Tech Blogs Digest 10.11 - 16.11
This week we AI-analysed 7930 posts for you, filtered out the chaff and hand-picked the wheat. Subscribe to stay up to date with future digests!
This week
🏗️ Architecture - Production-grade Kafka setup, a cache buster trap, and the journey from an Excel report to a data platform
🤖 LLMs in production - LLM agent memory, dynamic prefix bucketing, and reducing token consumption by 87%
📊 Data science - Automating electoral districting, tracking responses to changes at Netflix, and predicting the owner of a medieval manuscript
💻 AI-assisted coding - Detecting search in Windows kernel mode drivers, and using generative AI coding assistants
⚙️ DevOps - A centralized configuration layer using ConfigHub
👥 Engineering management - A documentation writing technique
🛡️ Security - Analyzing a .NET loader infection and the PureLog Stealer from an LNK file
🐹 Go - Custom memory allocators
🟩 Node.js - Analyzing application runtime behavior to investigate issues
🏗️ ARCHITECTURE
Beyond Kafka 101: Mastering Consistency, Throughput & Fault Tolerance in Production — Chapter one | 14 min read
Uncover why a standard Apache Kafka setup falters under real-world load and the three critical patterns that turn it production-ready
Setting Up an Egress Trap and Then Stepping Into It | 9 min read
A tiny cache-buster parameter led to a hidden $500 AWS bill and revealed how one file triggered massive egress traffic
From Cloning a Simple Excel report in Power BI to Building an Enterprise Data Platform: A Technical Deep Dive | 16 min read
From a simple Excel-to-Power BI migration that spiraled into a full-blown enterprise data platform, learn how one weekend of insight turned six months of work around
🤖 LLMS IN PRODUCTION
Unpack how to move past “just add more context” and instead architect memory systems tailored for your LLM-agent stack
They halved batch inference time on LLMs by introducing “dynamic prefix bucketing” - a technique that groups prompts with shared beginning segments and routes them to maintain high cache reuse across the cluster
On Amazon Beckrock AgentCore Memory | 19 min read
The article outlines how AgentCore Memory from Amazon Bedrock AgentCore helps agents retain both immediate context and long-term user knowledge, enabling smarter, personalized AI conversations
The article reveals how cutting context-waste (23,000→3,000 tokens!) in AI tooling led to an 87% cost reduction - and how you can apply the same library-style approach
They turned a chaotic, 20-tab vendor outreach workflow into a sleek AI-driven system that handles whole campaigns in minutes and stays under budget
📊 DATA SCIENCE
Using Weighted K-Means to Automate Electoral Districting | 10 min read
Weighted k means shows how data guided clustering can streamline electoral maps while balancing populations and reducing subjective boundary choices
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects at Netflix | 12 min read
At Netflix, uncovering how different member segments uniquely respond to changes enables smarter personalization and experimentation at massive scale
Dive into how kernel-level optimisations with Triton boost matrix-multiplication speed - breaking down gemm, tiling and memory tricks
A hardened MLOps pipeline powers real-time forecasts of air quality across 13 French regions - melding production-grade ingestion, feature-store versioning and multi-horizon modelling
Cypher and the Cipher Manuscript | 17 min read
Graph link-prediction meets medieval mystery as the team at Neo4j trace possible previous owners of the Voynich Manuscript by mining manuscript migration networks and modelling ownership with embeddings
Detecting Anomalies in Network Latency Time Series: From Statistical Filters to Machine Learning | 11 min read
Network latency time-series go from statistical filters to ML-driven anomaly detection in this deep dive - powering smarter monitoring at scale
💻 AI-ASSISTED CODING
Efficacy of Large Language Models (LLMs) in detecting vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Mode Drivers | 17 min read
The article offers a compelling look at how large‐language models can tackle vulnerability detection in Windows kernel‐mode drivers - highlighting successes, costs and real-world challenges
The article breaks down real-world lessons from leveraging Gen AI coding assistants - covering where they shine, where they stumble, and how to adapt workflows accordingly
⚙️ DEVOPS
ConfigHub: Why Your Internal Developer Platform Needs It | 20 min read
Unlock how centralized configuration management with ConfigHub can turbo-charge your internal developer platform - boosting reliability, visibility and developer autonomy
👥 ENGINEERING MANAGMENT
Re-thinking docs as conversation tools, not sterile manuals: learn how to spark clarity, surface assumptions and invite meaningful team discussion
🛡️ SECURITY
El Caminho y La Rata: A Technical Analysis of a Caminho Loader to DcRat Infection Chain | 16 min read
Dive into how a seemingly benign .NET loader hides a complex chain, from JavaScript to steganographic PNGs to the DcRat backdoor - exposing malware’s evolving stealth tactics
From LNK to PureLog Stealer | 9 min read
Uncover how a deceptively simple .LNK file triggers a stealthy assault - ushering in the PureLogs Stealer and wreaking havoc on credentials and data
🐹 GO
Custom Memory Allocators in Go: Building Arena Allocators and Object Pools for Specific Use Cases | 14 min read
Explore how tailored allocators like arenas, pools and slabs in Go slash GC overhead and boost latency-sensitive performance by up to 10×
🟩 NODE.JS
6 Key Features of Node.js Forensics | 8 min read
Peel back the layers of your Node.js applications as this article reveals how event-loops, heap snapshots, core-dumps, tracing, log correlation and runtime integrity checks become your forensic tools in real-world incident investigations