Author: laptopheaven

I’ve shared a couple of thought-provoking reads on my blog: one dives into the quirks of an intriguingly messy codebase and the lessons it holds, while the other explores what a home designer-turned-software architect has to teach us about superior software design. Check them out for some unique perspectives!

• “We ran out of columns” – The best, worst codebase:
• What a Home Designer turned Software Architect can teach you about Software Design:

I’ve curated an exciting mix of content for you! Dive into a free 7-day high-protein diet plan, learn how to autoregulate your habits with Leo Babauta, and understand why CSV remains a key player in data formats. Discover the tale of fixing a decade-old .NET bug, explore the challenges of job searching in 2024, get insights on building a generative AI platform, and ponder the evolution of magazines with an honesty-first approach. Enjoy reading!

• Free 7-Day High-Protein Diet Plan by MyFitnessPal:
• How to Autoregulate Your Habits – zen habits: By Leo Babauta When most people try to start a new habit — like exercise, meditation, waking early, journaling — they tend to try to go as hard as they can. And in doing so, they set themselves up for failure. I have a friend who wanted to start running, for example. Every time they […]
• Why CSV is still king: In the world of data, CSV is the cockroach of file formats. It’s simple, resilient, and seemingly impossible to kill off. While flashier formats have come and …
• The Worst .NET Bug I’ve Ever Fixed: A 70+ hour journey into fixing a ~10 year old Akka.NET bug.
• Job searching in 2024 is horribly broken: A network engineer in search of greener pastures
• Building A Generative AI Platform: After studying how companies deploy generative AI applications, I noticed many similarities in their platforms. This post outlines the common components of a…
• Honesty is the only policy: Why we need to tell the world magazines have changed

Hey there! In my latest blog post, I explore a eulogy for the Dark Sky app, break down ngtop for nginx access logs, and take you through the auto-tune era in music. Also, discover the eco-friendly purple track for the 2024 Summer Olympics, debate ChatGPT-4o’s data privacy, and learn tricks to calm an anxiety-induced racing heart. Check it out!

• A Eulogy for Dark Sky, a Data Visualization Masterpiece: A deep look at how the Dark Sky weather app used simple but highly effective charts to report and contextualize the weather.
• ngtop: Request analytics from the nginx access logs. Contribute to facundoolano/ngtop development by creating an account on GitHub.
• The Last Instrument To Get Auto-Tuned: Various decades have their musical signature, like the excessive use of synthesizers and hairspray in the 1980s pop music scene. Likewise, the early 2010s was marked by a fairly extreme use of auto…
• The Purple Track at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games Has a Secret Ingredient: Recycled shells of mollusks native to the Mediterranean Sea were used to manufacture the synthetic floor of the athletics track, as part of the Games’ commitment to sustainability.
• Can ChatGPT-4o Be Trusted With Your Private Data?: experts say ChatGPT-4o’s turbocharged capabilities widen the amount of information that can be potentially swept up by OpenAI, heightening concerns about privacy.
• Column | Does anxiety make your heart race? Try these simple tricks to find calm.: A fast heart rate can have numerous causes, such as anxiety, dehydration or cardiac arrhythmia. Quick actions that engage the vagus nerve may slow it down.

Hey there! In this post, I delve into why big organizations falter when faced with disruption and how they can adapt, explore OpenAI’s new publisher-friendly search engine, and check out $5,000 exoskeleton pants for hiking. Plus, I’ll share tips to boost your iPhone battery life, discuss the importance of walkable cities, harness an Olympian mindset, and reveal Google’s secrets to effortless code reviews. Dive in!

• Why Large Organizations Struggle With Disruption, and What to Do About It: Seemingly overnight, disruption has allowed challengers to threaten the dominance of companies and government agencies as many of their existing systems have now been leapfrogged. How an organization reacts to this type of disruption determines whether they adapt or die. I’ve been working with a large organization whose very existence is being challenged by an…
• OpenAI Cheer: New Search Engine Will Protect Publishers, Firm Vows: The decision by OpenAI to enter the search business might be sending shudders through Google. But what does it mean for publishers?
• $5,000 Exoskeleton Pants Promise to Make You a Better Hiker: The $5,000 Mo/Go hiking pants use braces and carbon fiber arms to take pressure off your legs when climbing stairs or mountains.
• I improved my iPhone’s battery life by changing these 10 settings: If you’re barely making it through the day with your iPhone on a single charge, tweak these settings for a boost in battery life.
• If We Want a Shift to Walking, We Need To Prioritize Dignity: Why does walking feel so intuitive when we’re in a city built before cars, yet as soon as we return home, walking feels like an unpleasant chore that immediately drives us into a car?
• Think like an Olympian: More of a mathlete than an athlete? A gold medal mindset can help you do almost anything better.
• Union of Finite Automata: Sometimes the simplest thing that could possibly work, works.
• Google’s secret to painless code reviews: Elite developer experience, tight ecosystem integrations, and (new!) AI assistance

I’ve recently delved into some fascinating reads, including a study on how mentally stimulating work can help stave off dementia, a practical guide to using Skinner’s Law for motivation, and insights on the Zeigarnik Effect to declutter your mind. Plus, there’s a handy guide on debugging your battery’s performance and tips on providing the perfect amount of context in any situation!

• Mentally stimulating work plays key role in staving off dementia, study finds: People in routine and repetitive jobs found to have 31% greater risk of disease in later life, and 66% higher risk of mild cognitive problems
• Feeling unmotivated? Use “Skinner’s Law” to get yourself back on track: Sometimes, it’s hard to get excited about things, and procrastination gets in the way. Here’s a hack that can help.
• The Zeigarnik Effect: The Hidden Reason Your Mind Feels Cluttered: By completing projects, we free up mental space that leads to greater clarity and ability to focus on what’s truly important in our lives.
• how-to-debug-your-battery: A guide on how to understand the performance of your battery with modelling and improve it – ionworks/
• How I give the right amount of context (in any situation): Most people suck at managing up. They waste their manager’s time with too much (or too little) information. Here’s how to give the right amount of context.

In this blog post, I share an intriguing mix of reads. Discover the rise and fall of a German city renowned for its math geniuses, understand how perfectionism can wreck your productivity with insights from Gregor Ojstersek, and explore the critical difference between what teams can do and should do. Dive in and let’s learn together!

• How one German city developed – and then lost – generations of math geniuses: Anti-Semitism brought down one of the world’s greatest centers for mathematical research.
• Why perfectionism destroys your productivity, and what to do instead: Collaboration with Gregor Ojstersek, Author of Engineering Leadership newsletter
• TBM 16/52: Can Do vs. Should Do: Is your team focusing on what it should do? Or what it can do? Many teams struggle with this deceptively simple question.

Hey there! In this blog post, I highlight a variety of intriguing articles including boosting Windows disk performance with a free tool, building a custom PC, diving into a developer’s journey with .NET Aspire, and even uncovering cybersecurity mysteries on GitHub. Plus, I share insights on creating addictive tech products and the role of luck in success. Happy reading!

• How to Increase Windows Disk Performance with the OWC Disk Performance Tool: There’s a setting In Windows that may be hurting the performance of your high-speed drive. This free tool, prevents it with one click.
• Build a PC From Scratch: The old-school tower PC is modular, sustainable — and cool looking!
• How to create a RAG application using .NET Aspire, Ollama, and Semantic Kernel (Part 1): This blog is concentrated to Microsoft and cloud technology, coding and architecture. Solutions, tips and knowledge from a developer to developer.
• North Korean hacker got hired by US security vendor, immediately loaded malware: KnowBe4, which provides security awareness training, was fooled by stolen ID.
• Bayesian statistics: the three cultures:
• The New Internet: We don’t talk a lot in public about the big vision for Tailscale, why we’re really here. Usually I prefer to focus on what exists right now, and what we’re going to do in the next few months. But let’s look at the biggest of big pictures for a change.
• A Hacker ‘Ghost’ Network Is Quietly Spreading Malware on GitHub: Cybersecurity researchers have spotted a 3,000-account network on GitHub that is manipulating the platform and spreading ransomware and info stealers.
• From Ghana to America, his impact hubs empower thousands of changemakers: Nir Eyal uncovered the secrets behind creating addictive products; now he’s teaching you how to wrestle control back.
• Only People Who Believe in Luck Have It: Is luck real? You might be surprised by what science says. From Richard Branson to Harry Potter, we examine the science of getting lucky.

Hey there! In my latest blog post, I delve into why we use isolated VMs for heightened security, share insights on the memory layer for personalized AI, discuss self-hosting with reverse proxy servers, and compare Traefik vs. NGINX. Plus, I cover tips to enhance ChatGPT interactions, the hallmarks of a product mindset, fresh news format ideas, and even the Minions’ lore debate!

• Unfashionably secure: why we use isolated VMs: Would your rather observe an eclipse through a pair of new Ray-Bans, or a used Shade 12 welding helmet? Undoubtably the Aviators are more fashionable, but the permanent retinal damage sucks. Fetch the trusty welding helmet. We’ve made a number of security choices when building Canary that have held us in pretty good stead. These…
• Mem0: The Memory Layer for Personalized AI: The memory layer for Personalized AI. Contribute to mem0ai/mem0 development by creating an account on GitHub.
• Self Hosting: Reverse Proxy Servers: Discussion on what reverse proxy servers are, popular options, and various use cases like combining multiple apps and servers, handling SSL, security, serving static assets, and local development.
• Traefik vs. NGINX: Comparison and Practical Guide: Explore the benefits, drawbacks, and unique characteristics of Traefik vs. NGINX for Kubernetes, enhancing load balancing and security.
• 4 ways to make ChatGPT work better: How to effectively guide ChatGPT toward useful interactions by providing clear guidance on what we’re looking for, assigning the AI a role, and using voice.
• The 10 hallmarks of a product mindset: The latest publishing news, jobs, analysis, comment, interviews and in-depth features about UK newspaper, magazine and online publishers.
• 13 ideas for fresh news formats: Forget the inverted pyramid, there are many ways to write a news story in the digital age
• Are You a Minion Creationist or Evolutionist?: ‘Despicable Me’ established that the Minions were created in a lab for Gru. But the ‘Minions’ spinoff movies retconned that origin story. Despicable Me’s writer tells us he’s sticking to his version: ‘My first reaction was, Wait, what?’
• A North Korean Hacker Tricked a US Security Vendor Into Hiring Him—and Immediately Tried to Hack Them: KnowBe4 detailed the incident in a recent blog post as a warning for other potential targets.
• My Favorite Algorithm: Linear Time Median Finding: Finding the median in a list seems like a trivial problem, but doing so in linear time turns out to be tricky. In this post I’m going to walk through one of my favorite algorithms, the median-of-medians approach to find the median of a list in deterministic linear time. Although proving that this algorithm runs in linear time is a bit tricky, this post is targeted at readers with only a basic level of algorithmic analysis.

In my latest blog, I’m sharing a collection of thought-provoking reads: mastering the Sell → Design → Build framework, exploring Netflix’s open-sourced Maestro, understanding why copying is key in design, unraveling lessons from a massive global outage, evaluating high-growth and high-churn product dynamics, celebrating frugal living, demystifying AI terms, capturing the essence of modern friendships, and the impact of AI on paywalls. Dive in!

• Sell → Design → Build: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” –Sun Tzu I have come to believe that one framework is more important than any other in the pursuit of product market fit. It is called Sell, Design, Build. I learned it originally from…
• Maestro: Netflix’s Workflow Orchestrator: We are thrilled to announce that the Maestro source code is now open to the public! Please visit the Maestro GitHub repository to get started. If you find it useful, please give us a star. Maestro is…
• Copying is the way design works: What exists in the space between riffing and ripping
• The biggest-ever global outage: lessons for software engineers: Cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike shipped a routine rule definition change to all customers, and chaos followed as 8.5M machines crashed, worldwide. There are plenty of learnings for developers.
• Why high growth, high churn products never seem to work: yes, D30 ends up dominating over random social media spikes
• $656,000 of Frugal Things I Still Love Doing: – “I used to read Mr. Money Mustache”, some people say these days, “Until he got all rich and fancy so that he no longer understands the
• AI is confusing — here’s your cheat sheet: To help you better understand key terms in artificial intelligence, we’ve put together a list of some of the most common AI terms.
• How People Are Making Friendship Work *Right Now*: 28 Friend Group Interviews and Counting
• Why AI and a tiny text file mean you have to rethink your paywall: Out on the information superway a tiny little text file just got run over; the problem is the one left bleeding could be your media organisation. Upgrade