<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Manu Nicholas Jacob · Writing</title><description>Hardware engineer and independent researcher working on enterprise AI server platforms and the physics of machine-learning inference on constrained hardware.</description><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/</link><language>en</language><item><title>How this site is built</title><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/colophon/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/colophon/</guid><description>A static site with no CMS, no build-time magic, and a deliberate rule that the content is data rather than markup.</description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Astro</category><category>Tailwind</category><category>Design systems</category></item><item><title>Reliability is a design property, not an operational outcome</title><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/reliability-is-design/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/reliability-is-design/</guid><description>How well a system survives contact with reality is mostly decided at design time, not during the incident.</description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Reliability</category><category>Design</category><category>Operations</category></item><item><title>Constraints shape system behavior long before they break it</title><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/constraints-shape-behavior/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/constraints-shape-behavior/</guid><description>Limits change feedback and stability well before anything crosses a threshold and trips.</description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Thermal</category><category>Control</category><category>Feedback</category></item><item><title>Why local optimizations quietly break systems</title><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/local-optimizations/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/local-optimizations/</guid><description>An improvement made in one place can remove the slack another part of the system was relying on, and the bill arrives later.</description><pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Performance</category><category>Second-order effects</category><category>Resilience</category></item><item><title>Why most system failures aren&apos;t isolated failures</title><link>https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/failures-are-not-isolated/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://manunicholasjacob.com/writing/failures-are-not-isolated/</guid><description>Failures in complex systems usually emerge from interactions between healthy components, not from a single defective one.</description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Reliability</category><category>Root cause</category><category>Feedback loops</category></item></channel></rss>