Posts
Notes on Kafka, streaming, MCP, and things I build.
2026
- When One Kafka Partition Takes All the Heat [4 min] How to diagnose and fix Kafka hot partitions: per-partition lag checks, key design, salting or isolation for huge keys, and a Docker Compose demo to recreate the skew.
- Wayfare: I Plan Trips More Than I Take Them [6 min] How I built Wayfare, a travel bucket list and savings tracker with MCP and OAuth, so ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor share the same trip context.
- The Connector That Kept Retrying and Never Said So [3 min] Why Kafka Connect errors.retry.timeout does not cover connector put() retries, and how mq.retry.timeout.ms on the IBM MQ Sink turns endless RetriableException loops into real task …
- Aesthetic Habit Tracker: A Challenge Grid That Lives in Your Browser [4 min] A clean, challenge-based habit tracker with local storage, printable exports, and free GitHub Pages hosting.
- From Prompt to Home Screen: Shipping Nursing Tracker with GitHub Pages [6 min] How a one-tap nursing timer for my wife grew into a shared feeding log, and how to ship a small AI-assisted web app for free with GitHub Pages.
- Send Half the Bytes Over the Network: Cut Kafka Integer Payloads with Bijou64 [7 min] Every Kafka record with a Long value you produce sends 8 bytes over the wire, even when the value is 42. Bijou64 encodes integers in 1–3 bytes with drop-in serializers, cutting …
2025
- Stream Wars: A Simple Game to Explain Kafka [4 min] Learn how Kafka works through a simple multiplayer tap game where every tap becomes a Kafka event you can see and inspect in real-time.
- From Celery to Restate: Rethinking Async Tasks in Django [9 min] Exploring the transition from Celery to Restate for async task processing in Django applications, with practical examples and real-world comparisons.
- Adding Durable Execution to Flask Applications with Restate [7 min] Learn how to enhance your Flask applications with Restate for reliable, fault-tolerant operations without changing your core application logic.
- Introducing ContextLayer: Transform Any REST API into an MCP Server in Minutes [7 min] Discover ContextLayer - the bridge that transforms any REST API into a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, enabling AI assistants like Claude to interact with your existing APIs …
- SSE Kafka Connector: Stream Real-time Events into Kafka [2 min] Learn how to stream Wikipedia changes, GitHub events, and financial data into Kafka using this open-source SSE Kafka Connector - no custom code required.
- Convert Your Django DRF Project to MCP in 5 Minutes [13 min] Transform your existing Django REST Framework APIs into Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools that AI assistants like Claude can use - with zero configuration required.
- Turn GitHub into Your Free Data Platform: Building APIs with GitHub Actions [10 min] Learn how to use GitHub as a complete data platform for scraping, processing, and serving APIs - all for free. A complete guide with real-world examples.
- Tracking Antarctic Giants: Building a Real-Time Iceberg Monitor with NASA Data [6 min] How I built a comprehensive system to track massive Antarctic icebergs using NASA satellite data, complete with interactive maps, APIs, and movement animations.
- Mastering Integration Testing for Kafka Connectors: A Complete Guide [18 min] Learn how to effectively test Kafka Connectors with integration tests, ensuring reliability and performance in production. This guide covers setup, testing strategies, and best …
- Building an MCP Server for Your Kafka Cluster [5 min] A step‑by‑step guide to using FastMCP and the MCP protocol to expose Kafka operations (topic management, produce/consume, troubleshooting) as LLM‑accessible tools.
- How I Automated My Markdown Publishing on Medium (No More Manual Work!) [2 min] Tired of manually reformatting Markdown for Medium? Discover my open-source tool that converts Hugo-friendly Markdown into perfectly formatted Medium posts instantly.
- Creating Tombstone Records Using kafka-console-producer.sh: A Quick Guide [3 min] A practical guide to creating tombstone records for Kafka compacted topics using the kafka-console-producer.sh command-line tool with the null marker feature
- Build Custom Kafka Connectors Fast with This Open-Source Template [5 min] Apache Kafka is a powerful distributed event streaming platform, and **Kafka Connect** makes it easy to integrate Kafka with external systems. While many pre-built connectors …
- Filtering Tombstone Records in Kafka Connect [2 min] Learn how to properly configure Kafka Connect to drop tombstone records using the Filter transformation and predicates.
2024
- Server-Sent Events: Build Real-Time Web Apps with Minimal Code [2 min] In this technical deep-dive, we unravel the power of Server-Sent Events (SSE), a game-changing web technology that simplifies real-time communication. Developers often struggle …
- Configuring Kafka Connector with Docker: A Step-by-Step Guide [6 min] In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the process of setting up a Kafka connector using Docker and docker-compose.yml. We’ll focus on configuring a file connector, which …
- Setting Up a Kafka Cluster Without Zookeeper Using Docker [4 min] Introduction # In this post, we will walk through the process of setting up an Apache Kafka cluster without using Zookeeper, leveraging Kafka’s KRaft mode for metadata …
- Online Machine Learning: Real-time Image Classification with CIFAR10 Dataset and Kafka [7 min] This blog post explores online machine learning through a practical example using the CIFAR10 dataset and Apache Kafka.
- Supercharging Your AI: Setting Up RAG with PostgreSQL and pgvector [4 min] Learn how to implement a powerful Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system using PostgreSQL and pgvector. This comprehensive guide covers everything from setting up a custom …
- Git Aliases to Supercharge Your Workflow [12 min] Git aliases are a powerful workflow tool that create shortcuts to frequently used Git commands.
- Mastering the Find Command: Unleashing Unix File Management Power [6 min] Discover the unparalleled capabilities of the 'find' command in Unix systems. From basic file searches to advanced manipulations, mastering 'find' empowers users to efficiently …
2023
- Mastering the Egg Drop: A Math Heist Unveiled [5 min] Mastering the egg drop involves a careful blend of strategy, mathematics, and optimization. From crafting a plan with two replicas to understanding the arithmetic behind the sum …
- Crafting Command-Line Magic with Ease [3 min] Different ways to accept arguments in a Bash script
- Building a CSV Reader in C with Python Integration [5 min] CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files are a common format for storing tabular data. In this blog post, we'll explore the process of creating a simple CSV reader in C using CPython …
- My First Post [1 min] This my first blog post on my personal website.