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Al Brown 🐢

@alasdairb.com
1.4K followers 944 following 270 posts

I do things with databases and play with dogs. alasdairb.com

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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 05/08/2026
I was excited that GitHub stacked PRs were finally available. Stuck "merging" for 24 hours. It was naive of me to expect GitHub to work properly.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 04/05/2026
I wanted to detect if the invoker of my CLI was AI. Here's a Rust crate to do that, detecting environment variables that harnesses set on entry. alasdairb.com/posts/is-ai-...
alasdairb.com
is-ai-agent for Rust: detect if your CLI is invoked by an agent
AI agents are the new users of CLIs. I published a new Rust crate is-ai-agent to let CLIs know when they're being used by AI.
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The New Stack @thenewstack.io · 25/11/2025
By solving core issues of access, usability and context, AI is changing the way we interact with data. The future isn't dashboards; it's conversations.
bit.ly
Self-Service Analytics Failed. Can Agentic AI Finally Succeed?
By solving core issues of access, usability and context, AI is changing the way we interact with data. The future isn't dashboards; it's conversations.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 11/11/2025
Happy 14th birthday to my best lil boy ♥️
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 30/09/2025
Guess I'm moving my projects off vercel; is @netlify.com the best bet? Haven't used it in a while. Maybe just Cloudflare?
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𝙳𝚘𝚝𝚊𝚗 𝙷𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚝𝚜 ✈️ Open Source Summit 🇪🇺 @horovits.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
📢 ClickHouse’s New Observability Stack Unveiled 📢 #ClickHouse is doubling down on #observability with the release of #ClickStack Check out my fireside chat with @mikeshi42.bsky.social, Head of observability @clickhouse.com, co-founder @hyperdx.bsky.social : 👉 horovits.medium.com/clickstack-c...
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 26/07/2025
The UK's new age verification law for "adult content" is an identity fraud timb bomb. The most idiotic, tech-illiterate law passed in some time. Do not verify using your ID. Use a VPN.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 07/06/2025
Well that's a month in Tokyo at an end. Currently on the way to the Hook of Holland to catch the ferry home - first time in NL and I'm in awe of these greenhouses! Bonkers
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 27/05/2025
we're literally just back at Hive now duckdb.org/2025/05/27/d...
duckdb.org
DuckLake: SQL as a Lakehouse Format
DuckLake simplifies lakehouses by using a standard SQL database for all metadata, instead of complex file-based systems, while still storing data in open formats like Parquet. This makes it more relia...
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 26/05/2025
Angie has been discharged from the hospital 🥰🥰 He didn't enjoy his time in recovery, too scared to eat so we'd visit and hand feed him each day, but now he's home devouring food and snoring like a train ♥️
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 20/05/2025
We got to visit Angie in recovery today; he's still in his oxygen crate, but he's awake and alert. Wagged his tail and scratched his beans to demand we release him. He's off all heart meds ♥️🥰
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 19/05/2025
He made it through surgery 🥰♥️ They just finished sewing him up, everything was routine. First hurdle down 🥺🥺
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 18/05/2025
Pre-op bloods done, he's getting in some last minute window time
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 18/05/2025
We made it all the way to Tokyo, and it's now 2 hours until this boy has heart surgery ♥️
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 15/04/2025
We did a little spring photoshoot at the weekend
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Micah Wylde @micahw.com · 10/04/2025
Arroyo is joining @cloudflare.social! We're bringing Arroyo to the Developer Platform as a serverless stream processing system, and will also remain open-source and self-hostable. www.arroyo.dev/blog/arroyo-...
arroyo.dev
Arroyo is joining Cloudflare
Arroyo has been acquired by Cloudflare to bring serverless SQL stream processing to the Cloudflare Developer Platfrorm, integrated with Queues, Workers, and R2. The Arroyo Engine will remain open-sour...
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 10/04/2025
this is gonna be pretty interesting blog.cloudflare.com/r2-data-cata...
blog.cloudflare.com
R2 Data Catalog: Managed Apache Iceberg tables with zero egress fees
R2 Data Catalog is now in public beta: a managed Apache Iceberg data catalog built directly into your R2 bucket.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 09/04/2025
new gig, new gear ✅
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 01/04/2025
CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER LIMIT CHARACTER L
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 29/03/2025
Gemini 2.5 Pro does seem to perform better at coding for me, but the integration in Windsurf is not nearly as good as Claude 3.7 yet
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 20/03/2025
When I turned 30 last year, someone told me "30 is when your bones are no longer made of rubber". I am currently incapacitated by neck pain. Were they just warning me, or was it a curse?
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 17/03/2025
marketers sharting VIBE CODING in every single LinkedIn post hits like my mum texting YOLO
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 13/03/2025
I tried Gemini in Sheets a year ago, it was shit. I tried it again today, it is still shit. Impressive in its own way.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 13/03/2025
I made caramel. I burnt my mouth.
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DuckDB @duckdb.org · 12/03/2025
DuckDB got a local UI. Thanks to our friends at MotherDuck, you can now interact with your DuckDB database through an interactive notebook, running on localhost. Read the announcement blog post at duckdb.org/2025/03/12/d...
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 14/03/2024
I want to talk about my move from Substack to Ghost for a second, and what it's been like working with a nonprofit tech company that actually lives its values. Especially if you're a writer still on Subtack, please read. 1/x First of all, about the org: They are a nonprofit, I just met employee +
ghost.org
Ghost: Independent technology for modern publishing
Beautiful, modern publishing with newsletters and premium subscriptions built-in. Used by Sky, 404Media, Lever News, Tangle, The Browser, and thousands more.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 03/03/2025
I have left Tinybird ✌️ My mum doesn't think my bespoke crochet dog jumper business plan is a winner, but she prefers cats anyway, so what does she know...
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Philippe Noël @philippemnoel.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
ParadeDB is hiring for a few roles around Postgres internals and infrastructure. Introduce me to the best database engineer you know (or reach out if that's you!) Postings: paradedb.notion.site/ParadeDB-Job...
paradedb.notion.site
ParadeDB Job Board | Notion
Hi there!
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 14/02/2025
I feel this
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 27/01/2025
DEEP .... SEEK 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 24/01/2025
Do you think we'll reach a point where humans become so dumb from offloading all thought to AI that AI will start researching "Human Intelligence" to smarten us up because it's tired of us being so thick?
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 18/01/2025
Hilariously/depressingly accurate. But apparently it's literally impossible to do sales ANY other way.
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Philippe Noël @philippemnoel.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
1/11. ParadeDB is now integrated with Postgres block storage. As far as we know, no one has integrated a search and analytics engine with Postgres storage before. This is a big deal. Here's why we did it, how we did it, and why you should care. 🧵
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Steven Tey @steven.blue · 14/01/2025
Introducing Dub Conversions 📈 Track how your clicks convert to signups and sales with our end-to-end attribution engine. Featuring native integrations with Stripe, Shopify, @clerk.com, @supabase.com etc. Learn more about @dub.co Conversions: d.to/conversions
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 14/01/2025
I built a little MCP experiment called Claudekeep before the new year. I wasn't doing much with it as it was just for learning, but @anthropic.com sent me a takedown notice for trademark infringement today, so it's gone. Oh well 🤷‍♂️ Maybe I'll call the next one ChatMCP.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 08/01/2025
Bluebird CLI v1.0.11 published this morning with better support for non-SASL Kafka. Thanks to @gschmutz.bsky.social for the PR!
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 07/01/2025
The only Meta product I still use is WhatsApp...and only because I haven't convinced my partner and parents to use Signal...will 2025 finally be the year?
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 07/01/2025
Ah, I see the reason for the exodus. I was only keeping Threads for dog pics anyway...I'll just spend more time staring at my own dog instead.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 07/01/2025
Has there been a Threads exodus or something?
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 06/01/2025
It's my first day back, easing in by releasing a set of trigger.dev tasks for @tinybird.co A few tinybird customers were already using trigger and told me about it; it's a code-first scheduler with a lovely DX, making this a pleasantly simple intro to the new year www.npmjs.com/package/@sda...
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 06/01/2025
I mostly avoided social over the holidays, so happy new year!
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Forrest Brazeal @forrestbrazeal.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
12 months ago I had just given notice at Google. I was terrified and had no idea that 2024 would be the most remarkable year of my life. For each like on this post I’ll share something that 2023 me didn’t know. First: running your own business can actually be LESS scary than being an employee.
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 25/12/2024
Corporate wants you to find the puppy in this picture
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Marco Slot @marcoslot.com · 17/12/2024
There are many incremental processing solutions, but they seem to never quite do what I need. I decided to build an extension that just keeps running the same command in Postgres with different parameters to do fast, reliable incremental data processing. That's pg_incremental. 1/n
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 15/12/2024
Finally won the Battle of the Bundler. The Mockingbird package has destinations with Node-only deps, but needs to support the browser as well. Couldn't figure it out with tsup. Wasted a day on Webpack. Finally got it with Vite after a few hours. And this is a problem that Windsurf failed HARD at
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Elliot Gunn @elliotgunn.com · 10/12/2024
Got a question for #dataBS: Anyone ever survived a data migration with a story to tell—the good, the bad, or the "we’ll laugh about this someday"? I’m writing a technical piece and I’d love to hear your wins, cautionary tales, and hard-earned lessons. Please DM if you're keen!
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 10/12/2024
Bluebird CLI v1.0.9 github.com/sdairs/blueb... Thanks to @jove95.bsky.social for contributing a Timeplus destination That was supposed to be it...but v1.0.9 is also a total rewrite 😅
github.com
Release v1.0.9 · sdairs/bluebird
Changelog Rewritten entire CLI in TypeScript New structure for commands using topics & base command interface New Timeplus destination! Thanks to @jovezhong for contributing the new Timeplus dest...
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 10/12/2024
I had nice Bluebird CLI news to share and then I realised I broke builds and its a little embarrassing that it took 16 commits, including rewriting the entire CLI to fix it...but I fixed it
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 10/12/2024
@posthog.com finally
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Al Brown 🐢 @alasdairb.com · 01/12/2024
give
A best boy chihuahua demanding his Xmas advent calendar
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