Writing & Ideas
Thoughts on backend engineering, AI, and building software that scales.
Inside X's Bot Detection: A Complete Guide to How botmaker, scarecrow, and bdsm Actually Flag Inauthentic Accounts
On August 13, 2026, X pushed an update to its open-source x-algorithm repository that most coverage reduced to one headline: the exact ranking weights …
Needle: A Complete Guide to Running Function-Calling AI on Tiny Devices
A post about a 26-million-parameter open-source model has been circulating on LinkedIn: Needle, from Cactus Compute, distilled from Gemini for …
Understanding QUIC: A Complete Guide to How HTTP/3's Transport Protocol Actually Works
Most backend developers can still sketch TCP’s three-way handshake from memory, but ask about QUIC and the conversation stalls out at …
Open Knowledge Format (OKF): A Complete Guide to Building a Self-Updating Codebase Knowledge Graph
Point a coding agent at a real repository and watch what actually happens before it writes a single line: it reads files, greps for callers, opens a …
Twilio Telephony Terminology: A Complete Guide to SIP Trunking, DIDs, Porting, and A2P Compliance
The first time you open Twilio’s console to wire up voice or SMS for a real product, the terminology hits you all at once — SIP trunk, DID, …
UUIDs Explained: A Complete Guide to UUID Versions, Collision Odds, and Primary Key Performance
Ask most backend developers what a UUID is and you’ll get the same answer: “a random string that’s basically unique, so I …
Ruff in Python: A Complete Guide to Replacing Your Entire Lint and Format Stack
Most Python projects don’t have one code-quality tool — they have five. Flake8 for style, Black for formatting, isort for imports, pyupgrade for …
MCP Servers Explained: A Complete Guide to What I Learned Deploying One to AWS EC2
Most MCP content is theoretical — diagrams of a client talking to a server, an analogy to USB-C, a five-line “hello world” that runs on …
RAG in Production: A Complete Guide to Why Your Pipeline Works in the Demo and Fails in Production
The demo always works. You embed a few dozen documents, ask a question, and the model answers it correctly, instantly, with a clean citation. You show …
File Upload Security: A Complete Guide to Protecting Your Application
Every application that lets users upload something — a profile picture, a resume, an invoice, an attachment — opens a door into your server. Most of …
How Notification Systems Actually Work
Ever wondered how you get that instant ping when someone likes your post or sends you a message? That simple notification you see on your phone is the …