R.I.Pienaar

I am a consultant working on very large scale automation backplanes specialising in highly distributed server estates with 100s of thousands or millions of nodes. 

Instagram: ripienaar
Flickr: ripienaar

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Last Notes

2026-04-30 05:10:06 UTC

Another really cool feature I designed for NATS - a distributed CRDT based counter.
Distributed meaning infrastructure at a factory floor can have local counts that flows up to regional and global levels via stream replication and eventually end up at a global count. Seperate clusters all contributing to the total with regional/location views.
You can choose to have auditable counts etc
https://youtu.be/1Vx8CbrO89Y?is=a2pAe7s7_7SnCEuX
Scales like crazy solves very hard problems.
Spec:
https://github.com/nats-io/nats-architecture-and-design/blob/main/adr/ADR-49.md

2026-04-29 07:45:39 UTC

I had a bunch of fun designing a giant, reliable, distributed schedular, heartbeat and sampling layer inside NATS.
Here's a video introducing it, lots of fun and removes a ton of infra from modern apps.
We'll ship the final features this week in NATS Server 2.14.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dkzZonDI9M
Spec here:
https://github.com/nats-io/nats-architecture-and-design/blob/main/adr/ADR-51.md

2026-04-02 12:47:01 UTC

NASA remote desktoping to a space ship to fix MS Outlook.
Fuck this future.
https://bsky.app/profile/nikigrayson.com/post/3miik2wzosk25

2026-02-22 15:07:57 UTC

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@nprofile…k3ke @nprofile…lem0 fwiw bacula provides good utilities to extract backups without the server

2026-02-06 17:49:20 UTC

Bye bye Heroku https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/

2025-12-13 05:59:16 UTC

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@nprofile…ekm4 @nprofile…zv2s I have applied for many visas to many countries, I am from Africa, and have never had to give any of this info.

2025-12-04 08:37:58 UTC

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@nprofile…3g8m I obviously need 20 more 3D printers.

2025-11-28 04:37:31 UTC

Interesting Go based CM system https://github.com/gogrlx/grlx

2025-11-03 13:04:49 UTC

The super power most OSS users lack: Asking a question, then trying the answer you're given without first having a argument with the person helping you because you think you know better.

2025-08-08 15:36:16 UTC

Did github really just break the browser back button on a ton of places?
It's such useless designer vomit now vs actual utility sigh

2025-08-08 11:13:17 UTC

Not much to say about GPT-5 yet for my use cases but OMG FINALLY NO FUCKING EMOJIS EVERYWHERE.

2025-07-07 09:11:23 UTC

@nprofile…us66 this also have bookmarks and GPX and offline routing etc
https://mastodon.scot/@kim_harding/114805402854181804

2025-07-04 06:41:39 UTC

Been exploring hard last few years and still loads to go around the Baltics.
It is mainly flat with trees though.
https://devco.social/system/media_attachments/files/114/793/597/815/620/338/original/f7784dbfc8771462.png

2025-03-26 08:05:03 UTC

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@nprofile…kxk4 the foundation model is so weird, like you only really know what it’s like and what you gain and what they offer (or don’t) once you join and been there. But generally joining is a one way street - you donate the project and trademarks to them. You can never get it back, change your mind or vote with your feet should they become awful.

2025-03-24 03:36:19 UTC

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@nprofile…a46r please note we have one issue to solve around TTLs and periods without a leader. So we will only add KV support in 2.11.1 in our clients

2025-03-23 17:40:07 UTC

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@nprofile…ssyg Thats not how words work :)