Tom Elliott
@telliott.me
Building @ocuroot.com, open source, distributed CI/CD with no YAML! Posts bi-weekly on https://thefridaydeploy.substack.com/, occasional public speaker.
Low budget horror movie concept: haunted cootie catcher
December 26, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Low budget horror movie concept: haunted cootie catcher
Watching “The Holiday” with my wife. We put it on as background but forgot how much we enjoyed it. Now gripped. Cooking can wait.
December 25, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Watching “The Holiday” with my wife. We put it on as background but forgot how much we enjoyed it. Now gripped. Cooking can wait.
My bones are so brittle, but I always drink plenty of…
December 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
My bones are so brittle, but I always drink plenty of…
Given chocolate drinks weren’t sweetened until the 16th century, Judy must have spent 800 years making some bitter-ass cocoa.
December 24, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Given chocolate drinks weren’t sweetened until the 16th century, Judy must have spent 800 years making some bitter-ass cocoa.
Reposted by Tom Elliott
Good grief this might be the most beautiful video I’ve ever watched. You’ll need to have some idea of how LLMs work internally to follow along, but the findings of the papers presented in this video are incredible.
youtu.be/D8GOeCFFby4?...
youtu.be/D8GOeCFFby4?...
The most complex model we actually understand
YouTube video by Welch Labs
youtu.be
December 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Good grief this might be the most beautiful video I’ve ever watched. You’ll need to have some idea of how LLMs work internally to follow along, but the findings of the papers presented in this video are incredible.
youtu.be/D8GOeCFFby4?...
youtu.be/D8GOeCFFby4?...
Hear me out: Mobile Zoot Suit Gundam
December 20, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Hear me out: Mobile Zoot Suit Gundam
Can you use Git as storage for a REST API? Over the past few weeks I've managed to get something that works and is even kind of performant. This week I've been trying to handle concurrent requests. Let's see how well it fares when things are busy!
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
Can Git back a REST API? (part 3 - concurrency)
Now the Git-backed REST API is a bit more performant, I focus on what happens when you have multiple users at once.
open.substack.com
December 19, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Can you use Git as storage for a REST API? Over the past few weeks I've managed to get something that works and is even kind of performant. This week I've been trying to handle concurrent requests. Let's see how well it fares when things are busy!
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
GitHub announced they're going to charge for self-hosted runners. I can see the why, given they still run the control plane. There's still benefit to self-hosting if you have larger runners, but with the other price cut, it's potentially a big change for some.
resources.github.com/actions/2026...
resources.github.com/actions/2026...
Pricing changes for GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions pricing update: Discover lower runner rates (up to 39% off) following a major re-architecture for faster, more reliable CI/CD.
resources.github.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:10 PM
GitHub announced they're going to charge for self-hosted runners. I can see the why, given they still run the control plane. There's still benefit to self-hosting if you have larger runners, but with the other price cut, it's potentially a big change for some.
resources.github.com/actions/2026...
resources.github.com/actions/2026...
Part 2 of my attempts to back a REST API with a GitHub repo. After seeing painfully slow performance with the CLI, I went a little lower-level and started messing with the server protocols directly. The results were surprising, in the best way!
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
Can Git back a REST API? (Part 2 - git protocols)
Running a REST API off of the Git CLI tool was slow to say the least. Can I make the API a little faster by interacting with the Git server more directly?
open.substack.com
December 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Part 2 of my attempts to back a REST API with a GitHub repo. After seeing painfully slow performance with the CLI, I went a little lower-level and started messing with the server protocols directly. The results were surprising, in the best way!
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
Git is great for storing code, and maybe the occasional image or two. It also makes it easy for teams to collaborate and deal with fine-grained changes. But could it be used as a more arbitrary data store?
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
Can Git back a REST API? (Part 1 - the naive approach)
Git is basically a fancy file store with history, so can it be applied to use cases other than source control? Come with me as I try to repurpose Git into a backing store for a simple REST API
open.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Git is great for storing code, and maybe the occasional image or two. It also makes it easy for teams to collaborate and deal with fine-grained changes. But could it be used as a more arbitrary data store?
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
How did a terrible movie like “The One” end up with a sound track including “Down with the Sickness”, “Bodies” and “Last Resort”?
Incidentally watching in 2001 it was the first time I heard at least one of them.
Incidentally watching in 2001 it was the first time I heard at least one of them.
December 4, 2025 at 4:34 AM
How did a terrible movie like “The One” end up with a sound track including “Down with the Sickness”, “Bodies” and “Last Resort”?
Incidentally watching in 2001 it was the first time I heard at least one of them.
Incidentally watching in 2001 it was the first time I heard at least one of them.
"AI slop", "slop bowls" and now I'm seeing "slop" used as a generic description for a not good thing. We've reached peak slop slop.
December 3, 2025 at 3:54 PM
"AI slop", "slop bowls" and now I'm seeing "slop" used as a generic description for a not good thing. We've reached peak slop slop.
Now we're past the extra-long weekend, getting down to a fun little side project with Git. More updates tomorrow.
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
December 1, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Now we're past the extra-long weekend, getting down to a fun little side project with Git. More updates tomorrow.
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
When working with IaC platforms, there's usually some infra you need to configure to get them working. With Terraform, you need somewhere to keep your state, for example. How do you configure this infra? Are you stuck doing it manually, or could you automate it?
www.ocuroot.com/blog/iac-boo...
www.ocuroot.com/blog/iac-boo...
Blog | Navigating the IaC Bootstrap Problem
When working with IaC platforms, there's usually some infra you need to configure to get them working. With Terraform, you need somewhere to keep your state, for example. How do you configure this…
www.ocuroot.com
November 27, 2025 at 3:02 PM
When working with IaC platforms, there's usually some infra you need to configure to get them working. With Terraform, you need somewhere to keep your state, for example. How do you configure this infra? Are you stuck doing it manually, or could you automate it?
www.ocuroot.com/blog/iac-boo...
www.ocuroot.com/blog/iac-boo...
Watching some older sci-fi movies. Is the main character getting drunk/high and watching home movies while acting out their side a common trope or did Minority Report just rip off Timecop?
November 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Watching some older sci-fi movies. Is the main character getting drunk/high and watching home movies while acting out their side a common trope or did Minority Report just rip off Timecop?
Some thoughts on the recent run of internet-breaking cloud provider outages. Are they symptoms of a change in the industry at large, or just a run of bad luck?
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
What's with all these cloud outages?
Some thoughts on the recent run of internet-breaking cloud provider outages. Are they symptoms of a change in the industry at large, or just a run of bad luck?
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Some thoughts on the recent run of internet-breaking cloud provider outages. Are they symptoms of a change in the industry at large, or just a run of bad luck?
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...
Breakthrough! Addressed most of the bugs and got all the end-to-end tests passing...most of the time. Just a little flaky error handling to deal with.
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
November 20, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Breakthrough! Addressed most of the bugs and got all the end-to-end tests passing...most of the time. Just a little flaky error handling to deal with.
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
Bit of a bug whack-a-mole yesterday with concurrent Git interactions. Feels like I'm close, but imagine I'll uncover a few more shortly 😅
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
November 19, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Bit of a bug whack-a-mole yesterday with concurrent Git interactions. Feels like I'm close, but imagine I'll uncover a few more shortly 😅
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
All across the land, teams fiercely debated the pros and cons of bypassing a CDN. Calculating bandwidth, weighing the chance of a DDoS. Then Cloudflare came back up and it was all moot. They'd also forgot that they're using Workers pretty heavily.
November 18, 2025 at 3:33 PM
All across the land, teams fiercely debated the pros and cons of bypassing a CDN. Calculating bandwidth, weighing the chance of a DDoS. Then Cloudflare came back up and it was all moot. They'd also forgot that they're using Workers pretty heavily.
Getting down to business with handling concurrently running tasks. Yesterday I enhanced some tests to catch duplicated work. Now that's failing reliably, I get to fix it with some locking!
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
November 17, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Getting down to business with handling concurrently running tasks. Yesterday I enhanced some tests to catch duplicated work. Now that's failing reliably, I get to fix it with some locking!
#openstandup #buildinpublic
#openstandup #buildinpublic
Over the years, I got into a narrow routine when using Git for day-to-day development. Now I'm building tools around Git, I'm discovering all kinds of features I'd never noticed before. Here are my favorite three.
www.ocuroot.com/blog/things-...
www.ocuroot.com/blog/things-...
Blog | Three things I've learned about Git while building a CI/CD tool
Over the years, I got into a narrow routine when using Git for day-to-day development. Now I'm building tools around Git, I'm discovering all kinds of features I'd never noticed before. Here are my…
www.ocuroot.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Over the years, I got into a narrow routine when using Git for day-to-day development. Now I'm building tools around Git, I'm discovering all kinds of features I'd never noticed before. Here are my favorite three.
www.ocuroot.com/blog/things-...
www.ocuroot.com/blog/things-...
After a few dead ends, tangents and experiments, I've got the worker model in a decent shape. It's making me realize I need a better way of configuring the list of source repos.
Methinks v0.4 will include some breaking changes.
#buildinpublic #openstandup
Methinks v0.4 will include some breaking changes.
#buildinpublic #openstandup
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 PM
After a few dead ends, tangents and experiments, I've got the worker model in a decent shape. It's making me realize I need a better way of configuring the list of source repos.
Methinks v0.4 will include some breaking changes.
#buildinpublic #openstandup
Methinks v0.4 will include some breaking changes.
#buildinpublic #openstandup
November 11, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Took a detour last night to experiment with pixel art for icons. Watched some videos, got the Aesprite trial and threw together a few ideas.
There's something really satisfying about the precision you can get at 32x32. Now to pay for the full version and build some UIs!
#buildinpublic
There's something really satisfying about the precision you can get at 32x32. Now to pay for the full version and build some UIs!
#buildinpublic
November 11, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Took a detour last night to experiment with pixel art for icons. Watched some videos, got the Aesprite trial and threw together a few ideas.
There's something really satisfying about the precision you can get at 32x32. Now to pay for the full version and build some UIs!
#buildinpublic
There's something really satisfying about the precision you can get at 32x32. Now to pay for the full version and build some UIs!
#buildinpublic
Had a low social media week or so while visiting family in the UK. Somewhat refreshed and moderately jetlagged. Back to work!
November 10, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Had a low social media week or so while visiting family in the UK. Somewhat refreshed and moderately jetlagged. Back to work!