David F

Software engineer

[Akintola Steve @Akintola_steve]

Backend Engineers throw Kafka into every architecture nowadays like it’s a compulsory tech stack.

Meanwhile, many applications genuinely do not need Kafka at all.

So, when exactly should Kafka actually be used?

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

245 years ago today, a 35-year-old Spanish nobleman fired a single artillery shell that redrew the map of North America, broke British power in the Gulf of Mexico, and arguably saved the American Revolution. His name was Bernardo de Gálvez. He's not in your textbook. He should be.

When Spain entered the war against Britain in June 1779, the American cause was bleeding out. Washington's army was unpaid and shrinking. The Continental dollar was worth pennies. The British had taken Savannah and were preparing to take Charleston. France was helping, but France alone couldn't bankrupt the British Empire.

Spain could. And in New Orleans sat the man who would prove it.

Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid was 33 years old, the governor of Spanish Louisiana, a battle-scarred career officer who had been wounded fighting Apaches in northern Mexico and Algerians in North Africa. The day he learned Spain had declared war, he didn't wait for orders from Madrid. He raised an army of Spanish regulars, Louisiana Creoles, free Black militia from New Orleans, Acadian refugees, German settlers, and Choctaw scouts, and he went on the attack.

In three months he took Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez. The next year he took Mobile. The British presence on the Gulf shrank to one last fortress. Pensacola, the capital of British West Florida, defended by Major General John Campbell with 1,500 redcoats, the 3rd Waldeck Regiment of German mercenaries, loyalist battalions from Maryland and Pennsylvania, and a powerful alliance of Creek and Choctaw warriors led by the brilliant mixed-race chief Alexander McGillivray.

Gálvez arrived off Pensacola in March 1781 with 7,000 men and a fleet. The Spanish naval commander, Admiral Calbo de Irazábal, refused to enter Pensacola Bay. The entrance was narrow, raked by British guns at Fort Barrancas Coloradas, and treacherous with sandbars. So Gálvez did something insane. He boarded his own little brig, the Galveztown, hoisted his personal pennant, and sailed her into the bay alone, in full view of the British batteries, daring the Royal Navy to sink him. The British fired and missed. The Spanish fleet, shamed, followed him in. For this he was awarded the right to put the words "Yo Solo," meaning "I alone," on his coat of arms by the King of Spain.

The siege ground on for two months. Gálvez was shot in the abdomen and the finger directing artillery and refused to leave the field. The British defenses at the Queen's Redoubt, also called the Crescent, held against everything thrown at them. And then, on the morning of May 8, 1781, a Spanish howitzer crew lofted a shell over the parapet. It dropped, by pure luck or perfect skill, directly into the open powder magazine.

The explosion killed roughly 100 defenders in a single instant. Waldeck grenadiers, British regulars, loyalists, all gone. The blast tore the redoubt's wall open like paper. Spanish grenadiers and Louisiana militia poured through the breach within minutes and turned the captured British guns on the inner works. Campbell knew it was over.

The next morning, May 9, white flags went up. By May 10 the entire province of West Florida belonged to Spain. Over 1,100 British troops marched out as prisoners of war.

The strategic consequences were catastrophic for Britain. The Gulf Coast was lost. The Mississippi was a Spanish river from source to sea. Britain could no longer reinforce its southern armies by sea from the Caribbean, and the Royal Navy's Caribbean squadron had to be redeployed. Five months later, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, in a siege funded in part by 500,000 silver pesos that Gálvez and the people of Havana raised in a matter of days to pay French Admiral de Grasse's fleet to come north.

Without that money, no French fleet. Without the French fleet, no Yorktown. Without Yorktown, no independence on those terms.

Gálvez was made Count of Gálvez and Viscount of Galveztown. The bay he charted in Texas still bears his name, Galveston. His portrait hangs in the United States Capitol by act of Congress. In 2014, he was made an honorary citizen of the United States, an honor given to only eight people in American history, including Lafayette, Churchill, and Mother Teresa.

He died of yellow fever in Mexico City at 40 years old, three years after the war ended.

Most Americans have never heard his name.

[Javier Peña | Hope @hope_enpie]

Cómo los linces ibéricos transforman paisajes sin tocar una planta y tornan escasez en abundancia.

La magia de la regeneración.

[Magical Spain @Magicalspain]

One of the greatest contributions Spain has made to menswear is the TEBA. It originated when Alfonso XIII of Spain wanted a comfortable jacket for hunting, and it took its name from the Count of Teba who helped popularize it.

What sets it apart is what it leaves out: no shoulder padding, no lining, soft structure, patch pockets. It moves with the body instead of restricting it.

Long before “unstructured tailoring” became a buzzword, the Teba had already figured it out.

It remains a quiet reference point in menswear: a garment that sits between tailoring and casualwear, defined more by ease than by formality.

[Magical Spain @Magicalspain]

The fields of the Castilian plains begin to bleed around this time of year.

[Erling Former @Cerni_report]

El día de Andalucía debería ser el 2 de enero, aniversario de la Toma de Granada. Es más, debería ser fiesta nacional.

[David F @davfigue]

@AntonioBuenoSa3 @Storm_Malaga Según los datos de https://t.co/LMiwWZM90g parece estar alrededor de un 72% de capacidad 🎉

[Ricard Clau @ricardclau]

Si després de tot el que està passant tornes a votar un partit d'esquerres, ets senzillament imbècil. O cobres d'ells. O ambdues, que no són excloents

[David F @davfigue]

@patinaresearch We all know what happened, things went down the drain from May 68 protests and the infiltration of Marxism in the universities.

[Rafael Navarrete @historiacolor]

En la Navidad de 1907, el pintor valenciano Joaquín Sorolla cenó con su familia y el momento quedó inmortalizado en dos fotografías que hizo su suegro, el fotógrafo Antonio García Peris. Un prodigio de composición, iluminación y técnica. Pero, ¿quién es quién en la foto? 🧵

[TechHalla @techhalla]

I just can't stop

The Offspring - Self Esteem, flamenco AI Cover

[El normal @normal_bola]

Hoy es Santiago, patrón de España.

¿Quién fue y por qué es tan importante para España y para la Iglesia?

Puede que no lo sepa ni tu primo Santi. Cuéntaselo!

[josesotohistoria @josesotohistor1]

¡Es un placer presentaros la segunda edición de Pelayo!

[Mattias Gustavsson 💖 @Mattias_G]

I'd like to talk a bit about this a game I made, all done in plain C, using only single header libraries, and it runs in the browser too.

It's called "Neon Lies" and it's a retro-futuristic cyberpunk story in a William Gibson style setting.

[David F @davfigue]

@ThePrimeagen No need to much, it’ll be obvious to everyone ;)

[David F @davfigue]

@cesopine ¡Qué preciosidad! parece la Vera en Extremadura :)

[José Antonio Quirantes Calvo @JoseAQuirantes]

Colmenar Viejo (Madrid) desde Tres Cantos con La Maliciosa de fondo, este mediodía, 23-marzo-2025, después de las últimas lluvias y nevadas

[José Antonio Quirantes Calvo @JoseAQuirantes]

Buff !!! Madrid hace un rato ...

[José Antonio Quirantes Calvo @JoseAQuirantes]

No siempre sale la fotografía que uno tiene en mente, pero esta tarde después de esperar varias horas bajo la intensa lluvia, el cielo abrió y cumplí el sueño de ver Las Torres de la Pedriza, P. N. Sierra de Guadarrama, espectaculares, cargadas de nieve como nunca las había visto

[Darío Madrid @Dario_Madrid_F]

En el Día de Andalucía no está de más recordar (antes que a Blas Infante) a Fernando III el Santo, reconquistador de Córdoba, Sevilla, Jaén, Cazorla, Baeza, Andújar, Úbeda, Carmona, Lora, Alcalá de Guadaira, Priego, Quesada, Toya, Palma del Río, Baena, Écija, Marchena,.. (Sigue)