Podcasts about Counting

Season 1 of Quarantings = complete! A whole 50 weekly episodes later and the team is still here giving you the best podcast you heard today. Lume breaks out the original DMs that brought the podcast to life. Nostalgia kicks in as Kristen and Lume go over which episodes have been their personal favorites so far and why. Lume finally puts a big admission on wax (everyone is surprised). Kristen declares she isn't participating cuffing season (no one is surprised). It's a celebration, and the appreciation for the listeners is real! Tell a friend, to tell a friend, to...oh you know the drill. QQH (46:50): Wedding photos... worth the risk of losing them by disrespecting the photog? Aka a story of when keeping it petty goes wrong. Then the crew discusses all that is the Ben Simmons-Philadelphia 76ers drama. Kristen gives some congrats to Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. Why does the Balloon World Cup exist and why isn't it held here in America? Lastly, a discussion about the MN heavy new season of Bachelorette leads to an on wax bet.

No guest this week as we once again dip into the mail bag.  We welcome your questions - send them to us at gamblingwithanedge@gmail.com, or you can find me at @RWM21 on Twitter or https://www.facebook.com/GamblingWithAnEdge. Show Notes [00:00] Introduction [00:33] Did Bob ever take advantage of online casino promotions? [01:28] W2Gs for craps players [03:44] General rules for all variations in video poker [05:32] Card counting for comps [10:12] Should slot hustling be avoided where hole-carding [11:30] Magic of the Nile slot advantage player tracking [13:21] $5DDB with double progressive amounts [16:52] Should a new AP chase progressives? [19:54] Seven Stars Insider newsletter [21:34] Prax [23:23] Card counting as a refusal and AP sports betting [25:03] Signing up for new credit cards when purchasing a home [27:08] Baccarat, roulette, and baccarat bonuses [32:05] How do the odds change playing two hands versus one hand [35:24] Valuing a blackjack hot seat promotion [39:20] South Point Casino October Promotions - $500k+ Monster Money casino-wide progressives, Prime Time Mondays for people 55 and older [40:45] http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com - card counting training website and community with many betting, tracking, and analytical tools [41:25] http://VideoPoker.com/gwae - Gold Membership offers correction on most games, free Pro Membership trial for GWAE listeners [42:35] How did Bob get backed off playing video poker at MGM properties? [44:52] Basic strategy for multi-deck and doubling on A7 [48:18] How can a dealer handle impolite players? [50:12] Putting tape over unused camera on computer [52:17] Loss rebates for roulette [53:16] Blackjack dealer yells "skills check" [54:31] Card pulling [57:34] Recommended: books by Donald Westlake, Margins of Error podcast Sponsored Links: http://SouthPointCasino.com http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com http://VideoPoker.com/gwae Books Referenced: Comp City by Max Rubin https://amzn.to/3jjfvCw Software Referenced:  http://Qfit.com Recommended: Donald Westlake books https://amzn.to/3C7k0I4 Margins of Error podcast http://Cnn.com/audio/podcasts/margins-of-error Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does Spider-Man have to do with Jesus? What did Jesus mean when he said that we are to ‘hate’ our family to be his disciples? Cale looks at the importance of stewardship in the Christian life. All show notes at Great Responsibility & Counting the Cost - This podcast produced by Relevant Radio

Counting Cash Secrets

Some market participants seem to be focused on things that are too far in the future. Are they missing opportunities in the present?

We invite a Russian expert on the show to chat about cars, Seinfeld, and the Ivy League.

About AbbyWith over twenty years in the tech world, Abby Kearns is a true veteran of the technology industry. Her lengthy career has spanned product marketing, product management and consulting across Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. At Puppet, she leads the vision and direction of the current and future enterprise product portfolio. Prior to joining Puppet, Abby was the CEO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation where she focused on driving the vision for the Foundation as well as  growing the open source project and ecosystem. Her background also includes product management at companies such as Pivotal and Verizon, as well as infrastructure operations spanning companies such as Totality, EDS, and Sabre.Links: Cloud Foundry Foundation: https://www.cloudfoundry.org Puppet: https://puppet.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/ab415 TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Liquibase. If you're anything like me, you've screwed up the database part of a deployment so severely that you've been banned from touching every anything that remotely sounds like SQL, at at least three different companies. We've mostly got code deployments solved for, but when it comes to databases we basically rely on desperate hope, with a roll back plan of keeping our resumes up to date. It doesn't have to be that way. Meet Liquibase. It is both an open source project and a commercial offering. Liquibase lets you track, modify, and automate database schema changes across almost any database, with guardrails to ensure you'll still have a company left after you deploy the change. No matter where your database lives, Liquibase can help you solve your database deployment issues. Check them out today at liquibase.com. Offer does not apply to Route 53.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate: is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards, while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other, which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at Honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability, it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Once upon a time, I was deep into the weeds of configuration management, which explains a lot, such as why it seems I don't know happiness in any meaningful sense. Then I wound up progressing into other areas of exploration, like the cloud, and now we know for a fact why happiness isn't a thing for me. My guest today is the former CEO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation and today is the CTO over at a company called Puppet, which we've talked about here from time to time. Abby Kearns, thank you for joining me. I appreciate your taking the time out of your day to suffer my slings and arrows.Abby: Thank you for having me. I have been looking forward to this for weeks.Corey: My stars, it seems like things are slow over there, and I kind of envy you for that. So, help me understand something; you went from this world of cloud-native everything, which is the joy of working with Cloud Foundry, to now working with configuration management. How is that not effectively Benjamin Button-ing your career. It feels like the opposite direction that most quote-unquote, “Digital transformations” like to play with. But I have a sneaking suspicion, there's more to it than I might guess from just looking at the label on the tin.Abby: Beyond I just love enterprise infrastructure? I mean, come on, who doesn't?Corey: Oh, yeah. Everyone loves to talk about digital transformation, reading about books like a Head in the Cloud to my children used to be a fun nightly activity before it was formally classified as child abuse. So yeah, I hear you, but it turns out the rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree with us.Abby: I do not understand it. I have been in enterprise infrastructure my entire career, which has been a really, really long time, back when Unix and Sun machines were still a thing. And I'll be a little biased here; I think that enterprise infrastructure is actually the most fascinating part of technology right now. And why is that? Well, we're in the process of actively rewritten everything that got us here.And we talk about infrastructure and everyone's like, “Yeah, sure, whatever,” but at the end of the day, it's the foundation that everything that you think is cool about technology is built on. And for those of us that really enjoy this space, having a front-row seat at that evolution and the innovation that's happening is really, really exciting and it creates a lot of interesting conversation, debate, evolution of technologies, and innovation. And are they all going to be on the money five, ten years from now? Maybe not, but they're creating an interesting space and discussion and just the work ahead for all of us across the board. And I'm kind of bucketing this pretty broadly, intentionally so because I think at the end of the day, all of us play a role in a bigger piece of pie, and it's so interesting to see how these things start to fit together.Corey: One of the things that I've noticed is that the things that get attention on the keynote stage of, “This is this far future, serverless, machine-learning Kubernetes, dingus nonsense,” great is—Abby: You forgot blockchain. [laugh].Corey: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah blockchain as well. Like, what other things can we wind up putting into the buzzword thing to wind up guaranteeing that your seed round is at least $200 million? Great. There's that.But when you look at the actual AWS bill—my specialty, of course—and seeing where the money is actually going, it doesn't really look that different, as far as percentages go—even though the numbers are higher—than it did ten years ago, at least in the enterprise world. You're still buying a bunch of EC2 instances, you're still potentially modernizing to some of the managed services like RDS—which is Amazon's reimagining of what a database could be if you still had to manage the finicky bits, but had no control over when and how they worked—and of course, data transfer and disk. These are the basic building blocks of everything in cloud. And despite how much we talk about the super neat stuff, what we're doing is not reflected on the conference stage. So, I tend to view the idea of aspirational architecture as its own little world.There are still seasoned companies out there that are migrating from where they are today into this idea of, well, virtualization, we've just finally got our heads around that. Now, let's talk about this cloud thing; seems like a fad—in 2021. And people take longer to get to where they think they're going or where they intend to go than they plan for, and they get stuck somewhere and instead of a cloud migration, they're now hybrid because they can redefine things and declare victory when they plant that flag, and here we are. I'm not here to make fun of these companies because they're doing important work and these are super hard problems. But increasingly, it seems that the technology is not the thing that's holding them back or even responsible for their outcome so much as it is people.The more I work with tech, the more I realized that everything that's hard becomes people issues. Curious to get your take on that, given your somewhat privileged perspective as having a foot standing very deeply in each world.Abby: Yeah, and that's a super great point. And I also realized I didn't fully answer the first question either. So, I'll tie those two things together.Corey: That's okay, we're going to keep circling around until you get there. It's fine.Abby: It's been a long week, and it's only Wednesday.Corey: All day long, as it turns out.Abby: I have a whole soapbox that I drag around behind me about people and process, and how that's your biggest problem, not technology, and if you don't solve for the people in the process, I don't care what technology you choose to use, isn't going to fix your problem. On the other hand, if you get your people and process right, you can borderline use crayons and paper and get [laugh] really close to what you need to solve for.Corey: I have it on good authority that's known as IBM Cloud. Please continue.Abby: [laugh]. And so I think people and process are at the heart of everything. They're our biggest accelerators with technology and they're our biggest limitation. And you can cloud-native serverless your way into it, but if you do not actually do continuous delivery, if you did not actually automate your responses, if you do not actually set up the cross-functional teams—or sometimes fondly referred to as two-pizza teams—if you don't have those things set up, there isn't any technology that's going to make you deliver software better, faster, cheaper. And so I think I care a lot about the focus on that because I do think it is so important, but it's also—the reason a lot of people don't like to talk about it and deal with it because it's also the hardest.People, culture change, digital transformation, whatever you want to call it, is hard work. There's a reason so many books are written around DevOps. And you mentioned Gene Kim earlier, there's a reason he wrote The Phoenix Project; it's the people-process part is the hardest. And I do think technology should be an enabler and an accelerator, but it really has to pair up nicely with the people part. And you asked your earlier question about my move to Puppet.One of the things that I've learned a lot in running the Cloud Foundry Foundation, running an open-source software foundation, is you could a real good crash course in how teams can collaborate effectively, how teams work together, how decisions get made, the need for that process and that practice. And there was a lot of great context because I had access to so much interesting information. I got to see what all of these large enterprises were doing across the board. And I got to have a literal seat at the table for how a lot of the decisions are getting made around not only the open-source technologies that are going into building the future of our enterprise infrastructure but how a lot of these companies are using and leveraging those technologies. And having that visibility was amazing and transformational for myself.It gave me so much richness and context, which is why I have firmly believed that the people and process part were so crucial for many years. And I decided to go to a company that sold products. [laugh]. You're like, “What? What is she talking about now? Where is this going?”And I say that because running an open-source software foundation is great and it gives you so much information and so much context, but you have no access to customers and no access to products. You have no influence over that. And so when I thought about what I wanted to do next, it's like, I really want to be close to customers, I really want to be close to product, and I really want to be part of something that's solving what I look at over the next five to ten years, our biggest problem area, which is that tweener phase that we're going to be in for many years, which we were just talking about, which is, “I have some stuff on-prem and I have some stuff in a cloud—usually more than one cloud—and I got to figure out how to manage all of that.” And that is a really, really, really hard problem. And so when I looked at what Puppet was trying to do, and the opportunity that existed with a lot of the fantastic work that Puppet has done over the last 12 years around Desired State Configuration management, I'm like, “Okay, there's something here.”Because clearly, that problem doesn't go away because I'm running some stuff in the cloud. So, how do we start to think about this more broadly and expansively across the hybrid estate that is all of these different environments? And who is the most well-positioned to actually drive an innovative product that addresses that? So, that's my long way of addressing both of those things.Corey: No, it's a fair question. Friend of the show, Matt Stratton, is famous for saying that, “You cannot buy DevOps, but I sure would like to sell it to you,” and if you're looking at it from that perspective, Puppet is not far from what that product store look like in some ways. My first encounter with Puppet was back around 2009, 2010 or so, and I was using it in an environment I was working within and thought, “Okay, this is terrible, and it's crap, and obviously, I know what I'm doing far better than this, and the problem is the Puppet's a bad product.” So, I was one of the early developers behind SaltStack, which was a terrific, great way of approaching the problem from a novel perspective, and it wasn't crap; it was awesome. Right up until I saw the first time a customer deployed it and looked at their environment, and it wasn't crap, it was worse because it turns out that you can build a super finely crafted precision instrument that makes a fairly bad hammer, but that's how customers are going to use it anyway.Abby: Well, I mean, [sigh] look, you actually hit something that I think we don't actually talk about, which is how hard all of this shit really is. Automation is hard. Automation for distributed systems at scale is super duper hard. There isn't an easy way to solve that problem. And I feel like I learned a lot working with Cloud Foundry.Cloud Foundry is a Platform as a Service and it sits a layer up, but it had the same challenges in that solving the ability to run cloud-native applications and cloud-native workloads at scale and have that ephemerality to it and that resilience to it, and the things everyone wants but don't recognize how difficult it is, actually, to do that well. And I think the same—you know, that really set me up for the way that I think about the problem, even the layer down which is, running and managing desired state, which at the end of the day is a really fancy way of saying, “Does your environment look like the way you think it should? And if it doesn't, what are you going to do about it?” And it seems like, in this year of—what year are we again? 2021, maybe? I don't know. It feels like the last two years of, sort of, munged together?Corey: Yeah, the passing of time is something it's very hard for me to wrap my head around.Abby: But it feels like, I know some people, particularly those of us that have been in tech a long time are probably like, “Why are we still talking about that? Why is that a thing?” But that is still an incredibly hard problem for most organizations, large and small. So, I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about large enterprises, but in the day, you've got more than 20 servers, you're probably sitting around thinking, “Does my environment actually look the way I think it does? There's a new CVE that just came out. Am I able to address that?”And I think at the end of the day, figuring out how you can solve for that on-prem has been one of the things that Puppet has worked for, and done really, really well the last 12 years. Now, I think the next challenge is okay, how do you extend that out across your now bananas complex estate that is—I got a huge data estate, maybe one or two data centers, I got some stuff in AWS, I got some stuff in GCP, oh yeah, got a little thing over here and Azure, and oh, some guy spun up something on OCI. So, we got a little bit of everything. And oh, my God, the SolarWinds breach happened. Are we impacted? I don't know. What does that mean? [laugh].And I think you start to unravel the little pieces of that and it gets more and more complex. And so I think the problems that I was solving in the early aughts with servers seems trite now because you're like, I can see all of my servers; there's eight of them. Things seem fine. To now, you've got hundreds of thousands of applications and workloads, and some of them are serverless, and they're all over the place. And who has what, and where does it sit?And does it look like the way that I think it needs to so that I can run my business effectively? And I think that's really the power of it, but it's also one of those things that I don't feel like a lot of people like to acknowledge the complexity and the hardness of that because it's not just the technology problem—going back to your other question, how do we work? How do we communicate? What are our processes around dealing with this? And I think there's so much wrapped up in that it becomes almost like, how do you eat an elephant story, right? Yes, one bite at a time, but when you first look at the elephant, you're like, “Holy shit. This is big. What do I need to do?” And that I think is not something we all collectively spend enough time talking about is how hard this stuff is.Corey: One of the biggest challenges I see across the board is this idea of conference-ware style architecture; the greatest lie you ever see is someone talking about their infrastructure in public because peel it back a little bit and everything's messy, everything's disastrous, and everything's a tire fire. And we have this cult in tech—Abby: [laugh].Corey: —it's almost a cult where we have this idea that anything that isn't rewritten completely within the last six months based upon whatever is the hot framework now that is designed to run only in Google Chrome running on the latest generation MacBook Pro on a gigabit internet connection is somehow less than. It's like, “So, what does that piece of crap do?” And the answer is, “Well, a few $100 million a quarter in revenue, so how about you watch your mouth?” Moving those things is delicate; moving those things is fraught, and there are a lot of different stakeholders to the point where one of the lessons I keep learning is, people love to ask me, “What is Amazon's opinion of you?” Turns out that there's no Ted Amazon who works over there who forms a single entity's opinion. It's a bunch of small teams. Some of them like me, some of them can't stand me, far and away the majority don't know who I am. And that is okay. In theory; in practice, I find it completely unforgivable because how dare you? But I understand it's—Abby: You write a memo, right now. [laugh].Corey: Exactly. Companies are people and people are messy, and for better or worse, it is impossible to patch them. So, you have to almost route around them. And that was something that I found that Puppet did very well, coming from the olden days of sysadmin work where we spend time doing management [bump 00:15:53] the systems by hand. Like, oh, I'm going to do a for loop. Once I learned how to script. Before that, I use Cluster SSH and inadvertently blew away a University's entire config file what starts up on boot across their entire FreeBSD server fleet.Abby: You only did it once, so it's fine.Corey: Oh, yeah. I'm never going to screw up again. Well, not like that. In other ways. Absolutely, but at least my errors will be novel.Abby: Yeah. It's learning. We all learn. If you haven't taken something down in production in real-time, you have not lived. And also you [laugh] haven't done tech. [laugh].Corey: Oh, yeah, you either haven't been allowed close enough to anything that's important enough to be able to take down, you're lying to me, or thirdly—and this is possible, too—you're not yet at a point in your career where you're allowed to have access to the breaky parts. And that's fine. I mean, my argument has always been about why I'd be a terrible employee at Google, for example, is if I went in maliciously on day one, I would be hard-pressed to take down google.com for one hour. If I can't have that much impact intentionally going in as a bad actor, it feels like there'd be how much possible upside, positive impact can I have what everyone's ostensibly aligned around the same thing?It's the challenge of big companies. It's gaining buy-in, it's gaining investment in the idea and the direction you're going in. Things always take longer, you have to wind up getting multiple stakeholders on board. My consulting practice is entirely around helping save money on the AWS bill. You'd think it would be the easiest thing in the world to sell, but talking to big companies means a series of different sales conversations with different folks, getting them all on the same page. What we do functionally isn't so much look at the computer parts as it is marriage counseling between engineering and finance. Different languages, different ways of thinking about things, ostensibly the same goals.Abby: I mean, I don't think that's a big company problem. I think that's an every company problem if you have more than, like, five people in your company.Corey: The first few years here, it was just me and I had none of those problems. I had very different problems, but you know—and then we started bringing other people in, it's like, “Oh, yeah, things were great until we hired people. Ugh, mistake. Never do that.” And yeah, it turns out that's not particularly sustainable.Abby: Stakeholder management is hard. And you mentioned something about routing around. Well, you can't actually route around people, unfortunately. You have to get people to buy in, you have to bring people along on the journey. And not everybody is at the same place in the way they think about the work you're doing.And that's true at any company, big or small. I think it just gets harder and more complex as the company gets bigger because it's harder to make the changes you need to make fast enough, but I'd say even at a company the size of Puppet, we have the exact same challenges. You know, are the teams aligned? Are we aligned on the right things? Are we focusing on the right things?Or, do we have the right priorities in our backlog? How are we doing the work that we do? And if you're trying to drive innovation, how fast are we innovating? Are we innovating fast enough? How tight are our feedback loops?It's one of those things where the conversations that you and I have had externally with customers are the same conversations I have internally all the time, too. Let's talk about innovators' dilemma. [laugh]. Let's talk about feedback loop. Let's talk about what does it mean to get tighter feedback loops from customers and the field?And how do you align those things to the priorities in your backlog? And it's one of those never-ending challenges that's messy and complicated. And technology can enable it, but the technology is also messy and hard. And I do love going to conferences and seeing how pretty and easy things could look, and it's definitely a great aspiration for us to all shoot for, but at the end of the day, I think we all have to recognize there's a ton of messiness that goes on behind to make that a reality and to make that really a product and a technology that we can sell and get behind, but also one that we buy in, too, and are able to use. So, I think we as a technology industry, and particularly those of us in the Bay Area, we do a disservice by talking about how easy things are and why—you know, I remember a conversation I had in 2014 where someone asked me if Docker was already passe because everybody was doing containerized applications, and I was like, “Are they? Really? Is that an everyone thing? Or is that just an ‘us' thing?” [laugh].Corey: Well, they talk about it on the conference stages an awful lot, but yeah. New problems that continue to arise. I mean, I look back at my early formative years as someone who could theoretically be brought out in public and it was through a consulting project, where I was a traveling trainer for Puppet back in 2014, 2015, and teaching people who hadn't had exposure before what Puppet was about. And there was a definite experience in some of the people attending class where they were very opposed to the idea. And dig down a little bit, it's not that they had a problem with the software, it's not that they had a problem with any of the technical bits.It's that they made the mistake that so many technologists made—I know I have, repeatedly—of identifying themselves with the technology that they work on. And well, in some cases, yeah, the answer was that they ran a particular script a bunch of times and if you can automate that through something like Puppet or something else, well, what does that mean for them? We see it much larger-scale now with people who are, okay, I'm in the data center working on the storage arrays. When that becomes just an API call or—let's be serious, despite what we see in conference stages—when it becomes clicking buttons in the AWS console, then what does that mean for the future of their career? The tide is rising.And I can't blame them too much for this; you've been doing this for 25 years, you don't necessarily want to throw all that away and start over with a whole new set of concepts and the rest because unlike what Twitter believes, there are a bunch of legitimate paths in this industry that do treat it as a job rather than an all-consuming passion. And I have no negative judgment toward folks who walk down that direction.Abby: Most people do. And I think we have to be realistic. It's not just some. A lot of people do. A lot of people, “This is my nine-to-five job, Monday through Friday, and I'm going to go home and I'm going to spend time with my family.”Or I'm going to dare I say—quietly—have a life outside of technology. You know, but this is my job. And I think we have done a disservice to a lot of those individuals who for better or for worse, they just want to go in and do a job. They want to get their job done to the best of their abilities, and don't necessarily have the time—or if you're a single parent, have the flexibility in your day to go home and spend another five, six hours learning the latest technology, the latest programming language, set up your own demo environment at home, play around with AWS, all of these things that you may not have the opportunity to do. And I think we as an industry have done a disservice to both those individuals, as well in putting up really imaginary gates on who can actually be a technologist, too.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking databases, observability, management, and security.And - let me be clear here - it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build.With Always Free you can do things like run small scale applications, or do proof of concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free. No asterisk. Start now. Visit https://snark.cloud/oci-free that's https://snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: Gatekeeping, on some level, is just—it's a horrible thing. Something I found relatively early on is that I didn't enjoy communities where that was a thing in a big way. In minor ways, sure, absolutely. I wound up gravitating toward Ubuntu rather than Debian because it turned out that being actively insulted when I asked how to do something wasn't exactly the most welcoming, constructive experience, where they, “Read the manual.” “Yeah, I did that and it was incomplete and contradictory, and that's why I'm here asking you that question, but please continue to be a condescending jackwagon. I appreciate that. It really just reminds me that I'm making good choices with my life.”Abby: Hashtag-RTFM. [laugh].Corey: Exactly. In my case, fine, its water off a duck's back. I can certainly take it given the way that I dish it out, but by the same token, not everyone has a quote-unquote, thick skin, and I further posit that not everyone should have to have one. You should not get used to personal attacks as a prerequisite for working in this space. And I'm very sensitive to the idea that people who are just now exploring the cloud somehow feel that they've missed out on their career, and that so there's somehow not appropriate for this field, or that it's not for them.And no, are you kidding me? You know that overwhelming sense of confusion you get when you look at the AWS console and try and understand what all those services do? Yeah, I had the same impression the first time I saw it and there were 12 services; there's over 200 now. Guess what? I've still got it.And if I am overwhelmed by it, I promise there's no shame in anyone else being overwhelmed by it, too. We're long since past the point where I can talk incredibly convincingly about AWS services that don't exist to AWS employees and not get called out on it because who in the world has that entire Rolodex of services shoved into their heads who isn't me?Abby: I'd say you should put out… a call for anyone that does because I certainly do not memorize the services that are available. I don't know that anyone does. And I think even more broadly, is, remember when the landscape diagram came out from the CNCF a couple of years ago, which it's now, like… it's like a NASCAR logo of every logo known to man—Corey: Oh today, there's over 400 icons on it the last time I saw—I saw that thing come out and I realized, “Wow, I thought I was going to shit-posting,” but no, this thing is incredible. It's, “This is great.” My personal favorite was zooming all the way in finding a couple of logos on in the same box three times, which is just… spot on. I was told later, it's like, “Oh, those represent different projects.” I'm like, “Oh, yeah, must have missed that in the legend somewhere.” [laugh]. It's this monstrous, overdone thing.Abby: But the whole point of it was just, if I am running an IT department, and I'm like, “Here you go. Here's a menu of things to choose,” you're just like, “What do I do with this information? Do I choose one of each? All the above? Where do I go? And then, frankly, how do I make them all work together in my environment?” Because they all serve very different problems and they're tackling different aspects of that problem.And I think I get really annoyed with myself as an industry—like, ourselves as an industry because it's like, “What are we doing here?” We're trying to make it harder for people, not only to use the technology, to be part of it. And I think any efforts we can make to make it easier and more simple or clear, we owe it to ourselves to be able to tell that story. Which now the flip side of that is describing cloud-native in the cloud, and infrastructure and automation is really, really hard to do [laugh] in a way that doesn't use any of those words. And I'm just as guilty of this, of describing things we do and using the same language, and all of a sudden you're looking at it this says the same thing is 7500 other websites. [laugh]. So.Corey: Yep. I joke at RSA's Expo Hall is basically about twelve companies selling different things. Sure, each one has a whole bunch of booths with different logos and different marketing copy, but it's the same fundamental product. Same challenge here. And this is, to me, the future of cloud, this is where it's going, where I want something that will—in my case, I built a custom URL shortener out of DynamoDB, API Gateway, Lambda, et cetera, and I built this thing largely as a proof of concept because I wanted to have experience playing with these tools.And that was great, not but if I'm doing something like that in production, I'm going with Bitly or one of the other services that provide this where someone is going to maintain it full time. Unless it is the core of what I'm doing, I don't want to build it myself from popsicle sticks. And moving up the stack to a world of folks who are trying to solve a business problem and they don't want to deal with the ten prerequisite services to understand the cloud, and then a whole bunch of other things tied together, and the billing, and the flow becomes incredibly problematic to understand—not to mention insecure: because we don't understand it, you don't know what your risk exposure is—people don't want that. They—Abby: Or to manage it.Corey: Yeah.Abby: Just the day-to-day management. Care and feeding, beyond security. [laugh].Corey: People's time is free. So, yeah. For example, do I write my own payroll system? Absolutely not. I have the good sense to pay a turnkey company to handle that for me because mistakes will show.I started my career running email systems. I pay for Google workspaces—or GSuite, or Gmail, or whatever the hell they're calling it this week—because it's not core and central to my business. I want a thing that winds up solving a business problem, and I will pay commensurately to the value that thing delivers, not the individual constituent costs of the components that build it together. Because until you're significantly scaled out and it is the core of what you do, you're spending more on people to run the monstrous thing than you are for the thing itself. That's always the way it works.So, put your innovation where it matters for your business. I posit the for an awful lot of the things we're building, in order to achieve those outcomes, this isn't it.Abby: Agreed. And I am a big believer in if I can use off-the-shelf software, I will because I don't believe in reinventing everything. Now, having said that, and coming off my soapbox for just a hot minute, I will say that a lot of what's happening, and going back to where I started around the enterprise infrastructure, we're reinventing so many things that there is a lot of new things coming up. We've talked about containers, we've talked about Kubernetes, around container scheduling, container orchestration, we haven't even mentioned service mesh, and sidecars, and all of the new ways we're approaching solving some of these older problems. So, there is the need for a broad proliferation of technology until the contraction phase, where it all starts to fundamentally clicks together.And that's really where the interesting parts happen, but it's also where the confusion happens because, “Okay, what do I use? How do I use it? How do these pieces fit together? What happens when this changes? What does this mean?”And by the way, if I'm an enterprise company, I'm a payroll company, what's the one thing I care about? My payroll software. [laugh]. And that's the problem I'm solving for. So, I take a little umbrage sometimes with the frame that every company is a software company because every company is not a software company.Every company can use technology in ways to further their business and more and more frequently, that is delivering their business value through software, but if I'm a payroll company, I care about delivering that payroll capabilities to my customer, and I want to do it as quickly as possible, and I want to leverage technology to help me do that. But my endgame is not that technology; my endgame is delivering value to my customers in real and meaningful ways. And I worry, sometimes, that those two things get conflated together. And one is an enabler of the other; the technology is not the outcome.Corey: And that is borderline heresy for an awful lot of folks out there in the space, I wish that people would wake up a little bit more and realize that you have to build a thing that solves customer pain, ideally, an expensive customer pain, and then they will basically rush to hurl money at you. Now, there are challenges and inflections as you go, and there's a whole bunch of nuances that can span entire fields of endeavor that I am hand-waving over here, and that's fine, but this is the direction I think we're going and this is the dawning awareness that I hope and trust we'll see start to take root in this industry.Abby: I mean, I hope so. I do take comfort in the fact that a lot of the industry leaders I'm starting to see, kind of, equate those two things more closely in the top [track 00:31:20]. Because it's a good forcing function for those of us that are technologists. At the end of the day, what am I doing? I am a product company, I am selling software to someone.So clearly, obviously, I have a vested interest in building the best software out there, but at the end of the day, for me, it's, “Okay, how do I make that truly impactful for customers, and how do I help them solve a problem?” And for me, I'm hyper-focused on automation because I honestly feel like that is the biggest challenge for most companies; it's the hardest thing to solve. It's like getting into your auto-driving car for the first time and letting go the steering wheel and praying to the software gods that that software is actually going to work. But it's the same thing with automation; it's like, “Okay, I have to trust that this is going to manage my environment and manage my infrastructure in a factual way and not put me on CNN because I just shut down entire customer environment,” or if I'm an airline and I've just had a really bad week because I've had technology problems. [laugh]. And so I think we have to really take into consideration that there are real customer problems on the other end of that we have to help solve for.Corey: My biggest problem is the failure mode of this is not when people watch the conference-ware presentations is that they're not going to sit there and think, “Oh, yeah, they're just talking about a nuanced thing that doesn't apply to our constraints, and they're hand-waving over a lot of stuff,” it's that, “Wow, we suck.” And that's not the takeaway anyone should ever have. Even Netflix doesn't operate the way that Netflix says that they do in their conference talks. It's always fun sitting next to someone from the company that's currently presenting and saying something to them, like, “Wow, I wish we did things that way.” And they said, “Yeah, I wish we did, too.”And it's always the case because it's very hard to get on stage and talk for 45 minutes about here's what we completely screwed up on, especially at the large publicly traded companies where it's, “Wait, why did our stock price just dive five perce—oh, my God, what did you say on stage?” People care [laugh] about those things, and I get it; there's a risk factor that I don't have to deal with here.Abby: I wish people would though. It would be so refreshing to hear someone like, “You know what? Ohh, we really messed this up, and let me walk you through what we did.” [laugh]. I think that would be nice.Corey: On some level, giving that talk in enough detail becomes indistinguishable from rage-quitting in public.Abby: [laugh].Corey: I mean, I'm there for it. Don't get me wrong. But I would love to see it.Abby: I don't think it has to be rage-quitting. One of the things that I talk to my team a lot about is the safety to fail. You can't take risk if you're too afraid to fail, right? And I think you can frame failure in a way of, “Hey, this didn't work, but let me walk you through all the amazing things we learned from this. And here's how we used that to take this and make this thing better.”And I think there's a positive way to frame it that's not rage-quitting, but I do think we as an industry gloss over those learnings that you absolutely have to do. You fail; everything does not work the first time perfectly. It is not brilliant out the gate. If you've done an MVP and it's perfect and every customer loves it, well then, you sat on that for way too long. [laugh]. And I think it's just really getting comfortable with this didn't work the first time or the fourth, but look, at time seven, this is where we got and this is what we've learned.Corey: I want to thank you for taking so much time out of your day to wind up speaking to me about things that in many cases are challenging to talk about because it's the things people don't talk about in the real world. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, who you are, et cetera, where can they find you?Abby: They can find me on the Twitters at @ab415. I think that's the best way to start, although I will say that I am not as prolific as you are on Twitter.Corey: That's a good thing.Abby: I'm a half-assed Tweeter. [laugh]. I will own it.Corey: Oh, I put my full ass into it every time, in every way.Abby: [laugh]. I do skim it a lot. I get a lot of my tech news from there. Like, “What are people mad about today?” And—Corey: The daily outrage. Oh, yeah.Abby: The daily outrage. “What's Corey ranting about today? Let's see.” [laugh].Corey: We will, of course, put a link to your Twitter profile in the [show notes 00:35:39]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.Abby: Hey, it was my pleasure.Corey: Abby Kearns, CTO at Puppet. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment telling me about the amazing podcast content you create, start to finish, at Netflix.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō (Cornell UP, 2021) tells the story of Nomura Bōtō, a Buddhist nun, writer, poet, and activist who joined the movement to oppose the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore imperial rule. Banished for her political activities, Bōtō was imprisoned on a remote island until her comrades rescued her in a dramatic jailbreak, spiriting her away under gunfire. Roger K. Thomas examines Bōtō's life, writing, and legacy, and provides annotated translations of two of her literary diaries, shedding light on life and society in Japan's tumultuous bakumatsu period and challenging preconceptions about women's roles in the era. Thomas interweaves analysis of Bōtō's poetry and diaries with the history of her life and activism, examining their interrelationship and revealing how she brought two worlds—the poetic and the political—together. Counting Dreams illustrates Bōtō's significant role in the loyalist movement, depicting the adventurous life of a complex woman in Japan on the cusp of the Meiji Restoration. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō (Cornell UP, 2021) tells the story of Nomura Bōtō, a Buddhist nun, writer, poet, and activist who joined the movement to oppose the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore imperial rule. Banished for her political activities, Bōtō was imprisoned on a remote island until her comrades rescued her in a dramatic jailbreak, spiriting her away under gunfire. Roger K. Thomas examines Bōtō's life, writing, and legacy, and provides annotated translations of two of her literary diaries, shedding light on life and society in Japan's tumultuous bakumatsu period and challenging preconceptions about women's roles in the era. Thomas interweaves analysis of Bōtō's poetry and diaries with the history of her life and activism, examining their interrelationship and revealing how she brought two worlds—the poetic and the political—together. Counting Dreams illustrates Bōtō's significant role in the loyalist movement, depicting the adventurous life of a complex woman in Japan on the cusp of the Meiji Restoration. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō (Cornell UP, 2021) tells the story of Nomura Bōtō, a Buddhist nun, writer, poet, and activist who joined the movement to oppose the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore imperial rule. Banished for her political activities, Bōtō was imprisoned on a remote island until her comrades rescued her in a dramatic jailbreak, spiriting her away under gunfire. Roger K. Thomas examines Bōtō's life, writing, and legacy, and provides annotated translations of two of her literary diaries, shedding light on life and society in Japan's tumultuous bakumatsu period and challenging preconceptions about women's roles in the era. Thomas interweaves analysis of Bōtō's poetry and diaries with the history of her life and activism, examining their interrelationship and revealing how she brought two worlds—the poetic and the political—together. Counting Dreams illustrates Bōtō's significant role in the loyalist movement, depicting the adventurous life of a complex woman in Japan on the cusp of the Meiji Restoration. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

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It is always a good idea to learn from, and be inspired by people who have already done what you are striving to do. Although Tom has done a show similar to this one in the past, every journey is a little bit different. So, listen as he further explains some of the keys to weight loss in this episode of the Fitness Disrupted podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Tim & Christian return with a sorrowful reckoning with the loss of Charlie Watts and some speculation about the future of the band. Download the podcast here!

For many the decision to become a journalist emerges slowly, but not for Nataliya Zotova. Writing was always a passion, and the killing of Novaya Gazeta's Anna Politkovskaya inspired her to work at the same newspaper. She shares her journey from shy teenager to BBC Russian reporter. The Chinese workers who live in fear in Pakistan Chinese workers who move to Pakistan to work on projects connected to China's Belt and Road initiative are increasingly being targetted by local militant groups. BBC Urdu's Sarah Atiq visited a factory in Balochistan where the Chinese employees have to live on site under armed guard. Give us back our gold! The theme of stolen gold is a popular internet meme used by Brazilians against the Portuguese. Brazil had a huge gold rush in the 18th century, and there's a feeling that nearly all that wealth ended up in Portugal. As BBC Brasil's Vitor Tavares explains, the real story is much more complex. 1, 2, 3: counting around the world Counting on your fingers is as easy as 1, 2, 3 right? But do you start with your thumb, or your pinkie, or even your index finger? Maybe you get clever and use each finger segment to triple up the number? Counting around the world, with Suping of BBC Chinese, Devina Gupta of BBC Hindi, Grigor Atanesian of BBC Russian and Iman Mohammed of BBC Somali. Vietnam's pets killed for Covid Vietnam's extended lockdowns have left many people out of work and forced them to return to their home towns. The story of one family's return sparked outrage when the authorities destroyed their pets – 15 dogs and 1 cat. BBC Vietnamese journalist Bui Thu spoke to the family. Image: Nataliya Zotova at work Credit: Georgy Malets

Today, I speak with IFBB Pro Allex Granger, a family nurse practitioner who lives in North Carolina. She began competing in 2019 and won her Pro Card at NPC Universe in 2021. Allex shares her early struggles about gaining weight and then how her classmates treated her when she actually did gain weight. When she learned about tracking macros, it helped her understand that one day or one meal of overeating wouldn't derail her progress. When she realized it wan't all-or-nothing, she was able to find balance and comfort in her body. As a nurse practitioner, it's also helped her realize many of her patients don't understand the nutritional benefits of food. She's learned to honor her hunger cues and cravings while still staying on track through counting macros.   Allex shares how she has gained perspective of what she wants and doesn't want for her body in every season. She speaks of the importance of shifting perspective to goals outside of her physique during improvement season. In working with her coaches, she tells the importance about giving detailed check-ins to be able to analyze the data to get the best results.   Currently, Allex is dealing with fractures in her feet after two 65lb dumbbells fell on her feet! She has had to modify her training because of this but is keeping a good attitude. After winning her Pro card, Allex experienced serious post-show blues. She almost felt like she didn't even deserve her Pro card because she was so stressed. She had to shift her focus to relieve some of her stress and was able to still make her Pro debut. Allex has such a great story. I can't wait for your to hear it! Topics covered include: -Early struggles with weight gain -Counting macros as a tool to understand nutritional value of food -Shifting mindset to growing in an improvement season -Setting performance goals -Eating enough to build muscle -Online versus in-person coaching -Training with broken feet -The importance of mindset in reaching your goals -Finding the right level of conditioning -Struggling with Post-show blues -Knowing when to push through and when to pull back -Having a mom who was a bodybuilding Pro -Losing with grace CONNECT WITH CELESTE: Website: http://www.celestial.fit Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celestial_fit/ All Links: http://www.celestial.fit/links.html CONNECT WITH ALLEX: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allexnicole_ifbbpro/ All links: TIME STAMPS [1:00] introductions [2:45] early struggles with weight gain [7:17] counting macros as a competitor [11:10] prep versus improvement season [16:45] changing stage weight from season to season [18:25] gains in the improvement season [21:30] working with coaches [24:00] online versus in-person training [26:20] training with stress fractures [31:20] working towards her Pro card [35:45] finding the right level of conditioning [37:19] Pro debut at Republic of Texas [42:21] Post-show blues [46:20] Shifting focus away from competing [51:00] having support [53:15] having a mom who is a bodybuilding pro [60:33] your relationship with your body [64:00] advice for competitors   CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE FOOD RELATIONSHIP COACHING SERIES   CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE POST SHOW BLUES COACHING SERIES   LEARN MORE AND APPLY FOR MY 5 WEEK FOOD RELATIONSHIP HEALING & DISCOVERY COACHING PROGRAM   FOR OTHER FREE RESOURCES, LIVE EVENTS, AND WAYS TO WORK WITH CELESTE CLICK HERE

Bob and I get a return visit from long time slot director Buddy Frank, and this was taped immediately after the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) show, the biggest casino industry trade show of the year. We spend a lot of time talking about the new things we saw.  We welcome your questions - send them to us at gamblingwithanedge@gmail.com, or you can find me at @RWM21 on Twitter, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GamblingWithAnEdge. Show Notes [00:00] Introduction of Buddy Frank, long time slot director and casino executive [00:36] Player identification and video poker player skill tracking products at G2E [14:08] Resorts World's cashless system, credit cards [24:25] Interesting AP games at G2E, slots, keno [31:45] Auto-hold on video poker [35:24] Ultimate X Gold [39:18] http://VideoPoker.com/gwae - Gold Membership offers correction on most games, free Pro Membership trial for GWAE listeners [39:38] http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com - card counting training website and community with many betting, tracking, and analytical tools [40:08] South Point Casino October Promotions - $500k+ Monster Money casino-wide progressives [41:11] South Point operations, comments on the locals market in Las Vegas, Circa [47:12] Strategy for a player who has been banned, but not trespassed [51:01] Aristocrat party at Allegiant Stadium [53:15] Recommended: Sooley by John Grisham, CSI Las Vegas, Aruze claw game and craps game Sponsored Links: http://SouthPointCasino.com http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com http://VideoPoker.com/gwae Sites Referenced: http://Wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x-gold/ Recommended: Sooley by John Grisham https://amzn.to/2YU8EbL Cbs.com/shows/csi-vegas/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Michelle Fern chats cats with Rita Reimers and Linda Hall, the hosts of Pet Life Radio's 19 Cats And Counting podcast about what it's really like to have a multi multi multi cat household! How much does it cost to feed them? How many litter boxes do you need? Can you ever go on a vacation? Tune in for answers to these and many more cat questions! EPISODE NOTES: 19 Cats.... And Counting!

Join us in Yerevan, Armenia from October 14 -16, 2022 at the Armenia Hotel Yerevan for the Extraordinary Travel Festival This will be a multi-day event with great and inspiring speakers And at night we will be hosting parties and dinners to have fun and unwind This is a great opportunity to meet travelers from all over the world   Our goal is to bring people together from around the world, who are: Traveling to every country in the world Passionate to explore extreme and challenging destinations And love to have fun and network with likeminded people   Learn more and buy your ticket at www.extraordinarytravelfestival.com Do you want to save $50 off your ticket?  Use code - eps.    

Carolyn Belefski joins me to talk about "Counting The Days" from 'Cardiology' (2010), Good Charlotte's fifth album. We bemoan how this song hardly got played live, discuss our respective adventures to La Plata High School, and Carolyn tells me all about her art/design work including her long-running comic strip 'Curls'. Like what you hear? Subscribe to the show on iTunes, leave a review, and share it with a friend! Donate to American Red Cross: redcross.org To learn more about Anti-Asian racism and violent attacks, take action, donate, and more, visit https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/. To learn more about anti-semitism and sign petitions, visit https://antisemitism.carrd.co/. To learn about Black Lives Matter and how you can help - from protests to donations to petitions - visit https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and https://allcards.carrd.co/. Follow Carolyn Belefski: http://carolynbelefski.com https://www.facebook.com/CurlsStudio http://twitter.com/carolynbelefski https://www.instagram.com/carolynbelefski Follow Generation GC: https://facebook.com/generationGCpod https://twitter.com/generationGCpod https://instagram.com/generationGCpod Follow Molly Hudelson: https://twitter.com/mhudelson https://instagram.com/mhudelson --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/generationgcpod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/generationgcpod/support

Research by the World Wide Web Foundation has found that the gender gap for internet accessibility has cost countries billions of USD in lost GDP. In the 32 countries studied a third of women were connected to the internet compared to almost half of men. This digital gender gap, their report says, has cost low and lower middle income countries USD $1 trillion over a decade. Director of Research, Catherine Adeya, joins us live from Nairobi and we also hear from Ian Mangenga who set up the Digital Girl Africa project to get more women online. Counting people with WiFi Researchers have developed a method of counting crowds that doesn't require complex AI or expensive camera surveillance but rather simple WiFi signals. Yasamin Mostofi from the University of California Santa Barbara tells us more about how this method measures fidgeting behaviours to figure out the size of a crowd and how it could be put to use. The BFI London Film Festival Expanded The BFI London Film Festival is going immersive. Reporter Hannah Fisher has had a preview of this year's hybrid programme which is full of tech - interactive VR, 360 films, augmented reality, mixed reality and live immersive performance. The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson. Studio Manager: Nigel Dix Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz (Image: Majority World / Getty Images)

Counting calories as a means of losing weight doesn't work. That's the result of a recent study conducted by Kansas State University. It's a result that Healthy Living Specialist and New York Times Bestselling Author Jonathan Bailor was already well aware of. Jonathan has been saying for some time now that the most effective way to lose weight, the one that has proven time and again to be effective is a diet of nutrient rich foods. We talked to Jonathan about counting calories and effective weight loss dieting on Wake Up Tri-Counties on Tuesday.

About EmmaEmma Bostian is a Software Engineer at Spotify in Stockholm. She is also a co-host of the Ladybug Podcast, author of Decoding The Technical Interview Process, and an instructor at LinkedIn Learning and Frontend Masters.Links: Ladybug Podcast: https://www.ladybug.dev LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/emma-bostian Frontend Masters: https://frontendmasters.com/teachers/emma-bostian/ Decoding the Technical Interview Process: https://technicalinterviews.dev Twitter: https://twitter.com/emmabostian TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Jellyfish. So, you're sitting in front of your office chair, bleary eyed, parked in front of a powerpoint and—oh my sweet feathery Jesus its the night before the board meeting, because of course it is! As you slot that crappy screenshot of traffic light colored excel tables into your deck, or sift through endless spreadsheets looking for just the right data set, have you ever wondered, why is it that sales and marketing get all this shiny, awesome analytics and inside tools? Whereas, engineering basically gets left with the dregs. Well, the founders of Jellyfish certainly did. That's why they created the Jellyfish Engineering Management Platform, but don't you dare call it JEMP! Designed to make it simple to analyze your engineering organization, Jellyfish ingests signals from your tech stack. Including JIRA, Git, and collaborative tools. Yes, depressing to think of those things as your tech stack but this is 2021. They use that to create a model that accurately reflects just how the breakdown of engineering work aligns with your wider business objectives. In other words, it translates from code into spreadsheet. When you have to explain what you're doing from an engineering perspective to people whose primary IDE is Microsoft Powerpoint, consider Jellyfish. Thats Jellyfish.co and tell them Corey sent you! Watch for the wince, thats my favorite part.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Liquibase. If you're anything like me, you've screwed up the database part of a deployment so severely that you've been banned from touching every anything that remotely sounds like SQL, at at least three different companies. We've mostly got code deployments solved for, but when it comes to databases we basically rely on desperate hope, with a roll back plan of keeping our resumes up to date. It doesn't have to be that way. Meet Liquibase. It is both an open source project and a commercial offering. Liquibase lets you track, modify, and automate database schema changes across almost any database, with guardrails to ensure you'll still have a company left after you deploy the change. No matter where your database lives, Liquibase can help you solve your database deployment issues. Check them out today at liquibase.com. Offer does not apply to Route 53.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the weird things that I've found in the course of, well, the last five years or so is that I went from absolute obscurity to everyone thinking that I know everyone else because I have thoughts and opinions on Twitter. Today, my guest also has thoughts and opinions on Twitter. The difference is that what she has to say is actually helpful to people. My guest is Emma Bostian, software engineer at Spotify, which is probably, if we can be honest about it, one of the least interesting things about you. Thanks for joining me.Emma: Thanks for having me. That was quite the intro. I loved it.Corey: I do my best and I never prepare them, which is a blessing and a curse. When ADHD is how you go through life and you suck at preparation, you've got to be good at improv. So, you're a co-host of the Ladybug Podcast. Let's start there. What is that podcast? And what's it about?Emma: So, that podcast is just my three friends and I chatting about career and technology. We all come from different backgrounds, have different journeys into tech. I went the quote-unquote, “Traditional” computer science degree route, but Ali is self-taught and works for AWS, and Kelly she has, like, a master's in psychology and human public health and runs her own company. And then Sydney is an awesome developer looking for her next role. So, we all come from different places and we just chat about career in tech.Corey: You're also an instructor at LinkedIn Learning and Frontend Masters. I'm going to guess just based upon the name that you are something of a frontend person, which is a skill set that has constantly eluded me for 20 years, as given evidence by every time I've tried to build something that even remotely touches frontend or JavaScript in any sense.Emma: Yeah, to my dad's disdain, I have stuck with the frontend; he really wanted me to stay backend. I did an internship at IBM in Python, and you know, I learned all about assembly language and database, but frontend is what really captures my heart.Corey: There's an entire school of thought out there from a constituency of Twitter that I will generously refer to as shitheads that believe, “Oh, frontend is easy and it's somehow less than.” And I would challenge anyone who holds that perspective to wind up building an interface that doesn't look like crap first, then come and talk to me. Spoiler, you will not say that after attempting to go down that rabbit hole. If you disagree with this, you can go ahead and yell at me on Twitter so I know where you're hiding, so I can block you. Now, that's all well and good, but one of the most interesting things that you've done that aligns with topics near and dear to my heart is you wrote a book.Now, that's not what's near and dear to my heart; I have the attention span to write a tweet most days. But the book was called Decoding the Technical Interview Process. Technical interviewing is one of those weird things that comes up from time to time, here and everywhere else because it's sort of this stylized ritual where we evaluate people on a number of skills that generally don't reflect in their day-to-day; it's really only a series of skills that you get better by practicing, and you only really get to practice them when you're interviewing for other jobs. That's been my philosophy, but again, I've written a tweet on this; you've written a book. What's the book about and what drove you to write it?Emma: So, the book covers everything from an overview of the interview process, to how do you negotiate a job offer, to systems design, and talks about load balancing and cache partitioning, it talks about what skills you need from the frontend side of things to do well on your JavaScript interviews. I will say this, I don't teach HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in-depth in the book because there are plenty of other resources for that. And some guy got mad at me about that the other day and wanted a refund because I didn't teach the skills, but I don't need to. [laugh]. And then it covers data structures and algorithms.They're all written in JavaScript, they have easy to comprehend diagrams. What drove me to write this is that I had just accepted a job offer in Stockholm for a web developer position at Spotify. I had also just passed my Google technical interviews, and I finally realized, holy crap, maybe I do know what I'm doing in an interview now. And this was at the peak of when people were getting laid off due to COVID and I said, “You know what? I have a lot of knowledge. And if I have a computer science degree and I was able to get through some of the hardest technical interviews, I think I should share that with the community.”Because some people didn't go through a CS degree and don't understand what a linked list is. And that's not their fault. It's just unfortunately, there weren't a lot of great resources—especially for web developers out there—to learn these concepts. Cracking the Coding Interview is a great book, but it's written in backend language and it's a little bit hard to digest as a frontend developer. So, I decided to write my own.Corey: How much of the book is around the technical interview process as far as ask, “Here's how you wind up reversing linked lists,” or, “Inverting a binary tree,” or whatever it is where you're tracing things around without using a pointer, how do you wind up detecting a loop in a recursive whatever it is—yeah, as you can tell, I'm not a computer science person at all—versus how much of it is, effectively, interview 101 style skills for folks who are even in non-technical roles could absorb?Emma: My goal was, I wanted this to be approachable by anyone without extensive technical knowledge. So, it's very beginner-friendly. That being said, I cover the basic data structures, talking about what traditional methods you would see on them, how do you code that, what does that look like from a visual perspective with fake data? I don't necessarily talk about how do you reverse a binary tree, but I do talk about how do you balance it if you remove a node? What if it's not a leaf node? What if it has children? Things like that.It's about [sigh] I would say 60/40, where 40% is coding and technical stuff, but maybe—eh, it's a little bit closer to 50/50; it kind of depends. I do talk about the take-home assessment and tips for that. When I do a take-home assessment, I like to include a readme with things I would have done if I had more time, or these are performance trade-offs that I made; here's why. So, there's a lot of explanation as to how you can improve your chances at moving on to the next round. So yeah, I guess it's 50/50.I also include a section on tips for hiring managers, how to create an inclusive and comfortable environment for your candidates. But it's definitely geared towards candidates, and I would say it's about 50/50 coding tech and process stuff.Corey: One of the problems I've always had with this entire industry is it feels like we're one of the only industries that does this, where we bring people in, and oh, you've been an engineer for 15 years at a whole bunch of companies I've recognized, showing career progression, getting promoted at some of them transitioning from high-level role to high-level role. “Great, we are so glad that you came in to interview. Now, up to the whiteboard, please, and implement FizzBuzz because I have this working theory that you don't actually know how to code, and despite the fact that you've been able to fake your way through it at big companies for 15 years, I'm the one that's going to catch you out with some sort of weird trivia question.” It's this adversarial, almost condescending approach and I don't see it in any other discipline than tech. Is that just because I'm not well-traveled enough? Is that because I'm misunderstanding the purpose of all of these things? Or, what is this?Emma: I think partially it was a gatekeeping solution for a while, for people who are comfortable in their roles and may be threatened by people who have come through different paths to get to tech. Because software engineer used to be an accredited title that you needed a degree or certification to get. And in some countries it still is, so you'll see this debate sometimes about calling yourself a software engineer if you don't have that accreditation. But in this day and age, people go through boot camps, they can come from other industries, they can be self-taught. You don't need a computer science degree, and I think the interview process has not caught up with that.I will say [laugh] the worst interview I had was at IBM when I was already working there. I was already a web developer there, full-time. I was interviewing for a role, and I walked into the room and there were five guys sitting at a table and they were like, “Get up to the whiteboard.” It was for a web development job and they quizzed me about Java. And I was like, “Um, sir, I have not done Java since college.” And they were like, “We don't care.”Corey: Oh, yeah, coding on a whiteboard in front of five people who already know the answer—Emma: Horrifying.Corey: —during a—for them, it's any given Tuesday, and for you, it is a, this will potentially determine the course that your career takes from this point forward. There's a level of stress that goes into that never exists in our day-to-day of building things out.Emma: Well, I also think it's an artificial environment. And why, though? Like, why is this necessary? One of the best interviews I had was actually with Gatsby. It was for an open-source maintainer role, and they essentially let me try the product before I bought it.Like, they let me try out doing the job. It was a paid process, they didn't expect me to do it for free. I got to choose alternatives if I wanted to do one thing or another, answer one question or another, and this was such an exemplary process that I always bring it up because that is a modern interview process, when you are letting people try the position. Now granted, not everyone can do this, right? We've got parents, we've got people working two jobs, and not everyone can afford to take the time to try out a job.But who can also afford a five-stage interview process that still warrants taking vacation days? So, I think at least—at the very least—pay your candidates if you can.Corey: Oh, yeah. One of the best interviews I've ever had was at a company called Three Rings Design, which is now defunct, unfortunately, but it was fairly typical ops questions of, “Yeah, here's an AWS account. Spin up a couple EC2 instances, load balance between them, have another one monitored. You know, standard op stuff. And because we don't believe in asking people to work for free, we'll pay you $300 upon completion of the challenge.”Which, again, it's not huge money for doing stuff like that, but it's also, this shows a level of respect for my time. And instead of giving me a hard deadline of when it was due, they asked me, “When can we expect this by?” Which is a great question in its own right because it informs you about a candidate's ability to set realistic deadlines and then meet them, which is one of those useful work things. And they—unlike most other companies I spoke with in that era—were focused on making it as accommodating for the candidate as possible. They said, “We're welcome to interview you during the workday; we can also stay after hours and have a chat then, if that's more convenient for your work schedule.”Because they knew I was working somewhere else; an awful lot of candidates are. And they just bent over backwards to be as accommodating as possible. I see there's a lot of debate these days in various places about the proper way to interview candidates. No take-home because biases for people who don't have family obligations or other commitments outside of work hours. “Okay, great, so I'm going to come in interview during the day?” “No. That biases people who can't take time off.” And, on some level, it almost seems to distill down to no one likes any way that there is of interviewing candidates, and figuring out a way that accommodates everyone is a sort of a fool's errand. It seems like there is no way that won't get you yelled at.Emma: I think there needs to be almost like a choose your own adventure. What is going to set you up for success and also allow you to see if you want to even work that kind of a job in the first place? Because I thought on paper, open-source maintainer sounds awesome. And upon looking into the challenges, I'm like, “You know what? I think I'd hate this job.”And I pulled out and I didn't waste their time and they didn't waste mine. So, when you get down to it, honestly, I wish I didn't have to write this book. Did it bring me a lot of benefit? Yeah. Let's not sugarcoat that. It allowed me to pay off my medical debt and move across a continent, but that being said, I wish that we were at a point in time where that did not need to exist.Corey: One of the things that absolutely just still gnaws at me even years later, is I interviewed at Google twice, and I didn't get an offer either time, I didn't really pass their technical screen either time. The second one that really sticks out in my mind where it was, “Hey, write some code in a Google Doc while we watch remotely,” and don't give you any context or hints on this. And just it was—the entire process was sitting there listening to them basically, like, “Nope, not what I'm thinking about. Nope, nope, nope.” It was… by the end of that conversation, I realized that if they were going to move forward—which they didn't—I wasn't going to because I didn't want to work with people that were that condescending and rude.And I've held by it; I swore I would never apply there again and I haven't. And it's one of those areas where, did I have the ability to do the job? I can say in hindsight, mostly. Were there things I was going to learn as I went? Absolutely, but that's every job.And I'm realizing as I see more and more across the ecosystem, that they were an outlier in a potentially good way because in so many other places, there's no equivalent of the book that you have written that is given to the other side of the table: how to effectively interview candidates. People lose sight of the fact that it's a sales conversation; it's a two-way sale, they have to convince you to hire them, but you also have to convince them to work with you. And even in the event that you pass on them, you still want them to say nice things about you because it's a small industry, all things considered. And instead, it's just been awful.Emma: I had a really shitty interview, and let me tell you, they have asked me subsequently if I would re-interview with them. Which sucks; it's a product that I know and love, and I've talked about this, but I had the worst experience. Let me clarify, I had a great first interview with them, and I was like, “I'm just not ready to move to Australia.” Which is where the job was. And then they contacted me again a year later, and it was the worst experience of my life—same recruiter—it was the ego came out.And I will tell you what, if you treat your candidates like shit, they will remember and they will never recommend people interview for you. [laugh]. I also wanted to mention about accessibility because—so we talked about, oh, give candidates the choice, which I think the whole point of an interview should be setting your candidates up for success to show you what they can do. And I talked with [Stephen 00:14:09]—oh, my gosh, I can't remember his last name—but he is a quadriplegic and he types with a mouthstick. And he was saying he would go to technical interviews and they would not be prepared to set him up for success.And they would want to do these pair programming, or, like, writing on a whiteboard. And it's not that he can't pair program, it's that he was not set up for success. He needed a mouthstick to type and they were not prepared to help them with that. So, it's not just about the commitment that people need. It's also about making sure that you are giving candidates what they need to give the best interview possible in an artificial environment.Corey: One approach that people have taken is, “Ah, I'm going to shortcut this and instead of asking people to write code, I'm going to look at their work on GitHub.” Which is, in some cases, a great way to analyze what folks are capable of doing. On the other, well, there's a lot of things that play into that. What if they're working in environment where they don't have the opportunity to open-source their work? What if people consider this a job rather than an all-consuming passion?I know, perish the thought. We don't want to hire people like that. Grow up. It's not useful, and it's not helpful. It's not something that applies universally, and there's an awful lot of reasons why someone's code on GitHub might be materially better—or worse—than their work product. I think that's fine. It's just a different path toward it.Emma: I don't use GitHub for largely anything except just keeping repositories that I need. I don't actively update it. And I have, like, a few thousand followers; I'm like, “Why the hell do you guys follow me? I don't do anything.” It's honestly a terrible representation.That being said, you don't need to have a GitHub repository—an active one—to showcase your skills. There are many other ways that you can show a potential employer, “Hey, I have a lot of skills that aren't necessarily showcased on my resume, but I like to write blogs, I like to give tech talks, I like to make YouTube videos,” things of that nature.Corey: I had a manager once who refused to interview anyone who didn't have a built-out LinkedIn profile, which is also one of these bizarre things. It's, yeah, a lot of people don't feel the need to have a LinkedIn profile, and that's fine. But the idea that, “Oh, yeah, they have this profile they haven't updated in a couple years, it's clearly they're not interested in looking for work.” It's, yeah. Maybe—just a thought here—your ability to construct a resume and build it out in the way that you were expecting is completely orthogonal to how effective they might be in the role. The idea that someone not having a LinkedIn profile somehow implies that they're sketchy is the wrong lesson to take from all of this. That site is terrible.Emma: Especially when you consider the fact that LinkedIn is primarily used in the United States as a social—not social networking—professional networking tool. In Germany, they use Xing as a platform; it's very similar to LinkedIn, but my point is, if you're solely looking at someone's LinkedIn as a representation of their ability to do a job, you're missing out on many candidates from all over the world. And also those who, yeah, frankly, just don't—like, they have more important things to be doing than updating their LinkedIn profile. [laugh].Corey: On some level, it's the idea of looking at a consultant, especially independent consultant type, when their website is glorious and up-to-date and everything's perfect, it's, oh, you don't really have any customers, do you? As opposed to the consultants you know who are effectively sitting there with a waiting list, their website looks like crap. It's like, “Is this Geocities?” No. It's just that they're too busy working on the things that bring the money instead of the things that bring in business, in some respects.Let's face it, websites don't. For an awful lot of consulting work, it's word of mouth. I very rarely get people finding me off of Google, clicking a link, and, “Hey, my AWS bill is terrible. Can you help us with it?” It happens, but it's not something that happens so frequently that we want to optimize for it because that's not where the best customers have been coming from. Historically, it's referrals, it's word of mouth, it's people seeing the aggressive shitposting I engage in on Twitter and saying, “Oh, that's someone that should help me with my Amazon bill.” Which I don't pretend to understand, but I'm still going to roll with it.Emma: You had mentioned something about passion earlier, and I just want to say, if you're a hiring manager or recruiter, you shouldn't solely be looking at candidates who superficially look like they're passionate about what they do. Yes, that is—it's important, but it's not something that—like, I don't necessarily choose one candidate over the other because they push commits, and open pull requests on GitHub, and open-source, and stuff. You can be passionate about your job, but at the end of the day, it's still a job. For me, would I be working if I had to? No. I'd be opening a bookstore because that's what I would really love to be doing. But that doesn't mean I'm not passionate about my job. I just show it in different ways. So, just wanted to put that out there.Corey: Oh, yeah. The idea that you must eat, sleep, live, and breathe is—hell with that. One of the reasons that we get people to work here at The Duckbill Group is, yeah, we care about getting the job done. We don't care about how long it takes or when you work; it's oh, you're not feeling well? Take the day off.We have very few things that are ‘must be done today' style of things. Most of those tend to fall on me because it's giving a talk at a conference; they will not reschedule the conference for you. I've checked. So yeah, that's important, but that's not most days.Emma: Yeah. It's like programming is my job, it's not my identity. And it's okay if it is your primary hobby if that is how you identify, but for me, I'm a person with actual hobbies, and, you know, a personality, and programming is just a job for me. I like my job, but it's just a job.Corey: And on the side, you do interesting things like wrote a book. You mentioned earlier that it wound up paying off some debt and helping cover your move across an ocean. Let's talk a little bit about that because I'm amenable to the idea of side projects that accidentally have a way of making money. That's what this podcast started out as. If I'm being perfectly honest, and started out as something even more self-serving than that.It's, well if I reach out to people in this industry that are doing interesting things and ask them to grab a cup of coffee, they'll basically block me, whereas if I ask them to, would you like to appear on my podcast, they'll clear time on their schedule. I almost didn't care if my microphone was on or not when I was doing these just because it was a chance to talk to really interesting people and borrow their brain, people reached out asking they can sponsor it, along with the newsletter and the rest, and it's you want to give me money? Of course, you can give me money. How much money? And that sort of turned into a snowball effect over time.Five years in, it's turned into something that I would never have predicted or expected. But it's weird to me still, how effective doing something you're actually passionate about as a side project can sort of grow wings on its own. Where do you stand on that?Emma: Yeah, it's funny because with the exception of the online courses that I've worked with—I mentioned LinkedIn Learning and Frontend Masters, which I knew were paid opportunities—none of my side projects started out for financial reasonings. The podcast that we started was purely for fun, and the sponsors came to us. Now, I will say right up front, we all had pretty big social media followings, and my first piece of advice to anyone looking to get into side projects is, don't focus so much on making money at the get-go. Yes, to your point, Corey, focus on the stuff you're passionate about. Focus on engaging with people on social media, build up your social media, and at that point, okay, monetization will slowly find its way to you.But yeah, I say if you can monetize the heck out of your work, go for it. But also, free content is also great. I like to balance my paid content with my free content because I recognize that not everyone can afford to pay for some of this information. So, I generally always have free alternatives. And for this book that we published, one of the things that was really important to me was keeping it affordable.The first publish I did was $10 for the book. It was like a 250-page book. It was, like, $10 because again, I was not in it for the money. And when I redid the book with the egghead.io team, the same team that did Epic React with Kent C. Dodds, I said, “I want to keep this affordable.” So, we made sure it was still affordable, but also that we had—what's it called? Parity pricing? Pricing parity, where depending on your geographic location, the price is going to accommodate for how the currency is doing. So, yes, I would agree. Side project income for me allows me to do incredible stuff, but it wasn't why I got into it in the first place. It was genuinely just a nice-to-have.Corey: I haven't really done anything that asks people for money directly. I mean, yeah, I sell t-shirts on the website, and mugs, and drink umbrellas—don't get me started—but other than that and the charity t-shirt drive I do every year, I tend to not be good at selling things that don't have a comma in the price tag. For me, it was about absolutely building an audience. I tend to view my Twitter follower count as something of a proxy for it, but the number I actually care about, the audience that I'm focused on cultivating, is newsletter subscribers because no social media platform that we've ever seen has lasted forever. And I have to imagine that Twitter will one day wane as well.But email has been here since longer than we'd been alive, and by having a list of email addresses and ways I can reach out to people on an ongoing basis, I can monetize that audience in a more direct way, at some point should I need them to. And my approach has been, well, one, it's a valuable audience for some sponsors, so I've always taken the asking corporate people for money is easier than asking people for personal money, plus it's a valuable audience to them, so it tends to blow out a number of the metrics that you would normally expect of, oh, for this audience size, you should generally be charging Y dollars. Great. That makes sense if you're slinging mattresses or free web hosting, but when it's instead, huh, these people buy SaaS enterprise software and implement it at their companies, all of economics tend to start blowing apart. Same story with you in many respects.The audience that you're building is functionally developers. That is a lucrative market for the types of sponsors that are wise enough to understand that—in a lot of cases these days—which product a company is going to deploy is not dictated by their exec so much as it is the bottom-up adoption path of engineers who like the product.Emma: Mm-hm. Yeah, and I think once I got to maybe around 10,000 Twitter followers is when I changed my mentality and I stopped caring so much about follower count, and instead I just started caring about the people that I was following. And the number is a nice-to-have but to be honest, I don't think so much about it. And I do understand, yes, at that point, it is definitely a privilege that I have this quote-unquote, “Platform,” but I never see it as an audience, and I never think about that “Audience,” quote-unquote, as a marketing platform. But it's funny because there's no right or wrong. People will always come to you and be like, “You shouldn't monetize your stuff.” And it's like—Corey: “Cool. Who's going to pay me then? Not you, apparently.”Emma: Yeah. It's also funny because when I originally sold the book, it was $10 and I got so many people being like, “This is way too cheap. You should be charging more.” And I'm like, “But I don't care about the money.” I care about all the people who are unemployed and not able to survive, and they have families, and they need to get a job and they don't know how.That's what I care about. And I ended up giving away a lot of free books. My mantra was like, hey if you've been laid off, DM me. No questions asked, I'll give it to you for free. And it was nice because a lot of people came back, even though I never asked for it, they came back and they wanted to purchase it after the fact, after they'd gotten a job.And to me that was like… that was the most rewarding piece. Not getting their money; I don't care about that, but it was like, “Oh, okay. I was actually able to help you.” That is what's really the most rewarding. But yeah, certainly—and back really quickly to your email point, I highly agree, and one of the first things that I would recommend to anyone looking to start a side product, create free content so that you have a backlog that people can look at to… kind of build trust.Corey: Give it away for free, but also get emails from people, like a trade for that. So, it's like, “Hey, here's a free guide on how to start a podcast from scratch. It's free, but all I would like is your email.” And then when it comes time to publish a course on picking the best audio and visual equipment for that podcast, you have people who've already been interested in this topic that you can now market to.This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking databases, observability, management, and security.And - let me be clear here - it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build.With Always Free you can do things like run small scale applications, or do proof of concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free. No asterisk. Start now. Visit https://snark.cloud/oci-free that's https://snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: I'm not sitting here trying to judge anyone for the choices that they make at all. There are a lot of different paths to it. I'm right there with you. One of the challenges I had when I was thinking about, do I charge companies or do I charge people was that if I'm viewing it through a lens of audience growth, well, what stuff do I gate behind a paywall? What stuff don't I? Well, what if I just—Emma: Mm-hm.Corey: —gave it all away? And that way I don't have to worry about the entire class of problems that you just alluded to of, well, how do I make sure this is fair? Because a cup of coffee in San Francisco is, what, $14 in some cases? Whereas that is significant in places that aren't built on an economy of foolishness. How do you solve for that problem? How do you deal with the customer service slash piracy issues slash all the other nonsense? And it's just easier.Emma: Yeah.Corey: Something I've found, too, is that when you're charging enough money to companies, you don't have to deal with an entire class of customer service problem. You just alluded to the other day that well, you had someone who bought your book and was displeased that it wasn't a how to write code from scratch tutorial, despite the fact that he were very clear on what it is and what it isn't. I don't pretend to understand that level of entitlement. If I spend 10 or 20 bucks on an ebook, and it's not very good, let's see, do I wind up demanding a refund from the author and making them feel bad about it, or do I say, “The hell with it.” And in my case, I—there is privilege baked into this; I get that, but it's I don't want to make people feel bad about what they've built. If I think there's enough value to spend money on it I view that as a one-way transaction, rather than chasing someone down for three months, trying to get a $20 refund.Emma: Yeah, and I think honestly, I don't care so much about giving refunds at all. We have a 30-day money-back guarantee and we don't ask any questions. I just asked this person for feedback, like, “Oh, what was not up to par?” And it was just, kind of like, BS response of like, “Oh, I didn't read the website and I guess it's not what I wanted.” But the end of the day, they still keep the product.The thing is, you can't police all of the people who are going to try to get your content for free if you're charging for it; it's part of it. And I knew that when I got into it, and honestly, my thing is, if you are circulating a book that helps you get a job in tech and you're sending it to all your friends, I'm not going to ask any questions because it's very much the sa—and this is just my morals here, but if I saw someone stealing food from a grocery store, I wouldn't tell on them because at the end of the day, if you're s—Corey: Same story. You ever see someone's stealing baby formula from a store? No, you didn't.Emma: Right.Corey: Keep walking. Mind your business.Emma: Exactly. Exactly. So, at the end of the day, I didn't necessarily care that—people are like, “Oh, people are going to share your book around. It's a PDF.” I'm like, “I don't care. Let them. It is what it is. And the people who wants to support and can, will.” But I'm not asking.I still have free blogs on data structures, and algorithms, and the interview stuff. I do still have content for free, but if you want more, if you want my illustrated diagrams that took me forever with my Apple Pencil, fair enough. That would be great if you could support me. If not, I'm still happy to give you the stuff for free. It is what it is.Corey: One thing that I think is underappreciated is that my resume doesn't look great. On paper, I have an eighth-grade education, and I don't have any big tech names on my resume. I have a bunch of relatively short stints; until I started this place, I've never lasted more than two years anywhere. If I apply through the front door the way most people do for a job, I will get laughed out of the room by the applicant tracking system, automatically. It'll never see a human.And by doing all these side projects, it's weird, but let's say that I shut down the company for some reason, and decide, ah, I'm going to go get a job now, my interview process—more or less, and it sounds incredibly arrogant, but roll with it for a minute—is, “Don't you know who I am? Haven't you heard of me before?” It's, “Here's my website. Here's all the stuff I've been doing. Ask anyone in your engineering group who I am and you'll see what pops up.”You're in that same boat at this point where your resume is the side projects that you've done and the audience you've built by doing it. That's something that I think is underappreciated. Even if neither one of us made a dime through direct monetization of things that we did, the reputational boost to who we are and what we do professionally seems to be one of those things that pays dividends far beyond any relatively small monetary gain from it.Emma: Absolutely, yeah. I actually landed my job interview with Spotify through Twitter. I was contacted by a design systems manager. And I was in the interview process for them, and I ended up saying, “You know, I'm not ready to move to Stockholm. I just moved to Germany.”And a year later, I circled back and I said, “Hey, are there any openings?” And I ended up re-interviewing, and guess what? Now, I have a beautiful home with my soulmate and we're having a child. And it's funny how things work out this way because I had a Twitter account. And so don't undervalue [laugh] social media as a tool in lieu of a resume because I don't think anyone at Spotify even saw my resume until it actually accepted the job offer, and it was just a formality.So yeah, absolutely. You can get a job through social media. It's one of the easiest ways. And that's why if I ever see anyone looking for a job on Twitter, I will retweet, and vouch for them if I know their work because I think that's one of the quickest ways to finding an awesome candidate.Corey: Back in, I don't know, 2010, 2011-ish. I was deep in the IRC weed. I was network staff on the old freenode network—not the new terrible one. The old, good one—and I was helping people out with various things. I was hanging out in the Postfix channel and email server software thing that most people have the good sense not to need to know anything about.And someone showed up and was asking questions about their config, and I was working with them, and teasing them, and help them out with it. And at the end of it, his comment was, “Wow, you're really good at this. Any chance you'd be interested in looking for jobs?” And the answer was, “Well, sure, but it's a global network. Where are you?”Well, he was based in Germany, but he was working remotely for Spotify in Stockholm. A series of conversations later, I flew out to Stockholm and interviewed for a role that they decided I was not a fit for—and again, they're probably right—and I often wonder how my life would have gone differently if the decision had gone the other way. I mean, no hard feelings, please don't get me wrong, but absolutely, helping people out, interacting with people over social networks, or their old school geeky analogs are absolutely the sorts of things that change lives. I would never have thought to apply to a role like that if I had been sitting here looking at job ads because who in the world would pick up someone with relatively paltry experience and move them halfway around the world? This was like a fantasy, not a reality.Emma: [laugh].Corey: It's the people you get to know—Emma: Yeah.Corey: —through these social interactions on various networks that are worth… they're worth gold. There's no way to describe it other than that.Emma: Yeah, absolutely. And if you're listening to this, and you're discouraged because you got turned down for a job, we've all been there, first of all, but I remember being disappointed because I didn't pass my first round of interviews of Google the first time I interviewed with them, and being, like, “Oh, crap, now I can't move to Munich. What am I going to do with my life?” Well, guess what, look where I am today. If I had gotten that job that I thought was it for me, I wouldn't be in the happiest phase of my life.And so if you're going through it—obviously, in normal circumstances where you're not frantically searching for a job; if you're in more of a casual life job search—and you've been let go from the process, just realize that there's probably something bigger and better out there for you, and just focus on your networking online. Yeah, it's an invaluable tool.Corey: One time when giving a conference talk, I asked, “All right, raise your hand if you have never gone through a job interview process and then not been offered the job.” And a few people did. “Great. If your hand is up, aim higher. Try harder. Take more risks.”Because fundamentally, job interviews are two-way streets and if you are only going for the sure thing jobs, great, stretch yourself, see what else is out there. There's no perfect attendance prize. Even back in school there wasn't. It's the idea of, “Well, I've only ever taken the easy path because I don't want to break my streak.” Get over it. Go out and interview more. It's a skill, unlike most others that you don't get to get better at unless you practice it.So, you've been in a job for ten years, and then it's time to move on—I've talked to candidates like this—their interview skills are extremely rusty. It takes a little bit of time to get back in the groove. I like to interview every three to six months back when I was on the job market. Now that I, you know, own the company and have employees, it looks super weird if I do it, but I miss it. I miss those conversations. I miss the aspects—Emma: Yes.Corey: —of exploring what the industry cares about.Emma: Absolutely. And don't underplay the importance of studying the foundational language concepts. I see this a lot in candidates where they're so focused on the newest and latest technologies and frameworks, that they forgot foundational JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Many companies are focused primarily on these plain language concepts, so just make sure that when you are ready to get back into interviewing and enhance that skill, that you don't neglect the foundation languages that the web is built on if you're a web developer.Corey: I'd also take one last look around and realize that every person you admire, every person who has an audience, who is a known entity in the space only has that position because someone, somewhere did them a favor. Probably lots of someones with lots of favors. And you can't ever pay those favors back. All you can do is pay it forward. I repeatedly encourage people to reach out to me if there's something I can do to help. And the only thing that surprises me is how few people in the audience take me up on that. I'm talking to you, listener. Please, if I can help you with something, please reach out. I get a kick out of doing that sort of thing.Emma: Absolutely. I agree.Corey: Emma, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Emma: Well, you can find me on Twitter. It's just @EmmaBostian, I'm, you know, shitposting over there on the regular. But sometimes I do tweet out helpful things, so yeah, feel free to engage with me over there. [laugh].Corey: And we will, of course, put a link to that in the [show notes 00:35:42]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I appreciate it.Emma: Yeah. Thanks for having me.Corey: Emma Bostian, software engineer at Spotify and oh, so very much more. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an incoherent ranting comment mentioning that this podcast as well failed to completely teach you JavaScript.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Counting the years for kings... How does the mishnah know that the kings' rule is counted from Rosh Chodesh Nisan?The Gemara tracks through biblical verses... Twice. Once, via a beraita. Plus, the fact that non-Jewish kings' rule is counted via Tishrei, and why that is. But what about Koresh (Cyrus)? He's a non-Jewish king whose rule seems to have been counted according to Nisan. Ah, but he was good! Or was he? Plus, the Gemara conflates him, Daryavesh (Darius), and Artaxerxes as one - which may solve the contradictions between records of Persian history and the Jewish tradition. Also: the rabbinic approach of "conservation of biblical personality."

Mark K. Shriver talks about his children's book - 10 Hidden Heroes: A Counting Book With a Message. This is episode 418 of Teaching Learning Leading K12, an audio podcast. Mark K. Shriver, president of Save the Children Action Network in Washington, D.C., created the Choice Program and is a former Maryland state legislator. He is the author of Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis and the New York Times bestselling memoir, A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver, which received a 2013 Christopher Award. Shriver lives with his wife, Jeanne, and their three children, Molly, Tommy, and Emma, in Maryland.  Today we are focused on his book 10 Hidden Heroes: A Counting Book with a Message. So much to learn. Thanks for listening! Enjoy! But wait... Remember that Lynn at Connect Flow Grow is ready to help you deal with stress. She has new two new exciting classes: (Click on the links below to learn about each class.) Stress Less Society and Stress Less Family! Through these classes, Lynn will help you or your family learn how stress affects your lives and healthy ways that you can combat it. Don't wait. Go deal with that stress and get on with your life!   Could you do me a favor? Please go to my website at https://www.stevenmiletto.com/reviews/ or open the podcast app that you are listening to me on and would you rate and review the podcast? That would be Awesome. Thanks!   Have you been wanting to tell your story on podcasts? Podcasts are a great way to grow your personal and business brand. Kitcaster specializes in developing real human connections through podcast appearances. If you are an expert in your field, have a unique story to share, or an interesting point of view-- it's time to explore the world of podcasting with Kitcaster. Go to https://kitcaster.com/tllk12 or go to my webpage at https://stevenmiletto.com/sponsors click on the Kitcaster logo to apply for a special offer for friends of Teaching Learning Leading K12.   Ready to start your own podcast? Podbean is an awesome host. I have been with them since 2013. Go to https://www.podbean.com/TLLK12 to get 1 month free of unlimited hosting for your new podcast.    Remember to take a look at NVTA (National Virtual Teacher Association) The NVTA Certification Process was created to establish a valid and reliable research-based teacher qualification training process for virtual teachers to enhance their teaching and develop their ongoing reflective skills to improve teaching capacity. NVTA is an affiliate sponsor of Teaching Learning Leading K12, by following the link above if you purchase a program, Teaching Learning Leading K12 will get a commission and you will help the show continue to grow.    By the way, don't forget to go to my other affiliate sponsor Boone's Titanium Rings at www.boonerings.com. When you order a ring use my code - TLLK12 - at checkout to get 10% off and help the podcast get a commission.   Oh by the way, you can help support Teaching Learning Leading K12 by buying me a soft drink (actually making a donation to Teaching Learning Leading K12.) That would be awesome! You would be helping expand the show with equipment and other resources to keep the show moving upward. Just go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/stevenmiletto Thanks! Have an awesome day!   Connect & Learn More https://www.10hiddenheroes.com/ https://store.loyolapress.com/10-hidden-heroes https://clubs.scholastic.com/10-hidden-heroes/9780829454413-rco-us.html https://www.amazon.com/10-Hidden-Heroes-Mark-Shriver/dp/0829452699 https://www.today.com/video/mark-shriver-discusses-children-s-book-10-hidden-heroes-102166085825 Length - 41:36

Counting is underway in Iraq after a parliamentary election marked by widespread disillusion and voter apathy.

The Amazing Badness of Biden. Counting the ways. Another execrable jobs report, polls plunging. Clueless babble sans teleprompter. Perfect storm of inflation ahead? Cringeworthy Kamala. Trust in media hits new low. Vignettes on busy flourishing fatherhood. Stories from Elk Camp. Also, praise for Disney's new program "The Mysterious Benedict Society." Solid lessons for youth on the nature of propaganda. With Listener Calls. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Calls from Karl, Spencer, Jason, and Daniel on the topic of player skill, what it means, and why it's important.

This week on the pod we have the amazing Ashton Barrett! Ashton is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and ex macro coach. Ashton was a macro coach for 6 years before deciding once and for all that intuitive eating is the only way to have a peaceful relationship with food and body. We talk about how dieting plays into self worth, why macro counting doesn't work, and her experience with hitting dieting rock bottom. This episode is so real and answers any questions you have about how/if macro counting can work with intuitive eating. Find Ashton on Instagram @thatashtonbarrett   This episode was brought to you by Soul CBD.  Use code WTAF for 15% off all products at www.mysoulcbd.com/WTAF   For more information on Soul CBD check out their social media: https://www.instagram.com/mysoulcbd/   “Take a moment for your soul”

Today, I speak with IFBB Pro Kathy Seitz, a lifetime athlete who is now a physician assistant where she works in surgery. She earned her pro car ant NPC Universe and works as an online lifestyle and posing coach. Kathy played Division III softball during college which always put exercise and competition in her forefront. Her sophomore year of college, she began to struggle with disorder eating and overexercising. After her coach approached her about it, she decided she needed to step away from softball to focus on her studies and having a healthy body. She fell in love with the weight room as she started to see how food fail her body to grow stronger.   Kathy began to use counting macros to experiment with what foods fuel her body best. Counting macros gave her the freedom and structure to really learn how different foods affected her and how she could best eat for success, mentally, physically, and emotionally. She believes it is important to understand why your are feeling certain feelings, and what they can lead to. Bodybuilding isn't the healthiest sport, so understanding different feelings can lead to peace throughout he process.   Kathy shares what it's like to work as a physicians assistant, specializing in surgery. She tells us about why she chose orthopedics and why the OR feels like home. She receives so much support from her co-workers. They have also become interested in bodybuilding as a sport and the prep lifestyle. Listen in as Kathy shares her incredible story of resilience and self-discovery!   Topics covered include: -Believing you belong on stage -Life skills gained through sports -Struggles with disordered eating and overexercising -Finding bodybuilding -Learning not to fear food -Understanding the science behind bodybuilding -Taking care of yourself by asking questions -Setting short-term and long-term goals -Working as a physicians assistant -Managing work with bodybuilding -Being prepared for anything -Working with Paul Revelia -Early days of competing -Camaraderie in bodybuilding -Nailing your reverse and lifting heavy to grow -Working toward goals that aren't physique related -Working towards the next big thing   CONNECT WITH CELESTE: Website: http://www.celestial.fit Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celestial_fit/ All Links: http://www.celestial.fit/links.html CONNECT WITH KATHY: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_prepping_pa/ All links: https://linktr.ee/the_prepping_pa   TIME STAMPS [1:00] Introductions [4:05] playing college sports [6:15] falling into disordered eating [9:45] finding bodybuilding [15:45] transforming through bodybuilding [17:20] proper fueling through counting macros [19:45] understanding the process [26:15] healing through the gym [28:25] life as a physicians assistant [34:20] questions for a physicians assistant [37:12] growing confidence in her physique [38:50] deciding to work in orthopedics [44:10] time management [49:50] having the right mentality [51:00] working with Paul [54:45] first contest experience [59:59] growing confidence on stage [61:00] friendships made through bodybuilding [64:00] owning your look [65:30] bringing confidence to the stage [66:35] building in the off-season [70:00] lessons learned in the off-season [74:50] learning from failures [80:00] trusting yourself [81:00] changes after becoming a Pro [83:00] life improvements gained from competing [84:13] goals moving forward [90:00] advice for competitors   CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE FOOD RELATIONSHIP COACHING SERIES   CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE FREE POST SHOW BLUES COACHING SERIES   LEARN MORE AND APPLY FOR MY 5 WEEK FOOD RELATIONSHIP HEALING & DISCOVERY COACHING PROGRAM   FOR OTHER FREE RESOURCES, LIVE EVENTS, AND WAYS TO WORK WITH CELESTE CLICK HERE

What If comes to an end with the Guardians of the Multiverse… and the guys talk about the episode, show as a whole, and other things.

COP26 and Insulate Britain. These are the two key issues I'll discuss today. I'll also tell you about plans for extra editions of the Sustainable Futures Report, coming soon.

No guest this week as we once again dip into the mail bag.  We welcome your questions - send them to us at gamblingwithanedge@gmail.com, or you can find me at @RWM21 on Twitter or https://www.facebook.com/GamblingWithAnEdge. Show Notes [00:00] Introduction [00:40] Biggest gambling regrets [03:57] How can dealers gain AP knowledge? [06:44] Variance on multi-line video poker [10:20] Fixed-odds horse racing [11:49] Bob's problems with betting in Arizona [22:29] How do APs network? [25:45] Advantages and disadvantages of playing on casino credit [30:39] South Point Casino October Promotions - $500k+ Monster Money casino-wide progressives [31:54] http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com - card counting training website and community with many betting, tracking, and analytical tools [32:35] http://VideoPoker.com/gwae - Gold Membership offers correction on most games, free Pro Membership trial for GWAE listeners [34:15] Who should a player contact about re-entering a property after being thrown out? [37:20] Slot YouTubers [39:28] Vulturing Ultimate X [40:46] New GWAE intro [42:40] Recommended - Goliath on Amazon Prime, The Devil May Dance by Jake Tapper, Ross Thomas novels, The Hustler, The Color of Money, Jake Jacobs review of The Card Counter Sponsored Links: http://SouthPointCasino.com http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com http://VideoPoker.com/gwae Episodes Referenced: http://Lasvegasadvisor.com/gambling-with-an-edge/podcast-wilma0-part-2 Recommended: http://Amazon.com/Goliath-Season-1/dp/B0875NY2V2 The Devil May Dance by Jake Tapper https://amzn.to/3AmrHs7 Ross Thomas novels https://amzn.to/306VNn1 The Hustler https://amzn.to/2WPNJFQ The Color of Money https://amzn.to/3lmk2Wy The Card Counter movie review. http://Lasvegasadvisor.com/gambling-with-an-edge/the-card-counter-review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The twins had their first in person event! recorded in front of a live audience

Your hosts @curlemd(Nygel) and @jaydelnegro(Jay) are back for episode 104. Nygels Moon Cricket Fire Crotch 3000- and in this episode we get into: - [ ] Counting is Hard - [ ] Latin Ladies - [ ] Keto Cereal aka Bones - [ ] Jay's been hacked - [ ] More kids doing dumb shit because of TikTok - [ ] Arby's Sweatsuits - [ ] Defund the Library because books All of that and a bunch of other filth flarn filth with a dash of concern including “YAS” “For Why” “Shooting Ppl Bail” “Gentle Judgement” and “Petition The Court” So join us in judgement and listen out for another fantastic episode of the Don't Jude Me Podcast, just as long as you Don't Judge Me for judging you. Support the show for as little as $1 per month: https://anchor.fm/dontjudgepod/support *Email us at DontJudgePod@gmail.com *Leave us a voicemail at 410-834-1562 *Follow us on IG @dontJudgePod *Visit our YouTube page by searching for Dont Judge Me Podcast Comment and Rate us on Apple Podcast, Soundcloud, AnchorFM or wherever you're listening to us at.

In this introductory episode of Who's Counting with Cleta Mitchell, the country's premier election expert reveals documented shenanigans by activist liberals in the judiciary from Montana to Georgia and beyond that corrupted results while election integrity proponents tried to secure accurate counts. You may be surprised to hear that state election laws were not just […]

In this rewind transmission of our attempt at imaginary radio, we present part 2 of our interview from earlier in the year with husband and wife card counting team, Mac and DJ. If this is the kind of thing you'd like to hear, well, listen up... We're about to give you some T&A" --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ta21/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ta21/support

We're back for the the final episode of the KPIs by Department Series with NCG Senior Coach & Director of Finance, Andrew Amrhein. We're moving into the Counting and Calculating of the Human Resources & Accounting Department. From recruiting and training analytics to the day receivables and job costing expectations, we highlight recommendations, the why behind them and encourage you to make tracking a focus to guide future decisions. This episode Out of the Hourglass is brought to you by GRACO.

About CourtneyCourtney Nash is a researcher focused on system safety and failures in complex sociotechnical systems. An erstwhile cognitive neuroscientist, she has always been fascinated by how people learn, and the ways memory influences how they solve problems. Over the past two decades, she's held a variety of editorial, program management, research, and management roles at Holloway, Fastly, O'Reilly Media, Microsoft, and Amazon. She lives in the mountains where she skis, rides bikes, and herds dogs and kids.Links: Verica: https://www.verica.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/courtneynash Email: courtney@verica.io TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Jellyfish. So, you're sitting in front of your office chair, bleary eyed, parked in front of a powerpoint and—oh my sweet feathery Jesus its the night before the board meeting, because of course it is! As you slot that crappy screenshot of traffic light colored excel tables into your deck, or sift through endless spreadsheets looking for just the right data set, have you ever wondered, why is it that sales and marketing get all this shiny, awesome analytics and inside tools? Whereas, engineering basically gets left with the dregs. Well, the founders of Jellyfish certainly did. That's why they created the Jellyfish Engineering Management Platform, but don't you dare call it JEMP! Designed to make it simple to analyze your engineering organization, Jellyfish ingests signals from your tech stack. Including JIRA, Git, and collaborative tools. Yes, depressing to think of those things as your tech stack but this is 2021. They use that to create a model that accurately reflects just how the breakdown of engineering work aligns with your wider business objectives. In other words, it translates from code into spreadsheet. When you have to explain what you're doing from an engineering perspective to people whose primary IDE is Microsoft Powerpoint, consider Jellyfish. Thats Jellyfish.co and tell them Corey sent you! Watch for the wince, thats my favorite part.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at VMware. Let's be honest—the past year has been far from easy. Due to, well, everything. It caused us to rush cloud migrations and digital transformation, which of course means long hours refactoring your apps, surprises on your cloud bill, misconfigurations and headache for everyone trying manage disparate and fractured cloud environments. VMware has an answer for this. With VMware multi-cloud solutions, organizations have the choice, speed, and control to migrate and optimizeapplications seamlessly without recoding, take the fastest path to modern infrastructure, and operate consistently across the data center, the edge, and any cloud. I urge to take a look at vmware.com/go/multicloud. You know my opinions on multi cloud by now, but there's a lot of stuff in here that works on any cloud. But don't take it from me thats: VMware.com/go/multicloud and my thanks to them again for sponsoring my ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Periodically, websites like to fall into the sea and explode. And it's sort of a thing that we've accepted happens. Well, most of us have. My guest today is Courtney Nash, Internet Incident Librarian at Verica. Courtney, thank you for joining me.Courtney: Hi, Corey. Thanks so much for having me.Corey: So, I'm going to assume that my intro is somewhat accurate, that we've sort of accepted that sites will crash into the sea, the internet will break, and then everyone tears their hair out and complains on Twitter, assuming that's not the thing that fell over this time—Courtney: [laugh].Corey: —but what does an Internet Incident Librarian do?Courtney: Yeah, I'll come back to the first part about how—some people have accepted it and some people haven't, I think is the interesting part. So technically, I think my official real title is, like, research analyst or something really boring, but I have a background in the cognitive sciences and also in technology, and I'm really—have always been fascinated by how these socio-technical systems work. And so as an Internet Incident Librarian, I am doing a number of things to try to better understand—both for myself and, obviously, the company I work for, but for the industry as a whole—what do we really know about how incidents happen, why they happen, when they happen, and what do we do when they happen? And how do we learn from that? So, one of the first things that I'm doing along those lines is actually collecting a database of all of the public write-ups of incidents that happened at companies that are software-related.So, there's already bodies of work of people who collect airline incidents and other kinds of things. And we don't have that [laugh] as an industry, which I think is—I want to solve that problem because I think other industries that have spent some time introspecting about why things fall down, or when things fall down and how they fall down. Take the airline industry for example; planes don't really fall out of the sky very often.Corey: No. When it does, it makes news and everyone's scared about flying, but at the same time, it's yeah, do you have any idea how many people die in car crashes in a given hour?Courtney: Yeah, yeah. And we'll come back to how the media covers things in a minute because that is definitely something I have opinions about. But, I'm not trying to say I want to create the NTSB of the internet; I don't think that's quite the same thing, and I really want something in the spirit of software, and the internet, and open-source that's more collaborative and it's very open to all of us. So, the first step is to just get them in one place. There is no single place where you could go and say, “Oh, where all of the X incident reports? Where all the ones that Microsoft's written, and also Amazon, or Google, or, you know, whoever.”Corey: They have them, but they hide them so thoroughly. It turns out that they don't really put that in big letters on their corporate blog with links to it. And when you look at one incident report, they don't say, “Here, look at our previous incident reports.” They really—Courtney: Yeah.Corey: —should but no one does.Courtney: And I think that's fascinating because there's a precedent. So, there's two precedents, and I just gave you basically one side of the two, which is, the airline industry has done this and it's not like people don't fly, right? So, a lot of internet companies, a lot of software-based companies, seem to be afraid of what their customers, or what the stock market, or what folks will think. Mind you, these are publicly traded [laugh] airline companies. People aren't going to stop using Amazon just because you give more of this information out.And so I think that piece is—I would love to see that stop being the case. Because the flip side of the coin is that this is a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing, which granted, not all companies agree on, especially really big ones because their boats already mowing all the little ones out of the ocean. But that's another story.Corey: Sure, but also, it's easy to hide an outage. “Our site is down for you can say three days. Great, if a customer didn't try to access the site at all during those three days, was the site really down in the first place?”Courtney: Oh, the tree in the forest of internet outages. Yes, it's true, although I think that companies are—they know that people go complain on social media, right? I think there's more and more of that happening now. It's not like you can hide it as easily as you could have before Twitter or Instagram or—Corey: Right. Whereas a plane falls out of the sky, generally it's one of those things that people notice.Courtney: Yeah. Even if you weren't interested in that flight at all.Corey: Right. When it lands in your garden, you sort of have a comment on this.Courtney: [laugh]. Yeah. Pieces fall out of the sky. That has happened. But I think the other flip side of the coin I already mentioned is the safety of airline industry has increased so significantly over the past, you know, whatever, 30, 40 years because of this concerted effort.And the other piece of it, then, as an industry, as technologists, as people who use software to run their businesses, some of those things are now safety-critical. And this comes back to the whole software is running the world now. Planes now actually could fall out of the sky because of software, not just because of hardware failures. And nuclear power plants are [laugh] run by software, and your electronic grid, and your health care systems, heart rate monitors, insulin pumps. There are a lot of really critical things, and now our phone services and our internet stuff is so entwined in our lives, that people can't be on their Zoom calls, people can't run their businesses. So, this stuff has a massive impact on people's lives. It's no longer just pictures of cats on the internet, which admittedly, we've really honed the machine for that.Corey: No, but now when software goes down, the biggest arguments people make, the stories people tell is, “Oh, well, it meant that the company lost this much money during that timeframe.” And great, maybe. We can argue about is that really true or is it not? It depends entirely on the company's business model, but I don't like to tend to accept those things at face value. But yeah, that's the small-scale thing, especially when you start getting to these massive platform providers. There are a lot of second and third-order effects that are a lot more interesting slash important to people's lives, than, well, we couldn't show ads to people for an hour and a half.Courtney: Right. Yes. Absolutely. So, T-Mobile had this outage, what is it, how is time—time is still not working very well, for me. I'm trying to remember if it was earlier this year, or if it was in—it was last year. I think it was 2020. And you're like, T-Mobile, oh okay, whatever. You know, like, cell phones, yadda, yadda. 911 stopped working. [laugh].And it was a fascinating outage because these are now actually regulated industries that are heavily software-backed. There was a government investigation into that the same way we have NTSB investigations into airline accidents, and they looked at all of those, kind of, second or third-order effects of people who—you know, a grandma who was stranded on the road, people who couldn't call 911, those kinds of things that are really significant impacts on people's lives. And the second-order effect is, oh, yeah, AWS goes down—like you said—and Amazon or people like to say, Jeff Bezos—I guess, now, are they going to complain about how much money Andy loses? I guess so—but [laugh] what lives on AWS, that's crazy to think about, right?Corey: Yeah, the more I learn the answer to that question, the more disturbed I become.Courtney: Well, you'd probably know a better answer to that question [laugh] than a lot of people.Corey: They have the big companies they can talk about. What's really interesting is the companies that they don't and can't. An easy example: financial services is an industry that is notorious for never granting logo rights. Like, at some point, they'll begrudgingly admit, “Yes, our multinational bank does use computers.” But it's always like pulling teeth, and I get it on some level; the entire philosophy of a lot of these companies is risk-mitigation, rather than growth and advancing the current awareness of knowledge. But it does become a problem.Courtney: Yeah. It's interesting, I need more data, which we'll get to—help me, people—but I am able to start seeing some of those interesting graphs of, kind of these cascading effects of these kinds of outages. And so I strongly believe that we need to talk about them more, that more companies need to write them up, and publish them, and be a lot more transparent about it. And I think there's a number of companies that are showing the way there that—and it has to do with your first question which is, we've all sort of accepted this, right? But I disagree with that.I think those of us who are super close to these kinds of complex, dynamic distributed systems totally know that they're going to fail, and that's not shocking, nor the case of incompetence. We are building systems that are so big and so complex, no one person, no 10X engineer out there could possibly model or hold the whole thing in their head. Especially because it's not even just your systems… we were just talking about, right? Your stuff's on GitHub; it's on AWS; there's, like, three other upstream providers; there's this API from over there. These systems are too intricate, too complex; they're going to fail.Corey: So, we're back to why all these things failed simultaneously and it comes out it's a Northern woods, middle of nowhere backhoe incident. That's right, if we look at the natural food chain of things, fiber optic cable has a natural predator in the form of a backhoe. To the point where if I'm ever lost in the woods, I will drop a length of fiber, kick some dirt over it, wait a few minutes; a backhoe will be along to sever it. Then I can follow the backhoe back to civilization. They don't teach that one and the boy scout manual, but they really should.Courtney: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. There was a beaver outage in Canada, which is the—[laugh] God, that's the most Canadian thing ever.Corey: Can you come up with a more Canadian—Courtney: No.Corey: —story than that? I would posit you could not, but give it a shot.Courtney: No, probably not. Anyhoo. So, I think, like I was saying, those of us close to it accept that, understand it, and are trying to now think about, okay, well, how do we change our approach and our philosophy about this, knowing that things will fall down? But I think if you look at a lot of the rest of the world, people are still like, “What are those idiots doing over there? Why did their site fall down?”Corey: Oh, my God—Courtney: Right?Corey: —the general population is the worst on stuff like this. The absolute worst.Courtney: The media is the worst. [laugh].Corey: It's, “How did they wind up to going down?” “Yeah, because this stuff is complicated.” Back when I was getting started in tech, I thought the whole thing worked on magic, so I started figuring out different pieces of it worked. And now I'm convinced; it runs on magic. The most amazing thing is this all works together. Because—Courtney: Yeah.Corey: —spit and duct tape and baling wire holding this stuff together would be an upgrade from a lot of the stuff that currently exists in the real world. And it's amazing.Courtney: I know the secret, Corey. You know what holds it all together?Corey: Hit me with it. Hope? Tears?Courtney: People.Corey: Mmm.Courtney: Technology is Soylent Green, Corey. It's Soylent Green. It's made of people.Corey: And that's the thing that always bugs me on Twitter. The whole HugOps movement has it right. When you see a big provider taking an outage, all their competitors are immediately there with, “Man, hope things get back together soon. Best of luck. Let us know if we can help.” And that's super reassuring because today is their outage; tomorrow it's yours.Courtney: Yep.Corey: And once in a blue moon, you see someone who's relatively new to the industry starting trying to market their stuff based on someone else's outage, and they basically get their butts fed to them, just because it's this—it's not what you do, and it's not how we operate. And it's one of the few moments where I look at this and realize that maybe people's inherent nature isn't all terrible.Courtney: [laugh]. Oh. Oh, I would hope that would be something that comes out of all of this.Corey: Yeah.Courtney: No one goes to work at their day job doing what we do, to suck. [laugh]. Right? To do a bad job.Corey: Right. Unless you're in Facebook's ethics department, I completely agree with you.Courtney: Okay. Yes. All right. There are a few caveats to that, probably. But you know, we all want to show up and do good stuff. So, nobody's going in trying to take the site down, barring bad actor stuff that's not relevant.Corey: When Azure takes an outage, AWS is not sitting there going, “Ah, we're going to win more cloud deals because of this,” because they're smarter than that. It's, no, people are going to look at this and say, “Ah, see. Told you the cloud was dangerous.” It sets the entire industry back.Courtney: Yeah. That's why we need to talk about it more, and we need to just normalize that these things happen and that we can all level up as an industry if we get a lot smarter about how we, A) think about that, and B) how we react to them. And we will develop much more useful models of our safety boundaries, right? That's really it. You don't know—no one at any of these companies hardly knows if you're five steps from the cliff, five feet, driving a Ferrari 90 miles an hour towards the edge of it.Like, we don't know, it's amazing to me just how much in the dark we are as an industry and how much of the world we're running. So, I think this is one tiny, first little step in what could be sort of a sea change about how all of this works. So, that's a big part of why I'm doing what I'm doing.Corey: Well, let's talk about something else you're doing. So, tell me a little bit about VOID?Courtney: Yeah. So, that's the first iteration of this. So, it's the [Verica Open Incident Database 00:14:10]. I feel like I have to say this almost every time John Allspaw would like me to say that it's the Verica Open Incident Report Database, but VOID is way cooler than—Corey: VOIRD?Courtney: VOIRD.Corey: Yeah, that sounds like you're trying to make fun of someone ineffectively.Courtney: Yeah. And there's a reason why he's not in marketing. But what this is is a collection of all of the publicly available incident reports in one place, easily searchable. You can search by company, you can search by technology, you can filter things by the types of, sort of, kinds of failure modes that we're seeing. And it's, I hope, valuable to a wide swath of folks, both technologists and otherwise: researchers, media and press types, analysts, and whatnot.And my biggest desire is that people will look at it, realize how incomplete it is, and then help me fill it. [laugh]. Help me fill the VOID, people. I think I have right now, at the time we're talking, about 1700, maybe 1800 of these. And they run the gamut. And I know some people who like to quibble about language—and I am one of those people having been an editor in various flavors of my life—not all of these are what a lot of people directly related to these, sort of, incident management and whatnot would call ‘incident reports.'I wanted to collect a corpus that reflects all of the public information about software-related incidents. So, it's anything from tweets—either from a company or just from people—to a status page, to a media article, a news article, an online article, to a full-blown deep-dive retrospective or post-mortem from a company that really does go into detail. It's the whole gamut. It's all of those things. I have no opinionated take on that.I want that all to be available to people. And we've collected some metadata on all of the incidents as well. So, we're collecting the obvious things like when did it happen? What date was it, if we can figure it out, or if it's explicit—how long was it? And those kinds of things and then we collect some metadata, like I said. We add some tags: was this a complete production outage, was it a partial outage? Those kinds of things.And this is all directly just taken from the language of the report. And we're not trying—like I said—we're trying not to have any sort of really subjective takes on any of that, but a bit of metadata that helps people spelunk some of this stuff. So, if it is the kind of report—these are usually from a status page, or a company post about it—what kinds of things were involved in this outage? So, sometimes you'll get lucky and the company will tell you, “It was DNS,” because, you know, it's always DNS.Corey: On some level, it always is. That's why—Courtney: It always is.Corey: —DNS is my database. It's a database problem.Courtney: It's a database problem. And sometimes you get even more detail. And so we will put as much of that that's in the report into a set of metadata about these things. So, I think there's some fascinating, really easy things that I've already seen from some of these data, and we kind of hit on one of these, which is the way that companies themselves talk about these outages versus the way that press and media and other types of organizations talk about these things. So, I think there's a whole bunch of really fascinating analysis that's going to be available to nerdy research-minded type folks like myself.I think it's a place, though, where technologists can also go and spelunk things that they're interested in, looking for patterns, anything that's really—there's an opportunity for experts in the field to add insights to what we can discern from these public incident reports. They are, like, two orders abstracted from what happened internally, but I think there's still a lot that we can learn from those. So, the first iteration of the VOID will allow people to get a first look at some of the data and to help me, hopefully, add to it, grow that corpus over time, and we'll see where that goes.This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking databases, observability, management, and security.And - let me be clear here - it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build.With Always Free you can do things like run small scale applications, or do proof of concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free. No asterisk. Start now. Visit https://snark.cloud/oci-free that's https://snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: I love the idea of having a centralized place where outages, post-mortems, root cause analyses—I'll let you tear into that in a minute—and other things that are all tied to where can I find a list of outages. Because companies list these on their websites, they put them in blog posts, and it's always very begrudging; they don't link them from any other place, you have to know the magic incantation to find the buried link on their site. Having something that is easily searchable for outages is really something that's kind of valuable.Courtney: Yeah. And I mean, some of them are like—I'm looking at you, Microsoft—I like you for a lot of reasons, but hey, I have to scroll your status page. I can't link directly to their write-ups, and—this is Azure—and it [laugh] please stop. Make it easier. [laugh]. You're driving me crazy; I don't even have a data model to figure out how to make this work for people, other than, like, taking screenshots of them.So yeah, so there's shades of grey and black in how much they'll share, or how easy it is to find these things. So, it'll be interesting to see if there's any less-than-positive [laugh] reactions to all of this being available in one place. I'm anticipating at least a little bit of that.There is one other type of metadata that we collect for the VOID. And that is the type of analysis that is conducted if it is clear what that type of analysis is. And there, some companies explicitly say, or call it an RCA, “We did a Root Cause Analysis.” There's a few other types; some people talk about having a Contributing Factors Analysis. Most people don't consider a formal analysis type, but I am trying to collect and categorize these because I do think there are some fascinating implications buried therein, and I would like to see if I can keep track of whether or not those change over time. And yes, you've hit on one of my favorite hot-take soapbox things, which is root cause.Corey: Please, take it away.Courtney: Yeah. Well, and anyone who's close to these systems and has watched these things fall down has the inherent sense that there is no root cause. Like—[laugh]—let's—great. One of my favorite ones: human error. We don't have enough hours for this, Corey. I'm sorry. That's one of my favorite other ones. But let's say somebody fat-fingers a config change. Which happens—Corey: That was fundamentally the S3 service disruption back in—Courtney: Yes.Corey: —2017 that took down S3 for hours on end.Courtney: And took down so many other people that relied on S3.Corey: Everything was tied to that. And that's an interesting question; when something like that hits, does that mean that everything it takes down get its own entry in VOID?Courtney: I hope so. If everybody writes them up, then yes. [laugh]. So, if S3 goes down, and you go down, and you write it up, and you put it in the VOID, then we can see those things, which would be so cool. But let's go back to the fat-fingered config file—which if you haven't ever done, you're lying, first of all—Corey: Or you haven't been allowed to touch anything large and breakable yet, which, either way, you're lying on some level. So, please—Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I took down [Halloway's 00:20:53] homepage when it was on Hacker News because of YAML. So, anywho. Even if you fat-finger a config change, that's not the root cause because you have this system wherein a fat-fingered configure change can take down S3. That is a very big, complex, and I might add, socio-technical system.There are decisions that were made long ago about why it was structured that way, or why this happens that way, or what kinds of checks and balances you have. It's just, get over it people. There is no root cause. These are complex, highly dynamic systems that when they fail, they fail in unpredictable and weird ways because we've built them that way. They're complex because you're successful at pushing the envelope and your safety boundaries.So, if we could get past the root cause thing as an industry, I mean, I could probably just retire happy, honestly. [laugh]. I'm a simple woman; could we just get one thing, people? [laugh]. First of all, then it gives non-technologists, people outside of our bubble, the media, you can't hang it on these things anymore. We all have to then grapple with the complexity, which admittedly humans, not big fans of, but—Corey: People want simple stories, simple narratives. When people say, “Oh, remember the S3 outage?” They don't want to sit there and have to recount 50,000 different details. They want to say, “Oh, yeah. It took down a few big sites like Instagram, United Airlines, and it was a real mess.” The end. They want something that fits in a tweet, not something that fits in a thesis.Courtney: Well, and if you have a single root cause, then you can fix the root cause and it will never happen again. Right?Corey: That's the theory. If we're just a little bit more careful, we're never going to have outages anymore.Courtney: Yeah, if we could just train those humans to not try to make the best possible high-quality decision they could possibly make in that situation given the information they have at the time, then we'll do better. But I mean, that's why your system stay up most of the time, if you think about it. It's shocking how well these things actually work the vast majority of the time. And that's what we could learn from this, too. We could, you know—oh if we would write near-misses up, please.I mean, if I could have one more wish, I think one of the coolest things the airline industry and the government side of that did was start writing up near-misses. It's, wow, what do we learn from when we're successful, versus trying to, like, spelunk and nitpick the failures.Corey: Most of us aren't so good at the whole introspection part. We need failures, we need painful outages to really force us to make difficult, introspective, soul-searching decisions and learn from them.Courtney: Yeah. And I don't disagree with that. I just wish one of the things we would learn is that we should study our successes, too. There's more to be mined from our successes, if we can figure out how to do that, then there is from our failures. So, I have a metadata category in the VOID called ‘near-miss.'And oh man, I really wish people would write those up more. I mean, I think there's, like, five things in there that I've found so far. Because the humans hold these systems together. We make these things work the vast majority of the time. That's why there is no root cause, and even when we're involved in these things, we're also involved in preventing them, or solving them, or remediating them. So, yeah, there's no root cause. Humans aren't the problem. Those are my big hot button ones.Corey: I really wish more places would embrace that. Even Amazon uses the ‘root cause' terminology internally, and I'm not going to sit here and tell them how to run large things at scale; that's what I pay them to figure out for me. But I can't shake the feeling that by using that somewhat reductive terminology that they're glossing over an awful lot of things the rest of us could really benefit from.Courtney: Well, so the question then—one of the other things that I look at is, personally when I read and analyze these incident reports, these public ones a lot, I always ask myself, “Who's the audience for this?” And there are different audiences for different types of incident reports and different things. The vast majority of them are for customers, partners, investors.Corey: The stock market. Yes. Yes.Courtney: They're not actually for the organization. There's usually an internal one that we don't get to see—maybe—that's for the organization. But a lot of places feel that if you have a process, and a template, and a checklist, and a list of action items at the end, then you've done the right thing. You've had your incident, you've talked about it, you've got your action items. Move on.Corey: Right, and it always seems with companies, that as you get further into the company, the more honest and transparent the actual analysis is. Like, at some point, you wind up with the, like, they're very public and very cagey, and under NDA, they open up a little bit more, and a little bit more, and finally, when you work there, their executive team, it turns out, the actual thing was, “Well, Dewey was carrying arm full of boxes in the data center, tripped, went cascading face-first into the EPO cutoff switch that cut power to the entire facility.” The cagier they get, the—I guess, not to be unkind here—but the more ridiculous whatever the actual answer is. It's one of those things where, “Really? Someone tripped and hit a button. You didn't have a plan for that?” “Well, not really. We sort of assumed that people would”—Courtney: Why would you have a plan for that, right?Corey: Right.Courtney: I mean like—[laugh].Corey: Why would you have a plan for that, the first time?Courtney: Yeah. I mean, so imagine this exercise: sitting down in a room with a bunch of people and going, “What are all the things that could go wrong?” I mean, [laugh] ain't nobody got time for that? That's not how it works. You all have other jobs to do, too, and systems to build, and pressures, and customers, and partners, and features to build, so admit and acknowledge that you just won't know all of the antecedents and how do you respond when things happen?Which is a whole other, you know—I know you told me you recorded an episode with Dr. Christina Maslach on burnout, which I'm so happy you did, and there's a whole ‘nother piece of incidents and incident response, and burning people out, and blaming people, and all that stuff that's a whole ‘nother pod—it sounds like you might—you know, probably not incidents with her. But still, these things take a toll on people. And people who, like I said, show up every day really hoping to do their best job, and go up a ladder, and get a promotion, and whatever. So, I think not just treating those things as checklists has broader implications as well, just for the wellbeing of your organization.Corey: On some level, the biggest problem that I think we've run into is that, as you said, it all comes down to people. Unfortunately, legally, we can't patch those. Yet.Courtney: No, [laugh]. No, no. Not most kinds of patches, no. And that's messy. And I know some people are like, “Everyone should learn to code.” And I'm like, “Actually, everyone should get a liberal arts degree.” Come on, help me out people. Because there's so much of these socio-technical systems where the socio part of it is more relevant than the actual technical part.Corey: I believe you're right, for better or worse; there's no way around it. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where can they find you? And we will, of course, throw a link to VOID in the [show notes 00:28:06].Courtney: Yeah, I also like to talk on Twitter, like you do. I'm not as good at it as you are, but I try. So yeah, I'm @courtneynash on Twitter. And at Verica, you can find me at Verica as well, courtney@verica.io. And those are the best ways to find me, I would say. And yeah, please people, write up your incidents, send them to the VOID and let's all learn and get better together, please.Corey: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really do appreciate it.Courtney: Thank you for having me on. I know—do people say this: I'm like, “Yeah, big fan,” but I am. I'm a [laugh] big fan [laugh] of the podcast.Corey: Oh, dear Lord, find better things to listen to. My God.Courtney: [laugh]. But it's been a treat. Thank you.Corey: Courtney Nash, Internet Incident Librarian at Verica. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with a comment making it very clear that for whatever reason the website is down, it is most certainly not your fault.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need the Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Susan Sarich is the Founder/CEO of SusieCakes, 22 Locations, and Counting, EY Entrepreneur of the Year. In this episode, Susie runs us through from start to finish how and why she started SusieCakes, what conflicts and struggles she had to overcome and how she managed to, and what she's done now through the pandemic to keep her company afloat and thriving. With a desire for simple desserts with recipes that work, care and appreciation for her staff and the craft, and the persistence to get her company to where it is now, Susie explains how bringing cupcakes to a landlord every day got her property, how trips to Hawaii after 10 years at the company have become a staple, pet insurance, and so much more. For a woman who was told over and over again that her idea wouldn't work and she should just give up, Susie certainly doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Listen in and you might just find your new favorite company founding story and your new favorite desserts.Youtube Link to This EpisodeSusie Cakes' Website - https://susiecakes.com/Susie's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/susiesarich/

This week, Matthew Boedy tells us about his efforts to keep an accurate count of COVID-19 cases on college campuses in Georgia. He explains how different counting and testing practices at each school makes it harder to understand the state of the pandemic, and discusses why he thinks that the Board of Regents in Georgia will, under no circumstances, change their current approach to the pandemic. See his updated count here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tCijdezYBswB6fjFZcLPxalbRBolAR9DDOLjBjc-oaM/edit?usp=sharing Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KM04WxbHSXj2rR1W9sY1Y3fEl5wlksalBqKD3E0RYx4/edit?usp=sharing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/residential-spread/message

October 4, 2021 Daily Devotion from Lutheran Hour Ministries

You all know that I am a massive foodie and I LOVE food blogger YouTube and Instagram pages.I stumbled across Zacs page not that long ago when one of his incredible biscoff creations came across my feed and since then I have been hooked with his macro and calorie friendly recipes that anyone can make with common ingredients you can access from any supermarket.When I dove a little deeper into his page though, the story behind why Zac started his page was an interesting story and one that I wanted to learn more about and share.I had a great time chatting with Zac and I know that you will enjoy this weeks podcast and as always I hope you come away feeling entertained as well as having found value in the information that was shared.I hope you enjoy the podcast and as always, please hit that SUBSCRIBE BUTTON to make sure you never miss any future episode and please consider leaving a 5 STAR RATING and POSITIVE REVIEW as it would meant the world to me.Join the tribe and become a NO BREAKFAST CLUB member today and receive a brand new workout each week, access to 3 LIVE Zoom sessions each week and access to the my VIMEO on demand workouts that you can do in your own time.Anyone can join and all you need to do is CLICK HERE to find out more and sign up today to join the team!Contact Zac KerrInstagram: @counting_zacrosContact The No Breakfast Guy:Instagram: @the_no_breakfast_guyWebsite: www.thenobreakfastguy.comEmail: info@thenobreakfastguy.comYouTube: www.youtube.com/thenobreakfastguy

Sign up for the Book Club with this linkNumber Sense RoutinesCounting Principles - Counting and CardinalityCount Around the Circle and Choral Counting Template - Tracy ZagerChoral Counting & Counting Collections | Stenhouse PublishersUnderstanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It | Stenhouse Publishers

Biden releases more than 12K illegal Haitians into America. Counting all the lies in this Maxine Waters soundbite. Vaccine mandate causes NY health care worker shortage. Maher vs. Whoopi on the black national anthem. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

GriftHorse will subscribe afflicted Android users to premium services they never knew they'd signed up for (and wouldn't want if they did). Facebook releases a static analysis tool it uses internally to check apps for security issues. Speculation about what put Group-IB's CEO in hot water with the Kremlin. A look from NSA about where the major nation-state cyberthreats currently stand. Malek Ben Salem from Accenture has thoughts on quantum security. Our guest is author and Wired editor at large Steven Levy joins us with insights on Facebook's internal research teams. And a short census of ransomware strains. For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news briefing: https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/189

This week we have a very exciting show for you with all three hosts! We talk about all of the world champs, even the parts Tim would rather skip, marvel at the UCi being so behind the times and find a new way to become world champs. Plus #dadcorner. This podcast is supported by the generous and amazing donors to the Wide Angle Podium Network. The poddy is also supported by Grimpeur Bros. Specialty Coffee! Our custom WAP roasts are available now! Proceeds from each sale directly support WAP (and SRP)! It's a win-win! Check out grimpeurbros.com and pick up the BRAND NEW Viewer Mail roast or Cyclocross Friends espresso. Last butt not least; Miracle WAP Chamois Cream! Produced for us by our friends at Buckler Skin Care we've created Miracle WAP, the smoovest thing to hit the cycling scene since our podcast! “The tingle is the miracle”! Find us, and other fantastic cycling podcasts on the Wide Angle Podium Network, at wideanglepodium.com! Check out the brand new WAP app available in the Apple and Android app stores! You can listen to us in a variety of ways: Find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere great podcasts are found. Give us a review and rating! We'd appreciate it! You can email us at theslowridepodcast@gmail.com Find us on Twitter: The show (@theslowridepod) Matt (@Matt46292097) Spencer (@spencerhaugh) Tim (@thesuperrookie)   Check out this episode!

Biden releases more than 12K illegal Haitians into America. Counting all the lies in this Maxine Waters soundbite. Vaccine mandate causes NY health care worker shortage. Maher vs. Whoopi on the black national anthem. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Today, I am blessed to have here with me Dr. Anna Marie Frank. As a doctor of naturopathy, certified brain health practitioner, and worksite wellness specialist, she is passionate about helping others increase brain function and physical health while incorporating emotional and energetic support into one's wellness practices. Dr. Frank has thrived in wellness for two decades. Originally from Michigan, she now resides in California with her husband and two children. Dr. Frank has embodied the essence of Happy Whole You by applying positivity to all aspects of her life while sharing this system with others through education, her holistic health practice, life guide coaching, consulting, workshops, and books. In this episode, Dr. Frank opens up about her struggles with depression. After realizing that she could rewire her brain with biohacking, Dr. Frank completely turned her life around. It's critical to work on the inside before you can start working on the outside. Dr. Frank reveals what things can improve your mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. Plus, Dr. Frank talks all about her book, Stop Bullying Yourself. Tune in as we chat about the importance of healthy habits, sunshine, and of course, food. Order Keto Flex: http://www.ketoflexbook.com -------------------------------------------------------- / / E P I S O D E   S P ON S O R S  PureForm Omega Plant Based Oils (Best Alternative to Fish Oil): http://www.purelifescience.com Use ben4 for $4.00 off. Upgraded Formulas Hair Mineral Deficiency Analysis & Supplements: http://www.upgradedformulas.com Use BEN10 at checkout for 10% off your order.  Paleo Valley beef sticks, apple cider vinegar complex, organ meat complex & more. Use the coupon code KETOKAMP15 over at https://paleovalley.com/ to receive 15% off your entire order. Farmers Juice keto friendly green juices and shots. Visit http://www.thefarmersjuice.com  Use the coupon code ketokamp at checkout for $10 off. Text me the words "Podcast" +1 (786) 364-5002 to be added to my contacts list.  [00:40] Struggling With Depression as an Athlete in High School In high school, Dr. Frank got good grades, and she was a successful athlete. However, she battled with depression. She struggled internally with just feeling not good enough. “It's important that we give ourselves the space and the grace to feel like it's okay to not feel okay.” -Dr. Frank When Dr. Frank found help for her depression, they gave her three prescriptions. Eventually, Dr. Frank realized that if you can rewire a computer, you could rewire your brain. So, she started doing all these little things to improve her mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. [03:50] The Importance of Focusing on the Inside Before Working on the Outside Frank always told people exercise would solve all their problems, when really, it wasn't solving her problems. When Dr. Frank was exercising and eating healthy, she still wasn't happy. That's when she decided to work on her personal development and personal growth. Getting a coach will be critical on your journey. When you're most successful, you have a teacher or a coach in your corner. [06:30] If You Wouldn't Bully Someone Else, Why Bully Yourself? Read Stop Bullying Yourself: Identify Your Inner Bully, Get Out of Your Own Way & Enjoy Greater Health, Wealth, Happiness and Success: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HPNGHK/benazadi-20 This book started out as a Google Document for Dr. Frank's children. Frank wanted to give her children steps and things that she did to reprogram and heal ultimately. The inner bully is that voice inside your head. It can push you to do better, or it can turn on you. When people are bullying, it is because they are hurting inside. We need to silence our hurtful inner bully voice. [12:40] Your Body Is Like A Computer and You Can Rewire Your Brain At Any Time Food is information, ultimately. Food is literally talking to our cells. Everything carries a specific frequency, and frequencies carry information. Counting calories is an old-school way of thinking. Instead, it's all about the quality of the foods you get. When we exercise, we are increasing oxygen and nutrients to the body. It will help with hormones. Everything we do is a download to our body and into our soul.   [17:55] Improving Our Minds By Going Outside and Getting Sunshine You need to take ten minutes every day to go outside. The mornings between 7 am and 10 am have healing rays from the sun. Go into the grass with your shoes off. Sunshine will help with serotine and vitamin D. Without the sun, there would be no life. So, it's important to get sunlight every day. [21:05] The Best Types of Foods For Your Body and Mental Health Garlic, turmeric, berries, and beets will create nitric oxide in the body. High-quality proteins will be great for brain function. Healthy fats are perfect for getting our neurotransmitters firing and wiring. Food will impact hormone production and our mood. We have to remember digestion starts before food even hits our mouth. The relationship we have with food is critical for health. [29:35] What's Better: A Physical Six-Pack or a Mental Six-Pack?   There is no such thing as the perfect body. So a mental six-pack is much better! Frank doesn't want her daughters to think that being skinny will lead to happiness. The expectations that society puts on women are not realistic. Instead, you need to find a healthy mindset. You are amazing just the way you are! [36:40] It's Time To Change Your Habits So You Can Change Your Life We have to change our systems and habits. The systems and habits that you have in place will take you towards your goals. Do you have habits that are not serving you? It's time to change them. For instance, stop hitting your alarm clock three times. When your alarm goes off, get up! AND MUCH MORE! Resources from this episode: Check out Happy Whole You: https://www.happywholeyou.com/ Follow Dr. Frank LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamariefrankhappywholeyou/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happywholeyou/ Listen to Happy Whole You: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-whole-you/id1487318744 Read Stop Bullying Yourself: Identify Your Inner Bully, Get Out of Your Own Way & Enjoy Greater Health, Wealth, Happiness and Success: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HPNGHK/benazadi-20 Join theKeto Kamp Academy: https://ketokampacademy.com/7-day-trial-a WatchKeto Kamp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUh_MOM621MvpW_HLtfkLyQ Order Keto Flex: http://www.ketoflexbook.com -------------------------------------------------------- / / E P I S O D E   S P ON S O R S  PureForm Omega Plant Based Oils (Best Alternative to Fish Oil): http://www.purelifescience.com Use ben4 for $4.00 off. Upgraded Formulas Hair Mineral Deficiency Analysis & Supplements: http://www.upgradedformulas.com Use BEN10 at checkout for 10% off your order.  Paleo Valley beef sticks, apple cider vinegar complex, organ meat complex & more. Use the coupon code KETOKAMP15 over at https://paleovalley.com/ to receive 15% off your entire order. Farmers Juice keto friendly green juices and shots. Visit http://www.thefarmersjuice.com  Use the coupon code ketokamp at checkout for $10 off. Text me the words "Podcast" +1 (786) 364-5002 to be added to my contacts list.  *Some Links Are Affiliates* // F O L L O W ▸ instagram | @thebenazadi | http://bit.ly/2B1NXKW ▸ facebook | /thebenazadi | http://bit.ly/2BVvvW6 ▸ twitter | @thebenazadi http://bit.ly/2USE0so ▸clubhouse | @thebenazadi Disclaimer: This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast including Ben Azadi disclaim responsibility from any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not accept responsibility of statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guests qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or non-direct interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.

Did any number cause as much trouble as zero? It stranded ships; it scrambles the brains of mathematicians, calendar users and computers; it even got itself banned in Florence. Math(s) communicator and drag queen Kyne explains the Terminator of numbers. Find out more about this episode at theallusionist.org/foodquiz. And submit requests for words you'd like me to investigate in the next episode at theallusionist.org/requests. Until 4 October 2021, you can stream the London Podfest performance of the new Allusionist stage show, full of eponyms, music and planets. Link is at theallusionist.org/events. Sign up to be a patron at patreon.com/allusionist and as well as supporting the show, you get behind the scenes glimpses, and discounted tickets for the Allusionist stage show. The music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin's own songs at palebirdmusic.com or search for Pale Bird on Bandcamp and Spotify, and he's @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.  The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow and instagram.com/allusionistshow. Our ad partner is Multitude. To sponsor an episode of the show, contact them at multitude.productions/ads. This episode is sponsored by: • Bombas, makers of the most comfortable socks in the history of feet - and super-smooth undies and T-shirts too. Get 20 percent off your first purchase at bombas.com/allusionist. • Acorn TV, the streaming service featuring hundreds of dramas, mysteries and comedies from around the world. Try Acorn TV free for 30 days, by going to Acorn.TV and using my promo code allusionist. (Be sure to type that code in lower case.) • BetterHelp, online therapy with licensed professional counsellors. Allusionist listeners get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/allusionist. Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.