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If you have not heard the news, Google Fiber is no longer expanding its installation in the 10 markets they service and the head of Google Access (the Google Fiber overlord company), Craig Barratt, is stepping down. Also in the news, was a little-publicized statement from AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, where he said, “I will be sorely disappointed if we are not going head-to-head” with cable companies by 2021. As an aside, AT&T’s plan to compete with cable providers is already feasible. AT&T is already testing its 5G network and expects a full 5G deployment by 2020-2021. A 5G network will be more than capable of providing TV over internet. AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and their upcoming 5G network means they have the ability to go head-to-head with cable companies in a big way. They only need Time Warner to compete with Comcast because Comcast owns content creators; AT&T does not. ...

I was invited to speak at DevOpsDays Detroit 2016. I had a fantastic time speaking with the crowd in Detroit. This talk was my first foray into the talk world. I went long and could probably optimize the content of the slides (less words). However, I was very happy with the positive feedback and was blown away by how great the DevOpsDays volunteers and organizers. Slides

A few weeks ago, one of my DevOps counterparts was working on building out a new environment for one of our applications. This deployment included a new Puppet server (we are in an orchestration/configuration management state of flux) and my teammate was having some issues provisioning users (I did not ask why nor did I really care). My teammate asked if I could help with some Ansible knowledge. User management usually falls into one of two categories; disjointed or a monumental effort. This Ansible solution could be that nice middle ground between the disjointed and monumental. ...

Note: If you know of other remixes that showcase the lyrics of Notorious B.I.G., please let me know. The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, Biggie Smalls, Big Poppa, The Black Frank White, The King of New York, however you refer to him, Christopher Wallace was one of the best rappers to ever walk planet earth. Since Biggie’s death in 1997 his timeless lyrics have served as a foundation for many remixes and mashups. This is the definitive collection of the best studio quality Notorious B.I.G. remixes and mashups ever created. ...

The Ansible lineinfile module is designed to search a file for a line, and ensure that it is present or absent. lineinfile is very effective at that particular task. However, when the line has to be in a certain place or before or after a certain line, lineinfile becomes a hassle to manage. Most people on IRC (#ansible) tend to agree, lineinfile is not a very good module in practice. Even Brain Coca says to avoid the lineinfile module. But, there is one use case I have found where line in file really excels. ...