An interesting perspective. The tradeoffs here are genuinely complex and depend heavily on context that isn't visible from the outside. Would be curious to hear more about the failure modes encountered.
The style of the blog post, with short, abrupt sentences does not captivate me. I’d like to think someone writing a book has a more interesting writing style. Or maybe LLMs have damaged me and I’m too critical of writing style now, whatever it is this doesn’t sell the book to me.
I started to read the blog post and got lost trying to shoot down all these aliens falling down from space. It's really a nice game integrated in the webpage. I was able to double my canon and even get a bigger blue laser. I wonder how much more weapon upgrades there is. Awesome game inside this blog.
- All his other domains are recently registered too, the oldest one `byvoss.tech` is from May 2025.
- GitHub has way too little projects and contributions for someone with such experience. The first project dates on the same day as the domain registration: https://github.com/VivianVossNet?tab=repositories
- As other people mentioned, too many blog posts lately (almost one a day), and a very weird writing style. Which doesn't seem at all that's because it's English as a second language. It's just plainly vague and disconnected sentences.
Have you considered that "very weird writing style" might be due to the fact that a German person is writing in English?
One post a day over the last short period of time does not seem unusual for someone who is suddenly interested in a least a part-time career as an author.
Your random online persona assassination aside, I am curious about the book. The Devil Book kept me occupied for years when I was in university; I'd like to see what I've missed since then.
This person appeared out of nowhere 6 months ago and started posting on linkedin. With 6k followers and so much experience I would expect a couple of recommendations.
Also gitlab and Github account appeared around the same time...
Maybe it's just my paranoia in the AI slop age.
"Github has way too little projects"... I had PRs against stinkpad wireless drivers in 1999/2000 time frame - FreeBSD specific. Do I expect those to be around? No.
Do I think 20+ years of working for commercial companies means I have a splendid GH resume - absolutely not.
Using your logic for HN, 140 karma, ignore.
VV has been in the community awhile (I'm not active, but watch). AI slop isn't a thing, trolling for top of HN is.
Counterpoint: most AI slop authors have multiple books/posts on random subjects. This is their only book on Amazon and their posts sound like draft chapters. Could this just be new author with an unconventional writing style and a disciplined daily schedule?
I'm not sure I'd put it at full slop, but the book is clearly AI assisted. You can view samples on retailer websites, and it features 'interjections' from an AI avatar. Further, in the opening pages, the author feels it pertinent to point out that every fact in the book is verified. Not my cup of tea.
I have had various servers over time running FreeBSD, both physically in my home, rented bare metal servers and rented VPSes.
So I’m not exactly a newcomer to FreeBSD, but I am wondering if this book might be relevant to me anyways.
My main issue with my servers that I would like to solve better, is how to organize the file system layout and ZFS “datasets” in a better way.
I generally don’t use separate disks for system and other things. Whatever number of disks are available, anywhere from a single disk or a pair of disks up to several handfuls of disks become a zpool where both the system is installed and all my data lives too.
For example, this is the zpool setup of one physical bare metal rented server I have, consisting of ten disks all put into a single raidz3 grouping:
This particular server I’m underutilising in terms of total amount of space I am using va how much it can hold, so it’s due to be replaced by something with fewer disks. At the moment I use this server only for backup storage, and that will be the role of the server that replaces it too.
Another physical bare metal server I rent has only two disks, so I have them in a mirror setup:
I use ZFS send and recv to make backups of this server to the one with the many disks.
This server with the mirror pool runs some actual services like a couple of websites and a PeerTube instance etc, all in separate jails.
However, in spite of the goodness of having jails it’s still a bit of a mess I’ve made, that make it somewhat difficult (time consuming) to set up a new server with a similar setup to replace it one day when the disks give up and I have to restore from backup.
In particular I have a bit of config and other files spread out in the host system itself.
I am hoping that given that this book looks to be focused in part on practical examples, that perhaps if I buy this book I can get some inspiration for how I can better set up a new server and make it so that in the future that one in turn would be quicker to move between machines.
Also, the pool on the server with the mirrored disk setup has become extremely fragmented:
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
zroot 3.62T 3.18T 453G - - 48% 87% 1.00x ONLINE -
Which I am pretty sure is also the reason why sshing into it takes around 30 to 60 seconds to get to the shell.
What I really would like is to have it so that one ZFS “dataset” contains only the base system as it comes from a fresh install, and to have config changes I’ve added be separately stored and somehow overlaid on top of that. While at the same time having it so that when I install updates to the system, the default config files that are updated are not written out into the overlay but instead replace what’s below in the default install. If that makes sense.
And perhaps that instead of having many pkg installs for various tools in the host system that I add a sort of management jail where I can install various tools and edit files and manage the server, if possible.
Also I am wondering if running multiple instances of PostgreSQL server each in their separate jails is better, or having a single PostgreSQL server in a single jail that all the other jails share for services I have in jails where the services use PostgreSQL.
An interesting perspective. The tradeoffs here are genuinely complex and depend heavily on context that isn't visible from the outside. Would be curious to hear more about the failure modes encountered.
No unencumbered epub, no sale.
I ordered the hard copy, but for those with Kindle Unlimited....it's available there.
KU is for escape not text for me, so I'll wait for the book.
The style of the blog post, with short, abrupt sentences does not captivate me. I’d like to think someone writing a book has a more interesting writing style. Or maybe LLMs have damaged me and I’m too critical of writing style now, whatever it is this doesn’t sell the book to me.
The author is quite prolific. Basically a blog post per day for the last couple of months!
To me, that actually screams LLM. At the very least much LLM assisted.
I started to read the blog post and got lost trying to shoot down all these aliens falling down from space. It's really a nice game integrated in the webpage. I was able to double my canon and even get a bigger blue laser. I wonder how much more weapon upgrades there is. Awesome game inside this blog.
Came for the FreeBSD content. Stayed for the game. I am easily distracted.
VV pubished the site a couple weeks back on L*nkedin. It was a distraction for me as well.
yeah holy shit this game owns i have no idea what the article is about
The page about the earnings[0] is interesting. The Amazon share for kindle edition is higher than I expected.
[0]:https://vivianvoss.net/print/integrated-by-design
This looks AI Slop. At first the style of the site and the cover of the book were a bit suspicious, but then digging a bit further:
- Domain was registered in February this year: https://www.whois.com/whois/vivianvoss.net
- Web archive has only a couple snapshots before this year, and it seemed to belong to an "Elite Escort": https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://vivianvo...
- All his other domains are recently registered too, the oldest one `byvoss.tech` is from May 2025.
- GitHub has way too little projects and contributions for someone with such experience. The first project dates on the same day as the domain registration: https://github.com/VivianVossNet?tab=repositories
- As other people mentioned, too many blog posts lately (almost one a day), and a very weird writing style. Which doesn't seem at all that's because it's English as a second language. It's just plainly vague and disconnected sentences.
Have you considered that "very weird writing style" might be due to the fact that a German person is writing in English?
One post a day over the last short period of time does not seem unusual for someone who is suddenly interested in a least a part-time career as an author.
Your random online persona assassination aside, I am curious about the book. The Devil Book kept me occupied for years when I was in university; I'd like to see what I've missed since then.
I'm waiting on my physical copy, but, yes the writing style from a native German can be odd at times (the ex was german).
The poster is trying to get karma being "contrairian".
LinkedIn profile picture is oddly smooth and has the OpenAI signature yellow hue, although it could just be an odd touch-up.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vvoss/
This person appeared out of nowhere 6 months ago and started posting on linkedin. With 6k followers and so much experience I would expect a couple of recommendations. Also gitlab and Github account appeared around the same time... Maybe it's just my paranoia in the AI slop age.
Thanks for pointing out. So close to buying it. Would appreciate more disclosure regarding the use of hostile technology.
I'll look into this a bit. But...
"Github has way too little projects"... I had PRs against stinkpad wireless drivers in 1999/2000 time frame - FreeBSD specific. Do I expect those to be around? No.
Do I think 20+ years of working for commercial companies means I have a splendid GH resume - absolutely not.
Using your logic for HN, 140 karma, ignore.
VV has been in the community awhile (I'm not active, but watch). AI slop isn't a thing, trolling for top of HN is.
Counterpoint: most AI slop authors have multiple books/posts on random subjects. This is their only book on Amazon and their posts sound like draft chapters. Could this just be new author with an unconventional writing style and a disciplined daily schedule?
I'm not sure I'd put it at full slop, but the book is clearly AI assisted. You can view samples on retailer websites, and it features 'interjections' from an AI avatar. Further, in the opening pages, the author feels it pertinent to point out that every fact in the book is verified. Not my cup of tea.
Hardcover not available on .co.jp, shame
I have had various servers over time running FreeBSD, both physically in my home, rented bare metal servers and rented VPSes.
So I’m not exactly a newcomer to FreeBSD, but I am wondering if this book might be relevant to me anyways.
My main issue with my servers that I would like to solve better, is how to organize the file system layout and ZFS “datasets” in a better way.
I generally don’t use separate disks for system and other things. Whatever number of disks are available, anywhere from a single disk or a pair of disks up to several handfuls of disks become a zpool where both the system is installed and all my data lives too.
For example, this is the zpool setup of one physical bare metal rented server I have, consisting of ten disks all put into a single raidz3 grouping:
This particular server I’m underutilising in terms of total amount of space I am using va how much it can hold, so it’s due to be replaced by something with fewer disks. At the moment I use this server only for backup storage, and that will be the role of the server that replaces it too.Another physical bare metal server I rent has only two disks, so I have them in a mirror setup:
I use ZFS send and recv to make backups of this server to the one with the many disks.This server with the mirror pool runs some actual services like a couple of websites and a PeerTube instance etc, all in separate jails.
However, in spite of the goodness of having jails it’s still a bit of a mess I’ve made, that make it somewhat difficult (time consuming) to set up a new server with a similar setup to replace it one day when the disks give up and I have to restore from backup.
In particular I have a bit of config and other files spread out in the host system itself.
I am hoping that given that this book looks to be focused in part on practical examples, that perhaps if I buy this book I can get some inspiration for how I can better set up a new server and make it so that in the future that one in turn would be quicker to move between machines.
Also, the pool on the server with the mirrored disk setup has become extremely fragmented:
Which I am pretty sure is also the reason why sshing into it takes around 30 to 60 seconds to get to the shell.What I really would like is to have it so that one ZFS “dataset” contains only the base system as it comes from a fresh install, and to have config changes I’ve added be separately stored and somehow overlaid on top of that. While at the same time having it so that when I install updates to the system, the default config files that are updated are not written out into the overlay but instead replace what’s below in the default install. If that makes sense.
And perhaps that instead of having many pkg installs for various tools in the host system that I add a sort of management jail where I can install various tools and edit files and manage the server, if possible.
Also I am wondering if running multiple instances of PostgreSQL server each in their separate jails is better, or having a single PostgreSQL server in a single jail that all the other jails share for services I have in jails where the services use PostgreSQL.
forums.freebsd.org may be a good place to discuss these sort of questions.