Intermission - Q1 of 2025

Hate can be suppressed temporarily, but cannot be contained for too long.

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Buffer Bloat

In networking, adding too much buffering to intermediate network devices introduce unnecessary delays. The trade-off is that bursty traffic will have the appearance of getting through faster. But in reality, the speed of the network is still the same. Data just takes longer to get through.

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Fourteen Years

More reflections from foureteen years at Google.

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I Moved This Blog To Eleventy

At long last, this blog "outgrew"[1] Hugo and I had to go looking for a new static site generator.


  1. Of course, by outgrew I mean I got bored and wanted to play with a new static site generator. ↩︎

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Proof of Work

Working with a poorly thought-out, or overengineered technology stack, or an overly bureaucratic organization is also a form of proof-of-work.

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How to Solve a Problem in Three Steps

If you don't know what a refridgerator is nor what an elephant is you are likely to think that opening the door, putting the elephant in, and closing the door is a viable strategy for putting an elephant in the refridgerator.

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Asian Is Not a Useful Category

Asking if someone is "Asian" in a question of ethnicity or demographics or pretty much any context is bad. There is no reasonable conclusion you can arrive at about a person based on the fact that they are "Asian".

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The Have-Loop

Have-loops are positive feedback loops which cause unsustainable concentration of limited resources. Once you learn to recognize them, you will see them everywhere.

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When Your Feature Gets Someone Hurt

If Google Photos incorrectly tags a photo, what's the worst that could happen?

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