Neuromancer has become more than just an influential novel; it’s now the blueprint for the entire Cyberpunk genre. Even if you’ve never read it, you’ve felt its impact in nearly every major sci-fi film, TV show, anime, and video game of the past 40 years. Gibson didn’t invent cyberpunk, but he defined it. He created the lexicon—cyberspace, matrix, sprawl—that shaped how we imagine our digital future. Reading Neuromancer for the very first time in 2025 ...
Everyone’s either panicking that AI will replace them or assuming they don’t need to learn anything anymore. Both miss the point entirely. AI amplifies what you already know. If you understand distributed systems, you’ll use AI to build better ones. If you don’t, you’ll use AI to create distributed disasters. The difference? When that AI-generated code breaks in production — and it will — you need to know why. When it doesn’t scale — and it won’t — you need to understand the bottlenecks. When it creates race conditions, memory leaks, or architectural nightmares, GitHub Copilot won’t save you. Your fundamentals will. ...
I believe what’s important isn’t the specific technology itself, but rather maintaining curiosity that always looks toward new alternatives and making technical decisions based on your own judgment rather than simply delegating your choices to popular opinion. In Praise of the Contrarian Stack
The biggest news in tech this week (which isn’t over yet) is, without a doubt, that Cloudflare is about to introduce a pay-per-crawl model for AI bots—huge in many ways, as let’s not forget that approximately 20% of internet traffic is routed through Cloudflare. I have many thoughts right now, and it will take some time for them to settle. A good analysis and explanation of why this move is needed and is a good first step can be found in yesterday’s article by Dries Buytaert’s, The Web’s Broken Deal with AI Companies, which I recommend everyone read. ...
Simon Collison in Another Week in Edale perfectly captures why I enjoy hiking in bad weather, something those in my proximity consider borderline reckless: A calm day is always welcome, but there’s a perverse pleasure in struggling against violent gusts, or enjoying the steady rhythmic crackle of rain on a waterproof hood. Sometimes, bad weather can feel like a gift, exactly what’s needed to stir the senses and awaken the brain. ...
Omer has an intriguing essay up on his blog: choosing software used to be straightforward. does the app do what you need, or not? but now, opening notion or obsidian feels less like launching software and more like putting on your favorite jacket. it says something about you. aligns you with a tribe, becomes part of your identity. software isn’t just functional anymore. it’s quietly turned into a lifestyle brand, a digital prosthetic we use to signal who we are, or who we wish we were. ...
Preston Thorpe: I’m very excited to announce that I have recently joined Turso as a software engineer. For many in the field, including myself, getting to work on databases and solve unique challenges with such a talented team would be a dream job, but it is that much more special to me because of my unusual and unlikely circumstances. As difficult as it might be to believe, I am currently incarcerated and I landed this job from my cell in state prison. If you don’t know me, let me tell you more about how I got here. ...
Quoting Dries Buytaert: A few years ago, I quietly adopted a small principle that has changed how I think about publishing on my website. […] The principle is: If a note can be public, it should be. Unconsciously, I am trying to do the same, as you might have noticed by the increased activity on this website. Maintaining consistency can be challenging, but it’s worth the effort.
An impressive list of free online courses from top universities, courtesy of Open Culture. I’m bookmarking them for a friend when he retires.
Armin Ronacher is on a roll. He just published his Agentic Coding Reccomendations. On the topic of Agenting Coding he recently published: AI Changes Everything (you should read it) GenAI Criticism and Moral Quandaries Both already reported.