This is from last year when I tried to recreate Rach Smith's P5.js animation using CSS. The animation seemed like it could be implemented in a breeze, but there's an illusion of simplicity. The process of manually updating the positions and directions …
One of the most difficult challenges I've faced in my career is figuring out product-market fit. I'd wager most of us have gotten there through sheer dumb luck. What do we do if we're not lucky, if we don't strike gold on our first try? I don't know if I have …
“Up, down, up, down, up, down, …” What comes next? You know the answer - it is “Up” How did you know it? Your mind inferred some sort of structure, and made a guess I mean - we do not know - what truly will come next. But we are pretty sure - due to the repeti…
A critical look at why large companies fail to produce design excellence.
A new book about the future of capitalism and an invitation to participate in it.
Those 4-wheel spinner suitcases look pretty and they're fine for smooth surfaces. But they're terrible for cobblestones, pavers, and bad sidewalks.
Every programming language comes with some “batteries” included - mostly in the form of its standard library. That’s typically all of the functionality that’s available out-of-the-box, without the need to install additional libraries. (although the definition …
Unvibe: A Python Test-Runner that generates correct code
Creating a schemaless search system in Postgres
I've been running VideoToBe.com, a simple transcription service using a single machine hosted in my house. My DIY setup is small, yet functional.
Overview The results are in! Thank you to everyone who has participated in the contest! I am floored by all of the creativity and thought put into the entries!! I'd like to list out the entries, what I like about each one, and finally outline…
Short thoughts on C++, Unix and in general, technology
Diving into Python to scrape, parse, and index the newly released JFK files into a searchable database.
reflections on using LLMs in my own programming workflow
Numerous applications rely on email addresses to recognize users. Since email addresses are unique, they serve as a reliable way of verifying the authenticity of a user. However, sending emails to incorrect addresses can result in errors. This is why the forma…
I think the future of the cloud is bright. I explain why and what can be improved.
--
It's time to escape the Burnout Machine.
An interactive demo for developers to try the new text-to-speech model in the OpenAI API
You can now use Claude to search the internet to provide more up-to-date and relevant responses.
When people first hear about unsafe in Rust, they often have questions. A very normal thing to ask is, “wait a minute, doesn’t this defeat the purpose?” And while it’s a perfectly reasonable question, the answer is both straightforward and has a lot of nuance.…
Discover what's new in GNOME, the distraction-free computing platform.
When it comes to .NET MAUI development, GitHub Copilot is Rachel Kang's go-to sidekick. In this One Dev Question, Rachel shares how she uses AI in her day-to-day, from helping improve C# and XAML code to writing blog posts and docs. https://msft.it/6057qZnLb
You probably know about .NET Aspire by now and how great it is for web applications, containers and cloud apps. What if I told you that it can also be VERY useful for mobile app development? Insights in metrics, tracing those HTTP requests and no more fumbling…
Turn your videos into live streams with https://restream.io Fritz is working on the open source CMS SharpSite. Learn more and get the source at https://sharpsite.org
LLM scrapers are taking down FOSS projects' infrastructure, and it's getting worse.
The internet as we know it thrives on separation—specifically, the separation of clients and servers. It’s a fundamental principle of REST and a key factor in building scalable, maintainable, and flexible applications. But what exactly does this separation mea…
Developing a complex CI pipeline with github actions is full of gotchas.
Revisiting David Thompson's "My favourite Git commit"
This story is about concurrent data structures in the context of Ruby. The goal here is to demonstrate how true parallelism can be achieved with global mutable state (which at the time of writing, is not supported by built-in Ruby primitives).
The way I see it, there are two dominant leadership styles in business and government today. On one side, we have the ruthless and ambitious—but destructive—narcissists. These are the Elon Musks, Jeff Bezoses, Donald Trumps, and Peter Thiels of the world. They…
The way LLMs run in Kubernetes is quite a bit different than running web apps or APIs. Recently I was digging into the benefits of the Inference Extensions for the Kubernetes Gateway API and I needed to generate some load for the backend LLMs I deployed (Llama…
RAG Integration with SharePoint: Leverage Your Enterprise Documents with rlama Pro
Thoughts about Software and Building Software
I once heard a programmer call GitHub a graveyard for side projects. Felt kinda unfair to all the folks out there grinding away, making progress day in and day out. But I get it. Getting a project off the ground takes the ability to push forward with something…
As I wrote about in February, Ash and I are traveling to Japan for three months (May → August). It's a trip I've always wanted to take, and since I'm between work engagements I've been taking some time to prepare. Three months is a long time to spend in a c…
For years, I’ve been thinking about how we store and access our digital files, especially photos.
This post can be considered an advanced Zig tutorial. I will be covering some of the more unique aspects of the language, but won't be explaining the easy part. If you haven't read the Zig Language Reference, you might start there. Additionally, we will also l…
TL;DR: If you think My Discipline is Good, and Other Discipline is Bad then you are fooling yourself — and avoiding the work that needs to be done to make things better.
When Uber introduced surge pricing in 2011, many condemned it as merely a price gouging tactic. But consumers eventually realized its primary
Building the future. Founder, entrepreneur, and startup advisor.
Alex's Blog
A simple but powerful approach to note taking
I tend to write a lot about my opinions about academia in my area (theoretical computer science), e.g., about open access, about general problems with academia, etc. If you are interested in this topic, I just contributed an interview to the latest Bulletin of…
A well-designed REST API isn’t just a random collection of endpoints—it follows a set of principles that make it predictable, scalable, and easy to use. One of the core constraints of REST is the Uniform Interface. This principle ensures that APIs are structur…
Blindspots in LLMs I’ve noticed while AI coding. Sonnet family emphasis. Maybe I will eventually suggest Cursor rules for these problems.