July 2026
Time for another monthly post sharing some of the IT discoveries that crossed my path lately. Below you'll find a mix of articles, links, and resources, some of which tie into my current activities and areas of interest.
Articles
7 More Common Mistakes in Architecture Diagrams
System architecture diagrams are essential tools for documenting complex systems. However, common mistakes in these diagrams can lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and frustration for viewers.
Your Docker Image Is 1.2GB. Here Is How To Get It Under 80MB.
A step-by-step optimization of a real Node.js Docker image, from a 1.2GB monster to a 78MB production container. Each technique is benchmarked, copy-paste ready, and explained with the trade-offs.
How to Write an Effective Software Design Document
Writing a design doc forces you to think through important decisions before you waste time on the wrong implementation or paint yourself into a corner. It’s also the best way to coordinate design decisions among teammates and partner teams.
A Life Engineered: 5 More Things World-Class Engineers Do That You Don't
More of what the truly elite do differently. Copy them.
A Life Engineered: 5 Simple Ways to Impress Your Boss
Simple actions that you can do today that place you in the "stars" category
A Life Engineered: Get Up to Speed Unbelievably Fast: A Practical Guide to Rapid Onboarding
A Former Amazon Principal Engineer's Proven System to Master Core Concepts and Make an Immediate Impact.
Julia Evans: Learning a few things about running SQLite
It’s always kind of fun to see how long it takes me to learn sort of basic things about the technologies I’m using.
Design Patterns Suck
Design patterns are overrated, overused, and often flat-out unnecessary.
Be the Idiot
Most disasters start as unasked questions - so ask them, even if you feel dumb
Banned Book Library
This firmware will turn your smart LED light bulb into an open and unencrypted WiFi access point. It runs a small web server which is used to host digital copies of banned or challenged books.
AI
how to build a coding agent: free workshop
Learning how to build a coding agent is one of the best things you can do for your personal development in 2025, as it teaches you the fundamentals.
Building an Intern
I’ve been building Junior for the last four months. The short version: it’s an intern in Slack.
Danel Miessler - Kimi K3 Might Have Just Started a Crash of the US Economy
People don't realize how much the U.S. economy currently depends on U.S. AI lab dominance
claude-controls-mac
How to set up your spare Mac for Claude Code to fully control - a step-by-step guide.
Understanding is the new bottleneck
If we build the right tools, we can now understand the world better than we ever could before.
Gist - AI Skill - xplain-diff-html
Please make me a rich, interactive explanation of the specified code change.
Python
Why I wrote PEP 832 -- virtual environment discovery
One common theme across experience levels is no one likes having to set something up. Another theme is no one likes dealing with environments. As such, I'm trying to find as much of a solution as people will agree to that makes getting started as easy as possible and hides environments as much as possible.
Django
Nifty Django Feature: F Expressions
The F stands for Field, and they are used to make references to other fields on the model in queries to the database. They can be used on both the read and write side of things. These provide a lot of utility and can help avoid race conditions when saving model changes.
Tools
GitHub - transmute-app/transmute
Self hosted file converter for images, video, audio, json, excel and more. Supports close to 3,000 conversions!
GitHub - juanmanueldaza/linkedin2md
Convert your LinkedIn data export to clean Markdown + PDF resume. Zero-dep Python CLI.
GitHub - hyeonsangjeon/youtube-dl-nas
Asynchronous WebSocket server for queue-based YouTube downloads with user authentication, optimized for private NAS (Docker-ready, batch & resume support).
Evan's Jujutsu Tutorial
Jujutsu (from here on, "jj") is a version control system that is both simple and powerful.
Other stuff
GitHub - EbookFoundation/free-programming-books
📚 Freely available programming books
Videos
Google Antigravity Livestream
Slow down to speed up: AI and software engineering
Why Even The Best Engineers Are Afraid Of What's Coming | Philip Su
4 Ways Slack is Killing Your Business Productivity
🇵🇱 Polish Corner 🇵🇱
Dałem trzem AI 300 złotych na inwestycje. Po miesiącu wynik mnie zaskoczył
Trzysta złotych, cztery tygodnie i trzy modele AI. Czy z takiej mieszanki może wyjść coś innego niż głośny jęk zawodu i szybki telefon po chwilówkę? Okazuje się, że tak… na tym biznesie da się nawet zarobić.