# closer (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 7 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover closer. Page: Feed: --- ## [Closer CliffsNotes | 8.19.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-cliffsnotes-8192026) _2026-08-19 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Scott’s back atop the Dodgers’ hierarchy, J-Mart returned, and Palencia’s role (?) ## [Museum Ship: Carrier USS Lexington](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/museum-ship-carrier-uss-lexington/) _2026-08-18 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ View of the flight deck from the bridge The Pacific War was an aircraft carrier war, and nearly all of the naval combat was carried out through carrier-borne air strikes. While the Japanese suffered one defeat after another, the US fleet grew swiftly, as new Essex-class fleet carriers were churned out at a steady pace. … Continue reading Museum Ship: Carrier USS Lexington → ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.18.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8182026) _2026-08-18 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Kenley secured career save 492, Edwin struggled in a low leverage spot, and more. ## [Updated RP Rankings | 8.17.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/updated-rp-rankings-8172026) _2026-08-17 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ RP rankings for saves, SOLDS, and holds ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.17.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8172026) _2026-08-17 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Senga shined during his third save, Raisel held on, and more. ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.16.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8162026) _2026-08-16 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Joyce nailed down his second save, Latz made some history during his 24th, and more. ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.15.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8152026) _2026-08-15 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Muñoz has another meltdown, Díaz hangs on, barely, and Pagán returned. ## [Updated RP Rankings | 8.14.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/updated-rp-rankings-8142026) _2026-08-14 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ RP Rankings for saves, SOLDS, and holds, plus leaderboards for the 2H and last 14 days ## [Review of the Week: Farage beats bin, Labour goes private, and Britain burns.](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/review-of-the-week-farage-beats-bin) _2026-08-14 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ A review of this weeks news ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.14.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8142026) _2026-08-14 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Edwin suffered another blown save, Megill locked down his 22nd, and Pagán's hand? ## [Marketplace for AI-Powered Professionals (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/zdeKik41fhbZ) _2026-08-14 · **Sponsored**_ Find professionals who use ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude to deliver work faster. ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.13.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8132026) _2026-08-13 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Joyce notched his first save, Raisel's struggles continued, and more. ## [Ruby and Rails Performance Roundup: The Backlog Edition](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/08/ruby-rails-performance-roundup-backlog/) _2026-08-12 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ Byroot, k0kubun, and ko1 headline a Ruby and Rails performance roundup with real benchmark numbers: ZJIT, GC, strings, JSON, and more. The post Ruby and Rails Performance Roundup: The Backlog Edition appeared first on Closer to Code . ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.12.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8122026) _2026-08-12 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Webb secured his eighth save, O'Brien notched his 30th, and more from a busy slate. ## [Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 8.11.2026](https://closermonkey.substack.com/p/closer-monkeys-leverage-ledger-8112026) _2026-08-11 · Gregory Jewett · Closer Monkey’s Substack_ Senga shut the door on his first career save, Edwin rebounded, and more. ## [The Pinellas Plant Nuclear Facility](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/08/11/the-pinellas-plant-nuclear-facility/) _2026-08-11 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The Tampa Bay FL area has always been associated with war and the military. It was subject to a blockade and naval bombardment during the Civil War, it was the primary shipping point for American troops in the Spanish-American War, and it was the site of several major training airbases for bomber and fighter crews Continue reading The Pinellas Plant Nuclear Facility ## [Who Owns Britains Wealth](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/who-owns-britains-wealth) _2026-08-07 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ Continuing the seriues: Who Own's Britain? ## [Karafka 2.6 and Web UI 1.0: Laying the Groundwork for Kafka Queues](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/08/karafka-2-6-and-web-ui-1-0-laying-the-groundwork-for-kafka-queues/) _2026-08-05 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ I'm happy to announce that Karafka 2.6 and Karafka Web UI 1.0 have just been released. For those new here: Karafka is a Ruby and Rails multi-threaded, efficient Kafka processing framework, and its Web UI is a monitoring and management dashboard that ships alongside it. As with every release in the 2.x line, this is \[ \] The post Karafka 2.6 and Web UI 1.0: Laying the Groundwork for Kafka Queues… ## [Nigel Farage doesn't want to stop the boats... he wants to make money.](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/nigel-farage-doesnt-want-to-stop) _2026-08-05 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ A closer look at the corrupt greedy money making machine that is Nigel Farage ## [A Closer Look at Australopithecus Deyiremeda](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/08/04/a-closer-look-at-australopithecus-deyiremeda/) _2026-08-04 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The discovery of Australopithecus deyiremeda led to some very surprising results. Australopithecus deyiremeda, from Wiki Commons In 2009, researcher Yohanne Haille-Selassie, working at a place called Burtele in the Waranso-Mille region of Ethiopia (not far from where Lucy had been found in Hadar), made a puzzling discovery. In sediments dated to around 3.4 million years, Continue reading A Closer… ## [Review of the Week: FIFA, Burnham and a New Manchester Mayor](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/review-of-the-week-fifa-burnham-and) _2026-08-01 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ A review of the week ## [Finnish Seedboxes — Up to 20Gbps (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/KoAPAxuVrhCr) _2026-08-01 · **Sponsored**_ Private Finnish seedboxes with 1–20Gbps speeds, RAID storage and 14‑day refund ## [Social Change vs Political Change](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/social-change-vs-political-change) _2026-07-29 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ Exploring the role of social movements in the wider political context ## [The Early Turtles](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/the-early-turtles/) _2026-07-28 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The early evolution of turtles has long been the topic of debate and controversy among paleontologists. But a new finding has helped clear up matters, somewhat. . Fossil turtle Baena, from the Cretaceous period As a group, turtles are old. Older than humans, older than our primate ancestors, older even than the dinosaurs. Turtles have Continue reading The Early Turtles ## [The Irish Wars of Independence](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/the-irish-wars-of-independence/) _2026-07-21 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The Irish Wars of Independence were the opening stage for decades of armed conflict. . The Headquarters of the Citizen Army Ireland had always fought viciously against domination by England, but was unsuccessful. In 1801, under the Act of Union, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England all became one country, the United Kingdom , which was ruled Continue reading The Irish Wars of Independence ## [Icons of Aviation History: The X-15 Rocket Plane](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/07/14/icons-of-aviation-history-the-x-15-rocket-plane/) _2026-07-14 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The rocket-powered X-15 took its pilots to the very edge of space X-15 on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum After the success of the X-1, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) and the military were interested in going further. The Air Force was working on the concept of a “space bomber“, Continue reading Icons of Aviation History: The X-15 Rocket Plane ## [Why I am Supporting Count Binface](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/why-i-am-supporting-count-binface) _2026-07-12 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ I'm a Green supporter, but this is more important. ## [Nigel Farage and the Establishment - a Closer Look](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/nigel-farage-and-the-establishment) _2026-07-11 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ Is Nigel Farage part of the establishment? Lets examine the facts. ## [The First Trip Around the World](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/07/07/the-first-trip-around-the-world/) _2026-07-07 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ Ferdinand Magellan is usually given credit for making the first circumnavigation of the globe, but in fact he was killed halfway through the trip and never made it. . Juan Sebastian Elcano, photo from Wiki Commons When the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set sail for the Far East in September 1519, he had only the Continue reading The First Trip Around the World ## [My Review of the Week](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/my-review-of-the-week-072) _2026-07-06 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ Farage is finished, and FIFA corrupt - what's new? ## [Who Owns Britain? The Land beneath our feet.](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/who-owns-britain-the-land-beneath) _2026-07-02 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ An explorative series looking at who really owns Britain. ## [A Closer Look at Australopithecus Afarensis](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/06/30/a-closer-look-at-australopithecus-afarensis/) _2026-06-30 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ “Lucy”, discovered in 1974, remains as perhaps the most famous hominin fossil ever. Nearly every human ancestor that has been presented since then has been classed as either “older than Lucy” or “younger than Lucy”.. 3d print of Australopithecus afarensis skull In the early 1970s, French paleo-anthropologist Maurice Taieb began surveying a location in the Continue reading A Closer Look at… ## [Non-custodial Crypto Payments & Escrow (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/jvE9WtIrL36d) _2026-06-30 · **Sponsored**_ Accept multi-chain crypto with trustless escrow, instant confirmations, and no KYC ## [My Review of the Week](https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/my-review-of-the-week) _2026-06-26 · Harry Eccles · Harry Eccles_ A closer look at the week for my paid subscribers ## [The Gingko Tree: A Living Fossil](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/the-gingko-tree-a-living-fossil/) _2026-06-23 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ The Ginkgo Tree (Ginkgo biloba), with its distinctive fan-shaped leaves, is a familiar inhabitant of many city parks. But this living fossil is now the only current representative of what was once a widespread lineage. Gingko Tree For most of Earth s history, there was virtually no life on land life was limited to the sea. Simple Continue reading The Gingko Tree: A Living Fossil ## [The Boer Wars](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/the-boer-wars/) _2026-06-16 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ By the last years of the 19th century, southern Africa had become a powder keg that was ready to explode. Boer troops, photo from Wiki Commons During the later half of the 19th century, Africa had been carved up by the European powers. Northern Africa had been colonized by the French and Italians, while the Continue reading The Boer Wars ## [The USS Forrestal Fire](https://lflank.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/the-uss-forrestal-fire/) _2026-06-09 · Lenny Flank · Hidden History_ During the Vietnam War, an accident nearly destroyed one of the USA s newest and most modern aircraft carriers. USS Forrestal photo from WikiCommons The aircraft carrier had played the decisive role in the Pacific War against Japan, After World War Two ended and the Cold War began, it was expected that the carrier battle group Continue reading The USS Forrestal Fire ## [Small PRs, big speedups: The Ruby performance work you almost missed](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/06/ruby-performance-roundup/) _2026-06-05 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ Normally I just fire off a tweet when I spot a nice performance PR landing in Ruby. Lately I've been catching up on a backlog of Ruby performance work I'd bookmarked and never gotten around to - so some of what's below isn't brand new, with a few PRs dating back to 2025. There were \[ \] The post Small PRs, big speedups: The Ruby performance work you almost missed appeared first on Closer to Code . ## [WSGISwitchInterval in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/wsgi-switch-interval-in-mod-wsgi-6-0-0/) _2026-05-27 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ The first two posts in this series covered new directives in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0 that change the concurrency model the interpreter runs under. WSGIPerInterpreterGIL opts a sub-interpreter into its own GIL. WSGIFreeThreading opts a process into PEP 703 free-threaded mode. This third directive, WSGISwitchInterval , is a different sort of thing. It does not change the concurrency model. It exposes a… ## [Free-threading vs the GIL in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/free-threading-vs-the-gil-in-mod-wsgi-6-0-0/) _2026-05-26 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ The previous post in this series walked through tuning WSGISwitchInterval to claw back throughput on a multi-threaded mod\_wsgi daemon group whose workload is CPU-bound Python. Tightening the switch interval recovered most of the throughput a two-process, five-thread shape had lost compared with the ten-process, one-thread baseline. What it did not change was per-process CPU usage. Each process… ## [Per-interpreter GIL in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/per-interpreter-gil-in-mod-wsgi-6-0-0/) _2026-05-26 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ mod\_wsgi 6.0.0 is currently available as a release candidate. You can install it from PyPI, or grab the source from the GitHub releases page. There is a significant amount of code cleanup behind this release, alongside a range of new features and operator-facing improvements that have been overdue for some time. Rather than describe everything in one post, I am going to work through the headline… ## [Free-threading in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/free-threading-in-mod-wsgi-6-0-0/) _2026-05-25 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ The previous post in this series covered the new WSGIPerInterpreterGIL directive in mod\_wsgi 6.0.0 and the PEP 684 per-interpreter GIL feature that landed in Python 3.12. This post is about its sibling, WSGIFreeThreading , which targets PEP 703 free-threaded Python builds. The two directives sit next to each other in the mod\_wsgi configuration vocabulary and they both opt processes into a… ## [Async support for wrapt.synchronized](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/async-support-for-wrapt-synchronized/) _2026-05-24 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ Continuing the tour through the wrapt 2.2.0 release, the last piece worth a closer look is the new async support in wrapt.synchronized . The decorator has been part of wrapt from the start, but until 2.2.0 it only really did the right thing for synchronous code. Applying it to an async def function used to give the appearance of working without actually serialising anything, and the context… ## [Reshaping decorated functions with wrapt](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/reshaping-decorated-functions-with-wrapt/) _2026-05-24 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ Most decorators leave the function's outward shape alone. The same parameters go in, the same return type comes out, and inspect.signature and inspect.iscoroutinefunction give the same answers they would have given for the undecorated function. Sometimes you want a decorator that actively changes that shape. Adds or removes a parameter. Changes the return annotation. Turns a sync function into… ## [Lazy monkey patching with wrapt](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/lazy-monkey-patching-with-wrapt/) _2026-05-24 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ This post is for the people who write APM agents, tracers, profilers, debuggers, and anything else that instruments Python code without asking the user to change it. Everyone else is welcome along. The reason I want to call out the audience up front is that wrapt was created for this kind of work, and the original purpose is sometimes obscured by how widely the project has been adopted for its… ## [Per-instance lru\_cache using wrapt](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/lru-cache-using-wrapt/) _2026-05-24 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ Following on from the previous post on stateful decorators , there is another small addition in wrapt 2.2.0 worth a closer look. A new wrapt.lru\_cache helper has been added that fixes the long-standing issues with using functools.lru\_cache on instance methods. The thing I want to emphasise up front is that wrapt.lru\_cache is not a replacement for functools.lru\_cache . The actual caching is still… ## [Stateful decorators in wrapt](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/05/stateful-decorators-in-wrapt/) _2026-05-24 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ A new version of wrapt was released earlier this week. Version 2.2.0 introduces a small helper that makes it noticeably easier to write decorators that need to keep state across calls. It is the kind of thing that does not look like much until you try to write the equivalent code without it, so it is worth a closer look. The full release notes are in the changelog . What I want to walk through… ## [From Karafka Ractors to Yoichi Whisky: My RubyKaigi 2026 Experience](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/05/from-karafka-ractors-to-yoichi-whisky-my-rubykaigi-2026-experience/) _2026-05-06 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ Introduction I just returned from RubyKaigi 2026, held from April 22nd to 24th in Hakodate, Hokkaido. For those unfamiliar with it, RubyKaigi is the biggest Ruby conference in the world, drawing speakers, committers, and Rubyists from across the globe. As always, it managed to combine deep technical talks with a uniquely Japanese atmosphere that no \[ \] The post From Karafka Ractors to Yoichi… ## [Free Python decorator workshops](https://grahamdumpleton.me/posts/2026/04/free-python-decorator-workshops/) _2026-04-03 · Graham Dumpleton · Graham Dumpleton_ I've been working on a set of interactive workshops on Python decorators and they are now available for free on the labs page of this site. There are 22 workshops in total, covering everything from the fundamentals of how decorators work through to advanced topics like the descriptor protocol, async decorators and metaclasses. The workshops are hosted on the Educates training platform and accessed… ## [One Thread to Poll Them All: How a Single Pipe Made WaterDrop 50% Faster](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/02/waterdrop-fd-polling-50-percent-faster/) _2026-02-19 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ This is Part 2 of the 'Karafka to Async Journey' series. Part 1 covered WaterDrop's integration with Ruby's async ecosystem and how fibers can yield during Kafka dispatches. This article covers another improvement in this area: migration of the producer polling engine to file descriptor-based polling. When I released WaterDrop's async/fiber support in September 2025, \[ \] The post One Thread to… ## [Claude on Incus – All the autonomy, securely](https://mensfeld.pl/2026/01/claude-on-incus-all-the-autonomy-securely/) _2026-01-14 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ Here's claude-on-incus (or coi for short) - a tool for running Claude Code freely in isolated Incus containers. If it's useful to you, a star helps. Note: I'm also working on 'code-on-incus' - a generalized version for running any AI coding assistant in isolated containers. Why? Three reasons: security, a clean host, and full contextual \[ \] The post Claude on Incus All the autonomy, securely… ## [Shoryuken Has a New Maintainer, and v7.0.0 Is Almost There](https://mensfeld.pl/2025/12/new-shoryuken-maintainer-v7/) _2025-12-28 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ After a decade under Pablo Cantero's stewardship, Shoryuken has a new maintainer - me. I'm grateful for his graceful handoff of this Ruby SQS library, and I'm picking up where he left off: v7.0.0.rc1 is out now, with the stable release close behind. What's in v7.0.0 This release modernizes the codebase substantially. It brings several \[ \] The post Shoryuken Has a New Maintainer, and v7.0.0 Is… ## [Ruby Floats: When 2.6x Faster Is Actually Slower (and Then Faster Again)](https://mensfeld.pl/2025/12/ruby-string-to-float-optimization/) _2025-12-19 · Maciej Mensfeld · Closer to Code_ Update: This article originally concluded that Eisel-Lemire wasn't worth it for Ruby. I was wrong. After revisiting the problem, I found a way to make it work - and submitted a PR to Ruby. Read the full update at the end. Recently, I submitted a PR to Ruby that optimizes Float#to\_s using the Ryu algorithm, \[ \] The post Ruby Floats: When 2.6x Faster Is Actually Slower (and Then Faster Again)…