Every Bit Counts, a Journey Into Prometheus Binary Data

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2024-09-25 16:00:10

It was day five of what I thought would be a fun two-day side project, and I had identified a small bug. Was my code wrong, or the original code running on millions of computers for years wrong? I blamed my code, it’s almost always my code. However, after too many hours of debugging, I eventually found the bug in the original code.

Sometimes, Prometheus was storing eight unnecessary zeros! That’s not right! We often discuss sustainability and saving the world from the climate crisis at work. We guessed that fixing the bug could reduce the Prometheus’ environmental footprint by a few grams of CO₂ per year, so I could allow myself a plastic straw.

It’s common practice to start an article with a random illustration. I made the illustrations using MacDraw instead of generative AI art, to better please the target audience.

A time series is a collection of events or values recorded over time. For example, a thermometer recording a room temperature every five seconds produces time-series data.