Stephen Waits
TL;DR: No, not for actual mesh packet repeating. A repeater with the wrong time will flood and forward packets identically to one with the correct time. The only effects are cosmetic/informational. Edit: This post was challenged with seven counterarguments. I verified each one against the source. Five were wrong, one was already covered, and one raised a valid operational point that I've added.…
Nobody tells me what to do at work . But sometimes, I tell myself to shut up. Before we dive into the workplace, let's talk about game theory . No, it's not about videogames or board games like Settlers of Catan . Game theory is the study of strategic decision-making. It's a fancy way of saying, "If I do X, and you do Y, what happens?" Game Theory 101: The Ukraine-Russia Conflict Let's look at a…
You're in a meeting with the SVP, the CEO, the President, head honcho, the big fish. The conversation is fast-paced and moving between participants, when suddenly she turns to you: SWaits, are we green on our operational excellence goals? Gulp! What NOT to do I've seen this actually happen. An executive asks a question of someone and then they proceed to share a word salad which never actually…
I've been in tech for over 30 years now. Principal Engineer at Amazon. Seen a lot, screwed up plenty, learned even more. Along the way, people started calling me SWaits, and I realized I had developed a sort of playbook. A set of principles and practices that have guided my career. I call it The SWaits Code . Now, I'm doing something new. I'm opening up that code for others to see. Why? It's…
It's been two years since I wrote about my return to Amazon . A lot has happened, both in the world and in my career. Time for an update. Leadership Principles: Still the Backbone The Leadership Principles (LPs) continue to be the backbone of how we operate at Amazon. My experience with them hasn't changed much - they're still guiding our decisions and actions daily. I won't bore you with a list…
That's not a declaration of what I want to happen. It's not me saying "I'm not going to listen to you," or anything even remotely similar. Nope. It's just a statement of fact. It's a description of what my PE career at Amazon feels like. Let me explain... My first day at Amazon, September 2016. It just started. Nobody said, do this, or do that. I didn't really know what I was supposed to do, but I…
Note: This post is an editorial commentary on my experience with tech startups. I used ChatGPT to help write it. A Voyage to Vanity's Verge In the vast virtual village of vitality ventures, there thrives a theoretical troupe, tasked with tethering tech to the temple of the self. This saga, spun from the silk of satire, shadows a ship not steered by stars, but sunk by stubbornness. A cautionary…
I recently setup all of my public Sourcehut repos to mirror over to Github . This post talks about why I am doing this now, and how I did it. Why now? One might wonder why I use Sourcehut instead of Github in the first place? I use Sourcehut because I like its simplicity and I like its independence. I've had reasons to switch (or mirror) to Github in the past, namely its increased popularity and…
I developed an interest in reading "just for fun" this year. In fact, I have always had a passion for reading. However, I used to primarily read academic papers and nonfiction books, particularly those of a technical nature. Earlier this year, I discovered the convenience of borrowing library books through Libby and being able to read them on my Kindle. This revelation sparked a new reading…
Chess legend Vladimir Kramnik recently accused Hikaru Nakamura of cheating. He called out one of Hikaru's 46-game winning streaks as supporting evidence, claiming such a streak was highly improbable. Quoting wikipedia: In October and November, Nakamura participated in the FIDE Grand Swiss 2023 , finishing in second place with 8/11 points (+5-0=6) and thus qualifying for the Candidates Tournament…
I feel overwhelmed these days. My TODO list has spiraled out of control and I feel immobilized. I need to get myself organized, and I need to ruthlessly prioritize. Someone smart at Amazon once said that you'll have 100 things you need or want to do; but you can only do one or two of those and need to throw the rest away . That's tough, but important! Here I describe an approach I was using in the…
I'm having fun. It may seem mindless, pointless, or even counter-productive. But it's not. It's fun! It all started with me optimizing my nvim start times. Though I used vi or vim basically forever, and used nvim since it started in 2014, I never really worried about optimizing startup times. But, truth is, nvim is doing much more today than it ever did in the past, so maybe performance is more…
Contents What is Mermaid? Why do I want it? Add Mermaid to your Zola theme Create a Mermaid Shortcode Using the Shortcode Going Further What is Mermaid? Why do I want it? According to the mermaid-js repo : Mermaid is a JavaScript-based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. The main purpose of Mermaid is to…
This is just a quick note to describe what we've been up to lately. My wife launched Suncrest Flowers ! It's been a bit of a journey. I'll share some of that here. It's the American dream, right? You take your passion, create a business out of it, survive, then thrive! But it's not always so straightforward. Some of the things we've been through to get here: Register with the IRS to get an E-IN,…
I want to tell you about a delightful experience I had recently, thanks to the Rust type system. Not too long ago, I set out to write some physics code for $FUN (i.e. not $WORK ). This is a story about my discovery and use of the uom crate, a library that leverages the Rust type system to make this kind of physics coding incredibly easy. Contents Dimensional Analysis Hello uom crate, so nice to…
When I left Stormfront Studios way back in the year 2000 to join PlayStation's San Diego Studio , one of the best known game companies in the world, I was filled with excitement and apprehension. I couldn't believe my fortune; I really felt I landed in the big league! Along with that came the fear of not living up to my teammates' standards, which led me to a severe case of impostor syndrome. Did…
Historically, the tech industry can normally be a high-stress environment for many. However, in the past six months it feels like it's gone ballistic with layoffs and RTO mandates causing widespread uncertainty and anxiety. Even though I've been fortunate to not get directly impacted in the midst of all this chaos, I found myself struggling to manage my mental health, to focus on work, to feel…
I started working at Amazon as a Principal Engineer on September 6, 2016. During that time, I worked in Amazon groceries, including Fresh, Prime Now, and Whole Foods; and later in Amazon Fashion. I loved it and had no plans to leave. But in late 2021, I got an email from a recruiter for a role at Zwift . That really piqued my interest. After lots of deliberation, I decided. I left Amazon and…
I normally ignore recruiter calls. But when I saw an email with the subject "Distinguished Engineer at Zwift", I instantly knew I had to look into it. I first knew of Zwift in early 2016. I tried it, but didn't stick with it. I was already deep into TrainerRoad and happy with it, and Zwift was still early days and not nearly as polished as it is today. I was really into cycling those days. I…
Today is my last effective day with Amazon - my official last day is next Friday, November 26. But I'm taking most of next week off in observance of Thanksgiving in the US. Thus, today is really it! Inevitably people will ask "why?" It's no secret that I planned to finish my career at Amazon; after all, my hair isn't getting thicker or less gray as each day goes by. And this is a damn good gig!…
✅ here's my blog A guy at work said, "where's your blog?" So, here's a quickly hacked together site using zola with the lightspeed theme. It's hosted in a private repo on sourcehut and, at least for now, built and deployed to sourcehut pages . I blogged many years ago. Like, decades ago. Don't know what I might put here, but I'll give it a shot!