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• Linux's October 2026 PwnEscape Bug Explained: How a Checksum Hint Leaks MemoryBackend · A plain-English guide to the PwnEscape KVM escape (CVE-2026-99999): how a guest VM's checksum hint corrupted a host IPv4 header, who is exposed and how to patch, shown on one running example of a KVM sandbox host.12 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• OpenBSD's October 2026 Big Fish Bug Explained: When a 16-Bit Counter WrapsBackend · A plain-English guide to the OpenBSD Big Fish bug: how a 16-bit shared memory counter wrapped, why that leads to use-after-free and how to patch, shown on one running example of a hosting team's firewalls and build servers.18 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• RPKI Route Origin Validation Explained: How ROAs Flag Wrong-Origin RoutesBackend · A plain-English guide to RPKI route origin validation: what a ROA and maxLength say, how routers mark routes Valid, Invalid or NotFound and what ROV still misses, shown on one running example of a payment gateway in Pune.20 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• vLLM Preload Explained: Restart LLM Servers in Seconds with a Weight CacheAI and GenAI · A plain-English guide to vLLM preload: how a per-GPU weight-cache daemon lets a restarting engine reuse weights already in GPU memory, and where it stops helping, shown on one running example of a voice-support team's GPU servers.19 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• The End of Leap Seconds Explained: What Continuous UTC Means for Your CodeBackend · A plain-English guide to the end of leap seconds: what CGPM Resolution 5 changes from 20 May 2027, why leap seconds broke software, how stepping and smearing work and what to check, shown on one running example of a payments settlement service.18 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• GitHub's November 2026 SSH RSA Brownout Explained: Fix Clients, Keep RSA KeysBackend · A plain-English guide to the GitHub SSH RSA deprecation: why SHA-1 ssh-rsa signatures and an old key exchange are going, how to test and fix clients and how to move to Ed25519, shown on one running example of a payments team's build server.22 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• JPEG XL Chrome Support Explained: When to Use It Over AVIF or WebPFrontend · A plain-English guide to JPEG XL support in Chrome 155: what the Rust decoder changes, where JPEG XL beats AVIF and WebP, and how to serve it with safe fallbacks, shown on one running example of a jewellery shop's product photos.19 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Monorepo Version Control at Scale Explained: Why Git Struggles with Agent MergesSystem design · A plain-English guide to monorepo version control at scale: why git struggles when agents merge thousands of changes a day, what partial clone, sparse checkout and server-side systems fix, shown on one running example of a payments monorepo.19 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• NGINX's October 2026 Vulnerabilities Explained: Five Config Patterns to AuditBackend · A plain-English guide to the five nginx flaws fixed on 14 October 2026: which config pattern exposes each one, how to find it with nginx -T and how to upgrade or work around it, shown on one running example of a grocery delivery company's four nginx servers.18 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• NIST Curve Seeds Explained: How P-256 Was Traced to a 1997 TimestampBackend · A plain-English guide to the NIST curve seeds: how researchers traced P-256 to rand48 and a 1997 timestamp, why that leaves too little room for a backdoor and how to make constants verifiable, shown on one running example of a payments team answering a bank's security questionnaire.19 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• npm October 2026 SlugFest Flaw Explained: How Reclaimed Repo Names Could PublishBackend · A plain-English guide to the npm trusted publishing vulnerability called SlugFest: how OIDC publishing works, why a reclaimed repository name could publish and what to fix, shown on one running example of a payment widget package whose GitHub organisation was renamed.20 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Polars 2.0 Explained: Streaming Default, Spill-to-Disk and Breaking ChangesBackend · A plain-English guide to Polars 2.0: what the streaming default and spill-to-disk change for your queries, which breaking changes fail silently, and how to upgrade safely.20 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Reverse Engineer Anything Explained: How AI Agents Drive Ghidra Through MCPAI and GenAI · A plain-English guide to Reverse Engineer Anything: how its local MCP server lets an AI coding agent query Ghidra, Hopper or IDA, check its findings and stay within safety and legal limits, shown on one running example of a team rebuilding a lost check-value rule.20 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Telegram Desktop's October 2026 Bug Explained: A Semicolon Put Sessions at RiskBackend · A plain-English guide to the Telegram Desktop vulnerability CVE-2026-107181: how one crafted link smuggled an extra record into the app and could leak session files, shown on one running example of a desktop app that passes clicked links to its running copy.18 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Transformers as Associative Memory Explained: How Layers Store and Recall FactsAI and GenAI · A plain-English guide to transformers as associative memory: how feed-forward layers store facts as key-value pairs, how attention recalls from the prompt and why look-alike keys collide, shown on one running example of an online kurta shop's price chatbot.20 min read · Updated 19 Oct 2026
• Networking from First Principles: What Happens When You Type a URLBackend · Follow one request from the address bar to the server and back: DNS, TCP, TLS 1.3, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, CDNs, load balancers and rendering, explained from first principles with diagrams.15 min read · Updated 6 Oct 2026
• AI-Assisted Coding Interviews in 2026: What Changed and How to PrepareInterview prep · Coding interviews now let you use AI in some loops and test codebase reading, debugging and judgment in others. What changed in 2026, what interviewers actually score, and a four-week plan to prepare.12 min read · Updated 6 Oct 2026
• Message Queues from First Principles: Kafka vs RabbitMQ vs SQSBackend · What a queue actually solves, queues vs logs, delivery guarantees, idempotent consumers, ordering, retries and dead-letter queues, and an honest comparison of Kafka, RabbitMQ and SQS.15 min read · Updated 5 Oct 2026
• LLM Inference System Design: KV Cache, Batching and the Gateway in FrontAI and GenAI · How production LLM serving works, explained for system design interviews: prefill vs decode, the KV cache and PagedAttention, continuous batching, streaming, the inference gateway, and the latency metrics that matter.16 min read · Updated 5 Oct 2026
• Design a Rate Limiter: Token Bucket, Sliding Window and RedisSystem design · A complete system design interview answer for a distributed rate limiter: requirements, token bucket vs leaky bucket vs sliding window, Redis with atomic Lua scripts, headers, failure modes and scaling.14 min read · Updated 4 Oct 2026
• Context Engineering for AI Agents: Memory, Retrieval and Compaction ExplainedAI and GenAI · Why agents fail when their context is wrong, and how to engineer it: the context window as a budget, short-term vs long-term memory, retrieval, tool results, compaction and the failure modes to watch.13 min read · Updated 4 Oct 2026
• Caching from First Principles: Strategies, Invalidation and Cache StampedesBackend · Why caches work, where to put them, cache-aside vs write-through vs write-back, TTLs and invalidation, eviction policies, and how to stop a cache stampede from taking your database down.14 min read · Updated 3 Oct 2026
• MCP Explained: How the Model Context Protocol Connects AI Agents to ToolsAI and GenAI · A developer-first guide to the Model Context Protocol: hosts, clients and servers, tools vs resources vs prompts, stdio vs HTTP transports, a request walkthrough, and the security risks you must design for.14 min read · Updated 3 Oct 2026
• Databases from First Principles: How Storage, Indexes and Transactions Really WorkBackend · A first-principles guide to databases: how rows hit disk, why B-trees and LSM trees exist, what an index really costs, how transactions and isolation levels work, and when to pick SQL or NoSQL.16 min read · Updated 2 Oct 2026