Why Microservices:

Lately, some of these SCS turned out to be still too large, so we decomposed them by extracting several microservices. Because we are already running a distributed system, cutting applications into smaller pieces is now a rather easy exercise. One of the reasons, why I agree with Stephan Tilkov that you should not start with a monolith, when your goal is a microservices architecture.

This article is not about the pros and cons of microservice architectures. This article is mostly about the pros. Not because they do not have downsides, but because I’m biased and completely convinced that microservices are a great idea.

My response to this article is a resounding “well, yeah,” but it’s interesting to see someone saying it, and in a social-science research context, at that:
People Want Power Because They Want Autonomy:

All told, this research indicates that the desire for power may be somewhat misplaced: Generally, when people say they want power, what they really want is autonomy. And when they get that autonomy, they tend to stop wanting power.

I don’t hate aggravator any more and may eventually have to change its name. I blamed the hardware, since it’s running the same Ubuntu 14.04 I’ve used successfully on three previous Thinkpads, but installing a different video driver fixed the “crash on resume” issue, which was really a “crash when the machine discovers you’ve plugged in its power cord” issue, and uninstalling whatever the hell “apport” is made the relentless barrage of “the machine has crashed, do you want to send us all your personal data so we can pretend we care” messages stop accosting me at startup.

With a second battery replacing the DVD player, I feel comfortable leaving the power supply at home, now, too.

Yay.

Archive of Interesting Code is a long list of clean, readable, well-commented implementations of useful algorithms.

I recorded my DJ set last night – dubby, gritty downtempo – and have just finished uploading it for your enjoyment:

March 2016 at the Dungeon

Notes about getting better power management out of Linux when running on a Thinkpad X300, like the one I have been so frustrated with recently that I gave it the hostname “aggravator”. I get maybe 90 minutes out of its battery, currently. I was thinking about replacing its DVD player with a second battery, but I’m reluctant to throw even more money at this thing when its reliability has been so underwhelming thus far.

KreativeKorp Relay Fonts has a glorious array of retrocomputing typefaces pulled from sources I haven’t thought about in years.

The junk removal people have come and gone. With them went all the random objects that have been sitting in the backyard at Rock Star Parking, unclaimed and unloved, since last summer’s Floodland truck unloading. In addition, they departed with an assortment of mysterious objects that had taken up residence under the porch for no apparent reason. Why, exactly, did we have two portable charcoal barbecues? Where did that knit bag of rubber stamps come from? Who put that big black plastic bag next to my motorcycle, and what was inside it? (None of us were brave enough to open it and find out.) And what kind of person brings a goddamn swamp cooler to a party and then forgets to take it home again afterward?

Also gone: the massive slab of seating furniture which would have been the first component of the now-cancelled couch-fortress project, the coffee table I’ve disliked since the day my ex-wife surprised me with it, and some bags of clothing which did not belong to any of this house’s past or present occupants. Alas: the cans of paint, piles of lead-acid batteries, and terrifyingly rusty propane cylinder were problems they were unwilling to solve. I guess it’s time to break out the box of thermite.

Resources for Amateur Compiler Writers

After sixteen years of membership, I just closed my Metafilter account. End of an era: it was the last piece of the old Web, the one I was excited about and emotionally invested in, the one that felt like a community – or a community of communities, really. No more; Metafilter’s culture has been growing steadily crankier over the years, less fun and more nitpicky, and has finally sunk below the “never read the comments” threshold.

The web is over; it’s basically just television, now, with a few exceptions. Reddit is still fun, though it’s more of a playground than a community. Blogs are over, message boards all seem to have gotten swallowed up by Facebook, and Facebook itself doesn’t have very much going on anymore.

I’m not sure what comes next, but I’m looking forward to finding out about it.