StackShade Journal•13 guides•tagged + clustered

Visual Engineering Chronicles

Durable deep dives for concepts worth keeping around. Search by topic, tag, or playlist, compare reading lengths, and jump between closely related systems.

Featured guide 18 min read

Natural Language Processing Explained: From Raw Text to Transformers and LLM Systems

A visual guide to tokenization, linguistic structure, statistical NLP, embeddings, RNNs, attention, Transformers, pretraining, RAG, evaluation and production NLP.

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StackShade method
01Mental model first
02Visual reasoning
03Concrete artifact
04Retrieval + transfer

Long-form guides are the durable layer; quick explainers and decks sit around them.

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Find the mental model you need.

The blog stays focused on complete, reusable explanations. The separate Explainers shelf is where quick videos, experiments, decks, animations, and one-off ideas live.

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Showing 6 of 13 items.

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Artificial IntelligencePublished

AI Systems, Demystified

Natural Language Processing Explained: From Raw Text to Transformers and LLM Systems

A visual guide to tokenization, linguistic structure, statistical NLP, embeddings, RNNs, attention, Transformers, pretraining, RAG, evaluation and production NLP.

18 min read
Article
Web FoundationsPublished

Web Mechanics

What Really Happens When You Type a URL?

A step-by-step walkthrough of URL parsing, DNS, routing, TLS, HTTP, server-side processing, and browser rendering.

10 min read
Article
NetworkingPublished

Web Mechanics

DNS Resolution Explained: From Domain Name to IP Address

Understand recursive resolvers, authoritative servers, DNS records, TTLs, caching, and CDN traffic steering.

8 min read
Article
Web ProtocolsPublished

Web Mechanics

HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3: What Actually Changed?

A practical comparison of HTTP protocol generations, multiplexing, TCP, QUIC, streams, and web performance.

9 min read
Article
DatabasesPublished

Data Systems, Inside Out

Database Indexes Explained: B-Trees, Composite Indexes, and Query Plans

Learn how database indexes reduce lookup work, why B-trees dominate common workloads, and how query planners use indexes.

9 min read
Article
Backend EngineeringPublished

Backend Systems in Motion

Redis Caching Patterns: TTLs, Invalidation, and Cache Stampedes

Understand cache-aside, invalidation, hot keys, stampedes, Redis data structures, and when a cache is unnecessary.

8 min read
Article