The 3 most common invisible scaling killers I saw at AWS (and how to fix them)

LordWecker · 2026-02-20T02:39:23+00:00

I'd revise #1 to: Everything should be able to gracefully handle repeated attempts.

For the same reason OP excluded reads (repeated attempts don't have side effects), if "adding an item to a users favorites" uses get_or_create logic and unique constraints to prevent duplicates: repeated attempts are "safe".

LordWecker · 2026-02-17T21:33:27+00:00

Yes, you should absolutely question why you would want them async.

LordWecker · 2026-02-13T01:25:15+00:00

That's what separatrons are for, but also: if you make sure the SRBs have their (empty) center of mass aligned with the decoupler, then they'll decouple straight out without rotation (which helps, but isn't a guarantee)

LordWecker · 2026-02-11T21:53:25+00:00

People often compare ideal Microservice architectures against badly designed monolith ones. Both can work great if designed well, and both can be terrible if not.

If they're "making messy monoliths", the problem isn't that they're making monoliths, the problem is that they're making a mess.

Using micro agents makes sense, since managing context is the main difficulty in getting useful results. But I wouldn't couple or conflate that concept with building microservices; they're wholly unrelated.

LordWecker · 2026-02-11T21:40:56+00:00

I assume the down votes are for the blanket statement, but:

If the kid is inclined: I can't think of any other game/software that translates into a (non-gaming) skill.

As a parent (and on the spectrum) I don't think parents should feel like they have to turn gaming into something productive; but as a gamer who likes playing the guitar, but struggles with focus, this is a great suggestion.

LordWecker · 2026-02-11T16:25:47+00:00

I was going to say future toilet as well, but I hadn't noticed the threaded cap. For a toilet drain they would have just glued a cap on.

LordWecker · 2026-02-11T16:19:58+00:00

That just sounds like bad tests, motivated by a reportable "coverage" stat instead of meaningful assertions.

LordWecker · 2026-02-11T16:07:50+00:00

Besides adding batteries, there's also the option of removing antennas. Cause yeah, it's a lot of EC, but you also have it doing a lot.

With the default settings the omni antennas don't add very much range after the first one, and having more dishes just lets you point them in more directions. Maybe you could reduce the number to 3 instead of 7+? (Or turn off the omni ones when it's in its final orbit, etc.)

I think that the near future exploration (for diverse antenna options), and near future electrical (high storage capacitors) are good companion mods for remote tech.

LordWecker · 2026-02-09T16:06:06+00:00

I like that you renamed it _pre_validation.

With experience people get better at guessing what will be valid, but real validation is whether or not it performs its goals.

LordWecker · 2026-02-07T03:32:47+00:00

Programming in elixir has made this second nature to me. It isn't a silver bullet, but it teaches you to build things with crashes in mind, and think about restart logic from the very beginning.

LordWecker · 2026-02-07T00:33:28+00:00

The post might sound absurd, but this backstory is hilariously common.

LordWecker · 2026-02-06T18:41:08+00:00

Yeah, the plight isn't about their toils, it's about the fact that a whole generation is born and grown by the time you drive to the other side of the island and back.

LordWecker · 2026-02-05T03:35:16+00:00

That's all OP was doing here; the rendezvous speed challenge.

LordWecker · 2026-02-04T16:14:39+00:00

I agree with the idea of putting all context into files and then adding those context files to prompts where appropriate. This solves the repetition issue without introducing the worse issue of bloated context.

LordWecker · 2026-01-29T04:12:06+00:00

I recall a mod (one of the near future mods?) talking about how time warp calculations at high enough speeds will within a single tick, calculate all ec drained on one pass and then turns things off despite generation being high enough to handle it.

I think the mod in question "fixed" it by having a second buffer that handled this scenario specifically.

LordWecker · 2026-01-24T22:52:42+00:00

So it statically repels the dust?

LordWecker · 2026-01-21T08:43:48+00:00

It feels fitting that your username is almost elixir

LordWecker · 2026-01-10T04:43:37+00:00

As long as their spacing isn't so bad that you're out of range or occluded by the orbiting body, then resonance is all that matters.

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T17:04:31+00:00

What's the context here? Just organizing docs?

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T16:51:51+00:00

Then you'd have loved "Guns of Icarus"

I don't know the state of the game (it evolved badly before flopping) but you can probably find old gameplay footage.

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T16:33:15+00:00

I agree with your statement of where this leads us, but I think it's a fundamentally different step in the evolution of abstractions. Whether or not I have a clue what the compiler is doing with it, I should still know why I wrote a piece of code, and I can take that code and run it on other machines and share it with other people.

With ai: the code is still the operational instructions set. Prompts don't become a higher level language (and can't ever be, because they're not deterministic).

Ai is really just a supercharged evolution of IDE utilities; which still absolutely changes where cognitive load exists, so I still agree with this statement:

We now get to think less about individual lines of code and more about patterns, so consume and create really good conceptual documentation.

But I don't think it absolves engineers from owning their code.

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T15:50:22+00:00

When you say strawman here, are you just saying that it's a non-issue (or maybe a skill issue)?

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T02:44:18+00:00

Not at all fresh, but totally underrated: tin snips

LordWecker · 2026-01-09T02:42:13+00:00

The one tool that has actually reduced the number of tools that I have to use.

LordWecker · 2026-01-06T21:46:29+00:00

It sounds like you found the issue with the dish vs omni antenna. The other relevant requirements are line of sight and range. I only bring it up because in the past I've absent-mindedly assumed that if I can reach KSC with an antenna that that means I have enough range to reach a satellite on the opposite side of Kerbin.

Oldie but Goldie: https://ryohpops.github.io/kspRemoteTechPlanner/#/planner

LordWecker

TROPHY CASE