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Sajal Choudhary
I am a platform engineer and a writer based in Finland.
I am also the author of A Year of Mornings, a collection of poems for young adults.
NordLetter
I send out a newsletter once a week about living in Finland + five interesting things I've found on the open web.
Lately
Everything, as it happens — from the garden, the stream, and the Nordletter.
September 2026
NL 122
Small Models Big Folds
On Tuesday, which was earlier than I usually do this, I started thinking about what to write about in this week's NordLetter. Here's how I've been doing this for the past few months - 1. Each day I write something in my…
OpenAI’s sly mathematical breakthrough sends a chill through academia
Buckmaster said he asked OpenAI whether it had accessed his sessions on Codex, which he had used while tackling the problem, but that OpenAI grew increasingly evasive, even hostile, in its responses. In statements since, including the blog post announcing the result, OpenAI has flatly denied using any specific user data. “We (the researchers and the agents) did not see any of their work through any means until they released it publicly — in particular, no specific user data was accessed in order to solve this problem,” the company said.
Like Amazon does for brands in their store. They will copy whatever works.
Meta’s Muse AI works and creeps me out by Emma Roth
Curious, I asked Muse to tell me where it got that information. “Honestly, Instagram doesn’t show you that exact list anywhere in the app — I read it through the account’s API data, which surfaces more than the UI does,” Muse wrote. “The closest thing you can see yourself is your ad topics… That shows the topics advertisers can target you with, and you can remove ones you don’t want or choose to see less of them.” I checked the “Ad topics” list in my Instagram settings menu, and while it does include some vague categories, like workouts, music, and electronics, it’s not the same level of detail that Muse provided.
I could never bring myself to use their products, especially generative AI. Meta has a uphill battle here.
Kubernetes Components
I finished reading Lucas Käldström’s bachelor’s thesis about the patterns and reasons behind the cloud native paradigm.
Lucas uses concepts from thermodynamics and control theory to talk about the key design principles involved in kubernetes design.
An excerpt:
The Kubernetes operator programming model has allowed subject matter experts
(that have authored) to encapsulate knowledge in a way that lets tens
of thousands of Kubernetes users “stand on the shoulders of giants” (knowledge
scalability). Furthermore, the declarative abstraction layer allows for optimizations
in the implementation (e.g., scheduling), leading to resource scalability. Finally,
through continuous reconciliation “repairing” the system as often as possible, fewer
error situations need human intervention, leading to monitoring scalability.
Link to the paper - https://github.com/luxas/research
Apple Announces iOS 27 Release Date by Joe Rossignol
iOS 27 has already been available as a developer beta since June and as a public beta since July, and Apple today said that the update will be released for all users with a compatible iPhone model on Monday, September 14.
Announced at the event, among other things. But hey, five days to go. I still don't know what features my 16Pro will get.
Audi’s new A2 E-tron is its most affordable and efficient EV yet
The German automaker’s new A2 E-tron compact crossover is inexpensive, starting at just £32,200 (about $45,000). And it absolutely impresses with an ultra low drag coefficient and a range of battery and drivetrain options that, when configured correctly, can produce a range of up to 401 miles.
Perhaps my next car?
Most probably it will be a BYD, at the rate things are going.
By following Nvidia’s playbook, Arm-powered phones are about to have PC-like technologies to make games run faster, at higher resolution, with advanced lighting techniques, all without using more power than they do today. The jagged edges you see in the mobile versions of popular games might begin to go away.
Seems interesting. The goal is for phones to be a switch like device, or better. Like what the PS portal could be.
Bangalore India hospital flow by Derek Sivers
Medications that cost $50 in New Zealand or $100 in America are only $2 in India. After my surgery, they prescribed a bunch of stuff to keep the pain and infection away. Fulfilled at a local pharmacy, everything all combined cost about $8.
Need a private consultation with a specialist - like a neurosurgeon or dermatologist or cardiologist? $10. You just tap an appointment in their app, pay instantly with your phone, and that’s it. Which leads to the next point.
We have talked about this ourselves. That healthcare in India is so good and cheap, if you have the money. There are already a lot of people undertaking medical tourism in India. This just strengthens that view.
That's everything — you've reached the very beginning.