Made by Mikal
Content here is by Michael Still, mikal@stillhq.com.
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Latest posts
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Chasing OpenStack memory usage: the memory your Python services spend on code they never run
OpenStack’s CI runs most changes through devstack, which usually builds an entire cloud on a single virtual machine. The underlying machines are often forced to swap out memory, and swapping makes jobs slow and flaky. This is especially true because a lot of the machines donated…
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Getting a ZG-204W WiFi PIR sensor working with tuya-local and Home Assistant
I wanted a presence sensor for my office but am cheap, so I ordered a ZG-204ZM from AliExpress. One of the main attractions was that it is USB powered and I am tired of changing batteries, and it does temperature / humidity / luminance as well. The device I thought I ordered is…
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When
Title: When Author: Daniel H. Pink Genre: Time Publisher: Text Publishing Company Release Date: 2018 Pages: 256 ★★★★☆ Whilst Daniel Pink’s “When” might have suffered a bit from the scientific replication crisis that plagues books of this era, I think it makes an interesting if…
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Beacon 23
Title: Beacon 23 Author: Hugh Howey Genre: Science Fiction Pages: 252 ★★★★★ This is a science fiction novel set in the cramped confines of a navigational beacon in interstellar space. The solo operator of the beacon is a bit… messed up by his military service and needs to think…
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Robot Dreams (again)
Title: Robot Dreams Author: Isaac Asimov Genre: American Science fiction Publisher: Byron Preiss Visual Publications Release Date: February 12, 2012 Pages: 349 ★★★★☆ I think its interesting how my perspective on these older science fiction books changes a bit each time I read…
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Michael’s unifying theories: when you grew up seems to really affect your attitude towards information
When I was a teenager one of my favorite series of books was Inside Macintosh. Sure I liked lots of fiction stuff as well, but in terms of technical books that really changed how I thought about things in high school, this was it. The design of the early Macintoshes was elegant,…
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On resistance to change in computer science
Irving Ziller, one of the original members of the FORTRAN team, describing the resistance of early programmers to the introduction of a compiler: “And in the background was the scepticism, the entrenchment of many of the people who did programming in this way at that time; what…
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The League of Dangerous Young Ladies
Title: The League of Dangerous Young Ladies Publisher: Penguin Random House NZ ★☆☆☆☆ I am historically terrible at giving up on a book, but I am trying to call it earlier when a book is going nowhere. This book… Was going nowhere I cared about. I originally bought it on an…
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Stuff the British Stole
Title: Stuff the British Stole Author: Marc Fennell Publisher: Penguin Random House NZ ★★★☆☆ This book is interesting and easy to read, but I can’t help but feel like sometimes it lacks depth of analysis. It certainly lacks any form of supporting references, which I have come to…
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Michael’s unifying theories: the way an organization thinks of itself really matters
A few times now I have worked for organizations that are basically IT shops — that is, their core business now depends on being very good at doing Computer Things. However, many of these places were pretty terrible at computers. Let’s keep picking on Telstra, because its an…