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12 articlesDesigning Facebook's Photo Storage System
There are two reasons why Facebook handles photo storage: the petabyte-scale volume of blob data; traditional NFS-based designs face metadata bottlenecks, where massive metadata severely limits hit rates. The solution is to aggregate hundreds of thousands of images into a single Haystack storage file, thereby eliminating the metadata burden.
Learning to Be Trusted — It Only Takes 72 Minutes to Incite Murder
To be trusted, you must first be trustworthy; you need to be competent. Not only must you be competent, but you also need to establish a connection with the other party, which requires you to appear approachable. Psychologists have found that trust equals competence plus approachability, but being overly competent can create a sense of distance and threat. You also need to expose minor weaknesses to bridge the gap with others.
The Importance of Names — Insights from a Nickname Enthusiast
Names are a very important weapon. Researchers at Syracuse University found that when people use derogatory terms to refer to a certain social group, the suicide rate among that group tends to be higher. Names can also unite people; experimental results show that the name of a game influences people's ability to cooperate. When people cheer for themselves during a competition, they often achieve their best performance.
Blockchain Technology Review
A blockchain is an incorruptible distributed ledger that is hosted by multiple parties, secured by crypto algorithms and immutable and verifiable in data storage. The blockchain technology is applied in a wide range of industries.
Auth Solutions on the Market
Different auth systems solve the problem with different needs. For a new start-up who does not want to build their own auth systems, the most suitable solution is auth0. Meanwhile, the best solution for a company that needs integrations of enterprise services is OneLogin.
Gazing at the Stars and Deliberate Curiosity
People cannot dominate an industry solely with superior technical skills, as the replicability and update rate of technology are extremely high. Maintaining a curious mind and deliberately exploring the world is another necessary condition for enhancing one's competitiveness. Allen Gannett interviewed numerous creative individuals and concluded that we must spend 20% of our waking time each day absorbing knowledge in our respective fields.
How to instantly appear clever when speaking
The persuasive techniques used by the Greeks let you appear clever when speaking. Other schemes include figures of speech, twisting clichés, Yoda speaking, dialysis, antithesis, saying both yes and no and inventing new words.
Sarah Tavel: The Three Levels of User Engagement
Sustainable user engagement should be built through three levels: user growth, focusing on the growth of users completing core actions; user retention, where the longer the product is used, the greater its value, and the greater the loss when users leave; self-sustaining, where users create a positive feedback loop through their participation in the product.
How to Work with Achievers, Activators, Adapters, Analyzers, and Arrangers?
Working with Activators: Provide recognition, allow freedom, assist in moving forward; Working with Adapters: Highly adaptable, easy to collaborate, advantageous for short-term tasks; Working with Analyzers: Good at thinking, data-driven, values accuracy; Working with Arrangers: Skilled at coordinating and handling complex tasks, strong problem-solving abilities.
Time Management for System Administrators: Radically Automating with Routines
How to develop your own routines, you can try to identify the following situations: tasks that recur without being scheduled; maintenance tasks; relationships and professional networks; when the time spent procrastinating exceeds the time spent taking action; things that are frequently forgotten; trivial tasks that are occasionally overlooked but shouldn't be; developing new skills; keeping up with trends through continuous reading.
Pitch Deck Outline
To make successful slides for the seed-round fundraising, first, start with your title and slogan. Then, bring up your problem on the next pages. The problem should be followed by your solution and explanations. At last, don’t forget to say what you need from the investors.
Humility is the road to character
People are more narcissistic than ever because of the increasingly tremendous benefits brought by fame via the mass media and the Internet. Pride focuses on superiority. However, humility is the self-confrontation of weakness, which is painful and takes effort.
About Tian Pan
I'm Tian Pan, an engineer-founder focused on agentic engineering — building autonomous AI systems and scaling engineering teams. I write practical guides on system design, technical leadership, and shipping with AI agents. Previously an early engineer at Uber, Brex, and IoTeX.
