Evolving Plans - Looking Back on the First Half of 2026
A look back at our initial 2026 plan, what changed while building isselthal industries, income and expenses for the start of 2026, and why we now focus on agency work.
Philip Heltweg
Hi, I am Philip :)
Latest posts
Completing My Doctorate
In July, after more than six years in 'TODO'/'DOING', I could finally mark my longest running task as 'DONE'. As the title spoils, it was about my goal of getting a doctorate.
Structured Evaluation Pipelines to Improve Your AI Workflows
How to build a local evaluation pipeline to measure, compare, and continuously improve the quality of your AI workflows, without relying on gut feeling.
Improving Local Techdocs for Your AI Coding Agent
After crawling and cleaning technical documentation locally, we add page classification, embeddings, and a knowledge graph to make the data much more useful for AI coding agents.
Book Club: Designing Data-Intensive Applications, 2nd Edition
Join me in an async, email-based book club reading Designing Data-Intensive Applications, 2nd Edition. Inspired by Phil Eaton, we'll regularly discuss asynchronously via email and not have no video calls. Every level of experience and participation is welcome :).
Learnings From Crawling Technical Documentation
Small gotchas and learnings from crawling technical documentation. Saving documentation locally is helpful in your software engineering projects - for example, for local AI to offer your coding agents to use the documentation of software you use, or just to do further processing on it.
Hosting an Open Alternative to Google Docs for Digital Sovereignty
We are self-hosting LaSuite, an open-source Google Docs alternative, for our small agency - and opening it up for others to try.
Make Technical Documentation Available for Local AI Use
For our recent work, we looked into how to consistently crawl technical documentation and make it available for further processing by LLMs or agents. Doing so would either allow you to use the documentation for downstream processing, or you could vendor the documentation locally - in your repository, for example - and build a more easily searchable database of it.
Ideation and Product Ideas
I always wish my feed was more interesting to read, with more honest, raw posts and less pure announcements and AI slob. So, trying to be the change I want to see in the world, I will try to post more openly about trying to build an independent business (and at the same time make enough grammar mistakes to prove that I type this myself).
Optimization Opportunities for Cloud-Based Data Pipeline Infrastructures
Where to Stay when Visiting Paris
Occasionally friends and family visit me in Paris. So far, I still have not found a solid list of places to stay but this is my current list in the hopes to be able to update and just link it in the future.
You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account
New immigration rules for the UK are being enforced starting February 2026. This means citizens of 85 additional countries (including the USA and European countries) will need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to visit, even for tourism. Luckily, you can apply (and pay) digitally. Unfortunately, the government very much would prefer you to do so using the official app.
How to use animated sprites and animations with Excalibur and the LDtk level editor
One way to configure animated sprites for an Excalibur level using the LDtk level editor.
Can a domain-specific language improve program structure comprehension of data pipelines? A mixed-methods study
Open Collaborative Data Engineering With Subject-Matter Experts Using Domain-Specific Languages
Balancing technology heterogeneity in microservice architectures
Is spreadsheet syntax better than numeric indexing for cell selection?
AI Adventures
A ChatGPT wrapper to generate TTRPG adventure ideas.
TinyPets
They are pets. They are tiny.
Immigration und Respekt
Persönliche Erfahrungen.
An Empirical Study on the Effects of Jayvee, a Domain-Specific Language for Data Engineering, on Understanding Data Pipeline Architectures
On Immigration and Civility
A personal reflection.
Beautiful quotes: Zitat
I built a small tool to generate beautiful images for insightful quotes.
Meta Data #2: Hacking Integration, Diverse Teams and Local Impact With Oleg Lavrovsky
An interview with Oleg Lavrovsky about supporting integration with hackathons, enabling diverse teams and making local impact.
The Open Data Value Chain
A Checklist of Issues for Progressive Web Apps and How to Fix them
A living collection of issues you might encounter when building PWAs and solutions for them.
Meta Data #1: Retroactive Public Goods Funding and Open Data in Web3 With David Gasquez
An interview with David Gasquez about funding models and open data in the Web3 ecosystem.
Managing my weight with an app: Releasing WeightBook
Six years ago, I lost more than 40 kg (37% of me!) over a few months. I know what you are thinking: This sounds like the intro to a sleazy sales pitch. And it is. Just not for what you think it is.
Olympic Games and Open Data
Product or Prototype Mindset
How to Make Sure No One Cares About Your Open Data
What Are Open Data Infomediaries and What Is Their Role in Open Data Ecosystems?
Talk: Not all those who wander are lost
Thank you reviewer 3
Be friendly. Be like reviewer 3.
A Systematic Analysis of Problems in Open Collaborative Data Engineering
AI-powered local interview transcription with Whisper
Transcribing interviews is tedious, let AI do the work.
Write an exposé for your thesis
Why write an exposé or project outline for your thesis and what to include.
Challenges to Open Collaborative Data Engineering
Softwarecampus 2022 - How to run a kickoff event for nerds
How to run social events for nerds.
Choose names for Google, not people
Who wrote this shit?
Trashing legacy software is fun. It creates camaraderie.
Master Thesis: Implementing a Structured Approach to Belief Revision by Deterministic Switching Between Total Preorders
Certification of Iterated Belief Changes via Model Checking and its Implementation
On Using Model Checking for the Certification of Iterated Belief Changes
Of judges, aliens and total preorders
Synopsis of some ideas from the paper 'How to Revise a Total Preorder' by Booth and Meyer
How to kill a dragon
How to slay a dragon.
spaeher.app - sentiment analytics for youtube
spaeher.app - sentiment analytics for youtube
Wisdom from the Internet, content that influenced how I think about software (and life).
A list of various content I found and gathered over the years that influenced me at the time or gave me new ideas. Mainly focused on software engineering and generic life advice.
IYAGI - postcards from friends
Iyagi - Write letters to penpals, practice a language and meet new people.
Machine learning basics: Machine Learning by Stanford University (Coursera) review and notes
Review of the Machine Learning by Stanford University course on Coursera as well as notes