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bryan english

@bengl.dev

1.4K followers 560 following 1.4K posts

🇨🇦 Staff Software Engineer - Datadog APM (he/him/his) Dad Royal Oak, MI, USA bryanenglish.com

Posts Replies Media

bryan english @bengl.dev · 29/09/2026

Forget lifehaven, Node.js is the real cult

The napkin tradition at nodeconf

bryan english @bengl.dev · 19/09/2026

Joel Spolsky, 2002

The law of leaky abstractions means that whenever somebody comes up with a wizzy new code-generation tool that is supposed to make us all ever-so-efficient, you hear a lot of people saying “learn how to do it manually first, then use the wizzy tool to save time.” Code generation tools which pretend to abstract out something, like all abstractions, leak, and the only way to deal with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and what they are abstracting. So the abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us time learning.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 14/09/2026

LGA arrivals ad also not fuckin around with any nonsense.

An I ♥️ NY ad featuring lake Ontario

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 14/09/2026

At least the Delta IFE has not gone all stupid yet.

Picture of flight tracker of Delta flight, showing Lake Ontario.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 04/09/2026

Oh sweet!

Screenshot from mu.social showing that I'm verified.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 28/08/2026

Yesssssss

HP 15c scientific calculator. In box.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 27/08/2026

Still correct on USGS national map

USGS national map showing Lake Ontario

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 27/08/2026

Still correct on Google Maps

Google Map of Lake Ontario

bryan english @bengl.dev · 19/06/2026

I am at a drive in

Menu at a&w drive in

bryan english @bengl.dev · 28/05/2026

Yep

Google AI claiming there is 1 P in the name Bryan.

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 15/05/2026

😑

A reply window for the previous post in this thread, claiming that the original is in Greek, and offering to translate my post to greek.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 06/05/2026

And a little better, still!

More Node.js FFI benchmark showing even better perf gains.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 05/05/2026

We can always do a little bit better!

Latest benchmark results from a PR I'm working on for Node.js FFI improvements. Anywhere from ~100% to ~1000% improvement on each of the benchmarks (except one outlier).

bryan english @bengl.dev · 24/04/2026

Yes, this is real, from this morning.

A slack message from me, replying to someone else. The other person said "It can absorb real humans." and I replied with "Please don't do this. It's completely unsettling."

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 23/04/2026

Now that you've kicked the tires on FFI, I'm gonna go ahead and make it faster! PR soon!

confidence improvement accuracy (*) (**) (***)
ffi/add-f64.js n=10000000 *** 40.50 % ±1.43% ±1.91% ±2.51%
ffi/add-i32.js n=10000000 *** 37.66 % ±1.05% ±1.41% ±1.84%
ffi/getpid.js n=10000000 *** 9.04 % ±0.58% ±0.77% ±1.00%
ffi/many-args.js n=10000000 *** -6.27 % ±0.49% ±0.65% ±0.84%
ffi/pointer-bigint.js n=10000000 *** 69.83 % ±0.93% ±1.24% ±1.62%
ffi/sum-buffer.js n=1000000 size=1024 *** 23.58 % ±0.40% ±0.53% ±0.69%
ffi/sum-buffer.js n=1000000 size=16384 *** 3.71 % ±0.77% ±1.03% ±1.34%
ffi/sum-buffer.js n=1000000 size=64 *** 36.93 % ±0.56% ±0.74% ±0.96%

bryan english @bengl.dev · 16/04/2026

GitHub come on now.

Me approving a PR apparently 4 times on GitHub.

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 13/04/2026

Suspiciously not falling down

London Bridge plaque

bryan english @bengl.dev · 13/04/2026

A Costa Rican geisha, roasted in Denmark, prepared in UK

Some filter coffee in a carafe

Some filter coffee in a carafe, partially poured

bryan english @bengl.dev · 13/04/2026

You bet it is!

Menu from The Breakfast Club, in London, UK

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 12/04/2026

I'm at the only good bar in the Detroit airport.

Menu for Cask & Craft, a Detroit airport bar.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 29/03/2026

3 🎂

3 helium balloon

bryan english @bengl.dev · 18/01/2026

Also, that's the high here today 😆, low is -11.

My backyard, in the Detroit suburbs. It's snowing.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 16/01/2026

"You give up part of your soul when you switch to coding with AI. But it turns out to be a net win." Cool, Yegge, cool.

"I Was A Teenage Faust" movie poster

bryan english @bengl.dev · 16/01/2026

Receipt for $100 donation

bryan english @bengl.dev · 15/01/2026

It's been over 4 years since @multithreadedjs.bsky.social, by @thomashunter.name and myself, was published. A lot has changed in 4 years, and a lot has stayed the same. What interesting things have you done with threads in JS? LMK. Would love to publish anecdotes (with permission) in 2nd edition.

Multithreaded JavaScript book cover

bryan english @bengl.dev · 15/01/2026

2 hours ago, in the suburbs of Detroit.

A snowy street in suburban Michigan, pic taken from passenger seat.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 03/01/2026

Canadian Tire storefront

bryan english @bengl.dev · 03/01/2026

You bet your ass I got a poutine.

A poutine from Harvey's

bryan english @bengl.dev · 03/01/2026

Fuck it. Went to Canada.

A Harvey's cup and tray.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 03/01/2026

Fuck it. Went to Canada.

A Harvey's cup and tray.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 14/12/2025

Are you on Google Fi? You might want to disable these two AI settings.

Google fi AI personalization setting

Google fi AI-enhanced audio setting

bryan english @bengl.dev · 24/10/2025

Slides from an upcoming talk I'm giving. I'm re-using this joke because it's a good joke and I don't care.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 22/10/2025

Was writing some Rust code late last night and ran into an extremely Neil Young problem.

The album cover for "Rust Never Sleeps" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

bryan english @bengl.dev · 17/10/2025

I'm ready for the @nodejs.org collab summit today

bryan english @bengl.dev · 06/10/2025

Even the lattes here are served in Duralex glasses.

A latte in a Duralex glass. Orange juice in the background.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 13/09/2025

What about the skeletal dj next to it

bryan english @bengl.dev · 05/09/2025

Yes, but only because I had it backwards. It's opt-out, not opt-in.

Excerpt from Wired article:

It’s unclear how the literary world will respond to the terms of the settlement. Since this was an “opt-out” class action, authors who are eligible but dissatisfied with the terms will be able to request exclusion to file their own lawsuits. Notably, the plaintiffs filed a motion today to keep the “opt-out threshold” confidential, which means that the public will not have access to the exact number of class members who would need to opt out for the settlement to be terminated.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 19/08/2025

Ummm

A toys r us

bryan english @bengl.dev · 06/08/2025

Anybody need cucumbers?

bryan english @bengl.dev · 30/07/2025

This book isn't holding back

Excerpt from "The AI Con", page 36

bryan english @bengl.dev · 02/07/2025

It's happening

Unboxing my new Framework 13 laptop

bryan english @bengl.dev · 26/06/2025

Honestly this alone should render all AI "art" and code as public domain

https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-authorship.pdf (Section 306)

bryan english @bengl.dev · 23/06/2025

A little toasty today on the patio. Yes that's Celsius.

IR thermometer showing 63.5 C

bryan english @bengl.dev · 14/06/2025

Alright bsky arborists, what kind of tree is this?

A tree in my backyard that I'm failing at identifying.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 24/05/2025

Yeahhhhhh this patio is gonna be a deck some day

My patio with some kids toys and a play structure behind it

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 16/05/2025

I prefer this over GitHub's car wash.

Sign for "Gerrit's High Pressure Car Wash: Do It Yourself"

bryan english @bengl.dev · 17/04/2025

A film that takes place where you're from

A still from Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

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bryan english @bengl.dev · 11/04/2025

Some notes on "New Media <-> Creativity Systems" from Ted Nelson circa 1965, taken from the Internet Archive.

bryan english @bengl.dev · 03/04/2025

Bonjour!

Entrance to dotJS conference

bryan english @bengl.dev · 30/03/2025

There was only really one possible choice for in-flight movie