Clay weekly context brief for the Blogs category (ISO week 2026-W39). 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. (satire) FBI Moves To Raise Murder Rate Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-jul-oct.html#20_September_2026_((satire)_fbi_moves_to_raise_murder_rate) (satire) *FBI Moves To Raise Murder Rate For First Time Since 2023.* 2. 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). 3. Fragments: June 16 Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-06-16.html Prag Dave Thomas (co-author of the outstanding Pragmatic Programmer) has loved programming since he was young. 4. 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. 5. 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). 6. The Age of Wonders and Terrors Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10062 Twenty years ago, when the idea of AI taking over the world in our lifetimes still struck most of us as the unconstrained fantasy of those who knew too much science fiction and too little science, many of us would say things like: Look, the part of the story thats wildly 7. AlphaGenome Atlas: A predictive map of every possible DNA letter change in the human genome Source: Demis Hassabis Link: https://deepmind.google/blog/alphagenome-atlas-a-predictive-map-of-every-possible-dna-letter-change-in-the-human-genome/ AlphaGenome Atlas maps the molecular effects of 9 billion single-letter DNA variants across the human genome. 8. Home Hardware, Part 1: My Control4 Revenge Arc Source: Jessie Frazelle Link: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/home-hardware-part-one/ Fuck 1 it, were doing consumer hardware for ourselves now and getting fucked by economies of scale, I guess. 9. CSS Layout News in the ATmosphere Source: Rachel Andrew Link: https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2026/09/04/css-layout-news-in-the-atmosphere/ In 2015 I started my CSS Layout News newsletter mostly to have my own venue to go on about CSS grid, at the time unavailable in any stable browser. 10. Ed Zitron's AI prediction track record Source: Dan Luu Link: https://danluu.com/zitron/ I was curious how well the predictions of the most widely cited AI skeptic I've seen (Ed Zitron) have done, so I looked at how his predictions panned out. 11. 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. 12. Endless execution Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/endless-execution-4157e065 The age of agents has brought us endless execution. 13. 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! 14. 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. 15. 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! 16. Have you heard? Clickhouse is winning the observability wars! Source: Charity Majors Link: https://charity.wtf/p/have-you-heard-clickhouse-is-winning Years ago I predicted that columnar storage would remake observability. What I didn't see coming: vendors would build it, nerf it, and sell a worse version back to you as "Datadog, but cheaper" 17. 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 18. China and the Future of Science Source: Tanner Greer Link: https://scholars-stage.org/china-and-the-future-of-science/ THE CHINESE socio-political system differs from our own. 19. 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. 20. 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. 21. Introducing LawZero Source: Yoshua Bengio Link: https://yoshuabengio.org/en/blog/introducing-lawzero I am launching a new non-profit AI safety research organization called LawZero, to prioritize safety over commercial imperatives. 22. A concept for future body design. Source: Ray Kurzweil Link: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/essay-a-concept-for-future-body-design IMAGE An introduction. 23. 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. 24. 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. 25. 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... 26. 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!" 27. 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. 28. 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. 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. Why I left Google to join Grab Source: Steve Yegge Link: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2018/01/why-i-left-google-to-join-grab.html I've officially switched from Blogger to Medium. See you over there ! 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. It's long past the time..... Source: James Gosling Link: http://www.nighthacks.net/roller/jag/entry/it_s_time (as seen on Richard Branson's blog ) 34. When Cheryl Met Eve: A Birthday Story Source: Peter Norvig Link: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Cheryl-and-Eve.ipynb An extended exploration beyond the popular "Cheryl's Birthday" logic puzzle. 35. Trump Admin Directive Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-jul-oct.html#20_September_2026_(trump_admin_directive_endangered_wildlife) A magat proposal would eviscerate the Endangered Species Act by reinterpreting it to cover only intentional killing or damaging of specific, chosen members of an endangered species. 36. 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. 37. Building Reliable Agentic AI Systems Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/articles/reliable-llm-bayer.html One of the most interesting projects my colleagues have done with LLMs has been building a system with Bayer to allow pharmaceutical researchers to query decades of information about studies buried in PDF reports. 38. Links to archives Source: Bret Victor Link: https://worrydream.com/Links2025/ Added some links to archives. 39. 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. 40. 9/11 in Berkeley Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10071 Note: Of course Ive been glued all week to the dramatic developments in AI. 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 819 available items for this weekly brief.