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[Jennifer Curtis]

When we build services architectures (Service Oriented Architecture, Microservices, the next incarnation, etc), we end up making a lot more calls over the network. The network is perilous. We try to build redundancy into our services so that we can experience failures in our system and still move forward and process customer requests. An important part of this puzzle of building redundant, resilient systems is smart, application-aware load balancing. Matt Klein recently wrote an awesome piece on modern load balancing that you should probably stop and go read right now.

Netflix OSS released an implementation of circuit breaker back in 2012 called Netflix OSS Hystrix. Hystrix is a client-side Java library for getting circuit-breaking behavior. Hystrix provides the following behavior.

Another important consideration is that Hystrix, makes very apparent that it treats failures/timeouts no different, for the purposes of circuit breaking, where the failure occurred. That is, it could have occurred in the transport or in the client code itself. Hystrix detects circuit breaking thresholds irrespective of where the failure occurred.

One of the benefits of a library approach is the fine-grained application aware circuit-breaking policies we can apply. Hystrix documentation uses the examples of different read/query/write invocations to a single upstream cluster. For example, from the Hystrix FAQ :

The last piece to the circuit breaking puzzle is what happens when we reach our circuit-breaking thresholds. With Hystrix, the concept of fallbacks is built into the library and can be orchestrated by the library. In Hystrix we can do things like cache results, fallback to default values, or even take alternative paths by calling different services. We can also get very fine-grained detail about what failed and make application-specific decisions.

I'm deeply envious of my Twitter friend Travis Lowdermilk. Check out his sweet Windows 8 setup running Netflix with snapped view with Tweetro down the side. He's not just pimped his tablet with Windows 8, he's pimped his whole life.

I don't get that juicy Windows 8-slash-Netflix goodness. Whenever I try to play anything on the newly announced Windows 8 Netflix app it just borks out with error "W8158". It asks me to run Windows Update and check my drivers.

OK, so this may be me. I run Windows 8 in an unusual way. My day-to-day machine is a MacBook Pro, and I run Windows 8 using VMware Fusion. I reached out over Twitter this morning to find people with similar experiences. Two people confirmed it was working Travis-style for them. A few others had the W8158 error I had, and a few more had a different W8156 error. From what I can tell, W8158 is a driver problem, W8156 is a network problem, but don't quote me on it. One person reported running Windows Update cleared W8156, oddly. Others said that being authenticated to a domain or not made W8156 appear or disappear, but at this point I'm not sure why I'm doing technical support for Netflix - perhaps it's my innate desire for Windows 8 not to be a disaster.

Scratch an iPad deep enough and at its base you'll find Darwin - the core operating system that underpins both iOS and OS X. This is similar to how Windows NT underpins both Windows 8 and Windows RT. The point is that Apple and Microsoft have taken similar approaches in that they have a small, central OS on which they build two distinct branches of products. OS X and Windows are used for broad-scale computing device, what we might call a "normal computer". The other brand contains very-focused, small-scale, highly-portable devices - specifically post-PC devices like Apple's iPad and Microsoft's Windows RT. Both firms use the same approach to build the same sort of devices targeting the same sort of markets.

So let's look back at the Netflix app not working on Windows 8. My attitude when I saw it not work was "oh well, it's not working" and then I moved on. Like a lot of Windows users, I've become inured to things just not working. I gave up on having the sort of slick Netflix experience that Travis enjoyed and resolved to try again in the future when Netflix and/or VMware had sorted the problem out. I no longer get a sense of frustration from things not working on Windows because that's just what I've got used to.

There will be a raft of Windows 8 tablets that are sold at the same price point of the iPad. People will buy them expecting the same experience. But what happens in Apple-land is that the Netflix app and its kin always work. (Or it very obviously doesn't and very publicly fails.) Whereas in Windows-land people hover their finger over the button perhaps expecting failure, the intimidation-free world of the iPad yields no such anxiety. Those users expecting a land of "just working" goodness, but actually being in "oops, this is going to break!" Old Windows-land could end up being very, very unhappy customers indeed.

Over on Windows RT, because the environment is far more tightly controlled, we should find that the Netflix app just works, perfectly, on every device. Windows RT devices are simpler, the driver surface area much more tightly controlled, and there will be far fewer of them compared to the OEM free-for-all we're going to see on the Windows 8 side. A Windows RT user should be anxiety-free and intimidation-free. You also can't install Old Windows software on Windows RT, which greatly reduces your chances of inadvertendly breaking something by replacing a component with something bad.

This is why consumers should buy Windows RT devices and eschew Windows 8 devices. Windows 8 is too complicated, too open to the old rubbish we're used to with "normal computers". Windows RT has a much better chance of "just working". If you're looking to buy a family member a Windows tablet this holiday season, if you love them, buy them Windows RT not Windows 8.

In the weeks since Netflix released the Shawn Levy-directed historical drama All the Light We Cannot See, the limited series has received mixed reviews. Mashable's Belen Edwards said the show's at-times "heavy-handed" dialogue was equally matched by "genuine earnestness" and phenomenal acting performances, while the Hollywood Reporter called it a "clumsy" offering that seemed to "dislike" its literary origins.

But none of that really matters. To a certain extent, the show's lasting impact won't be about its faithfulness as an adaptation of the 2014 prizewinning novel by Anthony Doerr, or its success in depicting a WWII-doomed relationship. Because, for what the show may lack in artistic value to some reviewers, All the Light We Cannot See makes up for in its efforts to pioneer an alternative, disability-forward Hollywood.

The story playing out across the four episodes follows the lives of two star-crossed teens in Nazi-occupied France: Werner (Louis Hofmann), a German radio operator aligned with the occupying Nazi forces, and Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), a young woman clandestinely using the radio waves to send messages to resistance fighters. But as one quickly comes to learn, Marie-Laure relies on broadcast for more than obfuscation, with the radio offering a vital connection for her as a blind woman navigating 1940s France.

Netflix has billed the drama (which also stars big celebs Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie) as both a compelling, emotional story of resistance and as a representative win for the disability community, even screening the show to press and disability advocates in collaboration with organizations like Guide Dogs for the Blind, the National Federation of the Blind, and the Library of Congress' National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.

It's a sign of changing times that the blind main character, as well as the younger version of Marie-Laure, are played by actors who are themselves blind, with Loberti leading the charge and young up-and-comer Nell Sutton playing the character's younger self.

Before getting into the nuts and bolts, Joe Strechay wants you, readers, to know he is "dashingly good-looking." Strechay, sporting long, brown hair and a wide smile, notes this important fact while speaking to Mashable over a Zoom call the week after the new show's premiere, sitting in front of a sparse wall as a bathroom remodel happens next door.

Over the last decade, Strechay has paved a path in entertainment marked by increasingly inclusive sets and more enthusiastically authentic portrayals of characters who are blind or have low-vision. "I've been passionate about television and films since I was young," he told Mashable. It's a highly personal effort for Strechay: He is also blind.

As a teenager, Strechay worked in a video rental store, "like Netflix but a building you go into, and there'd be movies on the wall and such," he explains to the young or uninformed. He went to college, studied communications, public relations, and media, and, by the end of his first semester, had lost most of his vision.

Strechay later attended graduate school at Florida State University, working in the school's visual disabilities program, with a focus on teaching children who are blind and providing transition support for young people moving from school to work or postsecondary education. Strechay would go on to manage and teach transitional life skills to children and adults, worked in grantmaking and government offices, and acted as a disability consultant to all kinds of organizations.

Even before shooting, Strechay helped create accessible audition processes, scripts, and casting environments during the show's development, in collaboration with the director, the production team, and outside organizations like the American Council of the Blind, the National Federation of the Blind, and RespectAbility. During shooting, Strechay also consulted a personal network of experts and advocates under nondisclosure agreements, and utilized an assistant, Cara Lee Hrdlitschka, who described actors' movements and scenes to him during shooting.

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