Fragments

2025

• The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone Jul 15, 2025
• Occasionally injected clocks in Postgres Jun 29, 2025
• Testing the graceful handling of request cancellation in Go, 499s Jun 20, 2025
• Be careful with Dropbox May 26, 2025
• Optimizing JPEGs with MozJPEG for local archival Mar 29, 2025
• The right way to do data fixtures in Go Mar 20, 2025
• Profiling production for memory overruns + canonical log stats Feb 2, 2025
• Go's bytes.Buffer vs. strings.Builder Jan 2, 2025

2024

• Postgres UUIDv7 + per-backend monotonicity Dec 31, 2024
• Stripe V2 Dec 28, 2024
• Go's maximum time.Duration Dec 21, 2024
• ERROR: invalid byte sequence for encoding UTF8: 0x00 (and what to do about it) Dec 19, 2024
• The parallel test bundle, a convention for Go testing Oct 27, 2024
• Rails World 2024 Oct 6, 2024
• TIL: Variables in custom VSCode snippets Oct 4, 2024
• A few secure, random bytes without `pgcrypto` Sep 24, 2024
• Direnv's `source_env`, and how to manage project configuration Sep 20, 2024
• Your Go version CI matrix might be wrong Aug 11, 2024
• Elden Ring Jul 25, 2024
• Sqlc: 2024 check in Jun 16, 2024
• Go: Don't name packages common nouns Jun 2, 2024
• The romance of Europe May 28, 2024
• ICQ May 24, 2024
• Notes on implementing dark mode May 23, 2024
• Use of Go's `cmp.Or` for multi-field sorting May 16, 2024
• ValOrDefault May 15, 2024
• Heroku on two standard dynos? May 11, 2024
• Activating cached feature flags instantly with notify triggers May 10, 2024
• Shiki May 9, 2024
• Plumbing fully typed feature flags from API to UI via OpenAPI May 9, 2024
• Digital detox May 7, 2024
• Histograms worked May 4, 2024
• Ruby typing 2024: RBS, Steep, RBS Collections, subjective feelings May 3, 2024
• Modals and mysterious macOS failures Mar 5, 2024
• Stubbing degenerate network conditions in Go with `DialFunc` and `net.Conn` Mar 2, 2024
• Prepared statements for psql operations Feb 22, 2024
• Thoughts on ONCE + Campfire Jan 19, 2024
• Hard media Jan 15, 2024
• Discovering histograms, kicking off metric rollups Jan 13, 2024

2023

• The peanut gallery Oct 14, 2023
• Optimizing row storage in 8-byte chunks Oct 12, 2023
• Being a good web denizen: Don't strip EXIF metadata from photos Oct 4, 2023
• A Postgres-friendly time comparison assertion for Go Oct 4, 2023
• Getting Postgres logs in a GitHub Action Sep 26, 2023
• Why to prefer `t.Cleanup` to `defer` in tests with subtests using `t.Parallel` Sep 5, 2023
• An email redaction function for Postgres Aug 16, 2023
• Rate limiting, DDOS, and hyperbole Jul 6, 2023
• A `TestTx` helper in Go using `t.Cleanup` Jul 5, 2023
• 100% test coverage Jul 2, 2023
• PGX + sqlc v4 to v5 upgrade notes May 20, 2023
• PG advisory locks in Go with built-in hashes Apr 22, 2023
• Lean = fast Apr 9, 2023
• Stay mainline Apr 7, 2023
• Meta layoffs Mar 19, 2023
• Policy on util packages Mar 12, 2023
• `CL.THROTTLE` implemented in DragonflyDB Mar 12, 2023
• RFCs and review councils Mar 11, 2023
• Findings from six months of running `govulncheck` in CI Feb 20, 2023
• Honest health checks that hit the database Feb 19, 2023
• Migrating weaker password hashes by nesting them in an outer hash Feb 13, 2023
• Adventures in password hashing + migrating to Argon2id Feb 12, 2023
• PartialEqual Feb 4, 2023
• Revisiting my two-year SF predictions Jan 28, 2023
• Content authored by ChatGPT front pages Jan 7, 2023
• The static rip cord Jan 1, 2023

2022

• Notes on iOS live photos with ffmpeg and <video> Dec 31, 2022
• Short, friendly base32 slugs from timestamps Dec 29, 2022
• Easy, alternative soft deletion: `deleted_record_insert` Dec 28, 2022
• The unpursuit of clout Dec 27, 2022
• The Way of Water Dec 26, 2022
• Habitually testing for goroutine leaks Dec 18, 2022
• Sequences, rebooted Nov 7, 2022
• Ephemeral DB, a sacrificial database line for high-throughput data Nov 2, 2022
• Postgres: Safely renaming a table with no downtime using updatable views Oct 27, 2022
• Partitioning in Postgres, 2022 edition Oct 5, 2022
• Go wishlist (2022) Aug 11, 2022
• READMEs are a great idea, still Aug 7, 2022
• Operational convergence, for REPL-less languages like Go Jul 25, 2022
• The disproportionate influence of early tech decisions Jul 23, 2022
• Idempotency: The `is_transient` property Jul 18, 2022
• Code in database vs. code in application Jul 10, 2022
• Spring '83 Jun 20, 2022
• Mostly automatic Go dependency updates with GitHub Actions Jun 7, 2022
• Generating a random `float64` with `crypto/rand` Jun 2, 2022
• There's always an events table May 2, 2022
• Sorbet + 100% cov makes Ruby refactoring possible Apr 25, 2022
• UUID code stanzas in Ruby Apr 14, 2022
• Reservation-style rate limiting APIs Mar 27, 2022
• iOS Shortcuts: Appending dictated memos to Notes Mar 20, 2022
• Does laptop weight matter? Mar 19, 2022
• Filtering Sentry spans no one looks at Feb 17, 2022
• Single dependency stacks Feb 8, 2022
• A retina asset shortcode for Hugo Feb 4, 2022

2021

• The Wheel of Time S1 Dec 24, 2021
• Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline? Dec 20, 2021
• WaniKani midway check in Dec 18, 2021
• The Bay Area as a declining tech company Dec 17, 2021
• On the unreasonable effectiveness of streak tracking Dec 5, 2021
• Idempotency keys @ Crunchy Nov 25, 2021
• Implementing a random by ID flag type Nov 22, 2021
• Netflix's Cowboy Bebop Nov 20, 2021
• Flags v. gates Nov 18, 2021
• The 16" MacBook Pro (late 2021) Nov 17, 2021
• Dropbox alternatives Nov 7, 2021
• Calgary in the spotlight Oct 17, 2021
• Simple internal idempotency by ID Oct 1, 2021
• Program start check Sep 30, 2021
• AirPods Max Sep 30, 2021
• Tightening the bolts with golangci-lint Sep 26, 2021
• go:embed in prod, serve-from-disk in development Sep 24, 2021
• No Medium Sep 11, 2021
• Important (but not required) parameters to include when connecting to Postgres Sep 9, 2021
• Write -> publish pipeline Sep 9, 2021
• It's time to stop truncating RSS content Sep 8, 2021
• Haruki Murakami interviewed by Paris Review Sep 7, 2021
• HTTP API design: 204 "No content" mildly harmful Sep 7, 2021
• K-sorted ID algorithms Sep 7, 2021
• Accidentally walkable Sep 4, 2021
• Go: Number of days in month Aug 27, 2021
• Error stack traces in Go with x/xerrors Aug 22, 2021
• Why form encoding in web APIs is an anti-pattern Jul 30, 2021
• API design showcase: OpenAI Jul 29, 2021
• Considerations for event APIs (versus webhooks) Jul 21, 2021
• Retry-friendly idempotent delete in web APIs Jul 17, 2021
• `Idempotency-Key` IETF standards draft Jul 5, 2021
• The Heroku HTTP API Design Guide, revisited Jun 5, 2021
• The state of Stripe API library codegen Apr 25, 2021
• Joining Crunchy Data Apr 9, 2021
• The Leica Q2 Monochrom, or why not to get into Leica Feb 20, 2021
• The girl next door Feb 20, 2021
• Predictions for San Francisco over two years Feb 15, 2021
• Engineering blog posts: Apply healthy skepticism Feb 12, 2021
• Blog with Markdown + Git, and degrade gracefully through time Feb 8, 2021
• Large asset management in a Git-based static site Jan 25, 2021
• RSS, why didth I abandon ye? Jan 24, 2021
• The great Signal migration Jan 24, 2021
• Roderick, canceled Jan 23, 2021
• A WaniKani API Go package Jan 23, 2021
• Cross-posting to Mastodon Jan 12, 2021
• The Engelmann Spruce plaque, Sulphur Mountain Jan 12, 2021
• Homebrew on M1 is a go Jan 9, 2021
• Building Ruby 3 on Mac M1 ARM Jan 9, 2021
• Development log: Rescuing history Jan 8, 2021
• What to do in 2021 Jan 3, 2021
• What's good about offset pagination; designing parallel cursor-based web APIs Jan 2, 2021
• Development log: Moving to flat files Jan 1, 2021

2020

• The Sopranos Dec 29, 2020
• Tenet Dec 27, 2020
• The .org armageddon staved off, for now Dec 24, 2020
• Japanese: Why does the は particle sound like "wa"? Dec 19, 2020
• 350 MB Dec 16, 2020
• WaniKani level 10 Dec 12, 2020
• Cookies vs. local storage Dec 5, 2020
• Apple M1: First impressions Dec 5, 2020
• GitHub Actions: Setting env vars with other env vars Dec 3, 2020
• Aurora Babelfish Dec 1, 2020
• On the cruelty of kanji Sep 16, 2020
• Meditations on the impermanence of wireless earphones Sep 15, 2020
• SF go/no-go decision framework Sep 8, 2020
• Building a self-updating GitHub README Aug 29, 2020
• A simple HTTP retry and backoff loop in Go Aug 29, 2020
• TTL indexes in Mongo Aug 26, 2020
• Beginner Japanese Aug 25, 2020
• Development log: Turning on DMARC for sending email Aug 19, 2020
• Development log: libjpeg / MozJPEG optimization shootout Apr 15, 2020
• Development log: Minimizing S3 transfer during sync Apr 8, 2020
• Development log: Deploying Google Cloud Run from GitHub Actions Apr 6, 2020

2019

• Slack, and the case for bar-raising (instead of lowering) Nov 22, 2019
• AirPods Pro Nov 3, 2019
• The steady march of complexity Oct 3, 2019
• Encoding H.265/HEVC for QuickTime with FFmpeg May 28, 2019
• False positives in UI design: when small buttons are better than big ones Apr 27, 2019
• 1,000 days of counting Calories Mar 18, 2019
• Karl Lagerfeld (and dieting) Feb 20, 2019

2018

• Simple and stateless CSRF protection with the `Origin` header Nov 4, 2018
• OLAP, OLTP, Zheap, and tradeoffs in Postgres MVCC Oct 28, 2018
• The subtleties of API contracts, or how enabling HTTP/2 broke Go clients Aug 10, 2018
• Caffeine Jul 7, 2018
• Reflections on Rust, and the sand castle metaphor Apr 27, 2018
• The 500 test Apr 13, 2018
• 100 days with Rust, or, a series of brick walls Mar 20, 2018

2017

• Mindfulness Nov 24, 2017
• Changing a universal constant: How 280-character tweets break an API Oct 17, 2017
• The city that tried to buy itself Sep 11, 2017
• Depickling, gadgets, and chains: The class of exploit that unraveled Equifax Sep 10, 2017
• Unsubscribe: The noisy death of email marketing Aug 27, 2017
• Patronage in the age of free Aug 23, 2017
• A year of counting Calories Jul 19, 2017
• Headspace May 27, 2017
• The long road to Mongo's durability May 7, 2017
• All wires May 3, 2017
• Partitioning in MongoDB (or lack thereof) Apr 28, 2017
• GraphQL APIs and performance Apr 25, 2017
• Your Name Apr 11, 2017
• Shopify scripts, MRuby, and the $500,000 release Apr 7, 2017
• Sharing with iCloud Drive and iBooks Apr 1, 2017
• The rise of the smartphone's eye Mar 31, 2017
• AirPods Mar 29, 2017
• GitLab, and centrally hosted platforms Mar 26, 2017
• Learning about language safety from Zcoin Mar 7, 2017
• Alan Kay on Apple and iOS Jan 31, 2017
• Chrome Jan 27, 2017
• Marginal security Jan 27, 2017
• Understand deeply Jan 18, 2017
• The state of messaging Jan 17, 2017
• Journaling (revisited) Jan 10, 2017
• Amazon Prime Jan 3, 2017

2016

• Zombified Dec 29, 2016
• Exporting Flickr Dec 28, 2016
• The last AirBnB Dec 13, 2016
• Apple 2016 Dec 6, 2016
• Turn off your cellphone Dec 6, 2016
• No escape Nov 19, 2016
• Fixing a slow git $PS1 prompt Nov 17, 2016
• Apple Bedtime Oct 19, 2016
• Deep work & concentration Oct 19, 2016
• OpenAPI 2.0 Oct 16, 2016
• Postgres 9.5 on Travis CI Oct 1, 2016
• PAX 2016 Sep 13, 2016
• Courage Sep 9, 2016
• Splunk Aug 28, 2016
• Podcasts 2016 Aug 28, 2016
• 4 A.M. Aug 24, 2016
• Ivy Aug 24, 2016
• Retina check Aug 22, 2016
• The cost of manga Aug 8, 2016
• The steel man Aug 6, 2016
• Journaling Aug 4, 2016
• Gh-ost Aug 3, 2016
• Perpetual cookies Jul 31, 2016
• OSX and entropy Jul 31, 2016
• Verified env vars Jul 29, 2016
• Where are all the new great companies? Jul 29, 2016
• Asturias check-in Jul 25, 2016
• Hype trains Jul 20, 2016
• us-east-1 Jul 20, 2016
• CloudFront indexes Jul 18, 2016
• Six weeks Jul 18, 2016
• Testing Go packages from project root Jul 15, 2016
• Going static Jul 14, 2016
• H&M sportswear Jun 28, 2016
• Week three Jun 27, 2016
• _Do_ debug Jun 23, 2016
• Week two Jun 20, 2016
• The zero-sum treadmill Jun 15, 2016
• One week of nutritional rigor Jun 13, 2016
• The iPad Mini Jun 12, 2016
• PAX 2016 ticket royale Jun 8, 2016
• Calorie counting Jun 7, 2016
• On brevity Apr 28, 2016
• Life without mediators Apr 27, 2016
• Not hosted here Apr 27, 2016
• Traffic Apr 19, 2016
• A glance at Kubernetes Apr 12, 2016
• Codeword Apr 7, 2016
• Timing the guitar Apr 5, 2016
• Avast Mar 31, 2016
• Digital natives Feb 23, 2016
• Accumulation Feb 23, 2016
• Testing a Kafka connection Feb 10, 2016
• Google engineering principles Feb 3, 2016
• Naked DNS Jan 31, 2016
• The bear Jan 30, 2016
• Burn parties Jan 30, 2016
• Heavy complexity Jan 25, 2016
• MonkeyBrains Jan 23, 2016
• Fast OSX screen lock Jan 22, 2016
• AWS Certificate Manager Jan 21, 2016
• Turning points Jan 20, 2016
• Safety razors Jan 10, 2016
• Notification hell Jan 10, 2016
• An AWS static hosting workaround Jan 5, 2016
• AWS static hosting Jan 4, 2016
• Do one thing and do it well? Jan 4, 2016
• The sprawl blues Jan 3, 2016
• Game of Thrones pessimism Jan 3, 2016

2015

• SF housing and activism Dec 30, 2015
• Insecurity by instinct Dec 25, 2015
• Cineplex Odeon Dec 24, 2015
• Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens Dec 21, 2015
• Plex for PS4 Dec 7, 2015
• Starbucks growth Dec 7, 2015
• Spectre Nov 9, 2015
• Showing Redshift distkey & sortkey Oct 26, 2015
• GPG at Stripe Oct 18, 2015
• Safeway justice Oct 18, 2015
• 2015 resolutions (update) Oct 18, 2015
• Entropy Sep 17, 2015
• The End of the Tour Aug 17, 2015
• Legacy projects & the maintainer Aug 14, 2015
• Whiplash Aug 14, 2015
• The Everything Store Aug 9, 2015
• The 12" MacBook revisited Jun 14, 2015
• The guitar Jun 14, 2015
• WGT 2015 abstract May 29, 2015
• WGT 2015 brain dump May 26, 2015
• Notes on the new 12" MacBook May 19, 2015
• Google Domains May 17, 2015
• Paper books Feb 15, 2015
• Infinite Jest Feb 5, 2015
• 2015 resolutions Jan 3, 2015
• Inventory ephemeralization Jan 3, 2015

2014

• GPG + the Heroku CLI Dec 11, 2014
• GPG + HTTP git Dec 11, 2014
• The Cubano Nov 27, 2014
• CloudFlare Universal SSL Nov 12, 2014
• GPG + s3cmd Nov 10, 2014
• GPG + cURL Nov 10, 2014
• Yosemite & progress bars Nov 10, 2014
• Anki's .apkg Oct 26, 2014
• Global recovery in Go with defer Sep 21, 2014
• iBooks & Dropbox Sep 21, 2014
• PAX Sep 4, 2014
• Major buys Jul 19, 2014
• New York Jul 16, 2014
• WGT Jun 29, 2014
• Yosemite & Linux Jun 28, 2014
• Go relax Jun 28, 2014
• Two stars Jun 11, 2014
• Bicycles Jun 6, 2014
• Swift: day one Jun 3, 2014
• json_ schema May 24, 2014
• Gossip from across the world May 16, 2014
• X-Forwarded-Proto May 15, 2014
• Square cash & e-mail as a platform May 10, 2014