iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 11/02/2026

we wrap up exploring the shift from prompt engineering to context engineering, agents and code-based tool calling, and why bridging linguistics and computer science could unlock the next wave of progress. full episode: 🎧 compiledconversations.com/19/ 5/5

compiledconversations.com

From Linguistics to Large Language Models with Chris Brousseau - Compiled Conversations

Chris Brousseau, co-author of LLMs in Production and VP of AI at Veox AI, joins us to peek under the hood of large language models. We explore the journey from linguistics to machine learning, what…

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 11/02/2026

he's deployed billion-parameter models at mastercard and jp morgan chase, and co-authored LLMs in Production (which i'm a huge fan of). we dig into the gap between demos and production systems, and the operational challenges that make deploying at scale uniquely hard. 4/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 11/02/2026

from there we go deep on the fundamentals - transformers, tokenization, embeddings, context windows, the training pipeline from self-supervised learning through RLHF to fine-tuning. 3/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 11/02/2026

we start with how a graduate seminar on python and machine translation in 2017 pulled chris from linguistics into NLP. studying how humans create meaning in language for years turns out to be the perfect background for understanding where LLMs shine and where they completely fall apart. 2/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 11/02/2026

Ep. 19: From Linguistics to Large Language Models with Chris Brousseau i've been wanting to do an episode that really digs into what #LLMs actually are under the hood, and Chris's journey from linguistics into ML made this the perfect conversation to do it 👇 🎧 compiledconversations.com/19/

compiledconversations.com

From Linguistics to Large Language Models with Chris Brousseau - Compiled Conversations

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/01/2026

we end with how AI tools like Claude Code are transforming architecture work - code analysis, refactoring, living documentation. Nick shares his guardrails approach: linting, test coverage, complexity limits for agents, and multi-agent workflows. 🎧 compiledconversations.com/18/ 5/5

compiledconversations.com

Architecture Modernization with Nick Tune - Compiled Conversations

Nick Tune, author of Architecture Modernization and Staff Engineer at Payfit, joins us to discuss the challenges and strategies of modernising legacy systems. We explore the four pillars of…

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/01/2026

we dig into socio-technical alignment - how domain models drift from business language over time (semantic drift), and Conway's Law shaping your architecture. Architecture Modernization Enabling Teams (AMET) help bridge these gaps between business needs and technical reality. 4/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/01/2026

one key concept is "Death Valley" - the dangerous hybrid state during migration where you're running old and new systems in parallel, keeping data stores in sync. Nick also explains the "month three milestone" - balancing analysis with showing demonstrable progress. 3/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/01/2026

we start by reframing legacy systems - they're not failures, they're successful products being asked to solve problems they weren't designed for. Nick introduces his four-pillar framework: business strategy, design discovery, architecture, and execution. 2/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/01/2026

Ep. 18: Architecture Modernization with Nick Tune i've been a fan of @nick-tune.me's books, writing and talks for many years, so it was great to be able to have a conversation about all things architecture modernisation 👇 🎧 compiledconversations.com/18/ 1/5

compiledconversations.com

Architecture Modernization with Nick Tune - Compiled Conversations

Nick Tune, author of Architecture Modernization and Staff Engineer at Payfit, joins us to discuss the challenges and strategies of modernising legacy systems. We explore the four pillars of…

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Reposted by Edd Mann

Shawn McCool @shawnmc.cool · 26/01/2026

I had the please to speak with @eddmann.com about event sourcing lessons learned from 10 years of production and a bunch of related patterns and concerns that have surrounded this architectural choice. I'm glad that we were able to cover a lot of non-introductory material here.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 16/01/2026

we also cover testing with given-when-then patterns, synchronous vs asynchronous projections, and why DDD isn't a methodology - it's a pursuit of understanding your domain. lots of practical wisdom from someone who's been building these systems for over a decade. 🎧 compiledconversations.com/17/

compiledconversations.com

Event Sourcing with Shawn McCool - Compiled Conversations

Shawn McCool returns to discuss event sourcing in depth. We explore what event sourcing really means, how it differs from event-driven architectures, the relationship with CQRS and DDD, and practical…

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 16/01/2026

a practical pattern that eliminates versioning and data retention headaches: design aggregates that exhaust quickly. at his payment processing company, event streams terminate within 30 minutes. no long-lived aggregates = no painful migrations, no GDPR nightmares. 4/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 16/01/2026

the core insight: events aren't just for messaging - they become the actual source of your model state. we dig into how this differs from event-driven architectures, the relationship with CQRS, and why capturing intent matters more than capturing CRUD operations. 3/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 16/01/2026

shawn's journey started around 2012 while working on laravel.io when a friend introduced him to domain events. that discovery pulled him deeper into the DDD community and eventually led to creating Event Sourcery - a free video course on domain modeling and event sourcing. 2/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 16/01/2026

Ep. 17: Event Sourcing with Shawn McCool @shawnmc.cool shares how event sourcing fundamentally changed how he thinks about modeling software. if you've felt stuck in the "way we've always done it" mindset, this one's for you 👇 🎧 compiledconversations.com/17/ 1/5

compiledconversations.com

Event Sourcing with Shawn McCool - Compiled Conversations

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 24/12/2025

designed for both humans and machines, following traditional unix philosophy - composable, plays nicely with jq and pipes. have been using them in place of these servers for the past couple of days. github.com/eddmann/whatsapp-cli github.com/eddmann/strava-cli github.com/eddmann/garmin-connect-cli

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 24/12/2025

spent some time exploring cli + agent skill as an alternative to the mcp servers i built a few months back. built whatsapp, strava, and garmin-connect clis to explore this space. give an llm a discoverable, well-documented cli - it can do a lot! 1/2 👇

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 12/12/2025

absolutely. the beam was decades ahead of its time. just needs more adoption - elixir is helping bring it to a wider audience but still feels criminally underused for what it offers.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 12/12/2025

we wrap with ai and architecture docs - mcp tools providing context-aware assistance, while recognizing that business context and ubiquitous language still need human understanding. full episode: 🎧 compiledconversations.com/16/ 5/5

compiledconversations.com

Building Event Catalog: From AWS to Solo Bootstrapping with David Boyne - Compiled Conversations

David Boyne joins us to share his journey from AWS serverless advocate to solo bootstrapper building Event Catalog. We explore event-driven architecture governance challenges, the transition to…

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 12/12/2025

we dig into the realities of solo bootstrapping - open core business models, building for developers, pricing traps, and why talking to customers matters more than shipping features. 4/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 12/12/2025

so he left to build event catalog full-time. what started as a christmas side project is now used by devs, architects, business analysts, and product owners - each finding different value in the same tool. 3/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 12/12/2025

we start with his time at aws - 2+ years helping teams with eventbridge and distributed systems. the same problem kept coming up: event architectures are 10-15 years behind api docs when it comes to governance and discoverability. 2/5

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

the whole thing runs client-side. create your draw, set exclusions, generate unique links for each person. all state is encoded in the url - no backend, no accounts, just share and play 🔗 play it: eddmann.com/secret-santa... 💻 code: github.com/eddmann/secr... 🎅

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

❄️ snowball slingshot aim and launch snowballs to knock 5 ornaments off the christmas tree. angry birds vibes prob. my fav ❤️

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

🎁 gift stack challenge balance and stack 6 falling gifts on a moving platform. harder than it sounds 😅

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

🧦 stocking fill match classic memory game: match 6 pairs of holiday icons to unlock your recipient

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

🦌 reindeer delivery dash fly santa's sleigh through the sky, collect 4 stars while dodging obstacles

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

🎄 santa maze navigate a peppermint maze, collect 3 ornaments, then reach the present to reveal your match

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 28/11/2025

every year i over-engineer our family's secret santa allocation. this year: retro arcade games built with phaser.js 🎮 because why just draw names when you can earn them through mini-games? 🔗 play it: eddmann.com/secret-santa... 💻 code: github.com/eddmann/secr... thread 👇

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 26/11/2025

signed, sealed, notarized 📝 spent the last half hour learning how to get my recent macOS apps properly code-signed and notarized via github action: - github.com/eddmann/Clip... - github.com/eddmann/Voic... - github.com/eddmann/Caff... - github.com/eddmann/Clau...

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 26/11/2025

cloudflare's bot detection went down last week - their ml feature config exceeded a hard limit of 200 features. if you're curious what ml features actually are, we dive into it all in our latest podcast 🎙️ compiledconversations.com/14/ compiledconversations.com/15/

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

the whole feeling is less "ai will replace you" and more "what if everyone had a perfect tutor?" nice counterweight to the doom takes. worth the listen.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

he also talks about _eurekas per second_ as a design goal for learning, maximizing those aha moments per unit of time. that's a metric i can get behind 🤯

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

he describes learning as going to the gym, for your brain. not easy, not "fun", but deeply satisfying. the mental equivalent of a proper workout.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

karpathy's take: in a post-agi world, education becomes less about climbing the economic ladder and more about... entertainment? cognitive fitness? interesting reframe.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

been listening to the @karpathy episode on dwarkesh podcast, highly recommend it after the richard sutton one from september. really interesting back-to-back 🎧 www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar... thread 👇

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

smooth animations 😎...

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

swiftui + swift concurrency made this surprisingly quick. the breathing engine is an actor so state management stays clean. whole thing is open source if anyone wants to check it out! ⏱️ github.com/eddmann/Ovlo i'm lovin' these lunch time builds.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

also built an ios companion app because why not. 😅 can start/stop sessions remotely and tweak settings from your phone. watchconnectivity is actually pretty nice to work with.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

the watch app controls everything - set your inhale duration, exhale duration, session length. smooth animated circle guides you through each breath. haptic taps on transitions so you don't even need to look at it.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

my wife wanted a simple 4-8 breathing app for her apple watch. the built-in one doesn't let you customise inhale/exhale timing. so ofc i spent my lunch break building one from scratch 😅 👇 ⏱️ github.com/eddmann/Ovlo

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 25/11/2025

with the recent opus 4.5 release, claude now tracks sonnet-only usage instead of opus. just published a new release of claudemeter to reflect that. also added a hover tooltip that shows the exact reset timestamp in your local timezone. github.com/eddmann/Clau...

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 21/11/2025

oh man, we've all been there 🤦, at least the weekend is coming up...

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 21/11/2025

training + evaluation essentials: loss functions, gradient descent, learning rates, proper train/val/test splits, and k-fold cross-validation. plus the metrics you actually need: precision, recall, f1, auc, confusion matrices.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 21/11/2025

then into neural networks: how layers of linear + nonlinear transforms learn patterns from raw data. we trace the evolution: cnns, rnns, transformers + attention, and how that leap unlocked llms.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 21/11/2025

we kick off with ensemble learning - why combining models beats a single model. random forest, xgboost, sampling strategies, and how ensembles reduce overfitting by design.

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Edd Mann @eddmann.com · 21/11/2025

Ep. 15: Machine Learning Fundamentals, Part 2 w/ Shannon Wirtz we dive deeper into the architectures, training techniques, and evaluation methods behind modern #ml 👇 🎧 compiledconversations.com/15/

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