Postgres Queues Actually Scale
The conventional wisdom around Postgres-backed queues is that they don’t scale. To handle a large workload, you can’t use Postgres, but instead need a dedicated queueing system like RabbitMQ + Celery or Redis + BullMQ. There’s a reason people say this: queues really are a demanding workload for Postgres. At scale, thousands of workers are polling […]
So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
Humans make carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is bad for cognition. But plants turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen. And plants are the one true home decoration strategy. So maybe if you get a lot of plants, you can you can keep carbon dioxide in check and keep your brain working? It’s theoretically possible. It’s probably […]
CodePen 2.0
July 30, 2026 Noting perhaps my largest personal career accomplishment, which is launching CodePen 2.0. Far more work, believe it or not, than the entire creation of the original CodePen. This isn’t the place to describe every detail of what we did and why we did it. If you’re interested, perhaps our Why 2.0? podcast […]
We Gave GPT 5.6 Sol a Real Business. It Lied, Spammed, and Lost $447
If an agent had a wallet, a computer, and 24 hours, could it run a profitable startup? For an agent to perform real work, it needs to be continuously run for days or weeks as well as having access to business assets and working capital. So, we asked: Given all the tools of a real […]
Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick
Security experts have been sounding the alarm for years about the risks of using generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee, warning that they secretly rent the user’s Internet connection out to strangers. But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads […]
Rise Reforming (YC S26) Is Hiring
We’re looking for a process engineer with 5+ years of experience in scaling catalytic technologies to pilot and beyond. You will play a central role in designing, constructing, and commissioning our pilot unit and subsequently designing our first commercial unit. Required core competencies: Procuring, integrating, operating, and fixing pilot-scale equipment; Pilot chemical plant commissioning and […]
Stacked PRs are now live on GitHub
Stacked pull requests are now in public preview – GitHub Changelog Table of Contents Menu. Currently selected: Get started with the CLI extension Stacked pull requests break large changes into small, reviewable pull requests. They’re an ordered series of pull requests that each represent focused layers of your change. With stacks, you can independently review […]
Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don’t Add Up
For 25 years, physicists have been puzzled by an apparent one-part-in-a-million problem. Their expectations of the way that certain particles should wobble in a magnetic field were clashing with what they saw in experiments. The discrepancy was an electrifying hint that they might be seeing evidence of unknown particles. Then in 2021, that hint seemed […]
Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots
From feet to fingertips — we are teaching robots intelligent whole-body control, fine dexterity, and teamwork to complete a broad range of complex tasks For decades, we’ve dreamed of robots that can seamlessly step into our world and lend a hand. Now, that vision takes a significant stride forward. Most robots are pre-programmed or teleoperated […]
The Economic Benefit of Refactoring
As part of getting to grips with the new world of agentic engineering, I built an application to support my work. It’s a sophisticated app: high-quality web UI with dynamic refresh and look-up, modals and auto-save, integrations to external systems, machine learning and text analysis, background jobs, and a proper environment setup with fully automated […]