Original ContentAmazon should buy Anthropic. I wasn’t really sure what hardned images were, let alone “distroless,” so Tony and I were lucky to get William on this week’s Tanzu Catsup to sort it out. We also discuss how it fits into platform engineering. If you can’t be bothered, here’s an excerpt on optimizing Helm charts. After the Dream, Software Defined Talk #555 - This week, we discuss Gemini powering Siri, AWS’s biggest competitor, and AWS strategy choices.

Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam, Duivendrecht edition.Original ContentFrom Platform Engineering to Stand-Up Comedian, with Lian Li, Software Defined Talk #117: “In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Lian, a “cloud-native human” with a 15-year career in tech. Lian discusses her transition from tech to performance art, her experiences in amateur musical theater, stand-up comedy, and improv theater. She talks about platform engineering, the importance of community building in tech, and balancing professional life with personal projects.

Pardon the not-an-actual-newsletter episode of the newsletter, but… Do you listen to my podcast, Software Defined Talk? If you do, I’d appreciate you taking the time to fill out our listener survey. We do occasional ads and paid interviews, and this helps us do more and charge more. It means we can pay for the podcast and some tasty beef ribs at the end of the year. Also, I’m always curious to know more about listeners.

Things expats notice when they’re back in AmericaThe night of arrival, at Stiles Switch.We go back to Texas each year for Christmas. You see things differently when you’ve been away for a long time. Here’s some from this year: Waymo everywhere, in Austin. So much yoghurt. Grown ass adults going to the store in full in pajamas. Still. There’s a gadget for everything. “Put a bow on it.” UGGs, boots and:

Original ContentOn this week’s Tanzu Catsup, We spend an excruciating amount of time talking about how platform engineers add new services/middleware/whatever to internal developer platforms. It’s great if that’s relative to your interests. My next self-challenge is add a simple service to Cloud Foundry. An Australian Documentary - Software Defined Talk this week: “This week, we discuss Oracle’s AI vibes, Chainguard’s EmeritOSS, and GitHub’s pricing U-turn. Plus, a robust robot vacuum debate.

Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam.This week it’s a digest of the flow of stuff. If you want to keep up day-to-day, and even more content not included below, check out my newly reborn Weblog on The World Wide Web. Original ContentThings I’ve writtenA great platform as a product paper, and a fun platform philosophy thereof. The Security Gap in AI Applications: Rethinking API Protection for a New Era. 20 years of business travel - you’ll get there, or you won’t.

A selection from my weblog and elsewhere since last time… Original contentWhitney goes to KubeCon - a cross-over episode from SDT: “This week, Whitney Lee joins us to discuss KubeCon news, Coding Assistants, and conference tips. Plus, vegan food and note-taking recommendations.” What is a platform? - Tony and I start a new weekly, live-streamed “podcast.” The AI Apprentice’s Adventures - maybe AI can help create more D&D content and not destroy the world?

Of late, the newsletter has turned into me linking to longer posts on my blog. There’s the usual links and wastebook as well. This makes it more of a digest than a stand-alone item. As you can tell by the volume of blog posts below, I like blogging though and I’m glad I’m doing I do it more! Original contentSpeaking of, several little things on the blog: The ultimate bike-shedding story, and, always make your own slides.

3 factors is all you needIn this Tanzu Talk interview, Coté talks Brian Friedman about his extensive experience working with Pivotal, Tanzu, and Broadcom. They discuss the intricacies of modernizing enterprise applications, the relevance of .NET in the current tech landscape, and the role of platforms like Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes. They also explore using AI, the challenges of application transformation, and the importance of leveraging the right tools and methodologies to drive successful tech modernization initiatives.

Relative to your interestsI’m posting a lot more regularly on my weblog , most of the links below, and some content that doesn’t show up in the newsletter. Apologies if you’re living with duplicates. “CMDB” Is Dead — Long Live The IT Management Graph - What’s wrong with the CMDB concept, especially how it’s applied and managed. Apple Loses Landmark U.K. Lawsuit Over App Store Commissions - “When is the last time an investigation regarding the legality of the App Store’s dominant market position went in Apple’s favor, in any country?