Chris Ellis @intrbiz@bergamot.social

There's a lot talk about "ZeroDisk" infrastructure backed by S3. The pitch is "move your data from locally attached NVMe storage to S3 and your applications will scale easier and be more performant!"

Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit, but I swear to dog this is the 4th such cycle in my career:

1. NFS
2. iSCSI / Fibrechannel
3. Hadoop / HDFS
4. ZeroDisk with S3

Am I the only one that's like: "wait, move TBs of data to S3 from NVMe to increase performance? Are you high?"

It doesn't work, so you scale up. Now you're back to local NVMe "cache disks" running instances as expensive as the locally attached NVMe instances when you add those costs to your S3 bill. The performance is worse because of course it is.

It always comes back to the two hard problems in computer science: naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. 😂

#zerodisk #s3 #hadoop #cache #datalake #GetOffMyLawn

House prices ticked up in July, so its time to say again:

House price rises are...

NOT a 'return to growth';

NOT a 'bounce back';

NOT the return of a welcome return of 'health' to the housing market...

HOUSE PRICE RISES ARE ASSET PRiCE INFLATION & ARE CONTRIBUTING TO OUR ONGOING HOUSING CRISIS!

Until we get this message we will never approach removing our housing problems (yes, I know there are other issues for rental rights to loose finance that contribute too)

#housing #politics

The best software engineers solve problems, not just write code.

They ask:
- What problem are we actually trying to solve?
- Is this the right problem to solve?
- What's the simplest solution that could work?
- What are the trade-offs?
- How will we know if it's working?

Writing code is the implementation detail. Understanding the problem space, considering alternatives, and thinking through implications—that's where the real value lies.

Code is just the tool. Problem-solving is the skill.

What happened to @till in part shows why billionaires' whims shouldn't control software…
https://ubuntu.social/@till/114932477260801209
Mark Shuttleworth once shouted that “Software Freedom Conservancy is just like Microsoft” & publicly stated I was a “McCarthyist” for enforcing #GPL. Like most billionaires, he says & does whatever he wants & faces no consequences.

You are far from the only employee he has mistreated & most go on to do their greatest work after leaving Shuttleworth's company. I'm sure you will too.

Urgent help for OpenPrinting needed!

As many here know, I am co-founder and lead of OpenPrinting since 2001, known as the print guru for Linux and free software by many. I also got one of the 8 fellows of the Linux Foundation for this.

Up to now I was working at Canonical, hired back in 2006 just to run OpenPrinting and also to maintain printing-related Ubuntu packages.

... 🧵

Please boost.

#OpenPrinting #LinuxFoundation #getfedihired

I feel this

Congratulations to Netenyahu in managing to unite the Express and the Guardian in outrage.

The IT world has convinced us no new software can be deployed outside of US clouds. We're so sure about this that European governments (including the UK) are handing over vital government functions & data to US controlled servers. In this piece I argue that until recently we somehow could run stuff on locally owned hardware, and that we should urgently relearn that skill, while it is still possible - or end up as digital colony of the US: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/our-self-inflicted-cloud-crisis/

This is incredible. The Clorox company is suing their MSP Cognizant for allegedly allowing hackers to gain access to their systems.

The lawsuit claims that Cognizant's staff were grossly negligent and submits what it says are transcripts of the hackers simply asking for password and MFA resets with no ID verification.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26025404-clorox-versus-cognizant-complaint/

As Rachel Reeves seeks to deregulate financial services and return it the more light-touch 'principles-based' regime of the preceded the Global Financial Crisis of 2008... she might heed the worlds of Hector Sants (head of the Financial Services Authority from 2007-2012):

'a principles-based approach does not work with individuals who have no principles'.

And anyone who thinks the leopards in the the City have changed their spots has not been paying attention!

#politics
h/t The New World

@mav The lawsuit is turning into a train wreck for Proven.

Their council asked their own witness if he could open the lock with a shim made out of a tin can - the answer was "Yes".

Oops!

Runkle of the Bailey has been following the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQv9ZZAK3zY

#McNally #provenlocks

Current digital infrastructure is to a large degree built on layers and layers of open source, and yet a substantial part of this open source is built and maintained by enthusiasts or other financially and resource-constrained teams. Funding options like the EU-STF proposal can truly help enforce the ecosystem and offer new paths towards sustainability.

https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/

#PostgreSQL Event Calendar, Reminder:

👫 London PostgreSQL Meetup

Date: 2025-07-29T17:30:00Z - 2025-07-29T20:30:00Z
Location: The Stars of kings (Upstairs) 126 York Way Kings Cross N1 0AX, London

ICS file: https://ics.postgresql.life/3disgbhnk6lq8c6bp1d2sdi5vi.ics

Calling all PostgreSQL enthusiasts in and around London! 🇬🇧🐘

Join us on Tuesday evening, 29 July, for the next London PostgreSQL User Group meet-up!

We’ll be diving into PostgreSQL Schema Migrations & Data Modeling - a great session for anyone looking to sharpen their skills or exchange ideas with fellow Postgres users.

📍 Location: 5min from King’s Cross Station

🍻 Drinks and snacks provided

Please RSVP to help us plan accordingly, we’d love to see you there!

👉 https://www.meetup.com/london-postgresql-meetup-group/events/309038256/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Well, Sameer finally got what he wanted: the end of an actually fast, actually secure counterpoint to Android.

CrOS can't make Android look like shit if CrOS also sucks:

https://www.theverge.com/news/706558/google-android-chromeos-combining-sameer-samat

"look the computer can generate more code faster" the world absolutely does not need or want more code, nothing needs more code for the sake of code, we need utility, functionality and empathy, an encoded understanding of the problem being solved and the humans around it. Code is the price we pay for that encoded understanding. What you've created is an entropy spigot pointed at the proxy metric graph you’re stuck using because your management doesn't understand anything.

Remember, the best way to save water during a drought is to…

T̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶a̶p̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶r̶e̶ ̶b̶r̶u̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶e̶e̶t̶h̶

BRING WATER COMPANIES BACK INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

#GreenParty #ukpol

Study: When experienced open-source developers used current AI tools, work took 19% longer to complete. In spite of which, the developers *thought* they were working *faster.*

It’s just one study, and they don’t claim anything beyond what they observed. Their results are not predictive. Still....

(There must be a name for the psychological trick we play on ourselves to believe we’re being more productive even when we’re considerably less so.)

Hat tip: Dave Martin

https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/

@tig