The more I look at how we actually build systems now, the more it looks like Terraform is dead. Not “declining.” Not “evolving.” Dead. What’s left is just inertia. What Terraform Actually Solved Terraform solved a very specific problem: how do we make infrastructure deterministic, reviewable, and repeatable? The answer was a DSL, a plan step, and a state file. It worked, and it still works. But it also forced an awkward compromise. Humans ended up describing intent in a language that was never designed to express it, and HCL is not how anyone actually thinks about systems.

"People are tired of AI slop and misinformation," writes Hank Green. "The social contract of our digital age is broken."

For the last decade, fast-to-ship beat fast-to-run. Not anymore.

When most people think about vacuum tubes, they picture big glass bottles glowing inside antique radios or early computers. History often treats tubes as a dead-end technology that was suddenly swe…

on building free public infrastructure for enjoyment

"If there were a dictator of the internet who intentionally set out to destroy your ability to get accurate information, the result would look a lot like what’s already on your screen. But why?"

I'm a blabby nerd that lives in the high desert...

The most widely adopted computer language in history, COBOL is now causing a host of problems. It's also dangerously difficult to remove.

A full 3D game -- renderer, physics engine, scripting runtime -- exported to WebAssembly is 35MB. The default Node.js Docker image is hundreds of MB, pulled 19 million times last week.

The AI boom that keeps on giving.

Sorry Peter. — I'm at a birthday party, and while most people here also work in tech, there's always a Guy with a Real Job. You know, a physical job, building some or other thing people need. And this Guy always asks some variant of the same question: aren't you worried AI is taking your job? I glance around and see a few faces turning around toward us, rolling their eyes ever so slightly before returning to their previous conversation. Yes, this question again.

Posted on Friday 8 May 2026. 417 words, 2 links. By Matt Webb.

Software can sometimes experience unusual malfunctions and cease working. The code runs perfectly. Every feature works. Nothing breaks. But Monday morning you log in and half your users vanished. Next month, half of what's left. Six months later? Ghost town. The Psychology Behind Product Abandonment People get itchy. That app you couldn't live without last

You’ve probably heard it’s futile, but that hasn’t stopped plenty from trying to reinvent the wheel—some successfully, shockingly.

Ted Turner died just as GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen made an audacious eBay bid. Turner invented the playbook that Cohen’s currently exploiting way back in the ’80s.

Be wary of the cool new AI tools Anthropic and OpenAI are throwing—because you may get stuck with the bill. (BTW, did you know there are cheaper options?)

Everyone is adopting AI coding tools. Engineers are writing code faster than ever. But are organizations actually delivering value faster? That’s not

The most honest test of any model is whether you'd actually use it yourself

Every data leader has a version of this story. A regulatory audit surfaces a metric that doesn't match across systems. A board member catches conflicting

My friend and I have a game where we talk about what we'd do if we were rich. Not rich like 'paid off the mortgage' rich. Rich like a man who owns a submarine he's never been inside. Rich like a man whose third wife has a skincare line. Tech-titan

Thoughts on the Peter Pan generation and how its shaped our relationship to money.

As is always the case, this started with a simple question: Will AI change how networks work? Will it impact the speeds we need at home and on our phones? My assumption was that AI would accelerate…

Every so often, I would notice that our upstream bandwidth consumption was going up. Average upload usage is growing 21.7% year over year, more than twice the rate of downstream growth. The network…

First, a short apology. I was unable to send the newsletter last weekend. Life and sniffles got in the way — OM As has been the case lately, I have been writing a bit too much about AI, and its two…

As social media splinters, how can we keep the new online spaces from devolving into toxic pits of despair?

I like the Internet. I am old enough to remember the pre-Internet era and despite the younger generations pining for those simpler days, I was there. Paper maps were absolutely horrible, just you and a compass in your car on the side of the road in the middle of the

A few years ago, I had a machine learning assignment during my Master in Data Science. The assignment was not clear for me. I had rough times because of my background. I came from CS background, we don’t give assignments without clear requirements where I came from. I asked; can I use any programming language? The answer was shocking for me; Yes! So I decided to have some fun while doing my homework. Decided to write it in Doge. The problemo? The problemo revealed itself to me when I saw the submission requirements. It should be delivered in Jupyter Notebook format.