Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Sep 8

aws.amazon.com/blogs/databa...

How to optimize Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora database costs/performance with AWS Compute Optimizer | Amazon Web Services

In this post, we dive deeper into database optimization for your Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), exploring how you can use AWS Compute Optimizer recommendations to make cost-aware res...

aws.amazon.com

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Sep 8

...it's pretty clear that arm64 should be the default instance type choice for RDS or Aurora on AWS.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Sep 8

(slightly less if you're using Graviton3 which is not discounted quite as much as Graviton2). So unless you have great data saying that your x64 database instance is better on price/performance or there is a compatibility issue in an extension you want to use...

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Sep 8

I've had an open tab for a few weeks (link in comment) that AWS added RDS and Aurora instance type recommendations to the AWS Compute Optimizer. It's pretty wild that you can save somewhere around 10% across a big variety of database instance types.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 7

Used Electrify America L3 charger for the first time and wow is that nice. Usually we charge at home, but this was fast, convenient, and not very expensive while we were far from home.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 3

Long-term, I want to see US lawmakers prioritize a national privacy law. This announcement is a step in the right direction.

blog.google/technology/s...

Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology to promote privacy in age assurance

Today, we open sourced our Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) libraries, fulfilling a promise and building on our partnership with Sparkasse to support EU age assurance.

blog.google

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 3

Quoting from the post: "In layperson’s terms, ZKP makes it possible for people to prove that something about them is true without exchanging any other data. So, for example, a person visiting a website can verifiably prove he or she is over 18, without sharing anything else at all."

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 3

I believe in user-controlled privacy. I'm very disappointed in the lack of privacy laws in the United States. I love seeing this update from Google that they have open sourced a Zero Knowledge Proof library that can be used in support of technology standards that preserve privacy.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 1

blog.cloudflare.com/containers-a...

Containers are available in public beta for simple, global, and programmable compute

Cloudflare Containers are now available in public beta. Deploy simple, global, and programmable containers alongside your Workers.

blog.cloudflare.com

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 1

Serverless compute offerings have ongoing innovation and Cloudflare is looking more like a PaaS all the time.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jul 1

Last week Cloudflare launched Containers, which is a significant update to their serverless compute offerings. Cloudflare Workers support is limited to JavaScript and WASM, and this new Containers offering let's you bring a container to their global compute runtime.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 26

I tried Wispr (wisprflow.ai) as a voice input method today on my Mac and it works really well. I really like the UX. They've done a nice job with it. MacOS Dictation also works decently so they'll have to be a lot better than that for it to really catch on.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 24

Citing your sources is so important. I researched cloud network pricing and ChatGPT confidently told me that Azure charges from cross-AZ traffic within a Virtual Network. I thought changed, so I checked. Azure made cross-AZ traffic free in May 2024! Check the citations of these chatbots!

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 19

You can read about it here: www.sci.news/astronomy/vl...

And get downloads of the images in various wallpaper sizes here: www.eso.org/public/image...

VLT Captures Most Detailed Image Ever of NGC 253 | Sci.News

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed the active starburst (star-forming) galaxy NGC 253 in thousands of colors si...

www.sci.news

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 19

There are some amazing new images of a galaxy named NGC 253 that is 11.5m lightyears away that is generated from data captured with with the Very Large Telescope.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 15

An Incredible read from my former colleague Jack about his experiences trying an alternative job to engineering after being on the HashiCorp rocketship from the beginning.

A Year in EMS www.jackpearkes.com/posts/a-year...

A Year in EMS

My experience working as an EMT in LA County.

www.jackpearkes.com

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 12

Some tips, after installing, configure it to start when your machine starts. I had to restart the OS before the | icon showed, which enables you to configure which icons you want to hide.

apps.apple.com/us/app/hidde...

‎Hidden Bar

‎Hidden lets you hide menu bar items to give your Mac a cleaner look. Features: - Launch at login - Auto-hide after 5/10/15/30/60 seconds - Show/hide with global shortcut - Full menu bar mode - ...

apps.apple.com

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 12

Want to hide annoying cluttered menu-bar icons in MacOS? Hidden Bar is a simple, free, and OSS utility that hides menu bar items behind a simple expander. When you don't need to use the icons, they are hidden from view. youtu.be/Y8OmjbySFao

youtu.be

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 11

Yes, the lens is very finance-centric, but I found it super helpful as a base set of personas that are applicable across many aspects of cloud. Kudos to the FinOps org for putting this together and sharing it. www.finops.org/framework/pe...

FinOps Personas

The FinOps discipline covers many different personas. Understand more about them, their roles, and requirements.

www.finops.org

James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 11

Ever needed to describe personas and roles involved in cloud decisions? I met the FinOps.org team at a conference and after looking around their website, I found that they had mapped out the Personas really effectively for various people at organizations that work on cloud.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 2

Truffle Security also wrote about this last year trufflesecurity.com/blog/postman...

(The) Postman Carries Lots of Secrets ◆ Truffle Security Co.

trufflesecurity.com

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · Jun 2

It’s really common to use Postman to try and test APIs. Thanks to Corey Quinn’s weekly AWS newsletter to highlight this article. Be careful what you share with Postman because they are logging your secrets. anonymousdata.medium.com/postman-is-l...

Postman is logging all your secrets and environment variables

I was originally investigating this report that Postman is not HIPAA compliant. I found that Postman is not just wholly unsuitable for…

anonymousdata.medium.com

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · May 30

🚀 Heading to @AI & Big Data Expo next week? I'll be @Vultr booth 152
🎤 I’ll be speaking about Move to Vultr in Minutes, Not Months, highlighting how FluidCloud and Vultr are working together to power cutting-edge AI infrastructure.
📅 Stop by to learn, connect, and explore what’s next in AI.

#AIExpo

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · May 8

There are some political aspects that frankly should be ignored because the most meaningful content in this long interview is the global impact that can be made to save literally millions of lives and substantially improve standards of living across the world.

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James Bayer @jambay.bsky.social · May 8

This Bill Gates interview is a fascinating read on the state of global philanthropy.

The $200 Billion Gamble: Bill Gates’s Plan to Wind Down His Foundation

www.nytimes.com

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