Postgres Conference Seattle 2024 partnered up with PASS this year to present a united database front. They accepted my “What’s our Vector, Victor?” talk, which I graciously gave on the first day of the conference. If you weren’t there and missed out on the fun, this is your chance to catch up and maybe get a bit more information that was cut for length. Let me tell you why RAG is the future, and how Postgres and pg_vectorize make it a reality.

About two months ago while browsing X, one of the people I follow posted a video recorded in 1985. It struck me in a way things of that era often do, and I sought a word that would adequately describe the feeling. I was only 8 when this video was recorded, but I still feel it down to my bones. I need a word that's a mix of melancholy, nostalgia, wistfulness, and poignancy, because it's all of those and more.

Things always start in an unassuming way, don’t they? Having recently returned from a short paternity leave, the Tembo CTO wanted a short meeting last Friday morning, and I assumed it was so he could catch up with our projects. Instead, he informed me that the company was changing direction, and my services would no longer be necessary. I knew the company was beginning a sharp pivot, but was hoping my project would survive the tumult.

Last week I attended Postgres Conference Seattle 2024 as a speaker for two sessions. The first, titled “What’s our Vector, Victor?” discussed the merits of the pg_vectorize extension for Postgres. The second, titled “Kubernetes Killed the High Availability Star” served an advocacy piece for the ultimate deprecation of Postgres High Availability tooling in general. On day two of the event, I ended up having a long conversation about system architecture with Harry Pierson from DBOS.

There seems to be a lot of debate on both sides of the political aisle, and I’m far from a disinterested observer. While I strive to remain objectively detached in most circumstances, I’ve found that this particular election cycle makes that impossible. Being the polarizing figure that he is, the fundamental reason for this is obviously Donald J. Trump. This isn’t click-bait; I’m not voting for him. The reason for that is much more nuanced than some might expect, so I feel it’s important to explain my reasoning.