3 skills every middle boy school needs
A great TED talk by Jerome Hunter rejecting toxic masculinity by nipping it in the bud with our youth Confidence - rooted in a deep sense of self over achievements Communication - avoid stifling int
Danny's blog
python, webservices, distributes systems, life hacks, learnings
Latest posts
Get harsh feedback
Giving feedback is hard. We can lower the friction to giving it using Chris Wheatley's T.A.C.T. framework: Thankfulness. Calm the initial awkwardness with gratitude. Acknowledgment. Make the other per
Database Isolation levels
Isolation is part of a database's ACID guarantees. It ensures that concurrent transactions don't affect each other. The goal is to maintain the state of the data as if transactions are run serially. H
8 Simple reminders
Listening to the Mel Robbins Podcast on 8 things you should tell yourself. Notes for down the road. Your 20-years-older self would love today. Enjoy now. Pause before going negative. Is it worth my e
Design a url shortner
A URL shortener is a proxy service that provides a mapping between the short and full representation of a URL. The short URL has the advantage of being small. The service can also provide useful analy
No regrets
Listening to the Mel Robbins's podcast on regrets was a 'ear'-opener. One can have reqrets of action or inaction. 4 types of reqrets foundation - should've done the work boldness - should've taken t
Design a distributed unique id generator
We need to create a unique ID generator for our high-traffic web application, generating about 10K IDs/second. The IDs can't simply be monotonically increasing integers, which are good for data access
luck surface area
Your luck surface area is the amount of serendipity that will occur in your life. Luck = Doing * Telling Expertise is valuable and is created by doing with passion. Passion excites like-minded peopl
Eliminate Self doubt
Imposter syndrome is the thief that steals credit where it's due. Mel Robbins' interview with Dr. Shade Zahrai exposes a four-stage framework to counter it—and rebuild the confidence you've earned. Se
Agentic Design Patterns
I've been working through Agentic Design Patterns: A Hands-On Guide to Building Intelligent Systems and here are my cliff notes on the core patterns, frameworks, and techniques. A good book that cover
Simplify your life
David Yarrow: Non-complicated families; <10 Close friends to invest energy; Say no more offen; Claire Hughes Johonson: Don't say yes offen; Say yes to people over tasks; Don't compromise things are im
50 things
Here are some of my favorites from Cate's 50 things she learned that resonate with me. It's something I'll comeback to. Have fewer, if unsure how to have better opinions. The 12-step program works,
Hugin
Hugin is an open-source panorama photo stitcher for hobbyists. Unfortunately, macOS only ships a 2019 binary that's been broken since Sonoma. I spent ~500K Claude tokens wiring up a Homebrew tap that
Design a key-value store
A Key-Value store is just a hash table, until it isn't. At scale, keys shard across servers via consistent hashing and the CAP Theorem becomes the constraint you design around. CAP Theorem Consistency
4 money rules
I came across some practical money rules on the Mel Robbins podcast that are worth keeping front of mind. Know where your money goes. Track and budget. You can't manage what you don't measure. Split y
get people to listen
I listened to a Jay Shetty's Podcast episode on principles to get people to actually listen to you rather than tune you out. Keep your emotions in check [get calm before you speak, not during] Clari
5 ways to control your life
I listened to Jim VandeHei on a TED Podcast recently. He laid it out simply. The five things you control. Today Your reactions (do the next right thing) Your reality (input affects outputs) How yo
Influence sans manipulation
Andi Roberts had a nice article on how to influence people without being manipulative. There are 5 different types of influence methods: Rationalization (logic) Assertion (authority) Negotiating (mid
Did I do a good job?
TL;DR: Did I: fulfill my intention; aspire to the person I want to be; have fun. I heard Ellen Hendriksen moonlight on one of my favorite podcasts. She talked about a question I ask myself a lot - d
Consistent Hashing
Adding more servers (horizontal scaling) is the key to managing load. Distributing data access across a set of servers allows for high throughput. In cloud systems it's a given that a server will go d
Design a Rate Limiter
Clients are identified by user_id, Ip address or other modalities where server side rate limiters offer more control and not prone to manipulations over their client side variations. RateLimiters have