Clay weekly context brief for the Blogs category (ISO week 2026-W41). 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. 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. 2. What on earth are you dooming about? Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/what-on-earth-are-you-dooming-about-386cc1da Paradise is not lost, the world is not ending, and most material metrics of humanity have never been better. 3. Fragments: October 4 Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-10-04.html In response to my last fragments (probably the bit about us worrying if LLMs have consciousness when we when we should be wondering why they dont have a conscience) Metalanguage replied : we shipped the id and forgot the superego. 4. 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). 5. Links to archives Source: Bret Victor Link: https://worrydream.com/Links2025/ Added some links to archives. 6. How to add a directory to your PATH Source: Julia Evans Link: https://jvns.ca/blog/2025/02/13/how-to-add-a-directory-to-your-path/ I was talking to a friend about how to add a directory to your PATH today. 7. Effect of elevated screen exposure Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-jul-oct.html#3_October_2026_(high_screen_usage_poorer_outcomes_major_study) A metastudy confirms that more use of screens by children increases the likelihood of various academic and emotional problems. 8. Introducing SynthID Bio Source: Demis Hassabis Link: https://deepmind.google/blog/introducing-synthid-bio/ Proof of concept for watermarking AI-generated proteins while preserving biological function. 9. Theory Beyond Theorems and Proofs: A Guest Post Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10116 Scotts foreword: Im extremely grateful to my brilliant colleagues, Pravesh Kothari, Raghu Meka, and Prasad Raghavendra, for sharing the guest post below about how theoretical computer science (and in particlar, the STOC/FOCS/SODA conferences) should evolve to deal with the AI 10. Remove start and end margins with the margin-trim property Source: Rachel Andrew Link: https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2026/09/15/remove-start-and-end-margins-with-the-margin-trim-property/ A frequently asked multiple-column layout question is why a new paragraph at the start of the column has additional space above it. 11. Confessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob Source: Charity Majors Link: https://charity.wtf/p/confessions-of-an-unrepentant-slop A framework for thinking about when AI involvement is additive or a violation 12. Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating? Source: Yoshua Bengio Link: https://yoshuabengio.org/en/blog/why-are-ai-agents-lying-cheating-and-coordinating A lot has been written about the incidents of the last few months in which AI agents misbehaved in serious ways. 13. 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. 14. How well do agents use test and verification techniques? Source: Dan Luu Link: https://danluu.com/agentic-testing/ We previously noted that, while it's easier than ever to hit a particular quality bar by having coding agents use effective test techniques, software quality seems to be getting worse , indicating that whatever defaults developers are using may not work very well. 15. You Can't "Vibe Code" Love Source: Jeff Atwood Link: https://blog.codinghorror.com/you-cant-vibe-code-love/ About a year ago, I was offered a presentation slot at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin. 16. 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. 17. In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley (19612026), with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years Source: Stephen Wolfram Link: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/08/in-memory-of-my-wife-elise-cawley-1961-2026-with-thanks-for-36-wonderful-years/ Something terrible just happened. 18. 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! 19. 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. 20. 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. 21. 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. 22. 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. 23. A concept for future body design. Source: Ray Kurzweil Link: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/essay-a-concept-for-future-body-design IMAGE An introduction. 24. 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. 25. 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. 26. 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... 27. 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!" 28. 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. 29. 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. 30. 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. 31. 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? 32. 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 ! 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. Let's Code About Bike Locks Source: Peter Norvig Link: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Fred%20Buns.ipynb How many words can be made from a letter-based combination lock? 35. Meltdown Averted Source: James Gosling Link: http://www.nighthacks.net/roller/jag/entry/meltdown_averted Sanity prevails : So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. 36. Endless execution Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/endless-execution-4157e065 The age of agents has brought us endless execution. 37. Fragments: July 13 Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-07-13.html Some more of my notes from Thoughtworks Future of Software Development Retreat . 38. 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. 39. 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. 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 39 of 782 available items for this weekly brief.