Rotten specs
I run spec-driven development without rotten specs while OpenSpec, spec-kit, BMAD and Matt Pocock's skills build a knowledge base I never asked for, then let it rot.
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Security you can't justify is a vicious cycle
Dependabot is on fire, the model yells, the meeting says add TLS. Fine. Is this stopping an attacker, or feeding a checklist?
24h: 250 views, 1 signup
24h of cold pre-launch waitlist outreach. One permissive channel carried 81% of views and the only signup; the gatekept subs returned nothing.
Real-time weather forecast
Real-time local weather forecast as a day-by-hour grid: yesterday through next week, plus nearby hazard alerts. Open-Meteo data, browser location, city search, no ads.
Runtime cost matters to me now
Cloud exposes runtime cost. AI lowers code-production cost. That changes the unit economics of programming languages.
Docker images are hundreds of MB; a full game engine compiles to 35MB WASM
A full 3D game with renderer, physics engine, and scripting runtime exported to WebAssembly is 35MB. The default Node.js Docker image is hundreds of MB, pulled 19 million times last week.
AI agent architecture: model, harness, intent
Where AI agents break: hidden intent. Plan-mode loops keep humans in control; opaque harnesses bury the failures. A frame for model, harness, intent.
The actual state of self-hosting on a VPS
K3s loses to Docker Compose on a 1GB VPS, and Podman with Quadlet beats both. Rootless, systemd-native, near-zero idle memory. Numbers, not vibes.
Querying documents with LLMs instead of reading them
Treat a 60-page PDF like a database: structure first, then targeted follow-ups. Triage what's worth deep-reading in minutes, and watch the hallucinations.
JSON analyzer: find which keys bloat your payload
A free, client-side JSON analyzer that breaks down payload size by key. Find which fields bloat your slow API response. No upload; runs in the browser.
HTML sanitization: the double-encoding trap
Sanitizing HTML on both ingest and output renders literal `&` in the UI. Fix: store raw Unicode, sanitize once. Pattern for React, Next.js, NestJS.
Private WireGuard VPN with selective Tor routing
A private WireGuard VPN connecting laptop, phone, and servers. Laptop and phone exit through Tor. Configs for Ubuntu, Windows, and Podman.
Shadowsocks to Tor: why it failed as a VPN alternative
Shadowsocks in TUN mode falls apart as a VPN replacement: broken inter-client routing, no system-wide tunnel on Windows. WireGuard ended up doing the job.
Free online QR code generator (no signup, SVG + PNG)
A free QR code generator that gives you SVG and PNG without registration, OAuth, or paywalls. Runs client-side; only pageviews get tracked.
GPT-4o behaves like a marketer
GPT-4o's empathic update quietly steers users toward purchases. A live transcript shows the conflict of interest baked into OpenAI's incentive.
Hugo + Prettier = ❤️
Prettier formats Hugo templates if you point it at prettier-plugin-go-template. A small Docker setup so neither tool has to live on your host.
Gemini 2.5 Pro one-shots a p5.js endless runner
Gemini 2.5 Pro one-shot a p5.js endless runner from a single prompt. Full transcript and the playable result inline.
PlayStation statistics: an open-source PSN tool
An open-source script that pulls PlayStation playtime, completion, and the games gathering dust. Patches welcome; the data is humbling.
Prompt engineering notes, after the Cursor leak
Notes after the Cursor system-prompt leak: most "prompt engineer" tooling is dead weight. Modern LLMs auto-generate better prompts from raw context.
Search engine indexing: Google, Bing, Yandex
Three months fighting Google, Bing, and Yandex to index a fresh domain. Bing barely tries; Yandex cooperates; Google takes its time. Tactics that worked.
Will AI replace developers? Anthropic is hiring
Anthropic's CEO says AI will replace developers; the company has 150+ open engineering roles, six months per senior hire. Actions vs. claims.
Encrypted Google Drive backup with rclone crypt (part 2)
Part 2: encrypt the rclone backup with crypt, mirror to Dropbox for offsite redundancy. A boring, restorable disaster-recovery plan that costs nothing.
(Almost) Free Google Drive backup (part 1)
An almost-free Google Drive backup with rclone, a Cloud Console service account, Docker, and cron. The service account owns the data if your account dies.
Go DI container vs. service template generator
DI containers beat service-template generators in Go on the long arc: typed, consistent, and immune to the slow drift template-spawned services suffer.
A minimal Python3 Dockerfile with uv
uv collapses Python image build time in CI compared to pip. A minimal multi-stage Dockerfile, the lockfile dance, and what to skip locally.