Blog
- 241Jan 14, 20192 minsystem design
Designing 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.
Read more → - 242Jan 12, 20196 mincategories
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.
Read more → - 243Jan 9, 20193 minarchitecturemobile
iOS Architecture Patterns Revisited
Architecture can directly impact costs per feature. Let's compare Tight-coupling MVC, Cocoa MVC, MVP, MVVM, and VIPER in three dimensions: balanced distribution of responsibility among feature actors, testability and ease of use and maintainability.
Read more → - 244Jan 6, 20193 minsystem design
Key value cache
The key-value cache is used to reduce the latency of data access. What are read-through, write-through, write-behind, write-back, write-behind, and cache-aside patterns?
Read more → - 245Jan 4, 20192 minsystem design
Designing Facebook photo storage
Traditional NFS based design has metadata bottleneck: large metadata size limits the metadata hit ratio. Facebook photo storage eliminates the metadata by aggregating hundreds of thousands of images in a single haystack store file.
Read more → - 246Jan 3, 20192 minsystem design
Designing Uber
A system design walkthrough of Uber's ride-hailing backend, covering real-time dispatch at massive scale.
Read more → - 247Jan 1, 20193 mincategories
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.
Read more → - 248Dec 25, 20188 mintech
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.
Read more → - 249Dec 21, 20184 mintime management
System Admin Time Management: The Cycle System
The cycle system enables people to follow through. It suggests every day should start with your to-do list, hours needed and plans. The secrets also lie in writing down goals and scheduling things with the calendar, instead of your brain.
Read more → - 250Dec 17, 20182 minproduct research
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.
Read more → - 251Dec 11, 20186 minblog
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.
Read more → - 252Dec 8, 20183 minrhetoricsleadership
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.
Read more →
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.
