What I Learned This Year - 2025
Introduction
2025 was a nice turn around. I started a new role, had some personal wins, and overall got better perspective on where I am and where I want to be. I’ve also been staying in the loop more with tech, and collected some articles from this past year.
AI
Add F*cking to Your Google Searches to Neutralize AI Summaries: hn also recommends using a negation flag “-fucking” to neutralize the AI response, but also avoid vulgar results
Jailbreaking DeepSeek R1 - Prompt Injection Using Charcodes: Using psudo-machine code to jail break LLMs.
on: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools: This hn comment is similar to how I use LLMs for coding. Interacting via chat can seem clunky, but it operates like pair programming, and helps me better understand what I need by having to describe it properly.
on: Claude can now search the web
“looks at the top X hits and then interprets it to be the correct answer.”
LLMs are truly reaching human-like behavior then
Articles
DoomPFD: Full game implemented in a pdf document, showing how liberal the document specification is.
fix our pics.: Helping tech bros find the best dating profile pictures.
lnmangione: The GitHub profile of Luigi Mangione, along with his most popular project’s issues. An unexpected intersection of tech and popular events.
Malware via Game Pass: Call of Duty RCE: An analysis of a remote code execution vector distributed through game mods.
McMaster-Carr Supply Company: Various hn discussions (1, 2, 3) about one of the most performance sites on the web.
My Life in Weeks by Gina Trapani: An interactive version of Your Life in Weeks.
RetroFab by Itizso: An new online collection of vintage electronic game simulations that can be played in the browser.
Shopify Live Globe 2024: An interactive site of their Black Friday stats.
StickerTop: Browse laptop sticker collections.
sumanthsamala.com: Why tell recruiters you can code when you can show them.
The High Heel Problem: A common problem that’s rarely noticed.
WikiTol: Doom scroll random Wikipedia articles.
Wipeout – Software Engineering Daily: A podcast episode on the engineering behind Wipeout, along with reverse engineering and rewrite.
Culture
Career Development: What It Means to Be a Manager, Director, or VP (2015)(
Fix Issues Unless You’re Dying: A blunt post about toxic workplace expectations.
How to Attend Meetings (NYT Internal Guidelines): Practical, opinionated guidance on making meetings tolerable.
I Deleted My Second Brain: A critique of digital hoarding.
If You Don’t Design Your Career, Someone Else Will (2014)
In Praise of “Normal” Engineers
Publishing your work increases your luck
Software development topics I’ve changed my mind on: The article and hn comments provide contrast to each other about what it means to take development seriously as a career, but to also not let it make you caustic because it’s a job that’s a means to an end to pay the bills.
The Best Programmers I Know: A reflection on what actually distinguishes great programmers beyond raw technical skill.
You Gotta Want It: A short but memorable Hacker News discussion on motivation and effort.
WeatherStar 4000 Simulator: A lovingly accurate recreation of The Weather Channel’s classic WeatherStar interface.
Start-Ups
A Cautionary Tale Around Startup Equity: Real-world lessons on equity compensation risks.
Why Early Startup Equity Rarely Works Out: A founder’s perspective on dilution and false optimism.