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Issue 287: We'll see you in the cloud

This week, we're saying so long to the things of old...for instance, our final physical datacenter. Don't worry, we've got the complete story on The Great Unracking in New Jersey for you. And while our servers aren't nearly as old as dinosaurs, we're also crossing our fingers that we might say goodbye to fossil fuels after Kieran Furlong, the CEO of Realta Fusion, joined the podcast to explore the future of fusion energy. Plus, social scientist John Flournoy helped us wave goodbye to the old ways of measuring developer productivity and hello to the future of developer experience.

Meanwhile, we've got stories from around the web about testing the bounds of your LLMs. AI has proved itself to be a good assistant for hacking, especially if it's hacking itself. But you don't need to worry (yet) about AI surpassing your human creativity; LLMs having their own spontaneous innovative thought are still just a daydream. So, to help you keep ahead of those dreamless machines, we've got a story on making your code better through mini proofs.

And before we say goodbye to this week's newsletter, we've got a couple of age old questions about early Unix, when to use the word except, and whether you're supposed to eat the sprig of rosemary after a fancy steak dinner. All the answers are ready for you down below.

From the blog

How to do your job happier

Research scientist John Flournoy sits down with Ryan and Eira to dive into the recent research around developer experience, including the nuances of measuring productivity, the potential reasons for variability in developer performance, and the impacts of collaboration and competition on developer efficiency.

The Great Unracking: Saying goodbye to the servers at our physical datacenter

So long and thanks for all the bits!

Where we’re going, we don’t need fossil fuels

Ryan is joined by Kieran Furlong, CEO of Realta Fusion, to talk about the future of fusion as a safe and sustainable energy source, the computation and scientific advancements that have made fusion possible, and how fusion technology innovations will address data and AI’s rising energy demands.

Building stronger engineering teams with aligned autonomy

Striking the balance between speed and strategy is a major challenge for business and tech leaders. That’s where aligned autonomy comes in.

Interesting questions

Is it acceptable to start a sentence with the preposition 'except' rather than 'except for'?

I can accept any use of the word except, except for the times when I don't know how to use except.

Are you supposed to eat the sprig of rosemary served with grilled meat, to cleanse breath?

Nothing fancier than gnawing on a twig after a meal.

Did very early Unix ever use the "chd" shell command to change directories?

“It’s a UNIX system! I know this!”

If a defendant does not have a lawyer, can they still raise an objection when in court?

Allow me to introduce my friends, Gideon and Wainwright.

Links from around the web

Code execution through email: how I used Claude to hack itself

50 First Dates for hacking your MCP.

Improving retrieval with ELO scores

Using ELO scores may just be the checkmate RAG needs in LLMs.

To be a better programmer, write little proofs in your head

As a surprise to no one, checking your code along the way makes it better.

LLM daydreaming

Proof that all of the puns we put in this email make us smarter than an LLM.

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