Miscellaneous

Building an ECS Cluster with Raspberry Pi 4 Nodes Using AWS ECS Anywhere In this guide, we’ll explore how to set up an Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) cluster using three Raspberry Pi 4 devices as external instances, leveraging AWS ECS Anywhere. We’ll delve into the capabilities of ECS, provide the necessary Terraform code to create the cluster, and walk through the steps to generate activation keys. Additionally, we’ll develop a Python 3 application that listens to an Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) queue for batch processing messages. This process involves downloading an object from Amazon S3, processing it through a mocked API, and storing the result in a DynamoDB table. We’ll also cover the Terraform configurations required to set up the DynamoDB table, SQS queue, S3 event notifications, and an Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) repository for our Docker images. ...

In recent years, concerns have emerged about a perceived decline in creativity across various domains, particularly in the arts and technology sectors. This phenomenon has sparked debates on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on human artistry. The Impact of AI on Artistic Creativity Prominent artists have voiced apprehensions regarding AI’s influence on creative processes. Musician Nick Cave has expressed deep concern over AI’s potential to undermine the artistic struggle inherent in songwriting. He views AI-generated music as a threat to the authenticity and emotional depth that characterize human-created art. ...

Building a Vue 3 Notes App with AWS Amplify V2 Introduction After the Summit, I decided for a while to give it a try to new amplify - boooom. You might be wondering why and this article is all about this :D and yes, that’s me in the left corner looking at the photo! AWS Amplify has undergone a significant evolution with the introduction of Amplify V2, offering an improved developer experience and better integration with modern frontend frameworks like Vue 3. In this tutorial, we will build a simple notes application using Vue 3 and Amplify V2. The app will allow users to register, log in, and save notes in an Amazon DynamoDB table. ...

Introduction Text-based adventure games were among the earliest forms of digital entertainment, immersing players in interactive storytelling through simple text commands. Inspired by these classic games, I set out to create my own using AWS Bedrock, Amazon’s managed GenAI service. This article details how I leveraged generative AI, AWS infrastructure, and modern development tools to build and deploy my game, Kroz, bringing an old-school experience to modern cloud-based architecture. What is described in this article is also available here in form of slides - also, in a more available way! If you want to skip straight to a next-to-bedrock powered game, go instead here ...

Introduction I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been selected as part of the AWS New Voices Program, an exclusive initiative by AWS designed to help community members refine their public speaking skills. As an AWS Community Builder and a Platform Engineer with over eight years of experience working with AWS, this opportunity is a game-changer in my journey as a tech speaker. What is AWS New Voices? The AWS New Voices Program is a specialized training initiative aimed at empowering new and aspiring speakers in the AWS ecosystem. What makes this program unique is its dedicated coaching by a professional trainer—the same expert who trains AWS C-level executives for high-impact global presentations. The goal? To help us craft and deliver talks that resonate with technical audiences worldwide. ...

Preamble In the last few months, my experiences have led me to a profound realization: the world is inherently problematic from any perspective. While addressing challenges is often a catalyst for growth and improvement, it’s not always a foolproof strategy—as evidenced by my numerous changes in approach throughout this year. This blog post delves into the complexities of navigating these challenges. Brace yourself for a narrative that aims to be both mundane and reflective simultaneously. ...

Preamble Recently (false) I became nostalgic and fascinated with stuff from the past, but someone told me many times I’m a future-man cause I tend to project everything in my life. So let’s play with the future - TA-DA! Sanremo Festival, precisely the 2023 Edition1 is coming to town (not mine) so I decided to play for real to FantaSanremo. What is this? Formally, FantaSanremo was born in 2020 from the idea of a group of friends working in the entertainment industry (musicians, music teachers, sound technicians) who are fans of the Sanremo Festival and were inspired by the Fanta-Game of Thrones, a fantasy game based on the TV series of the same name. The FIF (Federazione Italiana FantaSanremo) is created, which consists of 8 people and has the task of drafting the first regulations. The virtual currency with which to buy the artists of one’s team is named Baudo in honor of the famous Pippo, an icon of the Festival with the greatest number of conductions to his credit. ...

The Doomsday rule This is a repost of an old article :) A few months ago I came across the name of J. H. Conway: you’re wondering who the hell he is. Well, Conway is an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He has also contributed to many branches of recreational mathematics and he is the invention of the Game of Life. Ah, I was forgetting one last thing: he is currently Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University in New Jersey1. Ok. let’s respect this guy but…what would I talk to you about? Well, in this article I will talk about a magic trick: the Doomsday rule. ...

Prelude Hi guys, after a series of back-to-the-future-I-didn’t-have-time-to-write-new-things… I’m back. What happened in the last months… ok, covid19 put the whole world in trouble, I bought an apartment, I opened a company and I resign my contract. Really. Nothing. Special. But TODAY - I wanna talk about a project I have since a while, and I worked on a boring Sunday afternoon: I hacked my blog to let Polly read it for you! 😎 😎 😎 ...

Preamble This is a repost of an old article :) In 1962, Hungarian mathematician Tibor Radó introduced the Busy Beaver competition for Turing machines: in a class of machines, find one which halts after the greatest number of steps when started on the empty input. Even if it could seem trivial, the Busy Beaver competition has implications in computability theory, the halting problem, and complexity theory. I decided to use GoLang to implement a Turing machine library and accomplish three goals: first, having a Turing Machine model to play with for learning purpose; second, learning how to use interfaces and the factory pattern, other then testing package to test my code and let it be more flexible for future enhancement (at least I hope!); third, implement some Busy Beaver setup and verify that the model works with well known executions. If you want to discover more about Golang, 60’s math games and beavers, go ahead with reading :D! ...