Blog

Our thoughts on technology and design

Tech
In a previous blog post, Colin focused on rendering massive numbers of points using D3. In this post I'll consider how you can efficiently load that data using Apache Arrow.
Open Source · Video
Modern software is increasingly complex, made up of hundreds or thousands of open source components, hidden away in deeply nested dependency trees. Just how much do we know about these components that are an integral part of our products? What are the risks associated with their usage, and our exposure?
Cloud
Have you ever wondered how your AWS resources are distinguished from those that belong to other users? Here is a look at VPC components that offer control and security over your AWS networks
Tech
When coming to TypeScript from OOP languages it can be very easy to fall into the trap of using types the same way you are used to. But this is missing a lot of power of TypeScript. This article looks at how you can extend your TypeScript use to not only represent types, but also express the intent and document your code better.
Open Source
Admittedly not three concepts you would usually hear together. However, there are some interesting parallels in models of ownership that might challenge the way we manage projects.
UX Design · Video
This talk offers a taster of the vast world of Inclusive Design by exploring how understanding human diversity leads to the creation of better, more human products.
UX Design · Video
This session summarises the results of a survey showing that much of the population is unable to complete medium-complexity tasks, and that only a small percentage has high-level computer-related skills. This is something that we all need to consider when building software solutions.
Cloud · Video
In this talk, I explore some of the foundations and common approaches for designing resilient systems in cloud environments. I also look into how experimenting with our systems, by deliberately introducing failures, can help us better understand their behaviour.
People · Video
In this talk, I present empathy as a skill that can be cultivated and explores ways of doing that. Anyone interested in building their empathy skills or cultivating empathy within their team or workplace can learn here about different types of empathy, the ways it can empower us and its practical application in our day-to-day jobs.
Artificial Intelligence
The OpenAI Codex JavaScript Sandbox and the API which backs it, have (rightly!) generated a lot of interest and comment in the development community. When faced with something so different to what we expect, it's easy to assume it's all magic. In this post I'll peel back some of the layers and try to describe what's going on.
People
Covid-19 has changed our lives in every possible way, but now that lockdowns are beginning to lift, it's important to take a moment to consider some changes that might have flown under the radar.
Tech
Timezones, and daylight saving - the practice of moving clocks forward by one hour once a year - are a pain. They make it hard to schedule international meetings, plan travel, or may simply cause you to be an hour late for work once a year. For a developer, they are even worse! This blog post takes a visual journey through the last 120 years of timezones, daylight saving and the ever changing world time.
Tech
Always wanted to write a custom linting rule for your JavaScript project, but never been sure where to start? This guide will introduce the key concepts you need to give it a go!
Artificial Intelligence
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover few shot learning and fine-tuning.
Tech
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover logprobs and the "creativity" controls.
Artificial Intelligence
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover the basics of tokens, the model and prompt design.
Cloud
As Cloud deployments become more powerful with increased provider competition, where does High Performance Computing (HPC) fit into the equation? This blog post explores the considerations for using HPC in the Cloud.
Artificial Intelligence · Video
Last month GitHub released Copilot, an AI powered tool that provides surprising accurate suggestions ranging from a few lines of code to entire functions. Copilot uses a vast and powerful AI model that is trained on billions of lines of open source code from GitHub. This, combined with the context provided by your code and comments, allows it to provide amazingly accurate suggestions. This is no simple autocomplete, this is pair programming with a robot!
Tech
TypeScript can enhance the experience of developing React components. However to fully represent the types of some dynamic components, we need to harness the power of union types. This article examines an example where union types improves our component typing.
UX Design
In this article, I focus on the migration strategy for legacy applications from a UX perspective and highlight the elements that businesses should think about.

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