Span or Attribute? in OpenTelemetry custom instrumentation
Instead of emitting a log, add attributes to the current span. OpenTelemetry makes this easy, and Honeycomb makes it free. This gets you more data correlation.
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Communication is hard, but sometimes I can fix it.
When coding with an agent gets tricky, use the agent to make it less tricky.
What is special about MCP?
three things MCP can do, and an infinite number of things it can’t do (all of which make it great) AI agents can interact with the world using tools. Those tools can be generic or specific. Generic Run a bash command Operate a web browser Execute a SQL query Specific See my Google Calendar events … Read moreWhat is special about MCP?
When efficiency isn’t wasteful
Efficiency means doing the same thing with fewer resources. In software, efficient code is faster, because that uses less compute. If some other software is waiting on yours to return, then your speed is saving upstream compute. Efficient data uses less space, which means less network bandwidth to move it around. All this is very … Read moreWhen efficiency isn’t wasteful
The world is terrible and great
Not only can things be otherwise, they already are, and it is a matter of tuning, tending, activating, connecting, and defending these processes of change that are already in the making. Nick Montgomery and carla bergman, Joyful Militancy Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2025. The system is broken, it is getting worse, and … Read moreThe world is terrible and great
Productivity v Impact
Here’s a familiar 2×2, the Important & Urgent quadrants: Very early in my career, I was taught to beware the “Not Important & Urgent” quadrant. I’m used to working in the “Important & Urgent” quadrant most of the time, getting the important stuff done just on time. This is the quadrant of productivity. A friend … Read moreProductivity v Impact
I can write the code. Getting something done is another matter.
a keynote from CppNorth This one is about everything else that a team needs to accomplish, besides writing the code, in order to provide useful capabilities to people.
Going Deep on Gamification
a keynote for YOW! London Playing games, we can focus deeply and work really hard and also have a good time. This is what I want out of work, too. Traditional gamification adds points, competition, and badges to make work appear more game-like. This corrodes collaboration, replacing a deeper meaning with superficial characteristics of games. … Read moreGoing Deep on Gamification
Bridges Summit
This is a small talk for Bridges Summit, 28 August 2024. References and Recommendations: Combining, by Nora Bateson. ⬅ this is about seeing the second and third-order effects of what we do. It helps me live in a world that is so far from perfect, and work to make it better without despair. (I don’t … Read moreBridges Summit
Stupid bash tricks: a self-updating script
For a demo app, I want a simple-as-possible deploy script. The simplest thing is to hard-code the version number (which gives my docker image a unique tag, which gets kubernetes to pull the new image1). But I’m tired of updating the version number. So I made the script update it for me. Why not use … Read moreStupid bash tricks: a self-updating script