Alper Cugun
@alper.nl
Doing Platform Engineering in Berlin
Now: gym, studying Japanese, Critical Role, Cuppin.gs, Rust
Now: gym, studying Japanese, Critical Role, Cuppin.gs, Rust
Pinned
Alper Cugun
@alper.nl
· Jan 30
Do not treat as human those who would not treat you as human.
Joining some neighborhood whatsapp groups in Berlin and until now I had no idea how irredeemably car brained people here were.
They’re everywhere and they don’t have a brain to speak of. It’s just awful.
They’re everywhere and they don’t have a brain to speak of. It’s just awful.
January 24, 2026 at 4:39 AM
Joining some neighborhood whatsapp groups in Berlin and until now I had no idea how irredeemably car brained people here were.
They’re everywhere and they don’t have a brain to speak of. It’s just awful.
They’re everywhere and they don’t have a brain to speak of. It’s just awful.
I can’t even imagine any German Greens running to begin with. Party of pure complacency.
Help us make hope normal again.
Join the Green Party now.
Join the Green Party now.
January 23, 2026 at 3:18 PM
I can’t even imagine any German Greens running to begin with. Party of pure complacency.
Banks in Germany are now finally validating the recipient name of a bank transfer, but I haven't found payment details yet where the recipient name was listed correctly. I guess this must be truly very difficult.
correctly.Baby
January 23, 2026 at 10:27 AM
Banks in Germany are now finally validating the recipient name of a bank transfer, but I haven't found payment details yet where the recipient name was listed correctly. I guess this must be truly very difficult.
The current Berlin government has as its Chief Digital Officer, Martina Klement, a woman from Bavaria who's overhauling large parts of the city administration. This is what we mean when we talk about the leadership difference. The exact same organization but everything changes with the right person.
Chief Digital Officer - CDO - Berlin.de
Der Regierende BürgermeisterSenatskanzlei
www.berlin.de
January 23, 2026 at 4:39 AM
The current Berlin government has as its Chief Digital Officer, Martina Klement, a woman from Bavaria who's overhauling large parts of the city administration. This is what we mean when we talk about the leadership difference. The exact same organization but everything changes with the right person.
A great example of all the hoops you have to jump through if your org has an irrational fear of the monorepo concept. A massive and very intricate solution described here for a problem (managing hundreds of repositories) that should not exist in the first place.
blog.dnsimple.com/2025/11/mana...
blog.dnsimple.com/2025/11/mana...
How We Scaled Code Repository Management at DNSimple
How we evolved from a forgotten collection of Ruby scripts to a fully automated Terraform-based system for managing hundreds of GitHub repositories.
blog.dnsimple.com
January 22, 2026 at 9:38 PM
A great example of all the hoops you have to jump through if your org has an irrational fear of the monorepo concept. A massive and very intricate solution described here for a problem (managing hundreds of repositories) that should not exist in the first place.
blog.dnsimple.com/2025/11/mana...
blog.dnsimple.com/2025/11/mana...
This couldn't be more true:
> When someone shows up, you know. You know, because the text has friction. Because it has opinions that cost something to hold. Because it couldn’t have been written by anyone else, for anyone else, about anything else. You cannot fake putting in the time.
> When someone shows up, you know. You know, because the text has friction. Because it has opinions that cost something to hold. Because it couldn’t have been written by anyone else, for anyone else, about anything else. You cannot fake putting in the time.
Reliable Signals of Honest Intent
It's better if the message comes in an expensive box.
zanlib.dev
January 22, 2026 at 10:27 AM
This couldn't be more true:
> When someone shows up, you know. You know, because the text has friction. Because it has opinions that cost something to hold. Because it couldn’t have been written by anyone else, for anyone else, about anything else. You cannot fake putting in the time.
> When someone shows up, you know. You know, because the text has friction. Because it has opinions that cost something to hold. Because it couldn’t have been written by anyone else, for anyone else, about anything else. You cannot fake putting in the time.
Psychedelics being responsible for humans developing quicker and smarter than other species is a delightful notion. The proof isn't very solid, but that's fine for a "notion".
davidluke543044.substack.com/p/reawakenin...
davidluke543044.substack.com/p/reawakenin...
Reawakening the Stoned Ape
On the possible psychedelic origins of language, and why there might be better options than attending a ‘once every 17 years’ hypersexual psychedelic zombie orgy swarm party
davidluke543044.substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 4:39 AM
Psychedelics being responsible for humans developing quicker and smarter than other species is a delightful notion. The proof isn't very solid, but that's fine for a "notion".
davidluke543044.substack.com/p/reawakenin...
davidluke543044.substack.com/p/reawakenin...
Whatever you think about AI, it should be obvious that falling for any hype, either pro or against something is bad.
There is no magic or evil here. It's just a tool like any other.
antirez.com/news/158
There is no magic or evil here. It's just a tool like any other.
antirez.com/news/158
Don't fall into the anti-AI hype - <antirez>
Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
antirez.com
January 18, 2026 at 3:14 PM
Whatever you think about AI, it should be obvious that falling for any hype, either pro or against something is bad.
There is no magic or evil here. It's just a tool like any other.
antirez.com/news/158
There is no magic or evil here. It's just a tool like any other.
antirez.com/news/158
An interesting if somewhat rambling history of containers and their effect on software engineering by Justin Cormack who as head of Docker was a key player in this development.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMU2...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMU2...
Justin Cormack - A decade of containers
After a decade in the container ecosystem, I look at what did containers do for us in devops? What went well, what did they help, and what did they hinder? If we hadn’t had containers would we have…
www.youtube.com
January 18, 2026 at 10:27 AM
An interesting if somewhat rambling history of containers and their effect on software engineering by Justin Cormack who as head of Docker was a key player in this development.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMU2...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMU2...
Based also on what Bruce Schneier recently wrote about AI security, there's no real way to secure against these kind of attacks without restricting LLMs to the point of making them much less useful.
www.promptarmor.com/resources/cl...
www.promptarmor.com/resources/cl...
Claude Cowork Exfiltrates Files
Claude Cowork is vulnerable to file exfiltration attacks via indirect prompt injection as a result of known-but-unresolved isolation flaws in Claude's code execution environment.
www.promptarmor.com
January 18, 2026 at 4:39 AM
Based also on what Bruce Schneier recently wrote about AI security, there's no real way to secure against these kind of attacks without restricting LLMs to the point of making them much less useful.
www.promptarmor.com/resources/cl...
www.promptarmor.com/resources/cl...
This Tokyo last train (終電) visualizer is a fun concept but given that all the trains disappear at roughly the same time, it's usefulness is somewhat limited.
JB central line to Nakano is the holdout doing a seven minute trip at 24:52.
tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev
JB central line to Nakano is the holdout doing a seven minute trip at 24:52.
tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev
東京終電マップ｜TOKYO LAST TRAIN MAP
終電を「時間」で可視化するインタラクティブマップ
tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev
January 17, 2026 at 9:38 PM
This Tokyo last train (終電) visualizer is a fun concept but given that all the trains disappear at roughly the same time, it's usefulness is somewhat limited.
JB central line to Nakano is the holdout doing a seven minute trip at 24:52.
tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev
JB central line to Nakano is the holdout doing a seven minute trip at 24:52.
tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev
I don’t think there’s an issue in the private sector but there definitely is a deep structural one in the German civil service.
Not that Merz would dare to reform the civil service or do any kind of real politics.
Not that Merz would dare to reform the civil service or do any kind of real politics.
Er ist tatsächlich der widerwärtigste Kanzler den wir je hatten.
January 17, 2026 at 3:49 PM
I don’t think there’s an issue in the private sector but there definitely is a deep structural one in the German civil service.
Not that Merz would dare to reform the civil service or do any kind of real politics.
Not that Merz would dare to reform the civil service or do any kind of real politics.
Hard to think of something that's more my jam than this language where you program Haskell by using Turkish grammar constructs.
github.com/joom/kip/wik...
github.com/joom/kip/wik...
Tutorial
A programming language based on grammatical cases of Turkish. - joom/kip
github.com
January 17, 2026 at 3:14 PM
Hard to think of something that's more my jam than this language where you program Haskell by using Turkish grammar constructs.
github.com/joom/kip/wik...
github.com/joom/kip/wik...
You can trust the Verge to mostly be right and to rarely pull any punches. That is worth a lot right now.
www.theverge.com/policy/85990...
www.theverge.com/policy/85990...
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards
Once you’ve traded your principles for proximity to power, do you even run your own company?
www.theverge.com
January 17, 2026 at 10:27 AM
You can trust the Verge to mostly be right and to rarely pull any punches. That is worth a lot right now.
www.theverge.com/policy/85990...
www.theverge.com/policy/85990...
Like the title says here is a fairly comprehensive overview of how you can store and manage arrays of dynamic size.
Most of us will never need it but even then.
azmr.uk/dyn/
Most of us will never need it but even then.
azmr.uk/dyn/
A Survey of Dynamic Array Structures
This is a more thorough coverage of one of the topics that came up in my recent BSC25 talk "Assuming As Much As Possible" You use arrays all the time. The number of elements they need is often…
azmr.uk
January 17, 2026 at 4:39 AM
Like the title says here is a fairly comprehensive overview of how you can store and manage arrays of dynamic size.
Most of us will never need it but even then.
azmr.uk/dyn/
Most of us will never need it but even then.
azmr.uk/dyn/
More software engineering history is always welcome like here about how Prettier came to be.
blog.vjeux.com/2025/javascr...
blog.vjeux.com/2025/javascr...
Vjeux » Birth of Prettier
React Conf is around the corner and it's been almost 10 years since Prettier was released. I figured it would be a good time to recount the journey from its early days to now.
blog.vjeux.com
January 16, 2026 at 9:38 PM
More software engineering history is always welcome like here about how Prettier came to be.
blog.vjeux.com/2025/javascr...
blog.vjeux.com/2025/javascr...
One podcast I can imagine existing is an English language podcast about Berlin local politics. If we ever want to have a functional government here with our own Zohran, we need to have something of a media ecosystem demanding it.
January 16, 2026 at 6:07 PM
One podcast I can imagine existing is an English language podcast about Berlin local politics. If we ever want to have a functional government here with our own Zohran, we need to have something of a media ecosystem demanding it.
Don’t let it come back up. Delete the backups, wipe the servers.
X has stopped working
X has stopped working
www.independent.co.uk
January 16, 2026 at 5:50 PM
Don’t let it come back up. Delete the backups, wipe the servers.
I'm trying to dictate as much as possible in my day to day work. It's a revolutionary shift and I say that as somebody who types at 100+ wpm.
Currently I mostly use Hex and I've tried a bit of Talon.
www.macsparky.com/blog/2025/11...
Currently I mostly use Hex and I've tried a bit of Talon.
www.macsparky.com/blog/2025/11...
Why Dictation is Easier and More Relevant - MacSparky
I’ve been talking to my computer for decades, and it’s finally paying off for everyone. Yesterday I dictated this entire newsletter into my iPad mini using the Drafts app and WhisperMemos while…
www.macsparky.com
January 16, 2026 at 3:14 PM
I'm trying to dictate as much as possible in my day to day work. It's a revolutionary shift and I say that as somebody who types at 100+ wpm.
Currently I mostly use Hex and I've tried a bit of Talon.
www.macsparky.com/blog/2025/11...
Currently I mostly use Hex and I've tried a bit of Talon.
www.macsparky.com/blog/2025/11...
"A monorepo is a way of organizing different units of code in the same repository.
Dependency management and deployment orchestration are orthogonal to where the code is physically stored and a monorepo does not dictate how to do either of these."
Dependency management and deployment orchestration are orthogonal to where the code is physically stored and a monorepo does not dictate how to do either of these."
Monorepos
I’m going to make a sign here so I can tap it whenever I run across these misconceptions again.
alper.nl
January 16, 2026 at 10:27 AM
"A monorepo is a way of organizing different units of code in the same repository.
Dependency management and deployment orchestration are orthogonal to where the code is physically stored and a monorepo does not dictate how to do either of these."
Dependency management and deployment orchestration are orthogonal to where the code is physically stored and a monorepo does not dictate how to do either of these."
A great video about Postgres scaling at OpenAI and nice to see that we have run into many of the same problems as they have and are using similar approaches to solving them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1S...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1S...
Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI (PGConf.dev 2025)
Presented by Bohan Zhang at PGConf.dev 2025 (https://2025.pgconf.dev)
PostgreSQL serves as a cornerstone of OpenAI's backend infrastructure, powering many of our most critical features. In this…
www.youtube.com
January 16, 2026 at 4:39 AM
A great video about Postgres scaling at OpenAI and nice to see that we have run into many of the same problems as they have and are using similar approaches to solving them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1S...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1S...
I refuse to use Passkeys because:
- The technology is being pushed very hard with dark patterns and hardly any documentation.
- The companies pushing it are not trustworthy when it comes to account recovery flows and edge cases.
fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2025-12...
- The technology is being pushed very hard with dark patterns and hardly any documentation.
- The companies pushing it are not trustworthy when it comes to account recovery flows and edge cases.
fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2025-12...
Yep, Passkeys Still Have Problems
Firstyear's blog
fy.blackhats.net.au
January 15, 2026 at 9:38 PM
I refuse to use Passkeys because:
- The technology is being pushed very hard with dark patterns and hardly any documentation.
- The companies pushing it are not trustworthy when it comes to account recovery flows and edge cases.
fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2025-12...
- The technology is being pushed very hard with dark patterns and hardly any documentation.
- The companies pushing it are not trustworthy when it comes to account recovery flows and edge cases.
fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2025-12...
An thorough analysis of the position of women and the normalization of domestic abuse in South Asia.
yashicadutt.substack.com/p/the-south-...
yashicadutt.substack.com/p/the-south-...
The South Asian Juror in the Diddy Documentary and the normalization of domestic violence in our spaces
Juror 75 has everyone scratching their heads with his cavalier reactions to Cassie Ventura's gut wrenching testimony of the abuse she faced from P Diddy
yashicadutt.substack.com
January 15, 2026 at 3:14 PM
An thorough analysis of the position of women and the normalization of domestic abuse in South Asia.
yashicadutt.substack.com/p/the-south-...
yashicadutt.substack.com/p/the-south-...
It's amazing how bad a job Alan Dye did. He even sabotaged the most basic act of resizing a window on macOS.
noheger.at/blog/2026/01...
noheger.at/blog/2026/01...
The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – no.heger
A lot has already been said about the absurdly large corner radius of windows on macOS Tahoe. People are calling the way it looks comical, like a child’s toy, or downright insane.
noheger.at
January 15, 2026 at 10:27 AM
It's amazing how bad a job Alan Dye did. He even sabotaged the most basic act of resizing a window on macOS.
noheger.at/blog/2026/01...
noheger.at/blog/2026/01...
Berlin has so much off-street parking. It would be good if on-street parking was limited only to special purpose and shared vehicles.
January 14, 2026 at 9:38 PM
Berlin has so much off-street parking. It would be good if on-street parking was limited only to special purpose and shared vehicles.