True Friends

True Friends

Friends are the spice of life. They are our rampart in times of distress, the confidante to our innermost thoughts, and reinforces us in times of weakness. Of all the people we know throughout life, there are only a few that fits the bill. An even rarer find are your true friends; those that do not leave you even when things get really tough.

What makes someone a friend? How do they stand out from the rest of our acquaintances? Seneca, in his letter On True and False Friendship said that the crucial element is trust. Continue Reading

Time And The Value of Money

Time And The Value of Money

Is saving money a good thing? Most people would say yes, and many will wonder why you are asking such a stupid question. Saving money is essential for building wealth and protecting us from catastrophe. But as with all things, nothing in life can be defined in absolutes. Even the act of saving money can be detrimental under some circumstances. How is this so?

The value of money to you in the present will not be the same as its value in the future. We all know the concept of compound interest and how powerful it is for growing your wealth. For compounding to take full effect, it needs time, and a lot of it. We are encouraged to save and invest as early as possible to reap the benefits of compound interest. Continue Reading

Everywhere Means Nowhere

Everywhere Means Nowhere

It has been said that life is short. As we only have limited time on this earth, we should experience as many things as possible. No one knows when their last day will be. Maybe today, perhaps tomorrow, or many years into the future. So we try to live in the fast track, determined to experience life through the windows of a speeding train. Having enough is something we don’t consider.

We love to dine at an eat-all-you-can buffet. Ordering a dessert sampler instead of individual pieces. Traveling with a jam-packed itinerary. These are the things we do in order to take that “shortcut” of experiences. Instead of having to experience them one at a time, we now have the option of trying everything at once. Continue Reading

Are AI tools like Copilot worth it?

The rapid development of Large Language Models (LLMs) changed the way how we work. Tech companies have released their own models for the public to use, or provide them as a service through APIs and software products.

One field that embraced this technological wave is (unsurprisingly) software development. As LLMs are now able to read entire codebases, compose code with just a prompt, and consolidate information from the internet, this opens up a new opportunity for software developers. Continue Reading

Sidekiq Metrics Monitoring

Sidekiq Metrics Monitoring

Redis and Sidekiq are popular libraries used by Ruby applications to handle features like caching, queues, and background processing. Capabilities like these are important for growing web applications, and as such require monitoring to ensure they are running smoothly.

There are several solutions in the market that you can use to monitor your Redis instance and check for potential problems. But did you know that Redis and Sidekiq already provide useful APIs you can use to roll out your own monitoring solution? Continue Reading