Notes on software...
Make your own way
Over the years, I have repeatedly felt like I missed the timing for a
meetup or an IRC group or...
a year ago
Over the years, I have repeatedly felt like I missed the timing for a
meetup or an IRC group or social media in general. I'd go to a meetup
every so often but I'd never make a meaningful connection with people,
whereas everyone else knew each other. I'd join an IRC group and...
Notes on software...
A reawakening of systems programming meetups
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich...
6 months ago
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich Database
Meetup, Berlin
Systems Group, SF Distributed
Systems Meetup, NYC
Systems, Bengaluru
Systems, to name a few.
This post summarizes a bit of disappointing recent tech meetup
history,...
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!
Odds and Ends of...
We need more than Westminster reporters to understand government
Lobby correspondent hegemony is bad.
3 weeks ago
Lobby correspondent hegemony is bad.
Jonas Hietala
Competition Feedback
The voting is over and I got a few ratings I want to comment on. You can view all ratings and...
over a year ago
The voting is over and I got a few ratings I want to comment on. You can view all ratings and comments here.
They’re all from 1 to 5.
Innovation: 3.75
Fun: 3.29
Theme: 3.17
Graphics: 2.54
Audio: 2.14
Humor: 2.54
that ugly.
Overall: 3.13
something playable out of this.
Community:...
Posts on Made of...
Testing and feedback loops
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about...
over a year ago
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about testing and the purpose testing serves in software engineering, and to explore some of the suggestions of this model.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I think a lot about working in...
Simply Explained
Shelly 2.5: Flash ESPHome Over The Air!
It's no secret that I'm a fan of Shelly products to automate various devices in my house. They're...
over a year ago
It's no secret that I'm a fan of Shelly products to automate various devices in my house. They're well built, tiny and rock solid, and best of all: compatible with ESPHome.I flashed ESPHome onto all my Shelly 1's, but for some reason, I have issues with my Shelly 2.5 devices......
Arduino Blog
Clone your IoT projects with Arduino Cloud Custom Templates
Whether you are an IoT enthusiast, an enterprise developer or a high school teacher, we all know the...
5 months ago
Whether you are an IoT enthusiast, an enterprise developer or a high school teacher, we all know the thrill of bringing a new IoT project to life. But we also understand the frustration of repetitive setup processes and the time sink of configuring the same elements over and over...
Louwrentius
Compiling Handbrake CLI on Debian Lenny
In this post I will show you how to compile Handbrake for Debian Lenny. Please
note that although...
over a year ago
In this post I will show you how to compile Handbrake for Debian Lenny. Please
note that although the Handbrake GUI version does compile on Lenny, it crashes
with a segmentation fault like this:
Gtk: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5
and height...
Home on Erik...
Pinterest open sources Pinball
Pinterest just open sourced Pinball which seems like an interesting Luigi alternative. There's two...
over a year ago
Pinterest just open sourced Pinball which seems like an interesting Luigi alternative. There's two blog posts: Pinball: Building workflow management (from 2014) and Open-sourcing Pinball (from this week). The author has a comment in the comments thread on Hacker News:
computers are bad
2024-10-26 buy payphones and retire
PAYPHONES at High Volume
Existing sites! Earn BIG $$. Money Back Guarantee!
Dropshipping AliExpress...
2 months ago
PAYPHONES at High Volume
Existing sites! Earn BIG $$. Money Back Guarantee!
Dropshipping AliExpress watches, AI-generated SEO spam websites... marginally
legal and ethical passive income schemes, that serve to generate that income
mostly for their promoters, can feel like a...
Posts on Made of...
Implementing a declarative mini-language in the C preprocessor
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time,...
over a year ago
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time, I want to talk about the tricks I used to implement a declarative minilanguage using the C preprocessor (and some GCC extensions).
The Problem We want to write some toplevel...
Jonas Hietala
Mining Incorporated (unfinished)
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very serious attempt at making a grand game for Ludum Dare 29. Unfortunately it was a far, far, too big of a game for me to be able to finish it in one weekend. But I had a great...
Jonas Hietala
Going into Being Busy mode
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or...
over a year ago
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or something? So I can’t promise a game the next two months. Kinda beats the point of this site doesn’t it? I’m really sorry and that’s all I can say really…
Hopefully I’ll get a week...
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...
Posts on Made of...
How is duct tape like the force?
I’m at Dragon*Con this weekend, my second time here now. I decided that if I was going to Dragon*Con...
over a year ago
I’m at Dragon*Con this weekend, my second time here now. I decided that if I was going to Dragon*Con again, I needed to do something in terms of costuming, and I wanted it to be something unique – I wasn’t going to come anywhere near as epic as some of the costumes people pull...
./techtipsy
The absolute state of Bluetooth audio in 2022
I have the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. They’re good for consuming content.
Audio calls with your...
over a year ago
I have the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. They’re good for consuming content.
Audio calls with your colleagues? Forget about it.
This is the setup I have to go with, and it has all to do with how Bluetooth
works. Your options with Bluetooth headsets are the following:
high quality...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Spring Tournament
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very...
over a year ago
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very casual setting but there were also some guys who came from… Västerås I think, but I’m not sure. We managed to scrape together 9 people at least, and I didn’t notice anyone bringing...
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...
Jonas Hietala
2010 in review
I saw a post on briancarper where he reviews the past year and it sounds like a great idea...
over a year ago
I saw a post on briancarper where he reviews the past year and it sounds like a great idea actually.
2010 Geek Achievements
Wrote a few games earlier this year;
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros
A Geek Valentine
Beebop The Island Hopper
Where’s Teddy?
Updated this site a...
Jonas Hietala
ghc 8.8.3 cannot find cabal 3.0.0.0 packages
I’ve been using cabal to manage my Haskell dependencies for years, but when I last updated my system...
over a year ago
I’ve been using cabal to manage my Haskell dependencies for years, but when I last updated my system it suddenly stopped working. I installed my dependencies with cabal install xmonad, and checked that it’s installed under ~/.cabal:
$ ls .cabal/bin/
xmonad@
But still when I...
Jonas Hietala
Going to University
I mentioned in the last post that I’m going to the university, which might explain my lack of...
over a year ago
I mentioned in the last post that I’m going to the university, which might explain my lack of activity here and for that I’m sorry. It’s not as hard as I had imagined, and I don’t have that much in school but there’s still a lot that’s going on. For example now how to make...
Willem's Blog
Lunch by plane
This week I went out for lunch by plane from Hilversum to Texel with a good buddy of mine.
over a year ago
This week I went out for lunch by plane from Hilversum to Texel with a good buddy of mine.
Notes on software...
Transparency and communication on small teams
I saw a post on
dev.to
that talks about dysfunctional teams. This is a response that...
over a year ago
I saw a post on
dev.to
that talks about dysfunctional teams. This is a response that focuses
specifically on how to prevent burnout from overworking. This is aimed
at senior/lead engineers and engineering/project managers -- because
everyone in a leadership role is responsible...
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
11 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 20 Timelapse
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I...
over a year ago
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I lost the first few hours as I forgot to turn it on…
Anyway here’s the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABVPlRaA5iI
Willem's Blog
Building a product platform
Leverage platform capabilities to quickly launch new products, designing for reusability,...
over a year ago
Leverage platform capabilities to quickly launch new products, designing for reusability, flexibility and extensibility.
computers are bad
2023-06-02 the reinvention of owens lake
Programming note: In an effort to introduce an exciting new social aspect to
Computers Are Bad (a...
a year ago
Programming note: In an effort to introduce an exciting new social aspect to
Computers Are Bad (a functional necessity to appease early-stage investor
demands for "engagement")¸ I am launching a Matrix room for CAB readers.
You can join it! Do whatever you do to join rooms in...
Opsbros
Tasmota Quad Switch Breakout
The Tasmota Quad Switch Breakout is designed to make connecting a custom quad light switch to a...
over a year ago
The Tasmota Quad Switch Breakout is designed to make connecting a custom quad light switch to a Wemos D1 mini running Tasmota super super easy.
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...
Jonas Hietala
Dbot
So I made a small irc bot in 294 characters in code-golfing language #1: Perl.
Usage
perl...
over a year ago
So I made a small irc bot in 294 characters in code-golfing language #1: Perl.
Usage
perl Dbot
Commands
.name - Echo the bots name
.hello - Output “hello world!”
.src - Dump the source code
Code
use IO::Socket;$s=IO::Socket::INET->new("158.38.8.251:6667");sub o{print$s...
./techtipsy
TOMO M4: probably the coolest power bank I've owned
A friend once showed me a power bank that was so cool that I had to get one
myself. Ended up getting...
a year ago
A friend once showed me a power bank that was so cool that I had to get one
myself. Ended up getting two, and here’s why.
This post is not sponsored.
Removable batteries
Let’s start with the feature that I appreciate the most: removable batteries!
The TOMO M4 accepts up to 4...
./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!
./techtipsy
Oversimplified guide into snapshots on the btrfs filesystem
Friday afternoon. You’re trying out a script that you wrote to mass-rename and
move some files...
over a year ago
Friday afternoon. You’re trying out a script that you wrote to mass-rename and
move some files around. You finish the script and test it out.
Oops.
All the files now have all the wrong names, and some have been randomly moved
10 folders deep. It’s a mess.
And you didn’t make a...
Simply Explained
Tracking gas usage with ESPHome, Home Assistant, and TCRT5000
In 2019, I built an energy monitor to keep track of our electricity consumption. Then, in 2021, Home...
over a year ago
In 2019, I built an energy monitor to keep track of our electricity consumption. Then, in 2021, Home Assistant added an Energy Management feature that keeps track of electricity and gas usage. So naturally, I had to make my gas meter smart as well.
On Life and Lisp
The Federation Fallacy
Throughout the free software community, an unbridled aura of justified mistrust fills the air:...
over a year ago
Throughout the free software community, an unbridled aura of justified mistrust fills the air: mistrust of large corporations, mistrust of governments, and of course, mistrust of proprietary software. Each mistrust is connected by a critical thread: centralisation.
Thus,...
Push to Prod
When Things Are Slow, Look for Queues
When your system is slower than desired, queues are often heavily involved. Here's an overview of...
4 months ago
When your system is slower than desired, queues are often heavily involved. Here's an overview of the most common situations.
Good Enough
Asking the Right Question
Lately I've been pondering the future for Album Whale. It does what we'd like it to do, and we've...
a year ago
Lately I've been pondering the future for Album Whale. It does what we'd like it to do, and we've spread the word enough that there's now a steady stream of new users coming in each day. So, what's next?
Portrait of the author pondering
My first impulse was to answer this...
Arduino Blog
Let’s play at the Maker Faire Rome 2024!
We are excited to be back at Maker Faire Rome as a Gold Sponsor of the 12th edition (October 25-27,...
3 months ago
We are excited to be back at Maker Faire Rome as a Gold Sponsor of the 12th edition (October 25-27, 2024), with some exciting experiences lined up for all makers, innovators, and creators who attend! Learn by playing at our booth Visit us at the fair for a playful, interactive...
Good Enough
You Complete Me
When Good Enough was in its infancy as a truly American LLC (formed in Delaware and representing one...
a month ago
When Good Enough was in its infancy as a truly American LLC (formed in Delaware and representing one or two people who were
only semi-serious about a business), it was fun to play around with building websites.
Shawn and I were truly just playing and exploring, more than anything...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates December 08: YouTube support
a year ago
Notes on software...
Errors and Zig
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing...
a year ago
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing sample code for client
libraries, and writing integration tests against the sample code.
The client library documentation is generated with a Zig script. The
sample code is...
./techtipsy
My attempt at archiving nfscars.net
Background
My mother once had a laptop: the Compaq Armada 1592DT. It came with Windows ME which...
over a year ago
Background
My mother once had a laptop: the Compaq Armada 1592DT. It came with Windows ME which later got “upgraded” to Windows 98 SE
after I managed to completely screw up the OS, a whopping 96MB of RAM and a hard drive that probably wasn’t much larger
than 1-3GB. It wasn’t...
Applied Cartography
My approach to GTD and PKM
One pernicious thing with writing about productivity and knowledge systems: you only change systems...
2 months ago
One pernicious thing with writing about productivity and knowledge systems: you only change systems that aren’t working, and you tend to write about things during times of change. So most writing about productivity systems stem from people whose systems have failed them.
It is...
csvbase blog
You can't just assume UTF-8
How to infer character encodings with statistics
8 months ago
How to infer character encodings with statistics
Good Enough
How We Built Unique Social Preview Images for Pika
One of the goals of Pika,
the happy blogging software that we recently launched,
is to help you find...
10 months ago
One of the goals of Pika,
the happy blogging software that we recently launched,
is to help you find your own place on the internet.
Along with a nice place on the internet, when you share links to your blog we want them to represent your internet home,
which you've likely taken...
Home on Erik...
Stuff that bothers me: “100x faster than Hadoop”
The simple way to get featured on big data blog these days seem to be
Build something that does 1...
over a year ago
The simple way to get featured on big data blog these days seem to be
Build something that does 1 thing super well but nothing else Benchmark it against Hadoop Publish stats showing that it's 100x faster than Hadoop $$$ Spark claims their 100x faster than Hadoop and there's a...
Arduino Blog
This fake CRT TV works using lasers and UV magic
Until the 21st century, cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs were pretty much the only option. As such, media...
a month ago
Until the 21st century, cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs were pretty much the only option. As such, media was made to suit them. Retro video game consoles in particular look best on CRT TVs. But those old TVs are getting hard to find and desirable models are now quite expensive. So,...
Jonas Hietala
How I made a kick-ass cover for my self-published book
If you want to publish a book, one of the most important things to consider is the cover—after all,...
over a year ago
If you want to publish a book, one of the most important things to consider is the cover—after all, we judge the book by the cover.
And I did it the universally recommended way:
I hired a designer.
Simple, right?
But real talk; it’s not exactly that simple and I did a bunch of...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Some reflections on the Bitcoin block size war
7 months ago
Posts on Made of...
Advent of Code in C++ Template Metaprogramming
This December, the imp of the perverse struck me, and I decided to see how many days of Advent of...
a year ago
This December, the imp of the perverse struck me, and I decided to see how many days of Advent of Code I could do purely in compile-time C++ metaprogramming.
As of this writing, I’ve done two days, and I’m not sure I’ll make it any further. However, that’s one more day than I...
Home on Erik...
I'm featured in Mashable
This article from today in Mashable describes some of the fun stuff I get to work with:
Erik...
over a year ago
This article from today in Mashable describes some of the fun stuff I get to work with:
Erik Bernhardsson is technical lead at Spotify, where he helped to build a music recommendation system based on large-scale machine learning algorithms, mainly matrix factorization of big...
Arduino Blog
Kickstart your tech journey, with the new Arduino Plug and Make Kit!
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone....
5 months ago
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone. That’s why we’ve developed the whole new, beginner-friendly Plug and Make Kit – the easiest way to get started with Arduino! Inside the box, you’ll find everything you need to create...
Louwrentius
Understanding Storage Performance - IOPS and Latency
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want...
over a year ago
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want to discuss some fundamentals that are true regardless of your particular needs.
This will help you better reason about storage and may provide a scaffolding for further learning....
Louwrentius
Why I do not use ZFS as a file system for my NAS
Many people have asked me why I do not use ZFS for my NAS storage box. This is a good question and I...
over a year ago
Many people have asked me why I do not use ZFS for my NAS storage box. This is a good question and I have multpile reasons why I do not use ZFS and probably never will.
** A lot has changed since this article was first published. I do now recommend using ZFS. I've also based my...
Willem's Blog
Minimalistic road bike with Gates carbon drive
For the past few months I have been riding the Schindelhauer Siegfried Road bike with the Gates CDX...
over a year ago
For the past few months I have been riding the Schindelhauer Siegfried Road bike with the Gates CDX Carbon Drive, read about this beautiful minimal bike in this post.
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?
Notes on software...
Confusion is a muse
Some of the most interesting technical blog posts I read come from,
and a common reason for posts I...
6 months ago
Some of the most interesting technical blog posts I read come from,
and a common reason for posts I write is, confusion. You're at work
and you start asking questions that are difficult to answer. You spend
a few hours or a day trying to get to the bottom of things.
If you ask a...
Push to Prod
4 Ways To Say No, Elegantly and Effectively
In my early days at Netflix, my inability to say no led me into unpleasant terrain. Here's how I...
4 months ago
In my early days at Netflix, my inability to say no led me into unpleasant terrain. Here's how I evolved to navigate these situations more fluidly.
Buck on Software
The Software Slog
As a newly minted high school grad I had a brief stint as a wildland firefighter.
a year ago
As a newly minted high school grad I had a brief stint as a wildland firefighter.
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Films + Books, Q1 2023
What I watched and read
a year ago
Buck on Software
Explaining the growth software sell-off
The terminal value double whammy of rising interest rates
over a year ago
The terminal value double whammy of rising interest rates
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 4
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
a year ago
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
Willem's Blog
Limitations of sleep tracking using a wearable
Limitations of heart rate analyses during sleep, why you should reconsider tracking your sleep.
over a year ago
Limitations of heart rate analyses during sleep, why you should reconsider tracking your sleep.
Jonas Hietala
The End of the Tunnel
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from...
over a year ago
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from the last time.
One course about data structure and algorithms (super fun to be honest) has wrapped up. We thought we were ahead with the assignments but in the end it got very...
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...
12 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...
./techtipsy
Running on fumes
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with...
over a year ago
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with this fun little bug:
0GB ought to be enough for anybody.
Home on Erik...
The number of letters in the word for each number
Just for fun, I generated these graphs of the number of letters in the word for each number. I...
over a year ago
Just for fun, I generated these graphs of the number of letters in the word for each number. I really spent about 10 minutes on this (ok…possibly also another 40 minutes tweaking the plots):
More languages!
Louwrentius
Personal Security: erase your computer or phone before repair
Computer nerds are self sufficient when it comes to fixing their computer. Non-computer experts have...
over a year ago
Computer nerds are self sufficient when it comes to fixing their computer. Non-computer experts have to find some other person with greater computer knowledge to repair their computer or phone. That person will then be able to access all data stored on their computer or phone.
By...
Good Enough
TIL: JavaScript Turbo Stream Requests
I am working on search for Album Whale and I was very confused when my JavaScript fetch requests...
a year ago
I am working on search for Album Whale and I was very confused when my JavaScript fetch requests were not resulting in turbo_stream rendering getting displayed on my page. I checked my logs to see if the render was happening. I looked for missing <%= tags. Debugged and...
Odds and Ends of...
I'm pro-assisted dying in principle, but I'm not sure about the proposed law
Is no law better than a bad law?
a month ago
Is no law better than a bad law?
Notes on software...
Reviewing the Surface Book 2
The first few paragraphs cover what I was looking for and what I
considered. Then the review.
Why...
over a year ago
The first few paragraphs cover what I was looking for and what I
considered. Then the review.
Why the Surface Book 2
I used a Macbook throughout my professional career until I had the
choice a few years ago when I started my current job. Here, I ran
Gentoo, then FreeBSD, then...
Home on Erik...
Implicit data and collaborative filtering
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right?...
over a year ago
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right? People rate things 1-5 stars and then you have to predict missing ratings.
While there's no doubt that the Netflix Prize was successful, I think it created an illusion that all...
Home on Erik...
Books I consumed in 2017
Turns out having a toddler isn't super compatible with reading. I used to read ~100 books/year as a...
over a year ago
Turns out having a toddler isn't super compatible with reading. I used to read ~100 books/year as a teenager, but it has slowly deteriorated to maybe 20-30 books, at most. And I don't even finish all of them because life is too short!
watchTowr Labs
Cleo Harmony, VLTrader, and LexiCom - RCE via Arbitrary File Write (CVE-2024-50623)
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators...
3 weeks ago
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators using a zero-day exploit in Cleo MFT software - namely, LexiCom, VLTransfer, and Harmony - applications that many large enterprises rely on to share files securely.
Cleo have a...
Jonas Hietala
New Computer!
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s...
over a year ago
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s awesome (as all new computers are).
The specs:
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550Ti OC 1GB
CPU: Intel core i5 2500K
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS-9900NT
Motherboard: MSI P67A-C45 REV B3
Ram:...
Jonas Hietala
March Theme: 10 seconds
Well well here’s something interesting. The Experimental Gameplay Project has given us a really...
over a year ago
Well well here’s something interesting. The Experimental Gameplay Project has given us a really interesting thing to focus on: Time. Like Braid, it’s time for us to make something interesting with time itself. 10 seconds is the constraint and that’s not a lot, but perhaps enough?
Home on Erik...
Leaving Spotify
Febrary 6 was my last day at Spotify. In total I spent more than six years at Spotify and it was an...
over a year ago
Febrary 6 was my last day at Spotify. In total I spent more than six years at Spotify and it was an amazing experience.
I joined Spotify in Stockholm in 2008, mainly because a bunch of friends from programming competitions had joined already.
Vitalik Buterin's...
What I would love to see in a wallet
a month ago
Construction Physics
What Learning by Doing Looks Like
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
3 weeks ago
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
Louwrentius
An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor
Introduction
Back in 2004, I visited a now bankrupt Dutch computer store called MyCom1, located at...
over a year ago
Introduction
Back in 2004, I visited a now bankrupt Dutch computer store called MyCom1, located at the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. I was there to buy a Western Digital Raptor model WD740, with 74 GB of capacity, running at 10,000 RPM.
When I bought this drive, we were still in...
Applied Cartography
Projects are things with steps
Lots of kind words poured in as a response to My approach to GTD and PKM, and one question was asked...
2 months ago
Lots of kind words poured in as a response to My approach to GTD and PKM, and one question was asked so frequently that I decided to write about it.
Why is “Get mom a birthday present” a project and not a task?
GTD is very orthodox in what a “project” is: it’s anything that:
you...
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...
Jonas Hietala
The T-34/1 keyboard layout
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this...
over a year ago
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this particular version without any major changes for almost 3 months, so I’d say it’s a good improvement over the last revision.
There are two large changes from T-34/0: swapping o and...
Posts on Made of...
Lightweight Linux Kernel Development with KVM
I don’t do a ton of Linux kernel development these days, but I’ve done a fair bit in the past, and...
over a year ago
I don’t do a ton of Linux kernel development these days, but I’ve done a fair bit in the past, and picked up a number of useful techniques for doing kernel development in a relatively painless fashion. This blog post is a writeup of the tools and techniques I use when developing...
Louwrentius
'Linux RAID level and chunk size: the benchmarks'
Introduction
When configuring a Linux RAID array, the chunk size needs to get chosen. But
what is...
over a year ago
Introduction
When configuring a Linux RAID array, the chunk size needs to get chosen. But
what is the chunk size?
When you write data to a RAID array that implements striping (level 0, 5, 6,
10 and so on), the chunk of data sent to the array is broken down in to
pieces, each part...
Applied Cartography
Typesafe routes in Vue
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would...
6 months ago
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would call it formative, but it stuck in my craw as a platonic ideal of sorts, as something I couldn't really justify adopting within Buttondown but really wanted.
I built out and...
computers are bad
2024-10-12 commercial HF radio
According to a traditional system of classification, "high frequency" or HF
refers to the radio...
2 months ago
According to a traditional system of classification, "high frequency" or HF
refers to the radio spectrum between 3 and 30 MHz. The label now seems
anachronistic, as HF is among the lowest ranges of radio frequencies that see
regular use. This setting of the goalposts in the early...
Matt Blewitt
Tools for a Culture of Writing
One of the hardest things we do, as humans, is try and communicate what is going on in our minds to...
over a year ago
One of the hardest things we do, as humans, is try and communicate what is going on in our minds to each other. With significant room for misunderstanding, biases, assumptions and cultural differences, communicating with other engineers (or to stakeholders) appears fraught....
Matt Blewitt
Corporate Legibility for Software Engineers
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those...
over a year ago
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those not directly involved. I’ll help you understand why this is an important thing to be aware of and how to use it to help your career.
Jonas Hietala
Site restyle and update
I’m not sure how I got started but I recently read an excellent book about typography: Butterick’s...
over a year ago
I’m not sure how I got started but I recently read an excellent book about typography: Butterick’s Practical Typography. It’s free and there’s a section Typography in ten minutes if you want the important bits.
He makes a pretty good case for why it matters when he points out the...
computers are bad
2023-10-03 overheard overhead
Let's talk about overhead paging. The concept goes by various names: paging,
public address, even...
a year ago
Let's talk about overhead paging. The concept goes by various names: paging,
public address, even intercom, although the accuracy of the latter term can be
questionable. It's probably one of the aspects of business telephone systems
that gets the most public attention, on account...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of GM-NAA I/O and SHARE
The Birth of Computer Operating Systems
a year ago
The Birth of Computer Operating Systems
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...
Louwrentius
Linux: script that creates table of network interface properties
My server has 5 network interfaces and I wanted a quick overview of some properties. There may be an...
over a year ago
My server has 5 network interfaces and I wanted a quick overview of some properties. There may be an existing linux command for this but I couldn't find it so I quickly wrote my
own script (download).
This is the output:
The only requirement for this script is that you have...
Arduino Blog
This machine automatically creates chain art
Art is very personal and we often consider the process of creation itself when evaluating the...
5 months ago
Art is very personal and we often consider the process of creation itself when evaluating the resulting piece. Does a sculpture have more artistic value when molded by human hands rather than a 3D printer? Most would say that it does. But what if the automation was, itself, part...
Notes on software...
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure...
over a year ago
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure out
how to use Hashicorp's Raft
implementation.
There weren't any examples I could find in the Hashicorp repo
itself. And the only example I could find was Philip O'Toole's
hraftd. It's...
Construction Physics
Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz?
Here’s an idea you see spreading across the internet every so often: that all semiconductor and...
a month ago
Here’s an idea you see spreading across the internet every so often: that all semiconductor and solar PV manufacturing depends on extremely pure quartz from the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Bryan Braun - Blog
Links #10
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast...
5 months ago
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast guest. It puts you in the shoes of a podcaster, showing you what they need, and how you can be a “sure thing” for them. As usual, there are no short cuts. You gotta do the work!
A...
Willem's Blog
Dig for dummies
Learn how to use the dig command to query domain name servers to find the source of network...
over a year ago
Learn how to use the dig command to query domain name servers to find the source of network problems, IP-addresses, hostnames, mail servers and related info.
Jonas Hietala
Now we have a Forum
In a burst of random energy I made a forum for madeoftree. Well okay I just made an awesome style...
over a year ago
In a burst of random energy I made a forum for madeoftree. Well okay I just made an awesome style for the awesome phpBB - the forum itself was up and running in say 10min and the rest of the latest days has been all about customizing. Now it’s finally kinda complete so here it is...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #43: An awesome drone trial in central London, legalised e-scooters at last, and...
And yes, I am on Bluesky.
a month ago
And yes, I am on Bluesky.
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.
Jonas Hietala
Early Christmas Present
School is almost over and it’s almost time to travel back up to Övertorneå. This year me and...
over a year ago
School is almost over and it’s almost time to travel back up to Övertorneå. This year me and Veronica opened our Christmas presents a bit early - we’re impatient like that.
I got one of the best presents yet I think! A Raspberry Pi!
Just look at this bad boy!
She got some...
Louwrentius
Compiling Ceph on the Raspberry Pi 3B+ (armhf) using Clang/LLVM
UPDATE 2019 / 2020
There are official ARM64 binaries of Ceph that you can run on a 64-bit version of...
over a year ago
UPDATE 2019 / 2020
There are official ARM64 binaries of Ceph that you can run on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 18.04.
Important: I consider this page obsolete. I will keep it up for transparency's sake
Introduction
In this blog post I'll show you how to compile Ceph Luminous for...
Jonas Hietala
Making a Game Again?
I’ve gotta do a lab today at school, tomorrow I need to do the exam I missed when I had my...
over a year ago
I’ve gotta do a lab today at school, tomorrow I need to do the exam I missed when I had my glasses-missing headaches and I’m going to Ikea and some other shops for, you guessed it, shopping! Sure it’s fun and sure I need to do these things but the only thing on my mind now is...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 3: The Scourge
2 months ago
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #45: Deliverism, blasphemy and selfies from space
Plus the best Minecraft-themed political deepfake you'll see today
a month ago
Plus the best Minecraft-themed political deepfake you'll see today
Vitalik Buterin's...
The Revenue-Evil Curve: a different way to think about prioritizing public goods funding
over a year ago
Christian Selig
Announcing Apollo: a new Reddit app for iPhone
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called...
over a year ago
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called Apollo and it’s a new Reddit app for iPhone.
I’ve been a Reddit user for about four years now, and the site is a constant source of interesting discussion, hilarity and news for me...
Arduino Blog
Turn your old Android smartphone into an Arduino screen with the RemoteXY app
Each component you add to your Arduino project increases its complexity and the opportunity for...
2 weeks ago
Each component you add to your Arduino project increases its complexity and the opportunity for mistakes. But most projects require some “auxiliary” hardware — components that you use to interact with the Arduino or to help it do the job you’re asking of it. Buttons and displays...
Arduino Blog
Agitating homemade PCBs with ease
If you want to make PCBs at home and you don’t happen to own a CNC mill, then you’ll probably need...
3 months ago
If you want to make PCBs at home and you don’t happen to own a CNC mill, then you’ll probably need to turn to chemical etching. Use one of several different techniques to mask the blank PCB’s copper that you want to keep, then toss the whole thing into a bath to dissolve away the...
Jonas Hietala
Vacation
Finally back from a 2 week vacation up at Övertorneå. It’s been pretty great to be taken care of and...
over a year ago
Finally back from a 2 week vacation up at Övertorneå. It’s been pretty great to be taken care of and not doing anything. Well, I did get my ass kicked in Terra Mystica and I played a bit of Minecraft, but still. We got some nice food and my in-laws and my parents were nice.
I’m...
Posts on Made of...
Dear Twitter: Stop screwing over your developers.
I really like Twitter. I think it’s a great, fun, service, that helps enable interesting online...
over a year ago
I really like Twitter. I think it’s a great, fun, service, that helps enable interesting online communities, and is a surprisingly effective way to spread news and information to lots of people online. One of the things that I’ve loved about Twitter is their API, and how open and...
Louwrentius
Eztables: simple yet powerful firewall configuration for Linux
I've created and released Eztables on Github. Anyone who ever has a need to setup a firewall on...
over a year ago
I've created and released Eztables on Github. Anyone who ever has a need to setup a firewall on Linux may be interested in this project.
It doesn't matter if you need to protect a laptop, server or want to setup a network firewall. Eztables supports it all.
If you're not afraid...
Applied Cartography
Incumbency
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt...
5 months ago
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt software-focused private equity:
Distribution and brand moats can protect your legacy products for a while (esp in enterprise) but eventually you get lapped by competitors with better...
Louwrentius
'Improved' image gallery for Blogofile
This blog is just static HTML pages that are generated using Blogofile. The Blogofile website sports...
over a year ago
This blog is just static HTML pages that are generated using Blogofile. The Blogofile website sports a small image gallery that has been written to illustrate how to create your own 'controllers' or Blogofile plugins.
My Python skills are horrible buy I managed to improve a bit...
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal in-memory storage engine for MySQL/MariaDB
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and...
12 months ago
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and MariaDB are mostly the same (more on that later), I focused
on MariaDB specifically this week.
Before last week I had never built MySQL/MariaDB before. The first day
of this hack week,...
computers are bad
2023-05-07 electrical characteristics of telephone lines
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring...
a year ago
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring topic: implementation details of telephone lines.
The conventional "copper pair" analog telephone line is fading away. The FCC
has begun to authorize abandonment of copper outside...
Jonas Hietala
My first netrunner store championship
My girlfriend has told me I get these narrow interests where I pour all my energy and thoughts into...
over a year ago
My girlfriend has told me I get these narrow interests where I pour all my energy and thoughts into and about 1,5 months ago I discovered Netrunner, a very awesome card game. Check out this how to play or team covenant’s channel if you want to know more.
So this Sunday I went to...
Electronics etc…
Installing Linux GPIB Drivers for the Agilent 82357B
Introduction
Other Installation Instructions
Agilent 82357B Initialization Process
Installing the...
a year ago
Introduction
Other Installation Instructions
Agilent 82357B Initialization Process
Installing the Agilent 82357B GPIB Driver on an Ubuntu Linux Distribution
References
Introduction
I’ve started to grow a collection of older test equipment from the eighties, the
nineties, and the...
Jonas Hietala
OP_RETURN based tokens are fundamentally flawed
Two new Bitcoin Cash token solutions have recently been suggested:
Simple Ledger Protocol: A token...
over a year ago
Two new Bitcoin Cash token solutions have recently been suggested:
Simple Ledger Protocol: A token system for Bitcoin Cash
Introducing Colored Coins: a Bitcoin Cash token implementation
Both are improvements over Tokeda as they allow permissionless transfers. However all commit...
Neil Madden
API Security in Action is published!
I wasn’t expecting it so quickly, so it caught me a little off guard, but API Security in Action is...
over a year ago
I wasn’t expecting it so quickly, so it caught me a little off guard, but API Security in Action is now finally published. PDF copies are available now, with printed copies shipping by the end of the month. Kindle/ePub take a little bit longer but should be out in a few weeks...
Old Vintage...
A mostly merry Southern Hemisphere Commodore Christmas
A merry Christmas and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere, where it's my year to be with my...
a week ago
A merry Christmas and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere, where it's my year to be with my wife's family in regional New South Wales, Australia. A friend of the family had an "old Commodore" in their house and asked if I wanted it. Stupid question, yeah?
The...
Willem's Blog
Rescuing files from a broken harddisk
Yesterday I helped a young woman with her broken computer containing precious photos, could I safe...
over a year ago
Yesterday I helped a young woman with her broken computer containing precious photos, could I safe them?
Willem's Blog
WordPress: 10 tips to secure your website
A lot of people use WordPress to manage their website. Prevent your site from being hacked using...
over a year ago
A lot of people use WordPress to manage their website. Prevent your site from being hacked using this blog post.
Notes on software...
Emulating linux/AMD64 userland: interpreting an ELF binary
In this post we'll stumble toward a working emulator for a barebones C
program compiled for...
over a year ago
In this post we'll stumble toward a working emulator for a barebones C
program compiled for linux/AMD64. The approach will be slightly more
so based on observation than by following a spec; a great way
to quickly become familiar with a topic, and a bad way to...
Arduino Blog
A riddle wrapped in an enigma… made easy, with Arduino Plug and Make Kit
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit was designed to open up infinite possibilities, breaking down the idea...
a month ago
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit was designed to open up infinite possibilities, breaking down the idea that technology is a “black box” reserved for experts. With its snap-together system, this kit gives everyone – beginners and seasoned makers alike – the power to create and...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Standard cells: Looking at individual gates in the Pentium processor
Intel released the powerful Pentium processor in 1993,
a chip
to "separate the really power-hungry...
5 months ago
Intel released the powerful Pentium processor in 1993,
a chip
to "separate the really power-hungry folks from ordinary mortals."
The original Pentium was followed by the Pentium Pro, the Pentium II, and others, spawning a long-running brand of high-performance processors, Intel's...
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
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Objects, Inc's Layout
Build Programs Without Programming
11 months ago
Build Programs Without Programming
Notes on software...
Checking linearizability in Go
You want to check for strict consistency
(linearizability)
for your project but you don't want to...
2 months ago
You want to check for strict consistency
(linearizability)
for your project but you don't want to have to deal with the
JVM. Porcupine,
used by a number of real-world systems like etcd and TiDB, has you
covered!
Importantly, neither Jepsen projects nor Porcupine can...
Louwrentius
Configuring SCST iSCSI target on Debian Linux (Wheezy)
My goal is to export ZFS zvol volumes through iSCSI to other machines. The platform I'm using is...
over a year ago
My goal is to export ZFS zvol volumes through iSCSI to other machines. The platform I'm using is Debian Wheezy.
There are three iSCSI target solutions available for Linux:
LIO
IET
SCST
I've briefly played with LIO but the targetcli tool is interactive only. If you want to...
Arduino Blog
This frighteningly realistic animatronic head features expressive silicone skin
The human face is remarkably complex, with 43 different muscles contorting the skin in all kinds of...
3 weeks ago
The human face is remarkably complex, with 43 different muscles contorting the skin in all kinds of ways. Some of that is utilitarian — your jaw muscles are good for chewing, after all. But a lot of it seems to be the result of evolution giving us fantastic non-verbal...
Bryan Braun - Blog
One Million Checkboxes and the fear of viral success
When Nolen Royalty’s One Million Checkboxes site went viral, several people sent me links to it.
If...
4 months ago
When Nolen Royalty’s One Million Checkboxes site went viral, several people sent me links to it.
If you haven't heard of One Million Checkboxes, see the Wikipedia article for more details.
I loved everything about One Million Checkboxes. It was simple but strangely compelling....
Louwrentius
Why filtering DHCP traffic is not always possible with iptables
When configuring my new firewall using iptables, I noticed something very
peculiar. Even if all...
over a year ago
When configuring my new firewall using iptables, I noticed something very
peculiar. Even if all input, forward and output traffic was dropped, DHCP
traffic to and from my DHCP server was not blocked even if there were no
rules permitting this traffic.
I even flushed all rules,...
axio.ms
Classical virtualisation rules applied to RISC-style atomics
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable...
over a year ago
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures”, giving a set of characteristics for correct full-machine virtualisation.
Today, these characteristics remain very useful. Computer architects will...
Jonas Hietala
My first theme: Addictive Gaming
In true experimental spirit I’ll now announce the theme for my first game: Addictive Gaming. I won’t...
over a year ago
In true experimental spirit I’ll now announce the theme for my first game: Addictive Gaming. I won’t be following the lead from the Experimental Gameplay Project’s site but I will follow their three laws (7 days, alone, themes).
Puh… my first game! Wish me luck =)
Matt Blewitt
Building a PostgreSQL Extension, Line by Line
I’ve been working on a particular problem - how to offer logical replication for a very large number...
6 months ago
I’ve been working on a particular problem - how to offer logical replication for a very large number of Postgres databases, where I don’t have the ability (or capacity) to liaise with the users of the databases one-to-one. In order to mitigate some of the limitations, I wanted to...
Applied Cartography
Why should a company?
For a long time, my goal with Buttondown was largely around failure avoidance: "I want to get my...
9 months ago
For a long time, my goal with Buttondown was largely around failure avoidance: "I want to get my first paying customer so I know it's not a fake product"; "I want to hit a thousand dollars in revenue so I know it's not just friends humoring me"; "I want to make $10K/mo or else I...
Louwrentius
The 'hidden' cost of using ZFS for your home NAS
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor...
over a year ago
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor implementing the VDEV expansion feature. A new pr has been created for this effort. The feature was merged into the code base, but may not be available to the general public before the end...
Notes on software...
Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go: 1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
Next in database basics:
2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
3. indexes
4. a...
over a year ago
Next in database basics:
2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
3. indexes
4. a database/sql driver
In this series we'll write a rudimentary database from
scratch in Go. Project source code is available on
Github.
In this first post we'll build enough of a parser to...
Lighthouse Blog
Rules improvement: filter based on content
3 weeks ago
Notes on software...
Deploying FreeBSD on Linode unattended in minutes
I became a FreeBSD user over 2 years ago when I wanted to see what all
the fuss was about. I swapped...
over a year ago
I became a FreeBSD user over 2 years ago when I wanted to see what all
the fuss was about. I swapped my y410p dual-booting Windows / Ubuntu
with FreeBSD running Gnome 3. I learned a lot during the transition
and came to appreciate FreeBSD as a user. I soon began running...
Simply Explained
Analyzing Link Rot in My Newsletter (After 31 Editions)
I've been writing a monthly newsletter for the past 2.5 years. In every edition, I link to...
a year ago
I've been writing a monthly newsletter for the past 2.5 years. In every edition, I link to interesting articles related to science and technology. I thought it would be interesting to analyze how many of those links are still accessible, and how many have succumbed to link rot....
Louwrentius
My Ceph test cluster based on Raspberry Pi's and HP MicroServers
Introduction
To learn more about Ceph, I've build myself a Ceph Cluster based on actual hardware. In...
over a year ago
Introduction
To learn more about Ceph, I've build myself a Ceph Cluster based on actual hardware. In this blogpost I'll discus the cluster in more detail and I've also included (fio) benchmark results.
This is my test Ceph cluster:
The cluster consists of the following...
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,...
Lars Lofgren
What Happened After I Outed a Reddit Mod for Affiliate Spam
I recently broke down how Reddit mods and users are abusing Google search rankings with affiliate...
3 months ago
I recently broke down how Reddit mods and users are abusing Google search rankings with affiliate spam. It’s reddit marketing gone awry. The post blew up and got a decent amount of attention. Then I got a front row seat to how deep of a spam filled porta-potty Reddit has become....
Arduino Blog
This Strandbeest-style coffee table can deliver drinks
More than 30 years ago, Dutch artist Theo Jansen began astounding the world with his Strandbeesten...
3 months ago
More than 30 years ago, Dutch artist Theo Jansen began astounding the world with his Strandbeesten walking sculptures. Even after decades, they have an almost mythical allure thanks to the incredibly fluid way in which they walk. They’re clearly constructs, but with gaits that...
Willem's Blog
One year of cycling
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
over a year ago
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
Arduino Blog
Track the location history of your devices in Arduino Cloud IoT dashboards
Asset tracking has become increasingly crucial across various industries and applications. Whether...
7 months ago
Asset tracking has become increasingly crucial across various industries and applications. Whether you’re a logistics company monitoring your fleet, a conservation organization tracking wildlife, or an individual passionate about outdoor adventures, the ability to track and...
Arduino Blog
See how this homemade spectrometer analyzes substances with an Arduino Mega
Materials, when exposed to light, will reflect or absorb certain portions of the electromagnetic...
a week ago
Materials, when exposed to light, will reflect or absorb certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that can give valuable information about their chemical or physical compositions. Traditional setups use a single lamp to emit white light before it is split apart into a...
Louwrentius
The Raspberry Pi 5 is no match for a tini-mini-micro PC
I've always been fond of the idea of the Raspberry Pi. An energy efficient, small, cheap but capable...
6 months ago
I've always been fond of the idea of the Raspberry Pi. An energy efficient, small, cheap but capable computer. An ideal home server. Until the Pi 4, the Pi was not that capable, and only with the relatively recent Pi 5 (fall 2023) do I feel the Pi is OK performance wise, although...
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 4 (Pet Sounds)
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
Applied Cartography
Stripe Sessions 2024
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I...
8 months ago
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I wanted to jot down some thoughts while they’re still fresh. (I think the changelog is the best way to poke around both the changes I’m writing about and the ones that I...
./techtipsy
The IPv6 situation on Docker is good now!
Good news, everyone! Doing IPv6 networking stuff on Docker is actually good now!
I’ve recently...
a week ago
Good news, everyone! Doing IPv6 networking stuff on Docker is actually good now!
I’ve recently started reworking my home server setup to be more IPv6 compatible, and as part of that I learned that
during
the summer of 2024 Docker shipped an update that eliminated a
lot of the...
Louwrentius
My home network setup based on managed switches and VLANs
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet...
over a year ago
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet and my living room. The bottom floor contains a bedroom with all my servers and networking gear.
So this is my setup (click for a bigger version):
I like to run my own router but...
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to hobby CNC
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
3 months ago
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
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!
Willem's Blog
Optical vs chest strap heart rate monitors
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness...
over a year ago
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness trackers
Arduino Blog
Get notified of impending floods with this Arduino Nano 33 IoT-based display
As climate change continues to worsen, events such as heavy rains, hurricanes, and atmospheric...
2 months ago
As climate change continues to worsen, events such as heavy rains, hurricanes, and atmospheric rivers have only intensified, and with them, large amounts of flooding that pose serious risks to life and property. Jude Pullen and Pete Milne, therefore, have responded by creating a...
Louwrentius
Linux network interface bonding / trunking or how to get beyond 1 Gb/s
This article discusses Linux bonding and how to achieve 2 Gb/s transfer speeds
with a single TCP/UDP...
over a year ago
This article discusses Linux bonding and how to achieve 2 Gb/s transfer speeds
with a single TCP/UDP connection.
UPDATE July 2011
Due to hardware problems, I was not able to achieve transfer speeds
beyond 150 MB/s. By replacing a network card with one from another
vendor (HP...
Odds and Ends of...
Here's how AI can REDUCE health misinformation
How the government can build a bullshit detector
2 months ago
How the government can build a bullshit detector
Jonas Hietala
I, Robot
Here are the results of the big robot construction course we had before christmas! The whole process...
over a year ago
Here are the results of the big robot construction course we had before christmas! The whole process went smooth and our group was amazing. The design and building of the robot went well even though in hindsight I would’ve changed a lot of stuff. The ending competition didn’t go...
Jonas Hietala
Customizing Neovim
Scripting is configuration. Configuration is scripting.
TJ DeVries A different take on editing...
8 months ago
Scripting is configuration. Configuration is scripting.
TJ DeVries A different take on editing code
I’ve been using Neovim since it forked from Vim almost 8 years ago, and I used Vim many years before that.
I feel quite comfortable with Neovim, and I’ve gone down the...
Simply Explained
Building a killer NAS with an old Rackable Server
Like many others, I'm generating a lot of digital data. Constantly taking photos, writing scripts,...
over a year ago
Like many others, I'm generating a lot of digital data. Constantly taking photos, writing scripts, taking notes, coding projects, and making videos. I'm storing all these files on Google Drive, which has been very reliable but also a bit risky. What if Google closes my account?...
Willem's Blog
Apple Watch as Phone
Embark on a digital detox journey as I swap my smartphone for an Apple Watch Ultra, exploring the...
a year ago
Embark on a digital detox journey as I swap my smartphone for an Apple Watch Ultra, exploring the liberating yet challenging world of wearable tech.
Simply Explained
Building Air Quality Sensor: Luftdaten + Home Assistant
Luftdaten (now Sensor Community) is a global sensor network that measures air quality around the...
over a year ago
Luftdaten (now Sensor Community) is a global sensor network that measures air quality around the world. Best of all: it's open-source and anyone can build a sensor.I was very curious to see the air quality in my neighborhood, so I decided to build myself a sensor. And of course,...
Louwrentius
Unattended automatic installation of Linux nvidia binary driver
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver....
over a year ago
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver. This is a manual proces by default. However, it can be
done fully automatic:
prerequisite: install xserver-xorg-dev package or similar xorg development
package.
sh NVIDIA-.run -q...
Louwrentius
Tracking down a faulty Storage Array Controller with ZFS
One day, I lost two virtual machines on our DR environment after a storage vMotion.
Further...
over a year ago
One day, I lost two virtual machines on our DR environment after a storage vMotion.
Further investigation uncovered that any storage vMotion of a virtual machine residing on our DR storage array would corrupt the virtual machine's disks.
I could easily restore the affected...
Christian Selig
My little Apple Vision Pro stand
I want somewhere to put my Vision Pro when not in use. Many people use the original box, and there’s...
10 months ago
I want somewhere to put my Vision Pro when not in use. Many people use the original box, and there’s beautiful stands that exist out there, but I was looking for something more compact and vertical so it would take up less room on my desk.
So I opened Fusion 360 (which I am still...
watchTowr Labs
Visionaries Have Democratised Remote Network Access - Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops...
Well, we’re back again, with yet another fresh-off-the-press bug chain (and associated Interactive...
a month ago
Well, we’re back again, with yet another fresh-off-the-press bug chain (and associated Interactive Artifact Generator). This time, it’s in Citrix’s “Virtual Apps and Desktops” offering.
This is a tech stack that enables end-users (and likely, your friendly neighbourhood...
Arduino Blog
5 ways to use Arduino with kids
One of the great things about making is that it really is for everyone — every budget, every skill...
7 months ago
One of the great things about making is that it really is for everyone — every budget, every skill level, and every age group. Children are one of the groups that can benefit the most from Arduino. Getting exposed to making and home automation from an early age can be enormously...
Avestura's Blog
How optimistic or pessimistic are the Kurzgesagt videos?
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
a year ago
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
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)...
Willem's Blog
How to use rsync to make backups
In this post I'll explain how to use rsync to transfer files to another computer system in an...
over a year ago
In this post I'll explain how to use rsync to transfer files to another computer system in an efficient manner, suitable to be used in a backup script.
./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...
Willem's Blog
Computer says no
The weather app indicating rain caused an empty bike lane this morning, making me wonder about the...
over a year ago
The weather app indicating rain caused an empty bike lane this morning, making me wonder about the power we put into these things.
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...
Applied Cartography
Against Against Innovation Tokens
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote...
6 months ago
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote Against Innovation Tokens yesterday:
In 2015, Dan McKinley laid out a model for software teams selecting technologies. He proposed that each team have a limited supply of “innovation...
Matt Mullenweg
State of the Word Tokyo
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an...
2 weeks ago
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. We’ve...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside an IBM/Motorola mainframe controller chip from 1981
In this article, I look inside a chip in the IBM 3274 Control Unit.1
But before I discuss the chip,...
5 months ago
In this article, I look inside a chip in the IBM 3274 Control Unit.1
But before I discuss the chip, I need to give some background on mainframes.
(I didn't completely analyze the chip, so don't expect a nice narrative or solid conclusions.)
Die photo of the Motorola/IBM SC81150...
Jonas Hietala
A Geek Valentine
Yes! I made it! It’s 22:22 on the very last day of February and I’ve been programming virtually...
over a year ago
Yes! I made it! It’s 22:22 on the very last day of February and I’ve been programming virtually non-stop for the past two days, my brain feels like mashed potatoes.
A Geek Valentine
Controls
Use spacebar to:
Build the time machine
Buy and place traps (Just face an empty square...
On Life and Lisp
Passing the reins on Panfrost
Today is my last day at Collabora and my last day leading the Panfrost driver.
It’s been a wild...
a year ago
Today is my last day at Collabora and my last day leading the Panfrost driver.
It’s been a wild ride.
In 2017, I began work on the chai driver for Mali T (Midgard). chai would later be merged into Lyude Paul’s and Connor Abbott’s BiOpenly project for Mali G (Bifrost) to form...
Jonas Hietala
Mailto: links with FastMail in Firefox
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications....
over a year ago
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications. The problem is that you can’t input custom urls and some email providers, like hotmail or fastmail, aren’t supported. I managed to fix it with the plugin MailtoWebmails. It annoys me...
Jonas Hietala
MenuCity: Level 0 Walkthrough
It hasn’t even been a week since I released my latest game MenyCity and already so much positive...
over a year ago
It hasn’t even been a week since I released my latest game MenyCity and already so much positive feedback! I’m so thrilled :) However, all isn’t blue skies and nice sunshine. A lot of times the first question is: How do you play it? or How do you get past the first level? I admit...
latest projects -...
LED Industrial Piercing
[Hardware] Illuminated circuit inside a hypodermic
a year ago
[Hardware] Illuminated circuit inside a hypodermic
Good Enough
Issue 0: Collector's Item
1. Oh, hello.
We didn’t see you there. How are you doing?
You’ve somehow ended up with a collector’s...
over a year ago
1. Oh, hello.
We didn’t see you there. How are you doing?
You’ve somehow ended up with a collector’s item in your hands: the very first Good Enough Newsletter. This is the beginning of what we (Barry Hess & Shawn Liu) hope to be a years-long series of communiqués with our rabid...
Louwrentius
Tunneling Elixir cluster network traffic over Wireguard
Introduction
The other day I was supporting a customer with an Elixir-based platform that would make...
a year ago
Introduction
The other day I was supporting a customer with an Elixir-based platform that would make use of Elixir libcluster, so messages on one host can be passed to other hosts. This can - for example - enable live updates for all users, even if they are not communicating with...
Ian's Blog
Learn how Windows builds its store of trusted root CA certificates
Today I learned something fascinating about how Windows deals with trusted root CA certificates. It...
over a year ago
Today I learned something fascinating about how Windows deals with trusted root CA certificates. It might surprise you, and it certainly did for me, but out-of-the-box Windows doesn't come with a set of root CA certificates sufficient for web browsing.
You can see this for...
Christian Selig
Autonomous Standing Desk and Chair Review
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair...
a year ago
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair Pro chairs in exchange for posting about them on Twitter, and I wanted to cover them in more detail on my blog as well so I could give my full thoughts on them for anyone in the...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates September 16: Explore all available articles of a feed
3 months ago
Jonas Hietala
On The Decline of FPS Games
Mr. Eriksson just sent me this link as a fitting video on my post on The Decline of FPS...
over a year ago
Mr. Eriksson just sent me this link as a fitting video on my post on The Decline of FPS Games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU
Oh How true!
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...
Jonas Hietala
2013 in Review
The year is almost over and I think I accomplished a lot this year. You can read my reviews of 2010,...
over a year ago
The year is almost over and I think I accomplished a lot this year. You can read my reviews of 2010, 2011 and 2012.
2013 Geek Achievements
Solved 213 UVa problems.
Got 43rd at NWERC 2013.
Placed high in IMPA, with one turn won.
Completed the online course Programming Languages in...
computers are bad
2023-09-03 plastic money
You will sometimes hear someone say, in a loose conceptual sense, that credit
cards have money in...
a year ago
You will sometimes hear someone say, in a loose conceptual sense, that credit
cards have money in them. Of course we know that that isn't the case; our
modern plastic card payment network relies on online transactions where the
balance tracking and authorization decisions happen...
Computer Ads from...
ViaGrafix Computer Training Videos
Learn...by Simply Watching TV
2 months ago
Learn...by Simply Watching TV
Louwrentius
overview of open-source load balancers
I was looking at open-source load balancing software and it seems that there isn't a nice overview...
over a year ago
I was looking at open-source load balancing software and it seems that there isn't a nice overview except from this website, although many of the listed projects seem dead.
I've made a selection of products that seem to be relevant. The biggest problem with open-source software...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Talking to memory: Inside the Intel 8088 processor's bus interface state machine
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's...
8 months ago
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's decision to use the 8088 processor in the IBM PC (1981) was a critical point in computer history,
leading to the success of the x86 architecture.
The designers of the IBM PC selected...
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?
Louwrentius
'A Moment Of Silence: OpenSolaris Is Dead'
The last release of OpenSolaris dates back to July 2009. The next release was
scheduled for March...
over a year ago
The last release of OpenSolaris dates back to July 2009. The next release was
scheduled for March 2010, but Oracle did not release anything. It is dead
silent around OpenSolaris.
On 12 July 2010, the OpenSolaris Government Board sent out an ultimatum
to Oracle: "please...
computers are bad
2024-03-17 wilhelm haller and photocopier accounting
In the 1450s, German inventor Johannes Gutenburg designed the movable-type
printing press, the first...
9 months ago
In the 1450s, German inventor Johannes Gutenburg designed the movable-type
printing press, the first practical method of mass-duplicating text. After
various other projects, he applied his press to the production of the Bible,
yielding over one hundred copies of a text that...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Winter Kit Tournament Linköping
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14...
over a year ago
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14 participants. The number of players has grown a lot since the previous tournament which is really great.
As I really wanted to win the wonderful Day Job playmat I went with two of...
Home on Erik...
Iterate or die
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a...
over a year ago
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a company innovates is limited by its iteration speed.
I don't even mean throughput here. I just mean the cycle time.
Azad's Blog
RealityCapture to Gaussian Splatting using PostShot
TLDR: Tutorial on using RealityCapture to align an image dataset, export the alignment, and import...
5 months ago
TLDR: Tutorial on using RealityCapture to align an image dataset, export the alignment, and import it into PostShot to train Gaussian Splats without using COLMAP. Video tutorial RealityCapture Import your images and align them. If you ever need help with tricky dataset, refer to...
Home on Erik...
Ping the world
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some...
over a year ago
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some notes:
What's going on with Sweden? Too much torrenting? Ireland is likewise super slow, but not Northern Ireland Eastern Ukraine is also super slow, maybe not surprising given...
Neil Madden
Hybrid encryption and the KEM/DEM paradigm
If you know a bit about public key cryptography, you probably know that you don’t directly encrypt a...
over a year ago
If you know a bit about public key cryptography, you probably know that you don’t directly encrypt a message with a public key encryption algorithm like RSA. This is for many reasons, one of which being that it is incredibly slow. Instead you do what’s called hybrid encryption:...
Arduino Blog
Improve indoor air quality with Arduino
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities...
8 months ago
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities and power plants churning clouds of poison into the atmosphere. And while all this is still important, and has massive consequences for our health, it’s all too easy to overlook...
Posts on Made of...
CVE-2007-4573: The Anatomy of a Kernel Exploit
CVE-2007-4573 is two years old at this point, but it remains one of my favorite vulnerabilities. It...
over a year ago
CVE-2007-4573 is two years old at this point, but it remains one of my favorite vulnerabilities. It was a local privilege-escalation vulnerability on all x86_64 kernels prior to v2.6.22.7. It’s very simple to understand with a little bit of background, and the exploit is...
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Giro AEON bicycle helmet
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out...
over a year ago
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out how.
Jonas Hietala
Beginning Programming
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree...
over a year ago
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree more with. Basically he has these points:
Too long
Too many examples like “Hello World!”
No answers to exercises.
Nr 1 is a pretty curious one. Even though I think a book is good,...
./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...
Posts on Made of...
Design for Testability
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to...
over a year ago
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to structure it. What should the core abstractions be? How should they interact with each other?
In this post, I want to argue for a design heuristic that I’ve found to be a useful guide to...
Push to Prod
One Key Aspect of Optimizing Computational Throughput
When optimizing throughput, think carefully about how many CPUs you have when adding threads or...
3 months ago
When optimizing throughput, think carefully about how many CPUs you have when adding threads or processes.
Home on Erik...
A brief history of Hadoop at Spotify
I was talking with some data engineers at Spotify and had a moment of nostalgia.
2008
I was writing...
over a year ago
I was talking with some data engineers at Spotify and had a moment of nostalgia.
2008
I was writing my master's thesis at Spotify and had to run a Hadoop job to extract some data from the logs.
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Summer Tournament Linköping
There was another Netrunner tournament this Sunday with 8 entrants. We had two new legal data packs...
over a year ago
There was another Netrunner tournament this Sunday with 8 entrants. We had two new legal data packs with Old Hollywood and The Universe of Tomorrow so a lot of new things were tried. I heard a rumor that a full playset of both Aesop’s Pawnshop and Wyldside were available so I...
Notes on software...
dsq: Commandline tool for running SQL queries against JSON, CSV, Excel, Parquet, and more.
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.
Buck on Software
Category velocity
People make decisions, not businesses.
over a year ago
People make decisions, not businesses.
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...
a month 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...
computers are bad
2023-08-19 meanwhile elsewhere
I had meant to write something today, but I'm just getting over a case of the
COVID and had a hard...
a year ago
I had meant to write something today, but I'm just getting over a case of the
COVID and had a hard time getting to it. Instead I did the yard work, edited
and uploaded a YouTube video, and then spewed out a Cohost thread as long as a
blog post. So in lieu of your regularly...
./techtipsy
How to mess up a simple ThinkPad X230 BIOS flash and how to recover from it
Background
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X230. It’s a small and good laptop that I’ve used as my main...
over a year ago
Background
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X230. It’s a small and good laptop that I’ve used as my main laptop and a server as well.
A couple of years ago I messed around with flashing alternative BIOS implementations on the X230, such
as the skulls project, which made installing...
Notes on software...
The impact of management teams as a decision-making group, in startups and enterprise
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you....
over a year ago
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you. Management teams meet periodically and have
private chat rooms. They discuss customers, product and organizational
direction. Sometimes discussions are well documented and...
computers are bad
2024-04-05 the life of one earth station
Sometimes, when I am feeling down, I read about failed satellite TV (STV)
services. Don't we all?...
9 months ago
Sometimes, when I am feeling down, I read about failed satellite TV (STV)
services. Don't we all? As a result, I've periodically come across a company
called AlphaStar Television Network. PrimeStar may have had a rough life, but
AlphaStar barely had one at all: it launched in...
./techtipsy
FOSDEM 2024: my experience, some notes and tech tips
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the...
10 months ago
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the whole experience.
I’ve split this post into three separate sections.
overall notes on the conference and the city
less technical, but sheds light on the FOSDEM experience
the...
Jonas Hietala
2020 in review
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me...
over a year ago
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me personally it’s been both good and bad. Luckily we haven’t been directly affected by COVID too much, but it’s still been very disruptive. Either way as I’ve done for years now it always...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #42: An Elizabeth Line extension, some mad planning law nonsense, and the world's most...
Your regular round-up of interesting links
a month ago
Your regular round-up of interesting links
Home on Erik...
The software engineering rule of 3
Here's a dumb extremely accurate rule I'm postulating* for software engineering projects: *you need...
over a year ago
Here's a dumb extremely accurate rule I'm postulating* for software engineering projects: *you need at least 3 examples before you solve the right problem*.
This is what I've noticed:
Don't factor out shared code between two classes.
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...
11 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...
Louwrentius
Calculating EXT2 EXT3 EXT4 stride size when using RAID
When formatting a RAID device with an EXT filesystem, it is always advised to
specify a stride size....
over a year ago
When formatting a RAID device with an EXT filesystem, it is always advised to
specify a stride size. The format utility will take this stride size into
account when formatting a device. The stride size is the number you get when
you divide the 'chunck' size, as specified with...
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,
Jonas Hietala
rustc: error while loading shared libraries: librustc_driver
I had installed and used rust already but today I fired it up and received:
rustc...
over a year ago
I had installed and used rust already but today I fired it up and received:
rustc --version
rustc: error while loading shared libraries: librustc_driver-7e44814b.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I’ve seen this before… I thought modifying...
Louwrentius
I made my blog solar-powered, then things escalated
In 2020 I wondered if I could run my blog on solar power, being inspired by Low-tech Magazine, doing...
a year ago
In 2020 I wondered if I could run my blog on solar power, being inspired by Low-tech Magazine, doing the same thing (but better)1. The answer was 'yes', but only through spring and summer.
I live in an apartment complex in The Netherlands and my balcony is facing west. This...
Notes on software...
btest: a language agnostic test runner
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian,...
over a year ago
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian, an ex- co-worker from Linode, wrote the first
implementation in Crystal (a compiled
language clone of Ruby) for testing
bshift, a compiler
project. The tool accomplished exactly...
Willem's Blog
Collecting health data with Biostrap
Wearing a clinical-grade PPG sensor for a month to collect advanced biometrics from my wrist.
over a year ago
Wearing a clinical-grade PPG sensor for a month to collect advanced biometrics from my wrist.
Arduino Blog
Create your own affordable Arduino-powered smart glasses
When Google Glass launched in 2013, the public opinion seemed to be “interesting technology, but the...
8 months ago
When Google Glass launched in 2013, the public opinion seemed to be “interesting technology, but the world isn’t ready yet.” Now that more than a decade has passed, the world may finally be ready — especially with the omission of controversial features like video recording. If...
Louwrentius
RAID 5 is perfectly fine for home usage
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you...
over a year ago
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you run RAID 5 you're told that you are a crazy person.
Using RAID 5 is portrayed as an unreasonable risk to the availability of your data. It is suggested that it is likely that you...
Willem's Blog
Programming on Apple Watch
Programming with VIM over SSH on Apple Watch using a bluetooth keyboard
over a year ago
Programming with VIM over SSH on Apple Watch using a bluetooth keyboard
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...
Neil Madden
When a KEM is not enough
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation...
over a year ago
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation mechanism is given the recipient’s public key and outputs a fresh AES key and an encapsulation of that key that the recipient can decapsulate to recover the AES key. In this post I...
Vitalik Buterin's...
STARKs, Part I: Proofs with Polynomials
over a year ago
Jordan’s Substack
Coming soon
This is Jordan’s Substack.
a month ago
This is Jordan’s Substack.
Jonas Hietala
Easy setup of a static site on Amazon S3 with SSL
I’ve been hosting my site on Amazon S3 for a while now but I never activated SSL for it. I just...
over a year ago
I’ve been hosting my site on Amazon S3 for a while now but I never activated SSL for it. I just never got around to it, probably the usual procrastination.
When I had to setup a new site for another project I chose to host on Amazon as well. Although there are many other free...
csvbase blog
I didn't write any Javascript, and other shortcuts
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
a year ago
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 2 (Linting)
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
Willem's Blog
Inspiration from a child
Explore the world together with your kids and reap the rewards of adventure and fun!
over a year ago
Explore the world together with your kids and reap the rewards of adventure and fun!
Jonas Hietala
8-puzzle in rust
I think rust is one of the most interesting upcoming programming languages out there. So I wrote a...
over a year ago
I think rust is one of the most interesting upcoming programming languages out there. So I wrote a solution to the 8-puzzle (see the 15-puzzle) using A*. It also has a breadth first search for solutions on a specific distance away from the goal.
The solution is not by any means a...
On Life and Lisp
Hilariously Fast Volume Computation with the Divergence Theorem
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a...
over a year ago
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a simple, closed, triangulated 3D mesh. This assumption is a consequence of the divergence theorem. Further extensions may generalise to other meshes as well, although that is presently...
heavymeta.org
CrowdStrike's Impact on Aviation
Just after midnight Eastern Time on July 19, 2024, the enterprise cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike...
5 months ago
Just after midnight Eastern Time on July 19, 2024, the enterprise cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike YOLOed a software update to millions of Windows machines. Or
as they put it:
On July 19, 2024 at 04:09 UTC, as part of ongoing operations, CrowdStrike
released a sensor...
Good Enough
TIL: Tapback Keyboard Shortcuts
If you use Mac, and you use Messages on your Mac, you will probably know that in the not-too-distant...
a year ago
If you use Mac, and you use Messages on your Mac, you will probably know that in the not-too-distant past, simple reactions to messages were added: what Apple calls Tapbacks.
These are great for a quick way to say yes (or no, or WTF!?!), but they are a bit of a pain to actually...
Arduino Blog
Arduino Cloud is now available in AWS Marketplace!
We’re excited to announce that Arduino Cloud is now available in AWS Marketplace, making it easier...
3 months ago
We’re excited to announce that Arduino Cloud is now available in AWS Marketplace, making it easier than ever for developers and businesses worldwide to integrate our powerful IoT platform into their AWS infrastructure. This development is particularly relevant for those in...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
The Serendipity Machine
Notes on Using Twitter
11 months ago
Birchtree
Grading my 2024 Apple predictions
First off, merry Christmas!
I closed out last year with a series of posts reviewing Apple’s main...
a week ago
First off, merry Christmas!
I closed out last year with a series of posts reviewing Apple’s main product lines, iPhones, iPads, Macs, Watches, and the soon-to-be-released Vision Pro. I’ll be doing that again over the last few days of the year, but in the interest of
Vitalik Buterin's...
Gitcoin Grants Round 5 Retrospective
over a year ago
./techtipsy
I finally found an use case for my Raspberry Pi Model B+
You have probably heard about the Raspberry Pi. It’s a nice little affordable
single-board computer...
over a year ago
You have probably heard about the Raspberry Pi. It’s a nice little affordable
single-board computer with a huge community using it for all sorts of projects.
I got my first Raspberry Pi, the Model B+,
during my first year at university, which was around the winter of...
Home on Erik...
More Luigi alternatives
The workflow engine battle has intensified with some more interesting entries lately! Here are a...
over a year ago
The workflow engine battle has intensified with some more interesting entries lately! Here are a couple I encountered in the last few days. I love that at least two of them are direct references to Luigi!
Odds and Ends of...
WATCH: Were the US election polls right?
My conversation with polling guru Mark Pack
a month ago
My conversation with polling guru Mark Pack
Arduino Blog
Seaside Sweeper keeps beaches pristine
Without anyone caring for them, beaches quickly become trash-covered swaths of disappointment. That...
8 months ago
Without anyone caring for them, beaches quickly become trash-covered swaths of disappointment. That care is necessary to maintain the beautiful sandy havens that we all want to enjoy, but it requires a lot of labor. A capstone team of students from the University of Colorado...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What else could memecoins be?
9 months ago
Jonas Hietala
Minecraft Server Hosting
I play the phenomena that is Minecraft on and off. Sometimes the laid back building or the exploring...
over a year ago
I play the phenomena that is Minecraft on and off. Sometimes the laid back building or the exploring is just what I need. Sometimes I can challange myself to build cool complex stuff and I’m even an avid follower of Doc’M and Etho and the other mindcrackers over at the youtube....
Jonas Hietala
2016 in Review
See the previous reviews.
2016 Geek Achievements
Placed 2nd in Linköping’s Regional in...
over a year ago
See the previous reviews.
2016 Geek Achievements
Placed 2nd in Linköping’s Regional in Netrunner.
Won a couple of smaller Netrunner tournaments.
Got Veronica to play Game of Thrones with us. She beat us and she loved it!
Programmed a little bit of Elixir and a tiny bit of front...
Construction Physics
Why the U.S. Can’t Build Icebreaking Ships
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post,...
3 months ago
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post, especially those who shared their own stories of loss.
Louwrentius
Buying a new computer
*** Desktop or Laptop ***
When deciding on which computer to buy, the first decision you have to...
over a year ago
*** Desktop or Laptop ***
When deciding on which computer to buy, the first decision you have to make is about whether to go for a desktop or a laptop. There was a time that many believed that the desktop would become a niche product. Most people want a laptop because they can...
Buck on Software
The Wrong Bet
The next decade in SaaS won't look like the last
over a year ago
The next decade in SaaS won't look like the last
Willem's Blog
Influencing purchase behaviour
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance,...
over a year ago
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance, conversion rates and online revenue. Use this useful report to apply behavioural sciences principles to your advantage.
Good Enough
PEOs are Good Enough (for us)
Hi, I’m Patrick. Good Enough brought me on as a part-time Operations Manager who basically does all...
a year ago
Hi, I’m Patrick. Good Enough brought me on as a part-time Operations Manager who basically does all the things that Shawn and Barry don’t want to do! My first task was to set up payroll for Good Enough’s three employees, something we thought would maybe be worth talking about!
If...
Jonas Hietala
10 Games in 10 Languages
For school we have this programming course for Java. It isn’t anything special really and it would...
over a year ago
For school we have this programming course for Java. It isn’t anything special really and it would be really boring if I don’t like to program, it almost is anyway, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re to create a game! Just any game will do and we’re in a group of two and we...
Arduino Blog
Use sound to trigger your camera’s flash with this DIY device
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo...
2 months ago
In the world of photography, the exposure triangle is immutable. To get a properly exposed photo (not too bright or too dark), you need a balance of aperture size (how much light gets in), shutter speed (how long the light gets in), and ISO (sensitivity to light at the expense of...
Jonas Hietala
Drawing a self portrait
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m...
over a year ago
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m really slow so I stopped a bit before it really was finished.
Obviously I’d like it to be a bit better, but I’m still a little happy about the glasses and the eyebrows. The mouth...
Jonas Hietala
2015 Read Books
I didn’t read a lot of books in 2015, but the books I did read were pretty damn good.
Fiction
A Song...
over a year ago
I didn’t read a lot of books in 2015, but the books I did read were pretty damn good.
Fiction
A Song of Ice and Fire: A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
Reread.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms - Gearge R.R. Martin
The Skin Collector - Jeffery Deaver
Best Served Cold - Joe...
Home on Erik...
MLConf 2014
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a...
over a year ago
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a whole range of great speakers (actually almost 2/3 women which was pretty cool in itself).
Here are my slides:
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Major failure
The left POM nut got ground down, making the bed fall down.
After 600 hours, the printer met it’s...
10 months ago
The left POM nut got ground down, making the bed fall down.
After 600 hours, the printer met it’s first major failure.
I know I earlier described how the extruder starter skipping in a big way, but that was just some filament getting stuck in the extruder.
This time a part...
Arduino Blog
This beautiful table creates art in the sand
Kinetic sand art tables are pretty hot right now, because they look really cool. They’re like zen...
4 months ago
Kinetic sand art tables are pretty hot right now, because they look really cool. They’re like zen gardens that rake themselves in intricate patterns. But most of the builds we’ve seen use a conventional cartesian CNC layout or polar layout. This table by Newsons Electronics takes...
Arduino Blog
Venderoo is an Arduino Mega-powered DIY vending machine
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics,...
3 months ago
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics, electronics, and programming while being simultaneously useful to those around him was a longtime goal. His recent Venderoo project is exactly that, as the creatively named vending...
Jonas Hietala
Going down
Ah my first game was so painless so I thought I could do any game I could imagine! Shooters, and...
over a year ago
Ah my first game was so painless so I thought I could do any game I could imagine! Shooters, and mario bros kinda stuff. Well now I’m not so upbeat anymore, I’ve worked on this game for 7 days now and it’s not playable at all. With seven days I don’t mean a week, I’ve had a big...
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!
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...
./techtipsy
How to take down production with a single Helm command
You’re Cletus Kubernetus: a software developer, and a proud Fedora Linux
user.1
You know Kubernetes,...
9 months ago
You’re Cletus Kubernetus: a software developer, and a proud Fedora Linux
user.1
You know Kubernetes, especially after the time you migrated some services to it.
Everything is calm.
Your pods are running. Your service is up. Business as usual.
You release some minor changes to...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The different types of ZK-EVMs
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
We can build things!
Finally we have some sort of progress!
We can now build rooms and place and remove objects!
Yay!!...
over a year ago
Finally we have some sort of progress!
We can now build rooms and place and remove objects!
Yay!! But we still haven’t even begun with the game logic, resource management, the actual mining mechanic, multiple levels, actual tasks for our workers. But it’s something.
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
Incomplete game coming up
Man I’m far too much of a perfectionist, with this mentality I’ll never get anything done -...
over a year ago
Man I’m far too much of a perfectionist, with this mentality I’ll never get anything done - seriously. I spent far too many hours, even days, figuring out in my mind how the game should be and I started off going for nothing less than just that. But it turned out to be a lot...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
I don't know how to build software and you don't either
Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it...
a month ago
Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it better to have that dictated by some…
Notes on software...
Interview With Phil of DataStation
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Slackware
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
a year ago
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
Opsbros
Artemis 1 Countdown
I've been following the Artemis 1 Launch Schedule quite closely on a few forums and discussing it...
over a year ago
I've been following the Artemis 1 Launch Schedule quite closely on a few forums and discussing it with serveral people, and I had been regularly posting updated DateandTime countdown links for the revised launch attempts. With the schedule chnages and scrubs that have happened...
Notes on software...
Implementing MVCC and major SQL transaction isolation levels
In this post we'll build a database in 400 lines of code with basic
support for five standard SQL...
7 months ago
In this post we'll build a database in 400 lines of code with basic
support for five standard SQL transaction levels: Read Uncommitted,
Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Snapshot Isolation and
Serializable. We'll use multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) and
optimistic...
Home on Erik...
coin2dice
Here's a problem that I used to give to candidates. I stopped using it seriously a long time ago...
over a year ago
Here's a problem that I used to give to candidates. I stopped using it seriously a long time ago since I don't believe in puzzles, but I think it's kind of fun.
Let's say you have a function that simulates a random coin flip.
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...
Home on Erik...
Software infrastructure 2.0: a wishlist
Software infrastructure (by which I include everything ending with *aaS, or anything remotely...
over a year ago
Software infrastructure (by which I include everything ending with *aaS, or anything remotely similar to it) is an exciting field, in particular because (despite what the neo-luddites may say) it keeps getting better every year! I love working with something that moves so...
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