Neil Madden
CVE-2022-21449: Psychic Signatures in Java
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to...
over a year ago
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to get out of trouble by showing an identity card which is actually completely blank. Of course, this being Doctor Who, the card is really made out of a special “psychic paper“, which...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 95
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
a year ago
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
Louwrentius
Finding a good blu-ray player for Mac OS X
I find playing a Blu-ray movie on my Mac cumbersome. I've been using Plex, XBMC and VLC but these...
over a year ago
I find playing a Blu-ray movie on my Mac cumbersome. I've been using Plex, XBMC and VLC but these free open-source products are all a usability nightmare.
To play a Blu-ray movie, you have to perform these steps:
right-click on the BDMV file
choose 'show packet contents'
go to...
Jonas Hietala
2011 in Review
It’s time to wrap up the year that’s been. Be warned for slight ego boosting here.
2011 Geek...
over a year ago
It’s time to wrap up the year that’s been. Be warned for slight ego boosting here.
2011 Geek Achievements
Wrote three games this year:
My Minions
Grand Thief Arto
Sat-E
Bought a new computer!
Bought a mechanical keyboard.
Bought custom Starcraft 2 keycaps for the...
computers are bad
2023-11-25 the curse of docker
I'm heading to Las Vegas for re:invent soon, perhaps the most boring type of
industry extravaganza...
a year ago
I'm heading to Las Vegas for re:invent soon, perhaps the most boring type of
industry extravaganza there could be. In that spirit, I thought I would write
something quick and oddly professional: I'm going to complain about Docker.
Packaging software is one of those fundamental...
Ian's Blog
Hardware-Accelerated Video Encoding with Intel Arc on Redhat Linux
I've been wanting hardware-accelerated video encoding on my Linux machine for quite a while now, but...
a month ago
I've been wanting hardware-accelerated video encoding on my Linux machine for quite a while now, but ask anybody who's used a Linux machine and they'll tell you of the horrors of Nvidia or AMD drivers.
Intel, on the other hand, seems to be taking things in a much different, much...
computers are bad
2024-09-26 the GE switched services network
We currently find ourselves in something of a series, working our way from
private lines to...
2 months ago
We currently find ourselves in something of a series, working our way from
private lines to large
private line systems like the four-wire private-line national warning
system.
Let's continue to build on the concept of the private line into large
corporate systems.
In principle, a...
./techtipsy
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G: first impressions on Fedora 34
Introduction
I’ve covered my self-hosting setup in a previous post. It has been a couple of
months...
over a year ago
Introduction
I’ve covered my self-hosting setup in a previous post. It has been a couple of
months and the setup has mostly been fine. Sure, the power usage was pretty big under load, and yes, my internet did cut
out every time I turned the VM on with all the services starting,...
Notes on software...
A single-node Kubernetes cluster without virtualization or a container registry
This post is a recipe for setting up a minimal Kubernetes cluster on
Fedora without requiring...
over a year ago
This post is a recipe for setting up a minimal Kubernetes cluster on
Fedora without requiring virtualization or a container registry. These
two features make the system cloud-agnostic and the cluster entirely
self-contained. The post will end with us running a simple Flask...
Home on Erik...
Norvig's claim that programming competitions correlate negatively with being good on the job
I saw a bunch of tweets over the weekend about Peter Norvig claiming there's a negative correlation...
over a year ago
I saw a bunch of tweets over the weekend about Peter Norvig claiming there's a negative correlation between being good at programming competitions and being good at the job. There were some decent Hacker News comments on it.
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....
Avestura's Blog
What is the type of Type?
Should type of `Type` be also `Type`? Or is there an alternative?
over a year ago
Should type of `Type` be also `Type`? Or is there an alternative?
Engineers Need Art
Move Fast and Abandon Things
For every shareware game I released in the 1990's, another four were partially written but put aside...
3 months ago
For every shareware game I released in the 1990's, another four were partially written but put aside and abandoned.
Jonas Hietala
Beginning Programming
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree...
over a year ago
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree more with. Basically he has these points:
Too long
Too many examples like “Hello World!”
No answers to exercises.
Nr 1 is a pretty curious one. Even though I think a book is good,...
Posts on Made of...
autocutsel
As most of you probably know, X has several different mechanisms for copy-paste, used by different...
over a year ago
As most of you probably know, X has several different mechanisms for copy-paste, used by different applications in different ways. I know some people who use them deliberately, juggling two pieces of text in different clipboards at once, but for me, it’s always just been...
Arduino Blog
Assess your aquarium’s health with an AI-enabled ultrasonic sensor
Below the surface of any body of water, harmful amounts of toxic gases and contaminates can...
7 months ago
Below the surface of any body of water, harmful amounts of toxic gases and contaminates can accumulate, which leads to a loss in fish and plant populations if not fixed quickly. But because most water testing, especially in aquariums, is done primarily on the surface, vital...
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...
Home on Erik...
Fermat's principle
I was browsing around on the Internet and the physics geek in me started reading about Fermat's...
over a year ago
I was browsing around on the Internet and the physics geek in me started reading about Fermat's principle. And suddenly something came back to me that I've been trying to suppress for many years – how I never understood why there's anything fundamental about the principal of...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates December 15: Rebranding to Lighthouse and complete redesign
a year ago
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 1: The Loneliest Number
1. Confirmed Positive
After two years of running from reality, it has finally happened for my...
over a year ago
1. Confirmed Positive
After two years of running from reality, it has finally happened for my family. I have tested positive for SARS Coronavirus-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. For this honor, I would like to thank our society’s collective tiring of virus mitigation. It truly...
./techtipsy
Anything's a portable speaker if you're brave enough
I hate buying things that are single-purpose, which is why I ended up with this
setup.
Take a...
a year ago
I hate buying things that are single-purpose, which is why I ended up with this
setup.
Take a speaker, a battery, put them together, and what you now have is a
portable speaker. Since I had access to both, I felt no need to buy a separate
portable speaker for use in social...
Arduino Blog
Making a car more secure with the Arduino Nicla Vision
Shortly after attending a recent tinyML workshop in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Joao Vitor Freitas da Costa...
4 months ago
Shortly after attending a recent tinyML workshop in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Joao Vitor Freitas da Costa was looking for a way to incorporate some of the technologies and techniques he learned into a useful project. Given that he lives in an area which experiences elevated levels of...
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...
Arduino Blog
Arduino Cloud is now natively supported on tablets
We’re excited to announce the release of IoT Remote v3.0.0, featuring a native tablet version...
7 months ago
We’re excited to announce the release of IoT Remote v3.0.0, featuring a native tablet version (available for both Android and iOS platforms) optimized for unlocking the full potential of larger screen sizes. What is the Arduino IoT Remote app? The Arduino IoT Remote app allows...
Arduino Blog
Enjoy a perpetual solar eclipse with this machine
Total solar eclipses are rare — at least from the perspective of any specific point on the planet. A...
5 months ago
Total solar eclipses are rare — at least from the perspective of any specific point on the planet. A total eclipse will occur somewhere on Earth once every 18 months or so, but that is more likely to track across the middle of the Pacific Ocean than wherever you happen to be....
Vitalik Buterin's...
Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election
over a year ago
Louwrentius
Migrated this blog from blogger.com to blogofile
Until now, I was hosting my blog on Google's blogger. I switched to using Blogofile. I wanted to...
over a year ago
Until now, I was hosting my blog on Google's blogger. I switched to using Blogofile. I wanted to have more control over my content and the layout.
I had many issues with the blogger blog post editor, resulting in ugly posts with too much white space, strange fonts and fonts...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Wealth distribution in the United States
Forbes recently published the Forbes 400 List for 2024, listing the
400 richest people in the United...
2 months ago
Forbes recently published the Forbes 400 List for 2024, listing the
400 richest people in the United States.
This inspired me to
make a histogram to show the distribution of wealth in the United States.
It turns out that if you put Elon Musk on the graph,
almost the entire US...
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...
Christian Selig
Table of Contents Selector View
I wrote a new little view for a future version of Apollo that makes some changes to the default iOS...
over a year ago
I wrote a new little view for a future version of Apollo that makes some changes to the default iOS version (that seems to be a weird trend in my recent programming, despite me loving built-in components). Here’s some details about it! It’s also available as a library on GitHub...
Matt Mullenweg
GPL Clarification
A quick followup on my prior conversation with Theo. During that chat, I talked briefly about a...
a month ago
A quick followup on my prior conversation with Theo. During that chat, I talked briefly about a trademark infringer that was also distributing nulled plugins. I said “Not illegal. Legal under the GPL. But they weren’t changing the names. They were selling their customers Pro...
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...
Posts on Made of...
Three kinds of memory leaks
So, you’ve got a program that’s using more and more over time as it runs. Probably you can...
over a year ago
So, you’ve got a program that’s using more and more over time as it runs. Probably you can immediately identify this as a likely symptom of a memory leak.
But when we say “memory leak”, what do we actually mean? In my experience, apparent memory leaks divide into three broad...
Posts on Made of...
Navigating the Linux Kernel
In response to my query last time, ezyang asked for any tips or tricks I have for finding my way...
over a year ago
In response to my query last time, ezyang asked for any tips or tricks I have for finding my way around the Linux kernel. I’m not sure I have much in the way of systematic advice for tracking down the answers to questions about the Linux kernel, but thinking about what I do when...
Jonas Hietala
2017 in Review
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got...
over a year ago
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got a child in October! It really alters your perspectives and other things suddenly feel a little less important and of course there’s less time to do other stuff.
A little late and...
Arduino Blog
Circuit Canvas can help you quickly create illustrated wiring diagrams
Good documentation is extremely useful when conceiving, building, or sharing electronic circuit...
5 months ago
Good documentation is extremely useful when conceiving, building, or sharing electronic circuit designs, but traditional schematics and technical drawings are difficult for non-professionals to interpret and create. Makers can benefit from intuitive illustrations that look good...
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....
Applied Cartography
Applied Cartography × People & Blogs
There are few pleasures greater than getting to be profiled for an interview series that you've been...
2 months ago
There are few pleasures greater than getting to be profiled for an interview series that you've been reading for months, and last week I got to do exactly that.
To browse Manu's site — not just this interview series — feels a bit like walking on a quiet beach in autumn: there's a...
Louwrentius
Howto get the hard disk size under Linux?
A: There is no single tool for this job, but it seems that Fdisk is just fine:
server:~# fdisk -l 2>...
over a year ago
A: There is no single tool for this job, but it seems that Fdisk is just fine:
server:~# fdisk -l 2> /dev/null | grep Disk | grep -v identifier
Disk /dev/sda: 500.0 GB, 500028145664 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.0 GB, 500028145664 bytes
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.1 GB, 1000123400192...
axio.ms
Colourclock
Original concept circa 2008, revisited 2012, hardware designed Feb 2014, firmware designed...
over a year ago
Original concept circa 2008, revisited 2012, hardware designed Feb 2014, firmware designed April-August 2014, project completed August 2014, installed in spare room in 2016, written up in March 2018 (jeeez…)
Acrylic, LEDs, ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller.
...
Construction Physics
Why the U.S. Can’t Build Icebreaking Ships
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post,...
2 months ago
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post, especially those who shared their own stories of loss.
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:...
Engineers Need Art
Soft Dorothy Software — Shareware Projects
Wherein I attempt to recover and restore old shareware code and program again like it's 1989.
3 months ago
Wherein I attempt to recover and restore old shareware code and program again like it's 1989.
Style over Substance
Using the EZCOO / AVStar HAE118 HDMI2.1 Audio Extractor for PS5/Xbox audio
Back in 2021, we bought a PlayStation 5 (PS5) as our main living room console. Making the most out...
a year ago
Back in 2021, we bought a PlayStation 5 (PS5) as our main living room console. Making the most out of this console meant we also had to buy a new TV, as our old TV was not 4K-compatible and did not support HDMI2.1, the new A/V standard required to support all of the PS5’s...
Construction Physics
Will the China Cycle Come for Airbus and Boeing?
Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in...
2 months ago
Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in Chinese manufacturing as the “China Cycle”:
csvbase blog
Parquet: more than just "Turbo CSV"
Quicker, but also more convenient
a year ago
Quicker, but also more convenient
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.
Willem's Blog
Updating Snake '97
This month I bit the bullet big time: I redesigned the game engine of the wildly popular Snake '97...
over a year ago
This month I bit the bullet big time: I redesigned the game engine of the wildly popular Snake '97 game. Read about the design challenges in this blog post.
Arduino Blog
An Arduino-powered robotic ukulele that plays itself
The ukulele has a bit of a reputation for being quaint, but it is a legitimate instrument like any...
4 months ago
The ukulele has a bit of a reputation for being quaint, but it is a legitimate instrument like any other and that means it takes a lot of practice to play competently. Zeroshot is too busy building cool stuff to bother with all of that, so he put his skills to use constructing...
Posts on Made of...
reptyr: Changing a process's controlling terminal
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal,...
over a year ago
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal, and transplants it to a new terminal. reptyr comes from a proud family of similar hacks, and works in the same basic way: We use ptrace(2) to attach to a target process and force...
Jonas Hietala
Bullets and AI
The game is still far from being an actual game but some progress has been made. I fixed most of the...
over a year ago
The game is still far from being an actual game but some progress has been made. I fixed most of the collision detection problems and I’m now trying to make some sort of AI working for the ship. It’s a bit hard and time consuming and I don’t know how to make things good.
Maybe...
Willem's Blog
Something the smartwatch will never have: patina
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
over a year ago
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
Push to Prod
Making an AB Test Allocator 20x Faster Using Non-blocking IO
Many moons ago, I inherited a cross-company AB test and had to figure out how to allocate it...
a month ago
Many moons ago, I inherited a cross-company AB test and had to figure out how to allocate it effectively.
Posts on Made of...
Some opinionated thoughts on SQL databases
People who work with me tend to realize that I have Opinions about databases, and SQL databases in...
over a year ago
People who work with me tend to realize that I have Opinions about databases, and SQL databases in particular. Last week, I wrote about a Postgres debugging story and tweeted about AWS’ policy ban on internal use of SQL databases, and had occasion to discuss and debate some of...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Quadratic Arithmetic Programs: from Zero to Hero
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
2012 in Review
Like the last two years I’m summarizing the year. At the end of the year like this it always feel...
over a year ago
Like the last two years I’m summarizing the year. At the end of the year like this it always feel like I didn’t accomplish much, but after the yearly summary it always feels better.
2012 Geek Achievements
Designed a processor which fulfills the Core Wars 88 standard. Includes a...
Arduino Blog
Easy and fun block-based coding with the Alvik robot is here, now Chromebook compatible!
At Arduino, we believe coding should be accessible to everyone – including the youngest learners....
a month ago
At Arduino, we believe coding should be accessible to everyone – including the youngest learners. With this in mind, we’re thrilled to announce that the Arduino Alvik robot now officially supports block-based coding! Coding has never been easier thanks to Alvik’s seamless...
computers are bad
2023-03-24 docker
Lately I tend to stick to topics that are historic by at least twenty years,
and that does have a...
a year ago
Lately I tend to stick to topics that are historic by at least twenty years,
and that does have a lot of advantages. But I am supposedly a DevOps
professional, and so I will occasionally indulge in giving DevOps advice... or
at least opinions, which are sort of like advice but...
Louwrentius
Debian Lenny and Dell R410 network card not supported
For those who are running Debian Lenny and want to order the new Dell R410
server, beware!
There is...
over a year ago
For those who are running Debian Lenny and want to order the new Dell R410
server, beware!
There is no safe solution to get Debian Lenny working with the on-board
Broadcom network cards. A fairly recent kernel is required. Basically, you
will have to install back-ported kernels,...
Engineers Need Art
Virtual Pinhead
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual...
8 months ago
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual pinball cabinet.
Good Enough
Having Trouble Getting Started? Pair Up!
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on...
a year ago
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by a net external force.
Sir Isaac Newton
I often find that just getting started is the hardest part of doing something. This is especially true when the project is large or...
Louwrentius
Laptop or netbook as router?
If you want a router for distribution of internet to your computers at home,
there are several...
over a year ago
If you want a router for distribution of internet to your computers at home,
there are several options.
buy some embedded device from Linksys, Draytek, Asus, 3com, ZyXtel or
netgear
This type of hardware is cheap, economical, and gets you up and running in a
few minutes. The...
Home on Erik...
Top posts
These are some blog posts which have gotten a disproportionate amount of traffic (10,000+ page...
over a year ago
These are some blog posts which have gotten a disproportionate amount of traffic (10,000+ page views):
2024 It's hard to write code for computers, but it's even harder to write code for humans 2023 Simple sabotage for software 2022 We are still early with the cloud: why...
Arduino Blog
7 powerful ways to integrate Collaborative Coding into education with the Arduino Cloud
Collaborative coding in education can be a game-changer for students, providing them with real-world...
2 months ago
Collaborative coding in education can be a game-changer for students, providing them with real-world skills in communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. With the new collaborating coding feature of the Arduino Cloud, students can collaborate in real time on coding projects,...
Arduino Blog
What if robots could communicate with humans by emitting scents?
Almost all human-robot interaction (HRI) approaches today rely on three senses: hearing, sight, and...
5 months ago
Almost all human-robot interaction (HRI) approaches today rely on three senses: hearing, sight, and touch. Your robot vacuum might beep at you, or play recorded or synthesized speech. An LED on its enclosure might blink to red to signify a problem. And cutting-edge humanoid...
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...
a month 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...
Home on Erik...
Missing the point about microservices: it's about testing and deploying independently
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the...
over a year ago
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the term microservices. I can't put my finger on exactly why. Maybe because the term is hopelessly ill-defined, maybe because it's gotten picked up by the hype train.
./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...
Home on Erik...
Ping the world
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some...
over a year ago
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some notes:
What's going on with Sweden? Too much torrenting? Ireland is likewise super slow, but not Northern Ireland Eastern Ukraine is also super slow, maybe not surprising given...
Louwrentius
Visual representation of hard drives and their temperature
If you build a NAS with many drives, it may be of interest to you which
drives get hot and where...
over a year ago
If you build a NAS with many drives, it may be of interest to you which
drives get hot and where they are located in the chassis. My Norco 4020 case
has twenty drives in RAID 6, plus two operating system drives in RAID 1. I
wrote a script that shows me the temperature of each...
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.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Epochs and slots all the way down: ways to give Ethereum users faster transaction confirmation times
5 months ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Review of Gitcoin Quadratic Funding Round 3
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
iPad Pro next to my primary machine
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
over a year ago
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
Notes on software...
How I run a software book club
I've been running software book clubs almost continuously since last
summer, about 12 months ago. We...
6 months ago
I've been running software book clubs almost continuously since last
summer, about 12 months ago. We read through Designing Data-Intensive
Applications, Database
Internals,
Systems
Performance, and
we just started Understanding Software
Dynamics.
The DDIA discussions were...
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...
Willem's Blog
Solo around the Markermeer (211KM)
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read...
over a year ago
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read along for practical tips for long distance cycling.
Lighthouse Blog
How to manage content subscriptions
6 months ago
lcamtuf’s thing
RAM: the forgotten history
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working...
2 months ago
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working memory.
Arduino Blog
ardEEG is an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi shield for measuring biosignals
The secrets to most of the mind’s mysteries may still elude us, but we’ve made a tremendous amount...
7 months ago
The secrets to most of the mind’s mysteries may still elude us, but we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in reading signals produced by the brain. We may not understand exactly what is going on, but we can see the result and utilize it. And now you can start...
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...
Jonas Hietala
An intriguing new puzzle
Here’s another game made for the experimental gameplay project:
Slidoku which is a sort of mix...
over a year ago
Here’s another game made for the experimental gameplay project:
Slidoku which is a sort of mix between Rubik’s cube and sudoku. I enjoy puzzles like those and I really enjoyed this one too - it took me a while to beat it but I just love the feeling when you do. If you like...
Electronics etc…
The HP 423A and a Beginner’s Deep Dive into RF Crystal Detectors
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',...
Jonas Hietala
My MCU movie ranking
I did the MCU Movie Re-Watch again this year in preparation for Avengers: Endgame. I wasn’t a huge...
over a year ago
I did the MCU Movie Re-Watch again this year in preparation for Avengers: Endgame. I wasn’t a huge MCU fan before doing the same re-watch for Infinity War, but after that I became one.
For fun I tried to rank the movies as I saw them, this is some sort of accounting my rankings...
Applied Cartography
You gotta be able to taste the kool-aid
Cognition, a six-month-old startup in the AI coding space just raised $175m at a $2b...
8 months ago
Cognition, a six-month-old startup in the AI coding space just raised $175m at a $2b valuation:
Despite the skepticism surrounding Devin’s launch, the AI coding assistant has shown promising results. According to the SWE-Bench benchmark, which evaluates AI models on software...
./techtipsy
techtipsy, now hosted on k-space!
This site is now hosted on infrastructure provided by k-space, a friendly hackerspace in Tallinn,...
a year ago
This site is now hosted on infrastructure provided by k-space, a friendly hackerspace in Tallinn, Estonia.
If you’ve been reading any of my previous posts, you might be wondering why I made that move, especially since I was
quite proud of hosting my website over a residential...
Louwrentius
Cannot access Windows guest within VMware Fusion when running vsphere client
Currently, I am running VMware ESXi 4.1 on a test system. To manage ESXi, you need the VSphere...
over a year ago
Currently, I am running VMware ESXi 4.1 on a test system. To manage ESXi, you need the VSphere client, which is only available for the Windows platform. Therefore, I run VMware Fusion on my Mac to be able to access VSphere and manage my ESXi host.
The trouble is that both ESXi...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 5: motor/tachometers
The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) is an electromechanical analog computer that uses
gears...
10 months ago
The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) is an electromechanical analog computer that uses
gears and cams for its mathematics. It was a key part of military planes such as the F-101 and the F-111 fighters,
computing
airspeed, Mach number, and other "air data".
The rotating...
Applied Cartography
Typesafe routes in Vue
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would...
6 months ago
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would call it formative, but it stuck in my craw as a platonic ideal of sorts, as something I couldn't really justify adopting within Buttondown but really wanted.
I built out and...
Willem's Blog
Moving to the countryside
Join me on a journey from the bustle of Amsterdam to the tranquility of Noord-Limburg's countryside.
over a year ago
Join me on a journey from the bustle of Amsterdam to the tranquility of Noord-Limburg's countryside.
Home on Erik...
It's called Berkson's paradox!
As noted by multiple tweets, my previous post describes a phenomenon denoted Berkson's...
over a year ago
As noted by multiple tweets, my previous post describes a phenomenon denoted Berkson's paradox.
Here's another example: Why Are Handsome Men Such Jerks?
Willem's Blog
Cyber security: 5 easy tips to protect your server against hackers
These 5 practical cyber security measures will improve the safety of server, website and data.
over a year ago
These 5 practical cyber security measures will improve the safety of server, website and data.
Posts on Made of...
Suggestion time: What should I blog about?
I haven’t been feeling very motivated to blog lately – I’ve missed the last two weeks of Iron...
over a year ago
I haven’t been feeling very motivated to blog lately – I’ve missed the last two weeks of Iron Blogger, and I’m not totally enthusiastic about any of the items on my “to blog” list.
But, I do enjoy blogging when I actually get into posts, and I’d like to keep updating this blog....
Posts on Made of...
Running Tensorflow on AWS GPUs
I’ve been spending some time learning deep learning and tensorflow recently, and as part of that...
over a year ago
I’ve been spending some time learning deep learning and tensorflow recently, and as part of that project I wanted to be able to train models using GPUs on EC2. This post contains some notes on what it took to get that working. As many people have commented, the environment setup...
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...
Jonas Hietala
Writing Home Assistant automations using Genservers in Elixir
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its...
2 months ago
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its beginner friendly and feature rich UI,
support for a ton of different devices and integrations,
and there’s a bunch of ways to create automations.
But there’s no engine for writing...
Applied Cartography
Buttondown Analytics 3.0
Working on a new analytics engine — a scant eleven months after the previous 'new analytics...
10 months ago
Working on a new analytics engine — a scant eleven months after the previous 'new analytics engine'.
Calling this 3.0 is a bit of a misnomer: most of the code, design, and plumbing from the 2023 redesign is sticking around, just in a more modular format. The goal here is to...
Arduino Blog
Explore underwater with this Arduino-controlled DIY ROV
Who doesn’t want to explore underwater? To take a journey beneath the surface of a lake or even the...
4 months ago
Who doesn’t want to explore underwater? To take a journey beneath the surface of a lake or even the ocean? But a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which is the kind of robot you’d use for such an adventure, isn’t exactly the kind of thing you’ll find on the shelf at your local...
Posts on Made of...
Indices point between elements
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a...
over a year ago
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a diagram of an array, the array indices, and the array elements, odds are good you’d produce a diagram something like this:
In this post, I want to persuade you to replace that image, or,...
watchTowr Labs -...
No Way, PHP Strikes Again! (CVE-2024-4577)
Orange Tsai tweeted a few hours ago about “One of [his] PHP vulnerabilities, which affects XAMPP by...
6 months ago
Orange Tsai tweeted a few hours ago about “One of [his] PHP vulnerabilities, which affects XAMPP by default”, and we were curious to say the least. XAMPP is a very popular way for administrators and developers to rapidly deploy Apache, PHP, and a bunch of other tools, and
Computer Ads from...
E-Z Tax
The Tax Break You've Been Looking for !
8 months ago
The Tax Break You've Been Looking for !
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...
7 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...
Push to Prod
Metrics Are The Map, Not The Territory
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have...
4 months ago
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have are incomplete signals to inform our theories.
Home on Erik...
The hardest challenge about becoming a manager
Note: this post is full of pseudo-psychology and highly speculative content. Like most fun stuff!
I...
over a year ago
Note: this post is full of pseudo-psychology and highly speculative content. Like most fun stuff!
I became a manager back in 2009. Being a developer is fun. You have this very tangible way to measure yourself.
Louwrentius
How to run Debian Linux on an Intel based Mac Mini
The Mac Mini is just a gorgeous device. It is beautiful, small, silent,
powerfull yet energy...
over a year ago
The Mac Mini is just a gorgeous device. It is beautiful, small, silent,
powerfull yet energy efficient. When idle, it uses around 20 watts. I'm using
one of the first Intel-based Minis with an Intel Core Duo chip, running at 1.6
Ghz.
I want to use this mini as an expensive router...
Opsbros
Artemis 1 Countdown
I've been following the Artemis 1 Launch Schedule quite closely on a few forums and discussing it...
over a year ago
I've been following the Artemis 1 Launch Schedule quite closely on a few forums and discussing it with serveral people, and I had been regularly posting updated DateandTime countdown links for the revised launch attempts. With the schedule chnages and scrubs that have happened...
Jonas Hietala
Why Cryptocurrencies? is now available in print
Today is a big milestone for me, as this marks a big milestone in the biggest personal project I’ve...
over a year ago
Today is a big milestone for me, as this marks a big milestone in the biggest personal project I’ve undertaken.
My book ‘Why Cryptocurrencies?’ is released in print today! It’s my attempt to explain what cryptocurrencies are and what problems they solve, in a simple and...
computers are bad
2024-03-09 the purple streetscape
Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.
Purple streetlights...
9 months ago
Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.
Purple streetlights have been reported in Tampa, Vancouver, Wichita, Boston.
They're certainly in evidence here in Albuquerque, where Coal through downtown
has turned almost entirely to mood lighting....
./techtipsy
I tried out the CyberPower UT650EG UPS
After some spicy feedback to my post where a ThinkPad T430 acted as a server,
I decided to try out...
over a year ago
After some spicy feedback to my post where a ThinkPad T430 acted as a server,
I decided to try out one UPS that was recommended on the basis of it being much
more power efficient compared to the APC UPS that I previously ran.
That UPS? CyberPower UT650EG.
Why switch out a...
Arduino Blog
This smart spice box makes cooking a breeze
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and...
6 months ago
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and ingredients. Recipes are useful, but they aren’t very intuitive to those who are more comfortable with visual thinking. To help these people enjoy the cooking experience, Purdue...
Louwrentius
Tracking down a faulty Storage Array Controller with ZFS
One day, I lost two virtual machines on our DR environment after a storage vMotion.
Further...
over a year ago
One day, I lost two virtual machines on our DR environment after a storage vMotion.
Further investigation uncovered that any storage vMotion of a virtual machine residing on our DR storage array would corrupt the virtual machine's disks.
I could easily restore the affected...
Louwrentius
Got myself a Norco RPC-4020
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion....
over a year ago
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion. The current 6 TB RAID 6 storage server does not have any
room for expantion.
This Norco RPC-4020 case with 20 hot swap drive bays does however. Don't know
what to fill it with yet.
Willem's Blog
Around town in an electric car
For one week I drove the electric Smart EQ fortwo in and around town. I found out what it's like to...
over a year ago
For one week I drove the electric Smart EQ fortwo in and around town. I found out what it's like to drive electrically: fun!
Vitalik Buterin's...
STARKs, Part 3: Into the Weeds
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me
over a year ago
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
Applied Cartography
Linear
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes...
5 days ago
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes I wanted to publish on our own experience of migrating from GitHub Issues to Linear, and some reflections on it as a product now that we've been using it for a few months.
One...
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
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,...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 1: The Merge
2 months ago
Louwrentius
Wake On Lan not working with realtek r8168 card
After messing around with different kernels on Debian Lenny, I noticed that my
system did no longer...
over a year ago
After messing around with different kernels on Debian Lenny, I noticed that my
system did no longer respond to WOL packets. The system is using an on-board
Realtek R8168 chip which supports wake on lan.
After searching and reading i found the problem. The system is using an...
Jonas Hietala
Balls
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god...
over a year ago
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god I’ll be making another tetris clone but the end result turned out a bit different. I’m not sure it’s very addictive but it’s actually okay! =D
Balls is a game about… balls. Well...
Applied Cartography
Migrating someone who's on Stripe Connect Express
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author...
11 months ago
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author has full agency over their account and is the merchant of record;
they can revoke OAuth access from Substack (or whomever) at any time;
Substack continues to take that 10% as an...
Louwrentius
Improving web application security by implementing database security
Security is about defense-in-depth. It bogles my mind why it is so difficult to implement...
over a year ago
Security is about defense-in-depth. It bogles my mind why it is so difficult to implement defense-in-depth security in web applications. 99.9% of applications use a single database account, with root-like privileges. Easiest for the developer of course, and the database is just a...
Construction Physics
Energy Cheat Sheet
Building an intuition about energy
2 days ago
Building an intuition about energy
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...
Finishing up a FreeBSD experiment
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and...
over a year ago
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and I've learned a hell of a
lot forcing myself on CURRENT... But there's been a number of issues
with it that have made it difficult to keep using, so I replaced it
with Arch Linux...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 6: The Splurge
a month ago
Good Enough
TIL: Turbo Stream and personalised content
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages...
a year ago
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages without requiring the browser to reload the whole page.
But if the information you want to stream back from your server to the client has anything specific to the current user — like...
Arduino Blog
UNO Rev3 or UNO R4? Choosing the perfect Arduino for your project
The Arduino UNO is legendary among makers, and with the release of the UNO R4 in 2023, the family...
4 days ago
The Arduino UNO is legendary among makers, and with the release of the UNO R4 in 2023, the family gained a powerful new member. But with two incredible options, which UNO should you pick for your project? Here’s a breakdown of what makes each board shine, depending on your needs,...
Willem's Blog
Helping people with free software
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
over a year ago
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
Push to Prod
One Key Aspect of Optimizing Computational Throughput
When optimizing throughput, think carefully about how many CPUs you have when adding threads or...
3 months ago
When optimizing throughput, think carefully about how many CPUs you have when adding threads or processes.
Posts on Made of...
Reader/reader blocking in reader/writer locks
Abstract In writer-priority reader/writer locks, as soon as a single writer enters the acquisition...
over a year ago
Abstract In writer-priority reader/writer locks, as soon as a single writer enters the acquisition queue, all future accesses block behind any in-flight reads. Thus, if any readers hold the lock for extended periods of time, this can lead to extreme pauses and loss of throughput...
Matt Mullenweg
Where is Lee Wittlinger?
Lee controls the board of WP Engine. The board is why WP Engine hasn’t done a trademark deal for...
2 months ago
Lee controls the board of WP Engine. The board is why WP Engine hasn’t done a trademark deal for their use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. You hide behind lawyers and corporate PR when you’re wrong, not when you’re right. I’m replying on Twitter, I’m commenting on...
Gwern.net Newsletter
April 2021 newsletter
with links on AI scaling, particular new East Asian record-breaking work & deep reinforcement...
over a year ago
with links on AI scaling, particular new East Asian record-breaking work & deep reinforcement learning.
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Note On Charity Through Marginal Price Discrimination
over a year ago
Posts on Made of...
Record/Replay testing in Sorbet
In 2017 and 2018, I (along with Paul Tarjan and Dmitry Petrashko) was a founding member of the...
over a year ago
In 2017 and 2018, I (along with Paul Tarjan and Dmitry Petrashko) was a founding member of the Sorbet project at Stripe to build a gradual static typechecking system for Ruby, with the aim of enhancing productivity on Stripe’s millions of lines of Ruby, and eventually producing a...
Louwrentius
Debian Linux Preseeding - an installation framework
Look Ma!
No hands!
just watching a system PXE-boot and install itself into a fully...
over a year ago
Look Ma!
No hands!
just watching a system PXE-boot and install itself into a fully operational
system is fun. PXE boot and preseeding is not enough however to accomplish
this.
By itself, preseeding only installs a basic operating system. Next, you need
to configure all sorts of...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 1.0
Vaporware
a year ago
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240102
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
11 months ago
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
./techtipsy
Your Wi-Fi might be terrible because of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5...
a month ago
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5 GHz one would
suddenly stop working and completely disappear from the available Wi-Fi networks. OpenWRT upgrades also didn’t improve
the situation. This was very annoying.
After...
Good Enough
Let's talk about conversations
If you subscribe to our newsletter — which you do, right? — then you'll know that recently we've...
9 months ago
If you subscribe to our newsletter — which you do, right? — then you'll know that recently we've been thinking about conversations.
We're a small group making fun software for people, and we like to have conversations with those people; the lovely folks who like our take on...
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
A 12.48 inch (1304x984) three-color e-paper display by Waveshare
Introduction
Update September 2023: A small horizontal and large vertical row of pixels died. Demo...
over a year ago
Introduction
Update September 2023: A small horizontal and large vertical row of pixels died. Demo of defective display here.
I'm running a solar-powered blog and I wanted to add a low-power display to show the daily solar 'harvest'1 and maybe some additional information.
So I...
Matt Blewitt
7 Databases in 7 Weeks for 2025
I’ve been running databases-as-a-service for a long time, and there are always new things to keep...
3 weeks ago
I’ve been running databases-as-a-service for a long time, and there are always new things to keep abreast of - new technologies, different ways of solving problems, not to mention all the research coming out of universities. In 2025, consider spending a week with each of these...
Home on Erik...
I'm looking for data engineers
I'm interrupting the regular programming for a quick announcement: we're looking for data engineers...
over a year ago
I'm interrupting the regular programming for a quick announcement: we're looking for data engineers at Better. You would be the first one to join and would work a lot directly with me.
Some fun things you could work on (these are all projects I'm working on right now):
Willem's Blog
iPad Pro as primary computer
Is the time right to use an iPad as primary development platform to get some real work done?
over a year ago
Is the time right to use an iPad as primary development platform to get some real work done?
Applied Cartography
Peak Newsletter
A handful of folks sent me this quip from Nate Silver a few days ago:
Slightly against interest to...
5 months ago
A handful of folks sent me this quip from Nate Silver a few days ago:
Slightly against interest to admit this (I don't want more competition lol) but I think we're still probably a year or two away from Peak Newsletter. It's just a really good distribution mechanism for certain...
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...
Arduino Blog
Synjets provide non-contact haptic feedback
If the COVID pandemic showed us anything, it is that our public spaces are overflowing with...
7 months ago
If the COVID pandemic showed us anything, it is that our public spaces are overflowing with opportunity for germ transmission. In 2019, most people didn’t think twice about touching a gas pump handle or an ATM touchscreen, but it quickly became apparent that such contact presents...
Arduino Blog
CapibaraZero: a student’s journey in reinventing hacking tools with Arduino
Inventive, open-source, and cost-effective – these words perfectly describe CapibaraZero, a...
3 weeks ago
Inventive, open-source, and cost-effective – these words perfectly describe CapibaraZero, a multifunctional security and hacking tool developed by young innovator Andrea Canale. Inspired by the popular Flipper Zero, a portable device used to interact with digital systems, Canale...
Matt Blewitt
So, You Want To Build A DBaaS
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a...
a year ago
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a result, you are making state and coordination your problem. Here are some things I’ve learned to keep in mind as you embark on this project, in no particular order (other than the...
Louwrentius
How to resolve extreme memory usage on Windows 2008 R2-based file servers
I'm responsible for a file server with about 5 terrabytes of data. The file server is based on...
over a year ago
I'm responsible for a file server with about 5 terrabytes of data. The file server is based on Windows 2008 R2. I've noticed extreme memory usage on the server. After a reboot, it slowly builds up until almost all RAM memory is consumed.
So I googled around and found this post...
Matt Mullenweg
Observer Article
Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly writes for the Observer, WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg Is ‘More...
a month ago
Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly writes for the Observer, WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg Is ‘More Energized’ Than Ever Amid WP Engine Battle.
Christian Selig
Introducing Juno for Apple Vision Pro
YouTube is probably one of the parts of the internet I consume the most, so I was more than a little...
10 months ago
YouTube is probably one of the parts of the internet I consume the most, so I was more than a little sad when YouTube announced that they don’t have plans to build a visionOS app, and disabled the option to load the iPad app. This leaves you with Safari, and the website is okay,...
Jonas Hietala
2014 in Review
Previous reviews: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
2014 Geek Achievements
Solved 73 UVa problems.
Won a...
over a year ago
Previous reviews: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
2014 Geek Achievements
Solved 73 UVa problems.
Won a turn in IMPA and solved a bunch of problems.
Completed a doctorand course about algorithmic problem solving.
Finished my 4 first years in University.
Became a contributor to rust and...
Posts on Made of...
Why scons is cool
I’ve recently started playing with scons a little for some small personal projects. It’s not...
over a year ago
I’ve recently started playing with scons a little for some small personal projects. It’s not perfect, but I’ve rapidly come to the conclusion that it’s a probably far better choice than make in many cases. The main exceptions would be cases where you need to integrate into legacy...
Christian Selig
Announcing Apollo: a new Reddit app for iPhone
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called...
over a year ago
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called Apollo and it’s a new Reddit app for iPhone.
I’ve been a Reddit user for about four years now, and the site is a constant source of interesting discussion, hilarity and news for me...
Jonas Hietala
The current Cybershard layout
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and...
3 weeks 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...
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 20 Timelapse
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I...
over a year ago
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I lost the first few hours as I forgot to turn it on…
Anyway here’s the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABVPlRaA5iI
Simply Explained
ESP-IDF: Storing AWS IoT certificates in the NVS partition (for OTA)
When using AWS IoT Core, most tutorials will tell you to include device certificates in your...
over a year ago
When using AWS IoT Core, most tutorials will tell you to include device certificates in your firmware. While that does work, it means you won't be able to run over-the-air updates.In this post, I'll show how to store AWS certificates in the NVS partition. This will make it...
Louwrentius
Understanding Storage Performance - IOPS and Latency
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want...
over a year ago
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want to discuss some fundamentals that are true regardless of your particular needs.
This will help you better reason about storage and may provide a scaffolding for further learning....
Louwrentius
Convert dos file to linux format wit vim
If you have some file that has been saved on a (Win)do(w)s host you may notice
that all lines end...
over a year ago
If you have some file that has been saved on a (Win)do(w)s host you may notice
that all lines end with ^M.
To fix this, you can use the tool dos2unix. If however this tool is not at
your disposal, you may have a problem. If vim is available, you do not have a
problem:
The trick...
Matt Mullenweg
Everyone’s An Owner
Last Friday we said goodbye to 159 colleagues as part of our alignment offer. It was a tough day,...
2 months ago
Last Friday we said goodbye to 159 colleagues as part of our alignment offer. It was a tough day, there are a lot of close relationships within Automattic, and goodbyes are always hard. On Monday, I got to be Oprah for a few minutes. We had scheduled a town hall for leaders...
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...
watchTowr Labs -...
Cleo Harmony, VLTrader, and LexiCom - RCE via Arbitrary File Write (CVE-2024-50623)
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators...
a week ago
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators using a zero-day exploit in Cleo MFT software - namely, LexiCom, VLTransfer, and Harmony - applications that many large enterprises rely on to share files securely.
Cleo have a...
Louwrentius
8 TB RAID 6 Linux software RAID using EXT4
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID...
over a year ago
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 (16x poorten)
PSU: CooMas Silent Pro M 600W ATX2 (definitely not overkill)
HD: Samsung 1 TB SAT2 HD103UJ (10x)
OS: Debian Lenny with custom kernel (backported)
FS: EXT4
RAID...
Arduino Blog
Meet the CapibaraZero, a multifunctional security and hacking tool based on the Nano ESP32
In recent years, tools such as the FlipperZero have become quite popular amongst hobbyists and...
a month ago
In recent years, tools such as the FlipperZero have become quite popular amongst hobbyists and security professionals alike for their small size and wide array of hacking tools. Inspired by the functionality of the FlipperZero, Project Hub user ‘andreockx’ created a similar...
Jonas Hietala
No game this month
Well here I am in the end of the month - without a game. It’s a failure I know but once again I lack...
over a year ago
Well here I am in the end of the month - without a game. It’s a failure I know but once again I lack inspiration and then it’s really hard to do something. Instead I’ve been thinking of something I could do that would make me wanna code like really bad again. I’m thinking of...
Matt Mullenweg
Welcoming Harper
As announced by Automattic and covered by TechCrunch, I want to take a moment to welcome Elijah...
a month ago
As announced by Automattic and covered by TechCrunch, I want to take a moment to welcome Elijah Potter and Harper to join Automattic. Harper is a super-fast (way faster than LanguageTool and Grammarly), local English grammar checker. The technology is nascent, but I’m very...
Opsbros
Nix Windows Feedback
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
over a year ago
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
Odds and Ends of...
I'm pro-assisted dying in principle, but I'm not sure about the proposed law
Is no law better than a bad law?
a month ago
Is no law better than a bad law?
On Life and Lisp
Fun and Games with Exposure Notifications
Exposure Notifications is a protocol developed by Apple and Google for facilitating COVID-19 contact...
over a year ago
Exposure Notifications is a protocol developed by Apple and Google for facilitating COVID-19 contact tracing on mobile phones by exchanging codes with nearby phones over Bluetooth, implemented within the Android and iOS operating systems, now available here in Toronto.
Wait –...
Louwrentius
RAID 5 is perfectly fine for home usage
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you...
over a year ago
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you run RAID 5 you're told that you are a crazy person.
Using RAID 5 is portrayed as an unreasonable risk to the availability of your data. It is suggested that it is likely that you...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Reverse engineering CMOS, illustrated with a vintage Soviet counter chip
I recently came across an interesting die photo of a Soviet1 chip, probably designed in the...
10 months ago
I recently came across an interesting die photo of a Soviet1 chip, probably designed in the 1970s.
This article provides an introductory guide to reverse-engineering CMOS circuits, using this chip as an
example.
Although the chip looks like a tangle of lines at first,
its large...
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...
Posts on Made of...
Some thoughts on Quora
With the announcement this week that Quora had taken $11 million in VC at an $86 million valuation,...
over a year ago
With the announcement this week that Quora had taken $11 million in VC at an $86 million valuation, there’s been an awful lot of attention on Quora. I’ve had an account there and wanted to write up some of my initial thoughts.
If you haven’t heard about Quora, it’s yet another...
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: Data General/One (and the worst LCD in the world)
I mentioned earlier that while I prefer specializing in non-x86 laptops, that doesn't mean I don't...
8 months ago
I mentioned earlier that while I prefer specializing in non-x86 laptops, that doesn't mean I don't collect interesting or unusual x86 laptops, like the Brother GeoBook NB-60 (I finally tracked down a mostly working NB-80C, the top of the line model, which will be the subject of a...
./techtipsy
Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana
This post isn’t a detailed line-by-line tutorial on how to set up each individual piece of the setup...
7 months ago
This post isn’t a detailed line-by-line tutorial on how to set up each individual piece of the setup as those types of
guides tend to get out of date really easily, but if you know your way around Linux and the command line, then you can
definitely replicate this setup on your...
Arduino Blog
Easily add Python-controlled GPIO pins to any computer
Let’s say that, hypothetically, you wanted to use your computer to blink an LED or read the state of...
6 months ago
Let’s say that, hypothetically, you wanted to use your computer to blink an LED or read the state of a button. Could you? Almost certainly not — at least not without additional hardware. Most modern computers don’t provide any interface for direct interaction with low-level...
Louwrentius
My experiences with DFS replication on Windows 2008 R2
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS...
over a year ago
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS replication has been massively improved. It supports larger data sets and performance has dramatically been improved over Windows 2008 R2.
I've implemented DFS replication to keep two...
computers are bad
2024-10-26 buy payphones and retire
PAYPHONES at High Volume
Existing sites! Earn BIG $$. Money Back Guarantee!
Dropshipping AliExpress...
a month ago
PAYPHONES at High Volume
Existing sites! Earn BIG $$. Money Back Guarantee!
Dropshipping AliExpress watches, AI-generated SEO spam websites... marginally
legal and ethical passive income schemes, that serve to generate that income
mostly for their promoters, can feel like a...
computers are bad
2024-05-25 grc spinrite
I feel like I used to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with suspect
hard drives. I mean,...
7 months ago
I feel like I used to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with suspect
hard drives. I mean, like, back in high school. These days I almost never do,
or on the occasion that I have storage trouble, it's a drive that has
completely stopped responding at all and there's...
Posts on Made of...
Reflections on software performance
At this point in my career, I’ve worked on at least three projects where performance was a defining...
over a year ago
At this point in my career, I’ve worked on at least three projects where performance was a defining characteristic: Livegrep, Taktician, and Sorbet (I discussed sorbet in particular last time, and livegrep in an earlier post). I’ve also done a lot of other performance work on the...
computers are bad
2024-05-15 catalina connections
Some things have been made nearly impossible to search for. Say, for example,
the long-running...
7 months ago
Some things have been made nearly impossible to search for. Say, for example,
the long-running partnership between Epson and Catalina: a query that will
return pages upon pages of people trying to use Epson printers with an old
version of MacOS.
When you think of a point of sale...
Good Enough
Fixing Things
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage:...
a year ago
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage: the Travelpro WalkAbout Lite 2 22" Rollaboard Suiter. The reality was that this wasn't proper business travel. First, it'd only be two or three round-trip flights a year. Second,...
Gwern.net Newsletter
May 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
over a year ago
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
Notes on software...
Effective unemployment and social media
Being unemployed can be incredibly depressing. So much
rejection. Everything seems to be out of your...
a month ago
Being unemployed can be incredibly depressing. So much
rejection. Everything seems to be out of your control. Everything
except for one thing: what you produce.
You might know that repeatedly posting on social media that you are
looking for work is ineffective. That it looks (or...
Willem's Blog
Building the blog... in style!
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
over a year ago
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
Louwrentius
Scrub your NAS hard drives regularly if you care about your data
Introduction
Lots of people run a NAS at home. Maybe it's a COTS device from one of the well-known...
over a year ago
Introduction
Lots of people run a NAS at home. Maybe it's a COTS device from one of the well-known vendors1, or it's a custom build solution (DIY2) based on hardware you bought and assembled yourself.
Buying or building a NAS is one thing, but operating it in a way that assures...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Learning incident response with problem sets
It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production...
over a year ago
It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production is essential, but how do you build that…
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...
5 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...
Matt Blewitt
Sensibly Default
There are two programming principles that I hold dear to my heart: the principle of least surprise...
2 months ago
There are two programming principles that I hold dear to my heart: the principle of least surprise and provide sensible defaults. I’ve recently been working within the GraphQL ecosystem, and the number of violations of both here has frustrated me. This will be a little bit ranty.
Posts on Made of...
Configuring dnsmasq with VMware Workstation
I love VMware workstation. I keep VMs around for basically every version of every major Linux...
over a year ago
I love VMware workstation. I keep VMs around for basically every version of every major Linux distribution, and use them heavily for all kinds of kernel testing and development.
This post is a quick writeup of my networking setup with VMware Workstation, using dnsmasq to assign...
Applied Cartography
A good H1
Buttondown was kindly featured in H1 Gallery last week, and Ryan asked me to opine a bit on how we...
3 weeks ago
Buttondown was kindly featured in H1 Gallery last week, and Ryan asked me to opine a bit on how we arrived at our current iteration, which is the anodyne yet pointed Email for you. Yes, you.
Historically, we've called Buttondown a 'newsletter tool' — the h1 before this was 'The...
Applied Cartography
Bluesky is good
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for...
a week ago
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for the dubious title of "Twitter's successor" and landed on Bluesky as being my favorite, perhaps less out of its ostensible inherent virtues and more out of the size of its...
Arduino Blog
DIY submersible pump controller helps retrieve well water
It might surprise our urban-dwelling readers, but wells are still very common in rural areas where...
6 months ago
It might surprise our urban-dwelling readers, but wells are still very common in rural areas where it is difficult or prohibitively expensive to run utilities. The CDC reports that more than 15 million households rely on groundwater and wells — and that’s just in the United...
Matt Blewitt
What Is a Senior Engineer, Anyway?
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to...
a month ago
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to be “senior” in a software engineering context. It’s a little different in every company, but here is my view.
Jonas Hietala
October theme says: Numbers
New month and a new theme. As with the two previous games I’m following The Experimental Gameplay...
over a year ago
New month and a new theme. As with the two previous games I’m following The Experimental Gameplay Project theme which this month is numbers. What’s it gonna be? A sudoku game or something more… thrilling? I’ll see what I can do :)
Willem's Blog
Whoop strap review: 24/7 wearable sensor
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Influencing purchase behaviour
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance,...
over a year ago
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance, conversion rates and online revenue. Use this useful report to apply behavioural sciences principles to your advantage.
./techtipsy
How I blew up my backup server (Valve pls fix)
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck...
a year ago
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck and how the Proton compatibility layer works, I decided to write a
backup script that would back up everything in the home folder, excluding the Steam games themselves due to the...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates September 9: Feed finding
3 months ago
Home on Erik...
Snakebite
Just promoting Spotify stuff here: check out the Snakebite repo on Github, written by Wouter de Bie....
over a year ago
Just promoting Spotify stuff here: check out the Snakebite repo on Github, written by Wouter de Bie. It's a super fast tool to access HDFS over CLI/Python, by accessing the namenode directly over sockets/protobuf.
Spotify's developer blog features a nice blog post outlining what...
Posts on Made of...
Getting carried away with hack value
Recently, I’ve been working on some BarnOwl branches that move more of the core functionality of...
over a year ago
Recently, I’ve been working on some BarnOwl branches that move more of the core functionality of BarnOwl into perl code, instead of C (BarnOwl is written in an unholy mix of C and perl code that call each other back and forth obsessively).
Moving code into perl has many...
Louwrentius
'Linux: obtain motherboard model / type and vendor'
If you want to know what motherboard is installed in a system, use the tool
dmidecode:
dmidecode |...
over a year ago
If you want to know what motherboard is installed in a system, use the tool
dmidecode:
dmidecode | grep -e "Manufacturer|Product" | head -n 4 | tail -n 2
The result might be something like:
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Product Name: P5Q-EM DO
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer...
Posts on Made of...
Lab Notebooking for the Software Engineer
A few weeks ago, I wrote that software engineers should keep lab notebooks as they work, in addition...
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I wrote that software engineers should keep lab notebooks as they work, in addition to just documenting things after the fact. Today, I’m going to share the techniques that I’ve found useful to try to get in the habit of lab-notebooking my work, even though I...
Arduino Blog
Light up the holiday season, with a new Plug and Make Kit tutorial!
Looking for a fun and creative way to brighten up the holiday season? With the Arduino Plug and Make...
2 weeks ago
Looking for a fun and creative way to brighten up the holiday season? With the Arduino Plug and Make Kit, you can build an interactive LED light installation that reacts when someone walks by – perfect for spreading cheer and adding a high-tech twist to your decorations. This...
Louwrentius
The security risk of vendor-supplied default SSL certificates
Often, software comes supplied with some default SSL certificate, for testing
purposes, such as...
over a year ago
Often, software comes supplied with some default SSL certificate, for testing
purposes, such as those 'snake oil' certificates (they are called snake oil
certificates for a reason). In practice, I often encounter usage of such
certificates. People may seem to think that as long...
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
Applied Cartography
Vibes and years
XH asks:
How do indie developers/small teams keep track of and prioritize long-term roadmaps?
I've...
10 months ago
XH asks:
How do indie developers/small teams keep track of and prioritize long-term roadmaps?
I've been basically work off my gut + Feeling of the Day for the past few years, and that's getting a bit unsustainable
Buttondown's roadmapping has existed for the past three years in a...
Notes on software...
Coolest hard-tech companies in NYC 2021
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed...
over a year ago
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed it's the perfect time to publish. This
list is influenced by 1) my perception of the difficulty of the
engineering behind the product and 2) the company's educational and
OSS...
Applied Cartography
MD5-based uniqueness constraints in Django
Yesterday, I was trying to set a unique constraint for comments in Buttondown to prevent accidental...
3 months ago
Yesterday, I was trying to set a unique constraint for comments in Buttondown to prevent accidental double-commenting, and I ran into a problem that I hadn't seen before:
index row size 2816 exceeds btree version 4 maximum 2704 for index...
Jonas Hietala
Focusing Attention: Study Hacking
A week of drawing is over, but I didn’t draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my...
over a year ago
A week of drawing is over, but I didn’t draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my part.
But the past is the past and this week I’m going to be study focused. Not that I need to study, but I really need to rework my study technique. I’ve been going on like a classical...
Notes on software...
A minimal REST API in Java
There's a style of Java that is a joy to write. This post will cover
how to set up a basic...
over a year ago
There's a style of Java that is a joy to write. This post will cover
how to set up a basic PostgreSQL-integrated REST API using
Jersey and
JOOQ in a style not dissimilar to Flask and
SQLAlchemy in Python.
In particular, we'll try to avoid as much runtime
reflection/class-loading...
latest projects -...
Robot Slide Whistle Orchestrion
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
8 months ago
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Quantum Software Systems Ltd's QNX
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
8 months ago
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
Azad's Blog
Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic...
2 months ago
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Films + Books, Q1 2023
What I watched and read
a year ago
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...
2 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...
Computer Ads from...
American Heart Association
A PSA and an Ad
a month ago
Louwrentius
The Raspberry Pi 5 is no match for a tini-mini-micro PC
I've always been fond of the idea of the Raspberry Pi. An energy efficient, small, cheap but capable...
6 months ago
I've always been fond of the idea of the Raspberry Pi. An energy efficient, small, cheap but capable computer. An ideal home server. Until the Pi 4, the Pi was not that capable, and only with the relatively recent Pi 5 (fall 2023) do I feel the Pi is OK performance wise, although...
./techtipsy
I have a 'Dall UD19PB ThundeRbglt Dock': my experience with the HP Elitebook 845 G9
I’ve decided to give a new laptop a test drive, mainly because I had the
opportunity at work, and...
over a year ago
I’ve decided to give a new laptop a test drive, mainly because I had the
opportunity at work, and also out of morbid curiosity.
It’s the HP Elitebook 845 G9, and it has pretty good specifications:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U
RAM: 2x16GB DDR5
Storage: 512GB KIOXIA NVMe SSD...
./techtipsy
Cool links
This is an unsorted list of links that I find to be cool.
slow roads
sit back, relax and let the AI...
a year ago
This is an unsorted list of links that I find to be cool.
slow roads
sit back, relax and let the AI do all the driving
or don’t, I’m not your dad
Jonas Hietala
Dbot
So I made a small irc bot in 294 characters in code-golfing language #1: Perl.
Usage
perl...
over a year ago
So I made a small irc bot in 294 characters in code-golfing language #1: Perl.
Usage
perl Dbot
Commands
.name - Echo the bots name
.hello - Output “hello world!”
.src - Dump the source code
Code
use IO::Socket;$s=IO::Socket::INET->new("158.38.8.251:6667");sub o{print$s...
Buck on Software
Thoughts on SaaS and other things
Welcome to Buck on Software!
over a year ago
Welcome to Buck on Software!
Style over Substance
Guy’s Cool Tools
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their...
over a year ago
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their recommendations for years. So much, so that I even started a Pinterest board filled with my own recommendations. But after a few years of running into the limitations of the form, I...
Louwrentius
Performance monitoring using dstat
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is...
over a year ago
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is currently happening on your Linux box.
Dstat allows you to monitor the system load, disk troughput, disk io, network
bandwith, and many more items.
Dstat is so valuable because it...
./techtipsy
My server setups throughout the years
My self-hosting adventure started during my university days. Once I actually had money to buy myself...
over a year ago
My self-hosting adventure started during my university days. Once I actually had money to buy myself a decent used laptop
(ThinkPad T430) that had more than 3GB of RAM that my ThinkPad T60 had, I could use some of my older hardware as
testbeds for any of the stupid ideas that I...
Posts on Made of...
Some notes on CVE-2010-3081 exploitability
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity...
over a year ago
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity when it was discovered an announced, due to allowing local privilege escalation against virtually all 64-bit Linux kernels in common use at the time.
While investigating...
Willem's Blog
Realtime human pose recognition through computer vision
For an exciting new project I have been experimenting with TensorFlow, enabling realtime pose...
over a year ago
For an exciting new project I have been experimenting with TensorFlow, enabling realtime pose detection using PoseNet.
Willem's Blog
Traffic shaping using iptables and tc
This month I responded to an automated alert indicating excessive bandwidth usage on a server,...
over a year ago
This month I responded to an automated alert indicating excessive bandwidth usage on a server, requiring me to apply traffic shaping to mitigate the traffic.
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
Christian Selig
More Efficient/Faster Average Color of Image
Skip to the ‘Juicy Code 🧃’ section if you just want the code and don’t care about the preamble of...
over a year ago
Skip to the ‘Juicy Code 🧃’ section if you just want the code and don’t care about the preamble of why you might want this!
Finding the average color of an image is a nice trick to have in your toolbelt for spicing up views. For instance on iOS, it’s used by Apple to make their...
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Bugger
It’s time for the follow up on my latest game Bugger.
Wow it seems like forever since I begun this...
over a year ago
It’s time for the follow up on my latest game Bugger.
Wow it seems like forever since I begun this monthly game business, but it’s only been two months since I first thought about this and here I am having finished my third game. I’ve really come a long way, in the beginning I...
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...
6 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...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Toolhead
Since the last update I’ve made some good progress:
All the motors are installed
The x-axis and belt...
a year ago
Since the last update I’ve made some good progress:
All the motors are installed
The x-axis and belt are installed
Tap is installed
The toolhead with Stealthburner + Clockwork 2 is also installed
Purple means Pretty.
I’ve run into a few problems on the way that I’ll try to...
Notes on software...
First month on a database team
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The...
9 months ago
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The process of onboarding
myself has been pretty similar at each company in the last decade,
though I think I've gotten better at it. The process is of course
influenced by the team, and my...
Posts on Made of...
Performance engineering, profilers, and seeing the invisible
I was recently introduced to the paper “Seeing the Invisible: Perceptual-Cognitive Aspects of...
a year ago
I was recently introduced to the paper “Seeing the Invisible: Perceptual-Cognitive Aspects of Expertise” by Gary Klein and Robert Hoffman. It’s excellent and I recommend you read it when you have a chance.
Klein and Hoffman discuss the ability of experts to “see what is not...
Louwrentius
My 71 TiB ZFS NAS after 10 years and zero drive failures
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going...
3 months ago
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going strong.
Although now on its second motherboard and power supply, the system has yet to experience a single drive failure (knock on wood).
Zero drive failures in ten years, how is that...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Encapsulated vs systemic complexity in protocol design
over a year ago
Odds and Ends of...
Nobody knows what the National Data Library is (not even the government)
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
a month ago
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Simply Explained
Good Home Automation Should be Boring
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other...
over a year ago
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other people's setup for inspiration, and one thing struck me. Many people have cluttered dashboards and use Home Assistant to track just about any metric they can.That's quite different...
Notes on software...
What makes a great technical blog
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely...
8 months ago
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely about non-corporate tech blogs. So this post is
too. I'll have to make another list for favorite corporate tech blogs.
In short, they:
Tackle hard and confusing topics
Show working...
Willem's Blog
Talking tablets: what makes a great tablet?
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be...
over a year ago
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be your main computer?
Arduino Blog
This beautiful table creates art in the sand
Kinetic sand art tables are pretty hot right now, because they look really cool. They’re like zen...
4 months ago
Kinetic sand art tables are pretty hot right now, because they look really cool. They’re like zen gardens that rake themselves in intricate patterns. But most of the builds we’ve seen use a conventional cartesian CNC layout or polar layout. This table by Newsons Electronics takes...
Applied Cartography
Against Against Innovation Tokens
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote...
5 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...
Lars Lofgren
CNN and USA Today Have Fake Websites, I Believe Forbes Marketplace Runs Them
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had...
2 months ago
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had agreements with CNN and USA Today? And that Forbes Marketplace was stuffing those sites full of affiliate content just like it is with Forbes? And what if Forbes Marketplace went to...
Old Vintage...
Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992
Solbourne Computer, which for a number of years was probably Sun's most significant early competitor...
a year ago
Solbourne Computer, which for a number of years was probably Sun's most significant early competitor in SPARC-based systems. Solbourne was the first to market in 1989 with multiprocessing SPARC servers based on their custom circuit-switched 108MB/s KBus interconnect, running a...
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...
2 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
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.
Jonas Hietala
Tufte style sidenotes and marginnotes in Pollen
When evaluating Pollen I complained about markdown/pandoc’s lack of sidenote handling. I have solved...
over a year ago
When evaluating Pollen I complained about markdown/pandoc’s lack of sidenote handling. I have solved it for Pollen but felt it deserved it’s own post.
A caveat: I generated Tufte CSS style sidenotes and marginnotes which made it more complex than if I had simply generated...
Vitalik Buterin's...
DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters
over a year ago
Engineers Need Art
Casady & Greene
Remembering Casady & Greene and the excitement (and closing) of an era of Macintosh software...
3 months ago
Remembering Casady & Greene and the excitement (and closing) of an era of Macintosh software publishing.
Engineers Need Art
Offline Advocate
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of...
a month ago
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of mind.
Louwrentius
HP Procurve "auto DoS" feature causing network problems
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS"....
over a year ago
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS". You can find it in the section "Security" and then
"Advanced security".
If you enable the Auto DoS feature, traffic is blocked based on one of these
conditions:
the source port...
Birchtree
Matt is a Mean Guy (hey!)
Matt felt like bringing an intentionally controversial topic, Niléane refuses to admit she's created...
a week ago
Matt felt like bringing an intentionally controversial topic, Niléane refuses to admit she's created a sticky note-based task manager, and everyone gives the iPad some much needed love.
Or watch it on YouTube.
Weekly Topics
Raycast
CleanShot X
Final Cut Pro
Google...
Neil Madden
Macaroon access tokens for OAuth: Part 2 – transactional auth
In part 1, I showed how Macaroon access tokens in ForgeRock Access Management 7.0 can be used as a...
over a year ago
In part 1, I showed how Macaroon access tokens in ForgeRock Access Management 7.0 can be used as a lightweight and easy-to-deploy alternative to proof of possession (PoP) schemes for securing tokens in browser-based apps. The same techniques can be adapted to secure tokens in...
latest projects -...
3D Model Viewer Improvements
[Software] Unlocking the embedded gimbals
a year ago
[Software] Unlocking the embedded gimbals
Lighthouse Blog
Rules improvement: filter based on content
a week ago
csvbase blog
I didn't write any Javascript, and other shortcuts
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
a year ago
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
Arduino Blog
Deploy your smart meeting room management system with Arduino GIGA
Managing shared spaces, especially meeting rooms, can be a headache in busy offices. At Arduino,...
3 days ago
Managing shared spaces, especially meeting rooms, can be a headache in busy offices. At Arduino, we’ve experienced it firsthand in our flexible and dynamic offices around the world – where colleagues could often be seen wandering around with their laptops, trying to find a quiet...
Arduino Blog
This automatic laser turret keeps the cats entertained for hours
Cats may be adorable, but they evolved to be predators. Unfortunately, responsible owners keep their...
2 months ago
Cats may be adorable, but they evolved to be predators. Unfortunately, responsible owners keep their cats indoors to avoid decimating the local wildlife population and that means Mr. Whiskers and Ms. Socks don’t get much opportunity to express their hunting urges. That’s why...
Construction Physics
Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz?
Here’s an idea you see spreading across the internet every so often: that all semiconductor and...
a month ago
Here’s an idea you see spreading across the internet every so often: that all semiconductor and solar PV manufacturing depends on extremely pure quartz from the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
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...
./techtipsy
Tiered storage: use the right tool for the job
Hard drives are still the default choice for many homelab and data hoarding
enthusiasts. They still...
a year ago
Hard drives are still the default choice for many homelab and data hoarding
enthusiasts. They still hold the gigabytes per dollar advantage over SSD-s (for now),
and if you buy the big external drives and take the drives out of the enclosures,
you can get a pretty good...
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Giro AEON bicycle helmet
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out...
over a year ago
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out how.
Odds and Ends of...
WATCH: Were the US election polls right?
My conversation with polling guru Mark Pack
a month ago
My conversation with polling guru Mark Pack
computers are bad
2023-07-29 Free Public WiFi
Remember Free Public WiFi?
Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree...
a year ago
Remember Free Public WiFi?
Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza
in Atlanta, Georgia. This was in the age when the price of a hotel room was
directly correlated with the price of the WiFi service, and as a high school
student I was not...
Vitalik Buterin's...
An Incomplete Guide to Rollups
over a year ago
Notes on software...
1 million page views
I was delighted to notice this morning that this site has recently
passed 1M page views. And since...
3 weeks ago
I was delighted to notice this morning that this site has recently
passed 1M page views. And since Murat
wrote
about his 1M page view accomplishment at the time, I felt compelled to
now too.
I started regularly blogging in 2018. For some reason I decided to
write a blog post...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Some ways to use ZK-SNARKs for privacy
over a year ago
Arduino Blog
Arduino Nicla Sense Env: adding advanced environmental sensing to a broad range of applications
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Nicla Sense Env: the latest addition to our portfolio of...
2 months ago
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Nicla Sense Env: the latest addition to our portfolio of system-on-modules and sensor nodes, empowering innovators with the tools to unlock new possibilities. This tiny yet powerful sensor node is designed to elevate your environmental...
Matt Blewitt
On That Okta LDAP Bug
A quick explanation of the Okta AD/LDAP DelAuth bug that was being shared around, and the importance...
a month ago
A quick explanation of the Okta AD/LDAP DelAuth bug that was being shared around, and the importance of sensible defaults.
Computer Ads from...
IBM RISC System/6000 Family
Just when PowerSeeker thought they had nowhere to go...
7 months ago
Just when PowerSeeker thought they had nowhere to go...
Matt Mullenweg
RIP Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones had such an impact on the culture that it’s impossible to summarize. His discography is...
a month ago
Quincy Jones had such an impact on the culture that it’s impossible to summarize. His discography is amazing. I feel so lucky to have met him in 2012 when I was much earlier in my career, and he didn’t have any reason to give me time, but he treated everyone as if they were...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Gitcoin Grants Round 5 Retrospective
over a year ago
Ken Shirriff's blog
Reverse engineering standard cell logic in the Intel 386 processor
The 386 processor (1985) was Intel's most complex processor at the time, with 285,000...
10 months ago
The 386 processor (1985) was Intel's most complex processor at the time, with 285,000 transistors.
Intel had scheduled 50 person-years to design the processor, but it was falling behind schedule.
The design team decided to automate chunks of the layout, developing "automatic...
Home on Erik...
Subway waiting math
Why does it suck to wait for things? In a previous post I analyzed a NYC subway dataset and found...
over a year ago
Why does it suck to wait for things? In a previous post I analyzed a NYC subway dataset and found that at some point, quite early, it's worth just giving up.
This isn't a proof that the subway doesn't run on time – in fact it might actually proves that the subway runs really...
Notes on software...
AOT-compilation of Javascript with V8
tldr; I'm working on a AOT-compiled Javascript implementation called
jsc.
Many dynamically typed...
over a year ago
tldr; I'm working on a AOT-compiled Javascript implementation called
jsc.
Many dynamically typed programming languages have implementations that
compile to native binaries:
Python: Cython
Common Lisp: SBCL
Scheme: Chicken Scheme
The benefits of compiling dynamically typed...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The promise and challenges of crypto + AI applications
10 months ago
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...
a month 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...
Home on Erik...
NYC subway math
Apparently MTA (the company running the NYC subway) has a real-time API. My fascination for the...
over a year ago
Apparently MTA (the company running the NYC subway) has a real-time API. My fascination for the subway takes autistic proportions and so obviously I had to analyze some of the data. The documentation is somewhat terrible, but here's some relevant code for how to use the API:
Christian Selig
Autonomous Standing Desk and Chair Review
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair...
a year ago
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair Pro chairs in exchange for posting about them on Twitter, and I wanted to cover them in more detail on my blog as well so I could give my full thoughts on them for anyone in the...
Home on Erik...
Data architecture vs backend architecture
A modern tech stack typically involves at least a frontend and backend but relatively quickly also...
over a year ago
A modern tech stack typically involves at least a frontend and backend but relatively quickly also grows to include a data platform. This typically grows out of the need for ad-hoc analysis and reporting but possibly evolves into a whole oil refinery of cronjobs, dashboards, bulk...
Willem's Blog
And... there is light!
Discover how one cyclist's quest for the perfect lighting solution led to a custom installation of...
a year ago
Discover how one cyclist's quest for the perfect lighting solution led to a custom installation of dynamo powered lights, ensuring a bright and hassle-free ride on the darkest roads.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again
12 months ago
Arduino Blog
Making fire detection more accurate with ML sensor fusion
The mere presence of a flame in a controlled environment, such as a candle, is perfectly acceptable,...
4 months ago
The mere presence of a flame in a controlled environment, such as a candle, is perfectly acceptable, but when tasked with determining if there is cause for alarm solely using vision data, embedded AI models can struggle with false positives. Solomon Githu’s project aims to lower...
Arduino Blog
Giving Billy Bass the arti-fish-al intelligence he always deserved
If you were unlucky enough to visit a big box retail store or goofy uncle’s home around the turn of...
3 months ago
If you were unlucky enough to visit a big box retail store or goofy uncle’s home around the turn of the century, you would have undoubtedly come across a Big Mouth Billy Bass. That’s an animatronic fish that wiggles on a plaque while older, very licensable hit songs play. But...
Computer Ads from...
Page 6 Magazine Interviews the Godfather of Adventure Games, Scott Adams
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
4 months ago
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
Willem's Blog
Apple Watch as Phone
Embark on a digital detox journey as I swap my smartphone for an Apple Watch Ultra, exploring the...
a year ago
Embark on a digital detox journey as I swap my smartphone for an Apple Watch Ultra, exploring the liberating yet challenging world of wearable tech.
Good Enough
Our ChatGPT Mission Statement
What follows is an edited transcript of my interaction with ChatGPT to help craft a mission...
a year ago
What follows is an edited transcript of my interaction with ChatGPT to help craft a mission statement for Good Enough.
The resulting mission statement was surprisingly good and I had some literal LOLs along the way.
Though I think we'll leave out the haiku.
You are an expert at...
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping 20241208
Corrections, stats, and an update
2 weeks ago
Corrections, stats, and an update
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