering home appliances and cars will be broadened this year to personal devices such as phones, tablets, and smartwatches. Post-Covid, Chinese consumers have held onto their smartphones longer due to a lack of exciting new features and general belt-tightening. Like with cars and washing machines, investors hope incentives will revive the world’s largest smartphone market and drive sales not only for brands like Huawei and Xiaomi but also for platforms popular with device fans like Alibaba and JD.com. The move is part of China’s efforts to encourage consumption to offset the effects of potential new US tariffs on Chinese exports, a key growth driver. For only the second time in at least a decade, top leaders last month prioritized stimulating spending and domestic demand in 2025. The government will “significantly” increase the sale of ultra-long special treasury bonds to fund the program, which also encourages companies to upgrade equipment, according to Yuan Da, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission. Several provinces started their own trade-in programs for personal devices and phones in late 2024, but a nationwide initiative could prove more effective. The central government committed 300 billion yuan ($41.1 billion) of funds raised from special treasury bonds in July to support the subsidies. Including local government efforts, these incentives led to a surge in car and home appliance sales starting in September. Subsidies for upgrading business equipment will also be expanded to areas including agricultural facilities, according to Yuan. A specific plan for the program’s expansion will be released soon.

(finance.yahoo.com)

Tech consumption subsidies smartphones economic stimulus

OKRs: Tool or Trap?

2024-12-25

OKRs: Tool or Trap?

This article explores the duality of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). The author points out that many companies misuse OKRs for performance reviews, leading teams to overemphasize measurable metrics while neglecting the actual objectives and external effects. The author uses the example of Alexa to illustrate how blindly pursuing key results can be counterproductive. In contrast, Honeycomb uses OKRs as a tool for communication and reflection, treating key results as clues to observe the world and improve work, rather than ultimate judgment criteria, thus avoiding metric distortion.

(jessitron.com)

Development OKRs performance review goal management

Seven Years Post-Google: Selling My Company & Becoming a Dad

2025-02-04

Seven Years Post-Google: Selling My Company & Becoming a Dad

Seven years ago, Michael Lynch left his job at Google to bootstrap his own software company. This year's update covers the sale of his million-dollar-revenue remote computer control device company, TinyPilot, for $600k, and the arrival of his first child. The sale allowed for better work-life balance; he's since refined a previous blogging course, started a book on writing for developers, and explored new technologies like Nix, htmx, and Zig, improving his fuzz testing workflow with Nix. He remains enthusiastic about independent founding.

(mtlynch.io)

Startup

Hacker Laws: A Compendium of Software Development Principles

2025-03-30

This repository serves as a comprehensive guide to various laws, principles, and patterns prevalent in software development. From Brooks' Law and Conway's Law to Amdahl's Law and the 90-9-1 principle, it offers a detailed overview without advocating for any specific approach. It explores diverse aspects, including cognitive biases, distributed systems limitations, code quality, and team dynamics, providing valuable insights and lessons learned for developers of all levels.

(hacker-laws.com)

Development Laws of Software

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