inessential: Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App
Technology Commentary
Scripting News: Thursday, October 2, 2025
Dave Winer, OG blogger, podcaster, developed first apps in many categories. Old enough to know better. It's even worse than it appears.
Why traconiq Migrated Their Multi-TB Telemetry Dataset to Neon - Neon
As AWS RDS costs grew, traconiq migrated to Neon to scale efficiently, taking advantage of branching and autoscaling.
Microcomputers – The Second Wave: Toward A Mass Market
In 1977, three new microcomputers appeared on the scene that broke free from the industry’s hobbyist roots: the Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80. Much later, in the 199…
Brilliant, Not Resilient
At Staff+, technical brilliance opens doors, but staying useful when the plan isn't yours is what keeps you in the room.
Subminiature Vacuum Tube History: Letting The Better Tech Win
For years, subminiature vacuum tubes were looking like the future of electronics—until a key figure in their rise heard about something better.
Your Review: Project Xanadu - The Internet That Might Have Been
Finalist #12 in the Review Contest
The Internet We Didn’t Get
Collective human consciousness is full of imagined or mythical dream-like utopias, hidden away behind mountains, across or under oceans, hidden in mist, or deep in the jungle. From Atlantis, Avalon…
Why Some Old Tech Is Better Than New Tech
Tech like streaming media and digital photography has made accessing and sharing content a lot more convenient, but there's something to be said for
It’s Time to Build | Andreessen Horowitz
Every Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade, but it’s not too early to ask why, and what we need to do about it. Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political...
A little bit of plain Javascript can do a lot
Testing on the Toilet: Don't Put Logic in Tests
by Erik Kuefler This article was adapted from a Google Testing on the Toilet (TotT) episode. You can download a printer-friendly version ...
Application compatibility layers are there for the customer, not for the program - The Old New Thing
The customer is the victim, not the program.
Choices
When you go into a restaurant and you see a sign that says “No Dogs Allowed,” you might think that sign is purely proscriptive: Mr. Restaurant doesn’t like dogs around, so when he…
86-020.pdf
The Software Essays that Shaped Me
I started reading software blogs before I got my first programming job 20 years ago. At this point, I've read thousands of blog posts and essays, but a small handful stuck in my mind and changed the way I think about software.
Intel's original 64bit extensions for x86
Introduction
Pixel Envy
A sassy weblog written by Nick Heer with topics including technology and policy, Apple, Silicon Valley, and privacy.
Olive 0.2.5 And 8 Extensions
One week later, the Olive ecosystem grows!
Why Context Is the New Currency in AI: From RAG to Context Engineering | Towards Data Science
Context, not computation, is the real currency of intelligent systems
Electric Communities
Don’t think of AI chatbots as people ⊗ Shared reality will self-destruct ⊗ What if the Post Office had its own AI model?
No.372 — What’s guiding our Regenerative Futures? ⊗ The way we think about the future needs to change ⊗ AlphaEarth tracks Earth’s changes ⊗ England’s ice-age ghost ponds
Inside the Life of an SQL Query: From Parsing to Execution, and Everything I Learned the Hard Way
Ever wondered what actually happens when you run an SQL query? From parsing to execution, joins, and optimizations — here’s the full…
On the Nature of Microservices
Microservices entered the lexicon of systems engineering a number of years ago, breaking up a system which might once have been delivered ...
Your Platform Might Already Be Incompatible With the Future
Matt Biilmann Christensen CEO of Netlify, challenged developers to think about the next significant shift in software: Agent Experience (AX).
I’m A Gamer Again. How The Hell Did That Happen?
Thoughts on getting into modern-day gaming later in life after taking a very long break. (Warning: This is a very elder millennial post, leaning on geriatric.)
Trust is the Secret Ingredient Missing in API Discovery by The API Evangelist
Understanding the technology, business, policies, and people of Apis.
Why AI Efficiency May Be Making Your Organization More Fragile
The productivity gains from AI tools are undeniable. Development teams are shipping faster, marketing campaigns are launching quicker, and deliverables are
Inside the Fascinating World of Terminals, TTYs, and PTYs
This post takes a look at terminals, TTYs, and PTYs. We’ll cover how terminals work, how pseudo-terminals let programs like bash and vim interact with your keyboard, and how terminal emulators display text and styles. Along the way, you’ll see escape codes, line discipline, signals, and a simple Python example with Pyte to show what’s happening behind the scenes.
Seven Years of Firecracker - Marc's Blog