What I have been studying since re:Invent

Illustration of Werner reading with a stack of books

Up to date: March 6, 2024

The months main into re:Invent are thrilling (and infrequently exhausting). I spend most of my time doing analysis, assembly with good engineers, and creating tales to share with you on stage. It’s fantastic. Nevertheless it doesn’t go away me with a lot time to learn solely for pleasure.

So, within the weeks that comply with re:Invent, I attempt to make time to work by way of the ever-growing pile of books accumulating on my nightstand and all through my workplace. It’s a shedding battle. Then once more, when was it ever value doing one thing simple?

Right here’s a brief record of issues I’ve began, completed, and lately added to the pile&mldr;

An important factor I’ve learn lately was Proper/Improper: How Expertise Transforms Our Ethics by Juan Enriquez. It clearly lays out how our ethics and morals change underneath the affect of know-how in a reasonably quick period of time. For instance, utilizing gene enhancing know-how comparable to CRISPR to change a toddler’s genome could also be unethical proper now, however our grandchildren would possibly really feel in a different way, figuring out that we may have eliminated or edited a gene recognized to trigger breast most cancers. At a time of maximum polarization, this ebook challenges us to consider how shortly mainstream opinions can shift and why.
In mild of current election outcomes worldwide, and the upcoming presidential race in the USA, I made a decision to re-read The Age of American Unreason in a Tradition of Lies by Susan Jacoby. It supplies superb historic perception into how politics and the politicians that symbolize us have shifted away from rational and mental debate to who can shout the loudest. It’s fairly startling to see how a lot public language has devolved previously few a long time. If this can be a matter you’re enthusiastic about, I urge you to learn Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
I lastly had an opportunity to complete Down and Out in Paradise: The Lifetime of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen. As a fellow world traveler, with the same view of the right way to reside, I’ve at all times been impressed by Bourdain’s storytelling skills. He was an empathetic narrator that targeted on folks and their experiences. This ebook is in regards to the man behind the tales that helped convey these narratives to life.

As a lot of you recognize, I’m a lifelong AFC Ajax supporter, so I actually loved Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s biography Adrenaline: My Untold Tales. Zlatan began his worldwide profession at Ajax and his spotlight reel from these days will do extra justice than my phrases can:
I picked up Atlas van een bezette stad 1940-1945 by Bianca Stigter, which covers the German occupation of Amsterdam within the type of an illustrated Atlas. It’s mind-blowing to see the ways in which the Nazi occupation nonetheless haunts the town. The ebook is in Dutch (sorry for now to my English readers), but it surely was tailored right into a four-hour lengthy documentary by Stigter’s accomplice Steve McQueen, known as “Occupied Metropolis” which debuted at Cannes final 12 months.
I began studying Rust for Rustaceans: Idiomatic Programming of Skilled Builders by John Gjengset, but it surely’s a bit extra superior than I want in the mean time, so I picked Command-line Rust: A Mission-based Primer for Writing Rust CLIs by Ken Youens-Clark and it appears promising thus far. I’ll present an replace as I progress.
Only for enjoyable, I purchased the fourth ebook in John Burdett’s Sonchai Jitpleecheep collection: The Godfather of Kathmandu. If in case you have ever spent any prolonged time period in Bangkok, you’ll get pleasure from this collection. The writing is completely good. I’m not completed but, however thus far, it’s nearly as good because the earlier three books.

The very last thing I’ll go away you with is a paper I lately learn from the Netflix Expertise Weblog, “Rebuilding Netflix Video Processing Pipeline with Microservices” by Liwei Guo, Anush Moorthy, Li-Heng Chen, Vinicius Carvalho, Aditya Mavlankar, Agata Opalach, Adithya Prakash, Kyle Swanson, Jessica Tweneboah, Subbu Venkatrav, Lishan Zhu — It goes into element about rebuilding their video processing pipeline on their microservice-based platform Cosmos.

If there’s one thing that you just’ve learn or are studying that you just’d suggest, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Reader suggestions

Unsurprisingly, it seems my readers are effectively learn. I received suggestions on Twitter, LinkedIn, and from fellow Amazonians, on nearly each matter possible. And with the hopes of getting by way of greater than a handful of those this 12 months (those I haven’t already learn), I’ve created a consolidated record.

Right here’s what you’ve all beneficial as of March 6, 2024: