Ashwin M
@ashwinmenon.com
Building hunchle.com & helping you get smarter!
I write at https://buttondown.com/AshwinMenon
I write at https://buttondown.com/AshwinMenon
I know a lot of people dislike LeetCode, but there ARE some benefits to simply practising the craft, even in this "AI world". Here are some Leetcode-style problems I ran into while vibe-coding my trivia game, framed as interview questions so you can test yourself! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/techni...
Optimizing Tack On
With AI advancing rapidly, one of the most asked questions these days is, “Are software engineers still needed?”. I have some answers! I love optimizations and performance engineering, and decided to ...
www.ashwinmenon.com
January 20, 2026 at 4:50 AM
I know a lot of people dislike LeetCode, but there ARE some benefits to simply practising the craft, even in this "AI world". Here are some Leetcode-style problems I ran into while vibe-coding my trivia game, framed as interview questions so you can test yourself! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/techni...
One of the highest leverage AI productivity hacks I’ve adopted for Claude Code is ruthlessly aggressive context management.
If you don’t curate the "context window," Claude spirals and quickly hits "usage limits."
And thanks to AI, you can read it in the style of JRR Tolkien!
If you don’t curate the "context window," Claude spirals and quickly hits "usage limits."
And thanks to AI, you can read it in the style of JRR Tolkien!
January 19, 2026 at 7:00 AM
One of the highest leverage AI productivity hacks I’ve adopted for Claude Code is ruthlessly aggressive context management.
If you don’t curate the "context window," Claude spirals and quickly hits "usage limits."
And thanks to AI, you can read it in the style of JRR Tolkien!
If you don’t curate the "context window," Claude spirals and quickly hits "usage limits."
And thanks to AI, you can read it in the style of JRR Tolkien!
New post! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/techni...
On Software Design
For a lot of my career, I never really understood software design. It was always presented as something more associated with SDE2s, or higher and not so much with SDE1s. I had no idea what to make of ...
www.ashwinmenon.com
September 1, 2025 at 7:11 PM
New post! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/techni...
Interesting. Cognition seems to think we should stick to single-threaded agents because multi-agents will not be able to collaborate effectively just yet.
cognition.ai/blog/dont-bu...
cognition.ai/blog/dont-bu...
Cognition | Don’t Build Multi-Agents
Frameworks for LLM Agents have been surprisingly disappointing. I want to offer some principles for building agents based on our own trial & error, and explain why some tempting ideas are actually qui...
cognition.ai
June 15, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Interesting. Cognition seems to think we should stick to single-threaded agents because multi-agents will not be able to collaborate effectively just yet.
cognition.ai/blog/dont-bu...
cognition.ai/blog/dont-bu...
New post on generating questions for hunchle.com and what makes it so hard: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Hunchle
hunchle.com
June 10, 2025 at 9:29 PM
New post on generating questions for hunchle.com and what makes it so hard: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Using AI to build an app taught me a few things and presented a few challenges: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
How I used AI in Hunchle
I used AI in a big way to build Hunchle. I figured it would be useful to write this post to share my experience and to document what coding with AI looks like today.
There were two major ways I used L...
www.ashwinmenon.com
May 28, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Using AI to build an app taught me a few things and presented a few challenges: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Amazing stage win by Wout Van Aert! Any cycling fans (or wannabe cycling fans) here who'd like a rundown?
May 19, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Amazing stage win by Wout Van Aert! Any cycling fans (or wannabe cycling fans) here who'd like a rundown?
Get smart while having fun? Try the trivia app I'm building: hunchle.com
Blog post on how it was built coming soon!
Blog post on how it was built coming soon!
Hunchle
hunchle.com
May 16, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Get smart while having fun? Try the trivia app I'm building: hunchle.com
Blog post on how it was built coming soon!
Blog post on how it was built coming soon!
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok make it so easy to code. I built a trivia app: hunchle.com using these tools, and would love for you to check it out!
Hunchle
hunchle.com
May 14, 2025 at 6:39 AM
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok make it so easy to code. I built a trivia app: hunchle.com using these tools, and would love for you to check it out!
Not much coverage on bsky for many topics. Any suggestions for whom to follow for news, and computer science topics?
May 9, 2025 at 12:49 AM
Not much coverage on bsky for many topics. Any suggestions for whom to follow for news, and computer science topics?
Any interest in some trivia: ubiquitous-pixie-5ba0aa.netlify.app ?
Vite + Solid
ubiquitous-pixie-5ba0aa.netlify.app
May 9, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Any interest in some trivia: ubiquitous-pixie-5ba0aa.netlify.app ?
I built off of @thorstenball.com 's excellent guide and got an agent working with Ollama! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Democratizing AI
If you’ve been following along, I’ve been using LLMs for a while, as detailed here and here. I learned a lot about the world of LLMs and I’ve tried to capture that here. Recently, motivated by Thorste...
www.ashwinmenon.com
April 25, 2025 at 10:43 PM
I built off of @thorstenball.com 's excellent guide and got an agent working with Ollama! www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Is this me?
When I retire I’m gonna get through my whole steam library
April 24, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Is this me?
Glad to move off of @evernote.bsky.social: Buggy & no longer free. @obsidian.md is where it's at!
April 23, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Glad to move off of @evernote.bsky.social: Buggy & no longer free. @obsidian.md is where it's at!
Listening to @gerberkawasaki.bsky.social on Yahoo Finance's webcast about Tesla earnings. He's gained a bsky follower in me!
April 22, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Listening to @gerberkawasaki.bsky.social on Yahoo Finance's webcast about Tesla earnings. He's gained a bsky follower in me!
In favor of LinkedIn: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
Why LinkedIn is the best social network (for me)
At the outset, this may seem an absurd conclusion. To make my point, I’ll need to go into a little bit about how social networks came to be. It won’t take long.
Back in the mid-2000s, we had a bunch o...
www.ashwinmenon.com
April 21, 2025 at 6:43 AM
In favor of LinkedIn: www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
My stint as a manager:
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/though...
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/though...
My stint as a manager
Over the last few months, during my short foray into management, one of the most common questions I got during 1:1s was, “Why did you decide to become a manager?”
I have since realized that many more ...
www.ashwinmenon.com
April 17, 2025 at 10:08 PM
My stint as a manager:
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/though...
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/though...
Working on 4clojure.oxal.org#/problem/12
Nice way to learn clojure interactively!
Nice way to learn clojure interactively!
4clojure 4ever
4ever-clojure is a static version of 4clojure.com (as it's shutting down). It's a resource to help fledgling clojurians learn the language through interactive problems
4clojure.oxal.org
February 8, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Working on 4clojure.oxal.org#/problem/12
Nice way to learn clojure interactively!
Nice way to learn clojure interactively!
I just sponsored @abhinav-upadhyay. Go Sponsor your open source dependencies! You can join me at: github.com/sponsors/abh...
Sponsor @abhinav-upadhyay on GitHub Sponsors
If you've found my content at Confessions of a Code Addict, and want me to continue to produce more such work, then this is your chance to support me.
github.com
January 26, 2025 at 9:40 PM
I just sponsored @abhinav-upadhyay. Go Sponsor your open source dependencies! You can join me at: github.com/sponsors/abh...
Updated my COVID post with some interesting data, which shows the impact of COVID, and of medication!
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
A covid chronicle
Read more...
www.ashwinmenon.com
December 31, 2024 at 6:10 AM
Updated my COVID post with some interesting data, which shows the impact of COVID, and of medication!
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
www.ashwinmenon.com/posts/activi...
The new recommended tab is great!
December 26, 2024 at 7:13 PM
The new recommended tab is great!
Finally wrote a part two to one of my most-read posts!
A guide to finances: securing the foundation
Intro Around 7 years ago I wrote “A guide to finances” which some of my friends found helpful. Now, everyone is likely at a different point in their lives, so I thought I’d write the follow-up.…
www.ashwinmenon.com
December 15, 2024 at 11:14 PM
Finally wrote a part two to one of my most-read posts!
🧵 Learned about automated ABR, Mux, AVC, HEVC and the benefit of Fargate containers on https://buff.ly/3ZV6pBV (The Frugal Architect)
Limiting video quality since kids likely don't care about 4k or 720p was quite smart! (1/3)
Limiting video quality since kids likely don't care about 4k or 720p was quite smart! (1/3)
Cost-Aware Architectures for Viewers like You
From constant firefighting in their tech operations, PBS faced the challenge of delivering cost-effective services while staying true to their mission. Mike shares how they shifted to fireproofing…
www.thefrugalarchitect.com
December 15, 2024 at 4:42 PM
🧵 Learned about automated ABR, Mux, AVC, HEVC and the benefit of Fargate containers on https://buff.ly/3ZV6pBV (The Frugal Architect)
Limiting video quality since kids likely don't care about 4k or 720p was quite smart! (1/3)
Limiting video quality since kids likely don't care about 4k or 720p was quite smart! (1/3)
S3 video from re:invent seem to mention many of @marcbrooker.bsky.social 's ideas (shuffle sharding, power of two random choices, erasure coding for performance). Wonder if he inspired them or they inspired him?
AWS re:Invent 2024 - Dive deep on Amazon S3 (STG302)
Amazon S3 provides developers and IT teams with cloud object storage that delivers industry-leading scalability, durability, security, and performance. Amazo...
buff.ly
December 8, 2024 at 4:42 PM
S3 video from re:invent seem to mention many of @marcbrooker.bsky.social 's ideas (shuffle sharding, power of two random choices, erasure coding for performance). Wonder if he inspired them or they inspired him?