Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is a pattern that fixes the knowledge cutoff and hallucination problems by giving an LLM access to the right data at answer time. Instead of asking the model to “remember everything”, RAG lets it look things up first, then answer.
☕️ We started with coffee, like most chats do. Black for me, cappuccino for Jimothy (he actually prefers Jim, or James). Corner terrace, Singelgracht. One of those confusing Amsterdam afternoons where the sky can’t decide − sunlight breaks through the clouds, then ducks back behind them. Just long enough to let a few leaves blow […]
In software engineering, we often rely on “exponential back-off” when retrying failed network requests − a technique where each subsequent attempt is spaced out further in time to avoid overloading the system. Oddly enough, I’ve found myself applying a similar concept to human communication. As a Engineering lead, I’m frequently on the receiving end of […]
Remember when a five‑digit Stack Overflow score was a flex? Today that, and a vintage 2022 playbook will buy you precisely zero leverage. Yesterday’s job, tomorrow’s irrelevance Many Engineering managers still run on three rituals: However, none of those moves the product faster. Meanwhile, AI agents are quietly doing code reviews, generating boilerplate, even writing RFCs. The org chart hasn’t […]
Managing a homelab is all fun and games until you’re knee-deep in IP addresses, SSH keys, and trying to remember if this server was the one with Kubernetes or the one you broke last Tuesday. SSH-ing into multiple machines gets messy fast – unless you love memorizing IPs and usernames like some sort of 2000s hacker movie […]
I recently attempted to write a blog post exploring how our human memory is limited and how easily things slip between the cracks when life gets overwhelming. The original draft was around 2,300 words – painstakingly researched, peppered with references to scientific studies, and teetering into “academic essay” territory. It ended up so dense and […]
As a long-term fan of Yubikeys, I quickly got curious about this relatively new concept called “passkeys“. Big companies like Apple, Amazon, and Mastercard are nudging their users to adopt passkeys and use them instead of passwords. The “instead of passwords” part really got me curious! Since forever, passwords have been a part of our […]
As we learned that an office move was coming up, there were discussions regarding the pros and cons of two approaches to office seating: flex desks and reserved spaces. Both are very different office space arrangements, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
In this post, I want to share the highlights of some of the talks and compare the pros and cons of both approaches to office seating. Even though the terms are self-explanatory, let’s define both before we dive deeper.
Is this another piece on to-do lists? Yes and no: we will cover the topic of using a to-do list for work, however, from a highly practical standpoint.