Chris Rybicki
@rybickic.bsky.social
tinkerer interested in distributed systems, compilers, and sometimes philosophy. he/him.
sui generis (adj.) - unique; in a class by itself
November 1, 2025 at 4:14 PM
sui generis (adj.) - unique; in a class by itself
nice Halloween touches NYC!
October 31, 2025 at 5:45 PM
nice Halloween touches NYC!
www.chess.com/news/view/ai...
Really cool results! In most game-like domains, the focus of AI is on maximizing win rate or score etc., but measuring the "novelty" of objects like puzzles turns out to be quite hard because it requires human taste, in a sense.
Really cool results! In most game-like domains, the focus of AI is on maximizing win rate or score etc., but measuring the "novelty" of objects like puzzles turns out to be quite hard because it requires human taste, in a sense.
DeepMind's AI Learns To Create Original Chess Puzzles, Praised By GMs
In a new study, researchers from Google DeepMind have created an AI system that is capable of generating creative chess puzzles, some of which impressed experts in chess compositions.
www.chess.com
October 31, 2025 at 4:29 AM
www.chess.com/news/view/ai...
Really cool results! In most game-like domains, the focus of AI is on maximizing win rate or score etc., but measuring the "novelty" of objects like puzzles turns out to be quite hard because it requires human taste, in a sense.
Really cool results! In most game-like domains, the focus of AI is on maximizing win rate or score etc., but measuring the "novelty" of objects like puzzles turns out to be quite hard because it requires human taste, in a sense.
Reposted by Chris Rybicki
I am looking for a full-time job.
Being independent in open source for 3.5+ years has been wonderful. I've gotten done most of the high-level goals I wanted to, and miss having people & structure around me.
If you know of a role for a staff-level TypeScript+web developer, let me know! 🙂
Being independent in open source for 3.5+ years has been wonderful. I've gotten done most of the high-level goals I wanted to, and miss having people & structure around me.
If you know of a role for a staff-level TypeScript+web developer, let me know! 🙂
October 30, 2025 at 2:40 PM
I am looking for a full-time job.
Being independent in open source for 3.5+ years has been wonderful. I've gotten done most of the high-level goals I wanted to, and miss having people & structure around me.
If you know of a role for a staff-level TypeScript+web developer, let me know! 🙂
Being independent in open source for 3.5+ years has been wonderful. I've gotten done most of the high-level goals I wanted to, and miss having people & structure around me.
If you know of a role for a staff-level TypeScript+web developer, let me know! 🙂
Reposted by Chris Rybicki
I'm delivering tremendous value in the enterprise Slack
October 29, 2025 at 8:43 PM
I'm delivering tremendous value in the enterprise Slack
Saw an article about the AWS outage analogize the DynamoDB endpoint of AWS as "the digital phone book of the internet". This feels like the same as calling mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell, no?
October 20, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Saw an article about the AWS outage analogize the DynamoDB endpoint of AWS as "the digital phone book of the internet". This feels like the same as calling mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell, no?
I only just now realized concurrency algorithms are called "starvation free" because the most famous concurrency problems/algorithms are about feeding people:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport...
Dining philosophers problem - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 18, 2025 at 6:44 PM
I only just now realized concurrency algorithms are called "starvation free" because the most famous concurrency problems/algorithms are about feeding people:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport...
Copy-pasting from Stack Overflow was the OG vibecoding.
October 16, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Copy-pasting from Stack Overflow was the OG vibecoding.
Apple's wired EarPods are worse than AirPods Pro in most ways - the audio is less clear, they leak more sound to others, they're not noise cancelling, etc.
And yet, something about the wired, rubber tip-less design makes them feel more shareable.
And yet, something about the wired, rubber tip-less design makes them feel more shareable.
October 15, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Apple's wired EarPods are worse than AirPods Pro in most ways - the audio is less clear, they leak more sound to others, they're not noise cancelling, etc.
And yet, something about the wired, rubber tip-less design makes them feel more shareable.
And yet, something about the wired, rubber tip-less design makes them feel more shareable.
Reposted by Chris Rybicki
We open sourced a read-through cache for S3, called Cachey github.com/s2-streamsto...
GitHub - s2-streamstore/cachey: Read-through cache for object storage
Read-through cache for object storage. Contribute to s2-streamstore/cachey development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
September 14, 2025 at 6:01 PM
We open sourced a read-through cache for S3, called Cachey github.com/s2-streamsto...
It's weird; I emphatically believe the more you can formally specify a system, the more robust it can be and the less of a chance that it has bugs.
And yet... JSON is one of the most widely used data interchange formats, and it doesn't specify how to handle duplicate field names.
🤷♂️
And yet... JSON is one of the most widely used data interchange formats, and it doesn't specify how to handle duplicate field names.
🤷♂️
September 10, 2025 at 3:50 AM
It's weird; I emphatically believe the more you can formally specify a system, the more robust it can be and the less of a chance that it has bugs.
And yet... JSON is one of the most widely used data interchange formats, and it doesn't specify how to handle duplicate field names.
🤷♂️
And yet... JSON is one of the most widely used data interchange formats, and it doesn't specify how to handle duplicate field names.
🤷♂️
Neat talk about Lean, specifically focusing on its metaprogramming capabilities!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5LO...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5LO...
The Best New Programming Language is a Proof Assistant by Harry Goldstein | DC Systems 006
YouTube video by Antithesis
www.youtube.com
August 23, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Neat talk about Lean, specifically focusing on its metaprogramming capabilities!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5LO...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5LO...
These days I feel mixed when folks talk about how great it is when a language makes it clear when functions have side effects. (1/n)
August 23, 2025 at 4:51 PM
These days I feel mixed when folks talk about how great it is when a language makes it clear when functions have side effects. (1/n)
There are only two types of people in this world: weirdos and closeted weirdos.
August 15, 2025 at 7:56 AM
There are only two types of people in this world: weirdos and closeted weirdos.
Tests with randomness can often be very powerful for discovering bugs (see fuzz testing and race detection testing); but in large monorepos, where code is shared by hundreds of teams, flakey tests are nightmares.
What are the solutions?
What are the solutions?
August 14, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Tests with randomness can often be very powerful for discovering bugs (see fuzz testing and race detection testing); but in large monorepos, where code is shared by hundreds of teams, flakey tests are nightmares.
What are the solutions?
What are the solutions?
Moving data is the single biggest cost in every distributed system.
August 9, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Moving data is the single biggest cost in every distributed system.
Reposted by Chris Rybicki
The next book we're reading in the Software Internals Email Book Club is the 2nd edition of The Art of Multiprocessor Programming.
Sign up and volunteer to kick off discussion for one chapter!
eatonphil.com/2025-art-of-...
Sign up and volunteer to kick off discussion for one chapter!
eatonphil.com/2025-art-of-...
August 2, 2025 at 1:42 PM
The next book we're reading in the Software Internals Email Book Club is the 2nd edition of The Art of Multiprocessor Programming.
Sign up and volunteer to kick off discussion for one chapter!
eatonphil.com/2025-art-of-...
Sign up and volunteer to kick off discussion for one chapter!
eatonphil.com/2025-art-of-...
Great post.
If everyone agreed on a definition of what a microservice is, it could be a useful discussion to have, but without that it's borderline bike shedding.
blog.container-solutions.com/why-im-no-lo...
If everyone agreed on a definition of what a microservice is, it could be a useful discussion to have, but without that it's borderline bike shedding.
blog.container-solutions.com/why-im-no-lo...
Why I'm No Longer Talking to Architects About Microservices
I'm done talking about microservices: the term is confusing, discussions are abstract, and without organisational change, microservices are pointless
blog.container-solutions.com
June 28, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Great post.
If everyone agreed on a definition of what a microservice is, it could be a useful discussion to have, but without that it's borderline bike shedding.
blog.container-solutions.com/why-im-no-lo...
If everyone agreed on a definition of what a microservice is, it could be a useful discussion to have, but without that it's borderline bike shedding.
blog.container-solutions.com/why-im-no-lo...
> When your Go app gets a SIGTERM, the runtime first catches it using a built-in handler. It checks if a custom handler is registered. If not, the runtime disables its own handler temporarily, and sends the same signal (SIGTERM) to the application again. This time, the OS ... terminates the process.
June 28, 2025 at 1:53 PM
> When your Go app gets a SIGTERM, the runtime first catches it using a built-in handler. It checks if a custom handler is registered. If not, the runtime disables its own handler temporarily, and sends the same signal (SIGTERM) to the application again. This time, the OS ... terminates the process.
If the 2010s was the decade of memes, does that make the 2020s the decade of vibes?
June 1, 2025 at 6:55 PM
If the 2010s was the decade of memes, does that make the 2020s the decade of vibes?
"If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people believe it is grass in the beginning." - Vincent Van Gogh
May 26, 2025 at 1:32 AM
"If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people believe it is grass in the beginning." - Vincent Van Gogh
Reposted by Chris Rybicki
why is knowing things so addictive
May 22, 2025 at 12:00 AM
why is knowing things so addictive
Something that surprises me is how often I stumble on new acronyms, even after being a reader of internet comments from Reddit, Hacker News, etc. for a decade+.
Like, today I learned (with help of ChatGPT - though maybe UrbanDictionary would have worked) that "TFA" means "the featured article"?
Like, today I learned (with help of ChatGPT - though maybe UrbanDictionary would have worked) that "TFA" means "the featured article"?
April 28, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Something that surprises me is how often I stumble on new acronyms, even after being a reader of internet comments from Reddit, Hacker News, etc. for a decade+.
Like, today I learned (with help of ChatGPT - though maybe UrbanDictionary would have worked) that "TFA" means "the featured article"?
Like, today I learned (with help of ChatGPT - though maybe UrbanDictionary would have worked) that "TFA" means "the featured article"?