Friday, December 20, 2024

What I have been studying since re:Invent

Illustration of Werner reading with a stack of books

Up to date: March 6, 2024

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

So, within the weeks that comply with re:Invent, I attempt to make time to work by means of 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 price doing one thing straightforward?

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

  • A very powerful factor I’ve learn lately was Proper/Fallacious: How Know-how Transforms Our Ethics by Juan Enriquez. It clearly lays out how our ethics and morals change beneath the affect of know-how in a reasonably quick period of time. For instance, utilizing gene enhancing know-how corresponding to CRISPR to change a toddler’s genome could also be unethical proper now, however our grandchildren may really feel otherwise, figuring out that we might have eliminated or edited a gene recognized to trigger breast most cancers. At a time of maximum polarization, this e-book 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 superb historic perception into how politics and the politicians that symbolize 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 this can be a subject you’re considering, I urge you to learn Richard 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 the same view of dwell, I’ve all the time been impressed by Bourdain’s storytelling talents. He was an empathetic narrator that targeted on folks and their experiences. This e-book is in regards to the man behind the tales that helped carry 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 worldwide 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 town. The e-book 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 would like in the meanwhile, so I picked Command-line Rust: A Challenge-based Primer for Writing Rust CLIs by Ken Youens-Clark and it seems promising to date. I’ll present an replace as I progress.
  • Only for enjoyable, I purchased the fourth e-book in John Burdett’s Sonchai Jitpleecheep sequence: The Godfather of Kathmandu. When you have ever spent any prolonged time frame in Bangkok, you’ll get pleasure from this sequence. The writing is completely good. I’m not completed but, however to date, it’s pretty much as good because the earlier three books.
  • The very last thing I’ll go away you with is a paper I 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 simply’ve learn or are studying that you simply’d suggest, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Reader suggestions

Unsurprisingly, it seems my readers are nicely learn. I obtained suggestions on Twitter, LinkedIn, and from fellow Amazonians, on nearly each subject possible. And with the hopes of getting by means of greater than a handful of those this 12 months (those I haven’t already learn), I’ve created a consolidated record.

Right here’s what you’ve all really helpful as of March 6, 2024:


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