Looking at a city skyline upside down through a camera lens

Thoughts on "Poor Charlie's Almanac"

Charlie Munger’s speeches and wisdom are collected in Poor Charlie’s Almanac, a book that has changed how I think about decisions and life.

7 January 2026 · 6 min · 1189 words · Major Hayden
Branch of a tree with orange leaves

Summarize YouTube videos with Fabric

Some of my favorite YouTube videos are really informative with lots of useful content, but I struggle to extract the most important concepts as I’m watching. A new tool called fabric and Claude can help.

22 September 2025 · 12 min · 2374 words · Major Hayden
Small plants growing on a sandy surface

Date driven development

Developing software with a critcal date comes with its own set of challenges.

24 August 2025 · 8 min · 1584 words · Major Hayden
Red poppies bloom against a dark blurred background

Scrum, sprints, and outcomes

Although Scrum is a popular agile methodology, it often becomes a theater of activity that distracts teams from what customers actually need. 📅

1 June 2025 · 11 min · 2271 words · Major Hayden
Extremely cute french bulldog looking out the window of a Jeep Wrangler

Vibe-free coding with AI

Yes, I do write code with help from an LLM, but I wouldn’t call it vibe coding. Let’s dig into how (and why) I do it. 🤖

7 May 2025 · 7 min · 1321 words · Major Hayden
A small lit candle in a candle holder in front of a frosted window

My meeting hacks

Instead of dreading a long stretch of meetings, find some ways to make them less painful.

22 August 2024 · 5 min · 891 words · Major Hayden
Mountains in a desert at sunset with a cloudy sky abve

Rub some AI on it

If you have a problem, be sure to add artificial intelligence (AI) to it. Then you have two problems.

21 August 2024 · 6 min · 1184 words · Major Hayden
Three tall windows with a view of snow-capped mountains.

On diversity

Diverse teams lead to great outcomes, but how we measure diversity remains a challenge. Enforcing it is even more challenging. 🌎

16 December 2023 · 10 min · 2117 words · Major Hayden
Toyota 4runner in the snow on a mountain

Car buying guide

If you love to nerd out on just about anything, give it a try the next time you buy a car.

4 September 2023 · 11 min · 2170 words · Major Hayden
Red Nike sneaker with a white check/swoosh on a red background

Open source contributions: Just do it

Want to make a change in an open source project? Take the Nike approach and Just Do It. 👟

16 August 2023 · 6 min · 1169 words · Major Hayden
Old train tracks leading into the sea

Engineering through layoffs

Layoffs create traumatic times for many. Find ways to break through the frustration and pain. For those that stay, your ability to influence the business can grow. 🪴

25 June 2023 · 7 min · 1459 words · Major Hayden
Red flag on a short pole on a beach

Red flags

Every job has its ups and downs, but when is it the right time to double down or the right time to leave? Make a list of red flags that help you decide. 🚩

5 January 2023 · 7 min · 1380 words · Major Hayden
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Amateur Guide to Running

Running gets me outside and gives me a challenge where I can compete against myself. Here are my tips for becoming an amateur runner. 🎽

6 November 2022 · 7 min · 1308 words · Major Hayden

Strong impacts require soft skills

Success at work depends on more than your technical ability. Improve your soft skills to increase your impact. 💪

8 September 2022 · 4 min · 811 words · Major Hayden

How I write blog posts

This feels very meta, but I thought it would be a good idea to share my blog post writing process anyway. 📝

17 August 2022 · 4 min · 740 words · Major Hayden
Rocky island surrounded by clouds

Raise the bar with an SBAR

Efficiently communicate a problem and your recommendation in record time with an SBAR. 📝

2 August 2022 · 7 min · 1457 words · Major Hayden
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Persuasion engineering

Improve your persuasive skills to get your team on board with solutions to tough problems. 🤔

11 July 2021 · 12 min · 2355 words · Major Hayden
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Why should students learn to write code?

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11 October 2016 · 5 min · 984 words · Major Hayden
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Preventing critical services from deploying on the same OpenStack host

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9 August 2016 · 3 min · 579 words · Major Hayden
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Talk recap: The friendship of OpenStack and Ansible

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29 June 2016 · 3 min · 569 words · Major Hayden
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Troubleshooting OpenStack network connectivity

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17 May 2016 · 6 min · 1140 words · Major Hayden
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Lessons learned: Five years of colocation

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22 April 2016 · 10 min · 1958 words · Major Hayden
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Fight cynicism with curiosity

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17 February 2016 · 4 min · 775 words · Major Hayden
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Nobody is using your software project. Now what?

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15 January 2016 · 5 min · 887 words · Major Hayden

Talking to college students about information security

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10 November 2015 · 7 min · 1430 words · Major Hayden

Impostor syndrome talk: FAQs and follow-ups

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2 September 2015 · 6 min · 1079 words · Major Hayden

Fedora Flock 2015: Keynote slides

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14 August 2015 · 1 min · 85 words · Major Hayden

Book Review: Linux Kernel Development

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21 June 2015 · 4 min · 760 words · Major Hayden

Adventures with GRE and IPSec on Mikrotik routers

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27 May 2015 · 8 min · 1696 words · Major Hayden

Review: Lenovo X1 Carbon 3rd generation and Linux

After a boatload of challenges with what I thought would be my favorite Linux laptop, the Dell XPS 13 9343, I decided to take the plunge on a new Lenovo X1 Carbon (3rd gen). My late-2013 MacBook Pro Retina (MacbookPro11,1) had plenty of quirks when running Linux and I was eager to find a better platform. ...

30 March 2015 · 4 min · 852 words · Major Hayden
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Helpful, low-FUD information security sites, mailing lists, and blogs

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8 January 2015 · 1 min · 184 words · Major Hayden

Evade the Breach

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24 May 2014 · 4 min · 831 words · Major Hayden

DevOps and enterprise inertia

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17 April 2014 · 4 min · 780 words · Major Hayden

Annoying security requests highlight company silos

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10 March 2014 · 1 min · 125 words · Major Hayden

Be an inspiration, not an impostor

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5 February 2014 · 3 min · 514 words · Major Hayden

Information security nuggets from DevOps Weekly #150

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17 November 2013 · 2 min · 279 words · Major Hayden

One year in information security

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13 November 2013 · 7 min · 1390 words · Major Hayden

Need an edge at work? Learn accounting and finance.

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17 September 2013 · 3 min · 639 words · Major Hayden

Handling terminal color escape sequences in less

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22 May 2013 · 2 min · 268 words · Major Hayden

Changing your ssh server’s port from the default: Is it worth it?

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15 May 2013 · 3 min · 544 words · Major Hayden

Reprint: Stop Disabling SELinux!

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19 April 2013 · 4 min · 708 words · Major Hayden

Seriously, stop disabling SELinux

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16 April 2013 · 1 min · 147 words · Major Hayden

Survive the Google Reader exodus with Tiny Tiny RSS

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17 March 2013 · 2 min · 301 words · Major Hayden

Controlling sensitive company data means losing some control of it

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3 March 2013 · 6 min · 1073 words · Major Hayden

What my toddler taught me about information security

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13 January 2013 · 5 min · 894 words · Major Hayden

Monitoring and protecting your reputation online

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6 August 2012 · 4 min · 706 words · Major Hayden

Great guide for using traceroute and understanding its results

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13 June 2012 · 2 min · 237 words · Major Hayden

What installing a ceiling fan can teach you about administering servers

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11 June 2012 · 3 min · 577 words · Major Hayden

Lessons learned in the ambulance pay dividends in the datacenter

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31 May 2012 · 8 min · 1495 words · Major Hayden

Getting a Technical Job at Rackspace

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9 April 2012 · 4 min · 741 words · Major Hayden