https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/epis...

Back in 2011, I was using it to learn API development by intercepting mobile app requests when I discovered that Airbnb’s API was susceptible to Rails mass assignment (https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/5228). I then used it to modify some benign attributes, reached out to the company, and it landed me an interview. Rest is history.

Second, was around the migration from desktop to online. At the time, TurboTax was one of the earliest tax prep products that had a cloud offering. It had done so in a somewhat interesting way. In order to maintain parity between the tax calculations and segregate tax data, they were running an instance of the desktop software for each web user server side. It would then use a Java process to convert the desktop UI to HTML (somewhat IE specific) and output it back to the user. It was very inefficient from the resource side but it made me appreciate how nimble this large company was in adapting to new mediums.

A few years ago I joined a startup where everything (including the db) was running on one, not-backed-up, non-reproducible, VM. In the process of "productionizing" I ran into a lot of open questions: How do we handle deploys with potentially updated system dependencies? Where should we store secrets (not the repo)? How do we manage/deploy cronjobs? How do internal services communicate? All things a dedicated SRE team managed in my previous role.

GKE offered a solution to each of those problems while allowing me to still focus on application development. There's definitely been some growing pains (prematurely trying to run our infra on ephemeral nodes) but for the most part, it's provided a solid foundation without much effort.

It also has built-in key remapping so you don’t need to mess with anything on the OS level.

While I empathize with the individuals affected, part of me can't help thinking of it as a good problem on the city level. Growing up there were places where the copper piping was more valuable than the houses. Even now there's plenty of properties to buy sub $20k, close to mass transit, farmer's markets, and places like Case Western University.

Maybe some of the affected in Detroit will move down to Cleveland and one day I too will have the luxury of complaining about gentrification.

If you're interested in the art market and factors which affect price/value, I work for Arthena (YC W17) and we're hiring for a variety of roles. If you're interested check out https://angel.co/arthena or reach out to me directly: adrian@arthena.com

Edit:

I didn't want to be a jerk so I decided to look it up. Looks like NYT[1] has the number at 0.6% (probably higher in reality since it's self reported) so that's about 1000 people a day.

Also stats offer little comfort when you're part of that group and it happens to you 100% of the time.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-popula...

It wasn't without its precarity. Sometimes I'd get woken up by sheriffs at 2AM, have mechanical issues, and generally struggled to conform and relate to friends and coworkers. Also, sleeping in SF was terrible. Buses waking you up at 2am, and after meeting others living living in their vans on Division due to hardship, I couldn't help but feel guilty and privileged in my solar paneled, cassette toiled equipped, expedition vehicle. People would joke that I was gentrifying the streets.

Eventually I sold it and moved on. Worthwhile experience though.

The main thing it can’t do well is export/import large databases but that’s what ‘pg_dump’ and friends are for.

https://angel.co/arthena/jobs/

Then a year ago, I got this desire to experience a place through all its seasons, really get to know a community, and be concerned with a longer time horizon. I bought a house (which I always viewed as an assault on my freedom) and some land in a 2000 person town. I'm volunteering for political campaigns and planning to become a volunteer fire fighter.

It's a simple lesson but desires change. It's great to have the ability/privilege to embrace those changes.

For those interested [A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia](https://www.amazon.com/River-Lost-Life-Death-Columbia/dp/039...) is a great book documenting the creation and long term implications (from cheap electricity for the Manhattan Project, to agriculture, to the collapse of the Salmon population) of the project.