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From the Network
electronics.stackexchange.com

What were WW2 electronics wires made of?

If it's shiny, it's probably plastic, even in the 1930s.

retrocomputing.stackexchange.com

Why did many arcade games have separate sound CPUs?

"While it increased hardware cost a little bit, it decreased development cost a lot."

space.stackexchange.com

How Does Code Reuse Work at NASA

Did they think they wrote every line of rover code from scratch for every rover?

workplace.stackexchange.com

I'm about to automate myself out of a job. How do I approach my boss to discuss this?

It may surprise you to know that this post is from eight years ago, and not from a person working at an AI company in 2025.

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skeptrune.com

I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

Epitome of "fine, I guess I'll just do it myself."

a64.in

Learning Basic Electronics By Building FireFlies

You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies, were built while breathing in potentially dangerous solder smoke.

pcgamer.com

Tech CEOs don't seem to realise just how anti-human their AI fanaticism is, and I think it's all because of the Enlightenment

Tech CEOs and their love for AI have us pondering age old philosophical debates.

youtube.com

I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird

Turns out you can send a digital image by carrier pigeon.

vidarholen.net

That time I wasted weeks hand optimizing assembly because I benchmarked on random data

"As it turns out, mathematically speaking, most numbers are huge."

caseorganic.medium.com

When swiping supplants scissors: the hidden cost of touchscreens — and how designers can help

It's official, running with scissors is better for your kids than their iPad.

nature.com

Writing is thinking

It's what sets us apart from the animals, so let's not let the bots take it over.

dzombak.com

Use your type system

'int' is not as much of your friend as you think it is.

zeroentropy.dev

Improving retrieval with ELO scores

Using ELO scores may just be the checkmate RAG needs in LLMs.

the-nerve-blog.ghost.io

To be a better programmer, write little proofs in your head

As a surprise to no one, checking your code along the way makes it better.

pynt.io

Code execution through email: how I used Claude to hack itself

50 First Dates for hacking your MCP.

gwern.net

LLM daydreaming

Proof that all of the puns we put in this email make us smarter than an LLM.

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Issue 288: Cowboys and heroes of developments

Which will you be? The good news is we've got ways for you to be both. We don't mind being like Smokey Bear this week by saying, "Only you can stop climate change...through more efficient code." Ryan Panchadsaram, co-author of Speed and Scale, is on the pod to share ways developers can help save the world by lowering emissions. If you're feeling more like a cowboy, though, Confluent's AI Entrepreneur in Residence Sean Falconer dove into the wild west of AI standards with us. Or if you're looking to be a hero on your platform team, we've also got a story on continuous discovery, the superpower of platform engineering. But if you're not feeling like hopping on a horse or saving the universe, we still have plenty for you to dive into, from big numbers to type systems to touch screens. We've got stories on why Legos are better for kids than iPads, and why humans are better for writing than LLMs. Plus, you can read about how thinking too big was a big waste of time for one developer. And as always, we're sharing answers to the questions you didn't even think to ask. Like, is my favorite pizza place running an illegal business by giving me 50% off for a review? What is the name of that beautiful chunk of carbs from the World Book Encyclopedia? How is the word skulduggery even real? Check them all out in the links below.

Issue 287: We'll see you in the cloud

This week, we're saying so long to the things of old...for instance, our final physical datacenter. Don't worry, we've got the complete story on The Great Unracking in New Jersey for you. And while our servers aren't nearly as old as dinosaurs, we're also crossing our fingers that we might say goodbye to fossil fuels after Kieran Furlong, the CEO of Realta Fusion, joined the podcast to explore the future of fusion energy. Plus, social scientist John Flournoy helped us wave goodbye to the old ways of measuring developer productivity and hello to the future of developer experience. Meanwhile, we've got stories from around the web about testing the bounds of your LLMs. AI has proved itself to be a good assistant for hacking, especially if it's hacking itself. But you don't need to worry (yet) about AI surpassing your human creativity; LLMs having their own spontaneous innovative thought are still just a daydream. So, to help you keep ahead of those dreamless machines, we've got a story on making your code better through mini proofs. And before we say goodbye to this week's newsletter, we've got a couple of age old questions about early Unix, when to use the word except, and whether you're supposed to eat the sprig of rosemary after a fancy steak dinner. All the answers are ready for you down below.

Issue 286: The future is now

This week, we're ringing in a new era at Stack Overflow. We're fresh from WeAreDevelopers, where our CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar and CPTO Jody Bailey shared with the world the next chapter at Stack Overflow. New era, new us...but don't worry, we're keeping you right at the center of it. With a new era, you gotta have a fresh new look. And like a middle schooler starting a new year of school, we had to ask our friends (the community) to help us pick the best one. XX But we're not just looking forward; we're also looking back. We're throwing it back to classic movies, the original Transformers paper, and talking like a baby. On the pod, Illia Polosukhin, co-author of the "Attention Is All You Need" paper, joins us to give his thoughts on the evolution of LLMs. Meanwhile, some award-winning baby-talk innovators flexed their skills during our community Coding Challenges. Plus, we got the story on how student co-founders at Koel Labs are using films to innovate speech technology, which would be helpful for our dear user on the Academia site who's asking about reputable transcription services. XX Speaking of movies, what version of Star Wars were you watching at home as a kid? We've got a possible answer for you in this issue, plus a bit about RESTful APIs, desktop publishing, and more. Wanna build software quicker...or slower? Well, you probably don't want to do that second one, but we've got the stories for both at our links below.

Issue 285: One query to rule them all

This week, we're thinking about the unsimple things in life. For instance, what are we supposed to do with a "dream machine" when its dreaming turns into hallucinations? How are 256 electrodes placed on the brain able to create perfect speech? Can you replace several cables with a single fiber line and still have internet? Are Ghibli breads real, and if so, where can I get one? You know, just everyday ponderings. XX Over on the pod, Stack Overflow legend Jon Skeet joined us to impart some of the tech wisdom that garnered him a million rep points, including the complexities of timezones (very Y2K problem). Plus, Matt DeBergalis from Apollo GraphQL jumped on to to talk the evolution of API orchestration and what it means for modern development stacks. And if you too are pondering about those peskily unreliable "dream machines," you'll be excited to know there are ways to base those dreams in reality. XX And in a world of unsimple things, we'll leave you with a few overly simplified answers: Is using your brain REALLY better for coding than an LLM? (Yes.) What kind of exception should you be throwing in C++? (Trick question, you shouldn't all the time.) Will T.S. Eliot get me fired from Apple? (Almost.) If you want to know more, the full answers are down below. XX

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