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Blain Smith

@blainsmith.com
188 followers 233 following 662 posts

Staff Engineer at @fastly.com | Founding Member @limeleaf.coop | Currently building henhouse.coop and probes.dev Decentralize and self host as much as you can. www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9620 lr0.org/blog/p/crocker

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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 31/08/2026
So far it looks like a `make()` adjustment I found has reduced allocations by 1-1.5k per request since the slice was undersized before being used in a loop where there was a conditional `append()` call to it. We'll see where it settles after 24 hours of soak testing. #GoLang #Performance
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Ben Werdmuller @werd.io · 04/07/2026
My entire political worldview is: what if you could maintain the optimism and energy of America but add an inclusive culture of support that gives everyone education, healthcare, a real safety net and a springboard for their lives, in a way that builds communities rather than extracts from them?
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Ben Werdmuller @werd.io · 03/07/2026
My entire information diet relies on your site having a functional RSS feed, so it would be awesome if it did.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 03/07/2026
Tracing HTTP Requests with Rust blainsmith.com/articles/tra... #RustLang #HTTP #Tracing #Telemetry #Monitoring #Performance
blainsmith.com
Tracing HTTP Requests with Rust - Blain Smith
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 02/07/2026
Got a working version of httptrace-rs as a stand-alone client. I do, however, want to support hyper directly and offer a Connector so that's gotta be next. #RustLang #HTTP #Telemetry
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 28/06/2026
Uptime monitoring tools have too many features, confusing pricing, and aren't built for small teams or indies. So we built probes.dev. Add a URL, we ping it, and we tell you when it's acting flaky or goes down. $5 a month gets you 5 probes w/ status pages. Start probing today! #HTTP #Monitoring
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 24/06/2026
The Joy and Power of Understanding binaryigor.com/the-joy-and-... #Fundamentals #Learning #Computing #ComputerScience
binaryigor.com
The Joy and Power of Understanding
Deeper understanding of the code and software systems we work on, is not only pragmatic and practical but highly enjoyable as well ... But, if it is both joyful and powerful, why are we so often prone...
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 22/06/2026
A Wake-Up Call for Kernel-Bypass on Modern Hardware dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.... #Linux #KernelBypass #Networking
dl.acm.org
A Wake-Up Call for Kernel-Bypass on Modern Hardware | Proceedings of the 21st International Workshop on Data Management on New Hardware
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Kris Walker @kriswalker.me · 22/06/2026
"My product is my garden" I absolutely love this concept: herman.bearblog.dev/my-product-i...
herman.bearblog.dev
My product is my garden
I’ve been part of the internet startup scene for a while. There are so many different camps: the bootstrappers, the VC-backed tech-bros, the crypto “investor...
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 22/06/2026
Hahahahaha the Steam Machine is over a grand? Hard pass.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 22/06/2026
Someone started paying for probes.dev Cool to have that first paying user! #HTTP #Monitoring #GoLang #Bootstrapped
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 21/06/2026
Happy Father's Day to all you Dad's out there.
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Firmino @firmino.work · 20/06/2026
It looks slick, great work!
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 20/06/2026
Show day #Lexus #IS500 #FlareYellow
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John Luther @jluther.net · 19/06/2026
Probes.dev has launched! If you're a small team or independent developer and need affordable web service monitoring, sign up for a free 14-day trial today.
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Reposted by Blain Smith
Limeleaf Worker Collective @limeleaf.coop · 18/06/2026
Uptime monitoring tools have too many features, confusing pricing, and aren't built for small teams or indies. So we built probes.dev. Add a URL, we ping it, and we tell you when it's acting flaky or goes down. $5 a month gets you 5 probes w/ status pages. Start probing today!
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Mubashar “Mubs” Iqbal @mubashariqbal.com · 17/06/2026
Figured out how to get the goal scorers for the games. Still keeping things simple for now, but does the job. worldcupnext.com
screenshot for worldcupnext.com showing a game with goals and who & when the goal was scored.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 17/06/2026
Thoughts on RFC 10008: The HTTP QUERY Method blainsmith.com/articles/rfc... #GoLang #RustLang #Caching #HTTP
blainsmith.com
RFC 10008: The HTTP QUERY Method - Blain Smith
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 17/06/2026
Why stdx is not on crates.io kerkour.com/stdx-cratesio #RustLang #PackageManagement
kerkour.com
Why stdx is not on crates.io
Why stdx is not on crates.io While I think that the xxx aspect of stdx has been well received, a lot of Rust developers were suffering with the current status
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 17/06/2026
I can't believe it has been just over 4 years... github.com/subspace-com... #GoLang #AF_PACKET #Linux #Networking
github.com
GitHub - subspace-com/fast_afpacket: Go library for interacting with AF_PACKET sockets with socket timestamp support
Go library for interacting with AF_PACKET sockets with socket timestamp support - subspace-com/fast_afpacket
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 17/06/2026
*Blain has left #Engineering* I can't keep putting effort in there anymore. No one cares about anything unless is LLM related.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 17/06/2026
RFC 10008: The HTTP QUERY Method www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc10008/ #RFC #HTTP
rfc-editor.org
RFC 10008: The HTTP QUERY Method | RFC Editor
This specification defines the QUERY method for HTTP. A QUERY requests that the request target process the enclosed content in a safe and idempotent manner and then respond with the result of that pro...
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 16/06/2026
The $100 32GB Crucial RAM stick I bought a while ago is now $500. To all LLM sympathizers... Fuck you for continually supporting this tech. Feel free to unfollow and block me. You won't be missed.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 15/06/2026
Now we have a much needed Docs page to explain things more. probes.dev/docs/ #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #Documentation #BuildInPublic
probes.dev
Docs — probes
Product documentation for Probes — how probes, alerts, incidents, and status pages work.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 14/06/2026
Can't stop the signal. Poison it. blog.digitalgrease.dev/posts/fauxx-cant-stop-the-signal #DataPoisoning #Tracking #Privacy
blog.digitalgrease.dev
Can't Stop the Signal. Poison It. — digitalgrease
If you can't stop ad networks from collecting your data, make what they collect useless. Building Fauxx: an Android tool for behavioral data poisoning.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 13/06/2026
Some early feedback about probes.dev was folks wanted to also see a traditional timeseries of latency over time, so here we go... #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #BuildInPublic
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 13/06/2026
Both kids have graduated to better phones now. They each have a used Pixel 6 with /e/OS with privacy controls enabled. They are learning to treat their phones as a tool, not as an extension of their own person. I'll write a blog post on this topic since I have been researching this for a while.
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ɯlǝɥlᴉʍ @wilhelm.codes · 13/06/2026
I've been working on this stupid little #golang hobby project for literal years, but today I am finally ready to publicly release it. Here is Glazier, your over-engineered declarative tmux session manager. github.com/wilhelm-murd...
github.com
GitHub - wilhelm-murdoch/glazier: Declaratively manage tmux sessions, windows, panes and other things with HCL-based configuration files.
Declaratively manage tmux sessions, windows, panes and other things with HCL-based configuration files. - wilhelm-murdoch/glazier
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 12/06/2026
Another solid PR this week! Squatted 450lbs for 5 reps. #Powerlifting #Strongman
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 12/06/2026
Snuck in a quick, but important probes.dev feature and added the User-Agent header to be a good web citizen. `User-Agent: probes (+https://probes.dev)` #HTTP #UserAgent #Monitoring
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 11/06/2026
Nice. New bench and shoulder press PRs... 240lbs for 8 reps on bench 135lbs for 5 sets of 10 on shoulder press #gainzZz
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 11/06/2026
Reuse Less Software wiki.alopex.li/ReuseLessSof... #SupplyChain #Dependencies #Programming
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 11/06/2026
Just looks so good and its quite informative! probes.dev coming soon! #DNS #TCP #HTTP #GoLang
Screenshot of https://probes.dev Timing view of request life-cycles and distributions.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 10/06/2026
The hardest part of building probes.dev for me was the UI. The actual core product of the network probes was the easiest part and I had that done as a proof of concept in an afternoon. #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #Telemetry #Networking
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 10/06/2026
Another set of changes went out for probes.dev 1. "Past Hour" option to view your charts for the...wait for it...past hour ;-) 2. Geography map got a speed boost to render instantly 3. Alert flapping detection so a site triggering many down/up alerts will not spam you #GoLang #HTTP #BuildInPublic
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 10/06/2026
We announced probes.dev to a wider close/trusted audience for more private beta testing. We're aiming for public beta next week! #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #BuildInPublic
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 09/06/2026
Sneak preview of a Timings Breakdown in probes.dev to see where the average time is spent during a request. #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 09/06/2026
Speed of packets' differences in one graph. Yellow: NYC probe talking to app also in NYC Blue/Green: SFO and AMS probes talking to app in NYC #Latency #Geography #Networking
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Kris Walker @kriswalker.me · 09/06/2026
The Small Web is Beautiful: A Study of Web Development as if People Mattered. Ben Hoyt wrote this in 2021 and I can't get it out of my mind these days. It's a take on E. F. Schumacher’s "Small is Beautiful" economics treatise benhoyt.com/writings/the...
benhoyt.com
The small web is beautiful
A vision for the "small web", small software, and small architectures.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
I had a probe set up with a 500ms response time for Apdex calculations, but the public status page kept showing "Degraded"... Turns out the site responds, on average, between 600-700ms so it was in fact correct. I was chasing a bug that didn't exist. Worked as designed. 🙂 #HTTP #Apdex #Monitoring
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
We're getting some good live data from probes.dev already. It's very useful to tweak the UI and graphs so they make the most sense when we finally go public. #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #BuildInPublic #BetaTesting
probes.dev
Probes — Uptime & Performance Monitoring
Website and API uptime and performance monitoring for solo developers and small teams. DNS, TCP, TLS, and TTFB timing breakdowns to the millisecond. $1/site/month. Free trial, no credit card required.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
I finally got around to buying a copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values" by Robert M. Pirsig I've listed to the audiobook version many times, but thought it was time to own a physical hardcover version. #Books
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
The Cypherpunk Library www.cypherpunkbooks.com
cypherpunkbooks.com
The Cypherpunk Library
A personal collection of good public-domain reads. Free to read, free to keep.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
#VoxMachina is just so great and fun to watch.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 08/06/2026
Tweaked SQLite's page_size and cache_size and I found the sweet spot for keeping latency on the low end. #SQLite
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 07/06/2026
#OTel is cool and all, but vanilla #Prometheus and #Grafana works very well without all the plumbing and boilerplate.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 07/06/2026
Free IPv4 Lookup — Owner, ASN, Geo, PTR worldip.io #IPv4
worldip.io
Free IPv4 Lookup — Owner, ASN, Geo, PTR
Look up any IPv4 address. Find owner, ASN, country, city, PTR records, and CIDR. Search reverse DNS hostnames. Free, no signup.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 07/06/2026
Changed up SQLite from `PRAGMA syncronization = FULL` to `PRAGMA syncronization = NORMAL` and got an immediate result. Litestream is still doing its thing in the background as well to ensure changes are synced elsewhere. #SQLite #GoLang #Litestream
DB write latency graph showing p50, p95, and p99 dropping to the floor.
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 07/06/2026
Deploying updates for probes.dev is so uneventful. It takes mere seconds to build and push updates across all regions and the dashboard itself. #KISS #GoLang #Bash #systemd #Debian
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Blain Smith @blainsmith.com · 07/06/2026
It has been about 24 hours since probes.dev went into private beta and the metrics have shown nothing exciting. It is just humming along. #GoLang #HTTP #Monitoring #BuildInPublic
Screenshot of Graphana dashboard showing the app and 3 regions showing nothing exciting as far as incidents are concerned.
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