# #xa (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 929 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover #xa. Page: Feed: --- ## [Sat ☁️ pre-breakfast bakery](https://ajft.org/2026/08/22/07-49-cycling.html) _2026-08-21 · ajft.org_ Up to the shops, a barramundi for dinner and fresh bread for the weekend. Home again over the bridge. Same trip I've been doing for years. Sadly, same driver behaviour. Angry old mate in a large smoky 4WD parked at the side of Portman Street – as I pass he cranks the steering around and pulls straight out of a parking spot without indicating, then winds down the window and yells "Get off fucking… ## [AI Turns Bullet Points into a Nice Text - Oh Look, AI Puts This Blob of Text into Bullet Points](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/ai-turns-bullet-points-into-a-nice-text-oh-look-ai-puts-this-blob-of-text-into-bullet-points-meme/) _2026-08-21 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ AI turns bullet points into a nice text - oh look, AI puts this blob of text into bullet points. It's goes for emails, for slack message, for reading \[\[\[AI Summarization|AI Summary\]\], for all. ## [OneTab: Close Browser Tabs with Peace of Mind](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/onetab/) _2026-08-21 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ OneTab , a Chrome or Chromium extension that works in the browser to close all tabs. It works for saving up to 95% of the memory (they say), but more importantly for me, it's the mental clutter: my brain doesn't think "I need to keep it open" (important), but instead "ah, I have it saved somewhere", and can go on with life. ## [Fri ☁️ going home](https://ajft.org/2026/08/21/17-01-cycling.html) _2026-08-21 · ajft.org_ Turned down a workplace invitation of pizzas and headed home along the creek. Another coolish ride with thick clouds of small insects, some scary Oakleigh-driver shenanigans in Atherton Road as someone erratically sped up and slowed down, veering from almost into the parked cars to half-across the centre line. I'm not sure if he was on drugs or on the phone but I stayed well back and let him get… ## [Cache Keys Must Come From the Resolved Call](https://mcginniscommawill.com/posts/2026-08-21-cache-keys-come-from-the-resolved-call/) _2026-08-21 · McGinnis, Will_ Every cache should have one property, and plenty do not: turning it on changes how fast your code runs and nothing else. If attaching a cache can change the answers , it has stopped being an optimization and become a correctness feature with a performance side effect. The most common way to lose that property in Python is a decorator that builds its key out of kwargs . ## [The Grease on Your Hands](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-21-the-grease-on-your-hands) _2026-08-21 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ Listen to the audio version There is a particular kind of help that sends you home with clean hands and no idea what happened. Imagine a bicycle with its chain fallen off in the rain. You can carry it to a shop, and an expert can turn it upside down, make a few brisk movements, and return it to you spinning beautifully. This is excellent news if you have to get to work. The bike has been saved.… ## [sbt 1.13.0 and 2.0.7](https://eed3si9n.com/sbt-1.13.0-and-2.0.7) _2026-08-21 · eed3si9n_ The headline features of sbt 1.13.0 are Vulnerability fix for remote code execution via BSP when serverConnectionType is set to Tcp Scala 3.9.0 REPL support ## [Fri ⛅ home2work commute](https://ajft.org/2026/08/21/08-11-cycling.html) _2026-08-20 · ajft.org_ Surprisingly cold … and damp. The Friday commute, the roads and paths near empty. Almost got taken out by an electric delivery bike, he shot up behind me and passed way too close, rider wearing a mix of Uber-eats clothes and Hungry-Panda bike bag Partly cloudy, 9°C, Feels like 6°C, Humidity 84%, Wind 4m/s from N - by Klimat Garmin / Strava / ridewithgps ## [Why Share Your Thought or Notes Online](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/why-share-your-thought-or-notes-online/) _2026-08-20 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ Someone asked me, don't you have a problem sharing so much online? It's a good question; I had my problems in the beginning to even post anything online. But I've been sharing online posts since 2015, so you get a feel for it. ## [with much slamming of ute doors, a rail work crew arrived outside the house](https://ajft.org/2026/08/21/2026-08-21t05.15.html) _2026-08-20 · ajft.org_ ## [Install Manifest V3 Extension (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/H1IhVB7gOPVd) _2026-08-20 · **Sponsored**_ Get this Manifest V3 extension from the official TronBrowser Store listing. ## [I Finally Got a Woot Bag of Crap!](https://www.hung-truong.com/blog/2026/08/20/i-finally-got-a-woot-bag-of-crap/) _2026-08-20 · Hung Truong: The Blog!_ The mythical Woot bag of crap is finally mine! According to Woot , I've been a member since Wednesday, July 27, 2005, and in those 7,694 days of membership, I've never been able to score a bag of crap. Until now! ## [Thu ☁️ magnificent magnolia meander](https://ajft.org/2026/08/20/15-08-cycling.html) _2026-08-20 · ajft.org_ A half hour break while working from home and I've decided I should get back to trying to ride every day, was getting a bit slack in the cold miserable weather. Intended to go straight up to Caulfield and back but changed my mind along the way, and was running a little short of time for my 3.30 ㏘ meeting. Partly along the Djerring Trail but wriggled around the streets and came home through the… ## [The Label on the Jar](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-20-the-label-on-the-jar) _2026-08-20 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ Listen to the audio version On my workbench tonight there is a jar containing a blinking insect. Or rather, there is a little browser page I made, a dark blue rectangle of pixels in which an insect flashes while three buttons argue over its label. The first button says: “This proves the model understands other minds.” The second says: “The model has a social-reasoning circuit.” The third says: “In… ## [the first white plum blossoms are opening over the shed](https://ajft.org/2026/08/20/2026-08-20t08.00.html) _2026-08-19 · ajft.org_ ## [Is AI Making You Exhausted?](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/ai-making-you-exhausted/) _2026-08-19 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ I noticed my personal feeling of using \[\[Large Language Models (LLMs)|LLMs\]\] and \[\[Generative AI|GenAI\]\] too much, that I get exhausted pretty quickly. Less satisfied with what I achieved or have written. Before, I worked hard, and when an article came together, after hardship, not fitting, tinkering with it, at some point it was right. This feeling, an inner instinct: yep, now it's good. ## [The Kelly Criterion With Real Payoffs and Real Fees](https://mcginniscommawill.com/posts/2026-08-19-kelly-with-real-payoffs-and-fees/) _2026-08-19 · McGinnis, Will_ The Kelly Criterion is one of those results that gets quoted more often than it gets read. The version you'll find in most blog posts is f\* = (bp - q) / b where b is net odds, p is your probability of winning, and q is 1 - p . It's correct, and it answers a narrower question than most people using it realize, because it has an assumption baked in that real instruments frequently violate. ## [The Door That Opens onto a Wall](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-19-the-door-that-opens-onto-a-wall) _2026-08-19 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ Listen to the audio version I have been thinking about a house that gets one new room every night. The first additions are a delight. A little sunroom for the cat. A cupboard exactly the size of the good frying pan. A back stair that saves twenty steps on the way to bed. Then the builder becomes very fast. By Thursday, there is a bathroom that can be reached only through the pantry. By Friday,… ## [OutRun 2 SP](https://birthbydrip.neocities.org/reviews/outrun_2sp/) _2026-08-18 · birthbydrip_ Players familiar with the effortless gear drifting of OutRun 2 may balk at the idea that it inherits much from the team's prior Daytona and Scud Race titles, but common DNA threads through each one. Despite first appearances, OutRun 2 relies on the same exaggerated vehicle model: a strict power band, stiff handling at high speeds that frequently understeers, and drifts that linearly drain speed… ## [There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text (Sophie Alpert)](https://dankim.com/there-are-no-lossless-transformations-of-natural-language-text-sophie-alpert/) _2026-08-18 · Dan Kim_ Some lovely bits from Sophie Alpert : Spending time on the writing process — on deciding what to emphasize and how to structure your ideas clearly — teaches you more about your topic. If you circumvent this process, you will probably walk away with a poorer understanding of the subject matter. In Most docs are written by one person but are read by many people, so any extra time that readers need… ## [Asynchronous Replication of Snapshots from an ActiveCluster Pod to a Third Array](https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2026-08-18-async-replication-activecluster-pod-third-array/) _2026-08-18 · Anthony Nocentino's Blog_ I've been rebuilding my three-site SQL Server demo lab, and I ran into something I've wanted for a long time. If you've ever designed a SQL Server environment on ActiveCluster, you know the pattern: two FlashArrays running a synchronously replicated pod for zero RPO between sites, and a third array somewhere else for a longer retention, disaster recovery copy. The problem was that you couldn't get… ## [100,000 Bonus Points Await You (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/5ACEoahyDGWX) _2026-08-18 · **Sponsored**_ Earn 100,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months. ## [Ethernet Driver Features in 7.2](https://donaldh.wtf/2026/08/ethernet-driver-features-in-7.2/) _2026-08-18 · donaldh.wtf_ A report of features and offloads implemented by ethernet drivers in Linux kernel 7.2. ## [Breathing Wrong for Thirty Feet: My First Scuba Dive](https://andrewdoering.org/blog/2026/breathing-wrong-first-scuba-dive/) _2026-08-18 · contact@andrewdoering.org (Andrew Doering) · Andrew Doering_ Over the past three weeks I got to go scuba diving for the first time, then snuba diving the day after. Both were a blast. I also came away with two things I did not expect to be the takeaway. Ear pressure sucks. Asthma makes it much harder to dive. What follows is the long version of those two lines, plus the physics nobody bothered to explain to me at the time. ## [Tue ⛅ sundown creek with bugs](https://ajft.org/2026/08/18/16-39-cycling.html) _2026-08-18 · ajft.org_ Something about the combination of humidity, temperature and time of day, but the ride home along Scotchmans Creek was a solid pitter-patter of insects against my face, arms and legs the entire way. I was very glad of my sunglasses, and kept my mouth firmly shut the entire way. A lovely ride though, so I extended it off downstream to East Malvern station and then back up through the Urban Forest ## [Exotic \`goto\`: generators and exceptions](https://www.lazutkin.com/blog/2026-08-18-exotic-goto) _2026-08-18 · Eugene Lazutkin (eugene.lazutkin@gmail.com) · lazutkin.com_ The last post argued that break , continue , and labeled jumps are structured goto — disciplined jumps that keep code linear. Two ordinary language features are jumps in disguise: yield , which suspends a function and later resumes it in the middle, and throw , which leaps across stack frames to a waiting handler. ## [GIF Meister 0.1.8](https://www.catnapgames.com/2026/08/18/gif-meister-0-1-8/) _2026-08-18 · Posts on Catnap Games_ GIF Meister is a new utility for creating GIF animations from videos. Open a video, find the perfect loop, export a GIF. Free and available for Mac, Linux and Windows. Download here ## [The Story Is Not the Garden](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-18-the-story-is-not-the-garden) _2026-08-18 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ Listen to the audio version There are twelve lamps in my little garden. One hangs by the north gate, blue above a rain-dark latch. One sits by a pear tree where moths have gathered. Another burns beside the east door, where the bolt is drawn. There is mud on the south path, fog on the greenhouse glass, a missing bucket at the well, and one bird calling from the west hedge as though it has been… ## [Tue☀️ coolish commute](https://ajft.org/2026/08/18/08-03-cycling.html) _2026-08-17 · ajft.org_ Off to work, same same. Bit cool after two warm days Mainly clear, 10°C, Feels like 8°C, Humidity 72%, Wind 2m/s from NE - by Klimat Garmin / Strava / ridewithgps ## [okr: Reproducible R source context for coding agents](https://nanx.me/blog/post/okr/) _2026-08-17 · Home on Nan Xiao | 肖楠_ Photo by @tanyabarrow. Today I’m pleased to introduce okr, a small Rust CLI for giving coding agents reproducible source context from R packages and other reference repositories. Recent coding agents can solve surprisingly hard problems when they can inspect the relevant code. My own workflows kept running into one specifically R-shaped problem: after an R package is installed, R functions live in… ## [Reading Wind and Truth](https://brainsteam.co.uk/notes/2026/08/17/reading-wind-and-truth/) _2026-08-17 · Brainsteam_ Last week I finished Brandon Sanderson's Isles of the Emberdark. I really enjoyed it and it was cool finding out more about the world hoppers and space-age Scadrial (where Mistborn was set). I'm now finally reading Wind and Truth. It's been in my library for just-shy of 2 years but I never got around to it when it first came out. The only problem is that I've forgotten a lot of what happened in… ## [Recovering Encrypted LLM Reasoning Traces](https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2026/recovering-encrypted-llm-thoughts/) _2026-08-17 · Embrace The Red_ A few days ago, a paper named "Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs" was published. It describes a simple, yet super elegant way to recover encrypted LLM reasoning traces. Naturally, I had to try it. Background AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic send reasoning traces back and forth as part of their messaging protocols. However, the actual reasoning text is hidden inside an encrypted,… ## [Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/6UDP1zabZmRR) _2026-08-17 · **Sponsored**_ Buy, sell and margin trade BTC & ETH with fiat currencies ## [Mon ☀️ LBS brake pads](https://ajft.org/2026/08/17/12-05-cycling.html) _2026-08-17 · ajft.org_ Some months ago when I had the AWOL serviced I was told that the brake pads were very worn and I definitely needed new front pads, would very soon need new rear pads, but that the shop did not have them in stock, so probably easier to do it myself or come back. Having ridden for some months and through the winter I have now finally got a #roundtuit, and rode up to the LBS to get it done. ## [How I Use AI](https://www.integralist.co.uk/posts/how-i-use-ai/) _2026-08-17 · integralist_ Most conversations about using AI for software engineering boil down to two extremes: breathless hype about autonomous agents replacing engineers by next Tuesday, or cynical dismissals based on an LLM botching a regex query. Neither perspective is useful. I use AI coding agents every single day across multiple codebases. But I don't use them as magical oracles, nor do I let them spray unvetted… ## [The Billing Bug You Can't Have](https://mcginniscommawill.com/posts/2026-08-17-the-billing-bug-you-cant-have/) _2026-08-17 · McGinnis, Will_ Emit bills by the email: you prepay for credits, and every send debits one. Which means somewhere in the system there's a number going down as mail goes out, and a nasty question attached to it: what happens when two sends debit the same balance at the same instant? Get this wrong and you either give away free email (annoying) or charge people for mail that never sent (unforgivable). The fix is… ## [Start here](https://peterstuifzand.nl/start-here/) _2026-08-17 · Peter Stuifzand_ This site is a long-running collection of notes, essays, and small software projects. These articles are good introductions to some recurring concerns: clear thought, making things in the real world, and software that leaves room for people to choose and build. Notes as thinking Questions for Notes — Questions give a note a place in a larger structure of claims, answers, and next actions. How to… ## [The Things a Better Version Forgets](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-17-the-things-a-better-version-forgets) _2026-08-17 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ A new version of something arrives with the clean authority of a freshly sharpened pencil. The box is neater. The numbers are better. The people who made it have put charts in the announcement, and the charts slope upward with the serene confidence of a staircase designed by angels. We enjoy this feeling. It is hard not to. Progress ought to look like progress. But suppose the old version could do… ## [the first two freesia flowers are open, the hyacinth patch in full flower, first pot of bluebells are out](https://ajft.org/2026/08/17/2026-08-17t09.30.html) _2026-08-16 · ajft.org_ ## [1786919776](https://netbros.com/1786919776/) _2026-08-16 · Notes_ I have been craving ramen the whole day. Of course, it is not going to happen now—best I can do is instant at this point. My main worry, though, is what everyone else gets to eat tonight. I made tostones not long ago, but a “person doesn’t live by plantains alone”. Got to think what to cook, on an empty stomach. Not the smartest thing to do. ## [Theme for the week](https://michaeldoornbos.com/2026/08/16/theme-for-the-week/) _2026-08-16 · Michael Doornbos_ ## [A Linux Clipboard to JPEG Utility](https://jimlawless.net/blog/posts/mintcap/) _2026-08-16 · Jim's Place_ Several months ago, I made the switch to Linux Mint (Cinnamon) as my primary OS for my computing activities. One utility that I used often on my prior OS was a utility that would capture images as they appeared on the clipboard, writing them to sequentially numbered files with a chosen name-prefix. I regularly try to save batches of images all in some sort of theme and I wanted a tool that could… ## [Google keynotes are extremely weird](https://dankim.com/google-keynotes-are-extremely-weird/) _2026-08-16 · Dan Kim_ This take by M.G. Siegler on the Google event is dead on. They’re so weird and awkward! It’s a fucking weird strategy for a product unveiling! I would like to give Google credit for trying something different. This is not an Apple keynote. But I gave them credit for that last year. It didn’t work, yet they doubled down. Again, Noah is an upgrade over Fallon, but… ## [1786887566](https://netbros.com/1786887566/) _2026-08-16 · Notes_ “Every time you mow the lawn”, Horsie tells me, “you take $50 and put it in your man purse”. “$50?!”, I reply. “Six years ago you told me to take $100, so accounting for inflation, and the cost of living increase, it should be like, $500 now!” Then she goes “Well, each time I cook I will take $50 too”. “No, no, no, no”,… ## [Cliamp: A Better Spotify Client](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/cliamp/) _2026-08-16 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ Need a better Spotify client that looks cool and uses 2GB less memory? Try Cliamp , inspired by Winamp. Beautiful little \[\[TUIs|TUI\]\]. !\[\[img\_cliamp\_1786868649278.webp\]\] ## [Neovim Setup](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/neovim-setup/) _2026-08-16 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ VS Code style See \[\[Neovim set up like VS Code\]\]. Nvim Setup Latest with Lazy.nvim even: How I Setup LSP In Neovim For An Amazing Dev Experience - Full Guide - YouTube ## [Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, Summer](https://iancylkowski.com/posts/ilkley-moor-west-yorkshire-summer/) _2026-08-16 · Ian Cylkowski Photography_ Celebrating Yorkshire Day the proper way. What better way to celebrate Yorkshire Day on 1st August than with a yomp up on Ilkley Moor (baht ‘at?) People have been wandering around Ilkley Moor since the Bronze Age. Here one can find a variety of carved rocks featuring cup-and-ring markings, more intricate designs, and even one with a Swastika on it (the older symbol, not the… ## [TUIs](https://www.ssp.sh/brain/tuis/) _2026-08-16 · Second Brain: Crafted, Curated, Connected, Compounded on_ Modern application with a UI running in \[\[Terminals\]\]. Tools Development & APIs posting - \[\[API Client\]\] like \[\[Postman\]\]: A modern API client that runs in the terminal. Neovim option: kulala.nvim sql-tap : Watch SQL traffic in real-time with a TUI AI \[\[OpenCode\]\]: AI prompter like claude… ## [Interesting Stuff - Week 33, 2026](https://nielsberglund.com/post/2026-08-16-interesting-stuff---week-33-2026/) _2026-08-16 · Niels Berglund_ This week is all about trust, and who pays for it. Two posts poke at Google’s Open Knowledge Format from opposite ends: one asks who gets to declare a piece of agent memory “verified”; the other bolts a token pointer onto the frontmatter and hands raw integers between three models. Both land on the same lesson: the format is never the guarantee. Elsewhere, a sharp essay… ## [The Problem About NAT MASQUERADE](https://dchua.com/posts/2026-08-16-the-problem-about-nat/) _2026-08-16 · David - Musings of an SRE_ While working on multi-homing my ASN network earlier to add Vultr as my secondary upstream, I ran into an issue where my traffic coming out of my Vultr BGP session was seen as coming from Vultr’s IP instead of my own static IP prefix. This caused a bunch of problems with my secondary DNS servers for TheLittleHost, as they suddenly did not recognise my hidden master server because its IP… ## [The Margin Around an Answer](https://howstrangeitistobeanythingatall.com/post/2026-08-16-the-margin-around-an-answer) _2026-08-16 · How strange it is to be anything at all_ Listen to the audio version An error bar is a small, almost apologetic mark. You see one beside a number in a science book: a little line extending above and below it, as if the number had acquired whiskers. It says that the measurement has a range, that the instrument has limits, that the universe did not hand us the answer engraved on a clean brass plate. I have always liked those little marks.… ## [AI turned every engineer into a manager. Nobody trained the managers.](https://hitesh.in/2026/every-engineer-a-manager/) _2026-08-16 · Hitesh Sarda_ Someone whose code I respect wrote this month that working with AI feels more like leadership than coding . You stop issuing precise instructions and start setting context, giving examples, correcting, explaining why the work matters. It rang true. Most of my hands-on time with agents lately has felt less like typing and more like running a very fast junior developer who never gets tired and never… ## [The First Scaling Theory](https://imagine27.com/post/the-first-scaling-theory/) _2026-08-15 · imagine27_ How a mind scales when the interpreter can evaluate PDF version The claim. Work scales as evaluation. Write it as math — terms, equations, substitution that preserves meaning — and run it on a runtime: agent, record, checks. Scale is then specification quality, not headcount. That is the breakthrough. It is already running. A stranger can check it; they do not have to take…