Noгma is a non-graphic design studio in Turin, Italy, that explores the nihilistic possibility of eliminating aesthetic choice from the transmission of information. Noгma does absolutely nothing special.

This is a single SVG file created purely through D2 text:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single developer, will not be short of an opinion. Opinions on tabs vs spaces. Upon OOP vs FP. Upon classes vs functions. Just opinions, opinions, opinions. Opinions that are felt with all the sincerity of a Witchfinder General. And, alas, not always the same level of empathy.

This article is about how to understand and embrace error messages as tools to help us find issues in our code.

So this week I landeda fewpatches thatcompletely removed XUL layout from the Firefox codebase.

I am not excited about recent evolutions in artificial intelligence (AI) as many others are, but as with APIs, I am looking to find and follow the story. This is something that takes regular studying and thinking about things, so here I aim spending my weekend thinking about all of this, trying to define where I stand, and speak somewhat intelligently about where things are going. As with most things tech, I am coming at this through the API lens, but since OpenAI, and most of the AI / ML conversation occurring right now is API driven and defined, so I think my lens will prove relevant. I have to be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about the inner workings of AI / ML. It is all a little black box and a little out of reach, but I’ve been paying attention and used a lot of solutions, and I think my vantage point likely reflects where many others find themselves, whether they are honest about it or not.

If you want to innovate new solutions, you can't rely on data about existing solutions.

Let’s build APIs

A new version of very old software for a very old, but very important, computer

Sketchplanations writes up my theory of unintended consequences: People are complicated. Life is complicated. Ecosystems are complicated. Alex Tabarrok writes, “The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.” This so often happens in any kind of government program, regulation, law or attempt to control something within […]

“Our service should always be up.” Some myths just won’t die. Engineering for reliability is well understood by engineering leaders, less so by bosses

While many applications that call themselves lightweight may not take up a lot of space, they do a poor job in other areas.

SVG Phone Home

recently, an enterprising engineer on my team has added a code coverage check to our CI pipeline. On every pull request, a bot posts a comment like this: Test coverage reportTotal statements added …

The server in your basement suddenly has a global social media to support. What's your next move?

Python vs. PlusCal & TLA⁺

Initially, I planned for this to be an introduction to the Rust programming language for colleagues at work. However, when looking around online for inspiration, I noticed that one thing there was no shortage of, were Rust introductions. So with that in mind, I thought I would instead focus why I personally find the language interesting. So I won’t be teaching you how to write Rust. I won’t be giving an overview of the language syntax, or its type system.

How someone can nab buffered info, by hook or by kr00k

I shoot a lot of pictures. Most are from altitude (such as the above). But lots are of people and places, for example, here are a few I shot at DWebCamp last summer: Importing and curating photos i…

Protos - Xe's Blog

We could have a long, thoughtful, and important conversation about the way AI is transforming the world. But that is not what this story is about. What it

A recent update enabled the program to make better hands, more realistic Asian faces, and convincing vintage photographs.