Old Vintage...
Programming the Convergent WorkSlate's spreadsheet microcassette future
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking...
3 months ago
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking to each other via speakerphone, and probably listening to Devo and New Order a lot. (Though that part isn't too different from my actual present.)
a computer whose manufacturer...
Louwrentius
An affordable server platform based on server-grade hardware
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true...
over a year ago
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true server-grade harware when building a server, wether it's for home or business use.
This is why I want to introduce you to the Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard.
This motherboard costs...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Lotus
The Hardest Working Software in the World
a year ago
The Hardest Working Software in the World
Notes on software...
A Programmer-Friendly I/O Abstraction Over io_uring and kqueue
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Home on Erik...
The lane next to you is more likely to be slower than yours
Saw this link on Hacker News the other day: The Highway Lane Next to Yours Isn’t Really Moving Any...
over a year ago
Saw this link on Hacker News the other day: The Highway Lane Next to Yours Isn’t Really Moving Any Faster
The article describes a phenomenon unique to traffic where cars spread out when they go fast and get more compact when they go slow.
Louwrentius
Script that deletes old files to keep disk from filling up
When a disk has no free space left, all kinds of trouble can occur.
Therefore, I've created a...
over a year ago
When a disk has no free space left, all kinds of trouble can occur.
Therefore, I've created a script that monitors the used space of a volume
and deletes the oldest file if a certain threshold is reached.
The script will keep on deleting the oldest file present on disk until...
./techtipsy
VR, VFIO and how latency ruined everything
I’ve been running my all-in-one
PC for a while now. It was my desktop, my NAS and my gaming...
over a year ago
I’ve been running my all-in-one
PC for a while now. It was my desktop, my NAS and my gaming PC.
However, during the next couple of months I kept hitting small bumps along the
road. Most of these were quite straightforward to fix, but there is one that
finally convinced me to go...
Old Vintage...
Virtualizing the 6502 on a 6502 with 6o6 (and The Incredible KIMplement goes 1.0)
Okay, promises, promises. Here's the first of my bucket list projects I'm completing which I've...
7 months ago
Okay, promises, promises. Here's the first of my bucket list projects I'm completing which I've intermittently worked on for literally two decades. Now that I've finally shaken out more bugs, tuned it up and cleaned it off, it's time to let people play with the source...
Willem's Blog
For the love of mini
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love...
over a year ago
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love of mini!
Construction Physics
How Good Are American Roads?
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
a month ago
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
Louwrentius
Creating configuration backups of HP procurve switches
I've created a tool called procurve-watch. It creates a backup of the running switch configuration...
over a year ago
I've created a tool called procurve-watch. It creates a backup of the running switch configuration through secure shell (using scp).
It also diffs backed up configurations against older versions, in order to keep track of changes. If you run the script from cron every hour or...
Azad's Blog
Simulating + Streaming a 4k, 90hz, ultrawide, HDR PC monitor to Apple Vision Pro
VR headsets can be pretty awesome at simulating monitors of any size and shape. Most VR headsets are...
3 months ago
VR headsets can be pretty awesome at simulating monitors of any size and shape. Most VR headsets are also capable of outputting at a high refresh rate (60hz, 90hz, 120hz, or even 144hz). Some headsets (like Apple Vision Pro) can also output in HDR! The beauty of it all is that in...
Arduino Blog
Receive an alert when your device goes offline in Arduino Cloud
You’re managing a network of IoT sensors that monitor air quality across multiple locations....
a month ago
You’re managing a network of IoT sensors that monitor air quality across multiple locations. Suddenly, one of the sensors goes offline, but you don’t notice until hours later. The result? A gap in your data and a missed opportunity to take corrective action. This is a common...
latest projects -...
Hand-cranked Flux Capacitor
[Concept] Control the flow of time
a year ago
[Concept] Control the flow of time
Vitalik Buterin's...
Engineering Security Through Coordination Problems
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Noise
The build is going well and the printer is printing tons of random stuff and I’m generally in awe of...
9 months ago
The build is going well and the printer is printing tons of random stuff and I’m generally in awe of how cool the printer is.
But there’s one thing that sucks: it’s damn loud.
I knew that it wouldn’t be silent, but I wasn’t prepared for this kind of noise.
Silent controller...
Christian Selig
Beware UserDefaults: a tale of hard to find bugs, and lost data
Excuse the alarmist title, but I think it’s justified, as it’s an issue that’s caused me a ton of...
2 months ago
Excuse the alarmist title, but I think it’s justified, as it’s an issue that’s caused me a ton of pain in both support emails and actually tracking it down, so I want to make others aware of it so they don’t similarly burned.
Brief intro
For the uninitiated, UserDefaults (née...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
How To Sell
Sales at a startup is counter-intuitive.
over a year ago
Sales at a startup is counter-intuitive.
Posts on Made of...
Regular Expression Search with Suffix Arrays
Back in January of 2012, Russ Cox posted an excellent blog post detailing how Google Code Search had...
over a year ago
Back in January of 2012, Russ Cox posted an excellent blog post detailing how Google Code Search had worked, using a trigram index.
By that point, I’d already implemented early versions of my own livegrep source-code search engine, using a different indexing approach that I...
Good Enough
TIL: Don’t forget your Web Manifest file
We’re primarily a web shop. We’re dipping our toes into mobile app development, but our collective...
a year ago
We’re primarily a web shop. We’re dipping our toes into mobile app development, but our collective expertise is in making products and services for the web. And like everyone else, our use of the web has shifted from our desktops and laptops to our phones.
As we’re creating and...
Jonas Hietala
Beebop The Island Hopper
It’s here! The stuff of dreams, an entry for the epic Ludum Dare 17 has been made! For those who...
over a year ago
It’s here! The stuff of dreams, an entry for the epic Ludum Dare 17 has been made! For those who don’t know it’s a 48 hour game making competition which actually is pretty silly. Even more silly is my two hours of commitment yesterday but late this night at about 03:05 I am now,...
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....
Computer Ads from...
Creative Computing Magazine Interviews Clive Sinclair (1980)
This British inventor speaking about his ZX-80 computer system
2 weeks ago
This British inventor speaking about his ZX-80 computer system
Louwrentius
Script that shows ETA of RAID rebuild / reshape
I made a small script that converts the output of cat /proc/mdstat to an
actual date and time...
over a year ago
I made a small script that converts the output of cat /proc/mdstat to an
actual date and time telling you when the RAID rebuild / reshape is finished.
This is the link to the correct version of the script.
Example:
debian:~# ./raid-rebuild-eta.sh
Estimated time of finishing...
Jonas Hietala
The I'm Great quote
A new semester at the uni and so far it looks promising; I got a hold of some new books even though...
over a year ago
A new semester at the uni and so far it looks promising; I got a hold of some new books even though the bookstore had a snakelike queue similar to the Jörmungandr (the snake that encircled the earth in nordic mythology) and our new programming course started. This time it’s Ada’s...
Old Vintage...
Composite and hard reset mods for the Tandyvision One
I still have my literal first home computer (the Tomy Tutor), and it so happens I also have my...
2 weeks ago
I still have my literal first home computer (the Tomy Tutor), and it so happens I also have my literal first game console: the Tandyvision One, Tandy Radio Shack's label variant of the Mattel Intellivision Master Component.
The Mattel Intellivision proper originally hails...
Home on Erik...
Exploding offers are bullshit
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I...
over a year ago
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I never put a deadline on any of them. Unfortunately, I've often ended up competing with other companies who do, and I feel really bad that this usually tricks younger developers...
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping 20241208
Corrections, stats, and an update
a week ago
Corrections, stats, and an update
Jonas Hietala
Groar
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was to actually make something! It continues to amaze me what fantastic stuff everyone manage to make in just 48 hours. This is what I came up with for the theme You are the Monster....
Arduino Blog
On-body LEDs help this guitar rock harder
You don’t go to watch a band play live for the audio quality — most venues are atrocious in that...
6 months ago
You don’t go to watch a band play live for the audio quality — most venues are atrocious in that regard. No, you go to enjoy the show as a whole and that includes the visuals. The more a band can do to make the performance look exciting, the more you’re going to enjoy it. […]
The...
Louwrentius
Achieving 450 MB/s network file transfers using Linux Bonding
Linux Bonding
In this article I'd like to show the results of using regular 1 Gigabit network...
over a year ago
Linux Bonding
In this article I'd like to show the results of using regular 1 Gigabit network connections to achieve 450 MB/s file transfers over NFS.
I'm again using Linux interface bonding for this purpose.
Linux interface bonding can be used to create a virtual network...
Old Vintage...
With PowerPC, Windows CE and the WiiN-PAD slate, everyone's a WiiN-er (except Data General)
Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the...
7 months ago
Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the pandemic emergency, but speaking as someone with a day job in public health for almost two decades, it's always been a buzzword in certain corners of IT with enough money sloshing around...
Birchtree
AI, self-driving, and evolving your opinions on new tech over time
Casey Newton on Platformer: The Phony Comforts of AI Skepticism
The most persuasive way you can...
2 weeks ago
Casey Newton on Platformer: The Phony Comforts of AI Skepticism
The most persuasive way you can demonstrate the reality of AI, though, is to describe how it is already being used today. Not in speculative sci-fi scenarios, but in everyday offices and laboratories and schoolrooms....
GitButler
GitButler 0.12 - "Stingy Baker"
New GitButler release is out! Undo anything, modify your commits with ease, new AI stuff and more!
6 months ago
New GitButler release is out! Undo anything, modify your commits with ease, new AI stuff and more!
Vitalik Buterin's...
Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell
4 months ago
Lighthouse Blog
How to combine multiple RSS feeds in one view
6 months ago
Neil Madden
A controversial opinion about REST API design
I was just reading yet another article on REST API design guidelines. Some of it is good advice,...
a year ago
I was just reading yet another article on REST API design guidelines. Some of it is good advice, some of it I could quibble with. But several of the rules are about how to design the path hierarchy of your API: use plural nouns, don’t use nested sub-paths unnecessarily, etc. In...
Posts on Made of...
Some musings on ORMs
I’m pretty sure every developer who has ever worked with a modern database-backed application,...
over a year ago
I’m pretty sure every developer who has ever worked with a modern database-backed application, particularly a web-app, has a love/hate relationship with their ORM, or object-relational mapper.
On the one hand, ORMs are vastly more pleasant to work with than code that constructs...
Home on Erik...
New benchmarks for approximate nearest neighbors
UPDATE(2018-06-17): There are is a later blog post with newer benchmarks!
One of my super nerdy...
over a year ago
UPDATE(2018-06-17): There are is a later blog post with newer benchmarks!
One of my super nerdy interests include approximate algorithms for nearest neighbors in high-dimensional spaces. The problem is simple. You have say 1M points in some high-dimensional space.
Applied Cartography
Why can't you just...?
Buried in a snarky thread about why Google Calendar doesn’t support calendar syncing is a long,...
7 months ago
Buried in a snarky thread about why Google Calendar doesn’t support calendar syncing is a long, detailed explanation of why shipping this sort of thing is hard:
Designing a consent experience for the enterprise admin and enterprise end user
Creating a special "read only" object...
Notes on software...
Compiling dynamic programming languages
It can be difficult to disassociate the idea that dynamically typed
programming languages are tied...
over a year ago
It can be difficult to disassociate the idea that dynamically typed
programming languages are tied to byte-code interpreters (e.g. YARV
Ruby, CPython, V8, Zend Engine, etc.). But for many languages, a
compiled implementation also exists. Cython, Chicken Scheme and SBCL
are good...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Wrap-up
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to...
9 months ago
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to leave it alone for a while, so I think it’s time to wrap up this build series with a little retrospective.
Building the printer was really fun and rewarding
I’ve always seen...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 6: The Splurge
a month ago
Louwrentius
Monitoring HP MSA P2000 G3 I/O latency with Nagios
At work we have a couple of HP MSA P2000 G3 SANs. These are entry-level SANs that still seem to have...
over a year ago
At work we have a couple of HP MSA P2000 G3 SANs. These are entry-level SANs that still seem to have almost all features you might want from a SAN, except for official SSD-support.
It seems that the new MSA 2040 adds support for SSDs and also provides 4 GB cache per controller...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 3
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
a year ago
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
Notes on software...
Experimenting with column- and row-oriented datastructures
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
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,...
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...
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 4: Issue 4-evah
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious....
over a year ago
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious. Barry’s daughters all had marching band, and he chaperoned 4 the parades. His eldest daughter also went and got a boyfriend. Shawn’s been feeling a little under the weather, and his two...
Louwrentius
Linux: get a list of al disks and their size
To get a list of all disk drives of a Linux system, such as this:
Disk /dev/md0: 58.0 GB
Disk...
over a year ago
To get a list of all disk drives of a Linux system, such as this:
Disk /dev/md0: 58.0 GB
Disk /dev/md1: 2015 MB
Disk /dev/md5: 18002.2 GB
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB
Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sde: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sdf: 1000.1...
Jonas Hietala
A simple timeline using CSS flexbox
As I added a /now page to the site I also decided to refresh my /about page and I figured it would...
3 months ago
As I added a /now page to the site I also decided to refresh my /about page and I figured it would be neat to have timeline element where I could list some of the larger events in my life.
To my surprise it wasn’t too difficult to create one that looks pretty clean—the flexbox...
Louwrentius
'Syslog: the hidden security risk'
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to...
over a year ago
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to the security of your systems. SNMP is a well-known
service, notorious for being configured with a default password (or community
string).
But there is another service that is...
Applied Cartography
Git one-liner: get the earliest commit from X hours ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with...
7 months ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with git cliff. This took some time to do, but here's what I ended up with:
git log --since="72 hours ago" --until="now" --reverse --pretty=format:"%h" | head -1
Nothing particularly...
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
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...
Willem's Blog
Multi-Window support in your iPad app
Take advantage of the improved support for multiple windows on iPadOS by implementing new UI...
over a year ago
Take advantage of the improved support for multiple windows on iPadOS by implementing new UI concepts enabling different use cases for your app.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Layer 2s as cultural extensions of Ethereum
6 months 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...
computers are bad
2023-06-30 calling in the alarm
I currently find myself on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, where internet is
hard to come by. But...
a year ago
I currently find myself on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, where internet is
hard to come by. But here's something short while I'm temporarily back in the
warm embrace of 5G: more about burglar alarms. I recently gave a presentation
on this topic and I'll probably record it for...
Willem's Blog
Designing an interface for a food ordering page
Designing a food ordering page is surprisingly challenging because of the many variables that need...
over a year ago
Designing a food ordering page is surprisingly challenging because of the many variables that need to be accommodated on a very small screen.
Notes on software...
Eight years of organizing tech meetups
This is a collection of random personal experiences. So if you don't
want to read everything, feel...
a year ago
This is a collection of random personal experiences. So if you don't
want to read everything, feel free to skip to the end for takeaways.
I write because I'd like to see more high-quality meetups. And maybe
my little bit of experience will help someone out.
2015: Philadelphia
I...
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...
Old Vintage...
Niklaus Wirth dies
Reported yesterday. The first computer program I remember in school was Apple Presents Apple, which...
11 months ago
Reported yesterday. The first computer program I remember in school was Apple Presents Apple, which was written in UCSD Pascal; the first actual compiler I ever used was Turbo Pascal 5.5 (purloined from a campus NetWare server), and the first actual compiler I ever used on the...
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...
computers are bad
2023-08-07 STIRred AND SHAKEN
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps...
a year ago
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps spurred by boredom, I looked through the schedule to see
what's in store in the world of telephony. There is a workshop on SS7, of
course [1], plenty of content on cellular, but...
Notes on software...
Learning a new codebase: hacking on nginx
I have never contributed to nginx. My C skills are 1/10. But
downloading the source, hacking it up,...
over a year ago
I have never contributed to nginx. My C skills are 1/10. But
downloading the source, hacking it up, compiling it, and running it
doesn't scare me. This post is to help you overcome your own fears
about doing so. Not necessarily because you should be running
out-of-tree diffs in...
Jonas Hietala
Sat-E
So I entered Ludum Dare 22 this weekend as a preamble for tomorrow’s linear algebra exam. The theme...
over a year ago
So I entered Ludum Dare 22 this weekend as a preamble for tomorrow’s linear algebra exam. The theme this time around was Alone and the game I came up with is about a lonely satellite in space, kinda like Wall-E.
Sat-E
Instructions
Collect junk and other items for you to buy...
Good Enough
Thoughts On Thoughts
It’s time for a revolution. Too long have we, collectively and individually, been tyrannized by our...
a year ago
It’s time for a revolution. Too long have we, collectively and individually, been tyrannized by our thoughts and what we believe about them.
Or perhaps we can think of this as an intervention. This post is the circle of friends gathered to help us stop hitting ourselves in the...
Arduino Blog
Control your Raspberry Pi GPIOs with Arduino Cloud using Python | Part II
As a Python developer, you’re probably eager to control and monitor your Raspberry Pi GPIOs...
7 months ago
As a Python developer, you’re probably eager to control and monitor your Raspberry Pi GPIOs remotely. Well, you have landed in the right place. This article builds upon our previous introduction to “Visualize your Raspberry Pi data with Arduino Cloud | Part I.” Now, we’ll...
computers are bad
2023-06-07 something up there - nasa and uaps
A brief note on Grusch
First, a disclaimer of sorts: I am posting another article on UAPs, yet I...
a year ago
A brief note on Grusch
First, a disclaimer of sorts: I am posting another article on UAPs, yet I am
not addressing the recent claims by David Grusch. This is for a couple of
reasons. First, I am skeptical of Grusch. He is not the first seemingly
well-positioned former...
Applied Cartography
Notes from April
Welcome to spring, bona fide and humid. Lots of writing this month:
I wrote about spending the past...
7 months ago
Welcome to spring, bona fide and humid. Lots of writing this month:
I wrote about spending the past two years as an independent technologist.
On the media side of things: brief words on Murderville (meh), The Parallax View (incredible), This is Personal (meh), Cribsheet...
Applied Cartography
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...
Notes on software...
Writing a simple JSON path parser
Let's say we want to implement a simple list filtering language so
we can enter a.b = 12 and return...
over a year ago
Let's say we want to implement a simple list filtering language so
we can enter a.b = 12 and return only results in a
list where the a column is an object that contains a
field b that is set to the value 12. What would a
filter(jsonPath, equals, listOfObjects) function...
Computer Ads from...
Vote for the Topic of the February 2024 Plus Post
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
10 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
anderegg.ca
Jet Lag: The Game: The Game
Some fun news today from the creators of Jet Lag: The Game. They officially announced the next...
a month ago
Some fun news today from the creators of Jet Lag: The Game. They officially announced the next season, and also a “home version” of the game. I’ve written about Jet Lag: The Game before, so you might want to start there if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
On the latest...
Opsbros
The past lives again!
I found a GameBoy Camera for my GBC and thought it'd be a good idea to extract the photos from eons...
over a year ago
I found a GameBoy Camera for my GBC and thought it'd be a good idea to extract the photos from eons ago and bring them to the era of the internet.
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
To use the Montreal subway (the Métro), you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it...
6 months ago
To use the Montreal subway (the Métro), you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens.
The ticket works through a system called NFC, but what's happening internally?
How does the ticket work without a battery? How does it communicate with the turnstile?
And how can it...
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...
Home on Erik...
The relationship between commit size and commit message size
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's...
over a year ago
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's my rationale:
When I update one line of code I feel like I have to put in a long explanation about its side effects, why it's fully backwards compatible, and why it fixes some...
Applied Cartography
Things take time
Things take time.
Nintendo fairly famously was born in 1889, and the modern incarnation — Yamamuchi...
7 months ago
Things take time.
Nintendo fairly famously was born in 1889, and the modern incarnation — Yamamuchi Nintendo & Co., LTD — was established nearly fifty years later, in 1933. They spent forty years selling playing cards, then another decade operating merely as a distributor of...
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...
./techtipsy
Disk is OK
Maybe I am unlucky with computer hardware.
Maybe I have the opposite of the golden touch of...
over a year ago
Maybe I am unlucky with computer hardware.
Maybe I have the opposite of the golden touch of Midas.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that I use my hardware for things they were never meant to be used for.
Anyway, I have acquired two Seagate 4TB external hard drives for doing some...
Arduino Blog
Venderoo is an Arduino Mega-powered DIY vending machine
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics,...
2 months ago
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics, electronics, and programming while being simultaneously useful to those around him was a longtime goal. His recent Venderoo project is exactly that, as the creatively named vending...
./techtipsy
Accidentally turning the ASRock DeskMini X300 into a semi-passively cooled PC
After playing around with fan curves on my ASRock DeskMini X300
based home server, I noticed one...
over a year ago
After playing around with fan curves on my ASRock DeskMini X300
based home server, I noticed one interesting thing. At least it was
interesting to me.
Background
I had one goal: to try to see if I could turn it into a semi-passive PC by only
turning the fan on when the PC was...
Jonas Hietala
The Decline of FPS Games
I read an article about the decline of FPS games and it made me think a bit. When was the last time...
over a year ago
I read an article about the decline of FPS games and it made me think a bit. When was the last time I actually enjoyed an FPS game? I installed old Deus Ex a while ago but it’s what 12 years old? Team Fortress was okay, the one or two times I tried it, but I can’t say I truly...
Simply Explained
Integrate Home Assistant with Apple Reminders
I recently integrated Home Assistant with Apple Reminders so that automations can create new todos....
over a year ago
I recently integrated Home Assistant with Apple Reminders so that automations can create new todos. This is trickier as it sounds, because Reminders has no API that can be accessed from Home Assistant. Here's how I worked around that problem with a script, input text helper and...
Willem's Blog
CAPTCHA Alternative
If you're looking for a user-friendly alternative for CAPTCHA's you should check this post out where...
over a year ago
If you're looking for a user-friendly alternative for CAPTCHA's you should check this post out where I outline how I protect web forms against malicious actors and spammers.
Lars Lofgren
The Sleazy World of Reddit Marketing, Everything is Fake
I’m going to show you how to cash grab as a Reddit moderator. 5 minutes of work, then thousands of...
4 months ago
I’m going to show you how to cash grab as a Reddit moderator. 5 minutes of work, then thousands of dollars per month for doing nothing. Maybe tens of thousands. With a 100% real example. I’ve edited nothing. When you’re a Reddit mod, you have a TON of power in that subreddit. You...
Applied Cartography
How Buttondown uses HAProxy
There are few technical decisions I regret more with Buttondown than the decision to combine the...
3 months ago
There are few technical decisions I regret more with Buttondown than the decision to combine the author-facing app, the subscriber-facing app, and the marketing site all under a single domain. Most technical decisions are reversible with sufficient grit and dedication; this one...
Home on Erik...
Conversion rates – you are (most likely) computing them wrong
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and...
over a year ago
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and divide them with the total number of users. Done. Except… it's a lot more complicated when you have any sort of significant time lag.
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...
Posts on Made of...
Distributed cloud builds for everyone
CPU cycles are cheaper than they have ever been, and cloud computing has never been more ubiquitous....
over a year ago
CPU cycles are cheaper than they have ever been, and cloud computing has never been more ubiquitous. All the major cloud providers offer generous free tiers, and services like GitHub Actions offer free compute resources to open-source repositories. So why do so many developers...
Vitalik Buterin's...
In-person meatspace protocol to prove unconditional possession of a private key
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
How do layer 2s really differ from execution sharding?
7 months ago
Home on Erik...
Where do locals go in NYC?
One obvious thing to anyone living in NYC is how tourists cluster in certain areas. I was curious...
over a year ago
One obvious thing to anyone living in NYC is how tourists cluster in certain areas. I was curious about the larger patterns around this, so I spent some time looking at data. The thing I wanted to understand is: what areas are dominated by tourists?
Abort Retry Fail
The History of OS/2
Getting a Divorce
a year ago
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
Build Button Clash in minutes: a new fun game with Plug and Make Kit
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit is all about turning creative sparks into reality in mere minutes....
2 weeks ago
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit is all about turning creative sparks into reality in mere minutes. With its intuitive, snap-together design, even the wildest ideas become achievable – fast, fun, and frustration-free. That’s exactly what Julián Caro Linares, Arduino’s Product...
Jonas Hietala
2019 in Review
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on...
over a year ago
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on the past year, and see that I did indeed do some things, and to look ahead a little.
2019 Non-Geek Achievements
Played around with Isidor.
It’s hard to describe how happy a kid can...
Christian Selig
Trials and tribulations of 360° video in Juno
In building Juno, a visionOS app for YouTube, a question that’s come up from users a few times is...
10 months ago
In building Juno, a visionOS app for YouTube, a question that’s come up from users a few times is whether it supports 360° and 180° videos (for the unfamiliar, it’s an immersive video format that fully surrounds you). The short answer is no, it’s sort of a niche feature without...
./techtipsy
My blog successfully survived a scheduled power outage
I had the opportunity to test the resiliency of my home server setup due to a scheduled power outage...
3 months ago
I had the opportunity to test the resiliency of my home server setup due to a scheduled power outage on 2024-09-13.
It was also Friday the 13th. I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious.
My setup usually consists of the home server, a Wifi AP/router combo box, a converter...
Louwrentius
Is there an easy and secure way to transfer files?
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network...
over a year ago
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network equipment is physically secure and that it is impossible for an attacker to get on the wire and start eavesdropping on network traffic.
Many organisations do not seem too concerned about...
Jonas Hietala
Zucchini Crabcakes
With a tiny bit more planning I made a dinner out the lessons 4 and 5 as the crabcakes were only...
over a year ago
With a tiny bit more planning I made a dinner out the lessons 4 and 5 as the crabcakes were only supposed to be an appetizer:
Crabcakes: Surprisingly delicious. Both me and Veronica gives them a 7.
Zucchini: While I thought they passed Veronica said “Zucchini is not my thing” and...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Blockchain explained simply
A blockchain is a distributed database. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin are all different databases....
over a year ago
A blockchain is a distributed database. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin are all different databases. A blockchain node is a computer with an…
Jonas Hietala
Printing Hextraction for my kids
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with...
10 months ago
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with my 3D printer instead of just tinkering with it.
I printed Hextraction, a very cool 3D printed board game for my kids—and they love it.
Hextraction is a gamified marble run, where...
Jonas Hietala
Blogging in Djot instead of Markdown
What if we weren’t chained to the past? What if we tried to create a light markup syntax that keeps...
10 months ago
What if we weren’t chained to the past? What if we tried to create a light markup syntax that keeps what is good about Markdown, while revising some of the features that have led to bloat and complexity in the CommonMark spec?
John Macfarlane, Beyond Markdown
I recently...
Notes on software...
What's the big deal about Deterministic Simulation Testing?
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And...
4 months ago
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And even once you've found a bug, it can be
anywhere from simple to impossible to reproduce it. It's about as far
away as you can get from the ideal test environment: property...
Arduino Blog
BrainPatch.AI: How a British neurotech startup built a working prototype fast, using Arduino Nano 33...
The field of neurotechnology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, opening up to safe and...
3 months ago
The field of neurotechnology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, opening up to safe and effective non-invasive interfaces that can deliver tiny milliamp currents to the right stimulation location on the head, neck or body. One example of the new players in this field is...
./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...
Good Enough
Grassroots
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends,...
8 months ago
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends, shouting on socials, and sharing links to our stuff with your favorite influencers–all of these things will help Good Enough succeed and continue making amazing stuff!
As we’ve been...
Home on Erik...
Interviewing is a noisy prediction problem
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence...
over a year ago
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence in my ability to assess people. Let me just throw a couple of algorithm questions at a candidate and then I'll tell you if they are good or not!
Louwrentius
What home NAS builders should understand about silent data corruption
Introduction
When it comes to dealing with storage in a DIY NAS context, two important topics come...
over a year ago
Introduction
When it comes to dealing with storage in a DIY NAS context, two important topics come up:
Unrecoverable read errors (UREs) or what old people like me call 'bad sectors'
Silent data corruption (data corruption unnoticed by the storage layers)
I get a strong impression...
./techtipsy
The little Wi-Fi AP that could
I have a bad habit of testing things whenever a “good” idea pops into my head. This is a short...
over a year ago
I have a bad habit of testing things whenever a “good” idea pops into my head. This is a short overview of one of them.
The Orange Pi Zero is a SBC (single board computer) that has a slow 32-bit ARM 4 core CPU, 512MB of RAM and no display output.
It’s actually quite OK for many...
Louwrentius
How to escape file names in bash shell scripts
After fighting with Bash for quite some time, I found out that the following
code provides a nice...
over a year ago
After fighting with Bash for quite some time, I found out that the following
code provides a nice basis for escaping special characters. Ofcource it is not
complete, but the most important characters are filtered.
If anybody has a better solution, please let me know. It works and...
Avestura's Blog
Explaining The Postgres Meme
Have you seen this legendary SQL iceberg meme? Let's talk about it while wearing our PostgreSQL hat!
a year ago
Have you seen this legendary SQL iceberg meme? Let's talk about it while wearing our PostgreSQL hat!
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Note On Charity Through Marginal Price Discrimination
over a year ago
Construction Physics
The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a...
a month ago
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
detreville
This is "detreville"
It's my name, and the name of my Substack too. That's one less thing for everyone to remember.
a year ago
It's my name, and the name of my Substack too. That's one less thing for everyone to remember.
Buck on Software
23 things you should know
1: Management’s true confidence is reflected in how fast they are hiring
over a year ago
1: Management’s true confidence is reflected in how fast they are hiring
Style over Substance
How to build your own Goodman ZONE camera, part 2
The Goodman ZONE is a medium-format 3D-printed film camera designed by Dora Goodman as part of her...
over a year ago
The Goodman ZONE is a medium-format 3D-printed film camera designed by Dora Goodman as part of her range of open-source camera models, using the existing Mamiya Press lens series for glass and the Mamiya RB67 backs to hold film. She sells pre-printed kits that contain all the...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Building multiplayer games with socket.io and HTML5 Canvas
I’ve been building crappy hobby games on and off for my whole coding life. One of my very first apps...
over a year ago
I’ve been building crappy hobby games on and off for my whole coding life. One of my very first apps was a Visual Basic game - I was in…
On Life and Lisp
OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux
Upgrade your Asahi Linux systems, because your graphics drivers are getting a big boost:...
a year ago
Upgrade your Asahi Linux systems, because your graphics drivers are getting a big boost: leapfrogging from OpenGL 2.1 over OpenGL 3.0 up to OpenGL 3.1! Similarly, the OpenGL ES 2.0 support is bumping up to OpenGL ES 3.0. That means more playable games and more functioning...
Applied Cartography
How shadcn/ui examples work
I’m increasingly convinced that for developer-first tools, a really good docs experience is a...
7 months ago
I’m increasingly convinced that for developer-first tools, a really good docs experience is a durable, non-trivial advantage.
Part of this thesis is that Really Good Docs Experiences, in addition to having great information architecture and strong writing/prose, should be thought...
Home on Erik...
Vote for our SXSW panel!
If you have a few minutes, you should check out mine and Chris Johnson‘s panel proposal. Go here and...
over a year ago
If you have a few minutes, you should check out mine and Chris Johnson‘s panel proposal. Go here and vote: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/24504
Algorithmic Music Discovery at Spotify
****Spotify crunches hundreds of billions of streams to analyze user's music taste and provide...
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...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Keep incidents boring
The internet is full of exciting incident war stories. Tough engineering problems, solved under...
over a year ago
The internet is full of exciting incident war stories. Tough engineering problems, solved under pressure by sleep-deprived developers. In an…
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Wiring
Dread it. Run from it. Wiring arrives all the same.
It’s time for the part of my VORON build that...
a year ago
Dread it. Run from it. Wiring arrives all the same.
It’s time for the part of my VORON build that I’ve been dreading: the wiring.
It’s scary because I really have no clue what I’m doing, and mistakes can be very costly and time-consuming.
I’ve taken my time to double- and...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Analyzing Token Sale Models
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
My Dream Game: The Tycoon
I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 a little this christmas. It wasn’t dead serious 1v1 which really is my...
over a year ago
I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 a little this christmas. It wasn’t dead serious 1v1 which really is my favorite but I’ve played 2v2 with some friends and I actually played the campaign a bit and it was pretty fun! Usually I never play the campaign on RTS games but this one I liked....
Louwrentius
Belkin Gigabit USB 2.0 adapter works perfectly with Linux
My ISP upgraded my internet connection speed to a whopping 120 Mbit. I am
using a mac mini as my...
over a year ago
My ISP upgraded my internet connection speed to a whopping 120 Mbit. I am
using a mac mini as my internet router. As you may be aware, the mini has
only one network interface, so I added a second interface using a USB to
ethernet adapter. This adapter was limited to 100 Mbit, so...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma
a year ago
Willem's Blog
Improve your sleep by blocking light
I have been wearing a sleep mask in bed, blocking all light. It has been amazing for my sleep's...
over a year ago
I have been wearing a sleep mask in bed, blocking all light. It has been amazing for my sleep's quality. Read along for my findings!
Matt Blewitt
7 Languages in 7 Weeks for 2025
It’s been over 14 years since the original 7 Languages in 7 Weeks was first published, giving a...
3 weeks ago
It’s been over 14 years since the original 7 Languages in 7 Weeks was first published, giving a hands on tour of Ruby, Clojure, Haskell, Io, Scala, Erlang and Prolog. Ruby achieved critical mass, to some degree so did Scala, with the others being popular within their specific...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 1: The Merge
2 months ago
computers are bad
2024-07-31 just disconnect the internet
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of...
4 months ago
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of their Windows install base with a poorly tested content
update. Rough day at the office, huh? There are lots of things you could say
about this, lots of reasons it happens this way,...
Notes on software...
Two books I recommend to developers
Originally published on February 1, 2021. The original version
included two books I don't think...
a year ago
Originally published on February 1, 2021. The original version
included two books I don't think are actually so worthwhile. This
list is down to two. I think that's a good thing actually.
These are the books I recommend to developers wanting to improve their
skills as...
csvbase blog
Parquet: more than just "Turbo CSV"
Quicker, but also more convenient
a year ago
Quicker, but also more convenient
Computer Ads from...
American Heart Association
A PSA and an Ad
a month ago
Neil Madden
Newsletter
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably...
11 months ago
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably exploring a few topics around AI and philosophy. If you’d prefer some more technical content around security and cryptography, then take a look at the newsletter I put out for my...
Home on Erik...
Toxic meeting culture
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading...
over a year ago
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading to my departure was that I went from a “maker” to a person stuck in meetings every day.
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 22 Here I Come
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on...
over a year ago
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on studying for it, I am now ready to declare my entry into Ludum Dare 22! I’ve been away far too long, with my entries for the 17th and the 20th dare being almost a century away, the...
Engineers Need Art
Adam74
The Adam74 is a small ASCII-based terminal designed for the 8-bit hobbyist.
over a year ago
The Adam74 is a small ASCII-based terminal designed for the 8-bit hobbyist.
Neil Madden
On PBKDF2 iterations
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to...
a year ago
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to the number of PBKDF2 iterations applied to the master password to derive the vault encryption key. Other people have already dissected this particular breach, but I want to more...
./techtipsy
HoloISO: the unofficial Steam Deck experience on your PC
If you have spent any time in gaming hardware circles, then you’ve probably
heard about the Steam...
over a year ago
If you have spent any time in gaming hardware circles, then you’ve probably
heard about the Steam Deck, the
Linux-based handheld gaming PC built by Valve. Yes, you heard that right: not
Windows, but Linux.
I’ve had my fair share of attempts at gaming on Linux. When it works,...
Electronics etc…
Tektronix TDS 684B Oscilloscope Button Swap
Introduction
Removing the panels
Swapping a Rotary Encoder
Putting it all back together
End...
8 months ago
Introduction
Removing the panels
Swapping a Rotary Encoder
Putting it all back together
End Result
Introduction
I recently bought a TDS 684B for cheap at a government auction. With 1 GHz BW
and 5 Gsps sample rate, it can be used for those cases where my 350 MHz/2Gsps
Siglent...
On Life and Lisp
Software freedom isn't about licenses -- it's about power.
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When...
over a year ago
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When the free software movement was founded thirty years ago, these restrictive licenses were the primary user-hostile power dynamic, so permissive and copyleft licenses emerged as...
Willem's Blog
The joy of a simple laptop
This week I tested the Surface Laptop Go with Windows 10 and quite frankly was amazed by the...
over a year ago
This week I tested the Surface Laptop Go with Windows 10 and quite frankly was amazed by the experience!
Home on Erik...
Wikiphilia
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles...
over a year ago
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles worth sharing and that's why I created the wikiphilia Twitter handle. Just a long stream of stuff that for one reason or another may be interesting.
Home on Erik...
What I have been working on: Modal
Long story short: I'm working on a super cool tool called Modal. Please check it out — it lets you...
over a year ago
Long story short: I'm working on a super cool tool called Modal. Please check it out — it lets you run things in the cloud without having to think about infrastructure. Scaling out, scheduling, containerization, using GPUs, setting up webhooks, and all kinds of other stuff.
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Build start
The end goal, as rendered by Autodesk’s online viewer
I’m not sure where it came from, but it was...
a year ago
The end goal, as rendered by Autodesk’s online viewer
I’m not sure where it came from, but it was suddenly very important that I got myself a 3D printer.
Maybe it was an important insight, but it maybe it was only a fix idea I got that somehow became this all-import...
Style over Substance
Adding night shading to a Home Assistant mini-graph-card chart
One of my favorite Lovelace interface cards for Home Assistant is the mini-graph-card by kalkih....
over a year ago
One of my favorite Lovelace interface cards for Home Assistant is the mini-graph-card by kalkih. It’s the card running most of the graphs in our smart home‘s dashboard. Surprisingly, mini-graph card is actually not included in Home Assistant by default – honestly, it should be,...
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 5 (DOF)
Some light Visual Pinball debugging and the world of DOF. New to DOF? Read on.
8 months ago
Some light Visual Pinball debugging and the world of DOF. New to DOF? Read on.
Louwrentius
The iPhone, iPad and iOS are powering a revolution
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people...
over a year ago
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people who make them are maybe even dumber. Because they
can't seem to figure out how to create a computer that the majority of people
understand.
When the original macintosh arrived at...
Opsbros
The Bindicator
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it....
over a year ago
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it. The one shown is the Rev-1 design which is far from perfect, in fact it has several major issues I will discuss below, however it definitely works,
Willem's Blog
Migrating to the Cloud
Helping a customer clear its on-premise data room and migrate to the cloud: an adventure full of...
over a year ago
Helping a customer clear its on-premise data room and migrate to the cloud: an adventure full of cables, cabinets and bandwidth!
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,...
Notes on software...
The limitations of LLMs, or why are we doing RAG?
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
6 months ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Jonas Hietala
Eduroam for wicd in Linkoping's University
So we have eduroam at our University and unsurprisingly wicd is not on their official support list...
over a year ago
So we have eduroam at our University and unsurprisingly wicd is not on their official support list but with some googling the wonderful Arch Wiki had the answer. Well, almost.
Save the following as /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/ttls-80211:
name = TTLS for Wireless
author =...
./techtipsy
How to make digital copies of your old video tapes
Introduction
This is a short overview of one way to take your old video tapes and make digital...
over a year ago
Introduction
This is a short overview of one way to take your old video tapes and make digital copies of their contents.
To get started, you will need the following:
old video tapes that you want to make copies of (VHS and its variants)
a device that can read analog AV signals...
Jonas Hietala
Stereotypes
I read a great essay or article about stereotypical programmers called The Little Printf. I really...
over a year ago
I read a great essay or article about stereotypical programmers called The Little Printf. I really couldn’t do it justice so do yourself a favor and go read it. It touches on several types of programmers or rather traits of programmers I recognize in my surroundings and also...
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.
./techtipsy
Cool projects
This is an unsorted list of projects that really cool and neat.
Chromebook cluster
someone took...
a year ago
This is an unsorted list of projects that really cool and neat.
Chromebook cluster
someone took some old Chromebooks, stripped them down and built a cluster. I love this kind of jank!
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Sat-E
This is my postmortem for my Ludum Dare 22 entry, Sat-E. You can find the timelapse over here.
The...
over a year ago
This is my postmortem for my Ludum Dare 22 entry, Sat-E. You can find the timelapse over here.
The Good
Motivation
I was really motivated for this dare and it showed in the game and outside it. It’s super hard to make a game in only 48 hours but this time it went pretty well. My...
Louwrentius
How to determine which process causes IO ?
There is a nifty little program called 'iotop'. Iotop is part of Debian or
Ubuntu and can be...
over a year ago
There is a nifty little program called 'iotop'. Iotop is part of Debian or
Ubuntu and can be installed with a simple apt-get.
Once you have determined with 'top' that the system is waiting on IO-access,
It is nice to know
which process is responsibe for this IO. Therefore, you...
Jonas Hietala
A Vacation Filled with Obsession
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to...
over a year ago
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to our dear home village Övertorneå and spent two weeks celebrating Christmas and New Years Eve. What did we do? I practiced some obsessive behavior with Power Grid and Minecraft (and...
Simply Explained
Shelly 2.5 + ESPHome: potential fire hazard + fix
If you have flashed your Shelly 2.5 with ESPHome, make sure to configure GPIO16. Otherwise, the pin...
over a year ago
If you have flashed your Shelly 2.5 with ESPHome, make sure to configure GPIO16. Otherwise, the pin will be short-circuited and cause the unit to heat up significantly, creating a potential fire hazard!
Yazin Alirhayim
Tracking where a WhatsApp user came from
At Amal, we have an AI chat bot that works over WhatsApp — allowing our customers to speak to their...
over a year ago
At Amal, we have an AI chat bot that works over WhatsApp — allowing our customers to speak to their bank account, asking questions like “What’s my balance” and “How much have I spent on Uber’s this month?”.
A problem we faced really early on when connecting to WhatsApp was that...
Willem's Blog
Smartwatches vs Mechanical watches
Why I still wear a mechanical watch and why smartwatches have potential.
over a year ago
Why I still wear a mechanical watch and why smartwatches have potential.
Home on Erik...
We're hiring at Better
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the...
over a year ago
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the team here in NYC lately—the tech team has actually grown from 35 to 60 in just ~3 months.
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...
Willem's Blog
Enjoy a festival without alcohol
This year I didn't drink alcohol during Rock Werchter, leading to interesting observations during...
over a year ago
This year I didn't drink alcohol during Rock Werchter, leading to interesting observations during the music festival.
Electronics etc…
An In-Depth Look at the ICE-V Wireless FPGA Development Board
Introduction
The ICE-V Wireless FPGA Board
Preloading the PSRAM with User Data
The Overall Boot...
a year ago
Introduction
The ICE-V Wireless FPGA Board
Preloading the PSRAM with User Data
The Overall Boot Process
UART Console
Getting Started with the ICE-V Wireless Board for Real
Reinstalling or Modifying the ESP32C3 Firmware
The RISC-V Example FPGA Design
Compiling the RISC-V Example...
Arduino Blog
Innovative new tactile sensor helps assess fine motor skills
Fine motor skills correlate strongly with cognition and the accurate assessment of an individual’s...
7 months ago
Fine motor skills correlate strongly with cognition and the accurate assessment of an individual’s motor skills can be critical in diagnosing and treating a variety of conditions. But objective evaluation has been a challenge, as suitable sensors weren’t available. To help...
Vitalik Buterin's...
On Medium-of-Exchange Token Valuations
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
The Revenue-Evil Curve: a different way to think about prioritizing public goods funding
over a year ago
Neil Madden
Entity authentication with a KEM
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity...
a year ago
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity authentication or identification (to distinguish it from message authentication or data origin authentication). There are lots of ways to do this. In this post I’m going to talk about...
axio.ms
MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building...
6 months ago
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building a simple desktop/GUI for it. I’d made a comment along the lines of “or, just run some old OS”, and it got me thinking about the original Macintosh.
The original Macintosh was...
Notes on software...
Notes on running Electron
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
GitButler
The Future of Open Source
A GitHub founder's musings on the past, present and future of large groups of people collaborating...
4 months ago
A GitHub founder's musings on the past, present and future of large groups of people collaborating on software in awesome ways.
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
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...
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios: Signaling and Job Control
(This is part three of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read...
over a year ago
(This is part three of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part 1 or part 2 if you’re new here)
For my final entry on termios, I will be looking at job control in the shell (i.e. backgrounding and foreground jobs) and the very closely related...
Notes on software...
On NYC, Tokyo and Seoul
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a...
over a year ago
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a rural community a few hours west of
there. My wife is South Korean and last week concluded my second trip
to the suburbs of Seoul to visit her family. We finished up that trip
with a...
Matt Blewitt
Software Sprezzatura
Sprezzatura is “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says...
over a year ago
Sprezzatura is “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”, coined by Castiglione in 1528’s The Book of the Courtier.
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...
Home on Erik...
Buffet lines are terrible, but let's try to improve them using computer simulations
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives....
over a year ago
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives. I've suspected for years that the “classic” buffet line system is a deeply flawed and inefficient method, and every time I'm stuck in the line has made me more convinced.
anderegg.ca
My 2024 Upgradies Picks
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I...
3 weeks ago
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I submitted my recommendations earlier today, and thought it would be fun to share my picks.
Best Overall iOS App
Bear
I once again don’t have a new app for this category, but Bear has...
Louwrentius
Shunit2, unit testing for shell scripts
This may be of interest to people who are as stupid as I am and write
elaborate shell scripts...
over a year ago
This may be of interest to people who are as stupid as I am and write
elaborate shell scripts instead of using a proper scripting language such as
Python or Ruby. No I am deliberately not mentioning Perl here.
Anyway, testing is always an issue. With PPSS, I encountered many...
Jonas Hietala
fish_update_completions in Slackware 14.1
I’ve been trying out fish shell lately. A cool feature with fish is that it can automatically...
over a year ago
I’ve been trying out fish shell lately. A cool feature with fish is that it can automatically generate completions by parsing the installed man pages by running fish_update_completions.
Unfortunately this is what I got:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File...
Notes on software...
Favorite compiler and interpreter resources
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
somenice
Generative 3D Modeling
Recently Microsoft released the open 3D generation software Trellis. I decided to try a few tests as...
5 days ago
Recently Microsoft released the open 3D generation software Trellis. I decided to try a few tests as reviews had been quite favourable with results creating 3D models with “AI”. The website describes the technology as unified Structured LATent (SLAT) representation and there is a...
Willem's Blog
Tablet as main computer
I have been using a tablet as my main computer for quite some time now. In this blog post I share...
over a year ago
I have been using a tablet as my main computer for quite some time now. In this blog post I share you my experience on using Surface Pro and iPad Pro to get my work done.
Jonas Hietala
2016 Read Books
Yeah so I managed to not read a single fiction book this year. To compensate and make myself feel...
over a year ago
Yeah so I managed to not read a single fiction book this year. To compensate and make myself feel better I’ll add in some new mangas I’ve read, but I may may have missed some.
Fiction
Crickets
Non-Fiction
Getting to Yes
Relax into Stretch
Thinking, Fast and Slow
59 seconds
The...
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
Understanding IOPS, latency and storage performance
Update 2020: I've written another blogpost about this topic, including some benchmark examples.
When...
over a year ago
Update 2020: I've written another blogpost about this topic, including some benchmark examples.
When most people think about storage performance, they think about throughput. But throughput is similar to the top speed of a car. In reality, you will almost never reach the top...
Louwrentius
Linux Software RAID benchmarking script
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use...
over a year ago
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use my
new benchmark script. I used this script to create these results.
You may need to configure some values within the header of this file to make
it fit your enviroment.
...
latest projects -...
Portable Probability Panel
[Misc] Laser-cut Galton board
5 months ago
[Misc] Laser-cut Galton board
./techtipsy
The hidden media play/pause/stop keys on the Lenovo ThinkPad L390 Yoga
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This...
7 months ago
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This included the media playback control keys.
On the ThinkPad T430, the new chiclet keyboard layout moved the media keys to
the function row. Still there, but less convenient to access.
The...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 2: The Surge
2 months ago
Arduino Blog
A DIY bottle-labeling machine perfect for homebrewers
While it is certainly possible (and common) to put homebrewed beer into kegs, that requires...
6 months ago
While it is certainly possible (and common) to put homebrewed beer into kegs, that requires regulated gas and large refrigeration space. A keg is also more difficult to transport and overkill if you just want to bring a few beers to a friend’s backyard BBQ. For those reasons,...
axio.ms
Mac SE/30 odyssey
I’ve always wanted an Apple Macintosh SE/30. Released in 1989, they look quite a lot like the other...
over a year ago
I’ve always wanted an Apple Macintosh SE/30. Released in 1989, they look quite a lot like the other members of the original “compact Mac” series, but pack in a ton of interesting features that the other compact Macs don’t have.
This is the story of my journey to getting to the...
Engineers Need Art
SystemSix
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an...
over a year ago
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an e-ink display.
Computer Ads from...
Salamander Software's Franklin's Tomb
My name is Diamond, Dan Diamond. I'm a private cop.
9 months ago
My name is Diamond, Dan Diamond. I'm a private cop.
Vitalik Buterin's...
An Incomplete Guide to Rollups
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Go database driver overhead on insert-heavy workloads
The most popular SQLite and PostgreSQL database drivers in Go are
(roughly) 20-76% slower than...
a year ago
The most popular SQLite and PostgreSQL database drivers in Go are
(roughly) 20-76% slower than alternative Go drivers on insert-heavy
benchmarks of mine. So if you are bulk-inserting data with Go (and
potentially also bulk-retrieving data with Go), you may want to
consider the...
computers are bad
2023-01-16 huff-duff
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an...
a year ago
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an extremely useful property of HF radio here is that HF
frequencies can reflect off of the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing them
to rebound towards earth at a range much further...
Posts on Made of...
Automounting sshfs
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally...
over a year ago
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally lightweight way to access the remote filesystem of any machine you have ssh to, without requiring any extra setup on the host. I’ve been running for at least a year now with my...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 4
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
a year ago
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
Matt Blewitt
Control Loops and Rice Cookers
Rice cookers are fascinating machines. I’ve owned one for years, as rice is a significant part of my...
over a year ago
Rice cookers are fascinating machines. I’ve owned one for years, as rice is a significant part of my regular diet, and it completely removes the stress of preparing rice. They also operate on a simple principle that can help us operate cloud infrastructure – the control loop.
Louwrentius
Monitor power usage with your UPS
If a system is connected to a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), it is
possible to determine how...
over a year ago
If a system is connected to a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), it is
possible to determine how much power it consumes. For this purpose, I wrote a
small script:
Host:~# ./ups.sh
UPS model: Back-UPS RS 1200 LCD
APC model: Back-UPS RS 1200 LC
Capacity: 720 Watt
Load: 18...
Willem's Blog
Cash is king, or is it?
Is the time right to ditch the wallet?
over a year ago
Is the time right to ditch the wallet?
Home on Erik...
Miscellaneous unsolicited (and possibly biased) career advice
No one asked for this, but I'm something like ~12 years into my career and have had my fair share of...
over a year ago
No one asked for this, but I'm something like ~12 years into my career and have had my fair share of mistakes and luck so I thought I'd share some.
Honestly, I feel like I've mostly benefitted from luck.
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Lindhska Store Championship Örebro
After the awesomeness during the previous store championship, I decided to go to the store...
over a year ago
After the awesomeness during the previous store championship, I decided to go to the store championship at Lindhska Bokhandel in Örebro.
I brought a modified version of the same corp I used the last time, a Blue Sun kill deck and a new runner with Leela Patel. See the links for...
Louwrentius
Things you should consider when building a ZFS NAS
ZFS is a modern file system designed by Sun Microsystems, targeted at enterprise environments. Many...
over a year ago
ZFS is a modern file system designed by Sun Microsystems, targeted at enterprise environments. Many features of ZFS also appeal to home NAS builders and with good reason. But not all features are relevant or necessary for home use.
I believe that most home users building their...
Good Enough
How We Made A Good Enough Zine
We made a zine!
The first issue was released in August, and I finished the second issue just last...
a year ago
We made a zine!
The first issue was released in August, and I finished the second issue just last week. Right now, a hundred copies are on their way from the printer to me (update: they've just arrived!). Today I'd like to share the story of how this zine came about.
(Sorry for...
Home on Erik...
How to set compensation using commonsense principles
Compensation has always been one of the most confusing parts of management to me. Getting it right...
over a year ago
Compensation has always been one of the most confusing parts of management to me. Getting it right is obviously extremely important. Compensation is what drives our entire economy, and you could look at the market for labor as one gigantic resource-allocating machine in the same...
Ken Shirriff's blog
The transparent chip inside a vintage Hewlett-Packard floppy drive
While repairing an eight-inch HP floppy drive, we found that the problem was a broken interface...
a year ago
While repairing an eight-inch HP floppy drive, we found that the problem was a broken interface chip.
Since the chip was bad, I decapped it and took photos.
This chip is very unusual: instead of a silicon substrate, the chip is formed on
a base of sapphire, with silicon and metal...
Willem's Blog
Your own addressbook and calendar cloud
You can setup a CardDAV/CalDAV server to manage your own contacts, addressbook, agenda and task data...
over a year ago
You can setup a CardDAV/CalDAV server to manage your own contacts, addressbook, agenda and task data and share it between your devices.
Matt Mullenweg
State of the Word Tokyo
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an...
6 days ago
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. We’ve...
Home on Erik...
2D embedding of 5k artists = WIN
I'm at KDD in Chicago for a few days. We have a Spotify booth tomorrow, and I wanted to put together...
over a year ago
I'm at KDD in Chicago for a few days. We have a Spotify booth tomorrow, and I wanted to put together some cool graphics to show. I've been thinking about doing a 2D embedding of the top artists forever since I read about t-SNE and other papers so this was a perfect opportunity to...
computers are bad
2023-11-19 Centrex
I have always been fascinated by the PABX - the private automatic branch
exchange, often shortened...
a year ago
I have always been fascinated by the PABX - the private automatic branch
exchange, often shortened to "PBX" in today's world where the "automatic" is
implied. (Relatively) modern small and medium business PABXs of the type I like
to collect are largely solid-state devices that...
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,...
Notes on software...
Static analysis with semgrep: practical examples using Docker
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules...
over a year ago
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules against our code.
Existing linters
Linters like pylint for Python or
eslint for JavaScript are great for general,
broad language standards. But what about common nits in code review
like...
computers are bad
2024-07-13 the contemporary carphone
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation...
5 months ago
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation that
has stuck in my brain: sophisticated computer users, nerds if you will, have
a tendency to completely ignore things that they know are worthless. He was
referring to the...
watchTowr Labs -...
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire - Mitel MiCollab CVE-2024-35286, CVE-2024-41713 And An 0day
It is not just APTs that like to target telephone systems, but ourselves at watchTowr too.
We can't...
2 weeks ago
It is not just APTs that like to target telephone systems, but ourselves at watchTowr too.
We can't overstate the consequences of an attacker crossing the boundary from the 'computer system' to the 'telephone system'. We've seen attackers realise this in 2024,
Notes on software...
How to recommend books, or, stop recommending SICP
Many "must-read" books are not well-written. I try to read a
lot, but I
still have a low tolerance...
over a year ago
Many "must-read" books are not well-written. I try to read a
lot, but I
still have a low tolerance for bad writing and bad editing. I write
this post both to discourage thoughtless recommendations and to
encourage the receivers of bad recommendations.
For software developers,...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Zk-SNARKs: Under the Hood
over a year ago
./techtipsy
Database optimization adventures on low-end hardware
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that...
over a year ago
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that were collected from
a pretty fancy smart home setup. This data included power usage of various sections of the building, temperature
sensors, water usage levels and more. The data...
Posts on Made of...
Using Haskell's 'newtype' in C
A common problem in software engineering is avoiding confusion and errors when dealing with multiple...
over a year ago
A common problem in software engineering is avoiding confusion and errors when dealing with multiple types of data that share the same representation. Classic examples include differentiating between measurements stored in different units, distinguishing between a string of HTML...
./techtipsy
I've reached the self-hosting endgame
Setup
After I had a perfectly functional, quiet and performant server up and running, I fell
victim...
over a year ago
Setup
After I had a perfectly functional, quiet and performant server up and running, I fell
victim to my imagination and completely changed my self-hosting setup. Again.
Here it is, in all its glory:
Well, at least that’s what’s on the table.
This machine is a true all-in-one:...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Reverse engineering the 59-pound printer onboard the Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle contained a bulky printer so the astronauts could
receive procedures, mission...
4 months ago
The Space Shuttle contained a bulky printer so the astronauts could
receive procedures, mission plans, weather reports, crew activity plans, and other documents.
Needed for the first Shuttle launch in 1981, this printer was designed in just 7 months, built around an Army...
Posts on Made of...
Confessions of a programmer: I hate code review
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work...
over a year ago
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work requires code review on most of our code, and as we bring on an army of interns for the summer, I've been responsible for reviewing lots of code. Additionally, about five months ago...
Jonas Hietala
Food vacation in Japan
Me and my friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and had a great time. I wasn’t planning on taking a lot of...
over a year ago
Me and my friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and had a great time. I wasn’t planning on taking a lot of pictures, but I ended up sending a bunch back home as a ways of keeping my family up to date. When I look back most of them are about food… So I’ll turn this into a post about the...
lcamtuf’s thing
The untimely demise of an image upscaler
ML-based image enhancement models are great. Unfortunately, some of them are great only once.
3 months ago
ML-based image enhancement models are great. Unfortunately, some of them are great only once.
Willem's Blog
The day I killed my LAN
I killed my office LAN and went 4G only. Saves a lot of clutter, energy and money.
over a year ago
I killed my office LAN and went 4G only. Saves a lot of clutter, energy and money.
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1982/08 Commodore Computing International Mag
Time for some humor
5 months ago
Arduino Blog
Top Arduino Cloud IoT dashboard ideas with the new Image widget
Recently, we announced the exciting new Image widget for Arduino Cloud. This powerful feature opens...
2 months ago
Recently, we announced the exciting new Image widget for Arduino Cloud. This powerful feature opens up a world of possibilities for enhancing your IoT dashboards. But the true potential of the Image widget lies in the applications that you create. Today, we’re excited to dive...
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...
Louwrentius
Benefits of hyper-threading on a Core 7i processor
I had some wave files that I wanted to encode to mp3. I wrote a small parallel
processing framework...
over a year ago
I had some wave files that I wanted to encode to mp3. I wrote a small parallel
processing framework for this job. It executes parallel jobs so I can benefit
from the 4 cores + 4 virtual cores of my new Core 7i 920 processor.
The framework is based on some shell scripts running...
computers are bad
2024-01-06 usb on the go
USB, the Universal Serial Bus, was first released in 1996. It did not achieve
widespread adoption...
11 months ago
USB, the Universal Serial Bus, was first released in 1996. It did not achieve
widespread adoption until some years later; for most of the '90s RS-232-ish
serial and its
awkward sibling the parallel port
were the norm for external peripheral. It's sort of surprising that USB...
Willem's Blog
Making my own tablet OS
I wondered if I could escape Windows by installing Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go, read along to...
over a year ago
I wondered if I could escape Windows by installing Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go, read along to find out how to do this!
Home on Erik...
The eigenvector of "Why we moved from language X to language Y"
I was reading yet another blog post titled “Why our team moved from <language X> to <language Y>” (I...
over a year ago
I was reading yet another blog post titled “Why our team moved from <language X> to <language Y>” (I forgot which one) and I started wondering if you can generalize it a bit. Is it possible to generate a N * N contingency table of moving from language X to language Y?
Jonas Hietala
The Arty Timeline
While working on Jonas IceCream Stand I took a screenshot every day and I thought they looked pretty...
over a year ago
While working on Jonas IceCream Stand I took a screenshot every day and I thought they looked pretty cool so here they are:
And now I’m off with New World Order and (for once) I’ve got a really really good idea!
Lars Lofgren
Why I’m Switching Web Hosts
Recently, I’ve gotten fed up with my web host. Since I stood this site up, I’ve used MediaTemple....
over a year ago
Recently, I’ve gotten fed up with my web host. Since I stood this site up, I’ve used MediaTemple. This was before WP Engine was around. At the time, MediaTemple had carved out a nice niche for themselves as the premium web host. Tim Ferriss also raved about them back in the day....
Posts on Made of...
Some Android reverse-engineering tools
I’ve spent a lot of time this last week staring at decompiled Dalvik assembly. In the process, I...
over a year ago
I’ve spent a lot of time this last week staring at decompiled Dalvik assembly. In the process, I created a couple of useful tools that I figure are worth sharing.
I’ve been using dedexer instead of baksmali, honestly mainly because the former’s output has fewer blank lines and so...
Good Enough
How We Built Quack (Beta)
We recently launched Quack, a simple utility for you to share a beautifully rendered version of any...
a year ago
We recently launched Quack, a simple utility for you to share a beautifully rendered version of any Markdown text. This software is completely front-end based, and for me personally it was a bit of a challenging puzzle to implement. Thankfully we have genius hackers like Arun...
axio.ms
Maths is Fun and Useful but Lasers Are More So
Way back when, I made a cool but basic paper sculpture (in Maths is Fun and Useful) by hand, using a...
over a year ago
Way back when, I made a cool but basic paper sculpture (in Maths is Fun and Useful) by hand, using a perl script for the shape template. For cultural reasons, I wanted to make a gift out of paper and it had to be Heaps Good.
I had finally got access to a laser cutter (omgomg)...
Good Enough
Cool Songs Don’t Die
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing...
a year ago
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing 22 years ago and ran for 5 seasons and was a pretty big hit and launched the careers of two bonafide movie stars and featured a cast of very well known supporting actors. So yeah,...
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.
Home on Erik...
Everything I learned about technical debt
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover...
over a year ago
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover that. Instead, I will talk a little bit about technical debt.
The concept of technical debt always resonated with me, partly because I always like the analogy with “real” debt.
lcamtuf’s thing
The 101 of analog signal filtering
Some intuition about this topic can be developed without summoning the ghost of Pierre-Simon...
5 months ago
Some intuition about this topic can be developed without summoning the ghost of Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Louwrentius
How to build an energy efficient computer for home use
In short:
Buy whatever you fucking want.
Turn the fucking thing off when you're not using...
over a year ago
In short:
Buy whatever you fucking want.
Turn the fucking thing off when you're not using it.
Long:
People are spending a lot of time building an energy efficient home computer,
that can act as an HTPC, NAS, or whatever. It must consume as little power as
possible, because it it...
Louwrentius
Lustre and the risk of Serious Data Loss
Personally I have a weakness for big-ass storage. Say 'petabyte' and I'm
interested. So I was...
over a year ago
Personally I have a weakness for big-ass storage. Say 'petabyte' and I'm
interested. So I was thinking about how you would setup a large, scalable
storage infrastructure. How should such a thing work?
Very simple: you should be able just to add hosts with some bad-ass huge...
Notes on software...
Thinking about functional programming
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial...
a year ago
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial tweet on the subject prompted an
interesting
discussion
with Shriram
Krishnamurthi and other folks.
So here's a slightly more thought out exploration.
And just for backstory sake: I...
./techtipsy
Surviving the front page of HackerNews on a 50 Mbps uplink
Around a month ago I shared my blog post
on HackerNews. I guess I lucked out with the choice of the...
over a year ago
Around a month ago I shared my blog post
on HackerNews. I guess I lucked out with the choice of the topic, because it
brought out a lot of enthusiasts who shared their own experiences with older
machinery that still works in 2022. I really appreciate the feedback and...
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
Posts on Made of...
A week with the iPhone
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about...
over a year ago
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about it.
First, the little things. It is, in typical Apple fashion, an incredibly slick piece of work. Scrolling and zooming images or webpages is simple, easy, and, well, just fun to do...
Jonas Hietala
Death to the Forum
Well it was fun while it lasted, but now it’s gone and it’ll stay gone for a long time I think. It...
over a year ago
Well it was fun while it lasted, but now it’s gone and it’ll stay gone for a long time I think. It was mainly a test to see if I could do it and I’m really proud of my styling of it but it’s deader than in a grave, which isn’t really surprising, and it bothered me that I didn’t...
Birchtree
Somehow, more YouTube gems
Yup, we’re doing this again because you all seem to like them an honestly I kinda like making them...
2 days ago
Yup, we’re doing this again because you all seem to like them an honestly I kinda like making them 😊
I love Answer in Progress, especially Sabrina’s videos, and she gets about as obsessed with anything she’s ever looked at in this episode (and
Arduino Blog
Is there an online Arduino IDE?
Since the inception of Arduino, the Arduino IDE has been a go-to tool for people learning to code...
2 months ago
Since the inception of Arduino, the Arduino IDE has been a go-to tool for people learning to code and creating projects ranging from remote-controlled cars to soil moisture monitoring. No wonder it’s been downloaded over 24 million times this year, so far! Now if you’ve ever...
Avestura's Blog
How to change visibility in massive GitHub organizations like EpicGames?
How to publicize and un-publicize your visibility in massive GitHub orgs?
over a year ago
How to publicize and un-publicize your visibility in massive GitHub orgs?
Applied Cartography
You should use Helpscout
Was digging through old issues of the personal site and found this draft snippet:
I was evaluating...
10 months ago
Was digging through old issues of the personal site and found this draft snippet:
I was evaluating HelpScout as a potential first step in a series of many, many steps to onboard a dedicated support engineer for Buttondown, and it turns out that the process of adding custom...
./techtipsy
Why I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012
This post is inspired by this article from the Low-tech Magazine.
I highly recommend giving that a...
over a year ago
This post is inspired by this article from the Low-tech Magazine.
I highly recommend giving that a read as well!
Over my lifetime, I’ve used a bunch of different computers, mainly due to new
ideas and requirements popping into my mind every time I’m content with my
current setup....
Home on Erik...
Predicting solar eclipses with Python
As I am en route to see my first total solar eclipse, I was curious how hard it would be to compute...
8 months ago
As I am en route to see my first total solar eclipse, I was curious how hard it would be to compute eclipses in Python. It turns out, ignoring some minor coordinate system head-banging, I was able to get something half-decent working in a couple of hours.
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside a ferroelectric RAM chip
Ferroelectric memory (FRAM) is an interesting storage technique that stores bits in a special...
2 months ago
Ferroelectric memory (FRAM) is an interesting storage technique that stores bits in a special "ferroelectric" material.
Ferroelectric memory is nonvolatile like flash memory, able to hold its data for decades.
But, unlike flash, ferroelectric memory can write data...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What kind of layer 3s make sense?
over a year ago
Arduino Blog
Use sound to trigger your camera’s flash with this DIY device
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo...
2 months ago
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo (not too bright or too dark), you need a balance of aperture size (how much light gets in), shutter speed (how long the light gets in), and ISO (sensitivity to light at the expense of...
Electronics etc…
Fake Parallel Printer - A Parallel Port Traffic Capturing Tool
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake...
a year ago
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake Printer HW Details
PCB Revision 1
PCB Revision 2
Firmware
Building a Fake Printer Tool Yourself
Programming the Raspberry Pico
Fake Printer as a USB Serial Device on your...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond
over a year ago
Bryan Braun - Blog
Unusual Git IDs
You can search Github for unusual commit IDs:
There are over 2k commits starting with...
a month ago
You can search Github for unusual commit IDs:
There are over 2k commits starting with 0000000!
While looking for commits like these, I started to become suspicious that people were intentionally modifying their commits IDs to be unusual:
A commit ID of eeeeeee, with a message...
Jonas Hietala
A Four-Eyed Update
Wow it’s been a while! Almost a month and a half since my last update. There I complained about my...
over a year ago
Wow it’s been a while! Almost a month and a half since my last update. There I complained about my almost constant headaches which hampered me a lot actually. Luckily now I have joined the rank of cool.
I took home three frames I think and tried them out and I settled some I...
Home on Erik...
Better precision and faster index building in Annoy
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index...
over a year ago
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index building in Annoy.
For anyone who isn't acquainted with Annoy – it's a C++ library with Python bindings that provides fast high-dimensional nearest neighbor search.
Louwrentius
Rebooting results in degraded RAID array using Debian Lenny
As described earlier, I setup a RAID 6 array consisting of physical 1 TB disk
and 'virtual' 1 TB...
over a year ago
As described earlier, I setup a RAID 6 array consisting of physical 1 TB disk
and 'virtual' 1 TB disks that are in fact two 0.5 TB disks in RAID 0.
I wanted to upgrade to Lenny because the new kernel that ships with Lenny
supports growing a RAID 6 array. After installing Lenny...
Louwrentius
20 disk 18 TB RAID 6 storage based on Debian Linux
This system is no longer operational and has been decomissioned (2017)
This is my NAS storage server...
over a year ago
This system is no longer operational and has been decomissioned (2017)
This is my NAS storage server based on Debian Linux. It uses software RAID and 20 one
terrabyte hard drives. It provides a total usable storage capacity of 18 terrabytes in a single RAID 6 array.
One of the...
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
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...
Willem's Blog
Beast of the Green Hell
Blog post about an amazing AMG Circuit day at the race track of Zolder, Belgium.
over a year ago
Blog post about an amazing AMG Circuit day at the race track of Zolder, Belgium.
Louwrentius
Fio-plot: creating nice charts from FIO storage benchmark data
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice...
over a year ago
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice charts. It allows you to create four types of graphs which will be discussed below.
The github project page explains how to run this tool.
Fio-plot also includes a benchmark script...
Good Enough
TIL: Use touch-action: manipulation; to avoid double-tap-to-zoom
Recently we built and launched A Good Enough Guestbook, a place where you can send us doodles and...
a year ago
Recently we built and launched A Good Enough Guestbook, a place where you can send us doodles and they’ll print out on our little printer. It’s quite lovely and fun, and you should send us a doodle. We might also have more in store for these printers in the future.
In the...
GitButler
Why GitHub Actually Won
How GitHub _actually_ became the dominant force it is today, from one of it's cofounders.
3 months ago
How GitHub _actually_ became the dominant force it is today, from one of it's cofounders.
Notes on software...
The world of PostgreSQL wire compatibility
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to resin casting
At one point in my life, I penned an epic, 110-page opus on hobby manufacturing.
22 hours ago
At one point in my life, I penned an epic, 110-page opus on hobby manufacturing.
Home on Erik...
On the Equifax breach and how to really prevent identity theft
A funny thing about being a foreigner is how you realize people take broken things for granted. I'm...
over a year ago
A funny thing about being a foreigner is how you realize people take broken things for granted. I'm going to go out on a limb here claiming that the US has a pretty dumb banking system.
Willem's Blog
Batavus Champion bike from 1978
Restore the retro glory of an old bike from the 70s using the internet.
over a year ago
Restore the retro glory of an old bike from the 70s using the internet.
Engineers Need Art
Jigsaw Puzzle
Those of us who fiddled while Apple Computer burned. Well, actually some of us put together a big...
over a year ago
Those of us who fiddled while Apple Computer burned. Well, actually some of us put together a big jigsaw puzzle.
Birchtree
The future simply has more computers (members post)
Glasses and headsets and computers, oh my! Why the future continues to be all about adding computers...
5 days ago
Glasses and headsets and computers, oh my! Why the future continues to be all about adding computers to our lives, not replacing anything.
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...
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...
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...
Matt Blewitt
Unreasonably Effective Patterns
Much of my current job is maintaining and enhancing control planes for Heroku’s managed data...
over a year ago
Much of my current job is maintaining and enhancing control planes for Heroku’s managed data services. This post explores three patterns used to reduce operational burden and increase system safety and resiliency: state machines (and associated state-transition tables),...
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...
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.
Matt Blewitt
Logical Replication Guardrails
I’ve been working with logical replication in PostgreSQL recently, and I wanted to share a few...
6 months ago
I’ve been working with logical replication in PostgreSQL recently, and I wanted to share a few thoughts on how to implement some guardrails to make things easier on operators.
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.