The Recording
The Panelists
- Kevin Feasel
- Tracy Boggiano
- Mike Chrestensen
- Mala Mahadevan
Notes: Questions and Topics
The In-Person Component of Hybrid Meetings
The first topic we hit was in-person attendance for our hybrid main meeting. We’ve had a few hybrid meetings so far and the large majority of attendees for these are still remote. Our gracious host (a company which has hosted TriPASS meetings for more than a decade) does need to hit certain thresholds for it to make sense for them to host us, and our current numbers aren’t cutting it. So far, I’ve come up with two ideas:
- Make the main meeting in-person only (i.e., no hybrid meeting) and keep the other two remote-only
- Go back to remote-only meetings
I’m not particularly satisfied with either of these, honestly, but I’m struggling to find a good option which increases in-person attendance but lets us remain hybrid. Back in 2019, the hybrid component was an “extra” but the large majority of attendees were coming in-person. At this point, the script is flipped.
Planning for a Successful Database Migration on AWS
Mala wanted to talk about this article. She started off not liking the article very much, but after we talked about it, we came to an agreement that it’s pretty good for a really high-level overview, though there’s a good amount of marketing fluff in it, as well as wishcasting that people change a database system that works with one that pays Amazon more money.
Replacing Customer Service with ChatGPT
Another article from Mala, though this time we had some more to sink our sarcastic teeth into. What it sounds like is, they created a reasonably smart chatbot to do level 1 tech support—basically, an interactive FAQ and probably incorporating some billing and account data in the prompt inputs. Ignoring the idiocy of bragging about laying off most of your customer support people, this is probably a reasonable use for generative AI, at least until it lies to your customers and your few remaining humans in customer support need to put out those new fires.
Kusto Detective Agency Season 2
The final topic for today’s show was a quick discussion of Kusto Detective Agency, now that season 2 is in full swing. This is definitely not a site for beginners, but it is a really fun challenge if you have some Kusto chops already. Or you can read one of the many walkthroughs online to get you through it. I got about 2/3 of the way through season 1 without having to rely on a walkthrough, but couldn’t get much further. I haven’t tried season 2 yet, but it’s on my todo list.