Lorin Hochstein
@norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com
Student of complex systems failures, resilience engineering, cognitive systems engineering. Will talk your ear off about @resilienceinsoftware.org
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
look upon my works, ye mighty, and let me know what you think
January 12, 2026 at 7:37 PM
look upon my works, ye mighty, and let me know what you think
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
It‘s only been four days since I originally posted this, but I think it’s holding up pretty well so far.
Gonna be a long year, I see
January 9, 2026 at 12:46 AM
It‘s only been four days since I originally posted this, but I think it’s holding up pretty well so far.
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
can we stop for just a sec?
January 8, 2026 at 10:47 PM
can we stop for just a sec?
Did Frank Black ever find his mind?
January 9, 2026 at 12:25 AM
Did Frank Black ever find his mind?
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
A systems-thinking approach tends to require a focus on interactions over components. Here I try to bring a temporal dimension to these interactions.
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Software Acceleration and Desynchronization
A look at the ever-present drive to make software delivery faster and how it might break down various activity loops in organizations.
ferd.ca
January 5, 2026 at 2:13 PM
A systems-thinking approach tends to require a focus on interactions over components. Here I try to bring a temporal dimension to these interactions.
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Liked this observation from Addy Osmani:
“Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.”
addyosmani.com/blog/21-less...
“Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.”
addyosmani.com/blog/21-less...
21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
Lessons learned from 14 years of engineering at Google, focusing on what truly matters beyond just writing great code.
addyosmani.com
January 4, 2026 at 7:35 PM
Liked this observation from Addy Osmani:
“Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.”
addyosmani.com/blog/21-less...
“Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.”
addyosmani.com/blog/21-less...
Gonna be a long year, I see
January 4, 2026 at 6:56 AM
Gonna be a long year, I see
How close are we to being able to build a working version of KITT from Knight Rider?
January 1, 2026 at 6:53 PM
How close are we to being able to build a working version of KITT from Knight Rider?
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (April)
December 23, 2025 at 12:16 AM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (April)
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (August)
December 23, 2025 at 12:13 AM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (August)
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (February)
December 23, 2025 at 12:01 AM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (February)
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (November)
December 23, 2025 at 12:00 AM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (November)
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (March)
December 22, 2025 at 11:57 PM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (March)
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (July)
December 22, 2025 at 11:53 PM
2025 Headline of the Year nominee (July)
Systems are designed from the top down, but fail from the bottom up.
December 29, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Systems are designed from the top down, but fail from the bottom up.
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
malaise is the new ennui
December 28, 2025 at 10:14 PM
malaise is the new ennui
There was a thoughtful essay written in Aeon by an anesthesiologist (Dr. Ronald Dworkin) who began suffering from anxiety, and how it affected his practice. My thoughts on that essay are here:
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/28/o...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/28/o...
On intuition and anxiety
Over at Aeon, there’s a thoughtful essay written by the American anesthesiologist Ronald Dworkin about how he unexpectedly began suffering from anxiety after returning to work from a long vac…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 28, 2025 at 10:28 PM
There was a thoughtful essay written in Aeon by an anesthesiologist (Dr. Ronald Dworkin) who began suffering from anxiety, and how it affected his practice. My thoughts on that essay are here:
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/28/o...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/28/o...
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
As a former colleague of mine at Akamai put it, for most of our customers, an SSL certificate was a technology whose main effect was to make their web site not work at surprising and inopportune moments
Yesterday, the Bazel team was dealing with an expired SSL certificate that broke builds for external users.
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
The dangers of SSL certificates
Yesterday, the Bazel team at Google did not have a very Merry Boxing Day. An SSL certificate expired for and as shown in this screenshot from the github issue. This expired certificate apparently b…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 27, 2025 at 10:18 PM
As a former colleague of mine at Akamai put it, for most of our customers, an SSL certificate was a technology whose main effect was to make their web site not work at surprising and inopportune moments
Yesterday, the Bazel team was dealing with an expired SSL certificate that broke builds for external users.
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
The dangers of SSL certificates
Yesterday, the Bazel team at Google did not have a very Merry Boxing Day. An SSL certificate expired for and as shown in this screenshot from the github issue. This expired certificate apparently b…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 27, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Yesterday, the Bazel team was dealing with an expired SSL certificate that broke builds for external users.
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
I wrote a quick post on why I think SSL certificates are so dangerous: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/27/t...
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
10,000 Maniacs in 1997 is worth about 20,200 Maniacs today.
December 23, 2025 at 10:57 PM
10,000 Maniacs in 1997 is worth about 20,200 Maniacs today.
Reposted by Lorin Hochstein
spoiler alert: the line was “It’s plurbin’ time”
Pluribus finale: great final line of a season, or greatest final line of a season?
December 24, 2025 at 6:53 AM
spoiler alert: the line was “It’s plurbin’ time”
There's a new blog post on Waymo's blog on the surprising behavior of their robotaxis during the recent power outage of SF. My thoughts on the post are here: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/23/s...
Saturation: Waymo edition
If you’ve been to San Francisco recently, you will almost certainly have noticed the Waymo robotaxis: these are driverless cars that you can hail with an app the way that you can with Uber. T…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 24, 2025 at 6:10 AM
There's a new blog post on Waymo's blog on the surprising behavior of their robotaxis during the recent power outage of SF. My thoughts on the post are here: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/23/s...
Some thoughts I had for rating incidents on more than just severity:
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/22/a...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/22/a...
Another way to rate incidents
Every organization I’m aware of that does incident management has some sort of severity rating system. The highest severity is often referred to as either a SEV1 or a SEV0 depending on the or…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 23, 2025 at 5:08 AM
Some thoughts I had for rating incidents on more than just severity:
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/22/a...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/22/a...