tech

We are drowning in Google’s magnanimity

We are drowning in Google’s magnanimity – kpassa.me:

In reality of course OKRs are just fine. At least they’re fine for Google. For a company with its particular needs and structure, sure, it’s a fine way to run things.

For the rest of us, though, this well-intentioned subtle reinvention of goal setting just creates confusion. It makes us abandon the right tools for the job. It promises to help us think, but only provides us half-ideas without the context that made them work in the first place.

Lately I’ve been feeling the exact same thing about Kubernetes.

[I could not move people off of “it works for Google”… as if that meant it has to work elsewhere. I’ve seen enough shopping lists in my life to understand how little that is true. Same for Kubernetes. We gave a lot of things a try in one little corner of dev, but the principle that we always applied was “did it improve anything?” If the answer was no, with our own sense of priority (for whom did it improve and how much or not etc. etc) we killed anything that didn’t add up.]

Introducing The Tech Stack File | StackShare

Introducing The Tech Stack File | StackShare:

Today we’re excited to launch a new open source file format – The Tech Stack File (techstack.yml). With input from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) leadership and project maintainers, our goal with this new file format is to create the universal standard for tech stack data to make it easier for teams everywhere to access, share, and gain insights from the full range of their technology data. To help the StackShare community leverage this new file format, we’re also announcing two new products: StackShare AI and StackShare Connect.

[Could be helpful… I guess we’ll see.]

FCC moves ahead with Title II net neutrality rules in 3-2 party-line vote | Ars Technica

FCC moves ahead with Title II net neutrality rules in 3-2 party-line vote | Ars Technica:

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to move ahead with a plan that would restore net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation of Internet service providers.

In a 3-2 party-line vote, the FCC approved Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which seeks public comment on the broadband regulation plan. The comment period will officially open after the proposal is published in the Federal Register, but the docket is already active and can be found here.

The proposal would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, a designation that allows the FCC to regulate ISPs under the common-carrier provisions in Title II of the Communications Act. The plan is essentially the same as what the FCC did in 2015 when it used Title II to prohibit fixed and mobile Internet providers from blocking or throttling traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

[Yeah baby!]

Musk’s process

I find Musk very off-putting to say the least. But I still think this processis worth considering. (From Walter Isaacson’s book)

  1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.
  2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.
  3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
  4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted.
  5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out.

The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release

The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release:

In the last few years, though, the gates have been trampled by smaller, more aggressive companies, such as Clearview AI and PimEyes. What allowed the shift was the open-source nature of neural network technology, which now underpins most artificial intelligence software.

Understanding the path of facial recognition technology will help us navigate what is to come with other advancements in A.I., such as image- and text-generation tools. The power to decide what they can and can’t do will increasingly be determined by anyone with a bit of tech savvy, who may not pay heed to what the general public considers acceptable.

[Oy.facial re]

A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model

A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model:

Apple wants a model that can run very quickly and very frequently, without draining much of your device’s battery. When I was testing the predictive text feature, suggestions appeared almost instantly as I typed, making for a great user experience. While the model’s limited size means it wouldn’t be very good at writing full sentences or paragraphs, when it exhibits very high confidence in the next word or two, they’re likely to be good enough to suggest to the user.

[Making progress one little step at time…]

Google and HTTP

Google and HTTP:

The web is a miracle

Google has spent a lot of effort to convince you that HTTP is not good. Let me have the floor for a moment to tell you why HTTP is the best thing ever.

Its simplicity is what made the web work. It created an explosion of new applications. It may be hard to believe that there was a time when Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter etc didn’t exist. That was because the networking standards prior to the web were complicated and not well documented. The explosion happened because the web is simple. Where earlier protocols were hard to build on, the web is easy.

I don’t think the explosion is over. I want to make it easier and easier for people to run their own web servers. Google is doing what the programming priesthood always does, building the barrier to entry higher, making things more complicated, giving themselves an exclusive. This means only super nerds will be able to put up sites. And we will lose a lot of sites that were quickly posted on a whim, over the 25 years the web has existed, by people that didn’t fully understand what they were doing. That’s also the glory of the web. Fumbling around in the dark actually gets you somewhere. In worlds created by corporate programmers, it’s often impossible to find your way around, by design.

The web is a social agreement not to break things. It’s served us for 25 years. I don’t want to give it up because a bunch of nerds at Google think they know best.

The web is like the Grand Canyon. It’s a big natural thing, a resource, an inspiration, and like the canyon it deserves our protection. It’s a place of experimentation and learning. It’s also useful for big corporate websites like Google. All views of the web are important, especially ones that big companies don’t understand or respect. It’s how progress happens in technology.

Keeping the web running simple is as important as net neutrality.

[Anything open is inherently better than anything closed. I tell you 3X.]

Managing “Login Items” for macOS Ventura | by Robert Hammen | Medium

Managing “Login Items” for macOS Ventura | by Robert Hammen | Medium:

The concern for folks who manage macOS at scale is that users are able to simply flip a toggle to disable their management tools. Or security tools. Making it that easy to turn off essential tools is obviously undesirable. Fortunately, in later betas of macOS 13, Apple has given system administrators the ability to prevent users from simply toggling off these essential tools. You will need to create a configuration profile to manage these settings. Apple documentation is here: https://github.com/apple/device-management/blob/release/mdm/profiles/com.apple.servicemanagement.yaml

[Nice.]