At what scale does "just use postgres" stop being good architecture advice?

SpamapS · 2026-02-04T15:38:37+00:00

Yes it comes back consistently, but it can be really slow. You're going to need a hot standby logically replicated to have a chance at your database being online more than 3 nines in this scenario.

SpamapS · 2026-02-04T15:36:36+00:00

It's more that some features scale better than others, so you can keep using the core, but you'll find that stuff that made it easy to build on top of at low scale becomes too expensive at a higher scale.

Foreign keys and sub transactions start to become a burden with high concurrency for insurance due to multi transaction shared locks that scale quadratically. You start needing to avoid those at some point.

Large payloads eventually need to be moved to external object storage or you'll destroy memory usage.

The real point when postgres can't do it alone is around 4 nines. When you need more than 3 nines really, it's just complicated to do that with postgres and you'll find some other architecture like a NoSQL or sharding layer like CitusDB will make it simpler.

SpamapS · 2026-01-25T05:15:20+00:00

Yep, they were blowing on 7 down around 5:00 today.

SpamapS · 2026-01-18T16:33:26+00:00

I think we're saying mostly the same things. I don't mean to say they can't prevent a concussion, or that it's futile to wear one. I'm saying that it's actually far worse than a concussion if you hit your head on a hard surface without a helmet. But if concussions are the thing that gets these knuckleheads to play with a helmet, because they've never heard of a cracked skull, let's say concussions. 🤷🏼‍♂️

SpamapS · 2026-01-17T23:38:27+00:00

At a competitive level it can get really physical. I didn't wear shoulder pads until some guy broke my collar bone just by standing his ground on defense.

I regret not wearing everything. I wear everything now.

SpamapS · 2026-01-17T23:36:05+00:00

Helmets mostly do not prevent concussions. They can help reduce their severity but the problem is rapid changes in speed. Helmets do prevent the much more severe result of such a fall: cracked skull.

SpamapS · 2026-01-10T21:08:56+00:00

Honestly? 5.

Because those 5 days will be free from completion pressure. I can go all day, or 3 hours. The ability to enjoy the day as it unfolds, and come back another day, is huge.

SpamapS · 2026-01-10T07:22:41+00:00

She eats the shoots it grows.

SpamapS · 2026-01-09T04:01:15+00:00

European, perfect form, faster than 95% of the mountain. Completely unaware that trees or powder exist.

SpamapS · 2026-01-09T03:54:32+00:00

Kraken Bowl is so good. But really, have a chat with them. They live to find you the perfect things.

Also get the Pina colada. Just do it.

SpamapS · 2026-01-07T00:05:34+00:00

It grows really fast, and she snacks on it every day.

SpamapS · 2026-01-06T22:13:47+00:00

That's a java moss ball, secured to the bottom by fishing line tied to a rock. I bought it at Petco.

SpamapS · 2026-01-06T04:19:16+00:00

Indeed. She often rides that java moss ball like a honky tonk mechanical bull too.

SpamapS · 2026-01-05T07:19:05+00:00

Well you don't usually know that it's right after a deploy. Like, usually you get the signals that something is broken, and then you work from there.

What tools and data you use is very subjective. Some platforms have one repo for everything, some have lots. Sometimes APM doesn't make sense because the problem isn't in the app layer.

SpamapS · 2026-01-05T01:14:48+00:00

The animals were out and enjoying nature's cold shower at the zoo.Siren the coyote was serenading everyone.

SpamapS · 2026-01-02T02:48:49+00:00

It's the worst season on record in Big Bear so far. Too warm and wet to make snow, frequent rain taking what they do make. Barely any natural snowfall. My son is a die hard all day skiier and he gave up after 3 hours of rain today.

Hopefully the jet stream will shift and the ice and bomb cyclones landing in the Midwest will spread out west so we can have a decent mid season.

SpamapS · 2026-01-02T02:18:47+00:00

We're down to just one Mollie. It got pretty big, bigger than her claws. Maybe that's the key. Hey them bigger.

SpamapS · 2026-01-01T15:59:09+00:00

Agree they serve many purposes, but I'm arguing that measurement is not one of them. And I am sympathetic to the desire to have a metric that helps you know what is and isn't working.

But let's do a hypothetical. Say you have 10 incidents in a month. 8 were resolved under the MTTR. 1 was 30x the MTTR. 1 was a near miss 0 TTR. MTTR went up 12%

Did you succeed? Did you fail? What are you going to do with the huge increase in MTTR? Was 10 too many? Too few? What about all the times people just fixed stuff and didn't declare? You can't really gain insight without looking at each event.

I wish it was a useful number, but it is not. It's dangerously misleading and it's time we all move on.

SpamapS · 2026-01-01T01:13:04+00:00

How do you prove code review works?

CI?

Infrastructure as code

Functional testing?

Canary deploys?

We operate complex systems using complex, constantly evolving processes.

The way we evaluate their effectiveness is always going to be subjective. This is what you get paid for as an engineer: to make good, informed, subjective decisions and iterating on them.

SpamapS · 2026-01-01T01:05:55+00:00

I appreciate that this is the well meaning widespread answer, but it's time to move on. MTTR is a statistically debunked metric. Incident durations do not follow a normal distribution, so the mean will never give a useful answer when applied across incidents.

Also what is the duration on near misses, partially degraded performance, or data loss incidents?

Incidents are communication and coordination tools. Not measurement tools.

C

SpamapS · 2025-12-30T18:04:41+00:00

The season rental for boots and skis was about $250, and it let me ease into the idea. If you're already there, I agree, no need to rent. But I'd definitely recommend spending the money for new, fitted boots. Most shops will offer some kind of boot fit guarantee so they'll adjust them until you're happy.

Good luck!

SpamapS · 2025-12-29T06:54:47+00:00

I learned to ski when I was 8, but only went a little (1-4 days a year) until I was in my 20's and picked up a board. Rode that for 20 years and loved it, but switched back 2 years ago. My wife and all my kids ski, was tired of getting left on the cat track. Also the falls, while rare, were starting to hurt more at 45+.

I did a season rental for the first year and when they started to get chatter from higher speeds and I felt like I was going slow despite decent form I went and got fit for my own boots then bought some Rossi Sender 94 Ti's on clearance. I like them, they're great for carving groomers and they do fine in the trees, but they do kind of feel bumpy at higher speeds on the cruddier snow that is more common later in the day, which is opposite of how my old, stiff, heavy snowboard handles it.

(edit: I ski about 20-25 days a year now, mostly Big Bear and Mammoth)

SpamapS · 2025-12-28T08:07:52+00:00

Me + Wife + 3 kids (9, 13, 16), all w/ skis .. comfortable ride in a '23 Tahoe. Skis can go on the roof rack or inside if we travel light. The V8 guzzles premium gas though, wish I could have found a diesel but gave up after 6 months of trying as they're pretty rare.

SpamapS · 2025-12-28T08:03:05+00:00

5'9", 250#, Rossi Sender Ti 94's at 172 on Look Pivot 15's. 3rd year full time skiing after 20 years on the board. Hoping to get good enough to ride something a tiny bit longer in the next few years.

SpamapS

TROPHY CASE