/ writing
long-form pieces where i fall down a rabbit hole and write up what i found. mostly security, infrastructure, and the math underneath both.
7 posts · updated jun 21, 2026
On multivariate polynomial evaluation, Horner's method on FPGA DSP slices, microwave vs fiber propagation, and the difference between latency arbitrage and front-running.
jun 21, 2026 · 11 min
On bit rot, cosmic rays, the RAID5 write hole, the fsync contract that is not as airtight as you think, and how ZFS and Btrfs actually stay honest.
jun 07, 2026 · 13 min
The consensus post assumed nodes crash. This one assumes they lie. From the Byzantine Generals Problem to the 3f+1 bound to PBFT to HotStuff, and when you actually need any of this.
jun 02, 2026 · 11 min
From naive majority vote to FLP to Paxos to Raft. How distributed agreement got from impossible, to correct-but-unteachable, to the thing etcd actually runs.
may 28, 2026 · 12 min
On store buffers, x86 TSO vs ARM relaxed, the message-passing litmus test, and why code that worked fine on Intel for a decade breaks on Graviton.
may 14, 2026 · 12 min
On the write-ahead log, the LSM tree, Kafka, and CDC. The one abstraction that ties storage, consensus, and streaming together.
may 03, 2026 · 11 min
On queues at every hop, AIMD, BBR, bufferbloat, the power of two choices, and why your p99 has been lying to you.
apr 22, 2026 · 12 min