Blame is a Four Letter Word: What alt-rock band Cake has to say about DevOps.
A presentation at DevOpsDays Charlotte 2020 in in Charlotte, NC, USA by fen aldrich
BLAME IS A FOUR LETTER WORD How alt-rock band Cake has been singing about DevOps since the 90s #DevOpsDays I’m gonna talk about Cake, awesome band. Rag on PJ for not liking them ‘cause this wouldn’t be a troll if he’s not mentioned. @crayzeigh 1
#DevOpsDays @crayzeigh 2 Continuation from title: They sing about DevOps! In the 90s! It’s ok, Rick Reuben did it in the 80s with Run DMC & Aerosmith, ask Nathen Harvey about that one.
She doesn’t care whether or not [the datacenter is actually on fire] just as long as [you’re still delivering value] -Italian Leather Sofa #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh The one that started it from my O11y talks re: SLOs Your customer doesn’t care about the technical details, they care about outcomes. Measure services not systems [lightly interpreted] 3
To me, coming from you [Blame] is a four letter word -Friend is a Four Letter Word #DevOpsDays Title track: Blameless postmortems good, blaming bad @crayzeigh [reading between the lines] 4
There’s a long line of cars and they’re trying to get through There’s no single explanation, there’s no central destination… We don’t wonder where we’re going or remember where we’ve been We’ve got to keep this traffic flowing and accept a little sin… We’ve gotta keep this fire burning and accept a little grey… -Long Line of Cars #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh See, cause Cake was aware of Complex systems. LA Traffic as metaphor for requests, all different origins, destinations All a bit broken and janky (it always is) but the traffic must get through to deliver value (accept sin, a little grey) [Like LA traffic, there is no root cause] 5
And this long line of cars is all because of you… And this long line of cars is all because of me. youtu.be/gfINfi2K1lE -Long Line of Cars #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [nearly blameless, anyway] 6 LOL blame, tho… Youtube link to Rein Hendricks’s Beyond Blameless talk from Re-Deploy (seriously if eveyone only gets that out of this I think it’s a good talk)
My intentions are good and earnest and true But under my hood is internal combustion power And Satan is my motor… Satan is the only one who seems to understand -Satan is My Motor #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh [AWS, a necessary evil] 7 Amazon is a pretty ethically terrible company… But we’re all on AWS anyway. 2 slides for some audience participation and breathing room. “How many people know amazon is pretty shady… how many deploy on AWS for production tho…”
I don’t want to wonder If this is a blunder I don’t want to worry Whether we’re going to stay together ‘Till we die… I want to love you madly -Love You Madly #DevOpsDays More Cloud Vendor Lock-in woes. @crayzeigh [Vendor lock-in is the real relationship killer] 8
I don’t want to fake it I just want to make it… I don’t want to hold back… I don’t want to think back to that one thing that I know I Should have done… I don’t want to doubt you Know everything about you… I want to love you madly #DevOpsDays -Love You Madly @crayzeigh [serverless, v hot in 2001] 9 Serverless! I just want to ship products, I don’t want to have to understand all the intricacies of their architecture in order to ship my products and run my code.
Well your [AMI] collection looks shiny and costly How much did you pay for your bad [lambda function]? And how much did you spend on the [data egress racket]? Is it you or [VC funds] in this income tax bracket? -Rock and Roll Lifestyle #DevOpsDays How can you afford your AWS bills? @crayzeigh [Cake had deep feelings about Amazon] 10
Now tickets to [Re:Invent] And drinking at clubs Sometimes for [services] you haven’t even heard of And how much did you pay for your [Amazon] T-shirt That proves you were there That you heard of them first? How can you afford your [Amazon] lifestyle? -[Amazon] Lifestyle #DevOpsDays Dat AWS Lifestyle @crayzeigh [Ask Corey Quinn if you need help getting control] 11
Stick shifts and SAFety belts Bucket seats have all got to go -Stickshifts and Safetybelts #DevOpsDays Cheap shots at enterprise’s love of certified processes Remember: SAFe and Scrum are monetized agile. @crayzeigh [SAFe isn’t Agile and I’m pretty sure Scrum is a disease] 12
Well I have passed the test Just like all the rest But never really understood The reasons why they took it In the first place -Pentagram #DevOpsDays Parting shot at certification programs @crayzeigh [Certifications, Sacrificial rites, what’s the difference?] 13
We are building a religion We are making it bigger… It is useless to resist… We’re the only ones to turn to When your castles turn to sand… Take a bite of this apple… #DevOpsDays You’ve got Jenkins and K8s now, so you must be DevOps, right? (maybe this should go before the Stickshifts and Safetybelts bit?) -Comfort Eagle @crayzeigh [Join the cargo cult] 14
Sheep go to Heaven Goats[can.do] go to Hell -Sheep go to Heaven #DevOpsDays @crayzeigh Inside baseball joke that I’m not sure will land, but I still appreciate. Trying to figure out a way this joke lands if the audience doesn’t know about the Goat Farm. [Sorry Ducy, love you…] 15
As soon as you’re born you start dying So you might as well have a good time AARON ALDRICH 🌠: SPEAKING.CRAYZEIGH.COM COMMUNITY ADVOCATE @ 🐦: @CRAYZEIGH 🎙: THE ELASTICAST (DEAD) EQ: EMOTIONALAPI.COM #DevOpsDays Just a dead slide signing off with a quote and self promoting. @crayzeigh 16
DevOps may have been a phrase only coined in 2009, but Cake has been singing about it since the 90’s. We’re Going the Distance with this one and finding all the points of advice and hidden messages we can.
