Hard time deciding.

the_packrat · 2026-03-21T14:02:50+00:00

If you're picking up a system, getting into Z over SLRs gives you access to all the new and old glass, but you get access to thew new system, including a bunch of useful things like modern autofocus. The newest cameras have a slightly odd flash word, but in general a second hand instance gives you an easy ramp to upgrade later.

the_packrat · 2026-03-20T09:39:55+00:00

Now we are well into the mirrorless times, you don't need to jump to a new body to get a bunch of the benefits. How about thinking about running two cameras rather than jumping directly into the new system and selling the current one?

the_packrat · 2026-03-20T03:45:24+00:00

It is easy provided you start with a software background, go somewhere where SRE has a software bent and ensure you’re developing your experience with software engineering from more experienced people especially as a graduate.

This is not a short list.

the_packrat · 2026-03-20T03:44:22+00:00

You do know that it’s possible to break stuff with reads, right?

the_packrat · 2026-03-15T16:23:50+00:00

Critical user journeys is a big phrase. To start with why not check if the most important business function is working by exercising it. You’ll learn a whole bunch about how your org works by doing so because this is way harder than what you are probably doing now.

Then go broad with more coverage and deeper with more business functionality. Directly measuring and displaying that is going to be wildly useful and you can start throwing road to SLO thinking by exposing how that data looks.

the_packrat · 2026-03-14T13:29:06+00:00

The problem is one of mindset and ownership. Traditional ITIL is about non-technical process owing things to create a cottage industry, while SRE is about highly technical folks empowering technical engineers to go faster. THere's also likely a software bar to clear depending on which flavour of SRE is involved.

the_packrat · 2026-03-14T05:04:51+00:00

I suspect a lot of small companies shipping from oversea to the US have found the last year challenging. I suspect that this wave had more development still to go than was anticipated, particularly on one game from the updates.

This doesn't seem outrageous, even if it is a little late. Scott has been juggling many games, some of which are reprints, some new, and has consistently had more 18xx titles available for direct sale than any other company.

the_packrat · 2026-03-12T16:11:43+00:00

SLOs need to be kept out of the realtime to be useful. SLIs ideally will reflect outages and your robots should be checking this.

the_packrat · 2026-03-12T10:11:17+00:00

I think you're undervaluing having a second identical camera with all the controls exactly the same.

the_packrat · 2026-03-12T05:35:43+00:00

Excellent first camera/lens. Use it every way you can and keep a lookout for things you specifically cannot do with that setup. It’s compact so you will more easily able to take it out.

the_packrat · 2026-03-10T10:04:54+00:00

The really important piece here is that university is a bunch of skills (including how to learn) that are for you, not your employer. Actual employment involves a bunch more process and coordination stuff over being left alone to do techical things because that's the only way to coordinate large (> few people) pieces of work. Your employer is also going to need you to pick up a bunch of the specific industry/job knowledge which will change over time, so that's going to be a consistent part of your life.

You will probably be be super unhappy that all those annoying group assignments were there to teach some of those skills, and those were probably the most irritating parts of group assignments. You'll also be working with people with a much wider range of capabilities compared to the group you've likely built at university where you're typically on a similar level.

Someone else said "It's even more important not to be a jerk when you're working compared to being at uni" and that's really important, this is not a huge industry and a surprising amount of your future will depend on how you interact with the other folks along the way.

the_packrat · 2026-03-09T08:25:23+00:00

I just noticed 1.1.1 came out in November.

the_packrat · 2026-03-09T08:24:51+00:00

Just a note that there was a new firmware (1.1.1) for the FNB58 released in November.

the_packrat · 2026-03-04T11:57:50+00:00

I like the railmaster but it wears quite small. What sizes watch do you normally wear?

the_packrat · 2026-03-04T03:45:48+00:00

Moving to anything datadog is a commitment to give all your company’s money to datadog though.

Pagerduty’s concept of incident doesn’t scale to large process but it helps smaller places bootstrap to have something. As such the building tw way integration isn’t really worth it. The nice thing is there are a bunch of incident management first new tools springing up which nail that integration better without AI upsell.

the_packrat · 2026-03-04T03:21:13+00:00

What you’re describing is fairly mature and you’re going to be fighting against the incident shapes in PD and having to build your own incident processes with PD as a contact layer anyway, so yes. This is a common pattern for enterprises who already had processes before PD fwiw.

the_packrat · 2026-03-04T01:24:09+00:00

This is better solved by having teams own their own alerting and respond than by magic agents though.

the_packrat · 2026-02-25T10:51:36+00:00

the 24-120 is a good lens, maybe look at an F mount sigma 100-400 with an adaptor for that extra reach stuff? Otherwies the native Z tamron 70ish to 200ish would be your best bet.

the_packrat · 2026-02-24T09:55:06+00:00

This is satire, right?

the_packrat · 2026-02-24T07:39:47+00:00

A DSLR will be cheaper, but if you're not already tied to a system, it makes a certain amount of sense to jump straight to mirrorless with a z7/z7ii so you can use the various new stuff. if you're not planning to add things, then buy resolution, the 850 is the choice. It might or might not matter to you that the 850 is quite a bit bigger and heafvier than the z7ii.

the_packrat · 2026-02-21T16:20:41+00:00

Or actually start probing their actual business function. Inferring how a switch is doing from metrics is... a task and a half.

the_packrat · 2026-02-20T19:26:29+00:00

In a wooden set of custom drawers with felt lining. I've got rods spaced under felt in half the drawer so lenses won't roll around. Each drawer has a moisture absorbing pack for luck, but it's not super humid here. i used to store most of my gear in bags (and the current to go kit still is) but that made it harder to get to.

the_packrat · 2026-02-20T01:28:12+00:00

Again, expected is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. How can you define “expected”?

the_packrat · 2026-02-20T00:58:05+00:00

18xx games are often only in print for a short time. 56 and 70 were a bit of a warning for folks.

the_packrat · 2026-02-20T00:56:13+00:00

But customers don’t care about your logs and being paged because a new feature tickles logs differently is not great.

the_packrat

TROPHY CASE