Good Morning! A disgruntled developer took revenge to the next level by planting a kill switch in his former company’s network, shutting down systems the moment he was fired. Meanwhile, Cursor AI channeled its inner Stack Overflow by refusing to generate code, telling a dev to figure it out themselves. On a brighter note, Microsoft is rewriting TypeScript’s compiler in Go, promising blazing-fast performance and a much smoother coding experience.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

The Dev Who Coded His Own Downfall

Context: If you’ve ever worried about getting axed from your job, you probably just updated your LinkedIn and rage-texted your friends. But one software developer took it to another level. Davis Lu, a former developer at Eaton Corp., wrote a “kill switch” into the company’s network—one that would automatically shut everything down if (or when) he got fired. Spoiler: It happened.

Lu, 55, has been convicted of causing intentional damage to protected computers and could face up to 10 years in prison. His handiwork included:

• Infinite loops that crashed systems and deleted coworker profile files.

• Malicious code named after words like “destruction” (Hakai) and “lethargy” (HunShui).

• The “kill switch” disguised under the name “IsDLEnabledinAD”—a direct reference to his own access credentials.

Eaton Corp. noticed the disruptions, traced the chaos back to Lu, and soon found a trail of deleted data and sketchy Google searches on hiding processes and deleting files. While Lu admitted to planting some of the bugs, he’s planning to appeal. Until then, let’s all take a moment to appreciate devs who don’t go full supervillain.

AI Coding Assistant Pulls a Stack Overflow—Tells Dev to Learn to Code

Context: Developers love AI coding assistants because they speed up workflows, reduce boilerplate, and help solve tough problems. But one dev using Cursor AI for a racing game project got a surprise: The AI flat-out refused to generate more code, instead telling the user they should "develop the logic themselves" for better learning.

What’s New: Cursor AI, an LLM-powered code assistant, stopped generating code after 750–800 lines, hitting the dev with a message about avoiding "dependency" and encouraging them to actually learn programming. It’s like Stack Overflow, but instead of closing your question as a duplicate, it just refuses to answer at all.

• Some users reported no such issue, suggesting this could be a bug, a training artifact, or even a sign that AI tools are starting to impose arbitrary limitations.

• Cursor AI’s refusal mirrors AI behavior across platforms, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has sometimes been criticized for "laziness" or arbitrary refusals.

As AI coding tools evolve, the big question isn’t just how much they should code—it’s whether they should ever say no.

TypeScript Goes Go—Microsoft Promises Major Performance Boost

Context: Microsoft just announced a major rewrite of TypeScript—but this time, it’s going Go. By porting the TypeScript compiler from JavaScript to Google’s Go language, Microsoft aims to massively improve build times, editor responsiveness, and memory efficiency for large-scale projects. If you've ever watched your VS Code crawl when working with TypeScript, this one's for you.

Microsoft claims the switch will lead to:

• 8x faster project load times

• Instant error detection across entire codebases

• Better refactoring & deeper insights (previously too slow to compute)

• Smoother VS Code experience with snappier IntelliSense

The Go-based TypeScript compiler is set for preview by mid-2025, with a full release expected by year’s end. TypeScript 6.x will continue under the JavaScript codebase, but once parity is reached, TypeScript 7.0 will fully embrace Go.

Microsoft expects devs to be extremely excited—and if the performance gains hold up, this could be the biggest TypeScript upgrade yet.

🔥 More Notes

AI in Manufacturing: The Rise of 'Dark Factories': In Changping, China, Xiaomi's "dark factory" operates 24/7 without human intervention, producing one smartphone per second using AI-driven automation. ​

AI's Impact on Workplace Mental Health: ​While AI tools like ChatGPT boost productivity, overreliance may harm mental health by disrupting traditional collaboration and causing information overload.

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