Eric Mann

  • The Deceptive Promise of AI

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    The promise of AI automating mundane tasks seems appealing but is fundamentally flawed. It may eliminate boring jobs, but it doesn’t provide economic security. Displaced workers will be forced to seek new employment. This will turn creative passions into money-making endeavors, stripping them of their joy.

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  • Containerized RSS

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    Join me on an exploration of FreshRSS as an alternative to the gone-but-not-forgotten Google Reader. We’ll even walk through setting it up locally with Docker and Tailscale for easy access.

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  • Blogs and NUCs and Caching, Oh My!

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    A year ago, I migrated my site to a self-hosted NUC cluster, defying industry skepticism about home hosting. Using a WordPress stack with Varnish and Cloudflare, I optimized performance and security, achieving over 30% traffic caching.

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  • When is a Deployment “Good Enough?”

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    Balancing speed and quality is crucial for software delivery. While rapid development can lead to fragile systems, overengineering may allow competitors to succeed. I’ve used containerization and Kubernetes for years, and I’m building a new tool to simplify both for all engineers.

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  • GitOps and DIY Infrastructure: A Match Made in DevOps Heaven

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    GitOps represents a transformative approach to managing and deploying applications by merging version control with DevOps. It automates changes, enhances security, and offers a single source of truth, especially beneficial for DIY infrastructure. GitOps practitioners can achieve self-healing infrastructure and improved management through infrastructure as code while overcoming learning curves.

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  • Simplify, simplify, simplify

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    Recently, I’ve been diving into Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, which offers insights into his approach to business. Musk’s approach to process improvement isn’t dissimilar from my own. He suggests that if you’re not reintegrating at least 10% of what you cut, you’re not being aggressive enough in your simplification. In my experience managing…

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