Clay weekly context brief for the Blogs category (ISO week 2026-W33). Clay tracks publications from the Blogs feed list. Below are recent items from this category, each with its source and a short description of what the publication covers when one is available in the source feed. Recent publications: 1. Dark mode in 5 minutes, with inverted lightness variables Source: Lea Verou Link: https://lea.verou.me/2021/03/inverted-lightness-variables/ By now, you probably know that you can use custom properties for individual color components, to avoid repeating the same color coordinates multiple times throughout your theme. 2. Feedback Flywheel Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/articles/reduce-friction-ai/feedback-flywheel.html Rahul Garg finishes his series on reducing the friction in AI-Assisted Development. 3. Computational Public Space Source: Bret Victor Link: https://dynamicland.org/2024/Computational_Public_Space/ A talk about a values-driven approach to integrating computation into cities. 4. New microblog with TILs Source: Julia Evans Link: https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/11/09/new-microblog/ I added a new section to this site a couple weeks ago called TIL (today I learned). 5. Endless execution Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/endless-execution-4157e065 The age of agents has brought us endless execution. 6. Urgent: Thank New York Times Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-may-aug.html#5_August_2026_(Urgent:_Thank_New_York_Times) US citizens: Thank the New York Times for Fighting Back against the magats' subpoenas against journalism. 7. Gemini Robotics ER 2: powering robotics with video understanding, task orchestration, and multi-robot collaboration Source: Demis Hassabis Link: https://deepmind.google/blog/gemini-robotics-er-2-powering-robotics-with-video-understanding-task-orchestration-and-multi-robot-collaboration/ Gemini Robotics ER 2 helps robots reason, collaborate, and solve real-world tasks. It represents a step change in video understanding, tool orchestration, and multi-robot collaboration for robotic applications. 8. Understanding AT Protocol Source: Rachel Andrew Link: https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2026/07/30/understanding-at-protocol/ Ive been playing around with AT Protocol. 9. Being Linux Torvalds Source: Salvatore Sanfilippo Link: http://antirez.com/news/171 (This blog post was adapted from the transcription obtained from my YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6lxgYeVZqs) When Linus Torvalds developed the first Linux kernel, he had studied the Minix sources, he had studied computer architecture, he had the base knowledge needed, and he was obviously a very brilliant programmer. 10. NISQ and quantum supremacy did not fail Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9949 A week ago, a philosopher named Amit Hagar put out a preprint entitled The NISQ Trap: Eight Years of Demonstrations the Hardware was Built to Lose. 11. Agentic test processes, LLM benchmarks, and other notes on agentic coding from Galapagos Island Source: Dan Luu Link: https://danluu.com/ai-coding/ I've been using AI fairly heavily since last November and the whole thing is a funny experience . 12. In defense of AI mandates Source: Charity Majors Link: https://charity.wtf/p/in-defense-of-ai-mandates When you need to execute a coordinated change on a tight timeline, a mandate is the best and most honest way to fund it. 13. We should be more tired than the model Source: Vicki Boykis Link: https://vickiboykis.com/2026/05/28/we-should-be-more-tired-than-the-model/ Lately, Ive been feeling like Im losing control over the code I write when I work with agentic code generation. 14. Thank You For Being a Friend Source: Jeff Atwood Link: https://blog.codinghorror.com/thank-you-for-being-a-friend/ It's been one of those months, and by that, I mean one of the 663 months since I was born. This won't be a long post, because I only have two things to say. First, I'm really glad we re-ordered the GMI (Guaranteed 15. Chicago vs New York Pizza is the Wrong Argument Source: Hillel Wayne Link: https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/pizza/ Its April Cools ! 16. On Bombing Iran Source: Tanner Greer Link: https://scholars-stage.org/on-bombing-iran/ THUS WE BOMB Iran. 17. Implementing the transcendental functions in Ivy Source: Rob Pike Link: https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2026/01/implementing-transcendental-functions.html Towards the end of 2014, in need of pleasant distraction, I began writing, in Go, my second pseudo-APL, called Ivy. 18. My Year in Review 2025 Source: Ines Montani Link: https://ines.io/blog/year-in-review-2025 On my birthday, I want to take the time again to look back at the past year, including travel, talks, writing and various things I did and enjoyed. 19. A concept for future body design. Source: Ray Kurzweil Link: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/essay-a-concept-for-future-body-design IMAGE An introduction. 20. Implications of Artificial General Intelligence on National and International Security Source: Yoshua Bengio Link: https://yoshuabengio.org/en/blog/implications-artificial-general-intelligence-national-and-international-security As highlighted in the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI, the capabilities of general-purpose AI systems have been steadily increasing over the last decade, with a pronounced acceleration in the last few years. 21. Tether's Troubles in November 2022 Source: Patio11 Link: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2022/11/11/tether-required-recapitalization-again/ Tether's November 2022 attestation, even if believed, strongly suggests it blew up (again) during the recent crypto route. 22. Reasoning about asyncio.Semaphore Source: Guido van Rossum Link: https://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2022/10/reasoning-about-asynciosemaphore.html In Silicon Valley is a very exclusive fast-food restaurant, which is always open. 23. Deep Neural Nets: 33 years ago and 33 years from now Source: Andrej Karpathy Link: http://karpathy.github.io/2022/03/14/lecun1989/ .post-header h1 { font-size: 35px; } .post pre, .post code { background-color: #fcfcfc; font-size: 13px; /* make code smaller for this post... 24. Making the web better. With blocks! Source: Joel Spolsky Link: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2022/01/27/making-the-web-better-with-blocks/ Youve probably seen web editors based on the idea of blocks. Im typing this in WordPress, which has a little + button that brings up a long Read more "Making the web better. With blocks!" 25. April 2021 newsletter Source: Gwern Branwen Link: https://gwern.substack.com/p/april-2021-newsletter with links on AI scaling, particular new East Asian record-breaking work & deep reinforcement learning. 26. This is a test Source: Eric S Raymond Link: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8772 This is a test to see if the database server issue that froze this blog is resolved. 27. Battery Day Source: Jessie Frazelle Link: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/battery-day/ Tesla had its first Battery Day on September 22nd, 2020 1 . 28. Cognitect dev-tools Source: Rich Hickey Link: https://www.cognitect.com/blog/2020/08/20/Cognitect-dev-tools We're excited to release Cognitect dev-tools , a set of free tools that we've created for Clojure developers. 29. nobody knows the future Source: Slava Akhmechet Link: /2020/06/02/future.html Can you recall the experience of waking up for the first time in a new city? 30. Business Requirements are Bullshit Source: Steve Yegge Link: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements-are-bullshit.html Some CEO emailed me the other day. 31. I haven't disappeared... Source: James Gosling Link: http://www.nighthacks.net/roller/jag/entry/i_haven_t_disappeared I've been in the clutches of a product release. 32. The Render Token Source: Brendan Eich Link: https://brendaneich.com/2017/09/the-render-token/ I wrote about OTOY over four years ago, in Today I Saw The Future. 33. Probability, Paradox, and the Reasonable Person Principle Source: Peter Norvig Link: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Probability.ipynb An IPython notebook tutorial on Probability Paradoxes 34. Mass function overloading: why and how? Source: Lea Verou Link: https://lea.verou.me/2021/02/mass-function-overloading-why-and-how/ One of the things Ive been doing for the past few months (on and offmore off than on TBH) is rewriting Bliss to use ESM 1 . 35. Alan Turing play in Cambridge MA Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/articles/202604-turing.html Last night I saw Central Square Theaters excellent production of Breaking the Code . Its about Alan Turing, who made a monumental contribution to both my profession and the fate of free democracies. Well worth seeing if youre in the Boston area this month. 36. Tweet refs Source: Bret Victor Link: https://worrydream.com/Tweets/ Added refs for tweets. 37. Importing a frontend Javascript library without a build system Source: Julia Evans Link: https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/11/18/how-to-import-a-javascript-library/ I like writing Javascript without a build system and for the millionth time yesterday I ran into a problem where I needed to figure out how to import a Javascript library in my code without using a build system, and it took FOREVER to figure out how to import it because the librarys setup instructions assume that youre using a build system. 38. I'm sorry, Dave Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-m-sorry-dave-380ec27d Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey has always been an incredible movie, but its value as a cautionary tale has increased exponentially since AI took off. 39. Urgent: Call on Congress to end corrupter's tax breaks Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-may-aug.html#05_August_2026_(Urgent:_Call_on_congress_to_end_corrupter's_tax_breaks) US citizens: call on Congress to end the corrupter's tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and big corporations. Take action . Sources in this brief: Andrej Karpathy; Brendan Eich; Bret Victor; Charity Majors; DHH; Dan Luu; Demis Hassabis; Eric S Raymond; Guido van Rossum; Gwern Branwen; Hillel Wayne; Ines Montani; James Gosling; Jeff Atwood; Jessie Frazelle; Joel Spolsky; Julia Evans; Lea Verou; Martin Fowler; Patio11; Peter Norvig; Rachel Andrew; Ray Kurzweil; Rich Hickey; Richard Stallman; Rob Pike; Salvatore Sanfilippo; Scott Aaronson; Slava Akhmechet; Steve Yegge; Tanner Greer; Vicki Boykis; Yoshua Bengio. Selected 39 of 746 available items for this weekly brief.