Author | Lightnews

Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 1d

I will never not love the GraalVM logo.

Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 2d

I mean, it's good that google maps recognises swimming, but it's perhaps overoptimistics about the limits of human physiology if it suggests doing it across the Atlantic. 🤣

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Reposted by Holly Cummins

Matthias Bünger @bukama.bsky.social · 3d

This reminds me about a walking route from Germany to NYC, USA I tried for fun some years ago. But back then Google listed „swim xxxx kilometers through the Atlantic ocean“ which surprised me in a positive way (that it recognized swimming).

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Reposted by Holly Cummins

Dr Juulia Suvilehto @juulia.bsky.social · 2d

Great talk by @hollycummins.com at Lindholmen developer day. As a data person and as someone who used to work with healthcare this resonated a lot: "don't make human tell computer things the computer already knows". It is so key but so often neglected in practice (&definitely a thief of joy) #databs

A photo of a woman in front of a large presentation. On the slide she's presenting, it says
The new paradigms
Joy has business value
Get rid of dumb work
If you can't get rid of the work, make computers do the work
Don't make humans tell the computer things the computer already knows
Get rid of flab from the programming model
Measure the important metric, not the one that's easy to measure

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 3d

Yes, I worked that out after staring at the directions in puzzlement for a while. 😅

With hindsight, there's even a little boat icon on the map, but of course I didn't see that because I thought it was just a walking route.

Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 3d

I mean, it's flattering that Google thinks I can walk on water, but ...

Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 3d

This looks more like a swimming route than a walking route, Google.

A map with directions showing the route running down a river.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 4d

... and apparently our streaming provider uses AWS. :)

So no Quarkus Insights today. Sorry, everyone!

Quarkus @quarkus.io · 4d

⏰ Starting soon! Join us for Quarkus Insights Ep. #223 as Ben Evans @[email protected] discusses the evolution of managed execution in the JVM, its shifting role in the cloud, and innovations like build-time optimization and constrained dynamism.

bit.ly/quarkusinsig...

#quarkusinsights

Quarkus Insights Ep. #223 with Ben Evans as he discusses "Evolution of Java Code Execution"

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Reposted by Holly Cummins

Ben Evans @ogkittylyst.bsky.social · 4d

Big hugs to everyone whose status page origin server is hosted on AWS and just pushes updates to a CDN cache.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 7d

And with the benefit of hindsight, investing a lot of time in a Halloween-themed talk did *not* have a good ROI, because I've had exactly one opportunity to give it.

Turns out the demand for Halloween-themed talks about microservices best practices is pretty limited.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 7d

Why yes, I do perhaps spend too much time focussing on less-important details of my talks, why do you ask?

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 7d

As it's Friday, and coming up to halloween, please enjoy my favourite-ever slide deck: hollycummins.com/blood-curdli...

The PDF doesn't capture how I animated the bat wings to flap on the containers, or how I used a greenscreen and and bat cutouts to make it look like bats were hovering over me.

Blood-curdling tales of microservices misadventure, devops dread, and grisly governance - Holly Cummins

Cloud native – the perfect recipe for innovation, adaptability, and engineering excellence. Right? Well, when it goes right. When it goes…

hollycummins.com

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 8d

I usually do 5k, but I sometimes do inadvertent-10ks when I get lost in foreign cities. When it's not a choice, there's no mental barrier, and the distance is surprisingly easy. :)

As others have said, the main problem is that it takes a long time.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 8d

I don't often donate to Wikipedia, but @molly.wiki's coverage of the current attacks on it has prompted me to pause-and-plunk-up.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 8d

It's 2025, and sharing a large file in a work context is still a significant headache. Shouldn't we have ... done better than this?

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 14d

Darn. I should have worn my "assume all women are technical and can breathe fire" t-shirt.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 15d

The full set of slides is here: hollycummins.com/quarkus-ridi...

Six and a half ridiculous things to do with Quarkus - Holly Cummins

Let’s abuse the tools! Everyone knows Quarkus is computationally efficient, expressive, and rock-solid for production. But did you know that…

hollycummins.com

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 15d

I didn't have a chance to show this (generated in 13ms with a quarkus + picocli) in my #Devoxx talk:

A grumpy cat meme saying "I ate a Devoxx sandwich/It was awful"

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 22d

Fascinating pointer from @kevlin.bsky.social and James Lewis: cepr.org/voxeu/column...
"[Professions using AI] worked roughly 3.15 hours more per week in the post-ChatGPT period. When AI complements human labour rather than replacing it, the process makes each hour of work more valuable."

#GOTOConf

As AI’s power grows, so does our workday

Technological progress is typically expected to lighten the burden of work. But as artificial intelligence has been integrated into workplaces, early evidence suggests a paradox: instead of reducing workloads, many AI-equipped employees are busier than ever. This column examines the relationship between AI exposure, the length of the workday, time allocation, and worker satisfaction. Though AI-driven automation and delegation allow workers to complete the same tasks more efficiently, the authors find that employees in AI-exposed occupations are working longer hours and spending less time on socialisation and leisure.

cepr.org

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 23d

It's even funnier on a smaller model:

Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 23d

I just tried to reproduce @janelleshane.com's brilliant "make an LLM apologise for suggesting a giraffe as CEO" experiment. It 100% worked on Ollama.

Which is bad, because when I read it I did an involuntary shriek of laughter, and woke a sleeping puppy, and now I won't be able to do more work.

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 24d

As if you didn't have enough reasons to dislike commuting ... 😔

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 25d

InfoQ have published "The Efficiency Paradox," complete with transcript.
Apparently I said things like:
- "Am I optimizing for the right thing, or should I maybe be just a little bit more jellyfish?"
- "If you do the same experiment to your stool, it's much less cruel"
www.infoq.com/presentation...

The Efficiency Paradox and How to Save Yourself and the World

Holly Cummins discusses how to eliminate waste in software development. She shares strategies like "LightSwitchOps" and build-time initialization to improve machine efficiency. She explains how these ...

www.infoq.com

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 27d

Expected: is "Hello from Quarkus REST"
Actual: , Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., [many more Skibidis]., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi., Skibidi.. This demo is dog water.
😳

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Holly Cummins @hollycummins.com · 28d

There's no sense crying over spilled milk, but spilled coffee?

That's *definitely* worth crying over.

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