VideoVic Mensa is the Energy we Need
There were a lot of gems around creativity, activism, and even some challenging ones around sobriety.
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What's worth your attention this month from the founders, past speakers, and folks across the community.
October 2026
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Featured Community Voice
Jay Miller
Founder of Black Python Devs · Staff Product Advocate, Aiven
REFACTR.TECH 2023 — Python vs. Hip HopREFACTR.TECH 2022 — Diversity in Neurodiversity
I've been active in the Python community for over a decade but my background varies from Humanitarian Missions in the US Marine Corps to Marketing and Automation and finally into Developer Advocacy. Nowadays, I am working through open source to make the Python developer community more accessible and equitable for Black Developers/Developers of Color around the world.
Reflection
Professional Reflection
Next year will be my final year (for now) as BPDs global leader. I'm thinking about the next stage for me (team leadership) and how I will make a professional transition to a team leader/manager or possibly moving away from DevRel and into Software Engineering.
Video
MusicBlack Boy playlist by Dahi
Dahi
I grabbed a bunch of albums before a long flight and then one particularly stood out in the group. It's a wide variety of sounds and there's a little something for everyone.
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ToolStrudel.cc
If music is a thing that you get joy from and have a basic understanding of, strudel is a fun and approachable to programmatic music generation. I'm definitely not dropping any beats for sale with it, but I've definitely lost hours to poking around and trying to make some progressive tracks.
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Angel Banks
Co-founder
Reflection
What's Next?
With the job market slowing down heading into Q4 and my search slowing with it, I've been thinking a lot about whether now is the right time to finally build my own thing. What would that look like? Am I built for that? How do I make time for that and the other commitments I already have? No answers now, just sitting in the fear and uncertainty.
BookDeep Unlearning
Timnit Gebru
You know Timnit Gebru as the researcher Google pushed out when she raised concerns over LLMs. Her first book is now available for preorder, out Feb 16. It goes into who builds AI, who it's for, and who gets left out. Strong preorders count toward first-week sales, so they can help a book chart and hit the bestseller lists before it even launches. Grabbing your copy now is not only a way to support Timnit but also shows how much we all care about these issues in AI.
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CommunityBlack Girl Nerds
Jamie Broadnax & Team
As a Black woman, it can be easy to feel like nerd culture isn't built with you in mind. Black Girl Nerds is an online community at the intersection of nerdom and Black feminism, founded by Jamie Broadnax. They have reviews of TV, film, comics, and games, plus interviews, a weekly podcast, and an honest take on the culture through an intersectional lens. This little corner of the internet is a good reminder that geek culture has always looked like us.
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ArtDowncycled
Tyler Turnbull
Tyler takes damaged, thrifted paintings and drops characters from TV, movies, and cartoons into them. I have four of his pieces: Bob's Burgers, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Titus Andromedon from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and the Addams Family. The only thing stopping me from owning is wall space.
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Erica Stanley
Co-founder
Reflection
Why is AI now being pushed as our doom? Who does this benefit? Who does it harm?
I've had so many conversations in the last few weeks with techies and non-techies alike about whether I think AI will kill us all. I've decided that multiple things can be true. I don't believe LLMs and their current applications will kill us. Destabilize us along with world economies? Sure, but not kill us. Humans are more than capable of doing that ourselves. Which is why I do believe these AI industry leaders and investors could kill us all with their recklessness in building out a technology with such wide impact.
One of my favorite academics to follow, Ruha Benjamin, speaks and writes at the intersection of technology and society. She often raises the question of whether technology will be our "savior or slayer," helping her audience to understand that technology and its applications are guided by human choices. And despite what AI leaders would have us to believe, we have agency in what AI will eventually become. We are our own saviors and slayers.
ArticleHow OpenAI's broken culture helped break the tech industry's moral compass
David Robinson · The Atlantic
Unlike a lot of the recent AI doomerism that casts AI as our future "slayer," shifting accountability away from the very AI leaders that have pushed genAI relentlessly for the last four years, this article from a former member of OpenAI's safety team at least places the responsibility for genAI harms on the humans building it.
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AnimeApothecary Diaries Season 3 is back
Crunchyroll
The season 3 premier of Apothecary Diaries was October 2nd. FYI, this is the subbed version. For English dub fans, the dubbed version is expected this Fall, also on Crunchyroll.
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VideoThe Dragon King team previews new content at New York Comic Con
Reel James (YouTube)
Wonderstorm's first public premiere of new The Dragon King content is scheduled for New York Comic Con on Saturday, October 10, 2026. On October 3rd, I attended the private world premiere in LA as an associate producer (my first red carpet 💃🏾)!
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Beth Laing
Co-founder
Reflection
Always learning something new
Jacqui always pulls together top tier speakers and creates an amazing story arch that sweeps you through the event. You can't help but learn when you're there!
ArticleDevelopers don't get paid to write code
We Love Open Source · All Things Open
How the shift in development work is opening up opportunities in open source — agentic tooling to the rescue!
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ArticleStartup Pitch Tips in 2026
Venture Atlanta
There are so many good ideas out there! We all know that getting a startup going is tough — here's one path to get your startup going.
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EventTEDxAtlanta
Jacqui Chew + an army of volunteers
TEDxAtlanta, the local TED event, is always an amazing event — it's a brain spa! Always amazing speakers on a variety of topics, but usually a good number of tech-related talks.
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Tanya Mott
ArticleBuilding My Own AI Command Center
DEV Community
It's something I built & created a shareable template in GitHub! It's a way to organize all of life's stuff in one place!
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EventAttend Online · Hacktoberfest 2026
It's Hacktoberfest month!!! I love Hacktoberfest! I remember completing my first one many years ago and since have completed it a few times. This year is focusing on AI which is very relevant so check it out!
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Souixa Hartman
ArticleAgent Journey Map: Designing Software for AI Agents
Leonie Monigatti · Medium
I think UX designers need to know this NOW!!!
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A lot of the best stuff on the Radar comes from the community, not us.
Each month, your recs land in their own section above — a podcast, a tool, an event, a person worth knowing. Send us yours.
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Be a Featured Community Voice
Each month, we feature voices from the REFACTR community on Radar. The format: one current reflection on what's been on your mind, plus three recommendations to share with the rest of us.
Recommendations can be anything. A podcast worth your time, a video game you can't put down, a newsletter you actually read, a tool you swear by, a movie that stuck with you, an album that lives rent-free in your head, a book you keep recommending, a person worth following. It doesn't have to be tech — we're a tech community, but we're human too.
Pitch yourself, or share this with someone you think we should be hearing from.