The Outbox Pattern Visualized
An interactive walkthrough of the outbox pattern with live simulations: what it solves, how it works, and what it looks like under load.
David Teather
Software engineering deep-dives, security research, and open source. By David Teather.
Latest posts
Solving "I Dropped a Neural Net"
How I solved the 'I Dropped a Neural Net' weight permutation puzzle: why pairing beats ordering, Hungarian matching, and the fingerprint that fixed bad pairs.
PostgreSQL: Transactions, Row Locks, and Advisory Locks
How PostgreSQL row locks (for update, for share) and advisory locks interact: session vs transaction scope, deadlocks, bigint keys, and fetch-lock-refetch.
SimpleStreet: A Free StreetEasy Chrome Extension
SimpleStreet is a free Chrome extension for StreetEasy that shows move-in dates, hides sponsored listings, and adds notes, tags, and ratings.
Adding Mermaid Diagrams to Rehype in Astro (With rehype-mermaid-cli)
Render UML and system design diagrams in Astro using rehype-mermaid-cli. Covers setup, light/dark mode, and comparisons with rehype-mermaid.
How to Add Live Stats To Your Site
I pull live GitHub, YouTube, and LinkedIn stats into my site using public APIs, scraping, and a Cloudflare Workers proxy.
Reflections A Year Into My Career
A brain dump of lessons, advice, and realizations from my first year as a new grad software engineer. Take what’s useful, ignore the rest.
Why 99% of GitHub Projects Die (And the 3 Rules That Got Me 3M+ Downloads)
I found the 3 rules that took my TikTokAPI project from 0 to 7K+ stars and 3M+ downloads: search validation, friction elimination, and discoverability tactics.
How to Add Giscus Comments to an Astro Blog
Add Giscus comments to an Astro blog with GitHub Discussions, dark-mode syncing, and no server to maintain.
How to Add Interactive Charts to Astro with ApexCharts
Add interactive ApexCharts to Astro Markdown with a custom rehype plugin, dark-mode syncing, and a chart code block workflow.
Adding UML Diagrams to Rehype in Astro (With rehype-mermaid)
I render Mermaid diagrams in Astro markdown with rehype-mermaid and Playwright, including dark mode support and inline images.
Is Web Scraping Ethical?
I look at whether web scraping is ethical, drawing on building TikTokAPI (3M+ downloads) and its use in research at Yale, Northwestern, and UNESCO.
Adding an Astro Search Bar
I added client-side search to my Astro site with astro-pagefind, no third-party APIs or hosting required. Here's the setup and config.
How to Optimize Images in Astro Markdown and Content Collections
Optimize images in Astro Markdown and content collections with Astro's Image component, build-time WebP conversion, and lazy loading.
IMC Prosperity 2
I competed in IMC Prosperity 2, a trading competition, writing algorithmic and manual strategies each round, and finished #103 in the US, #381 overall.
My UW Madison Course Tier List
I ranked every UW-Madison computer science course I took into a tier list, starting with 642 Information Security, based on what I actually learned and enjoyed.
GitHub Field Day NYC 2024 Organizer
I helped organize GitHub Field Day NYC 2024, an unconference for GitHub Campus Experts. Here's what went into planning it and what stood out at the event.
Battlecode 2024 Finalist
I competed in Battlecode 2024 as a first-time participant and qualified for the finals, placing 13th out of about 400 teams.
Organizing MadHacks Fall 2023 Reflections
I organized MadHacks Fall 2023, a 24-hour UW-Madison hackathon with 250+ attendees and over $15K raised in sponsorships. Here's what I learned running it.
LINK.social Exposed Users' Sensitive Information & Mass Account Hijacking
I found a broken auth flaw in LINK.social exposing every user's phone number, location, and birthday, plus an exploit to hijack any account. Bug bounty: $500.
YikYak Is Exposing Millions of User Locations
I found YikYak attaches precise GPS coordinates, accurate to 10-15 feet, on every post, exposing 2 million users' locations. Covered by Vice and The Verge.