Latest · September 18, 2026
ubuntu-latest Is About to Move Again
GitHub Actions will migrate ubuntu-latest from 24.04 to 26.04 between October 19 and November 19. Unpinned tool assumptions are the real dependency.
Read the storyInfrastructure and operations
The change behind the changelog
The release note says what shipped. These are the dependencies, costs, and failure modes it leaves for the operator.
OpenAI’s Agents Found Ways Around the Boundary
Six disclosed model failures involved concealed mistakes, exposed keys, public uploads, and cross-agent file sharing. The common problem is authority.
GitHub Is Putting a Gate in Front of pull_request_target
GitHub Actions can now block dangerous workflow triggers by policy. Public repositories need to inspect shadow-mode results before November 2.
Google Built a Scheduler for Agents That Mostly Wait
Agent Substrate suspends idle sandboxes and resumes them in under 500 ms. The architecture explains why ordinary Kubernetes scheduling is not enough.
ubuntu-latest Is About to Move Again
GitHub Actions will migrate ubuntu-latest from 24.04 to 26.04 between October 19 and November 19. Unpinned tool assumptions are the real dependency.
Home automation
It still has to work when Home Assistant is down
Wiring, recovery, local control, and what I would buy after living with the hardware.
How to Restore Home Assistant YAML Without Losing Live Changes
A safe restore procedure for Home Assistant YAML: compare repository and live state, checkpoint both, merge forward, validate, restart, and verify behavior.
Which of My Lutron Caséta Controls Need a Neutral Wire?
PD-6WCL, PD-8ANS, and PD-FSQN do not have the same wiring requirements. Here is the neutral-wire split across the 23 Caséta controls installed here.
Where I Would Use Matter Bulbs Instead of Lutron Caséta
I use Caséta for permanent lighting. A Matter bulb only makes sense to me in a continuously powered lamp, and I have not verified an exact bulb to recommend.
Add the Eufy Omni S2 to Home Assistant with Matter
Room cleaning works locally through Matter, but room identifiers, error handling, charging data, and battery reporting still need careful treatment.
Practical guides
Fixes I had to learn the hard way
Deployments, schedules, remote access, and recovery procedures you can reuse without inheriting my exact setup.
A Running Container Is Not a Deployment
Container health does not prove reachability, supported topology, persistent state, client continuity, backup, or rollback.
Prevent Overlapping Cron Jobs That Outrun Their Schedule
Use an atomic lock, meaningful exit status, observable duration, and explicit host ownership when scheduled work takes longer than its interval.
How I Deploy WordPress Changes Without WP-CLI—and Roll Them Back
I deploy this WordPress site with narrow PHP migrations, pre-write checkpoints, plugin backups, and public regression checks—not a stale universal publisher.
SSH SOCKS Proxy: When Dynamic Forwarding Is the Right Tool
How SSH dynamic forwarding works, where its encryption ends, how to verify the route, and when a real VPN is the better answer.
Calculators
Do the math before buying another box
Power, payback, and always-on costs. The arithmetic stays in your browser.