Monday, November 25, 2024

What I have been studying since re:Invent

Illustration of Werner reading with a stack of books

The months main into re:Invent are thrilling (and infrequently exhausting). I spend most of my time doing analysis, assembly with sensible engineers, and growing tales to share with you on stage. It’s fantastic. However it doesn’t depart me with a lot time to learn solely for pleasure.

So, within the weeks that comply with re:Invent, I attempt to make time to work by the ever-growing pile of books accumulating on my nightstand and all through my workplace. It’s a shedding battle. Then once more, when was it ever value doing one thing simple?

Right here’s a brief record of issues I’ve began, completed, and just lately added to the pile…

  • Crucial factor I’ve learn just lately was Proper/Unsuitable: How Know-how Transforms Our Ethics by Juan Enriquez. It clearly lays out how our ethics and morals change underneath the affect of expertise in a reasonably brief period of time. For instance, utilizing gene modifying expertise resembling CRISPR to change a baby’s genome could also be unethical proper now, however our grandchildren may really feel in another way, understanding that we might have eliminated or edited a gene recognized to trigger breast most cancers. At a time of utmost polarization, this ebook challenges us to consider how rapidly mainstream opinions can shift and why.
  • In gentle of latest election outcomes worldwide, and the upcoming presidential race in america, I made a decision to re-read The Age of American Unreason in a Tradition of Lies by Susan Jacoby. It supplies wonderful historic perception into how politics and the politicians that characterize us have shifted away from rational and mental debate to who can shout the loudest. It’s fairly startling to see how a lot public language has devolved prior to now few a long time. If it is a subject you’re enthusiastic about, I urge you to learn Douglas Hofstadter’s 1964 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
  • I lastly had an opportunity to complete Down and Out in Paradise: The Lifetime of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen. As a fellow world traveler, with an analogous view of how one can dwell, I’ve all the time been impressed by Bourdain’s storytelling skills. He was an empathetic narrator that targeted on individuals and their experiences. This ebook is concerning the man behind the tales that helped convey these narratives to life.
  • As lots of you recognize, I’m a lifelong AFC Ajax supporter, so I actually loved Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s biography Adrenaline: My Untold Tales. Zlatan began his profession at Ajax and his spotlight reel from these days will do extra justice than my phrases can:

  • I picked up Atlas van een bezette stad 1940-1945 by Bianca Stigter, which covers the German occupation of Amsterdam within the type of an illustrated Atlas. It’s mind-blowing to see the ways in which the Nazi occupation nonetheless haunts the town. The ebook is in Dutch (sorry for now to my English readers), nevertheless it was tailored right into a four-hour lengthy documentary by Stigter’s associate Steve McQueen, referred to as “Occupied Metropolis” which debuted at Cannes final 12 months.

  • I began studying Rust for Rustaceans: Idiomatic Programming of Skilled Builders by John Gjengset, nevertheless it’s a bit extra superior than I want in the intervening time, so I picked Command-line Rust: A Venture-based Primer for Writing Rust CLIs by Ken Youens-Clark and it appears promising to this point. I’ll present an replace as I progress.
  • Only for enjoyable, I purchased the fourth ebook in John Burdett’s Sonchai Jitpleecheep collection: The Godfather of Kathmandu. When you have ever spent any prolonged time period in Bangkok, you’ll take pleasure in this collection. The writing is totally sensible. I’m not completed but, however to this point, it’s pretty much as good because the earlier three books.
  • The very last thing I’ll depart you with is a paper I just lately learn from the Netflix Know-how Weblog, “Rebuilding Netflix Video Processing Pipeline with Microservices” by Liwei Guo, Anush Moorthy, Li-Heng Chen, Vinicius Carvalho, Aditya Mavlankar, Agata Opalach, Adithya Prakash, Kyle Swanson, Jessica Tweneboah, Subbu Venkatrav, Lishan Zhu — It goes into element about rebuilding their video processing pipeline on their microservice-based platform Cosmos.

If there’s one thing that you just’ve learn or are studying that you just’d suggest, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.



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