Clay weekly context brief for the Blogs category (ISO week 2026-W37).

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. The best dark mode toggle is probably none
   Source: Lea Verou
   Link: https://lea.verou.me/blog/2026/dark-mode-toggles-2/
   About a month ago, I wrote an article recommending that if you are going to have an always visible control for switching between light and dark mode, it should be a two-state toggle that alternates between system and whatever the current opposite of system is , not a tri-state one (system, light, dark).
2. Three more static code analysis sensors
   Source: Martin Fowler
   Link: https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html#StaticCodeAnalysisDependencyRules
   Birgitta Böckeler adds discussion of three more sensors for static code analysis, focusing on checking and enforcing better modularity.
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. Urgent: If Superman lived among us now
   Source: Richard Stallman
   Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-may-aug.html#4_September_2026_(Urgent:_If_Superman_lived_among_us_now)
   If Superman lived among us now, and decided it was his duty to defend Truth, Justice and the American Way from America's worst enemy, what sort of actions might be effective and inspirational to use?
6. Bug blindness
   Source: Dan Luu
   Link: https://danluu.com/bug-blind/
   I used to wonder why I see so many more bugs than most people.
7. Piloting the world's first double-blind AI evaluations
   Source: Demis Hassabis
   Link: https://deepmind.google/blog/piloting-the-worlds-first-double-blind-ai-evaluations/
   Piloting the world's first double-blind AI evaluations
8. Multiple-column layout, rows, rules, and floats
   Source: Rachel Andrew
   Link: https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2026/08/24/multiple-column-layout-rows-rules-and-floats/
   Recently implemented in Chrome are two of my top asks for CSSthe concept of rows in multiple-column layout, and gap decorations for rows and columns in grid, flexbox, and multicol.
9. Anthropics LLM watermarking
   Source: Scott Aaronson
   Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10032
   So yeah, Anthropic has announced that its now watermarking the outputs of Claude, using a scheme based on Googles SynthID, which is in turn based on the Gumbel Softmax scheme that I proposed at OpenAI back in 2022as far as I know, the first LLM watermarking proposal, though far from the last one.
10. Write for people
   Source: Vicki Boykis
   Link: https://vickiboykis.com/2026/08/12/write-for-people/
   Something Ive noticed recently is that I am no longer able to read and parse PR titles and descriptions across the internet.
11. Endless execution
   Source: DHH
   Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/endless-execution-4157e065
   The age of agents has brought us endless execution.
12. Logic for Programmers is Now Available
   Source: Hillel Wayne
   Link: https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/lfp/
   I am delighted to announce that my book, Logic for Programmers , is now available!
13. 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.
14. Towards a Theory of Bugs: The Ruliology of the Unexpected
   Source: Stephen Wolfram
   Link: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/07/towards-a-theory-of-bugs-the-ruliology-of-the-unexpected/
   My Program Did the Wrong Thing!
15. 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.
16. Every Choice Changes Everything: The Show
   Source: Jeff Atwood
   Link: https://blog.codinghorror.com/every-choice-changes-everything-the-show/
   About 3 weeks ago, Leo Laporte and I recorded the first episode of what will be a new monthly show on the TWiT network . Naming things is hard, and we almost voted on the name, like we did for Stack Overflow , but we quickly landed on Off By One with
17. On Bombing Iran
   Source: Tanner Greer
   Link: https://scholars-stage.org/on-bombing-iran/
   THUS WE BOMB Iran.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. A concept for future body design.
   Source: Ray Kurzweil
   Link: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/essay-a-concept-for-future-body-design
   IMAGE An introduction.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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...
25. 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!"
26. 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.
27. 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.
28. Battery Day
   Source: Jessie Frazelle
   Link: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/battery-day/
   Tesla had its first Battery Day on September 22nd, 2020 1 .
29. 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.
30. 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?
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. xkcd 1313: Regex Golf
   Source: Peter Norvig
   Link: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/xkcd1313.ipynb?create=1
   Code to implement a meta-regex-golf program based on xkcd comic #1313. The code is "a program that plays regex golf with arbitrary lists..."
35. Dark mode toggles: two states are enough
   Source: Lea Verou
   Link: https://lea.verou.me/blog/2026/dark-mode-toggles/
   A good two-state toggle can actually express all three data model states.
36. Bliki: Vibe Coding
   Source: Martin Fowler
   Link: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/VibeCoding.html
   Vibe coding is building a software application by prompting an LLM, telling it what to build, trying it out, prompting for changes - but without looking at any of the code that the LLM generates.
37. Links to archives
   Source: Bret Victor
   Link: https://worrydream.com/Links2025/
   Added some links to archives.
38. 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.
39. Urgent: Vote against Heidi Overton for head of FDA
   Source: Richard Stallman
   Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-may-aug.html#4_September_2026_(Urgent:_Vote_against_Heidi_Overton_for_head_of_FDA)
   US citizens: call on your congresscritter to vote against appointing Heidi Overton to head the FDA .
40. There's no reason for software to be slow anymore
   Source: Dan Luu
   Link: https://danluu.com/perf-opt/
   The other day, I saw a viral tweet saying that people talking about how LLMs are causing slow, bloated, code are going to eat crow once they re-write everything in super-optimized assembly.

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; Stephen Wolfram; Steve Yegge; Tanner Greer; Vicki Boykis; Yoshua Bengio.
Selected 40 of 797 available items for this weekly brief.