Bora M. Alper's Avatar

Bora M. Alper

@boramalper.org

Software Engineer at Stripe.โ€จ Building free software, public services, and digital commons recreationally. ๐Ÿ“ Cork, Ireland ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช

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01.09.2023
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Latest posts by Bora M. Alper @boramalper.org

having used claude extensively for the past couple of months, i think there is still a lot of value to understanding your code and steering it intentionally. the amount of incidental complexity claude accumulates otherwise (which mostly results in bugs that it can't ever fix reliably) is staggering.

07.03.2026 03:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 583 ๐Ÿ” 63 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 30 ๐Ÿ“Œ 13
Latest attacks in Lebanon leave nearly 400 dead as two Israeli soldiers killed

Latest attacks in Lebanon leave nearly 400 dead as two Israeli soldiers killed

Maybe the most impressive headline distortionism I've ever seen

09.03.2026 02:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 1447 ๐Ÿ” 316 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 21 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

love how we killed the old, frail anti-nuke ayatollah just to have him replaced with his young, healthy son who wants nukes and who just had his father, mother, wife, and child murdered on the same day by his mortal enemy. surely this will bring peace to the region

09.03.2026 02:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 17821 ๐Ÿ” 4516 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 209 ๐Ÿ“Œ 130

I've been using a #HarmonyOS device for the past few days and it's def. made me re-evaluate my relationship with Android app emulation

09.03.2026 06:42 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Satellite images from NASA Worldview on March 5 reveal the extent of the blackout in Cuba. A failure at the most important power plant, combined with the US blockade on fuel shipments in the country has left nearly 70% of the island's inhabitants without power.

06.03.2026 09:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 314 ๐Ÿ” 168 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 9 ๐Ÿ“Œ 13
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Haysiyet savaลŸฤฑ! - Fehim TaลŸtekin - Evrensel Soykฤฑrฤฑmcฤฑ-Esptein koalisyonunun ฤฐranโ€™a karลŸฤฑ baลŸlattฤฑฤŸฤฑ savaลŸฤฑn ilk haftasฤฑ, aฤŸฤฑr yฤฑkฤฑm ve kayฤฑplara raฤŸmen saldฤฑrgana kestirmeden hedeflediฤŸi zaferi sunmadฤฑ....

www.evrensel.net/yazi/98837/h...

08.03.2026 08:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 9 ๐Ÿ” 4 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

the success of the user-created For You feed while the official Discover feed flops is actually a pretty major win for Bluesky โ€” it literally is the embodiment of their goal to decentralize feed generation and give users more control/autonomy

26.12.2025 15:27 ๐Ÿ‘ 341 ๐Ÿ” 60 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 9 ๐Ÿ“Œ 8

Want to discover great posts beyond who you already follow? The For You feed, built by @spacecowboy17.bsky.social, is a personalized algorithmic feed based on your likes. It's one of our favorites for finding cool conversations across the network.

Try it here: bsky.app/profile/spac...

02.01.2026 16:59 ๐Ÿ‘ 3917 ๐Ÿ” 943 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 130 ๐Ÿ“Œ 177
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You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account | Philip Heltweg New immigration rules for the UK are being enforced starting February 2026. This means citizens of 85 additional countries (including the USA and European countries) will need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to visit, even for tourism. Luckily, you can apply (and pay) digitally. Unfortunately, the government very much would prefer you to do so using the official app.

New UK immigration rules mean I now need an ETA :(. Also, apparently it is weirdly difficult to acquire without using the official app. So much for digital sovereignty :/. I was annoyed enough to write an unhinged blog post about it: www.heltweg.org/posts/you-w...

26.02.2026 11:29 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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24.02.2026 03:10 ๐Ÿ‘ 162 ๐Ÿ” 36 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. โ€œI consider it to ...

NEW: A hobbyist has created Nearby Glasses, an app that warns you if someone close by is wearing smart glasses. 404 Media spoke to the creator who said he was inspired by our coverage that uncovers how men are wearing Meta's Ray-Bans to covertly film massage parlor workers.

24.02.2026 15:48 ๐Ÿ‘ 11751 ๐Ÿ” 5043 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 150 ๐Ÿ“Œ 275

We should legislate identity portability for email addresses.

We have it for phone numbers, where the technical challenge was much greater. We should have it for email, too.

22.02.2026 20:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 116 ๐Ÿ” 22 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 11 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Photo of Brewster Kahle speaking.

Photo of Brewster Kahle speaking.

c-base logo

c-base logo

๐Ÿ“ฃ Co-create #DWebCamp 2026 in #Berlin next week!

Join the Unconference + Meetup exploring #decentralization & the future of public knowledge in Europe. Meetup features a live fireside chat with Brewster Kahle.

๐Ÿ“… Feb 28, 2026
๐Ÿ“c-base in Berlin
๐ŸŽŸ๏ธ๐Ÿ†“ dwebcamp.org/berlin-2026/

๐Ÿงต1๏ธโƒฃ/2๏ธโƒฃ

20.02.2026 09:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 76 ๐Ÿ” 23 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

this is what sixteen thousand tokens a second looks like by the way

20.02.2026 00:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 162 ๐Ÿ” 28 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 13 ๐Ÿ“Œ 15

I worked on a few fairly prominent efforts in open source (Istio, OpenAPI), but I think of all of them, itโ€™s gRPC that I think has the coolest story. Pull up a chair and set for a spell (any inaccuracies in what follows are 100% my fault for having a bad memory!).

19.02.2026 00:21 ๐Ÿ‘ 184 ๐Ÿ” 45 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 5 ๐Ÿ“Œ 9

saw a reddit comment on the lenghth of modern dev cycles earlier that stuck with me:

"The PS2 had three Grand Theft Autos, GTA5 had three Playstations"

18.02.2026 12:19 ๐Ÿ‘ 2155 ๐Ÿ” 833 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 16 ๐Ÿ“Œ 14

Today is the first day of Ramadan, the first day of Adar, Lunar New Year and Mardi Gras.

This means that for one reason or another, the majority of humans on the planet have a reason to eat fried food, and that is beautiful.

17.02.2026 19:42 ๐Ÿ‘ 2058 ๐Ÿ” 784 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 16 ๐Ÿ“Œ 17

Is it possible that Anthropic wants regulation because they know they can handle compliance and others canโ€™t, so regulation would give them an edge over their competitors? Especially over small to medium sized labs, non-profits, and non-US companies?

17.02.2026 20:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I am getting the distinct impression that there are now _two_ failure modes in hiring developers:

1) devs that reject AI as useful and refuse to touch it

2) devs that have zero caution, refinement, or introspection in how they use it and are dying to charge your org 10k a day to build Gastown 2.

15.02.2026 21:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 164 ๐Ÿ” 17 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 7 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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#OtD 15 Feb 2003 huge protests occurred around the world against war on Iraq, including 1.5 million on the streets of London: the biggest demonstration in UK history. But the war began regardless, teaching many that passive protest alone is not enough stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8665...

15.02.2026 10:05 ๐Ÿ‘ 108 ๐Ÿ” 42 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 4 ๐Ÿ“Œ 6
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Seven Billion Reasons for Facebook to Abandon its Face Recognition Plans Metaโ€™s analysis that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis is craven and morally bankrupt. It is also dead wrong.

Meta thinks now is a great time to launch facial recognition surveillance tech in their creepy glasses because EFF will be too distracted by fascism to notice.

We noticed.

www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

13.02.2026 22:21 ๐Ÿ‘ 1808 ๐Ÿ” 691 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 30 ๐Ÿ“Œ 30
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#OtD 13 Feb 1991 during the Gulf war the US air force bombed the Al-Amariyah civilian bomb shelter, killing 408 people, many of whom were boiled alive. US officials falsely claimed the shelter was a military command post. More info, sources and map: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7742...

13.02.2026 21:25 ๐Ÿ‘ 47 ๐Ÿ” 25 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 5

The competition has billions of dollars, billions of users and deep political connections.

Quit the crabs-in-a-barrel mentality if you care about all of our collective work meaning something in this lifetime.

08.02.2026 17:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 228 ๐Ÿ” 48 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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#OtD 9 Feb 2007 Alejandro Finisterre, anarchist poet and inventor of the Spanish table football (foosball) died in Zamora, Spain. He invented the game following injury during the Spanish Civil War so injured children could still play football workingclasshistory.com/2018/07/29/s...

09.02.2026 17:25 ๐Ÿ‘ 297 ๐Ÿ” 115 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 6 ๐Ÿ“Œ 20

Be gentle with each other so we can be dangerous together ๐Ÿ’›

08.02.2026 19:25 ๐Ÿ‘ 253 ๐Ÿ” 39 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

we're getting all the downsides of cyberpunk (social alienation, ruthless hyper capitalism, digital mass surveillance state) but none of the promised upsides (cheap street food, cool jackets, super drugs that make you really fast and strong before they kill you)

20.01.2026 21:25 ๐Ÿ‘ 9471 ๐Ÿ” 2267 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 255 ๐Ÿ“Œ 169
How to think about Gas Town Blog post: How to think about Gas Town by Steve Klabnik

How to think about Gas Town: steveklabnik.com/writing/how-...

15.01.2026 18:36 ๐Ÿ‘ 141 ๐Ÿ” 16 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 21 ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Besides the effects on the tech industry, right now there are H-1B holdersโ€”peopleโ€”who built a life in the US.

If they are traveling, they have 17 hours to get back to the US, or the life they built will be shattered and taken from them.

Can you imagine constantly living with this uncertainty?

20.09.2025 09:15 ๐Ÿ‘ 739 ๐Ÿ” 161 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 13 ๐Ÿ“Œ 17
CHPโ€™nin Darbeyle ฤฐmtihanฤฑ | Biz Bu Filmi GรถrmรผลŸtรผk 01 | BarฤฑลŸ Pehlivan
CHPโ€™nin Darbeyle ฤฐmtihanฤฑ | Biz Bu Filmi GรถrmรผลŸtรผk 01 | BarฤฑลŸ Pehlivan YouTube video by Onlar

BarฤฑลŸ Pehlivanโ€™ฤฑn belgesel serisi โ€œBiz Bu Filmi GรถrmรผลŸtรผkโ€ ilk bรถlรผmรผyle Onlarโ€™da:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zrx...

21.09.2025 06:50 ๐Ÿ‘ 8 ๐Ÿ” 3 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 2