Building the things that nobody is asking for
I'm Olaf Alders. I write software for the web. I'm a White Camel Award winner. Currently building My Mind is Racing — every run, swim, ride and race — all in one calendar.
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Who Handles Your Security Reviews?
CVEs are turning up not just in legacy code but in brand new code that’s being uploaded right now. LLMs are very good at finding exploits, but they’re also really good at creating them — so who handles your security reviews? Maybe an LLM, a friend who is interested in security, an ecosystem review program, …
AI Scraping on the Cheap
I’ve been able to gather over 53,000 events and over 22,000 organizations for My Mind is Racing mostly by not using AI. In the cases where I do use an LLM I try to minimize its use. My token spend has been less than what I spend on fancy cups of coffee.
CPAN Uploads Are Up 50% Year-over-Year
An unsatisfying halfway point as we wait for Neil Bowers’ next annual CPAN Report: a month over month comparison of Jan-Aug 2026 against the same period in the previous year — uploads, releasers, first-time releasers, and new distributions. By all of these measures, CPAN looks to be a healthier and more vibrant …
Building Your Race Calendar
Races can be hard to track: many are listed on one of many ticket-selling platforms, or are smaller, grassroots events that only really exist on Facebook or Instagram. I built My Mind is Racing so you can search events quickly, star the ones you like, and sync one calendar to all of your devices — more like Wikipedia …
The United States Is Not America
Google’s developer documentation style guide says to use America and American for the Americas, not the United States. One country has co-opted a name that belongs collectively to all of them – and many of us don’t realise that we can take it back.
PrettyGoodPing: Now With Even More Goodness
PrettyGoodPing started off as a little hobby project back in 2022. It has saved me more than once when it comes to catching expirations in time and watching for uptime issues on projects I care about. Here’s what’s new over the past few weeks.