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Episode 492: Sam Scott on Building a Consistent and Global Authorization Service

Sam Scott, CTO of Oso discusses how to build a global authorization service and challenges with host Priyanka.




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Episode 502: Omer Katz on Distributed Task Queues Using Celery

Omer Katz, a software consultant and core contributor to the Celery discusses the Celery task processing framework with host Nikhil Krishna. We discuss in depth, the Celery task processing framework, it's architecture and the underlying messaging...




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Episode 504: Frank McSherry on Materialize

Frank McSherry, Chief Scientist at Materialize talks to Host Akshay Manchale about Materialize which is a SQL database that maintains incremental views over streaming data. Frank talks about how Materialize can complement analytical systems...




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Edpisode 515: Swizec Teller on Becoming a Senior Engineer

This week, senior software engineer, instructor, and blogger Swizec Teller spoke with SE Radio's Brijesh Ammanath about the "senior mindset." Becoming a senior engineer is about more than just years of experience but rather about cultivating a different..




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Episode 525: Randy Shoup on Evolving Architecture and Organization at eBay

Randy Shoup of eBay discusses the evolution of eBay's tech stack. SE Radio host Jeremy Jung speaks with Shoup about eBay's origins as a single C++ class with an Oracle database, a five-year migration to multiple Java services, sharing a database...




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Episode 545: John deVadoss on Design Philosophies that Drive .NET/Azure

We talk with John deVadoss about the philosophies underlying the development of .NET and Azure software. We discuss the "Fiefdoms and Emissaries" concept of building loosely coupled systems, talk about strengths and drawbacks and how to build services...




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Episode 549: William Falcon Optimizing Deep Learning Models

William Falcon of Lighting AI discusses how to optimize deep learning models using the Lightning platform, optimization is a necessary step towards creating a production application. Philip Winston spoke with Falcon about PyTorch, PyTorch Lightning...




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SE Radio 558: Michael Fazio on Modern Android Development

Michael Fazio, Engineering Manager (Android) at Albert and author of Kotlin and Android Development featuring Jetpack from the Pragmatic Programmers, speaks with SE Radio's Gavin Henry about how the Android ecosystem looks today, and why it's an excellent time to write native Android apps. They explore a wide range of topics about modern Android development, including when to go native, how to keep a lot of decisions in your back-end API, Kotlin co-routines, Jetpack and Jetpack Compose, the MVVM design pattern, and threads, as well as activities, fragments, Dagger, room, navigation, Flutter, and improvements in simulators. They also examine details such as IDEs, API selection, how to choose a list of support devices, Java vs Kotlin, handset manufacturers, XML layouts, and why Jetpack is a safe bet for all your future Android development.




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SE Radio 568: Simon Bennetts on OWASP Dynamic Application Security Testing Tool ZAP

Simon Bennetts, a distinguished engineer at Jit, discusses one of the flagship projects of OWASP: the Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) open source security testing tool. As ZAP’s primary maintainer, Simon traces the tool's origins and shares some anecdotes with SE Radio host Priyanka Raghavan on why there was a need for it. They take a deep dive into ZAP’s features and its ability to integrate with CI/CD, as well as shift security left. Bennetts also considers what it takes to build a successful open source project before spending time on ZAP’s ability to script to provide richer results. Finally, the conversation ends with some questions on ZAP’s future in this AI-powered world of bots.




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SE Radio 570: Stanisław Barzowski on the jsonnet Language

Stanisław Barzowski of XTX Markets and a committer on the jsonnet project joins SE Radio's Robert Blumen for a conversation about the jsonnet programming language. A superset of JSON, jsonnet adds programming language capabilities, particularly to address the need to handle large but mostly repetitive JSON configurations. They discuss the project’s history, use cases for Grafana and Kubernetes config, and interoperability with YAML. They examine jsonnet details, including the command line, constrained capabilities of the language, and objects and inheritance, and then consider the toolchain: compiler, formatter, and linter, as well as test frameworks and testing, package management, and the language’s performance. Barzowski describes four implementations -- go, C++, Rust, and Scala -- as well as popular libraries and the standard library.




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SE Radio 581: Zach Lloyd on Terminal Emulators

Zach Lloyd, CEO of Warp.dev, discusses how to implement and effectively use command-line terminals. Host Gregory Kapfhammer speaks with Lloyd about how command-line terminals work and how the Warp terminal uses the GPU and AI to enhance a software developer’s productivity. They also discuss the trade-offs associated with using the Rust programming language to implement a command-line terminal. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.




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SE Radio 582: Leo Porter and Daniel Zingaro on Learning to Program with LLMs

Dr. Daniel Zingaro and Dr. Leo Porter, co-authors of the book Learn AI-Assisted Python Programming, speak with host Jeremy Jung about teaching programming with the aid of large language models (LLMs). They discuss writing a book to use in Leo's introductory CS class and explore how GitHub Copilot de-emphasizes syntax errors, reduces the need to memorize APIs, and why they want students to write manual test cases. They also discuss possible ethical concerns of relying on commercial tools, their impact on coursework, and why they aren't worried about students cheating with LLMs.




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SE Radio 589: Zac Hatfield-Dodds on Property-Based Testing in Python

Zac Hatfield-Dodds, the Assurance Team Lead at Anthropic, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about property-based testing techniques and how to use them in an open-source tool called Hypothesis. They discuss how to define properties for a Python function and implement a test case in Hypothesis. They also explore some of the advanced features in Hypothesis that can automatically generate a test case and perform fuzzing campaigns.




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SE Radio 591: Yechezkel Rabinovich on Kubernetes Observability

Yeckezkel Rabinovich, CTO of Groundcover, speaks with host Philip Winston about observability and eBPF as it applies to Kubernetes. Rabinovich was previously the chief architect at the healthcare security company CyberMDX and spent eight years in the cyber security division of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. This episode explores the three pillars of observability, extending the Linux Kernel with eBPF, the basics of Kubernetes, and how Groundcover uses eBPF as the basis for its observability platform.




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SE Radio 597: Coral Calero Muñoz and Félix García on Green Software

Coral Calero Muñoz and Felix Garcia, professors at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, speak with host Giovanni Asproni about green and sustainable software—an approach to software development aimed at creating software systems that consume less energy and produce less CO2 during their entire lifetimes with minimal impact on their functionality and other qualities. The episode starts by describing why green software matters, particularly in the context of global warming, and introducing the key concepts. Continues discussing the current status of the field, in both academia and industry, and finishes with hints and tips that can be readily applied by development teams to make their systems greener. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.




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SE Radio 601: Han Yuan on Reorganizations

Han Yuan, an accomplished Chief Product and Technology Officer, joins host Priyanka Raghavan to discuss reorganizations. The conversation starts with a broad discussion of reorganizations and reasons that companies choose to undertake them. They then consider organizational behavior and topics such as Conway's law and the theory of constraints. Han offers some advice on key steps to take when planning for a reorg, including how software teams could organize themselves based on technology, frameworks, or user journeys. The episode ends with some discussion of metrics and lessons learned. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.




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SE Radio 626: Ipek Ozkaya on Gen AI for Software Architecture

Ipek Ozkaya, Principal Researcher and Technical Director of the Engineering Intelligent Software Systems group at the Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon, discusses generative AI for Software Architecture with SE Radio host Priyanka Raghavan. The episode delves into fundamental definitions of software architecture and explores use cases in which gen AI can enhance architecture activities. The conversation spans from straightforward to challenging scenarios and highlights examples of relevant tooling. The episode concludes with insights on verifying the correctness of output for software architecture prompts and future trends in this domain. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.




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SE Radio 630: Luis Rodríguez on the SSH Backdoor Attack

Luis Rodríguez, CTO of Xygeni.io, joins host Robert Blumen for a discussion of the recently thwarted attempt to insert a backdoor in the SSH (Secure Shell) daemon. OpenSSH is a popular implementation of the protocol used in major Linux distributions for authentication over a network. Luis describes how a backdoor in a supporting library was recently discovered and removed before the package was published to stable releases of the Linux distros. The conversation explores the mechanism of the attack through modifying a function table in the runtime; how the attack was inserted during the build; how the attack was carefully staged in a series of modifications to the lz compression library; the nature of “Jia Tan,” the entity who committed the changes to the open source project; social engineering that the entity used to gain the trust of the open source community; what forensics indicates about the location of the entity; hypotheses about whether criminal or state actors backed the entity; how the attack was detected; implications for other open source projects; why traditional methods for detecting exploits would not have helped find this; and lessons learned by the community.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.




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SE Radio 635: Stevie Caldwell on Zero-Trust Architecture

Stevie Caldwell, Senior Engineering Technical Lead at Fairwinds, joins host Priyanka Raghavan to discuss zero-trust network reference architecture. The episode begins with high-level definitions of zero-trust architecture, zero-trust reference architecture, and the pillars of Zero Trust. Stevie describes four open-source implementations of the Zero Trust Reference Architecture: Emissary Ingress, Cert Manager, LinkerD, and the Policy Engine Polaris. Each component is explored to help clarify their roles in the Zero Trust journey. The episode concludes with a look at the future direction of Zero Trust Network Architecture.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.




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SE Radio 638: Nick Tune and Jean-Georges Perrin on Architecture Modernization

Nick Tune and Jean-Georges Perrin join host Giovanni Asproni to talk about their proposed approach to modernizing legacy systems. The episode starts with some high-level perspective to set context for the approach described in their book, Architecture Modernization (Manning, 2024). From there, the discussion turns to important details, including criteria for deciding which aspects to revisit; some of the activities, processes, and tools; and the importance of data engineering in modernization efforts. Nick and Jean-Georges describe how to successfully implement an architecture-modernization effort, and how to fit that work with the teams' other priorities. The episode finishes with some warnings about the typical risks associated with modernizing a legacy system, and suggestions on how to mitigate them.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.




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Tales of the Nobel Prize announcement

-- Delivered by Feed43 service




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Zip up

To close a zip fastener, such as on a jacket or a bag.




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AMD 5nm Zen 4 EPYC CPUs And Radeon Instinct GPUs To Power El Capitan Supercomput

AMD just announced today a design win in conjunction with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), win which it will be providing the hardware powering the El Capitan exascale-class supercomputer. What caught our eye about this announcement was not the compute performance -- which will be enormous ... [PCSTATS]




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Razer Kraken Ultimate Gaming Headset Review

"About a year ago we took a look at Razer�s Kraken Tournament Edition headset, which we really did enjoy. It was however designed for professional gamers, hence the name �Tournament Edition�. For those looking for a more polished home solution Razer has the new Kraken Ultimate Edition. This sits as their flagship Kraken gaming headset and brings al... [PCSTATS]




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ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha (TRX40) Motherboard Review

The rewards for offering a high-performance flagship motherboard on the TRX40 platform are clear. Vendors are all competing at price points well above �600 which culminates in motherboard options filled to the brim with the features that almost anybody could wish for. ASUS� ROG Zenith II Extreme was no exception to that point. However, ASUS has tak... [PCSTATS]




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Downloading 50,000 Podcast Feeds to Analyze Their RSS

The software developer Niko Abeler has crawled 51,165 podcast feeds to study what RSS elements they contain. His comprehensive Podcast Feed Standard report looks at the usage of core RSS elements and namespace elements from Apple iTunes, Atom, Content, Podcast 2.0 and Simple Chapters. He writes:

In the world of podcasting, there is a great deal of freedom when it comes to the format and content of a podcast. Creators are free to choose their own audio format and feed content, giving them the flexibility to create something truly unique. However, when it comes to distributing a podcast, certain standards must be followed in order to be added to an aggregator such as Apple Podcasts. Additionally, the podcasting community has come to agree upon certain conventions that can be used to add additional features to a podcast, such as chapters, enhanced audio, and more. These conventions allow for a more immersive and engaging listening experience for the audience.

This website is dedicated to providing guidance and information on the conventions and standards used in podcasting.

There's a lot of interesting data in the RSS 2.0 report, which finds that these are the six least popular elements in an RSS feed's channel:

Element Usage
docs 8.3%
cloud 0.0%
rating 0.0%
skipDays 0.0%
skipHours 0.0%
textInput 0.0%

Over 99 percent of feeds contain the optional channel element language and the optional item elements enclosure, guid, pubDate and title. Only 0.2% of feeds contain a source element in an item.

The iTunes namespace report shows a lot of variation in support. The required element itunes:explicit is only present in 18 percent of feeds and four optional elements have less than 20 percent: itunes:new-feed-url, itunes:block, itunes:complete and itunes:title. One namespace in the report, Podcast 2.0, has been proposed by Podcastindex "to provide a solution for problems which previously have been solved by multiple competing standards" and is still under development.

The report also analyzes the audio files enclosed in the podcast feeds to determine their format, bitrate, channel and loudness. The report finds that 95.6 percent use MP3 and 4.4 percent AAC/M4A. People who like an alternative open source format will be oggravated that its sliver of the pie graph is so small it can't be seen.

If Abeler isn't tired of crunching numbers, one thing that would be useful for the RSS Advisory Board to learn is how many of the feeds contain more than one enclosure element within a single item.





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YES! Magazine Explores “The Truth Above All Else”

YES! Executive Editor Evette Dionne previews the latest issue of YES! Magazine, themed around "truth."




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Israeli Journalist Decries Gaza Genocide

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist long critical of his nation’s apartheid state, offers moral clarity on the first anniversary of the genocide in Gaza.











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Can the FTC Break Up Amazon’s Monopoly?

The FTC thinks Amazon hurts small businesses and consumers. Ron Knox of The Institute for Local Self-Reliance agrees.




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Striking Auto Workers Are Out-Organizing Their Bosses

A journalist takes us inside UAW’s “Stand Up” strike strategy, an innovative spin-off of 1930’s era “sit down” strikes.




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Keeping Brazil’s Black History in Its Tech “Future”

Rio de Janeiro’s Port Zone was once the largest slave port in the Americas. As developers work to “revitalize” the area, Black activists are fighting to retain the remnants of the district’s historical significance.





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Subway Map Visualization jQuery Plugin » TechBubble

that's kinda nuts




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Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued | Kalzumeus Software

a long but well written and informative posting on how to negotiate your salary when taking a new job




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The AI or real quiz: US election edition

Test your knowledge of AI by completing our US elections edition of the AI or Real quiz




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Paris 2024 Quiz: How much can you remember about the Olympic Games?

Beat the clock as you test yourself with our quiz to celebrate the end of the Olympics!




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Quiz: How well do you know your trees?

Test your nature knowledge with this tree-cky quiz.




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QUIZ: How fast is Mbappé? Quicker than Nitro from Gladiators?

In a Champions League match between his team, Paris Saint Germain, and Real Sociedad, the French forward managed to run 100m in 10.9 seconds.




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Quiz: The world's most powerful queens

Take our quiz and see how much you know about some of the most powerful women the world has ever seen.




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Space fan? Take our Mega Space Quiz

Feeling a bit bored? Well don't worry we've got you covered, test your knowledge with our huge quizzes to try out.




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Test your quiz skills with our mega quizzes!

Feeling a bit bored? Well don't worry we've got you covered, test your knowledge with our huge quizzes to try out during the holidays.




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Try our Día de los Muertos Quiz

See how much you know about the Day of the Dead with our quiz.