I really want to see some operational setups be available as a sort of playground for observability tooling.
A decent sized SaaS-like with usage simulation, and a postgres/rabbit setup that is merely fine. A place to check if your debugging tooling/strategy is upt to snuff.
vichyvich · 8h ago
I love this! It would be great to have follow-ups and series of books about how to make things worse, as a way to learn to make things better.
Maybe it could be like O’Reilly, except the covers could have shittily-drawn fantasy animals, e.g. a 7-year-old’s drawing of a unicorn with a head on each side of its body both talking on their AirPods giving away their money to scammers, making PowerPoint slides, eating too much, doing hard drugs, live-streaming on Facebook, and standing on the railroad tracks with a train in the distance.
don-code · 8h ago
This strategy was actually used during World War II, to ensure pilots could come home safely. Weather forecasting not being what it is today, meteorologists determined what conditions would result in the _most_ lives being lost, then together with mission commanders "designed" missions to simply not meet those conditions.
Obviously this is a total aside, but can anyone explain what’s going on with that? Is it just explaining terrain mapping in an intentionally obtuse way, or is it some kind of parody? It’s really frustrated me because lots of people like to trot it out like a meme in the same way it was here.
Bairfhionn · 52m ago
It's a joke (meme, copypasta) but it's also accurate.
As I understood: Missile uses gyros and accelerometers to figure out how far it flew already towards the target. This is not 100% accurate.
So it additionally uses terrain mapping to figure out how it looks down there. Compare ground (am I flying above a slope?) to its internal maps and it can figure out where it is and adjust path if off course.
So it figured out the position by knowing that the position is most likely not the position where it's supposed to be.
chrisandchris · 51m ago
> Is it just explaining terrain mapping in an intentionally obtuse way
AFAIK, yes, that's what it actually was (or the basic sentiment actually came from). It was some part of training video in the US army/navy (don't know exactly), but the actual story or origin remains a bit unclear. At least my search within the web did not yield any (assumingly) valid source. I think at some point it just got to "it is what it is now" because it is a very, very complicated way to explain this stuff.
prisenco · 8h ago
I took a creative writing class and we had a portion where we read and analyzed bad writing then took good writing and rewrote it poorly and those were the most helpful writing exercises I've ever done.
If you are ever going to get to grips with optimizing something, why not do the opposite first or as a foil?
How often do you really fenangle your database (or other system) properly? Are your performance enhancements really based on science or cargo culting or something else?
sschnei8 · 7h ago
I always do that when working with a new cloud provider. I spend our Series A as fast as possible after which we can optimize cloud spend!
therein · 4h ago
Cloud providers love this one trick.
KnuthIsGod · 3h ago
The Defence of Duffer's Drift is an early example of this genre.
In the first story in the book you learn how to do platoon level tactics badly( and lose most of your men )
In each subsequent story, a few tactical parameters are tweaked
and the story is recounted again, with improved results.
The same approach is used in newer tactical books like Musicians of Mars 2.
The first Team Badger story in Musicians is very similar to the first story in Duffer's Drift, allowing for changes in location, equipment and techniques..
"The lingering sulfur odor of gunpowder, mixed in the haze of the dust and
smoke of battle, dominated the senses of CPT Fred Morris, commander of
Team Badger. He sat amid the wreckage of what used to be some of the
world’s finest combat machines, M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2A3 Bradley
fighting vehicles.
Now most of his company’s tanks and Brads were mere
smoking hulks, emanating the distinct smell of burning electronics to add
another element to the senses of the dismal scene before him.
He sat, quietly reflecting on the sequence of events that led to the
destruction of his beloved team. His mind raced as he recounted how the
enemy force, so much more formidable than he had expected, employed
assets, capabilities, and tactics that he had not taken into account. At the
same time, he wondered why he was unable to bring to bear his own
extensive combat power to earn decisive victory. He had felt so ready, so
confident, and believed that his team had prepared so diligently.
Yet, still
they had been defeated so soundly. How could that be?
LTC Joe Milner, the task force commander, had given Team Badger the task
to defend the center of the task force main battle area (MBA) in an area
defense to destroy the attacking enemy motorized rifle brigade. Specifically,
CPT Morris and Team Badger were to defend against the enemy’s main
effort motorized rifle battalion in Battle Position (BP) Badger, along the
enemy’s most likely avenue of approach.
That motorized rifle battalion
plowed through Team Badger as if it were not even there."
travisgriggs · 3h ago
Felt like a synergy of Hyperbole and a Half and db admin. Reading it made my day and taught me a few things too.
robertclaus · 3h ago
This was great. The mention of deadlocks at the end makes me wonder if there's also some transaction isolation settings to adjust.
stephenlf · 8h ago
Love the B Sanderson shoutout
sastraxi · 8h ago
Great writing style and articulation of thought! That was a fun read
shmerl · 9h ago
Reminds A Ticket To Tranai.
Waterluvian · 8h ago
Honestly, walking away in the wrong direction from default settings seems like a great way to really get a feel for their weight.
oceanparkway · 6h ago
We need more of this
preinheimer · 9h ago
Love it.
snickerdoodle12 · 9h ago
Excellent. Now do 42,000x faster please.
mort96 · 8h ago
You never specified a baseline. They could undo their changes and it's 42,000x faster again :)
A decent sized SaaS-like with usage simulation, and a postgres/rabbit setup that is merely fine. A place to check if your debugging tooling/strategy is upt to snuff.
Maybe it could be like O’Reilly, except the covers could have shittily-drawn fantasy animals, e.g. a 7-year-old’s drawing of a unicorn with a head on each side of its body both talking on their AirPods giving away their money to scammers, making PowerPoint slides, eating too much, doing hard drugs, live-streaming on Facebook, and standing on the railroad tracks with a train in the distance.
Source: https://medium.com/butwhatfor/suppose-i-wanted-to-kill-a-lot...
https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ?si=QrIlpJ6BuJADd_zF
As I understood: Missile uses gyros and accelerometers to figure out how far it flew already towards the target. This is not 100% accurate.
So it additionally uses terrain mapping to figure out how it looks down there. Compare ground (am I flying above a slope?) to its internal maps and it can figure out where it is and adjust path if off course.
So it figured out the position by knowing that the position is most likely not the position where it's supposed to be.
AFAIK, yes, that's what it actually was (or the basic sentiment actually came from). It was some part of training video in the US army/navy (don't know exactly), but the actual story or origin remains a bit unclear. At least my search within the web did not yield any (assumingly) valid source. I think at some point it just got to "it is what it is now" because it is a very, very complicated way to explain this stuff.
If you are ever going to get to grips with optimizing something, why not do the opposite first or as a foil?
How often do you really fenangle your database (or other system) properly? Are your performance enhancements really based on science or cargo culting or something else?
In the first story in the book you learn how to do platoon level tactics badly( and lose most of your men )
In each subsequent story, a few tactical parameters are tweaked and the story is recounted again, with improved results.
The same approach is used in newer tactical books like Musicians of Mars 2.
The first Team Badger story in Musicians is very similar to the first story in Duffer's Drift, allowing for changes in location, equipment and techniques..
Warning: PDFs below:
The Defence of Duffer's Drift https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-ins...
Musicians of Mars 2 https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2023/01/19/5a01ae1c/16-1...
"The lingering sulfur odor of gunpowder, mixed in the haze of the dust and smoke of battle, dominated the senses of CPT Fred Morris, commander of Team Badger. He sat amid the wreckage of what used to be some of the world’s finest combat machines, M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles.
Now most of his company’s tanks and Brads were mere smoking hulks, emanating the distinct smell of burning electronics to add another element to the senses of the dismal scene before him.
He sat, quietly reflecting on the sequence of events that led to the destruction of his beloved team. His mind raced as he recounted how the enemy force, so much more formidable than he had expected, employed assets, capabilities, and tactics that he had not taken into account. At the same time, he wondered why he was unable to bring to bear his own extensive combat power to earn decisive victory. He had felt so ready, so confident, and believed that his team had prepared so diligently.
Yet, still they had been defeated so soundly. How could that be? LTC Joe Milner, the task force commander, had given Team Badger the task to defend the center of the task force main battle area (MBA) in an area defense to destroy the attacking enemy motorized rifle brigade. Specifically, CPT Morris and Team Badger were to defend against the enemy’s main effort motorized rifle battalion in Battle Position (BP) Badger, along the enemy’s most likely avenue of approach.
That motorized rifle battalion plowed through Team Badger as if it were not even there."