leblancfg.com

Trying out the Absurd queue for AI Workloads

François Leblanc — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Testing out Absurd, an experimental durable execution system that uses only Postgres, for AI workloads with expensive LLM calls.

Tracking AI Model Deprecations with Git Scraping: Introducing deprecations.info

François Leblanc — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 14:00:00 -0400

How I built deprecations.info using Simon Willison's git scraper pattern to track AI model shutdowns and prevent service disruptions

Addicted to My Power Meter

Francois Leblanc — Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 -0400

What happens when a CrossFit guy gets a smart trainer, discovers power data, and can't stop chasing the numbers.

When's the best time to surge when cycling up a hill?

François Leblanc — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:00:00 -0400

A simple cycling simulator that calculates the time it takes to cycle up a hill with a surge of power.

I miss vim

François Leblanc — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

A short reflection on neovim's extensibility vs simplicity tradeoff

First steps with Rust

François Leblanc — Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Documenting my first steps with Rust, from installation to running a simple script.

TIL: Automating Command Execution Across All Tmux Panes

François Leblanc — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Learn how to automate the propagation of configuration changes across all tmux panes, saving time and enhancing productivity.

Being a good UNIX neighbour

François Leblanc — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0400

A few tips to be a good UNIX neighbour and make your scripts more portable.

TIL: NERDTree Bookmarks

François Leblanc — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0400

NERDTree Bookmarks is a plugin that allows you to bookmark files and directories in NERDTree.

The Data Bus: a helpful pattern for data engineering

François Leblanc — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500

The Data Bus is a pattern that can help you tidy up data flows, and helps to keep track of the preprocessing steps taken. It is a simple, language-agnostic pattern that can be used to make sense when multiple transform steps are involved.

Benchmarks for writing pandas DataFrames to SQL Server (ODBC)

François Leblanc — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0400

In this article, we benchmark various methods to write data to MS SQL Server from pandas DataFrames to see which is the fastest. We compare multi, fast_executemany and turbodbc, and find the best candidate.

CrossFit Open 2019 Analysis - Exercise Statistics

François Leblanc — Sun, 30 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0400

In this article, we take a deeper dive into the benchmark exercise times and weights for the 2019 CrossFit Open athletes, including sprinting, running, squat, deadlift, clean & jerk, and snatch.

CrossFit Open 2019 Analysis - Benchmark Workouts

François Leblanc — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0400

In this final article on 2019 CrossFit Open athlete statistics, we take a look at the spread of times for CrossFit's iconic workouts from athlete profile pages: Fran, Grace, Helen, Filthy Fifty, and Fight Gone Bad.

CrossFit Open 2019 Analysis - Athlete Statistics

François Leblanc — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0400

In this article, we disect the various physical, strength and athletic attributes of hundreds of thousands of 2019 CrossFit Open athletes as self-reported in their athlete profiles.

Installing the Azure CLI on Manjaro (Arch) with Anaconda

François Leblanc — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0500

A short guide to troubleshooting the installation of Microsoft's Azure Command Line Interface (CLI) on Manjaro Linux

Unhashable in Python - Getting the unique number of locations in a GeoDataFrame

François Leblanc — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 00:00:00 -0400

I encounter an unhashable type error when trying to get the unique number of geometries in a GeoDataFrame, and we learn about mutability (vs immutability) of Python objects in order to sidestep the issue.

Notes on installing CUDA, CuDNN and Tensorflow on Manjaro

François Leblanc — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400

An in-depth, step-by-step guide to installing CUDA, CuDNN and Tensorflow on Linux with an NVIDIA GeFORCE GTX960 graphics card.

Higher-level functions in Python, Part 3 - filter

François Leblanc — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0400

In our final installment for the Higher Level Function in Python Series, we dive into the Python filter function. No sidetracks this time around. We simply take a look at how it's used, try to find a way where it would be superior to list comprehensions, fail, and conclude the series.

Higher-level functions in Python, Part 2 - reduce

François Leblanc — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0400

We go through uses of the Python reduce function, when it's useful and its performance benefits. This time, we spend some time exploring function composition, and how to manage large function chains, e.g. in a data processing pipeline.

Higher-level functions in Python, Part 1 - map

François Leblanc — Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400

We go through uses of the Python map function, when it's useful and its performance benefits, and get sidetracked into benchmarking different syntaxes for exponential expressions.

Introduction to the Python Scientific Ecosystem, Part 2

François Leblanc — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400

A general primer on Python for science and engineering, with an emphasis on the SciPy ecosystem of packages.

Introduction to the Python Scientific Ecosystem, Part 1

François Leblanc — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400

A general primer on Python for science and engineering, with an emphasis on the SciPy ecosystem of packages.