Gemini Articles of Interest

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 14, 2023

A Gemini client^* is needed for the following links.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Oracle Cloud Always Free "Idle" Threshold Change

    Back in March, I wrote about Oracle Cloud's stupid definition of "idle" compute resources and the potential impact on capsules hosted using the "Always Free" service. This is a quick update/warning to say that the thresholds for what is considered idle have changed from 10% to 20%. I don't recall seeing any notification of this until yesterday when I received an email saying that my server (where this capsule is hosted) had failed to meet the threshold over the last 7 days (and so would be shut down after a further 7 days).

  • SEOSAW growth rates workshop

    Recently, with help from colleagues, I ran an online workshop for the SEOSAW network[1] on estimating tree growth rates, rates of recruitment and mortality, and rates of biomass productivity and loss from repeat measurements of tree stem diameter in fixed area plots.

  • Story Time: The Hackiest Feature of Them All

    This is the story of the hackiest, coolest, most absurd, and most pointless feature I've ever been part of developing. It's probably the one I'm most proud of, despite it being entirely unused.

    The year was 2014, or maybe 2015. Grooveshark was a small but popular music streaming service where I had been working for several years. At the time I was working closely with my friend Mike Cugini on Grooveshark's backend systems, and together we were given the task of developing Mobile Broadcasts.

^* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.