Deep dives
How everyday tech actually works.
Not curriculum lessons - standalone explainers for the systems behind things you already use, written the same way the rest of this site explains backend engineering. No fluff, real mechanics.
Networking
How VPNs actually work
A VPN doesn't hide you from the internet - it moves where your traffic appears to come from, and encrypts what's inside the tunnel along the way.
How ad blockers actually work
An ad blocker isn't detecting ads - it's blocking requests to known ad and tracker domains before they load.
How WiFi actually gets data through the air
WiFi is a shared radio channel - devices take turns politely, and slowness is usually that breaking down.
Media & streaming
How cloud gaming streams a whole computer to your phone
Cloud gaming runs the game on a server and streams it to you - your device is just a fast video player with a controller.
How Netflix turns one video file into 30 different versions
Every video gets re-encoded into a ladder of resolutions before anyone watches it, so quality can switch mid-playback.
Browsers
What incognito mode actually turns off (and what it doesn't)
Incognito mode clears local storage and cookies - it does nothing to what your network or the sites themselves can see.
Why your browser runs dozens of separate processes
Modern browsers run each tab as its own isolated process, the same way backend systems isolate services.
Distributed systems
How BitTorrent finds strangers with the file you want
BitTorrent finds strangers who already have pieces of your file and downloads from many of them at once.
How to scale an API to 1 million requests per second
A million requests per second isn't one big idea - it's a dozen ordinary ideas, correctly layered together.