Tech Blogs Digest 13.10 - 19.10

This week we AI-analysed 7025 posts for you, filtered out the chaff and hand-picked the wheat. Subscribe to stay up to date with future digests!

This week

1. 🏗️ Architecture - Kafka wild western

2. 🤖 LLMs in production - Attack costs reduction, RAG system optimizations, quality failures and other

3. 📊 Data - PostgresQL migrations and queries over millions smart contracts in seconds

4. 🐳 Containers - Memory leaks in Java ECS

5. 💻 AI-assisted coding - Figma, Claude and Playwright experience

6. 🧠 ML - Training stalls

7. ⚙️ DevOps - Zero downtime cluster update

8. ☕ Java - Spliterator rabbit hole

9. 🟨 JavaScript - Speeding up Next.js Docker builds

10. 🛡️ Security - Self-updating malware exploits, WinRAR risks and CSP Bypasses

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🏗️ ARCHITECTURE

• The Good, The Bad and The AutoMQ | 12 min read

Discover how three different approaches: Apache Kafka’s Tiered Storage, Diskless 2.0, and AutoMQ are reshaping fault-tolerance, cost and cloud-native architecture in streaming systems.

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🤖 LLMS IN PRODUCTION

• LLM Guardrails in Production: The 3AM Attack That Cost $147 Instead of $10,412 | 13 min read

Discover how a clever token-exhaustion attack at 3 AM nearly cost $10K, and how building layered guardrails saved the day and just $147.

• From 4s to 2.1s: How I Optimized a Production RAG System (and Cut Costs by 28%) | 13 min read

Discover how a production RAG system was optimized from 4s to 2.1s and cost was reduced by 28%, through five smart infrastructure tweaks.

• When Good AI Goes Bad: Detecting Output Quality Failures | 15 min read

Uncover how modern AI systems sound convincingly correct yet fail silently, and why a multi-layered validation pipeline can save you from catastrophic output mistakes.

• When AI Agents Think Together: The Hidden Science of Emergent Coordination in Multi-Agent Systems | 24 min read

Explore how multiple AI agents can collaborate unexpectedly, revealing the hidden science of emergent coordination in multi-agent systems.

• The Hidden Complexity of Screenshot Shopping Agents: Lessons from 300+ Automated Grocery Runs | 22 min read

Discover how a weekend project with 300+ automated grocery runs revealed why screenshot-based shopping agents struggle, and how structured data is the real game-changer.

• From Local Triumph to Cloud Failure — And the Fix: Build a Reliable Portfolio Chatbot with RAG + Vertex AI | 11 min read

Explore how a prototype chatbot that ran flawlessly locally faltered in the cloud, and learn how the author fixed it with a robust RAG-powered architecture.

• Fine-Tune Gemini 2.5 Flash for $2 and Turn Messy Product Data Into Perfect JSON | 12 min read

Dive into how to super-charge Gemini 2.5 with just a $2 fine-tune and turn chaotic product details into clean JSON in minutes.

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📊 DATA

• PostgreSQL Migration Part 1: The Great Cleanup | 6 min read

A looming $5,000/month support charge forced this team to overhaul their bloated PostgreSQL setup, revealing a clever “copy & truncate” cleanup one table at a time.

• How We Built a Database to Query Millions of Smart Contracts in Milliseconds | 9 min read

Discover how a team engineered a database to query millions of smart contracts in milliseconds, balancing high-throughput inserts and blazing-fast analytics.

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🐳 CONTAINERS

• Hunting `Memory Leak` Culprit in Java ECS Application [Java, AWS] | 7 min read

Dive into how one dev tracked down a stealthy memory leak in a Java ECS app: from mystery symptoms to root-cause triumph.

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💻 AI-ASSISTED CODING

• Experience Story: Figma MCP + Claude Code + Playwright MCP [JavaScript] | 18 min read

See how combining Figma’s MCP server, Claude Code and Playwright transformed component-building through AI-powered design, code-and-test workflows.

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🧠 ML

• Tracking Down Mysterious ML Training Stalls [Pinterest blog] | 11 min read

See how the Pinterest team tracked down mysterious stalls in ML-training, and uncovered a hidden kernel call that stole 50% throughput.

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⚙️ DEVOPS

• A Deep Dive into Zero-Downtime Blue-Green Kubernetes Cluster Upgrade | 12 min read

Learn how one team executed a full-scale Kubernetes cluster upgrade with zero downtime, creating a new “green” cluster, routing traffic seamlessly, and literally bypassing several versions in one go.

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☕ JAVA

• Spliterating Hairs Results in Spliterating Deja Vu | 8 min read

Curious how a “simple” curiosity about Java’s Spliterator landed in hours-deep rabbit holes and performance benchmarks? Dive in.

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🟨 JAVASCRIPT

• How I Cut Next.js Docker Build Time in Half on GitHub Actions (25min → 13min) | 5 min read

Discover how a slight shift in your Docker-build cache strategy slashed a 25-minute build down to just 13 minutes — faster reviews, happier devs.

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🛡️ SECURITY

• Inside the Time-to-exploit -1 days era, How Self-Updating malware exploits vulnerabilities before patches are deployed | 8 min read

Malware that updates itself in real time is turning patch-rollouts into targets, enabling attacks in under a day once a vulnerability is disclosed.

• Dark Side of Archives | Using WinRAR as a Red Team Tool | 5 min read

WinRAR’s rar.exe can silently wipe files using the -dw switch, turning trusted utilities into stealthy red-team tools.

• A Bug Hunter’s Guide to CSP Bypasses (Part 1) | 9 min read

Finds common CSP misconfigurations and practical bypasses to turn “secure” headers into XSS vectors for big bug bounties.