No. 64July 2026

Distributed systems, language models and the machinery underneath

The archive

64 stories from May 2023 to July 2026, in four topics.

64 of 64 stories

2026

  1. 64

    What Are Word Embeddings, Anyway?

    Meaning is not typed in by anyone. It falls out of a prediction game played over billions of sentences, and the leftover geometry is what we call an embedding.

    Language models10 min ·

  2. 63

    What Are Tokens in an LLM, Anyway?

    The algorithm behind GPT's tokenizer is called BPE, byte pair encoding.

    Language models12 min ·

  3. 62

    Don't Let AI Make You Artificial

    We use LLMs in almost every part of our life.

    Language models6 min ·

  4. 61

    Designing The Webhook Delivery System

    A webhook is a lightweight, event-driven mechanism that allows one application to automatically send real-time data to another via HTTP (typically a POST request) immediately when a specific event occurs.

    Distributed systems25 min ·

  5. 60

    Design a News Aggregator System

    A news aggregator — like Google News, Apple News, or Flipboard — is a digital service that continuously collects news articles from thousands of publishers around the world, processes and organizes them, and presents them to users in a unified, scrollable feed.

    Distributed systems30 min ·

2025

  1. 59

    Before You Add Another Service for Caching, Read This.

    Now, let’s define Hazelcast in more easy to understand terms: it is a distributed cache that lives within your applications, keeping them perfectly synchronized without the need for an external caching service like Redis.

    Distributed systems8 min ·

  2. 58

    Designing an Inventory Management System: A Comprehensive Guide

    At its core, an inventory management system tracks products from the moment they enter a warehouse until they’re sold

    Distributed systems13 min ·

  3. 57

    Build your own API Gateway from Scratch in Java

    An API Gateway is a server that acts as an entry point for all your API requests from client to target application or services

    Java19 min ·

  4. 56

    The Google File System Explained (Part 1)

    The Google File System is a scalable distributed file system for large distributed data-intensive applications.

    Distributed systems18 min ·

2024

  1. 55

    Designing YouTube: A Deep Dive into Video Streaming Architecture

    YouTube has become synonymous with video sharing and streaming.

    Distributed systems17 min ·

  2. 54

    Apache Kafka: A Comprehensive Guide

    At its core, Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform that allows you to publish, subscribe to, store, and process streams of records (messages) in real time.

    Distributed systems11 min ·

  3. 53

    Designing a Scalable News Feed Architecture for Millions of Users

    A news feed is a list of posts that a user sees when they open some renowned apps such as Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

    Distributed systems17 min ·

  4. 52

    Designing and Implementing a URL Shortener in Java

    A URL shortener is a service that takes a long URL and creates a shorter, more manageable link that redirects to the original URL.

    Java20 min ·

  5. 51

    Consistent Hashing in System Design: An In-Depth Guide

    Consistent hashing is a distributed hashing technique that aims to evenly distribute data across a set of nodes (servers) and minimize the impact of node additions or removals.

    Distributed systems18 min ·

  6. 50

    Designing and Implementing an API Rate Limiter in Java

    A rate limiter is a service that ensures no one can perform any operation if they have exceeded their quota within a certain time duration.

    Java17 min ·

2023

  1. 49

    Build your own Search Engine from Scratch in Java

    You see, the Internet is a large collection of websites.

    Java16 min ·

  2. 48

    Chainlink: Bridging the On-Chain and Off-Chain Worlds

    Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that provides smart contracts with a tamper-proof and highly available connection to all the world's highest-quality data feeds.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  3. 47

    A Deep Dive into OAuth 2.0 for Seamless Data Access

    The term "Open" refers to the fact that the protocol is an open standard, meaning it is not proprietary and is openly available for anyone to implement.

    Distributed systems6 min ·

  4. 46

    Decoding ZooKeeper: A Comprehensive Guide to Distributed Coordination and Notification Mechanisms

    Zookeeper is a robust service that aims to deliver coordination among distributed systems so that the application developers don't have to spend their entire time fretting about the coordination logic but focus on what they are best at, ie, their application logic.

    Distributed systems10 min ·

  5. 45

    Learn Dropwizard: A Practical Guide to Developing REST APIs with Java

    Dropwizard is an opensource Java framework for building scalable RESTful web services, microservices, and bundles

    Java9 min ·

  6. 44

    Introduction to Vert.x

    Vert.x is called a "Polyglot" toolkit because it supports multiple programming languages and paradigms

    Blockchains7 min ·

  7. 43

    Next.js: The Next Generation of Web Development

    NextJS is a React framework that provides a set of tools and features to help you build fast and scalable web applications

    Distributed systems9 min ·

  8. 42

    JDK, JRE, and JVM: Understanding the Java Platform Components and How They Work Together

    In the world of Java development, understanding the roles of the three "J"s - JVM, JRE, and JDK - is more than a matter of convenience.

    Java9 min ·

  9. 41

    Understanding Forward and Reverse Proxy Servers

    A proxy server serves as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource.

    Distributed systems4 min ·

  10. 40

    MEV Explained: How Miners and Validators Extract Extra Value from Blockchain Transactions

    MEV is a term that describes the total amount measured in cryptocurrency that a miner, validator, or any other network participant could make by strategically influencing the execution of transactions on a blockchain

    Blockchains6 min ·

  11. 39

    How DPoP Works: A Guide to Proof of Possession for Web Tokens

    The primary aim of DPoP is to prevent unauthorized or illegitimate parties from using leaked or stolen access tokens, by binding a token to a public key upon issuance and requiring that the client proves possession of the corresponding private key when using the token

    Distributed systems12 min ·

  12. 38

    Building a Custom Authentication Flow in Next.js 13 from Scratch

    We’ll be building a simple Next.JS application.

    Distributed systems23 min ·

  13. 37

    How Authentication Works: A Step-by-Step Explanation of the Process Behind Signing Up and Logging In

    I recently wanted to build a project where I was required to have a feature to authenticate users.

    Distributed systems5 min ·

  14. 36

    How to Store and Retrieve Data from the Disk Efficiently

    Data is the lifeblood of any modern application.

    Distributed systems16 min ·

  15. 35

    Sharding for Beginners: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Works

    Sharding means breaking down a big dataset into small disjoint subsets

    Distributed systems5 min ·

  16. 34

    What are “Rollups” in Crypto?

    Rollups are a way of aggregating transactions and processing them off-chain and publishing the result back to the on-chain.

    Blockchains8 min ·

  17. 33

    Account Abstraction: The Next Big Thing in Web3 Wallets

    EIP-4337 aims to abstract out all the intricate details we currently raise related to accounts or wallets.

    Blockchains7 min ·

  18. 32

    Understanding the Differences between Threads, Processes and Programs

    This is an exciting interview question to check the fundamentals of an interviewee.

    Distributed systems3 min ·

  19. 31

    Forking in Blockchain: A Double-Edged Sword for Security and Innovation

    Forking in the context of blockchain refers to diverging a blockchain’s history into two or more separate paths.

    Blockchains5 min ·

  20. 30

    AMM: The Secret Sauce of DeFi Liquidity

    AMM stands for Automated Market Maker. It is a type of decentralized exchange (DEX) that is governed by smart contracts.

    Blockchains9 min ·

  21. 29

    What is P2P and Why Should You Care?

    Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture is a decentralized model where each node, or "peer," acts as a client and a server.

    Blockchains8 min ·

  22. 28

    zkEVM: The Ultimate Solution for Ethereum Scalability or a Privacy Nightmare?

    zkEVM is a type of zk rollup that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, which means that it can execute smart contracts written in Solidity or other high-level languages.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  23. 27

    Satoshi's Ingenious Decision Behind Bitcoin's Non-Turing Completeness

    Turing completeness is a concept in computer science that refers to a system or language's ability to simulate a Turing machine, a mathematical model capable of solving any problem that can be described with step-by-step instructions.

    Blockchains7 min ·

  24. 26

    Bitcoin Blocks: The Simple and Easy Way to Understand Bitcoin

    A Bitcoin block is a fundamental component of the Bitcoin blockchain.

    Blockchains5 min ·

  25. 25

    Merkle Tree: How Blockchain Ensures Data Integrity and Security

    In a blockchain context, a Merkle tree is constructed for the transactions within a block.

    Blockchains8 min ·

  26. 24

    A Simple Guide to Understanding Fantom's Lachesis Protocol and DAG Structure

    Fantom is a blockchain platform designed to provide fast and scalable transactions, making it a promising platform for the future of decentralized finance and beyond.

    Blockchains5 min ·

  27. 23

    Merkel Tree: What is it, and how does it work?

    A Merkle Tree is a binary tree of hash values, where each leaf node represents a single piece of data or a hash of a piece of data.

    Blockchains4 min ·

  28. 22

    What does Hashrate mean in the Bitcoin Network?

    Hashrate is a measure of the computing power of a network that uses the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, such as Bitcoin.

    Blockchains11 min ·

  29. 21

    Have you got your .eth domain yet?

    There is a new trend in the blockchain community: users are grabbing their blockchain-specific domain.

    Blockchains4 min ·

  30. 20

    Why do all transactions and addresses on the blockchain have the prefix 0x?

    If you are new to the blockchain, you probably would have set up your Metamask and gotten your first address.

    Blockchains3 min ·

  31. 19

    Let's talk about NFTs

    NFT stands for Non-fungible Token. Let's understand this using a simple example.

    Blockchains7 min ·

  32. 18

    How much data can we store in 1 byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc.?

    In this article, we'll try to visualize the storage system of a modern computer.

    Distributed systems8 min ·

  33. 17

    The Application and Limitations of Blockchain Technology

    What is Blockchain that we all hear about?

    Blockchains7 min ·

  34. 16

    Quantum Computing: a threat on the Integrity of public blockchains

    Quantum computing is a new paradigm of computing that uses quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data.

    Blockchains5 min ·

  35. 15

    Zk rollups: How to join the zero-knowledge movement and scale Ethereum to the next level

    Zero-knowledge (Zk) rollups are a layer 2 scaling solution that increases throughput on Ethereum by moving computation and state storage off-chain.

    Blockchains4 min ·

  36. 14

    How Avalanche is Revolutionizing the Blockchain Industry with Speed, Scalability, and Interoperability

    Avalanche network is an innovative contract platform that aims to improve blockchain technology regarding interoperability, scalability, and usability.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  37. 13

    SegWit: What Is It and How Does It Make Bitcoin Faster and Cheaper?

    Segwit is derived from Segregated Witness and is an upgrade to the Bitcoin network that aims to solve several issues, such as scalability, transaction malleability, and block size.

    Blockchains8 min ·

  38. 12

    Smart Contracts: A Simple Guide to Understand, Use, and Deploy Them

    Smart contracts are digital contracts or programs, a set of instructions stored on a blockchain that is automatically executed when predetermined terms and conditions are met.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  39. 11

    How to get started with the Decentralized Web?

    The web as we know it today is primarily controlled by a few powerful entities that host, manage and monetize our data and content.

    Blockchains8 min ·

  40. 10

    The Ultimate Guide to BRC-20 Tokens and Bitcoin NFTs

    To understand the concept of BRC-20, we might first need to start with ERC-20.

    Blockchains10 min ·

  41. 9

    Exploring Solana: The High-Throughput Blockchain and its Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance (TBFT) Consensus Algorithm

    Solana is a high-performance blockchain platform that provides fast and scalable solutions for decentralized applications (dApps) and cryptocurrencies.

    Blockchains9 min ·

  42. 8

    Unlocking Efficiency and Sustainability: The Power of Proof of Stake in Blockchain

    Proof of Stake (PoS) is a consensus algorithm used in blockchain networks to achieve agreement on the state of the blockchain and validate transactions.

    Blockchains10 min ·

  43. 7

    The Quest for Digital Gold: Unraveling the Proof of Work Puzzle

    Proof-of-Work (PoW) is a consensus algorithm vital in securing and validating transactions in blockchain networks.

    Blockchains7 min ·

  44. 6

    What is IPFS

    IPFS, stands for InterPlanetary File System.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  45. 5

    What is Polygon (MATIC)

    Polygon is a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum.

    Blockchains5 min ·

  46. 4

    What is Ethereum

    Ethereum is a distributed state machine, it is open source, globally decentralized computing " + "infrastructure that executes programs called smart contracts, that are written in Solidity.

    Blockchains6 min ·

  47. 3

    Bitcoin Network

    Bitcoin is structured as a peer-to-peer network architecture on top of " + " the Internet.

    Blockchains7 min ·

  48. 2

    What are Bitcoin Transactions

    Transactions are data structures that encode the transfer of value between participants in the bitcoin system.

    Blockchains9 min ·

  49. 1

    What is Bitcoin?

    Bitcoin is a distributed, peer-to-peer system.

    Blockchains15 min ·