David Eisinger

Dispatch #42 (August 2026) (2026-08-04)

August 2026 marks two big personal anniversaries: 25 years in Durham and 10 years in this house. Who would’ve thought? Certainly not Duke freshman Dave. Couldn’t be happier to be right here right now, though I might have made some different decisions had I known I’d be raising two small children in these increasingly cramped quarters. But that’s not how things work, is it?

Dispatch #41 (July 2026) (2026-07-14)

Nico turned two in June. What the hell! Where’s my baby boy, and who’s this sassy little dude running around my house. We threw him a farm-themed birthday (my man loves cows), then took the kids up to see their cousins in Richmond. The next weekend, we went camping with Claire’s family at Carolina Hemlocks Recreation Area. This was awesome – bit of a haul for sure, and the boy couldn’t handle the switchbacks on the way up the mountain, but we were rewarded with a beautiful campsite with river views and temperatures a good 20°F cooler than around here.

Dispatch #40 (June 2026) (2026-06-06)

April bled straight into May, so it felt like a three-week month and flew right by. We celebrated Claire’s birthday and spent Memorial Day weekend at Lake Norman. Then summer kicked in – ran the Running of the Bulls 8K with the kids and a friend of mine, and went to our local pool for the first time this year.

Dispatch #39 (May 2026) (2026-05-12)

Man, what a month. Rich with the stuff of life. THICK. High highs (Nev’s first ballet recital, an incredible trip to Asheville), low lows (the death of our next door neighbor Joel, a major health scare – don’t worry, everyone’s alright). Impossible to capture the feeling of it as I sit here, and frankly it feels silly to document all the dumb stuff I get into alongside the heavy shit, but I’m committed to this project. Let’s go.

Dispatch #38 (April 2026) (2026-04-08)

Finally warming up around here (though we did get hit by the largest 24-hour temperature drop in recorded history while we were up visiting my folks). We took the kids to a Holi celebration, which was a huge mess and a ton of fun. The colors don’t come through here but I think the joy does.

Local Docker Best Practices (viget.com, 2022-05-05)

Here at Viget, Docker has become an indispensable tool for local development. We build and maintain a ton of apps across the team, running different stacks and versions, and being able to package up a working dev environment makes it much, much easier to switch between apps and ramp up new devs onto projects. That’s not to say that developing with Docker locally isn’t without its drawbacks¹, but they’re massively outweighed by the ease and convenience it unlocks.

“Friends” (Undirected Graph Connections) in Rails (viget.com, 2021-06-09)

No, sorry, not THOSE friends. But if you’re interested in how to do some graph stuff in a relational database, SMASH that play button and read on.

Making an Email-Powered E-Paper Picture Frame (viget.com, 2021-05-12)

Over the winter, inspired by this digital photo frame that uses email to add new photos, I built and programmed a trio of e-paper picture frames for my family, and I thought it’d be cool to walk through the process in case someone out there wants to try something similar.

Why I Still Like Ruby (and a Few Things I Don’t Like) (viget.com, 2020-08-06)

The Stack Overflow 2020 Developer Survey came out a couple months back, and while I don’t put a ton of stock in surveys like this, I was surprised to see Ruby seem to fare so poorly – most notably its rank on the “most dreaded” list. Again, who cares right, but it did make me take a step back and try to take an honest assessment of Ruby’s pros and cons, as someone who’s been using Ruby professionally for 13 years but loves playing around with other languages and paradigms. First off, some things I really like.

OpenAI’s accidental cyberattack against Hugging Face is science fiction that happened (2026-08-04)

OpenAI’s accidental cyberattack against Hugging Face is science fiction that happened This story is wild. The short version: OpenAI were running a cybersecurity test against an unreleased model, with the model’s guardrail features turned off. Rather than solve the test, the model broke its way out of OpenAI’s sandbox, then found exploits to break in to Hugging Face, all so it could cheat on the test by stealing the answers.

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making — Ludicity (via) (2026-08-04)

I strongly believe there are entire companies right now under heavy AI psychosis and it’s impossible to have rational conversations with them about it. I can’t name any specific people because they include personal friends I deeply respect, but I worry about how this plays out.

llm-wiki · GitHub (2026-08-04)

A pattern for building personal knowledge bases using LLMs. This is an idea file, it is designed to be copy pasted to your own LLM Agent (e.g. OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode / Pi, or etc.). Its goal is to communicate the high level idea, but your agent will build out the specifics in collaboration with you.

Review: Xteink X3 is the little e-reader the world’s not quite ready for – Six Colors (via) (2026-07-23)

Not unlike in music, the problem is that in order for someone to actually to consume your music or books, they must possess the means to unlock it.

XTC Tool — EPUB to XTC Converter & XTC Viewer for XTEink (2026-07-22)

INDUSTRIAL PRE-PROCESSING FOR XTEINK HARDWARE. BROWSER-BASED. SECURE. BIT-PERFECT RENDERING.

akshaymaloo/filament: Native macOS Quick Look app for 3D-printing files (2026-07-20)

Native macOS Quick Look app for 3D-printing files (3MF/STL/OBJ/PLY): instant Finder thumbnails, interactive SceneKit previews, multi-plate 3MF, no slicer required.

Tool Box in a Milk Crate and Bonus — Everyday Commentary (2026-07-20)

I love tools. I love my basement workshop where I slowly tinker on projects until they are finished. I love that I can leave the basement messy and not bother anyone. I love that I can make the space look exactly like what I want.

I own my books | Michael Harley (via) (2026-07-16)

So I backup my books to an open standard, ePUB, with the DRM stripped off. If eBooks.com folds tomorrow, or Kobo decides my account is a problem, or I want to read on hardware nobody has invented yet, my library still works. I don't care what their fine print says. I bought this book. It's my book. I'll read it where I like, TYVM.

My Enjoyment From Engagement With Media Deepens As I Grow Older | Brain Baking (2026-07-14)

One of the most protective things you can do against the negative consequences of ageing is learning a craft when you are young and keep on practising it. The second best thing you can do is learning something new when you are older.

Golden Hour | Ian Ewing | Radio Juicy (2026-07-14)

Radio Juicy is happy to present Golden Hour, a six‑track journey from beatsmith Ian Ewing, who channels pure nostalgia through organic drums, warm analog tones, and melodies that drift like memories.