Summer Reading: Distributed Computing
Prompted by some of my current tasking at work, I went on a journey through Google’s history of research publications. Come join me on my quest to become a better back-end developer!
Category: Tech
Fresh-Squeezed Orange Juice in O(n*log(n))
The curse of being an engineer is that it’s not enough to simply complete a process, it has to be optimized as you go. Below are a few thoughts on optimizing the process of picking and juicing oranges:
Thoughts on the CISSP (Guest)
Guest Post by Santa Clara Law colleague, Kim Wallace What is the CISSP? The Certified Information Systems Security Professional credential, CISSP, is a cybersecurity certification developed and administered by the non-profit International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, a.k.a. (ISC)2. While security certifications proliferate today, CISSP was the first and remains the most well-known. Two […]
Consistent Incremental Progress
Consistent incremental progress is, most of the time, just as good as occasional massive advancement. So, in the spirit of New Year’s Eve and all associated traditions, I’ve chosen to rethink how I go about the new year.
Encryption Mythbusters
This post is not just for technical people: it’s a discussion about what encryption is and how we can bust a few myths going around in the media. No matter your job title, it’s always good to know the signs of bad security so that even if you can’t fix it yourself, you can throw a fit until someone else does.
Survival Guide for Technical Interviews
Below is a pseudo-outline of mixed advice, tricks, and links that should give you a fighting chance in any technical interview. Remember, interviewers aren’t out to get you.
AI > ML
Artificial Intelligence is, as a field of study, larger than Machine Learning. In fact, ML is just a specific subset of AI. I wasn’t too clear on where exactly the line was drawn, but it turns out the accepted industry answer is that you can have AI without ML, but whenever you’re doing ML, that’s a form of AI.
Impostor Syndrome
Impostor syndrome is when you’re convinced that you’ve faked your way to where you are now and that it’s only a matter of time before the people around you start to catch on. The problem here is that knowing you have it doesn’t actually make it any better.
Classes of Algorithms
Knowing more about the internals of a problem can lead to better understanding and discussion across the board. Most algorithms that you’ll come across in practice aren’t going to be as simple as to fit into any one of these categories, but understanding the pieces of them allows you to get a better grasp of the system as a whole.
Algorithms Aren’t Scary.
Let me repeat that, algorithms aren’t scary. There’s this whole negative idea going around the media that algorithms are running our lives: how we work, how we relax, how we interact with our surroundings, and even how we date and form interpersonal relationships. They’re correct about how deeply technology influences our society but where […]
Ctrl-Alt-Dissent 