diff --git a/doc/devblog/day_641__an_alternative_smudge_filter.mdwn b/doc/devblog/day_641__an_alternative_smudge_filter.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..74e0c8f508
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/devblog/day_641__an_alternative_smudge_filter.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+Would you rather that `git checkout` got a lot faster at checking out a lot
+of files, and `git add` got a lot faster at adding a lot of small files, if
+the tradeoff was that `git add` and `git commit -a` got slower at adding
+large files to the annex than they are now?
+
+Being able to make that choice is what I'm working on now. Of course,
+we'd rather it were all fast, but due to 
+[[todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal]], that is not possible
+without improvements to git. But I seem to have a plan that will
+work around enough of the problems to let that choice be made.
+
+Today I've been laying the groundwork, by implementing git's
+pkt-line interface, and the long-running filter process protocol.
+Next step will be to add support for that in `git-annex smudge`,
+so that users who want to can enable it with:
+
+	git config filter.annex.process "git-annex smudge --process"
+
+I can imagine that becoming enabled by default at some point in v9, if most
+users prefer it over the current method. Which would still be available
+by unsetting the config.
+
+----
+
+Today's work was sponsored by Mark Reidenbach
+[on Patreon](https://patreon.com/joeyh)
diff --git a/doc/forum/Dropping_checksum_from_URL_key.mdwn b/doc/forum/Dropping_checksum_from_URL_key.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d0ae8d7c4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/forum/Dropping_checksum_from_URL_key.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+I accidentally ran git annex importfeed without using the "--relaxed" option. This means that I know have a great many files in the annex with keys that look like this:
+
+> URL-s108794401--https://media.blubrry.com/thedi-7c04aebc2e18898889af95c74ab3edf0
+
+The problem is that these keys seem to encode a size ("s108794401"), and when I attempt to fetch them from their URLs, git annex detects that the size has changed. I'd like to convert all such files to instead use a key without a size. For example:
+
+> URL--https://media.blubrry.com/thedi-7c04aebc2e18898889af95c74ab3edf0
+
+What's the best way to do this? I tried "git annex migrate ... --backend URL" to no avail.
diff --git a/doc/todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal.mdwn b/doc/todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal.mdwn
index e4e20d7612..fe6d94d51e 100644
--- a/doc/todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal.mdwn
+++ b/doc/todo/git_smudge_clean_interface_suboptiomal.mdwn
@@ -135,6 +135,8 @@ The best fix would be to improve git's smudge/clean interface:
 > > probably make git-annex twice as slow for large files, although
 > > it would speed up git add of many small files. git-annex add
 > > could be used to work around any speed impact.
+> > (The long-running-smudge branch has some preliminary work to doing
+> > this.)
 > > 
 > > Or git could be extended
 > > with a capability in the protocol that lets the clean filter read the