Justin Garrison
justingarrison.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2020
Justin Garrison, a cloud infrastructure engineer, writes about AWS, Kubernetes, Mastodon, Amazon work culture, and Linux.
What HN saysHN commenters cite his posts on Fargate not using Firecracker and running a Mastodon instance from static files, and on Amazon return-to-office.
27HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
54stories submitted
1.6Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Mastodon Instance with 6 Files5 people · 17 points · first shared 2022 · 9 comments on HN
- 2Fargate Is Not Firecracker5 people · 6 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 3The Document Culture of Amazon4 people · 512 points · first shared 2021 · 210 comments on HN
- 4Amazon's Silent Sacking4 people · 447 points · first shared 2023 · 365 comments on HN
- 52022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop4 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 6Mastodon Is Doomed3 people · 32 points · first shared 2023 · 3 comments on HN
- 7Cubernetes2 people · 200 points · first shared 2022 · 38 comments on HN
- 8Infrastructure as Software2 people · 52 points · first shared 2022 · 33 comments on HN
- 9Get Started with Self-Hosting2 people · 7 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 10Document Driven Meetings at Amazon2 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 11GitHub URL Hacks2 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 12Your Slop, My Sludge2 people · 4 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 13The State of Immutable Linux2 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 14Getting Started with Signal1 people · 276 points · first shared 2021 · 213 comments on HN
- 1521 More AWS Services They Should Cancel1 people · 28 points · first shared 2024 · 55 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mt_ · 2024-01-10
Is is just me, this post and this [1] one are just people complaining about RTO? If you were hired during COVID lockdown with the promise of your career buing built on remote only, fine but lay yourself off and move on. Else it's not entirely justifiable to be mad at AWS for RTO policies. From an outside perspective AWS looks very healthy and ouputing great innovation.
[1]. https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sacking/
JustinGarrison · 2023-07-07
https://justingarrison.com I have articles going back to 2006! Have averaged 1 post a month for 17 years
jeroenhd · 2023-05-30
Parts of ActivityPub will work with static files: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2022-12-06-mastodon-files-instance/
You need something to deal with follows (cryptographically verify that the follow attempts actually originate from the servers they claim to) and submitting posts to your followers (push based, not pull based in practice) but all the metadata and user lookup stuff can be done with JSON files in the right place.
easton · 2026-06-26
Counterpoint: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-02-08-fargate-is-not-firecracker/
And also, you’ll notice that Fargate takes minutes to launch while Lambda takes a second or less. You’re waiting on AWS to launch a EC2 with your config and pull your containers into it.
(that article matches things I heard from Amazon when I asked why my stuff is slow)
mochomocha · 2024-05-24
According to [1] Fargate is actually not using Firecracker, but probably something closer to a single container running in a single-tenant ec2 VM. If true, this makes VM boot-time optimizations and warm pooling even more important for such product.
[1]: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-02-08-fargate-is-not-firecracker/
momofuku · 2024-01-19
It does happen occasionally. For example Justin Garrison wrote what I would consider a fairly scathing review of Amazon's HR practices related to laying people off, while he was still at Amazon: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-12-30-amazons-silent-sacking/
He left recently, but he wrote this blog while still being employed there, as mentioned at the bottom of the post.
strogonoff · 2023-10-17
ActivityPub—along with its lesser known counterpart LitePub that focuses on transience and privacy—makes creating a minimum viable “account for social media” approximately as easy as serving a few static JSON files from your domain[0], though there are nice minimal servers with more features[1], too.
[0] https://justingarrison.com/blog/2022-12-06-mastodon-files-instance/
[1] https://git.sr.ht/~tsileo/microblog.pub
staltz · 2023-01-23
That's a very limiting definition of 'death' and it may as well have applied for "Linux Desktop", yet Linux as a Desktop choice is increasingly popular, just not at a growth rate that would satisfy Silicon Valley: https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/year-of-linux-desktop/
As for 1: you don't have metrics for that. As for 2: you don't have metrics for that.
maverick74 · 2023-01-01
I've been on the IT world for 30 years now and with Linux for about 20...
Most people won't ever admit Linux won. No matter what!!!
A counter post with some valid points:
https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/year-of-linux-desktop/
javier10e6 · 2021-06-29
Meetings: The activity of people hearing themselves talk.
I think I stumbled here or in lobsters with this site:
https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/2021-03-15-the-document-culture-of…
Very apropos to the effectiveness of meetings and of course ,note taking towards creating long term value.