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Zero to One is a book by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters about the value of true innovation made accessible to the masses through startups. It outlines several tenets that keen-minded business people should hold dear, including why technology trumps globalization, why we should be supporting monopolies instead of “healthy competition”, why successful innovators have the worldview of a “definite optimist” and why no one should be afraid of losing their job to a robot. Zero to One also delivers unique business insights, such as the four most important things to pay attention to about your product (hint: they’re not quantitative) and the seven questions every business must answer for itself. ...

ElasticON in Sydney this March was a packed day, blending technical deep dives with executive-level discussions. The event featured interviews with partners and customers, but the real highlight was the keynote from Ken Exner and Baha Azarmi. Their presentation was slick, showcasing cutting edge GenAI features across the Elastic stack, including the new semantic_text field type, RRF, BBQ, LogsDB mode, and the ability to ETL unstructured data onto ECS using an LLM. The introduction of the ESQL query engine with native joins was another game changer. ...

Studying effectively isn’t just about putting in the hours, it’s about using the right techniques. Research shows that some popular methods, like re-reading notes or highlighting, are far less effective than people assume. Instead, techniques that leverage how our brains naturally process and retain information yield far better results. The Problem with Common Study Habits Memory Palaces: The Ancient Greek Technique The Protégé Effect & The Feynman Technique The Zeigarnik Effect: Why Unfinished Tasks Stick Distributed Learning: The Power of Spacing Conclusion The Problem with Common Study Habits Ineffective techniques: Reading over and over, highlighting, using mnemonics for simple memorization, starting early without a plan, reading notes before and after class, listening to music while studying. ...

Stubborn Attachments is a book by Tyler Cowen that paints a picture of an altruistic and bright future for the human race. Cohen argues and highlights the importance of sustained economic growth, moral philosophy and consequentialism, radical uncertainty, rules-based ethics, that future generations matter deeply, and how we as a race must be stubbornly attached to certain core principles as the necessary pre-conditions for sustainable prosperity. To be honest I avoid books like this, because they are hard. I mean, where do you start pulling apart such a broad and complicated topic. I thank Cohen for expanding my thinking towards civilization and painting the broad brushstrokes of a future pathway our race must strive for. ...

Getting out on the trail is one my favourite things to do, especially long multi-day hikes. I’ve got into the habbit of reflecting after each adventure, what worked well, what didn’t, potential opportunities or tips I discovered from other more experienced hikers. In software, some agile methods refer to this act as a retrospective and its a powerful way to get better at something. “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly” - Agile Manifesto, 2001 ...

Thoughts and reflections from Uncle Bob’s Clean Architecture. SOLID Single Responsibility Principle SRP is commonly misconceived as doing one thing well. Instead is aimed at minimising the blast radius of change as the software itself relates to the real world concepts it represents. A module should have only one reason to change, which means it should be responsible to only one actor. This principle aims to avoid accidental duplication and ensure that changes in one part of the system don’t unnecessarily affect other parts. ...

Glossary Certification tips Bookmarks kubectl imperative commands Docker vs containerD ctr nerdctl crictl etcd etcdctl kube-apiserver kube-controller-manager ReplicaSets Deployments Services Namespaces Working with namespaces Creating a new namespace Declaratively Imperatively Namespace-less objects Gems Glossary Term Definition cri Container Runtime Interface, the contract between k8s and the container runtime crictl ctr Debugging tool for containerD oci Open Container Initiative, formalised the specification of an imagespec and a runtimespec nerdctl Docker like CLI experience for containerD Certification tips Bookmarks https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/conventions/ ...

This algorithm is just muscle memory in my hands and wasn’t as easy to explain in words as I thought. To help teach my 5yo nephew I wanted clear, simple steps. Step 1: Form a Daisy Step 2: Fill in the White Corners (“Chase the White Dogs”) Step 3: Solve the Middle Row Step 4: Create a Yellow Plus Step 5: Align the Yellow Corners (“Feed the Yellow Fish”) Step 6: Match Top Corners Step 7: Solve the Final Layer Step 1: Form a Daisy Start by creating a white plus sign (the petals) on the yellow face (center). Align each white petal’s adjacent color with its matching middle-row center color. Once matched, rotate the petal 180° to move it to the bottom face. Repeat this process for all petals until you form a white cross on the bottom face. Step 2: Fill in the White Corners (“Chase the White Dogs”) Find any white corner pieces on the bottom layer (the “dogs”). Rotate the bottom layer to position a white corner directly below its matching color. For example, a white/green corner should be under the green side. Bring the corner into the white face by rotating the side it’s under downward, “scooping” the corner piece into place. Repeat until the entire white face is completed, and the bottom row edges align with their center colors. Step 3: Solve the Middle Row Identify edge pieces on the bottom layer that do not contain yellow (e.g., an orange/blue edge). Determine the direction the piece needs to move: left or right. Follow this sequence to place it: Turn the bottom layer away from the target destination. Rotate the bottom layer towards the destination. Move the corresponding side of the middle layer downward. Rotate the middle layer toward the destination. Move the same side of the middle layer upward. Restore the white cross if needed. Repeat until all middle-row edges are in place. Step 4: Create a Yellow Plus Use the FUR-RUF sequence: Front, Up, Right, Right, Up, Front. Repeat this pattern until you form a yellow cross on the top face. Step 5: Align the Yellow Corners (“Feed the Yellow Fish”) Look for a “yellow fish” pattern on the top face (a yellow triangle or “arrow”). Perform this sequence: Rotate the Right face clockwise twice. Rotate the Top face counter-clockwise once. Rotate the Right face clockwise again. Rotate the Top face clockwise once. Flip the cube so the yellow face remains on top, then rotate the Top face counter-clockwise. Step 6: Match Top Corners Find two adjacent corners with matching side colors. Position them so they face the correct side. Use this sequence to adjust the corners: Counter-clockwise, Clockwise, Counter-clockwise, Flip, Clockwise, Counter-clockwise, Counter-clockwise, Flip, Flip. Repeat as needed until all corners align with their sides. Step 7: Solve the Final Layer Finish the cube with this sequence: Flip, Clockwise x3, Counter-clockwise x5, Clockwise, Counter-clockwise. Adjust any remaining misaligned edges by repeating this pattern.

A dedicated performance course run by Matt Gregory from Elastic, an absolute legend with deep Elasticsearch expert. Contents Cool takeaways Tuning for Index Speed Increase the refresh interval Index architecting Bulk Hardware settings to improve performance Disable swapping Indexing Buffer size Best practices and scaling Disable replics for initial loads Use auto-generated IDs Use Cross Cluster Replication Thread Pools Memory Locking Transforms Tuning for search API settings and data modelling to improve search performance Search as few fields as possible One big copy_to field as opposed to individual text multi field Consider mapping identifiers as keywords Document modeling Consider mapping numeric fields as keyword Hardware settings to improve search Warm Up Global Ordinals Warm up filesystem Cache Use index sorting to speed up search Ways to improve searches must and should clauses filter and must not clauses node query cache shard request cache Aggregation performance Search rounded dates Force merge read only indices Search profiler and Explain API Search profiler Search profiler API ID Query section Timing breakdown Collection section Collectors reasons Rewrite section Explain and Tasks API Explain API Score Field length normalization and coordindation Other Query Parameters API Settings to improve indexing performance Hardware settings to improve performance Best Practices and scaling Transforms Cool takeaways Increase the refresh_interval from default 1s to something higher, like 10s. Index typings should be set to strict (default is dynamic) The took param measures raw cluster operation speed, kibana will also reveal a roundtrip time which includes the HTTP layer. Auto generated id’s are always faster One of Matt’s favourite APIs _cluster/allocation/explain Ensure the heap is beefed up a must clause is the first line of defence for scoring, should is then used as the second pass of scoring always format queries as a ‘bool’ Configuration management everywhere (Ansible, etc) dedicated monitoring cluster Tuning for Index Speed Cheatsheet: ...

Revised 2024 edition based on Elasticsearch 8.1. Recently the opportunity to attend the latest revision of the 4-day Elasticsearch engineer course, which I did in-person about 5 years ago in Sydney. Elasticsearch has often been an integral part of the data solutions I’ve been involved with and I’m quite fond of it. This time round the course only runs in a virtual class room format (using strigo.io) with our awesome trainers Krishna Shah and Kiju Kim. ...