Internet

The Pope's Magnifica Humanitas
In his May 2026 encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas”, Pope Leo XIV brings global attention and leadership to the urgent need for placing guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Here, I provide a chapter-by-chapter summary of the document, then ask AI to respond to each chapter (including with a poem), and finally provide my own reflections.
Jul 2, 2026 29 min read Philosophy, Spirituality, Economics, Politics, Software Engineering
The Pope's Magnifica Humanitas
How the Internet Works, Part III - Reliability and Security
In Part II, we learned how an HTTP request travels across the Internet to the correct destination server, through several layers, and returns with a response. But how does this happen reliably and securely, without becoming corrupted or being intercepted by a malicious hacker?
Dec 24, 2020 18 min read Software Engineering, Networking
Project
How the Internet Works, Part III - Reliability and Security
How the Internet Works, Part II - Layers
What exactly happens when you enter a URL in your browser? How does your browser know what content to display? To answer this question, we need to understand how the various layers of the Internet work.
Dec 21, 2020 12 min read Software Engineering, Networking
Project
How the Internet Works, Part II - Layers
How the Internet Works, Part I - The Internet Infrastructure
ISPs, routers, gateways, LANs, HTTP, the cloud, the web… the Internet is so complex that we could spend days, months, and even years studying this stuff, and we still wouldn’t be done.
Dec 15, 2020 18 min read Software Engineering, Networking, Public Policy
Project
How the Internet Works, Part I - The Internet Infrastructure