Feel like speaking in terms of memes harms your credibility? Upgrade to using "principles" named after people you've never heard of!

Like a transitive Dunning-Kruger effect.

Why merge queues? 3/26/2026

You might have heard of merge queues. You might even have used one at work. If so, you might even hate them. But if you've never used them before, how do you decide if your engineering team would benefit from a merge queue?

telliott.me/posts/why-me...

Have you heard the one about the company that makes zippers?

IYKYKKYK

I must be tired, my first thought was 'but "com" is only 3 letters'.

Thank you for catching my mistake! It's important to use actual API features rather than making them up.

A teachable moment for AI

Saw Project Hail Mary last night. A great movie and a mostly faithful adaptation. Except they cut out the scene at the start where he rips out his catheter. Cowards.

How friendly are your rate limits? 3/19/2026

Comparing two rate limiting strategies, one that's (almost) pleasant to work with, another that is very much not.

telliott.me/posts/how-fr...

Just imported a resource into a Pulumi project for the first time. Pleasantly surprised by how smooth it went. I think I'm now a fan.

Why not 1 H200?

Tech interviewing will always be broken 3/13/2026

Technical interviews have changed a lot over the years. Various kinds of interviews have drawn various kinds of complaint. We can make it better, but it'll still always be a bit broken.

telliott.me/posts/tech-i...

I'd say that was a data durability problem and demand 11 9s.

If I never have to get another DUNS number assigned it will be too soon.

It's not trolling, it's a lifestyle choice!

How much code *should* you review? 3/6/2026

There's no escaping it, AI is writing a lot of code. Some great, some needing human intervention. But how should we focus our review efforts to catch the bugs without getting overwhelmed?

telliott.me/posts/how-mu...

Wait, was Maria (dear as she was) including him in an activity or setting the beat for the song?

Looks great! Love the shading on the bones.

I interviewed at a number of companies in January. A few allowed AI in the coding interviews with a goal of seeing how you used it. It wasn't across the board, but more common than I expected.

Approving deployments with GitHub Actions 2/27/2026

A weekend project to explore GitHub Actions deployments and Pulumi!

telliott.me/posts/approv...

Historians have recently uncovered a centuries-old artwork depicting Norman soldiers fighting alligators in a marsh. They call it the Bayou Tapestry.

"Wintry mix" always makes me think of salad.

Rehousing my blog 2/20/2026

I've been dissatisfied with SubStack for a little while, and finally got my act together to move to a self-hosted site where I have more control.

telliott.me/posts/rehous...

Anyone else think “Commuter Benefit” would be a good name for a band?

“Hi, we’re Commuter Benefit and this is our cover of Fast Car”

They even resisted using Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” in that last episode.

Is GitHub getting less reliable? It's been a bad couple of weeks for GitHub reliability, but how does this compare to their previous performance? I pulled some data from their status page to find out.

It's been a bad couple of weeks for GitHub reliability, but how does this compare to their previous performance? I pulled some data from their status page to find out.

open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

"Make no mistakes." is a confusing kind of prompt. Confusing in the sense that I can't decide if it's more like:

- Giving an intern no coaching and being frustrated they didn't "meet expectations".
- "I hereby declare that Facebook cannot use my content for stuff."

I’ve been firmly in the IDE for a long time, it was just way more convenient with the test on save automations, finding references and go to definition. AI tools are making some of the workflow automations less critical, but I still feel more comfortable being able to navigate the code myself.

Plur1bus: accidental AI allegory Is Plur1bus secretly about AI? Officially, no, but that didn't stop me seeing shadows of GPUs in almost every scene.

Is Plur1bus secretly about AI? Officially, no, but that didn't stop me seeing shadows of GPUs in almost every scene.

open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Yes, you should still learn to code Join me as I recount a recent experience with an enthusiastic but wrong LLM and what I had to do to dig out of the hole.

AI coding tools either feel magical or incredibly frustrating. A recent experience left me feeling very glad I still know how to code.

open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Why not both? Multiple tasks in-progress at once, but never working on more than one concurrently.

Oof, that sounds rough. Glad you're feeling better.