26-Dec-2025 Content of Interest

Bci

Neurable secures $35m to expedite BCI technology commercialisation (Prasanna Gullapalli) "Neurable focuses on developing AI-driven tools for brain signal translation and BCI technology."
Brain Gear Is the Hot New Wearable (Emily Mullin) TIL: Apple filed a patent in 2023 for EEG-sensing AirPods
Sam Altman’s New Brain Venture, Merge Labs, Will Spin Out of a Nonprofit (Emily Mullin) "The name Merge Labs refers to the Silicon Valley concept of “the merge,” the point when humans meld with machines."

Sisyphus versus the Conductor (Obie Fernandez) "Sisyphus can be compelling. But ultimately the conductor wins."
When Change Outruns Us (Mike Fisher) "Instead of asking what will create the most value, people ask what will help them survive the next change."
Avoid mini-frameworks (laike9m) "we should be really really careful introducing new concepts. If you can, avoid it."
How to not be replaced by AI (Max Berry) Great read.
52 things I learned in 2025 (Tom Whitwell) TIL: Japan has two electrical grids, and lots more.
No, Clojure: your REPL is not new – or best (Dimension AI Technologies) "The REPL is an immensely valuable tool. Its lineage stretches back more than six decades."
Where Architects Sit in the Era of AI (Dave Holliday, João Carlos Gonçalves, Manoj Kumar Yadav, Luca Mezzalira) "What does it mean to be an architect when architectural thinking can be automated?"

Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work (Simon Willison) "A computer can never be held accountable."
If You’ve Never Broken It, You Don’t Really Know It (Tim O’Brien) "Every Useful Thing I’ve Learned About Databases—and Now AI Coding Tools—Started with Failure."
Unintended Consequences (Mike Fisher) "The most mature teams don’t fear surprise; they study it."
Why “Microservices” Debates Miss the Point (Derek Comartin) "The root of the problem is coupling."
Being an architect isn’t the sum of skills. It’s the product (Gregor Hohpe) "It’s not just about tech. But also not just about non-tech."
Why you shouldn’t use INs in SQL and what to use instead (Domenic Helfenstein) "Table-Valued Parameters, or TVPs"
What happens when the coding becomes the least interesting part of the work (Obie Fernandez) "That act of explanation does something important. It slows you down enough to notice when your instincts are off."

A little bit uncomfortable (Dr. Werner Vogels) "In hindsight, these scary (and occasionally terrifying) moments are the ones that we all learn the most from."

Avoidable Software Failures Cost Trillions - IEEE Spectrum (Harry Goldstein) "The FDA recalls on average 20 medical devices per month due to software issues."

Deprecate Like You Mean It (Entropic Thoughts) "What if we intentionally made deprecated functions return the wrong result … sometimes?"
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (Cory Doctorow) "How to be a critic whose criticism inflicts maximum damage on the parts of AI that are doing the most harm."
Tech Debt vs Quality (Mike Fisher) "The goal isn’t to find balance; it’s to build acceleration that lasts."
Everything New Has Bugs (Mike Fisher) "The deeper issue isn’t speed itself, it’s the lag time between faster motion and the adaptation of supporting systems."
How good engineers write bad code at big companies (Sean Goedecke) "I expect to be re-orged at least every year, and often much more frequently."

After the Bubble (Tim Bray) Good read. "The GenAI bubble is going to pop. Everyone knows that."

Event Design for Streaming Systems: A Primer (Ian Duncan) "The key challenge is managing these public event streams as contracts between teams."
Demystifying Determinism in Durable Execution (Jack Vanlightly)
How Do We Effectively Communicate Architecture? (Stuart Breingan) "Architecture is complex, and most of the time the fastest and clearest way to convey it is visually."
Fifty Shades of OOP (Lesley Lai) "survey some ideas related to OOP and mention their pros and cons"
Building a Durable Execution Engine With SQLite (Gunnar Morling)
Solving Fizz Buzz with Cosines (Susam Pal) "the modest goal of making this simple problem more complicated" Mission accomplished!
Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4: The tastiest bites - JVM Weekly vol. 153 (Artur Skowronski) "new generation of practically all its flagship projects: Spring Framework 7, Spring Boot 4, Spring Data 2025.1, and a release for Spring AI 1.1 for the Boot 3.5 line"