Advertise on podcast: More than a refresh: Conversations with the most interesting people you've never met

In this episode, Denis Magda, author of Just Use Postgres, joins JD to talk about how PostgreSQL is often misunderstood. Many developers still approach Postgres as a traditional relational database, even though it has evolved far beyond that. Denis shares how he personally rediscovered Postgres while exploring its modern capabilities, from native JSON support and full-text search to extensions for time-series and vector workloads. For many teams, these features are already available, but rarely used. The idea behind “Just Use Postgres” is not about forcing a single solution. It’s a practical reminder: before introducing another database into your architecture, take a closer look at what Postgres can already handle. Denis Magda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmagda/Just Use Postgres!: https://www.manning.com/books/just-use-postgres

Welcome back to More Than a Refresh Presents: T3D Sessions.In this episode, Pauline Vos, software engineer and open source maintainer for MongoDB’s PHP ecosystem, breaks down a reality most teams overlook: the open source libraries your product depends on may be maintained by a single person with no long-term guarantees. What happens when that person steps away?Pauline explains why companies need to actively invest engineering resources into maintaining their surrounding open source ecosystem; not just for stability, but to reduce risk, improve developer experience, and build strategic relationships within key frameworks. From client libraries to community goodwill, this conversation reframes open source not as a dependency, but as part of the product itself.Whether you’re leading engineering, managing infrastructure, or building developer-facing tools, this episode highlights a critical shift: relying on open source isn’t enough, you have to support it.📲 Pauline Vos:https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulinepvos/

Welcome to Episode 55 of More Than a Refresh, where JD sits down with Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman, Developer Advocate at Redgate, for a candid conversation about AI, governance, and the economics shaping today’s technology landscape.From database culture and open source philosophy to AI monetization models and corporate risk, this episode explores a central tension: if data is the product, who actually benefits? Kellyn shares why governance must come before adoption, why many organizations implement AI without defining the problem they’re solving, and why internal behavior—not external attackers—often creates the biggest security risk.This is a grounded, unfiltered look at the intersection of technology, responsibility, and profit—and what it means for the people building and using these systems.📲 Kellyn Gorman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyngorman/

In this episode of More Than a Refresh: T3D Sessions, Marijn Markus, AI Lead and Managing Data Scientist at Capgemini, breaks down a question most teams aren’t asking clearly enough: what happens when the majority of what we see online isn’t coming from real people?The conversation moves beyond AI hype into something more immediate. Marijn explains the difference between misinformation and disinformation, how bot-driven narratives scale faster than truth, and why outrage has become a business model. From fake personas to coordinated information campaigns, this is a grounded look at how digital systems shape perception, trust, and decision-making.Whether you’re leading a team, building products, or making strategic calls based on online signals, this episode offers a sharper lens on what you’re actually seeing and what you might be missing.📲 Marijn Markus:https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijnmarkus/

In this episode, JD talks with Thomas Carnevale, founder of Umbrella Security, about a gap most people don’t realize exists until it’s too late: the difference between systems that look secure and systems that actually deter.Cameras are everywhere, and that’s exactly the problem. As Thomas explains, visibility alone doesn’t stop anything anymore. Real security requires response, timing, and systems designed to interrupt behavior, not just record it.Drawing from decades of experience designing enterprise and government security infrastructure, Thomas walks through what effective protection actually looks like today, where “AI” fits into the picture, and why human judgment still needs to stay in the loop. Umbrella Security Systems: umbellasecurity.com 

In this episode, JD sits down with Andrew Bolton, Co-Founder and CEO of Tech Rescue, to explore what happens when a hyper-connected world leaves millions behind. What starts as a conversation about 24-hour technical support quickly expands into something bigger: access to healthcare, logistics, and the growing gap between technology’s capabilities and real human support.Andrew explains how 80 million Americans have been left behind by rapid technological change, including 16 million without reliable access to essential healthcare services . Tech Rescue positions itself as more than IT support. It operates as a 24/7 life concierge, coordinating everything from doctor appointments and transportation to navigating smart home devices and connected systems.From punch cards to smartphones more powerful than moon-landing computers, this conversation examines the paradox of modern infrastructure: we are more connected than ever, yet many people still struggle to access basic services.📲 Andrew Bolton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-bolton-/TechRescue Llc:https://www.linkedin.com/company/techrescue-llc/https://techrescue.io/

In this episode, JD sits down with Hunter O’Brien to break down one of the most misunderstood areas of AWS: Identity and Access Management (IAM). Designing policies sounds straightforward, until wildcards, over-permissioned roles, and unclear resource access create real risk in production.Hunter explains how the AWS IAM Policy Simulator allows teams to safely test roles before they reach production. By simulating API calls without affecting live systems or billing, organizations can design least-privilege policies, validate MFA enforcement, and avoid accidental overexposure.

Welcome to episode 55 of More Than a Refresh. In this episode, JD Drake talks with Samantha Baldwin, Policy & Research Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), about the growing push for age verification laws in the United States.These proposals are often framed as protecting children online. But what do they actually require from operating systems, platforms, and users? They discuss how these laws work, why many may be technically ineffective, and what the long term implications could be for digital rights, anonymity, and online speech. Samantha is a Policy & Research Staff Technologist on EFF's Public Interest Technology team. She has a background in software development, electrical engineering, and linguistics. Samantha loves open source software, reverse engineering, team sports, cycling and weiqi. Samantha is passionate about safety, equity, digital privacy and is urgently concerned about the climate crisis.

In this Postgres Pet Peeves episode, JD sits down with Yurii Rashkovskii to unpack a frustration many experienced engineers quietly share: why is Postgres so difficult to evolve?The conversation centers on architecture. From tightly coupled storage and transaction layers to row-oriented execution models, Yurii explains why experimenting with new storage engines or fundamentally different designs inside Postgres is far from simple. What looks modular on the surface often reveals deep interdependencies underneath.If you’ve ever pushed Postgres beyond the “average install” and hit architectural ceilings, this episode will resonate.📲 Yurii Rashkovskii: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yrashk/Inferal: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inferal/🎧 Listen to all More Than a Refresh episodes:https://www.commandprompt.com/mtar/

In this episode, JD sits down with Command Prompt CIO Ildefonso Camargo to challenge a common assumption in modern infrastructure: if you can afford the cloud, why wouldn’t you use it?What starts as a simple cost comparison turns into a deeper discussion about accounting realities, hardware depreciation, staffing requirements, compliance, and operational risk. Ildefonso shares what sparked the conversation—seeing a large enterprise sign a long-term cloud contract with a massive monthly bill—and questioning whether owning infrastructure might actually make more financial sense.

In this episode, JD sits down with Amanda Nystrom, CEO of Command Prompt and National Board Certified Health & Wellbeing Coach, to talk about wellness for people in tech and why most advice misses the point.Rather than focusing on quick fixes, discipline, or one-size-fits-all tools, Amanda explains why awareness has to come first. They explore how environment, nervous system load, work culture, and internal narratives all shape health outcomes, often more than diet or exercise alone.

Welcome back to More Than a Refresh Presents: T3D Sessions.In this episode, Joshua “JD” Drake talks with Lev Kokotov, creator of PGDog, about one of the hardest problems in PostgreSQL: horizontal scaling in real production systems.Lev shares lessons learned from scaling Postgres at Instacart during periods of extreme growth, and why existing approaches often fail when applied to large, established applications. They explore what happens when rewriting millions of lines of code simply isn’t an option—and why tooling needs to adapt to applications, not the other way around.

Welcome to Episode 54 of More Than a Refresh, where JD sits down with Kevin Jernigan to talk about AI hype versus reality, the real limits of scaling large language models, and why more data centers don’t necessarily mean smarter systems.They explore the economic and technical constraints behind today’s AI boom, what current models get fundamentally wrong, and what it would take to move beyond pattern matching toward something more meaningful.

In this episode, JD sits down with Brian Fehrle to unpack a deceptively simple PostgreSQL operation that can trigger serious performance issues: adding a new column with a default value.Brian explains how PostgreSQL’s optimization—introduced to avoid table rewrites and long locks—can leave data “virtual” rather than physically written to disk. While this makes schema changes faster, it can quietly confuse the query planner, skew statistics, and turn previously fast queries into production problems, especially when the new column is used in WHERE clauses.This episode is a must-listen for DBAs, Postgres operators, and engineers managing large PostgreSQL workloads—especially in cloud environments—who want to avoid subtle changes that can cascade into days of degraded performance.

In this episode, JD is joined by Alan Lazaros for a conversation about systems, consistency, and the long game behind meaningful progress. While most people focus on big breakthroughs, this discussion explores how small, intentional actions—repeated daily—compound into exponential results over time.Drawing from personal experience and years of coaching, Alan reflects on health, wealth, relationships, and fulfillment as interconnected systems. Rather than chasing intensity or quick wins, the episode reframes growth as something built gradually, through steady effort and long-term thinking.