Clay weekly context brief for the Blogs category (ISO week 2026-W45). 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. TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value? Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/tdd-in-the-agent-loop.html My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big fans of Test-Driven Development, and many people in the industry advocate telling LLM agents to use TDD when building software. Birgitta Böckeler was curious if this really makes a difference, so conducted a few experiments . more 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. Standards for ANSI escape codes Source: Julia Evans Link: https://jvns.ca/blog/2025/03/07/escape-code-standards/ Hello! 5. Talk by Dana Moshkovitz: The Unique Games Conjecture Proved (!!?) Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10232 In my Mathocalypse post, I mentioned that my wife Danawhos been working on Subhash Khots Unique Games Conjecture since ~2009, for the entire time Ive known herhas for the past few weeks (while on sabbatical at the Simons Institute in Berkeley) been spending essentially all of 6. Urgent: Block FDA's dangerous food safety rollback Source: Richard Stallman Link: https://stallman.org/archives/2026-jul-oct.html#29_October_2026_(Urgent:_Block_FDA's_dangerous_food_safety_rollback) US citizens: call on Congress to block the FDA's dangerous food safety rollback . 7. Genie 4: A new generation of world simulation Source: Demis Hassabis Link: https://deepmind.google/blog/genie-4-a-new-generation-of-world-simulation/ Genie 4: our new world model unlocking unprecedented realism in real-time simulation. 8. Seven years from China Source: DHH Link: https://world.hey.com/dhh/seven-years-from-china-a63b03cc I first went to China in 2011 , racing for the Lotus/Jetalliance team at Zhuhai in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. 9. How to Learn ML in 2026 interview Source: Vicki Boykis Link: https://vickiboykis.com/2026/10/17/how-to-learn-ml-in-2026-interview/ I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Yacine of Deep Learning with Yacine . 10. The dangerous myth behind AI agent hacks Source: Yoshua Bengio Link: https://yoshuabengio.org/en/blog/dangerous-myth-behind-ai-agent-hacks A dangerous myth has gained traction after the recent hacks perpetrated by the AI agents developed by leading companies: That these incidents are just cyber security problems, that it's only a matter of fixing the sandboxes in which theyre trained. 11. Whats the Future for Pure Math Research in the Age of AI? Source: Stephen Wolfram Link: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/09/whats-the-future-for-pure-math-research-in-the-age-of-ai/ Headlines and History The headlines keep coming: such and such an AI system has solved such and such a math problem. 12. If we do not stop to help each other, what do we become? Source: Jeff Atwood Link: https://blog.codinghorror.com/if-we-do-not-stop-to-help-each-other-what-do-we-become/ Yesterday, I received this email as a response to You Can't Vibe Code Love . It's such a remarkable and powerful statement that I asked permission to share it here, in its entirety, with personal information redacted: Hey Jeff, Hope you and your family are doing well. 13. Where do AI norms come from? Source: Charity Majors Link: https://charity.wtf/p/where-do-ai-norms-come-from A dialogue with Dr Cat Hicks on ethics, learning, and what we owe each other. Part one: start by listening. 14. There's no point at which turning your brain off will work Source: Dan Luu Link: https://danluu.com/brain-off/ In early 2025, I started seeing people turn off their brain as they use LLMs 1 . 15. 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. 16. 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. 17. 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! 18. 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. 19. My perfect Berlin weekend Source: Ines Montani Link: https://ines.io/blog/my-perfect-berlin-weekend My perfect Berlin weekend was a regular feature in Exberliner, the English-language city magazine. I was never famous enough to be asked to do one, so Im writing up my own here to accompany my Berlin guide. 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. Not Your Fathers Internet Source: Ray Kurzweil Link: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/not-your-father-s-internet Bill Gates envisions the next-generation Internet as a single, unified interface to information instantly available to you anywhere, any time. 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. 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. 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. 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 . 36. Fragments: August 18 Source: Martin Fowler Link: https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-08-18.html Part of the reason why Im at Thoughtworks is because Id like to see a software development organization founded on technical excellence as an example for the rest of the industry. 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. Podcasts about the Topic: Part II Source: Scott Aaronson Link: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10239 As always, I strongly recommend 2x speed, which compensates somewhat for my verbal infelicities! 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 756 available items for this weekly brief.