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Practical writing about software, systems, and the small details that make products feel solid.

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Fresh from the notebook

280 articles

Tech 02 Sep 2026 5 min read

Why USB-C Cables Do Not All Work the Same Way

USB-C makes connectors simpler because the plug is reversible and the same shape appears on phones, laptops, tablets, monitors, chargers, storage devices, and many accessories. The confusing part is that the connector shape does not tell you everything the cable can do. Two USB-C cables can look almost identical while supporting very different charging power, data speeds, or display features. One may be suitable only for basic charging, while another can handle fast external storage, a high-resolution monitor, and laptop charging.

USB-C Cables

Tech 02 Sep 2026 7 min read

What Browser Cache Does and When to Clear It

Web browsers routinely save copies of some website resources on your device. This local storage is called a browser cache, and it exists mainly to make repeated visits more efficient. Caching is usually helpful. It can reduce unnecessary downloads, make pages feel faster, and lower network usage. But cached resources can occasionally become stale or conflict with a website that has changed, which is why clearing the cache is a common troubleshooting step.

Browsers Browser Cache

Database 02 Sep 2026 5 min read

Understanding Write Skew and Transaction Isolation

Transaction isolation is often explained with dirty reads and lost updates, but another anomaly is especially important for multi-row business rules: write skew. Write skew occurs when concurrent transactions read the same valid state, make decisions independently, and update different rows in a way that produces an invalid combined state. Because they do not overwrite the same row, ordinary write-conflict detection may not stop them. A simple invariant Imagine an on-call table where at least one doctor must remain available:

Database Transactions

Python 02 Sep 2026 6 min read

Structured Concurrency in Python with asyncio.TaskGroup

Concurrent code becomes difficult to reason about when tasks can outlive the operation that created them. A request handler may return while background tasks are still running, or one task may fail while its siblings continue doing work that is no longer useful. Python’s asyncio.TaskGroup, available since Python 3.11, provides structured concurrency for related asynchronous tasks. Tasks created inside the group belong to a clear lifetime: leaving the async with block waits for them, and failures are handled as a group rather than as detached background events.

Python Asyncio

Database 02 Sep 2026 7 min read

SQLite WAL Mode: Concurrency, Checkpoints, and Operational Pitfalls

SQLite is often chosen because it keeps deployment simple: an application can get transactional storage without operating a separate database server. As workloads become more concurrent, however, the default rollback journal can make read and write activity interfere more than expected. Write-ahead logging (WAL) changes that coordination model. Readers can usually continue while a writer commits changes, but WAL does not turn SQLite into a multi-writer database. Correct operation still depends on short transactions, sensible busy handling, and checkpoints that can make progress.

Database SQLite

Go 02 Sep 2026 7 min read

Short Reads and Exact-Length I/O in Go

Reading bytes in Go looks simple: allocate a buffer, call Read, and inspect the error. The subtlety is that io.Reader does not promise to fill the buffer in one call. A valid reader may return fewer bytes than requested even when more data will arrive later. That behavior matters for network protocols, binary file formats, framed messages, and any code that expects an exact number of bytes. Correct stream handling starts by matching the API to the requirement: use ordinary Read when partial progress is acceptable, and use helpers such as io.ReadFull when a fixed-size field must be complete.

Go I/O

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