In my latest blog post, I dive into various topics, including how I use Large Language Models to write code despite others’ struggles. I reflect on changes in how American students get to school, and explore Briar’s secure messaging for journalists. Plus, I discuss career insights, the essence of Kanban, and tips for spotting 2025 March Madness upsets. It’s an exciting mix!

• Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code: Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who’s experiences have been disappointing. They often ask what they’re doing wrong—how come some …
• The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment: Your grandpa probably really did walk 5 miles to school in a foot of snow. A look at the changing numbers for how American students get to school.
• How it works: Briar is a messaging app designed for activists, journalists, and anyone else who needs a safe, easy and robust way to communicate. Unlike traditional messaging apps, Briar doesn’t rely on a central server – messages are synchronized directly between the users’ devices. If the Internet’s down, Briar can sync via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or memory cards, keeping the information flowing in a crisis. If the Internet’s up, Briar can sync via the Tor network, protecting users and their relationships from surveillance.
• Career advice in 2025.: Yesterday, the tj-actions repository, a popular tool used with Github Actions was compromised (for more background read one of these two articles). Watching the infrastructure and security engineering teams at Carta respond, it highlighted to me just how much LLMs can’t meaningfully replace many essential roles of software professionals. However, I’m also reading Jennifer Palkha’s Recoding America, which makes an important point: decision-makers can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. (Or, in this context, remain employed.)
• Milk Kanban: Original meaning of Kanban is that it’s a visual signal. We tend to think about Kanban in terms of boards, columns, index cards, etc. However, in principle, none of that is needed to design a Kanban system.
• How to spot 2025 March Madness upsets before they bust your bracket: These key stats can tell you who fits Cinderella’s slipper for the Big Dance.