Willem's Blog
Tablet as main computer
I have been using a tablet as my main computer for quite some time now. In this blog post I share...
over a year ago
I have been using a tablet as my main computer for quite some time now. In this blog post I share you my experience on using Surface Pro and iPad Pro to get my work done.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Epochs and slots all the way down: ways to give Ethereum users faster transaction confirmation times
6 months ago
Applied Cartography
Notes on Zed, revisited
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a...
2 months ago
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a lot of great choices and felt really good to use, but lacked parity with VS Code's feature/ecosystem to its detriment.
Six months later, I spent a few days using it as my daily...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Against overuse of the Gini coefficient
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
The current Cybershard layout
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and...
a month ago
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and hand-wired.
It’s a minimalistic keyboard of 35 keys and features an integrated trackball on the right-hand side.
The keyboard layout started out as a direct copy of the T-34 keyboard...
computers are bad
2024-09-14 the national warning system
Previously on Deep Space Nine, we discussed the extensive and variable products
that AT&T and...
3 months ago
Previously on Deep Space Nine, we discussed the extensive and variable products
that AT&T and telephone operating companies sold as private
lines. One of the
interesting properties of private line systems is that they can be ordered as
four-wire. Internally, the telephone network...
Notes on software...
Generating a full-stack application from a database
DBCore can now generate a TypeScript/React CRUD
UI that is automatically hooked up to the generated...
over a year ago
DBCore can now generate a TypeScript/React CRUD
UI that is automatically hooked up to the generated REST API (in Go).
The UI has full support for login, viewing (and filtering), editing,
and creating database entities.
PostgreSQL, SQLite and MySQL are supported.
How to use?
The...
Louwrentius
Using InfiniBand for cheap and fast point-to-point Networking
InfiniBand networking is quite awesome. It's mainly used for two reasons:
low latency
high...
over a year ago
InfiniBand networking is quite awesome. It's mainly used for two reasons:
low latency
high bandwidth
As a home user, I'm mainly interested in setting up a high bandwidth link between two servers.
I was using quad-port network cards with Linux Bonding, but this solution has some...
Louwrentius
Highpoint RocketRAID 2320 on Debian howto
Get the 'open source' driver from www.highpoint-tech.com. (It's not open
source, it uses a closed...
over a year ago
Get the 'open source' driver from www.highpoint-tech.com. (It's not open
source, it uses a closed binary driver.)
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bios_rr2320.htm
Install the kernel headers if you haven't already
- apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.18-6-k7
- extract the...
Applied Cartography
Always use an enum for your status field
When I was first starting my career at Amazon — even more bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked than I am now...
3 months ago
When I was first starting my career at Amazon — even more bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked than I am now — I was thrilled by the concept of an "architecture review", and by extension the concept of a "Principal Engineer" (Amazon's term for a staff-level engineer, someone beyond...
Birchtree
Apple’s 2024 report card: iPhone 📱
This is the first in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2024 across their major product lines. I...
a week ago
This is the first in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2024 across their major product lines. I did this last year and you can read last year’s iPhone report card here.
iPhone 16 Pro
I really, really liked the 15 Pro lineup, and I would
Posts on Made of...
Implementing a declarative mini-language in the C preprocessor
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time,...
over a year ago
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time, I want to talk about the tricks I used to implement a declarative minilanguage using the C preprocessor (and some GCC extensions).
The Problem We want to write some toplevel...
Gwern.net Newsletter
February 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
links on AI scaling, semaglutide, and ethicist ethics
over a year ago
links on AI scaling, semaglutide, and ethicist ethics
Louwrentius
Fio-plot: creating nice charts from FIO storage benchmark data
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice...
over a year ago
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice charts. It allows you to create four types of graphs which will be discussed below.
The github project page explains how to run this tool.
Fio-plot also includes a benchmark script...
Applied Cartography
Mass renaming files in fish on macOS
One of many two-liners to come as I migrate things from the old site onto Obsidian:
brew install...
a year ago
One of many two-liners to come as I migrate things from the old site onto Obsidian:
brew install rename
rename "s/.mdx/.md/" **.md
Applied Cartography
Pytest: test for print statements
Inspired by Adam Johnson's test for pending migrations, and of course in conversation with my own...
6 months ago
Inspired by Adam Johnson's test for pending migrations, and of course in conversation with my own love of weird tests, I offer a similar concept: a test for finding stray print statements in your codebase, with a ratchet array for stuff to ignore.
import glob
PATH =...
Jonas Hietala
Widening the horizon
This is a game making site but where are the games? What gives?
I’ve been slightly less motivated in...
over a year ago
This is a game making site but where are the games? What gives?
I’ve been slightly less motivated in making games lately and I’ve been doing different things, just to get my ideas and my motivation up. As I said in an earlier post I wanted a break from Experimental Games and I...
Home on Erik...
Analyzing 50k fonts using deep neural networks
For some reason I decided one night I wanted to get a bunch of fonts. A lot of them. An hour later I...
over a year ago
For some reason I decided one night I wanted to get a bunch of fonts. A lot of them. An hour later I had a bunch of scrapy scripts pulling down fonts and a few days later I had more than 50k fonts on my computer.
Louwrentius
RAID array size and rebuild speed
When a disk fails of a RAID 5 array, you are no longer protected against
(another) disk failure and...
over a year ago
When a disk fails of a RAID 5 array, you are no longer protected against
(another) disk failure and thus data loss. During this rebuild time, you are
vulnerable. The longer it takes to rebuild your array, the longer you are
vulnerable. Especially during a disk-intensive period,...
Applied Cartography
Git one-liner: get the earliest commit from X hours ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with...
7 months ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with git cliff. This took some time to do, but here's what I ended up with:
git log --since="72 hours ago" --until="now" --reverse --pretty=format:"%h" | head -1
Nothing particularly...
Notes on software...
How I run a coffee club
I started the NYC Systems Coffee
Club in December
of 2023. It's gone pretty well! I regularly get...
3 days ago
I started the NYC Systems Coffee
Club in December
of 2023. It's gone pretty well! I regularly get around 20 people each
month. You bring a drink if you feel like it and you hang out with
people for an hour or two.
There is no agenda, there is no speaker, there is no structure....
Vitalik Buterin's...
Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Developing a native iOS app
How hard can it be to build your own cycling and running workout tracker app using native code with...
7 months ago
How hard can it be to build your own cycling and running workout tracker app using native code with some help from AI? Read along to find out!
Jonas Hietala
Going into Being Busy mode
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or...
over a year ago
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or something? So I can’t promise a game the next two months. Kinda beats the point of this site doesn’t it? I’m really sorry and that’s all I can say really…
Hopefully I’ll get a week...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
How To Understand Things
The smartest person I’ve ever known had a habit that, as a teenager, I found striking...
over a year ago
The smartest person I’ve ever known had a habit that, as a teenager, I found striking...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
over a year ago
Birchtree
I don’t care about bad or missing features that I don’t use
Sometimes I’ll talk about something I like online and people will express shock that I can use a...
4 weeks ago
Sometimes I’ll talk about something I like online and people will express shock that I can use a product that has such a clear downside. I’ve gotten people ask how I can use Things since it doesn’t have shared task lists. More recently I
Construction Physics
What Learning by Doing Looks Like
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
3 weeks ago
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
Willem's Blog
Making my own tablet OS
I wondered if I could escape Windows by installing Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go, read along to...
over a year ago
I wondered if I could escape Windows by installing Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go, read along to find out how to do this!
computers are bad
2024-06-08 dmv.org
The majority of US states have something called a "Department of Motor
Vehicles," or DMV. Actually,...
6 months ago
The majority of US states have something called a "Department of Motor
Vehicles," or DMV. Actually, the universality of the term "DMV" seems to be
overstated. A more general term is "motor vehicle administrator," used for
example by the American Association of Motor Vehicle...
Birchtree
Everything is a reaction, nothing is forever, and everything comes back (members post)
Why nothing stays popular forever.
a month ago
Why nothing stays popular forever.
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Wrap-up
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to...
10 months ago
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to leave it alone for a while, so I think it’s time to wrap up this build series with a little retrospective.
Building the printer was really fun and rewarding
I’ve always seen...
Matt Mullenweg
State of the Word Tokyo
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an...
2 weeks ago
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. We’ve...
Willem's Blog
Write your own words
Why not to use AI for writing - a blog post on the underestimated long term costs of AI tools for...
a month ago
Why not to use AI for writing - a blog post on the underestimated long term costs of AI tools for human creativity.
Notes on software...
Parser generators vs. handwritten parsers: surveying major language implementations in 2021
Developers often think parser generators are the sole legit way to
build programming language...
over a year ago
Developers often think parser generators are the sole legit way to
build programming language frontends, possibly because compiler
courses in university teach lex/yacc variants. But do any modern
programming languages actually use parser generators anymore?
To find out, this post...
Birchtree
Gemini 2.0: speed and deep research impress
From The Keyword Google blog: Introducing Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era
Today...
3 weeks ago
From The Keyword Google blog: Introducing Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era
Today we’re excited to launch our next era of models built for this new agentic era: introducing Gemini 2.0, our most capable model yet. With new advances in multimodality —
Louwrentius
Achieving 450 MB/s network file transfers using Linux Bonding
Linux Bonding
In this article I'd like to show the results of using regular 1 Gigabit network...
over a year ago
Linux Bonding
In this article I'd like to show the results of using regular 1 Gigabit network connections to achieve 450 MB/s file transfers over NFS.
I'm again using Linux interface bonding for this purpose.
Linux interface bonding can be used to create a virtual network...
Birchtree
Starship is a late contender for favorite new things in 2024
I don't have a huge love for Star Fox 64. I mean I played it with friends and I still have the...
a week ago
I don't have a huge love for Star Fox 64. I mean I played it with friends and I still have the cartridge all these years later, but it's not as big a part of my childhood as Ocarina of Time was. That said, the Ocarina
Jonas Hietala
ghc 8.8.3 cannot find cabal 3.0.0.0 packages
I’ve been using cabal to manage my Haskell dependencies for years, but when I last updated my system...
over a year ago
I’ve been using cabal to manage my Haskell dependencies for years, but when I last updated my system it suddenly stopped working. I installed my dependencies with cabal install xmonad, and checked that it’s installed under ~/.cabal:
$ ls .cabal/bin/
xmonad@
But still when I...
Louwrentius
ZFS on Linux: monitor cache hit ratio
I'm performing some FIO random read 4k I/O benchmarks on a ZFS file system. So since I didn't trust...
over a year ago
I'm performing some FIO random read 4k I/O benchmarks on a ZFS file system. So since I didn't trust the numbers I got, I wanted to know how many of the IOPs I got were due to cache hits rather than disk hits.
This is why I wrote a small shell script called archhitratio.
Sample...
Louwrentius
Linux Software RAID benchmarking script
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use...
over a year ago
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use my
new benchmark script. I used this script to create these results.
You may need to configure some values within the header of this file to make
it fit your enviroment.
...
Applied Cartography
Tailwind black magic: styling paragraphs within tables
The new version of the Buttondown docs site is all in on Keystatic, Markdoc, and Tailwind's...
9 months ago
The new version of the Buttondown docs site is all in on Keystatic, Markdoc, and Tailwind's typography plugin — which makes it really easy to author beautiful docs in plaintext.
We ran into one small issue, which is that the Markdoc renderer likes to place paragraph tags in table...
Jonas Hietala
Food vacation in Japan
Me and my friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and had a great time. I wasn’t planning on taking a lot of...
over a year ago
Me and my friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and had a great time. I wasn’t planning on taking a lot of pictures, but I ended up sending a bunch back home as a ways of keeping my family up to date. When I look back most of them are about food… So I’ll turn this into a post about the...
Notes on software...
Interview With Phil of DataStation
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Home on Erik...
Google diversity memo, global warming, Pascal's wager, and other stuff
There's about 765 million blog posts about the diversity “memo” that leaked out of Google a couple...
over a year ago
There's about 765 million blog posts about the diversity “memo” that leaked out of Google a couple of weeks ago. I think the case for any biological difference is pretty weak, and it bothers me when people refer to an “interest gap” as anything else than caused by the...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
What kind of work I want
This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of...
over a year ago
This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of places I’d like to work. The short version…
Jonas Hietala
MenuCity
This game is called MenuCity and it’s a numbers game. Well that’s the theme anyway. The game pretty...
over a year ago
This game is called MenuCity and it’s a numbers game. Well that’s the theme anyway. The game pretty much held to what I planned for - except that it deviated from the theme -again- a bit.
My game is very reminiscent of the old calculator classic Block Dude made by Brandon...
Applied Cartography
Is cool enough?
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL...
9 months ago
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL manipulation. They look like great libraries, and a prior version of me would have taken a brief set of cursory
glances at the hodgepodge of janky URL manipulation code that I wrote for...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Capability makes your life simpler
If you can tolerate discomfort, then you can camp much lighter. Camping lighter means you spend less...
5 months ago
If you can tolerate discomfort, then you can camp much lighter. Camping lighter means you spend less time and energy packing, setting-up, tearing down, and unpacking. The same goes for travel. Fewer clothes and shoes means less luggage to carry, manage, and lose. You can board...
Jonas Hietala
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros
Aaah feels good having a game ready after the last month’s failure! This time it’s a small...
over a year ago
Aaah feels good having a game ready after the last month’s failure! This time it’s a small shooter.
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afro
Bullet masher - can you keep up with 100 enemies at the screen?
Instruction
W: up
Credits
Music: The Last Prophecy - Matthew Le Blanc...
Arduino Blog
How to customize your Arduino Cloud IoT dashboards on the go
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage...
2 months ago
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage their IoT projects with ease. From tracking sensor data to automating smart devices, the cloud enables seamless connectivity. Complementing this, the Arduino IoT Remote mobile app...
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal in-memory storage engine for MySQL/MariaDB
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and...
12 months ago
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and MariaDB are mostly the same (more on that later), I focused
on MariaDB specifically this week.
Before last week I had never built MySQL/MariaDB before. The first day
of this hack week,...
Louwrentius
Which file system for a large storage array under Linux?
There are many file systems available under Linux, however only a few of them
can be used for a...
over a year ago
There are many file systems available under Linux, however only a few of them
can be used for a large storage array.
I am assuming that you want to create a single file system. I don't care if
you use LVM or other layers beneath, this is about which file system to use.
I will...
Notes on software...
Learning a new codebase: hacking on nginx
I have never contributed to nginx. My C skills are 1/10. But
downloading the source, hacking it up,...
over a year ago
I have never contributed to nginx. My C skills are 1/10. But
downloading the source, hacking it up, compiling it, and running it
doesn't scare me. This post is to help you overcome your own fears
about doing so. Not necessarily because you should be running
out-of-tree diffs in...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Quantum Software Systems Ltd's QNX
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
9 months ago
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
Old Vintage...
What the KIM-1 really needs is an LCD screen
Giving the 1976 1K RAM, 1MHz 6502-based KIM-1 single-board computer bubble memory storage was all...
a year ago
Giving the 1976 1K RAM, 1MHz 6502-based KIM-1 single-board computer bubble memory storage was all well and good, but the basic unit is still just six numeric LEDs for its display. Let's solve that problem.
Sure, you could hook up a serial terminal like the Silent 700 we used...
Arduino Blog
How to customize your Arduino Cloud IoT dashboards on the go
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage...
2 months ago
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage their IoT projects with ease. From tracking sensor data to automating smart devices, the cloud enables seamless connectivity. Complementing this, the Arduino IoT Remote mobile app...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Made in 2024
Here are some things I made in 2024:
Music Box Fun: Advanced Editing (a new major feature):
...
2 days ago
Here are some things I made in 2024:
Music Box Fun: Advanced Editing (a new major feature):
Adds multiple-note selection for bulk operations on notes (like deletion, copy/paste, nudging and dragging)
Also includes a “space editor” for arbitrarily adding/removing space...
Notes on software...
Extending gosql to supporting LIMIT and OFFSET
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface...
over a year ago
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface for data stored in S3. But one missing
critical feature in gosql is LIMIT and OFFSET support. This post walks
through the few key changes to gosql to support LIMIT and OFFSET.
You...
Home on Erik...
Microsoft's new marketing strategy: give up
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to...
over a year ago
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to appeal to that target audience. Their new marketing strategy finally admits what's been long known: the correlation between “business casual” and using Microsoft products:
Lars Lofgren
The Stupidity of Google’s Site Reputation Abuse Policy
Site reputation abuse is when a third-party abuses the reputation of a domain to rank a bunch of...
a month ago
Site reputation abuse is when a third-party abuses the reputation of a domain to rank a bunch of pages in Google. The SEO community refers to this type of thing as parasite SEO. Google has gone so far as to publish an official policy (documented here) on how this isn’t allowed:...
Buck on Software
Crypto and Chasing the Dragon
Marc and Ben’s midlife crisis and the Crypto Crusades
over a year ago
Marc and Ben’s midlife crisis and the Crypto Crusades
Willem's Blog
Removing paint from a bike frame
Using dichloromethane and sanding paper I removed the paint from my bike frame to create a minimal,...
over a year ago
Using dichloromethane and sanding paper I removed the paint from my bike frame to create a minimal, raw aluminium look.
Ken Shirriff's blog
Reverse-engineering a three-axis attitude indicator from the F-4 fighter plane
We recently received an attitude indicator for the F-4 fighter plane, an instrument that
uses a...
3 months ago
We recently received an attitude indicator for the F-4 fighter plane, an instrument that
uses a rotating ball to show the aircraft's orientation and direction.
In a normal aircraft, the artificial horizon shows the orientation in two axes (pitch and roll), but the F-4...
Ken Shirriff's blog
The Intel 8088 processor's instruction prefetch circuitry: a look inside
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's...
9 months ago
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's decision to use the 8088 processor in the IBM PC (1981) was a critical point in computer history,
leading to the dominance of the x86 architecture that continues to the present.1
One...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure transducers
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache:...
11 months ago
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
},
chtml: { displayAlign: 'left' }
};
MathJax.Hub.Config({
"HTML-CSS": { scale: 175}
});
.MathJax {font-size: 1em !important}
The Bendix Central Air...
Notes on software...
A Programmer-Friendly I/O Abstraction Over io_uring and kqueue
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Lars Lofgren
How Live Chat Tools Impact Conversions and Why I Launched a Bad Variant
Do those live chat tools actually help your business? Will they get you more customers by allowing...
over a year ago
Do those live chat tools actually help your business? Will they get you more customers by allowing your visitors to chat directly with your team? Like most tests, you can come up with theories that sound great for both sides. Pro Live Chat Theory: Having a live chat tool helps...
Good Enough
TIL: Blocking Password App Autocomplete on Form Fields
I wanted to disable password managers, particularly 1Password, from interacting with a username...
a year ago
I wanted to disable password managers, particularly 1Password, from interacting with a username field in Contact Me. It was pretty simple in the end:
<%= form.text_field :username, "data-lpignore": true, "data-1p-ignore": true %>
Reference: 1Password, Lastpass.
Arduino Blog
This DIY smart chicken coop features AI-based predator detection
Raising chickens can be a very rewarding endeavor, as they can provide fresh daily eggs and help get...
2 months ago
Raising chickens can be a very rewarding endeavor, as they can provide fresh daily eggs and help get rid of pests in the yard. But, like all animals, they require care. Most importantly, you’ll need to ensure that they have regular food and water, and you’ll need to protect them...
Buck on Software
Thinking incrementally about SaaS
An overview of the key output of the growth software machine
over a year ago
An overview of the key output of the growth software machine
Style over Substance
How to build your own Goodman ZONE camera, part 2
The Goodman ZONE is a medium-format 3D-printed film camera designed by Dora Goodman as part of her...
over a year ago
The Goodman ZONE is a medium-format 3D-printed film camera designed by Dora Goodman as part of her range of open-source camera models, using the existing Mamiya Press lens series for glass and the Mamiya RB67 backs to hold film. She sells pre-printed kits that contain all the...
Louwrentius
The iPad will be the death of Flash
So Apple finally released their tablet computer: the iPad. One of the most
debated drawbacks is that...
over a year ago
So Apple finally released their tablet computer: the iPad. One of the most
debated drawbacks is that it lacks support for Adobe Flash. The iPhone does
not support Flash either, and since the iPad is based on the iPhone OS, this
should not come as a surprise.
Now many people see...
Jonas Hietala
Motivation is Valuable
It’s funny how motivation can play such a huge role with my productivity. I’m currently having two...
over a year ago
It’s funny how motivation can play such a huge role with my productivity. I’m currently having two math courses; one mandatory about analysis in multiple variables and vector analysis and one voluntary about advanced linear algebra. I don’t like the analysis course, didn’t like...
Notes on software...
Transparency and communication on small teams
I saw a post on
dev.to
that talks about dysfunctional teams. This is a response that...
over a year ago
I saw a post on
dev.to
that talks about dysfunctional teams. This is a response that focuses
specifically on how to prevent burnout from overworking. This is aimed
at senior/lead engineers and engineering/project managers -- because
everyone in a leadership role is responsible...
Jonas Hietala
5 Years at Linköping's University
I recently finished my master’s degree (civilingenjör or civil engineering) at Linköping’s...
over a year ago
I recently finished my master’s degree (civilingenjör or civil engineering) at Linköping’s University. At first it felt like 5 years would be an eternity, but in hindsight it was over in a flash. my gut feeling is that I haven’t learnt or done anything of note, except you know...
Louwrentius
Creating storage benchmark charts with FIO and GNUplot
Edit 2019: I've made a new tool called 'fio-plot'to create various graphs.
I use FIO to perform...
over a year ago
Edit 2019: I've made a new tool called 'fio-plot'to create various graphs.
I use FIO to perform storage IO performance benchmarks. FIO does provide a script called "fio_generate_plots" which generates PNG or JPG based charts based on the data generated by FIO. The charts are...
Applied Cartography
Against Against Innovation Tokens
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote...
6 months ago
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote Against Innovation Tokens yesterday:
In 2015, Dan McKinley laid out a model for software teams selecting technologies. He proposed that each team have a limited supply of “innovation...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Base Layers And Functionality Escape Velocity
over a year ago
Odds and Ends of...
How to fix The Observer
Slow news is good news?
a month ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 3: The Scourge
2 months ago
Birchtree
Squashing links on social media
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are...
3 weeks ago
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram — meaning Facebook, Instagram’s increasingly-overbearing owner — tightly
Christian Selig
Instant Pan Gesture Interactions
Apple has a really awesome WWDC 2018 video called Designing Fluid Interfaces, and one of the key...
a year ago
Apple has a really awesome WWDC 2018 video called Designing Fluid Interfaces, and one of the key takeaways from the videos that one of the presenters, Chan Karunamuni, said is “Look for delays everywhere. Everything needs to respond instantly.” (6:28)
A really great example of...
Home on Erik...
Iterate or die
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a...
over a year ago
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a company innovates is limited by its iteration speed.
I don't even mean throughput here. I just mean the cycle time.
anderegg.ca
Anzu Castle Gracula
Turns out you can release a QBasic game on Steam if it’s packaged correctly. Beside being a nerdy...
a month ago
Turns out you can release a QBasic game on Steam if it’s packaged correctly. Beside being a nerdy oddity, this game is extremely well made and quite fun! Lots of Castlevania II vibes going on here. Check out Anzu Castle Gracula on Steam, or give it a shot on Itch.io.
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: MenuCity
Good times, good times. MenuCity has been out a while and thanks for all the positive and...
over a year ago
Good times, good times. MenuCity has been out a while and thanks for all the positive and constructive feedback guys, it’s like my food doing this (programming is my air and the fun is the water… err). Anyway here’s the postmortem of my latest, and greatest, game.
Let’s start...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside an unusual 7400-series chip implemented with a gate array
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple...
9 months ago
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple die,
implemented in a straightforward, cost-effective way.
However, when I looked inside a military-grade chip built by Integrated Device Technology (IDT)4
I found a very unexpected...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
How LLMs work
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is...
a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is basically a simple one-file C…
Notes on software...
Go database driver overhead on insert-heavy workloads
The most popular SQLite and PostgreSQL database drivers in Go are
(roughly) 20-76% slower than...
a year ago
The most popular SQLite and PostgreSQL database drivers in Go are
(roughly) 20-76% slower than alternative Go drivers on insert-heavy
benchmarks of mine. So if you are bulk-inserting data with Go (and
potentially also bulk-retrieving data with Go), you may want to
consider the...
Jonas Hietala
An Epic Start
Oh what a mistake. I woke up at 05.00 when my girlfriend woke up, she’s working early today, and...
over a year ago
Oh what a mistake. I woke up at 05.00 when my girlfriend woke up, she’s working early today, and went to the bathroom. After I was done, still pretty tired, I made a big mistake. I checked the current theme for Ludum Dare 29: Beneath the Surface and guess what? Now I wasn’t tired...
Notes on software...
Tail call elimination
In this post we'll explore what tail calls are, why they are useful,
and how they can be eliminated...
over a year ago
In this post we'll explore what tail calls are, why they are useful,
and how they can be eliminated in an interpreter, a compiler targeting
C++, and a compiler targeting LLVM IR.
Tail calls
A tail call is a function call made at the end of a block that
returns the value of the...
Old Vintage...
Two tiny 65816 DTV consoles
The 21st century direct-to-TV game console: a dirt-cheap toy dragging poor ports of cherished games...
6 months ago
The 21st century direct-to-TV game console: a dirt-cheap toy dragging poor ports of cherished games to a more downmarket age. If you couldn't afford the real device, your alternative was these inexpensive, inadequate facsimiles faithful only to one's gauzy recollection. As their...
Notes on software...
SMTP protocol basics from scratch in Go: receiving email from Gmail
I've never run my own mail server before. Before today I had no clue
how email worked under the hood...
over a year ago
I've never run my own mail server before. Before today I had no clue
how email worked under the hood other than the very few times I've set
up mail clients.
I've heard no few times how hard it is to send mail from a
self-hosted server (because of spam filters). But how hard can...
Willem's Blog
Optical vs chest strap heart rate monitors
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness...
over a year ago
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness trackers
Applied Cartography
Incumbency
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt...
5 months ago
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt software-focused private equity:
Distribution and brand moats can protect your legacy products for a while (esp in enterprise) but eventually you get lapped by competitors with better...
Arduino Blog
Save 20% on Arduino Cloud Maker Plan this May!
Enhance your IoT projects with our special offer! Get 20% off a yearly subscription to the Arduino...
7 months ago
Enhance your IoT projects with our special offer! Get 20% off a yearly subscription to the Arduino Cloud Maker Plan using code CLOUD20MAY. Valid until the end of May, this deal saves you $14.38, reducing the price from $71.88 to $57.50. Benefits of the Maker Plan: What is Arduino...
Willem's Blog
Creating the ultimate commuter bike
Creating the ultimate commuter bike by upgrading the Sensa Cintura belt drive bike.
over a year ago
Creating the ultimate commuter bike by upgrading the Sensa Cintura belt drive bike.
Old Vintage...
With PowerPC, Windows CE and the WiiN-PAD slate, everyone's a WiiN-er (except Data General)
Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the...
8 months ago
Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the pandemic emergency, but speaking as someone with a day job in public health for almost two decades, it's always been a buzzword in certain corners of IT with enough money sloshing around...
Willem's Blog
Riding with Omata One
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely...
over a year ago
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely special: it indicates your speed, distance, ascent and time ridden using mechanical hands!
Arduino Blog
Giving a teenage pet turtle a synthetic pizza-ordering voice
If B. F. Skinner’s famous research proved anything, it is that virtually all animals are capable of...
3 months ago
If B. F. Skinner’s famous research proved anything, it is that virtually all animals are capable of some degree of training. Training is really just taking advantage of an animal’s natural inclination to adapt for survival, which is something all living organisms do. With that in...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Some ways to use ZK-SNARKs for privacy
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Winter Kit Tournament Linköping
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14...
over a year ago
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14 participants. The number of players has grown a lot since the previous tournament which is really great.
As I really wanted to win the wonderful Day Job playmat I went with two of...
Neil Madden
The square roots of all evil
Every programmer knows Donald Knuth’s famous quote that “premature optimization is the root of all...
a month ago
Every programmer knows Donald Knuth’s famous quote that “premature optimization is the root of all evil”, from his 1974 Turing Award lecture (pdf). A fuller quotation of the surrounding context gives a rounder view: I am sorry to say that many people nowadays are condemning...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 3
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
a year ago
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
./techtipsy
They make USB-C cables with displays now!
I’ve reached a point in my setup where most of the devices that I use are
based around the coveted...
7 months ago
I’ve reached a point in my setup where most of the devices that I use are
based around the coveted USB-C port. This meant that I had a valid reason to get
a few extra because I didn’t yet have a stockpile of good USB-C cables.
That’s when I found out that there exist cables that...
Home on Erik...
Storm in the stratosphere: how the cloud will be reshuffled
Here's a theory I have about cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, GCP):
Cloud vendors1 will increasingly...
over a year ago
Here's a theory I have about cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, GCP):
Cloud vendors1 will increasingly focus on the lowest layers in the stack: basically leasing capacity in their data centers through an API. Other pure-software providers will build all the stuff on top of it.
Home on Erik...
A brief history of Hadoop at Spotify
I was talking with some data engineers at Spotify and had a moment of nostalgia.
2008
I was writing...
over a year ago
I was talking with some data engineers at Spotify and had a moment of nostalgia.
2008
I was writing my master's thesis at Spotify and had to run a Hadoop job to extract some data from the logs.
computers are bad
2023-07-15 underwater ears everywhere
Programming note: the subscribe link was broken for a while because I am
bad at computers (yet...
a year ago
Programming note: the subscribe link was broken for a while because I am
bad at computers (yet another case of "forgot to enable the systemd unit").
It's fixed now. The unsubscribe link was also broken and is now fixed but,
you know, maybe that was a feature. Did wonders for...
Electronics etc…
Fake Parallel Printer - A Parallel Port Traffic Capturing Tool
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake...
a year ago
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake Printer HW Details
PCB Revision 1
PCB Revision 2
Firmware
Building a Fake Printer Tool Yourself
Programming the Raspberry Pico
Fake Printer as a USB Serial Device on your...
Arduino Blog
Is there an online Arduino IDE?
Since the inception of Arduino, the Arduino IDE has been a go-to tool for people learning to code...
2 months ago
Since the inception of Arduino, the Arduino IDE has been a go-to tool for people learning to code and creating projects ranging from remote-controlled cars to soil moisture monitoring. No wonder it’s been downloaded over 24 million times this year, so far! Now if you’ve ever...
./techtipsy
No HDMI port on the ThinkPad T430? No problem!
The ThinkPad T430 has a few options for running it with an external display:
VGA port, which is...
5 months ago
The ThinkPad T430 has a few options for running it with an external display:
VGA port, which is pretty much obsolete at this point
mini DisplayPort connector on the laptop itself
DVI or DisplayPort on a dock
The mini DisplayPort port has annoyed me for as long as I’ve had this...
Construction Physics
Energy Cheat Sheet
Building an intuition about energy
a week ago
Building an intuition about energy
Posts on Made of...
Graceful behavior at capacity
Suppose we’ve got a service. We’ll gloss over the details for now, but let’s stipulate that it...
a year ago
Suppose we’ve got a service. We’ll gloss over the details for now, but let’s stipulate that it accepts requests from the outside world, and takes some action in response. Maybe those requests are HTTP requests, or RPCs, or just incoming packets to be routed at the network layer....
./techtipsy
My very first career day
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the...
10 months ago
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the help of GreenDice.
I’ve never spoken at a career day before nor attended one as a student, which is why I instantly agreed to going to one
when GreenDice reached out to me.
Why? I...
Notes on software...
Active and influential NYC infrastructure people
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I...
a month ago
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I actually see them attend events) in the
NYC infrastructure scene (that I have a personal connection to).
If you're running a dinner or are just looking to meet interesting
people in...
Arduino Blog
A beautiful custom calculator built with IV-12 VFD tubes
Nixie tubes have been the go-to option for makers looking for retro display aesthetics for many...
7 months ago
Nixie tubes have been the go-to option for makers looking for retro display aesthetics for many years, because their distinct orange glow carries a lot of vintage appeal. But VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) tubes have been gaining in popularity recently and have different —...
Jonas Hietala
Pushing toward Git
The time has come; it’s time for me to move my source out in the open for the first time.
Repository...
over a year ago
The time has come; it’s time for me to move my source out in the open for the first time.
Repository deleted, never became anything
Available on Github
It’s nothing special really, if you want take a look at the code and help me improve it.
Notes on software...
Confusion and disengagement in meetings
The quickest way to cut through confusion or disagreement among
otherwise amiable and honest folks...
over a year ago
The quickest way to cut through confusion or disagreement among
otherwise amiable and honest folks is to ask questions.
Ask early so you don't waste time. But it's not enough to just ask
clarifying questions because the answers won't always be clear.
Sounds like Human Interaction...
Posts on Made of...
Test suites as classifiers
Suppose we have some codebase we’re considering applying some patch to, and which has a robust and...
over a year ago
Suppose we have some codebase we’re considering applying some patch to, and which has a robust and maintained test suite.
Considering the patch, we may ask, is this patch acceptable to apply and deploy. By this we mean to ask if the patch breaks any important functionality,...
On Life and Lisp
The Federation Fallacy
Throughout the free software community, an unbridled aura of justified mistrust fills the air:...
over a year ago
Throughout the free software community, an unbridled aura of justified mistrust fills the air: mistrust of large corporations, mistrust of governments, and of course, mistrust of proprietary software. Each mistrust is connected by a critical thread: centralisation.
Thus,...
Computer Ads from...
American Heart Association
A PSA and an Ad
a month ago
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 5: Promotes Regularity
Good Enough is taking a summer pause! We each have travel plans lined up for the summer. We each...
over a year ago
Good Enough is taking a summer pause! We each have travel plans lined up for the summer. We each have at least two children in our homes, begging for attention. And we each truly appreciate extended breaks as a means of reinvigorating ourselves to the ever important task of...
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal Lua implementation with a virtual machine from scratch in Rust
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from...
over a year ago
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from scratch. It will be able to run the
following program (among others):
function fib(n)
if n < 2 then
return n;
end
local n1 = fib(n-1);
local n2 = fib(n-2);
...
Jonas Hietala
Mining Incorporated (unfinished)
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very serious attempt at making a grand game for Ludum Dare 29. Unfortunately it was a far, far, too big of a game for me to be able to finish it in one weekend. But I had a great...
Gwern.net Newsletter
October 2020 news
October 2020 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling, Euclid; further site reorganization &...
over a year ago
October 2020 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling, Euclid; further site reorganization & improvement.
lcamtuf’s thing
Lies, damned lies, and photodiodes
Diffusion and drift currents: depending on what you're trying to do, photodiodes can be really fast...
3 weeks ago
Diffusion and drift currents: depending on what you're trying to do, photodiodes can be really fast or infuriatingly slow.
Arduino Blog
This fake CRT TV works using lasers and UV magic
Until the 21st century, cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs were pretty much the only option. As such, media...
a month ago
Until the 21st century, cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs were pretty much the only option. As such, media was made to suit them. Retro video game consoles in particular look best on CRT TVs. But those old TVs are getting hard to find and desirable models are now quite expensive. So,...
Applied Cartography
Notes from April
Welcome to spring, bona fide and humid. Lots of writing this month:
I wrote about spending the past...
8 months ago
Welcome to spring, bona fide and humid. Lots of writing this month:
I wrote about spending the past two years as an independent technologist.
On the media side of things: brief words on Murderville (meh), The Parallax View (incredible), This is Personal (meh), Cribsheet...
Applied Cartography
44%
If you spend enough time digesting hackneyed business or self-improvement advice, you've probably...
7 months ago
If you spend enough time digesting hackneyed business or self-improvement advice, you've probably seen someone wax poetic about the following image:
This is meant to be an illustration of the power of incrementalism (often referred to as kaizen when the writer is trying to be...
Posts on Made of...
reptyr: Attach a running process to a new terminal
Over the last week, I’ve written a nifty tool that I call reptyr. reptyr is a utility for taking an...
over a year ago
Over the last week, I’ve written a nifty tool that I call reptyr. reptyr is a utility for taking an existing running program and attaching it to a new terminal. Started a long-running process over ssh, but have to leave and don’t want to interrupt it? Just start a screen, use...
Home on Erik...
The relationship between commit size and commit message size
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's...
over a year ago
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's my rationale:
When I update one line of code I feel like I have to put in a long explanation about its side effects, why it's fully backwards compatible, and why it fixes some...
./techtipsy
FOSDEM 2024: my experience, some notes and tech tips
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the...
10 months ago
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the whole experience.
I’ve split this post into three separate sections.
overall notes on the conference and the city
less technical, but sheds light on the FOSDEM experience
the...
Louwrentius
How to build an energy efficient computer for home use
In short:
Buy whatever you fucking want.
Turn the fucking thing off when you're not using...
over a year ago
In short:
Buy whatever you fucking want.
Turn the fucking thing off when you're not using it.
Long:
People are spending a lot of time building an energy efficient home computer,
that can act as an HTPC, NAS, or whatever. It must consume as little power as
possible, because it it...
Engineers Need Art
Virtual Pinhead
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual...
9 months ago
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual pinball cabinet.
Matt Blewitt
Regular Restarts Are Good, Actually
Anecdotally, one of the more maligned features of the Heroku platform are the 24-hour limits on...
a month ago
Anecdotally, one of the more maligned features of the Heroku platform are the 24-hour limits on compute units, known as “dynos”. This is actually a good thing, but very misunderstood.
Good Enough
Season 3, Issue 3: Cosmic Maelstrom
1. Team Full
It's exciting times over here at Good Enough HQ!
(There is no Good Enough HQ. I'd say...
a year ago
1. Team Full
It's exciting times over here at Good Enough HQ!
(There is no Good Enough HQ. I'd say it's in the cloud, but even clouds are now looked down upon as dirtyish things that should not be enjoyed. And not because of air pollution per se, though perhaps because of...
Jonas Hietala
A Christmas Game
I’m going through a bit of a boardgame stint, as I usually do during christmas time. I had exactly...
over a year ago
I’m going through a bit of a boardgame stint, as I usually do during christmas time. I had exactly one thing on my wishlist for this christmas for my little brother: Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. Guess what? I got something from my wishlist!
This was our 5th or 6th game (or...
Jonas Hietala
2020 in review
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me...
over a year ago
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me personally it’s been both good and bad. Luckily we haven’t been directly affected by COVID too much, but it’s still been very disruptive. Either way as I’ve done for years now it always...
Louwrentius
Experiences running ZFS on Ubuntu Linux 12.04
I really like ZFS because with current data sets, I do believe that data corruption may start...
over a year ago
I really like ZFS because with current data sets, I do believe that data corruption may start becoming an issue. The thing is that the license under which ZFS is released does not permit it to be used in the Linux kernel. That's quite unfortunate, but there is hope. There is a...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 6: The Splurge
2 months ago
Construction Physics
How China Is Like the 19th Century U.S.
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly...
2 months ago
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly reading about the times and places where radical changes in manufacturing were taking place: Britain in the late 18th century, the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,...
Neil Madden
I still don’t really get “hash shucking”
If you want to learn how to store passwords securely, you could do a lot worse than looking at the...
a year ago
If you want to learn how to store passwords securely, you could do a lot worse than looking at the OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet. These cheat sheets are generally pretty good, and the password storage one is particularly good. The editors do a great job of keeping it up to...
Applied Cartography
Stripe Sessions 2024
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I...
8 months ago
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I wanted to jot down some thoughts while they’re still fresh. (I think the changelog is the best way to poke around both the changes I’m writing about and the ones that I...
Jonas Hietala
Jonas IceCream Stand
Ahoy there! This time I’ll take you along for a ride with an arty Tycoon game.
Jonas IceCream...
over a year ago
Ahoy there! This time I’ll take you along for a ride with an arty Tycoon game.
Jonas IceCream Stand
Instructions
It should be pretty self-explanatory, it’s a very simply tycoon game.
Credits
Music:
Eric Maskol
Steve Chatterton
Sound effects:
freesound
Rest:
Me
Style over Substance
My Home Assistant setup (2023 edition)
For the past few years, I have been running Home Assistant to make my apartment a smart home. It’s...
a year ago
For the past few years, I have been running Home Assistant to make my apartment a smart home. It’s become such a hobby of mine that I’ve even started coding add-ons for it. While there are other popular automation platforms, Home Assistant’s versatility blows the rest out of the...
Gwern.net Newsletter
Jan 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
January 2021 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling up and down.
over a year ago
January 2021 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling up and down.
Simply Explained
Make Your Garage Door Opener Smart: Shelly 1, ESPHome and Home Assistant
I've been adding more and more devices to my smart home lately, so naturally, my garage door opener...
over a year ago
I've been adding more and more devices to my smart home lately, so naturally, my garage door opener had to follow. But instead of swapping it out for a new unit, I used a Shelly 1 and a cheap door contact sensor to make it smart for less than $20!It runs ESPHome (open-source, no...
Willem's Blog
Clouds below my floor
Building a little datacenter in my basement utilising a very fast internet connection.
over a year ago
Building a little datacenter in my basement utilising a very fast internet connection.
Jonas Hietala
Christmas break
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and...
over a year ago
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and I really enjoy studying here. We had lisp the whole time which is a pretty sweet little language and if you haven’t, give it a shot. Then we had math and I do like math, although I...
Willem's Blog
Art of visualisation
You learn from experts if you have the privilege to work with them, this month I had a chance to...
over a year ago
You learn from experts if you have the privilege to work with them, this month I had a chance to help a professional food photographer.
Louwrentius
Why VMware vSphere replication is changing the game
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller...
over a year ago
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller setups, many people do employ multiple VMware hosts, but the SAN is a single point of failure.
SANs are often fully redundant devices, with redundant PSUs, storage controllers,...
Notes on software...
Errors and Zig
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing...
a year ago
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing sample code for client
libraries, and writing integration tests against the sample code.
The client library documentation is generated with a Zig script. The
sample code is...
watchTowr Labs
“To live is to fight, to fight is to live! - IBM ODM Remote Code Execution
In previous blogs, we’ve discussed some of the big players in the enterprise software space, but...
10 months ago
In previous blogs, we’ve discussed some of the big players in the enterprise software space, but there is one that we have not mentioned before, that is - quite frankly - the heavy-weight champion of the world in terms of applications for large enterprises. With over a hundred
Matt Mullenweg
I Voted!
It was a huge pain in the butt, because my mail-in ballot didn’t register properly, but I found a...
a month ago
It was a huge pain in the butt, because my mail-in ballot didn’t register properly, but I found a last-minute flight to Houston and this morning walked over to Congregation Emanu El and voted. It is our most sacred duty as a citizen. I encourage every American to vote.
latest projects -...
Portable Probability Panel
[Misc] Laser-cut Galton board
5 months ago
[Misc] Laser-cut Galton board
anderegg.ca
More details on Bluesky’s subscription plan
Update: I had missed this, but the Bluesky team had already announced a subscription model was on...
3 weeks ago
Update: I had missed this, but the Bluesky team had already announced a subscription model was on the way. I had written this article assuming that was the news. What is new is the work happening on their official apps, which contains details on features and potential pricing. An...
computers are bad
2023-03-13 the door close button
This will probably be a short one, and I know I haven't written for a while,
but it has always been...
a year ago
This will probably be a short one, and I know I haven't written for a while,
but it has always been the case that you get what you pay for and Computers
Are Bad is nothing if not affordable. Still, this is a topic on which I am
moderately passionate and so I can probably stretch...
Matt Blewitt
Modifying pg_dump To Exclude Event Triggers
At $WORK, we have a case where we have implemented an event trigger to prevent customers from...
6 months ago
At $WORK, we have a case where we have implemented an event trigger to prevent customers from dropping an extension. As this extension is part of contrib and normally installed by users, we can’t prevent them from dropping it normally. However, event triggers can only be created...
Notes on software...
The impact of management teams as a decision-making group, in startups and enterprise
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you....
over a year ago
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you. Management teams meet periodically and have
private chat rooms. They discuss customers, product and organizational
direction. Sometimes discussions are well documented and...
Arduino Blog
Massive tentacle robot draws massive attention at EMF Camp
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control...
6 months ago
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control several motors and monitor a bunch of sensors. But what if the robot is enormous and the motors are far apart? James Bruton found himself in that situation when he constructed this...
Arduino Blog
Shop vac becomes a Roomba on steroids
A robotic vacuum, such as a Roomba, offers a lot of convenience. Instead of having to vacuum and...
8 months ago
A robotic vacuum, such as a Roomba, offers a lot of convenience. Instead of having to vacuum and sweep your own floors, you have a little maid robot to do the job for you. But these devices have very little power and capacity, which makes them useless for anything other than...
OH8HUB’s Substack
A quick visit to Vaajasalo island
Vaajasalo is a small island in lake Kallavesi in eastern Finland with population less than hundred....
a year ago
Vaajasalo is a small island in lake Kallavesi in eastern Finland with population less than hundred. There’s also a winery called Alahovi Berry Wine Farm. They produce berry wines, cider, beer and liqueur. The temptation to visit them was huge, but I was on tight schedule. Maybe...
On Life and Lisp
OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux
Upgrade your Asahi Linux systems, because your graphics drivers are getting a big boost:...
a year ago
Upgrade your Asahi Linux systems, because your graphics drivers are getting a big boost: leapfrogging from OpenGL 2.1 over OpenGL 3.0 up to OpenGL 3.1! Similarly, the OpenGL ES 2.0 support is bumping up to OpenGL ES 3.0. That means more playable games and more functioning...
Arduino Blog
Use sound to trigger your camera’s flash with this DIY device
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo...
2 months ago
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo (not too bright or too dark), you need a balance of aperture size (how much light gets in), shutter speed (how long the light gets in), and ISO (sensitivity to light at the expense of...
Jonas Hietala
Moving to FastMail
About two years ago after Lavabit’s shutdown I searched for a replacement email provider. For some...
over a year ago
About two years ago after Lavabit’s shutdown I searched for a replacement email provider. For some reason I settled on eumx which I used since then. Yesterday I got an email saying the recurring billing could not be renewed as I had my old credit card registered and it got me...
Willem's Blog
Being a volunteer in Amsterdam-Zuidoost
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
over a year ago
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
Odds and Ends of...
Important information if you used my Bluesky MP follows bot
Please read this immediately.
a month ago
Please read this immediately.
Applied Cartography
The taste of beer
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a...
7 months ago
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a relatively famous line from Bezos, circulated first at YC in ’08 and then more recently by the folks at Acquired (a great pod!):
Jeff uses this analogy for AWS. He talks about...
Notes on software...
Languages you can run in the browser, part 1: Python, JavaScript, SQLite
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Jonas Hietala
Customizing Neovim
Scripting is configuration. Configuration is scripting.
TJ DeVries A different take on editing...
8 months ago
Scripting is configuration. Configuration is scripting.
TJ DeVries A different take on editing code
I’ve been using Neovim since it forked from Vim almost 8 years ago, and I used Vim many years before that.
I feel quite comfortable with Neovim, and I’ve gone down the...
Willem's Blog
Lessons from a takeaway plastic bag
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of...
over a year ago
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of change.
watchTowr Labs
Auth. Bypass In (Un)Limited Scenarios - Progress MOVEit Transfer (CVE-2024-5806)
In the early hours of a day in a month in 2024, watchTowr Labs was sent a chat log:
13:37 -!-...
6 months ago
In the early hours of a day in a month in 2024, watchTowr Labs was sent a chat log:
13:37 -!- dav1d_bl41ne [def_not_phalanx@kernel.org] has joined #!hack (irc.efnet.nl)
13:37 -!- dav1d_bl41ne changed the topic of #!hack to: mag1c sh0w
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios: termios(3) and stty
(This is part two of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part...
over a year ago
(This is part two of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part 1 if you’re new here)
In this entry, we’ll look at the interfaces that are used to control the behavior of the “termios” box sitting between the master and slave pty. The behaviors...
Jonas Hietala
The T-34/1 keyboard layout
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this...
over a year ago
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this particular version without any major changes for almost 3 months, so I’d say it’s a good improvement over the last revision.
There are two large changes from T-34/0: swapping o and...
Notes on software...
Exploring a Postgres query plan
I learned this week that you can intercept and redirect Postgres query
execution. You can hook into...
a year ago
I learned this week that you can intercept and redirect Postgres query
execution. You can hook into the execution layer so you're given a
query plan and you get to decide what to do with it. What rows to
return, if any, and where they come from.
That's very interesting. So I...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma
a year ago
Arduino Blog
This perplexing robotic performer operates under the control of three different Arduino boards
Every decade or two, humanity seems to develop a renewed interest in humanoid robots and their...
2 months ago
Every decade or two, humanity seems to develop a renewed interest in humanoid robots and their potential within our world. Because the practical applications are actually pretty limited (given the high cost), we inevitably begin to consider how those robots might function as...
Willem's Blog
Rescuing files from a broken harddisk
Yesterday I helped a young woman with her broken computer containing precious photos, could I safe...
over a year ago
Yesterday I helped a young woman with her broken computer containing precious photos, could I safe them?
Jonas Hietala
Slackware installation notes
It seems like it’s been a yearly recurrence reinstalling slackware from scratch. This time it...
over a year ago
It seems like it’s been a yearly recurrence reinstalling slackware from scratch. This time it happened during my vacation when I was mucking around with trying to compile erlang with wxWidgets support and somehow a make clean started to remove / and I only noticed it too late…...
Good Enough
Grassroots
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends,...
8 months ago
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends, shouting on socials, and sharing links to our stuff with your favorite influencers–all of these things will help Good Enough succeed and continue making amazing stuff!
As we’ve been...
Applied Cartography
Why your marketing site should be separate
In Notes on buttondown.com and How Buttondown uses HAProxy, I outlined the slightly kludgy way we...
3 months ago
In Notes on buttondown.com and How Buttondown uses HAProxy, I outlined the slightly kludgy way we serve buttondown.com both as a marketing site (public-facing, Next/Vercel, largely just content pushed by non-developers) and an author-facing app (behind a login, Django/Heroku/Vue)...
Construction Physics
Morris Chang and the Origins of TSMC
Book review of the autobiography of Morris Chang.
3 days ago
Book review of the autobiography of Morris Chang.
Jonas Hietala
Finishing Stuff
I haven’t done much blogging or game programming in a while but instead I’ve finished some school...
over a year ago
I haven’t done much blogging or game programming in a while but instead I’ve finished some school stuff. We completed the assembly course labs, which were pretty fun actually, and I managed to finally complete the electronics course I’ve been holding off on for like forever… But...
Home on Erik...
Conversion rates – you are (most likely) computing them wrong
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and...
over a year ago
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and divide them with the total number of users. Done. Except… it's a lot more complicated when you have any sort of significant time lag.
Gwern.net Newsletter
June gwern.net newsletter
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening,...
over a year ago
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening, AI scaling, politics, and technological unemployment.
Jonas Hietala
Robot Project Start
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot....
over a year ago
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot. We’re gonna do battle with infrared lasers instead of axes but it might be fun anyway. Luckily for me I’m responsible for software and nothing harder than that! w00p!
We could...
Matt Mullenweg
CNBC on WP Engine
Ari Levy at CNBC has a great article covering the battle between WordPress and Silver Lake / WP...
2 months ago
Ari Levy at CNBC has a great article covering the battle between WordPress and Silver Lake / WP Engine: Why WordPress [co-]founder Matt Mullenweg has gone ‘nuclear’ against tech investing giant Silver Lake.
Willem's Blog
The Problem With Bitcoin
Some thoughts on the long term viability of Bitcoin's rising value.
3 weeks ago
Some thoughts on the long term viability of Bitcoin's rising value.
Jonas Hietala
2010 in review
I saw a post on briancarper where he reviews the past year and it sounds like a great idea...
over a year ago
I saw a post on briancarper where he reviews the past year and it sounds like a great idea actually.
2010 Geek Achievements
Wrote a few games earlier this year;
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros
A Geek Valentine
Beebop The Island Hopper
Where’s Teddy?
Updated this site a...
Yazin Alirhayim
Part 1: Will greater access to capital spark Bahrain’s economy?
Today, I was on a panel discussing lending and access to capital (not a wooden panel, mind you — but...
over a year ago
Today, I was on a panel discussing lending and access to capital (not a wooden panel, mind you — but a panel of speakers. Now that I think about it, we may have been sitting on wooden panel flooring).
At any rate, the discussion covered alot of ground, all as part of the larger...
Arduino Blog
Improve indoor air quality with Arduino
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities...
8 months ago
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities and power plants churning clouds of poison into the atmosphere. And while all this is still important, and has massive consequences for our health, it’s all too easy to overlook...
Electronics etc…
Cable Length Measurement with an HP 8007B Pulse Generator
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [...
a year ago
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$', '$'], ["\\(", "\\)"] ],
displayMath: [ ['$$', '$$'], ["\\[", "\\]"] ],
processEscapes: true,
skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',...
./techtipsy
Shrinkflation, SanDisk style
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that...
a year ago
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that you
notice after formatting the device in an OS. Please read the article in full before
making inaccurate comments online.
For many years, I have used two SanDisk Ultra 16 GB USB flash...
Old Vintage...
Finally, an MOS 7600/7601 Video Game Array data sheet
A quick one. Many of you are aware of my rather abnormal fascination with the MOS 7600/7601, MOS...
a year ago
A quick one. Many of you are aware of my rather abnormal fascination with the MOS 7600/7601, MOS Technology's dedicated "Pong-on-a-chip" (from the company that brought you my favourite CPU, the MOS 6502) that's actually a rather sophisticated microcontroller for the era. I own...
Home on Erik...
In defense of false positives (why you can't fail with A/B tests)
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the...
over a year ago
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the metrics for the two groups. The group with the highest conversion rate wins, right?
Home on Erik...
More Luigi alternatives
The workflow engine battle has intensified with some more interesting entries lately! Here are a...
over a year ago
The workflow engine battle has intensified with some more interesting entries lately! Here are a couple I encountered in the last few days. I love that at least two of them are direct references to Luigi!
./techtipsy
Self-hosting Wikipedia using Kiwix
Do you have a need to host Wikipedia on your computer?
Or a StackExchange site, like Super...
over a year ago
Do you have a need to host Wikipedia on your computer?
Or a StackExchange site, like Super User?
It’s easier than you think!
Step 1: download stuff!
The Kiwix project provides ZIM files for many popular websites, including Wikipedia.
These files can be downloaded over at Kiwix...
Louwrentius
HP Proliant Microserver Gen10 as router or NAS
Introduction
In the summer of 2017, HP released the Proliant Microserver Gen10. This machine...
over a year ago
Introduction
In the summer of 2017, HP released the Proliant Microserver Gen10. This machine replaces the older Gen8 model.
For hobbyists, the Microserver always has been an interesting device for a custom home NAS build or as a router.
Let's find out if this is still the case....
./techtipsy
Database optimization adventures on low-end hardware
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that...
over a year ago
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that were collected from
a pretty fancy smart home setup. This data included power usage of various sections of the building, temperature
sensors, water usage levels and more. The data...
Louwrentius
Why you should not use IPsec for VPN connectivity
IPsec is a well-known and widely-used VPN solution. It seems that it's not widely known that Niels...
over a year ago
IPsec is a well-known and widely-used VPN solution. It seems that it's not widely known that Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier performed a detailed security analysis of IPsec and that the results were not very positive.
We strongly discourage the use of IPsec in its current form...
Willem's Blog
Escaping the flat tires
Finding the answer to the question how resilient a puncture-proof tire really is took me quite some...
over a year ago
Finding the answer to the question how resilient a puncture-proof tire really is took me quite some time, but alas - here it is!
Louwrentius
The impact of the MDADM bitmap on RAID performance
Introduction
I'm aware that most people with intensive storage workloads won't run those workloads...
over a year ago
Introduction
I'm aware that most people with intensive storage workloads won't run those workloads on hard drives anymore, that ship has sailed a long time ago. SSDs have taken their place (or 'the cloud').
For those few left who do use hard drives in Linux software RAID setups...
Good Enough
Good Enough, A Serious Business
Hello reader, my name is Shawn, and I'm one of the co-founders of Good Enough. I'd like to tell you...
a year ago
Hello reader, my name is Shawn, and I'm one of the co-founders of Good Enough. I'd like to tell you a bit about how Good Enough came to be and what we plan on doing here.
Barry and I started working together again in early 2022. By “work,” I mean that I’d show up on Slack for a...
Louwrentius
Things you should consider when building a ZFS NAS
ZFS is a modern file system designed by Sun Microsystems, targeted at enterprise environments. Many...
over a year ago
ZFS is a modern file system designed by Sun Microsystems, targeted at enterprise environments. Many features of ZFS also appeal to home NAS builders and with good reason. But not all features are relevant or necessary for home use.
I believe that most home users building their...
Yazin Alirhayim
Tracking where a WhatsApp user came from
At Amal, we have an AI chat bot that works over WhatsApp — allowing our customers to speak to their...
over a year ago
At Amal, we have an AI chat bot that works over WhatsApp — allowing our customers to speak to their bank account, asking questions like “What’s my balance” and “How much have I spent on Uber’s this month?”.
A problem we faced really early on when connecting to WhatsApp was that...
Notes on software...
How do databases execute expressions?
Databases are fun. They sit at the confluence of Computer
Science topics that might otherwise not...
a year ago
Databases are fun. They sit at the confluence of Computer
Science topics that might otherwise not seem practical in life as a
developer. For example, every database with a query language is also a
programming language implementation of some caliber. That doesn't
include all...
Willem's Blog
Designing my own watch
Last month I received my custom made wristwatch from Switzerland, it is a minimalistic mechanical...
over a year ago
Last month I received my custom made wristwatch from Switzerland, it is a minimalistic mechanical annual calendar designed to be understated and true to the metal.
Azad's Blog
Simulating + Streaming a 4k, 90hz, ultrawide, HDR PC monitor to Apple Vision Pro
VR headsets can be pretty awesome at simulating monitors of any size and shape. Most VR headsets are...
3 months ago
VR headsets can be pretty awesome at simulating monitors of any size and shape. Most VR headsets are also capable of outputting at a high refresh rate (60hz, 90hz, 120hz, or even 144hz). Some headsets (like Apple Vision Pro) can also output in HDR! The beauty of it all is that in...
Home on Erik...
Interviewing is a noisy prediction problem
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence...
over a year ago
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence in my ability to assess people. Let me just throw a couple of algorithm questions at a candidate and then I'll tell you if they are good or not!
Vitalik Buterin's...
Governance, Part 2: Plutocracy Is Still Bad
over a year ago
./techtipsy
Can a laptop from 2012 be a viable home server?
I’m a man of many ideas. It’s a shame that most of them are quite stupid.
This is one of them, but...
over a year ago
I’m a man of many ideas. It’s a shame that most of them are quite stupid.
This is one of them, but at least it makes for a fun experiment.
Intro
After adding an UPS to accompany my server,
my setup was as complete as it could reasonably be. The server is low power,
but packs...
Gwern.net Newsletter
August 2020 gwern.net newsletter
with an essay on sidenotes; links on human competence, efficient-computing/hardware-overhangs; no...
over a year ago
with an essay on sidenotes; links on human competence, efficient-computing/hardware-overhangs; no reviews.
Notes on software...
React without webpack: fast path to a working app from scratch
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Arduino Blog
Bringing Quake to Arduino: a game-changing project by Nicola Wrachien
Following up on his successful Doom port last year, engineer Nicola Wrachien – who works at Silicon...
3 months ago
Following up on his successful Doom port last year, engineer Nicola Wrachien – who works at Silicon Labs, a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world and long-time Arduino partner – has now tackled an even bigger challenge: porting Quake, the...
Arduino Blog
Check out these Arduino-powered research projects from CHI 2024
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference...
7 months ago
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) that focuses on the latest developments in human-computer interaction. Students from universities all across the world attended the...
Arduino Blog
Arduino partners with RS/OKdo strategically to further expand the China Market
Arduino is excited to announce a strategic new partnership with RS/OKdo, a prominent leader in the...
a month ago
Arduino is excited to announce a strategic new partnership with RS/OKdo, a prominent leader in the distribution of industrial and electronic equipment. This collaboration marks a significant step forward in bringing Arduino’s technology closer to China’s thriving maker community...
Birchtree
2025: The year of fitness (members post)
2025 is upon us and my goals for the new year are very clear: I need to get my fitness in order....
4 days ago
2025 is upon us and my goals for the new year are very clear: I need to get my fitness in order. Here's the plan…
Home on Erik...
ML at Twitter
I recently came across this paper describing how they do ML at Twitter.
TL;DR Their approach is...
over a year ago
I recently came across this paper describing how they do ML at Twitter.
TL;DR Their approach is pretty interesting. Everything is a Pig workflow and then they do everything as UDF's.
This approach seems pretty interesting.
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Printing & Tuning
It’s up and running, and now it’s finally printing time!
Less exciting—but necessary—tuning the...
a year ago
It’s up and running, and now it’s finally printing time!
Less exciting—but necessary—tuning the printer to make the prints better.
Filament shipment
Even though I’ve been building the printer for more than a month, I wasn’t ready for it being time for printing so soon.
I don’t...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #42: An Elizabeth Line extension, some mad planning law nonsense, and the world's most...
Your regular round-up of interesting links
a month ago
Your regular round-up of interesting links
csvbase blog
My favourite API is a zipfile on the European Central Bank's website
Simple data pipeline powertools: sqlite, pandas, gnuplot and friends
a year ago
Simple data pipeline powertools: sqlite, pandas, gnuplot and friends
latest projects -...
Talking Tines
[Concept] Tuning forks that talk
6 months ago
[Concept] Tuning forks that talk
Jonas Hietala
New Computer!
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s...
over a year ago
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s awesome (as all new computers are).
The specs:
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550Ti OC 1GB
CPU: Intel core i5 2500K
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS-9900NT
Motherboard: MSI P67A-C45 REV B3
Ram:...
Home on Erik...
Deep learning for... chess
I've been meaning to learn Theano for a while and I've also wanted to build a chess AI at some...
over a year ago
I've been meaning to learn Theano for a while and I've also wanted to build a chess AI at some point. So why not combine the two? That's what I thought, and I ended up spending way too much time on it.
Arduino Blog
This nature-inspired display reacts to ambient sounds
We all need ways to calm down and relax, and few things are as effective as nature itself. Taking...
2 weeks ago
We all need ways to calm down and relax, and few things are as effective as nature itself. Taking inspiration from organic patterns and smooth, flowing waves, dzeng on Instructables has built an LED wall light that responds in real-time to the sounds within a room. The project...
Lighthouse Blog
How to rate content and find it again
7 months ago
Notes on software...
Zig, Rust, and other languages
Having worked a bit in Zig, Rust, Go and now C, I think there are a
few common topics worth having a...
9 months ago
Having worked a bit in Zig, Rust, Go and now C, I think there are a
few common topics worth having a fresh conversation on: automatic
memory management, the standard library, and explicit allocation.
Zig is not a mature language. But it has made enough useful choices
for a number...
Opsbros
WiFi Binary Clock
Who doesn't love a classic Binary Clock? I remember getting one of these when I was in my 20's from...
over a year ago
Who doesn't love a classic Binary Clock? I remember getting one of these when I was in my 20's from ThinkGeek, and it was pride of place on my desk. LED's are a thing of beauty.
Willem's Blog
Tablet as Tool
Discover the hidden advantages of the iPad Pro in this insightful blog post, offering tips and...
a year ago
Discover the hidden advantages of the iPad Pro in this insightful blog post, offering tips and personal experiences to help you maximise the tablet's potential and redefine your workflow.
Home on Erik...
Implicit data and collaborative filtering
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right?...
over a year ago
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right? People rate things 1-5 stars and then you have to predict missing ratings.
While there's no doubt that the Netflix Prize was successful, I think it created an illusion that all...
Christian Selig
Smart Open Xcode
If you’re like me, you often have multiple versions of Xcode installed. One or two beta versions, a...
a year ago
If you’re like me, you often have multiple versions of Xcode installed. One or two beta versions, a stable version, and maybe another version in case the most recent stable version has something weird about it.
I also really like mapping my Caps Lock key to something more useful,...
Jonas Hietala
Vacation
Finally back from a 2 week vacation up at Övertorneå. It’s been pretty great to be taken care of and...
over a year ago
Finally back from a 2 week vacation up at Övertorneå. It’s been pretty great to be taken care of and not doing anything. Well, I did get my ass kicked in Terra Mystica and I played a bit of Minecraft, but still. We got some nice food and my in-laws and my parents were nice.
I’m...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Halo and more: exploring incremental verification and SNARKs without pairings
over a year ago
GitButler
The New Era of Town Hall Chat
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and...
4 months ago
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and more importantly, why.
Old Vintage...
An Apple district manager's Macintosh Portable in 1989-91 (featuring GEIS AppleLink and a look at...
a late prototype Macintosh Portable. But it turns out it's not merely notable for what it is than...
10 months ago
a late prototype Macintosh Portable. But it turns out it's not merely notable for what it is than what it has on it: a beta version of System 6.0.6 (the doomed release that Apple pulled due to bugs), Apple sales databases, two online services — the maligned Mac Prodigy client,...
computers are bad
2023-01-16 huff-duff
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an...
a year ago
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an extremely useful property of HF radio here is that HF
frequencies can reflect off of the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing them
to rebound towards earth at a range much further...
Simply Explained
Retrospective: My Fifth Year on YouTube
For the past 4 years, I have made a habit of reflecting on the previous year and set goals for the...
over a year ago
For the past 4 years, I have made a habit of reflecting on the previous year and set goals for the new year. This year is no exception, but now I try to set better goals while reflecting on some personal things in life.
computers are bad
2023-08-07 STIRred AND SHAKEN
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps...
a year ago
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps spurred by boredom, I looked through the schedule to see
what's in store in the world of telephony. There is a workshop on SS7, of
course [1], plenty of content on cellular, but...
Arduino Blog
Venderoo is an Arduino Mega-powered DIY vending machine
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics,...
3 months ago
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics, electronics, and programming while being simultaneously useful to those around him was a longtime goal. His recent Venderoo project is exactly that, as the creatively named vending...
Home on Erik...
Wikiphilia
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles...
over a year ago
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles worth sharing and that's why I created the wikiphilia Twitter handle. Just a long stream of stuff that for one reason or another may be interesting.
Home on Erik...
Toxic meeting culture
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading...
over a year ago
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading to my departure was that I went from a “maker” to a person stuck in meetings every day.
Arduino Blog
It’s silver, it’s green, it’s the Batteryrunner! An Arduino-powered, fully custom electric car
Inventor Charly Bosch and his daughter Leonie have crafted something truly remarkable: a fully...
a month ago
Inventor Charly Bosch and his daughter Leonie have crafted something truly remarkable: a fully electric, Arduino-powered car that’s as innovative as it is sustainable. Called the Batteryrunner, this vehicle is designed with a focus on environmental impact, simplicity, and custom...
Louwrentius
My solar-powered blog is now on Lithium Iron Phosphate
In my last blog post I discussed how a small solar project - to power this blog on a Raspberry Pi -...
a year ago
In my last blog post I discussed how a small solar project - to power this blog on a Raspberry Pi - escalated into a full-blown off-grid solar setup, large enough to power the computer I use at the moment to write this update1. In this update, I want to discuss my battery...
Arduino Blog
Discover the new Arduino UNO SPE Shield: the quick and easy way to advanced connectivity
Arduino and Microchip are excited to open electronica – the “world’s leading trade fair and...
a month ago
Arduino and Microchip are excited to open electronica – the “world’s leading trade fair and conference for electronics” – by introducing the Arduino UNO SPE Shield, a powerful ally to bring advanced connectivity to new and existing projects, with Single-Pair Ethernet (SPE) and...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What I would love to see in a wallet
a month ago
Home on Erik...
The mathematical principles of management
I've read about 100 management books by now but if there's something that always bothered me it's...
over a year ago
I've read about 100 management books by now but if there's something that always bothered me it's the lack of first principles thinking. Basically it's a ton of heuristics. And heuristics are great, but when you present heuristics as true objectives, it kind of clouds the...
Home on Erik...
The power of ensembles
From my presentation at MLConf, one of the points I think is worth stressing again is how extremely...
over a year ago
From my presentation at MLConf, one of the points I think is worth stressing again is how extremely well combining different algorithms works.
In this case, we're training machine learning algorithms on different data sets (playlists, play counts, sessions) and different...
Jonas Hietala
Exploring the Gleam FFI
My brain is a curious thing.
I’m on a business trip right now and I’ve set aside time to finish some...
11 months ago
My brain is a curious thing.
I’m on a business trip right now and I’ve set aside time to finish some important todos I want and need to get done.
But instead of focusing on them, I started playing around with Gleam—a young and interesting programming language.
My (current)...
Willem's Blog
Tips for Long-Distance Cycling
Embark on your own long-distance cycling adventure by learning from my post-COVID...
a year ago
Embark on your own long-distance cycling adventure by learning from my post-COVID Fietselfstedentocht experience, packed with invaluable tips and tricks.
Birchtree
Grading my 2024 Apple predictions
First off, merry Christmas!
I closed out last year with a series of posts reviewing Apple’s main...
a week ago
First off, merry Christmas!
I closed out last year with a series of posts reviewing Apple’s main product lines, iPhones, iPads, Macs, Watches, and the soon-to-be-released Vision Pro. I’ll be doing that again over the last few days of the year, but in the interest of
Neil Madden
Towards a standard for bearer token URLs
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include...
over a year ago
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include credentials in a URL?, I raised the possibility of standardising a new URL scheme that safely allows encoding a bearer token into a URL. This makes it more convenient to use lots of...
Jonas Hietala
Hearthstone on Wine
I like Hearthstone and recently the next expansion Goblins vs Gnomes so I wanted to install and play...
over a year ago
I like Hearthstone and recently the next expansion Goblins vs Gnomes so I wanted to install and play it. It didn’t work in vanilla wine, with a “time out error”, but I found a bug report which makes it work. Here’s a short summary:
Get wine source from git. My version was...
Neil Madden
API Security in Action handed over to production
After a flurry of last-minute corrections and updates in response to review feedback, my book has...
over a year ago
After a flurry of last-minute corrections and updates in response to review feedback, my book has now been handed over to Manning’s production team. That means a few weeks of copy editing and graphics polish, then indexing and typesetting to produce the final version around...
Ian's Blog
Having a Website Used to Be Fun
According to the Wayback Machine, I launched my website over a decade ago, in 2013. Just that...
2 months ago
According to the Wayback Machine, I launched my website over a decade ago, in 2013. Just that thought alone makes me feel old, but going back through the old snapshots of my websites made me feel a profound feeling of longing for a time when having a website used to be a novel...
Posts on Made of...
Finding near-duplicates with Jaccard similarity and MinHash
Suppose we have a large collection of documents, and we wish you identify which documents are...
6 months ago
Suppose we have a large collection of documents, and we wish you identify which documents are approximately the same as each other. For instance, we may have crawled the web over some period of time, and expect to have fetched the “same page” several times, but to see slight...
computers are bad
2023-09-03 plastic money
You will sometimes hear someone say, in a loose conceptual sense, that credit
cards have money in...
a year ago
You will sometimes hear someone say, in a loose conceptual sense, that credit
cards have money in them. Of course we know that that isn't the case; our
modern plastic card payment network relies on online transactions where the
balance tracking and authorization decisions happen...
Applied Cartography
Projects are things with steps
Lots of kind words poured in as a response to My approach to GTD and PKM, and one question was asked...
2 months ago
Lots of kind words poured in as a response to My approach to GTD and PKM, and one question was asked so frequently that I decided to write about it.
Why is “Get mom a birthday present” a project and not a task?
GTD is very orthodox in what a “project” is: it’s anything that:
you...
Jonas Hietala
Establishing Habits with Habitica
I have used Habitica the last 18 months to organize my habits and things I want to get done. I...
over a year ago
I have used Habitica the last 18 months to organize my habits and things I want to get done. I believe it all started with an amazing book called The Power of Habit which describes the amazing benefits habits can give, both in the context of your own life but also in business....
axio.ms
Classical virtualisation rules applied to RISC-style atomics
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable...
over a year ago
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures”, giving a set of characteristics for correct full-machine virtualisation.
Today, these characteristics remain very useful. Computer architects will...
Home on Erik...
ML+Hadoop at NYC Predictive Analytics
I was just at the NYC Predictive Analytics meetup talking about how we build machine learning...
over a year ago
I was just at the NYC Predictive Analytics meetup talking about how we build machine learning algorithms using Hadoop to power music recommendations.
Great meetup, where we had two speakers, me and Blake Shaw from Foursquare.
Arduino Blog
This belt grinder uses an Arduino Opta micro PLC
A mainstay in most machine shops, the belt grinder assists in greatly increasing the speed at which...
3 months ago
A mainstay in most machine shops, the belt grinder assists in greatly increasing the speed at which parts can be ground down in a safer, more controlled manner compared to an angle grinder. As an effort to build a tool like this one for the first time, Julien Alexandre chose to...
Louwrentius
Ubuntu and full disk encryption (FDE)
Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux. As part of a regular Debian installation, you
can choose to create...
over a year ago
Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux. As part of a regular Debian installation, you
can choose to create an encrypted disk volume based on LUKS. This is different
from the option within the Ubuntu installation to encrypt home directories. To
be able to install Ubuntu and use full disk...
Good Enough
TIL: Managing Raspberry Pi software with a bit less pain
For the printer project I'm working on, most of the software behind it runs "in the cloud", but...
a year ago
For the printer project I'm working on, most of the software behind it runs "in the cloud", but there's some software that needs to run beside each printer, to check for new things to print and manage the process of downloading and sending those things to the printer component...
Louwrentius
Migration from blogger to blogofile and disqus is complete
As stated in my previous post, I migrated all posts from blogger.com to my own host running...
over a year ago
As stated in my previous post, I migrated all posts from blogger.com to my own host running blogofile.
At the time of my previous post, I was not able to restore all comments made on my old blog. Thanks to some help
from disqcus I fixed an error on my behalf and all old comments...
./techtipsy
Tech tip: eliminate HDD humming noise
Anyone that has bought themselves external WD drives from the Elements/My Book/Easystore series are...
over a year ago
Anyone that has bought themselves external WD drives from the Elements/My Book/Easystore series are probably familiar
with the acoustic characteristics of the drives. The drives have a loud hum caused
by WD running the drives at 7200rpm while claiming the drives to be...
latest projects -...
Analemmagraph
[Concept] Video of a day, one year in every frame
a year ago
[Concept] Video of a day, one year in every frame
Louwrentius
How to compile HAProxy from source and setup a basic configuration
To learn more about HAProxy I decided to compile it from source and use it to load-balance traffic...
over a year ago
To learn more about HAProxy I decided to compile it from source and use it to load-balance traffic to louwrentius.com across two different web servers.
I run HAProxy on a VPS based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Let's dive right in.
First, we need to download the source. Don't copy/pased...
Opsbros
Volumer
I've always wanted a good USB volume control, so I decided to design one.
over a year ago
I've always wanted a good USB volume control, so I decided to design one.
Home on Erik...
Music recommendations using cover images (part 1)
Scrolling through the Discover page on Spotify the other day it occurred to me that the album is in...
over a year ago
Scrolling through the Discover page on Spotify the other day it occurred to me that the album is in fact a fairly strong visual proxy for what kind of content you can expect from it. I started wondering if the album cover can in fact be used for recommendations.
Good Enough
Cool Songs Don’t Die
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing...
a year ago
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing 22 years ago and ran for 5 seasons and was a pretty big hit and launched the careers of two bonafide movie stars and featured a cast of very well known supporting actors. So yeah,...
Willem's Blog
Commuter bike checkup
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to...
over a year ago
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to have a look at the bike after 21.000KM!
Simply Explained
How WebP Images Reduced My Bandwidth Usage by 50%
Last year I migrated this website from Jekyll to Eleventy. This year, I’m finally implementing WebP...
over a year ago
Last year I migrated this website from Jekyll to Eleventy. This year, I’m finally implementing WebP images to save bandwidth and make this site even faster to load! This simple change reduced my bandwidth usage by 50% and is still backwards compatible with old devices and...
Home on Erik...
Benchmarking nearest neighbor libraries in Python
Radim Rehurek has put together an excellent summary of approximate nearest neighbor libraries in...
over a year ago
Radim Rehurek has put together an excellent summary of approximate nearest neighbor libraries in Python. This is exciting, because one of the libraries he's covering, annoy, was built by me.
After introducing the problem, he goes through the list of contestants and sticks with...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Talking to ChatGPT costs 5ml of water, not 500ml
There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50...
2 months ago
There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50 responses. Here are some randomly-chosen…
Arduino Blog
Adding proximity unlock to an old car with the Arduino Nano 33 BLE
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically...
5 months ago
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically unlocks the doors when the driver approaches while carrying their key fob. When paired with a push-to-start ignition switch, the driver never has to take their keys out of their pocket....
Jonas Hietala
The End of the Tunnel
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from...
over a year ago
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from the last time.
One course about data structure and algorithms (super fun to be honest) has wrapped up. We thought we were ahead with the assignments but in the end it got very...
Yazin Alirhayim
How do you know that an API does what it says it does?
Having been in fintech for a while, I’ve noticed something in common between the many new startups...
over a year ago
Having been in fintech for a while, I’ve noticed something in common between the many new startups that come and go. They all require access to personal information.
A specific example that comes to mind is the Plaid-like solution we developed while working on amal. We’d ask...
GitButler
Fearless Rebasing
GitButler now supports first class conflicts, which makes rebasing much less annoying. What is...
2 months ago
GitButler now supports first class conflicts, which makes rebasing much less annoying. What is "fearless rebasing"?
Willem's Blog
Why Apple Silicon is a big deal
Never have I been so blown away as by the new MacBook Air with M1 processor. It is a big deal.
over a year ago
Never have I been so blown away as by the new MacBook Air with M1 processor. It is a big deal.
Notes on software...
In response to a frontend developer asking about database development
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
./techtipsy
Running on fumes
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with...
over a year ago
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with this fun little bug:
0GB ought to be enough for anybody.
Notes on software...
First few hurdles writing a Scheme interpreter
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after...
over a year ago
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after my coworker built bshift, a
compiler for a C-like language. BSDScheme is an interpreter for a
(currently small subset of) Scheme written in D. It implements a few
substantial...
Neil Madden
Some incomplete thoughts about Gödel
I saw another article on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems linked from Reddit today. It’s a topic I’ve...
over a year ago
I saw another article on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems linked from Reddit today. It’s a topic I’ve wanted to write about for some time. Although many articles do a decent job in giving an idea of what the big deal is (and this one is pretty good), they can sometimes give a...
Posts on Made of...
A Very Subtle Bug
6.033, MIT’s class on computer systems, has as one of its catchphrases, “Complex systems fail for...
over a year ago
6.033, MIT’s class on computer systems, has as one of its catchphrases, “Complex systems fail for complex reasons”. As a class about designing and building complex systems, it’s a reminder that failure modes are subtle and often involve strange interactions between multiple parts...
./techtipsy
My very first Dungeons and Dragons campaign
In December 2024, I did something that I had never done before: I participated in a short (~6 hours)...
7 hours ago
In December 2024, I did something that I had never done before: I participated in a short (~6 hours) Dungeons and
Dragons campaign.
It was the nerdiest thing ever, and I loved it!
The setting
After another day of keeping a critical production service up, the whole team met up at...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates November 4: Free newsletter to RSS tool
2 months ago
Notes on software...
How to recommend books, or, stop recommending SICP
Many "must-read" books are not well-written. I try to read a
lot, but I
still have a low tolerance...
over a year ago
Many "must-read" books are not well-written. I try to read a
lot, but I
still have a low tolerance for bad writing and bad editing. I write
this post both to discourage thoughtless recommendations and to
encourage the receivers of bad recommendations.
For software developers,...
Louwrentius
Release of PPSS - the Parallel Processing Shell Script
PPSS is a shell script that processess files or other items in parallel. It is
designed to make use...
over a year ago
PPSS is a shell script that processess files or other items in parallel. It is
designed to make use of the current multi-core CPUs. It will detect the number
of available CPUs and start a thread for each CPU core.
This script is build with the goal to be very easy to use. Also,...
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Sat-E
This is my postmortem for my Ludum Dare 22 entry, Sat-E. You can find the timelapse over here.
The...
over a year ago
This is my postmortem for my Ludum Dare 22 entry, Sat-E. You can find the timelapse over here.
The Good
Motivation
I was really motivated for this dare and it showed in the game and outside it. It’s super hard to make a game in only 48 hours but this time it went pretty well. My...
./techtipsy
Oversimplified guide into snapshots on the btrfs filesystem
Friday afternoon. You’re trying out a script that you wrote to mass-rename and
move some files...
over a year ago
Friday afternoon. You’re trying out a script that you wrote to mass-rename and
move some files around. You finish the script and test it out.
Oops.
All the files now have all the wrong names, and some have been randomly moved
10 folders deep. It’s a mess.
And you didn’t make a...
Home on Erik...
Optimizing for iteration speed
I've written before about the importance of iterating quickly but I didn't necessarily talk about...
over a year ago
I've written before about the importance of iterating quickly but I didn't necessarily talk about some concrete things you can do. When I've built up the tech team at Better, I've intentionally optimized for fast iteration speed above almost everything else.
Applied Cartography
Notes from May
Lots of writing this month:
Why you should use Rails
A reminder that things take time
How...
7 months ago
Lots of writing this month:
Why you should use Rails
A reminder that things take time
How shadcn/ui's previews work
Why I hate that 1.01% meme
A lovely term, 'grace note'
Au revoir, invoke!
A quick check-in on 11ty
A rant/snippet for auth.js
The first edition of what will be a...
Louwrentius
Debian Lenny and Dell S300 H200 and H700 RAID controllers
update november 2010: it is reported in the comments that the next release
will support these...
over a year ago
update november 2010: it is reported in the comments that the next release
will support these controllers. However, which controllers are supported is
not clear. Also, we may have to wait for quite some time before squeeze will
be released.
Just a quick note: it seems that the...
Good Enough
Actual Customer Support Is Remarkable
What a sad thing to write.
We believe in good software around here.
There is a lot of poorly built...
a year ago
What a sad thing to write.
We believe in good software around here.
There is a lot of poorly built software on the Internet and in the app stores.
Our motivation with Good Enough is to try to put together a few products that feel just right to the folks using them.
The things we...
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