Arduino Blog
Expanding possibilities: Blues Wireless amplifies Opta’s connectivity
Blues Wireless and Arduino have joined forces to create the game-changing Blues Wireless for Arduino...
7 months ago
Blues Wireless and Arduino have joined forces to create the game-changing Blues Wireless for Arduino Opta, unveiled this week at the Automate Show in Chicago. The expansion module is an affordable solution to enhance connectivity options for Arduino Opta micro PLCs, and marks a...
Notes on software...
Building a fast SCSS-like rule expander for CSS using fuzzy parsing
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.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Review: museums of the future, Dubai and Tokyo
4 months ago
Jonas Hietala
Top ten activities that make me happy
Recently we finally moved out of our old apartment and into a new larger apartment and it’s awesome....
over a year ago
Recently we finally moved out of our old apartment and into a new larger apartment and it’s awesome. It’s no more than a year old and feels very fresh compared to the old one. It’s also larger with an extra room, dishwasher (!) and closer to the city centrum and everything is...
Vitalik Buterin's...
How do trusted setups work?
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
...
over a year ago
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
3. LLVM
5. LLVM system calls
6. an x86 upgrade
In this post we'll extend the
compiler's LLVM backend to
support compiling conditionals such that we can support...
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...
9 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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Halo and more: exploring incremental verification and SNARKs without pairings
over a year ago
computers are bad
2024-11-09 iron mountain atomic storage
I have quipped before about "underground datacenters," and how they never
succeed. During the late...
a month ago
I have quipped before about "underground datacenters," and how they never
succeed. During the late decades of the Cold War and even into the '00s, the
military and (to a lesser extent) the telecommunications industry parted ways
with a great number of underground facilities....
Matt Blewitt
Everything I Know About Operations, I Learned From NHS 111
Ever heard someone say “It’s only software/money/<trivial thing>, not life or death”, in the context...
over a year ago
Ever heard someone say “It’s only software/money/<trivial thing>, not life or death”, in the context of incidents at your company? Although mostly true, I want to talk about a time in my career when sometimes, just sometimes, it was the latter, and how it shaped my approach to...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
The Serendipity Machine
Notes on Using Twitter
11 months ago
Push to Prod
Making an AB Test Allocator 20x Faster Using Non-blocking IO
Many moons ago, I inherited a cross-company AB test and had to figure out how to allocate it...
a month ago
Many moons ago, I inherited a cross-company AB test and had to figure out how to allocate it effectively.
Home on Erik...
Deep learning for… Go
This is the last post about deep learning for chess/go/whatever. But this really cool paper by...
over a year ago
This is the last post about deep learning for chess/go/whatever. But this really cool paper by Christopher Clark and Amos Storkey was forwarded to me by Michael Eickenberg. It's about using convolutional neural networks to play Go.
Louwrentius
Is there an easy and secure way to transfer files?
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network...
over a year ago
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network equipment is physically secure and that it is impossible for an attacker to get on the wire and start eavesdropping on network traffic.
Many organisations do not seem too concerned about...
Posts on Made of...
Automounting sshfs
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally...
over a year ago
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally lightweight way to access the remote filesystem of any machine you have ssh to, without requiring any extra setup on the host. I’ve been running for at least a year now with my...
Arduino Blog
This portable Starmap could be your guide to the cosmos
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a...
6 months ago
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a clear, moonless, cloudless night away from city lights. You might be able to identify a couple of them, along with a handful of constellations. But what about the rest? If they...
Jonas Hietala
2023 in review
This is my yearly review #14.
Amazing that I’ve kept up with this for 14 years.
Even though it’s not...
11 months ago
This is my yearly review #14.
Amazing that I’ve kept up with this for 14 years.
Even though it’s not anything advanced, I really like looking back at the year to see what has happened.
Maybe it’s a very light version of a reverse bucket list, and I can see that it provides some...
Louwrentius
Using InfiniBand for cheap and fast point-to-point Networking
InfiniBand networking is quite awesome. It's mainly used for two reasons:
low latency
high...
over a year ago
InfiniBand networking is quite awesome. It's mainly used for two reasons:
low latency
high bandwidth
As a home user, I'm mainly interested in setting up a high bandwidth link between two servers.
I was using quad-port network cards with Linux Bonding, but this solution has some...
Matt Mullenweg
Welcoming Harper
As announced by Automattic and covered by TechCrunch, I want to take a moment to welcome Elijah...
a month ago
As announced by Automattic and covered by TechCrunch, I want to take a moment to welcome Elijah Potter and Harper to join Automattic. Harper is a super-fast (way faster than LanguageTool and Grammarly), local English grammar checker. The technology is nascent, but I’m very...
Louwrentius
ZFS: Performance and capacity impact of ashift=9 on 4K sector drives
Update 2014-8-23: I was testing with ashift for my new NAS. The ashift=9 write performance...
over a year ago
Update 2014-8-23: I was testing with ashift for my new NAS. The ashift=9 write performance deteriorated from 1.1 GB/s to 830 MB/s with just 16 TB of data on the pool. Also I noticed that resilvering was very slow. This is why I decided to abandon my 24 drive RAIDZ3...
Birchtree
Matt is a Mean Guy (hey!)
Matt felt like bringing an intentionally controversial topic, Niléane refuses to admit she's created...
a week ago
Matt felt like bringing an intentionally controversial topic, Niléane refuses to admit she's created a sticky note-based task manager, and everyone gives the iPad some much needed love.
Or watch it on YouTube.
Weekly Topics
Raycast
CleanShot X
Final Cut Pro
Google...
Simply Explained
My Sixth Year as YouTube Creator (statistics + retrospective)
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most...
over a year ago
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most successful year on YouTube so far, and I'd like to share some statistics and thoughts. I will also go over how my email newsletter is doing and where I'm headed. And finally, I'll set...
Arduino Blog
This Kenyan engineer modernizes vintage cars with a custom ECU and EFI upgrades
The automotive industry’s switch from carburetion to fuel injection was one of the most effective...
2 months ago
The automotive industry’s switch from carburetion to fuel injection was one of the most effective advancements of the 20th century. Electronic fuel injection allows for precise control over an internal combustion engine’s air-fuel mixture, which dramatically improves fuel...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Gitcoin Grants Round 6 Retrospective
over a year ago
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...
a week 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...
Willem's Blog
Solo around the Markermeer (211KM)
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read...
over a year ago
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read along for practical tips for long distance cycling.
Louwrentius
The iPhone, iPad and iOS are powering a revolution
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people...
over a year ago
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people who make them are maybe even dumber. Because they
can't seem to figure out how to create a computer that the majority of people
understand.
When the original macintosh arrived at...
./techtipsy
Surviving the front page of HackerNews on a 50 Mbps uplink
Around a month ago I shared my blog post
on HackerNews. I guess I lucked out with the choice of the...
over a year ago
Around a month ago I shared my blog post
on HackerNews. I guess I lucked out with the choice of the topic, because it
brought out a lot of enthusiasts who shared their own experiences with older
machinery that still works in 2022. I really appreciate the feedback and...
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...
Neil Madden
Is Datalog a good language for authorization?
Datalog is a logic programming language, based on Prolog, which is seeing something of a resurgence...
over a year ago
Datalog is a logic programming language, based on Prolog, which is seeing something of a resurgence in interest in recent years. In particular, several recent approaches to authorization (working out who can do what) have used Datalog as the logical basis for access control...
Neil Madden
Towards a standard for bearer token URLs
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include...
over a year ago
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include credentials in a URL?, I raised the possibility of standardising a new URL scheme that safely allows encoding a bearer token into a URL. This makes it more convenient to use lots of...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Why we need wide adoption of social recovery wallets
over a year ago
Good Enough
TIL: Easily Support Gravatars in Rails
We’re building some software where we’d like to display avatars for email contacts
even if they...
10 months ago
We’re building some software where we’d like to display avatars for email contacts
even if they aren’t users of our software.
While Gravatar is a relic of Web 2.0,
we’ve found that there are still a significant number of people who have their
email addresses in that...
Birchtree
The “Bluesky feels like early Twitter!” vibe
Bluesky has the juice right now, and while it’s slowed down a bit this week, they were adding over 1...
3 weeks ago
Bluesky has the juice right now, and while it’s slowed down a bit this week, they were adding over 1 million users a day for a bit last week. One sentiment I’m hearing a lot recently is that Bluely “feels like early Twitter,” which
Jonas Hietala
Long Term Goals (part 2)
A few minutes after I wrote about my long term goals, in the shower, I realize I forgot a few major...
over a year ago
A few minutes after I wrote about my long term goals, in the shower, I realize I forgot a few major goals I have:
Write my own Programming Language
Why? Because it sounds fun and epic as hell.
Write a Book
So I like books and I like to collect them and I have my whole bookcase...
Louwrentius
Understanding IOPS, latency and storage performance
Update 2020: I've written another blogpost about this topic, including some benchmark examples.
When...
over a year ago
Update 2020: I've written another blogpost about this topic, including some benchmark examples.
When most people think about storage performance, they think about throughput. But throughput is similar to the top speed of a car. In reality, you will almost never reach the top...
Good Enough
Pika: Start Your Happy Blog
Have you thought about starting or restarting a blogging habit? Have you wanted to write on the...
10 months ago
Have you thought about starting or restarting a blogging habit? Have you wanted to write on the internet, but at your own place and at your own address rather than on a social network? Have you been overwhelmed by the online writing options that you’ve found? Well, have we got...
Arduino Blog
Project Hub’s new featured pages are your gateway to inspiration!
Arduino’s Project Hub is more than just a platform; it’s a vibrant community where members share...
6 months ago
Arduino’s Project Hub is more than just a platform; it’s a vibrant community where members share their ideas and achievements, contributing to our knowledge base and inspiring everyone to make, learn, and try something new. With close to 5,400 projects, including tutorials,...
Jonas Hietala
First impressions of Pollen
After having consumed Practical Typography I took a look at the library he wrote to create books for...
over a year ago
After having consumed Practical Typography I took a look at the library he wrote to create books for the web called Pollen written in Racket. I’ve only used it a little but I feel I can give my first impressions of it.
What I like
The first thing I really like is Pollen enables...
Engineers Need Art
Same Stop
Marvelling at the full circle life seems to have taken after retirement.
a year ago
Marvelling at the full circle life seems to have taken after retirement.
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!
Vitalik Buterin's...
STARKs, Part 3: Into the Weeds
over a year ago
Louwrentius
Why I bought a digital projector (Panasonic PT-AT5000E)
I don't have a TV. I haven't been watching TV for more than 10 years. But I love to watch movies or...
over a year ago
I don't have a TV. I haven't been watching TV for more than 10 years. But I love to watch movies or great series like Dexter and Game of Thrones. Until recently, I watched movies or series on my 27" iMac. Twenty-seven inch is large for a computer screen but for a TV, it's quite...
Engineers Need Art
Building Quarter-Cab - Phase I
Lets build a simple virtual pinball controller to bring more immersion to your game.
7 months ago
Lets build a simple virtual pinball controller to bring more immersion to your game.
Arduino Blog
Simplifying IoT for smarter manufacturing: Join the chat with Arduino, AWS, and Atlas Machine
We all know that the future of manufacturing lies in IoT — yet the path to adoption can sometimes...
2 weeks ago
We all know that the future of manufacturing lies in IoT — yet the path to adoption can sometimes feel daunting. But what if you could simplify the process and start seeing results quickly? That’s exactly what we’re going to explore in our upcoming Arduino Cloud Café webinar on...
./techtipsy
How to copy media off of an iPhone the hard way (using Linux)
I helped a family member upgrade to a newer iPhone and make some room so that the internal storage...
3 months ago
I helped a family member upgrade to a newer iPhone and make some room so that the internal storage does not run out.
They had Nextcloud installed on the current phone, but due to limitations of the Nextcloud iOS
app, the backups only take place if the app itself is open, meaning...
./techtipsy
The optimization treadmill: why I keep changing my computing setup all the time
I have a bad habit of changing my computing setups all the time. I tend to see new gear, then I...
a year ago
I have a bad habit of changing my computing setups all the time. I tend to see new gear, then I get
some new ideas, and then I obsessively think about it for weeks and months until I just buy it.
And then the cycle repeats.
I’ve had time to think about why that keeps happening...
Jonas Hietala
Speeding Ahead
Life is slowly settling down over here. School has started with some pretty interesting stuff this...
over a year ago
Life is slowly settling down over here. School has started with some pretty interesting stuff this year. Firstly we have a math analysis course in multiple variables which is ok. I’m not a fan of the previous analysis courses but maybe this will be a bit different. We’re...
Arduino Blog
This Halo helmet features an adjustable-transparency RGB-backlit visor
The Halo franchise is full of iconic designs, from vehicles like the Warthog to weapons like the...
3 weeks ago
The Halo franchise is full of iconic designs, from vehicles like the Warthog to weapons like the Needler. But the armor, such as the Spartan armor worn by Master Chief, is arguably the most recognizable. The helmets are especially cool, and LeMaster Tech put his own unique spin...
Willem's Blog
Cutting Cloud Costs
Facing sky-high cloud costs, I found software optimisation vital. Discover how I saved 90% on cloud...
a year ago
Facing sky-high cloud costs, I found software optimisation vital. Discover how I saved 90% on cloud expenses!
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...
4 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...
Home on Erik...
Annoy
Annoy is a simple package to find approximate nearest neighbors (ANN) that I just put on Github. I'm...
over a year ago
Annoy is a simple package to find approximate nearest neighbors (ANN) that I just put on Github. I'm not trying to compete with existing packages, but Annoy has a couple of features that makes it pretty useful.
Old Vintage...
Commodore does the iPad "crush" concept right ... in 1985
I get what Apple was trying to say with their infamous Crush ad, even though they made it a little...
6 months ago
I get what Apple was trying to say with their infamous Crush ad, even though they made it a little weird. They should have simply done what Commodore did for the C128 — ironically, competing with the Apple IIc. Notice the emphasis on audio and sound, plus the Commodore 64 perched...
Arduino Blog
A stroopwafel doneness detection device
If you’re lucky enough to visit the Netherlands and you order a hot drink, you’ll likely be given a...
5 months ago
If you’re lucky enough to visit the Netherlands and you order a hot drink, you’ll likely be given a sweet treat as well. That is a stroopwafel, a crispy little waffle-syrup sandwich that the Dutch like to rest on top of their drink so that the rising heat will soften the pastry....
Style over Substance
My new purchase: a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 517/16
Cheaper than a tank of gas, smaller than a Leica, 6x6 medium format negs - tons of fun. This Nettar...
over a year ago
Cheaper than a tank of gas, smaller than a Leica, 6x6 medium format negs - tons of fun. This Nettar folding camera sure is bang for buck!
The post My new purchase: a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 517/16 appeared first on Style over Substance.
watchTowr Labs -...
Palo Alto - Putting The Protecc In GlobalProtect (CVE-2024-3400)
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by...
8 months ago
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by now-familiar news—a nation-state was exploiting a “sophisticated” vulnerability for full compromise in yet another enterprise-grade SSLVPN device.
We’ve seen all the commentary around the...
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: Data General/One (and the worst LCD in the world)
I mentioned earlier that while I prefer specializing in non-x86 laptops, that doesn't mean I don't...
8 months ago
I mentioned earlier that while I prefer specializing in non-x86 laptops, that doesn't mean I don't collect interesting or unusual x86 laptops, like the Brother GeoBook NB-60 (I finally tracked down a mostly working NB-80C, the top of the line model, which will be the subject of a...
Home on Erik...
Better precision and faster index building in Annoy
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index...
over a year ago
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index building in Annoy.
For anyone who isn't acquainted with Annoy – it's a C++ library with Python bindings that provides fast high-dimensional nearest neighbor search.
Louwrentius
The security risk of vendor-supplied default SSL certificates
Often, software comes supplied with some default SSL certificate, for testing
purposes, such as...
over a year ago
Often, software comes supplied with some default SSL certificate, for testing
purposes, such as those 'snake oil' certificates (they are called snake oil
certificates for a reason). In practice, I often encounter usage of such
certificates. People may seem to think that as long...
Arduino Blog
How makers can use AR and VR
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are both currently experiencing a meteoric rise in...
6 months ago
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are both currently experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity, with the combined market expected to reach $77 billion by 2025, from just $15.3 billion in 2020. For makers, AR and VR represent exciting opportunities to build new...
Home on Erik...
Books I read in 2015
Early last year when I left Spotify I decided to do more reading. I was planning to read at least...
over a year ago
Early last year when I left Spotify I decided to do more reading. I was planning to read at least one book per week and in particular I wanted to brush up on management, economics, and technology.
Good Enough
Good Enough Marketing: The Preparation
We have a couple of exciting projects—Guestbook! Yay.Boo!—that we want to share with the world. But...
a year ago
We have a couple of exciting projects—Guestbook! Yay.Boo!—that we want to share with the world. But that’s a difficult task for us because, honestly, we’re terrible not good at self-promotion. We’d rather spend time making things than talking about the things we’ve made.
We’d...
Odds and Ends of...
Important information if you used my Bluesky MP follows bot
Please read this immediately.
2 weeks ago
Please read this immediately.
Arduino Blog
Venderoo is an Arduino Mega-powered DIY vending machine
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics,...
2 months ago
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics, electronics, and programming while being simultaneously useful to those around him was a longtime goal. His recent Venderoo project is exactly that, as the creatively named vending...
Home on Erik...
Dollar cost averaging
(I accidentally published an unfinished draft of this post a few days ago – sorry about...
over a year ago
(I accidentally published an unfinished draft of this post a few days ago – sorry about that).
There's a lot of sources preaching the benefits of dollar cost averaging, or the practice of investing a fixed amount of money regularly.
anderegg.ca
More details on Bluesky’s subscription plan
Update: I had missed this, but the Bluesky team had already announced a subscription model was on...
2 weeks ago
Update: I had missed this, but the Bluesky team had already announced a subscription model was on the way. I had written this article assuming that was the news. What is new is the work happening on their official apps, which contains details on features and potential pricing. An...
Electronics etc…
A Hardware Interposer to Fix the Symmetricom SyncServer S200 GPS Week Number Rollover Problem
Introduction
IMPORTANT: Use the Right GPS Antenna!
The Problem: SyncServer Refuses to Lock to...
4 months ago
Introduction
IMPORTANT: Use the Right GPS Antenna!
The Problem: SyncServer Refuses to Lock to GPS
The GPS Week Number Rollover Issue
Making the Furuno GT-8031 Work Again
How It Works
Build Instructions
Power Supply Recapping
The Future: A Software-Only Solution
The...
Arduino Blog
Ready for SPS Italia 2024? Ready for accessible industrial automation!
Save the date on May 28th-30th, Arduino will be back at SPS Italia in Parma, showcasing how our...
7 months ago
Save the date on May 28th-30th, Arduino will be back at SPS Italia in Parma, showcasing how our open-source solutions are revolutionizing the industrial sector with high performance and accessibility. At Arduino’s booth #C020, hall 7, we’ll be presenting the latest additions to...
Arduino Blog
Galco goes Platinum! Welcome our newest SIPP
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, Galco is a leading e-commerce...
7 months ago
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, Galco is a leading e-commerce distributor that specializes in providing a wide range of industrial and commercial electrical and electronic products, focusing on maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO). Known for...
Style over Substance
My grandfather’s Rolleiflex 2.8D twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera
One of the first vintage cameras I ever got was my dad’s old Polaroid SX-70. Like so many family...
over a year ago
One of the first vintage cameras I ever got was my dad’s old Polaroid SX-70. Like so many family cameras it had disappeared into a closet decades ago and was only found again recently. When he gave it to me, he told me there was another classic camera he wanted to give me – if...
./techtipsy
How to save an old printer from the e-waste pile with a Raspberry Pi
A family member has a Canon PIXMA MP250 printer, originally released in 2009.
It has been a very...
6 months ago
A family member has a Canon PIXMA MP250 printer, originally released in 2009.
It has been a very reliable piece of hardware, especially for a printer.
Then came Windows 10. The printer would not work out of the box with it and
the official drivers got stuck during installation....
Home on Erik...
Deep learning for... chess
I've been meaning to learn Theano for a while and I've also wanted to build a chess AI at some...
over a year ago
I've been meaning to learn Theano for a while and I've also wanted to build a chess AI at some point. So why not combine the two? That's what I thought, and I ended up spending way too much time on it.
Computer Ads from...
Ampere WS-1
A cool Japanese clamtop
9 months ago
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 3
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
a year ago
Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
Home on Erik...
I believe in the 10x engineer, but...
The easiest way to be a 10x engineer is to make 10 other engineers 2x more efficient. Someone can be...
over a year ago
The easiest way to be a 10x engineer is to make 10 other engineers 2x more efficient. Someone can be a 10x engineer if they do nothing for 364 days then convinces the team to change programming language to a 2x more productive language.
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 2: Just the Two of Us
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing...
over a year ago
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing anything. Take it away, fellas…
1. Still Positive
Did you know that once you acquire COVID-19 your PCR test can be positive for up to 90 days? Did you know that the at-home tests...
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!
Louwrentius
Parallel / distributed password cracking with John the Ripper and MPI
This article has been updated to reflect the changes for John version 1.7.8 as released in june...
over a year ago
This article has been updated to reflect the changes for John version 1.7.8 as released in june 2011.
The most important change is the fact that MPI support is now integrated in the jumbo patch.
The original John the Ripper off-line password cracker only uses a single processor...
Home on Erik...
Ratio metrics
We run a ton of A/B tests at Spotify and we look at a ton of metrics. Defining metrics is a little...
over a year ago
We run a ton of A/B tests at Spotify and we look at a ton of metrics. Defining metrics is a little bit of an art form. Ideally you want to define success metrics before you run a test to avoid cherry picking metrics.
Posts on Made of...
Systems that defy detailed understanding
Last week, I wrote about the mindset that computer systems can be understood, and behaviors can be...
over a year ago
Last week, I wrote about the mindset that computer systems can be understood, and behaviors can be explained, if we’re willing to dig deep enough into the stack of abstractions our software is built atop. Some of the ensuing discussion on Twitter and elsewhere lead me to write...
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,...
Good Enough
Adding Social Preview Images To Our 11ty Blog
Twitter X recently removed headlines and descriptions from link previews, in the name of...
a year ago
Twitter X recently removed headlines and descriptions from link previews, in the name of “esthetics.” Inspired by Steph Ango, while we try not to run our business on the whims of a social media platform, this change did push us into making a change we’ve been meaning to for...
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?
Computer Ads from...
Page 6 Magazine Interviews the Godfather of Adventure Games, Scott Adams
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
4 months ago
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
Notes on software...
What's the big deal about Deterministic Simulation Testing?
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And...
4 months ago
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And even once you've found a bug, it can be
anywhere from simple to impossible to reproduce it. It's about as far
away as you can get from the ideal test environment: property...
Arduino Blog
This rolling ball game brings Skee-Ball-style fun from the arcade to your home
Ask your friends about their favorite games at the arcade and the most common answer will likely be...
5 months ago
Ask your friends about their favorite games at the arcade and the most common answer will likely be Skee-Ball. But while many other popular arcade games have viable at-home alternatives, Skee-Ball doesn’t — at least not unless you’re willing to spend a serious amount of money....
Louwrentius
The sorry state of CoW file systems
I'd like to argue that both ZFS and BTRFS both are incomplete file systems with their own drawbacks...
over a year ago
I'd like to argue that both ZFS and BTRFS both are incomplete file systems with their own drawbacks and that it may still be a long way off before we have something truly great.
Both ZFS and BTRFS are two heroic feats of engineering, created by people who are probably ten times...
Louwrentius
Linode hacked: the dark side of cloud hosting
Linode has released an update about the security incident first reported
on April 12, 2013.
The...
over a year ago
Linode has released an update about the security incident first reported
on April 12, 2013.
The Linode Manager is the environment where you control your virtual private servers and where you pay for services. This is the environment that got compromised.
Linode uses Adobe's...
somenice
Cake Hole Whistler Mountain
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of...
3 weeks ago
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of untouched powder.Understanding that you need to come back up the same way you go down, can make you question if it’s really worth it.Know before you go. Cake Hole by Andrew...
anderegg.ca
My 2024 Upgradies Picks
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I...
3 weeks ago
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I submitted my recommendations earlier today, and thought it would be fun to share my picks.
Best Overall iOS App
Bear
I once again don’t have a new app for this category, but Bear has...
Louwrentius
Cannot access Windows guest within VMware Fusion when running vsphere client
Currently, I am running VMware ESXi 4.1 on a test system. To manage ESXi, you need the VSphere...
over a year ago
Currently, I am running VMware ESXi 4.1 on a test system. To manage ESXi, you need the VSphere client, which is only available for the Windows platform. Therefore, I run VMware Fusion on my Mac to be able to access VSphere and manage my ESXi host.
The trouble is that both ESXi...
Notes on software...
Tail call elimination
In this post we'll explore what tail calls are, why they are useful,
and how they can be eliminated...
over a year ago
In this post we'll explore what tail calls are, why they are useful,
and how they can be eliminated in an interpreter, a compiler targeting
C++, and a compiler targeting LLVM IR.
Tail calls
A tail call is a function call made at the end of a block that
returns the value of the...
Louwrentius
FreeBSD 10.1 unattended install over PXE & HTTP (no NFS)
To gain some more experience with FreeBSD, I decided to make a PXE-based unattended installation of...
over a year ago
To gain some more experience with FreeBSD, I decided to make a PXE-based unattended installation of FreeBSD 10.1.
My goal is to set something up similar to Debian/Ubuntu + preseeding or Redhat/CentOS + kickstart.
Getting a PXE-based unattended installation of FreeBSD 10.1 was...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Layer 1 Should Be Innovative in the Short Term but Less in the Long Term
over a year ago
On Life and Lisp
AAA gaming on Asahi Linux
Gaming on Linux on M1 is here! We’re thrilled to release our Asahi
game playing toolkit, which...
2 months ago
Gaming on Linux on M1 is here! We’re thrilled to release our Asahi
game playing toolkit, which integrates our Vulkan 1.3 drivers with x86
emulation and Windows compatibility. Plus a bonus: conformant OpenCL
3.0.
Asahi Linux now ships the only conformant OpenGL®,
OpenCL™,
and...
Old Vintage...
CAP-X and COMP-X: how the Tandy Pocket Computers got a sucky Japanese assembler
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and...
10 months ago
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and useful, you had to do it in 6502 assembly language. Today I still write 6502 assembly, plus some Power ISA and even a little TMS9900. I like assembly languages and how in control of the...
Home on Erik...
What is your motivation?
I've been trying to learn Clojure. I keep telling people I meet that I really want to learn Clojure,...
over a year ago
I've been trying to learn Clojure. I keep telling people I meet that I really want to learn Clojure, but still every night I can't get myself to spend time with it. It's unclear if I really want to learn Clojure or just want to have learned Clojure?
Louwrentius
Secure caching DNS server on Linux with DJBDNS
The most commonly used DNS server software is ISC BIND, the "Berkeley Internet
Name Daemon"....
over a year ago
The most commonly used DNS server software is ISC BIND, the "Berkeley Internet
Name Daemon". However, this software has a bad security track record and is in
my opinion a pain to configure.
Mr. D.J. Bernstein developed "djbdns", which comes with a guarantee: if anyone
finds a...
Neil Madden
Making things
I made my daughter a toy tree house thing for Christmas out of old firewood (and a slice of cedar...
over a year ago
I made my daughter a toy tree house thing for Christmas out of old firewood (and a slice of cedar donated by a neighbour). It’s a bit clunky in places — “rustic” shall we say? But I probably enjoyed making this, over a few weeks of lunchtimes and evenings, more than anything I’ve...
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...
Louwrentius
Debian Lenny and Dell S300 H200 and H700 RAID controllers
update november 2010: it is reported in the comments that the next release
will support these...
over a year ago
update november 2010: it is reported in the comments that the next release
will support these controllers. However, which controllers are supported is
not clear. Also, we may have to wait for quite some time before squeeze will
be released.
Just a quick note: it seems that the...
Posts on Made of...
Some notes on CVE-2010-3081 exploitability
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity...
over a year ago
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity when it was discovered an announced, due to allowing local privilege escalation against virtually all 64-bit Linux kernels in common use at the time.
While investigating...
Home on Erik...
Giving more tools to software engineers: the reorganization of the factory
It's a popular attitude among developers to rant about our tools and how broken things are. Maybe...
over a year ago
It's a popular attitude among developers to rant about our tools and how broken things are. Maybe I'm an optimistic person, because my viewpoint is the complete opposite! I had my first job as a software engineer in 1999, and in the last two decades I've seen software engineering...
Notes on software...
Writing an x86 emulator from scratch in JavaScript: 2. system calls
Previously in emulator basics:
1. a stack and register machine
In this post we'll extend x86e...
over a year ago
Previously in emulator basics:
1. a stack and register machine
In this post we'll extend x86e to
support the exit and write Linux system calls, or syscalls. A syscall
is a function handled by the kernel that allows the process to
interact with data outside of its memory....
Applied Cartography
Fathom
I'd been meaning to jot down some thoughts on Fathom for a while, and did not have a particularly...
2 weeks ago
I'd been meaning to jot down some thoughts on Fathom for a while, and did not have a particularly good reason to do so until the news broke that Paul Jarvis was selling his share of the company to Jack Ellis, the technical co-founder. [1]
Anyway, the two thoughts:
I think Fathom...
Simply Explained
Serverless Anagram Solver with Cloudflare R2 and Pages
Six years ago, I reworked my anagram solver so it would run on top of AWS Lambda and DynamoDB....
over a year ago
Six years ago, I reworked my anagram solver so it would run on top of AWS Lambda and DynamoDB. However, this year I realized I didn't need server-side code or a database at all. I could make it completely static by pre-computing anagram solutions.
Arduino Blog
Ride safer with these DIY bicycle lights
Many people around the world live in cities designed for cars, with bicycle use being a distant...
5 months ago
Many people around the world live in cities designed for cars, with bicycle use being a distant afterthought. That makes cycling dangerous and lights can do a lot to make riding safer. That’s why Giovanni Aggiustatutto designed this DIY system that includes headlights, a...
Home on Erik...
Learning from users faster using machine learning
I had an interesting idea a few weeks ago, best explained through an example. Let's say you're...
over a year ago
I had an interesting idea a few weeks ago, best explained through an example. Let's say you're running an e-commerce site (I kind of do) and you want to optimize the number of purchases.
Let's also say we try to learn as much as we can from users, both using A/B tests but also...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates September 16: Explore all available articles of a feed
3 months ago
Louwrentius
'Syslog: the hidden security risk'
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to...
over a year ago
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to the security of your systems. SNMP is a well-known
service, notorious for being configured with a default password (or community
string).
But there is another service that is...
Notes on software...
Implementing zip archiving in Golang: unzipping
All code for this post is available on Github.
Let's take a look at how zip files work. Take a small...
over a year ago
All code for this post is available on Github.
Let's take a look at how zip files work. Take a small file for example:
$ cat hello.text
Hello!
Let's zip it up.
$ zip test.zip hello.text
adding: hello.text (stored 0%)
$ ls -lah test.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 phil phil 177 Nov 23 23:04...
Avestura's Blog
An opinion on what's a good general-purpose programming language
What features should a programming language have to be ideal, in my opinion?
over a year ago
What features should a programming language have to be ideal, in my opinion?
Vitalik Buterin's...
The bulldozer vs vetocracy political axis
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Riding with a power meter on your bike
In this post I describe my experience with installing the 4iiii Precision Powermeter on my road...
over a year ago
In this post I describe my experience with installing the 4iiii Precision Powermeter on my road bike.
Home on Erik...
Model benchmarks
A lot of people have asked me what models we use for recommendations at Spotify so I wanted to share...
over a year ago
A lot of people have asked me what models we use for recommendations at Spotify so I wanted to share some insights. Here's benchmarks for some models. Note that we don't use all of them in production.
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 5 (DOF)
Some light Visual Pinball debugging and the world of DOF. New to DOF? Read on.
8 months ago
Some light Visual Pinball debugging and the world of DOF. New to DOF? Read on.
On Life and Lisp
Software freedom isn't about licenses -- it's about power.
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When...
over a year ago
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When the free software movement was founded thirty years ago, these restrictive licenses were the primary user-hostile power dynamic, so permissive and copyleft licenses emerged as...
Arduino Blog
Machine-to-machine communication is easier than ever: Opta now supports OPC UA
OPC Unified Architecture – OPC UA in short – is a cross-platform, open-source machine-to-machine...
a month ago
OPC Unified Architecture – OPC UA in short – is a cross-platform, open-source machine-to-machine communication protocol for industrial automation. It was developed by the Open Platform Communications (OPC) Foundation and is defined in detail in the IEC 62541 standard. With the...
Good Enough
Strong Prototypes, Weakly Held
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in...
a year ago
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne as my soundtrack. This is an album I've never listened to before, and apparently I'm supposed to love it or hate it. Mostly the...
Ian's Blog
Hardware-Protected Apple Distribution Certificates Using a YubiKey
iOS and macOS developers will be familiar with the dreaded distribution certificate, a codesigning...
a year ago
iOS and macOS developers will be familiar with the dreaded distribution certificate, a codesigning certificate issued to you by Apple for signing your release artifacts before you distribute them.
Protecting that signing key is important, as Apple must blindly trust any binaries...
Jonas Hietala
Writing Home Assistant automations using Genservers in Elixir
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its...
2 months ago
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its beginner friendly and feature rich UI,
support for a ton of different devices and integrations,
and there’s a bunch of ways to create automations.
But there’s no engine for writing...
Notes on software...
A reawakening of systems programming meetups
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich...
5 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,...
Posts on Made of...
Tracking down a memory leak in Ruby's EventMachine
At Stripe, we rely heavily on ruby and EventMachine to power various internal and external services....
over a year ago
At Stripe, we rely heavily on ruby and EventMachine to power various internal and external services. Over the last several months, we’ve known that one such service suffered from a gradual memory leak, that would cause its memory usage to gradually balloon from a normal ~50MB to...
computers are bad
2023-02-17 something up there pt II
As we discussed previously,
the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of...
a year ago
As we discussed previously,
the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of 2017:
the public revelation of the AATIP and alien-hunting efforts by Robert Bigelow
and Tom DeLonge. While widely publicized, these programs seem to have lead to
very little. I...
Notes on software...
Thinking about functional programming
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial...
a year ago
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial tweet on the subject prompted an
interesting
discussion
with Shriram
Krishnamurthi and other folks.
So here's a slightly more thought out exploration.
And just for backstory sake: I...
./techtipsy
My self-hosting setup has an UPS now, here's my experience with it
I changed my setup again.
I’m now the proud owner of an APC Smart-UPS 750.
Why? Because I got it as...
over a year ago
I changed my setup again.
I’m now the proud owner of an APC Smart-UPS 750.
Why? Because I got it as a gift, and I have never actually had an UPS before, so
it makes for a good introduction to this world.
Overview
My setup is quite basic: everything that I have on my table...
Willem's Blog
Abandoning my own tablet OS
After a year of experimenting with Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go 2 I have returned to iPad Pro...
over a year ago
After a year of experimenting with Debian GNU/Linux on a Surface Go 2 I have returned to iPad Pro and the Mac.
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The Limits to Blockchain Scalability
over a year ago
Applied Cartography
Linear
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes...
5 days ago
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes I wanted to publish on our own experience of migrating from GitHub Issues to Linear, and some reflections on it as a product now that we've been using it for a few months.
One...
Jonas Hietala
Rewriting my Neovim config in Lua
This screenshot betrays just how much productive time was wasted setting this up.
I’ve got tons of...
a year ago
This screenshot betrays just how much productive time was wasted setting this up.
I’ve got tons of things to do; clean the bathrooms, prototype an idea for a SaaS and ponder world peace.
So naturally the procrastination took over and I rewrote my Neovim configuration in...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside an unusual 7400-series chip implemented with a gate array
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple...
9 months ago
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple die,
implemented in a straightforward, cost-effective way.
However, when I looked inside a military-grade chip built by Integrated Device Technology (IDT)4
I found a very unexpected...
Willem's Blog
The best keyboard for iPad
While everybody is raving about the Magic Keyboard there is something to be said for the...
over a year ago
While everybody is raving about the Magic Keyboard there is something to be said for the "mouse-less" Smart Keyboard Folio. Read along for a detailed analyses based on actual iPad use.
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...
Good Enough
Cool URLs Don’t Die
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen...
a year ago
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen that I've been building some printers.
This is actually the resurrection of a project I began in 2012 with the help of some colleagues, and while I've been updating it, it's been...
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.
Posts on Made of...
A Go/C Polyglot
Writing a Go/C polyglot Someone on a Slack I’m on recently raised the question of how you might...
over a year ago
Writing a Go/C polyglot Someone on a Slack I’m on recently raised the question of how you might write a source file that’s both valid C and Go, commenting that it wasn’t immediately obvious if this was even possible. I got nerdsniped, and succeeded in producing one, which you can...
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...
Avestura's Blog
Explaining The Postgres Meme
Have you seen this legendary SQL iceberg meme? Let's talk about it while wearing our PostgreSQL hat!
a year ago
Have you seen this legendary SQL iceberg meme? Let's talk about it while wearing our PostgreSQL hat!
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 4
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
a year ago
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
Louwrentius
Experiences running ZFS on Ubuntu Linux 12.04
I really like ZFS because with current data sets, I do believe that data corruption may start...
over a year ago
I really like ZFS because with current data sets, I do believe that data corruption may start becoming an issue. The thing is that the license under which ZFS is released does not permit it to be used in the Linux kernel. That's quite unfortunate, but there is hope. There is a...
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.
Arduino Blog
DIY ECU controls Honda Insight’s Kubota diesel engine
The Honda Insight was the first hybrid car released in North America and Honda put serious effort...
6 months ago
The Honda Insight was the first hybrid car released in North America and Honda put serious effort into making it as efficient as was practical at the time. That meant aerodynamic streamlining, which is why the first-generation Insight had very distinct covers over the rear...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 2.0
Success and Litigation
a year ago
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.
Jonas Hietala
Favourite Programming Language
All the programmers love to promote their favourite language, or to hate on others. Now I read a...
over a year ago
All the programmers love to promote their favourite language, or to hate on others. Now I read a post which claimes my favourite language is not good enough! But he’s correct of course, there is no one language to rule them all. You should always choose the mest language for the...
Home on Erik...
Storm in the stratosphere: how the cloud will be reshuffled
Here's a theory I have about cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, GCP):
Cloud vendors1 will increasingly...
over a year ago
Here's a theory I have about cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, GCP):
Cloud vendors1 will increasingly focus on the lowest layers in the stack: basically leasing capacity in their data centers through an API. Other pure-software providers will build all the stuff on top of it.
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...
Jonas Hietala
The Coinparty hackathon, take two
In December I declared that I would enter a Bitcoin Cash hackathon and I was excited to give my...
over a year ago
In December I declared that I would enter a Bitcoin Cash hackathon and I was excited to give my procrastination a kick in the balls. Unfortunately the hackathon was postponed to January just an hour later. Maybe the organizers didn’t think my project was exciting enough or...
Willem's Blog
Lessons from a takeaway plastic bag
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of...
over a year ago
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of change.
Construction Physics
Will the China Cycle Come for Airbus and Boeing?
Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in...
2 months ago
Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in Chinese manufacturing as the “China Cycle”:
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal Lua implementation with a virtual machine from scratch in Rust
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from...
over a year ago
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from scratch. It will be able to run the
following program (among others):
function fib(n)
if n < 2 then
return n;
end
local n1 = fib(n-1);
local n2 = fib(n-2);
...
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...
6 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...
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...
Construction Physics
Do U.S. Ports Need More Automation?
On October 1st, 47,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), primarily...
2 months ago
On October 1st, 47,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), primarily dockworkers on East and Gulf Coast ports, went on strike after failing to agree contract terms with USMX, an alliance of port operators and employers.
Notes on software...
Confusion and disengagement in meetings
The quickest way to cut through confusion or disagreement among
otherwise amiable and honest folks...
over a year ago
The quickest way to cut through confusion or disagreement among
otherwise amiable and honest folks is to ask questions.
Ask early so you don't waste time. But it's not enough to just ask
clarifying questions because the answers won't always be clear.
Sounds like Human Interaction...
Notes on software...
Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go: 3. indexes
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions...
over a year ago
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
4. a database/sql driver
In this post, we extend gosql
to support indexes. We focus on the addition of PRIMARY
KEY constraints on table creation and some easy...
Willem's Blog
The value of notifications
It's easy to dismiss your phone's notifications as something that disturbs you, but if you take the...
over a year ago
It's easy to dismiss your phone's notifications as something that disturbs you, but if you take the time to set them up correctly, notifications can actually save you time!
Willem's Blog
Being a volunteer in Amsterdam-Zuidoost
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
over a year ago
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
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.
On Life and Lisp
The Apple GPU and the Impossible Bug
In late 2020, Apple debuted the M1 with Apple’s GPU architecture, AGX, rumoured to be derived from...
over a year ago
In late 2020, Apple debuted the M1 with Apple’s GPU architecture, AGX, rumoured to be derived from Imagination’s PowerVR series. Since then, we’ve been reverse-engineering AGX and building open source graphics drivers. Last January, I rendered a triangle with my own code, but...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Making Ethereum alignment legible
2 months ago
Willem's Blog
Outside the comfort zone: amateur acting
This month I strapped myself with sensors during a little experiment outside my comfort zone: I...
over a year ago
This month I strapped myself with sensors during a little experiment outside my comfort zone: I debuted as amateur actor!
Good Enough
You Complete Me
When Good Enough was in its infancy as a truly American LLC (formed in Delaware and representing one...
2 weeks 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...
Good Enough
Beware of Free Software
Beware of free pizza
If I want a slice of pizza, I don't expect it to be free. In fact, if you try...
a year ago
Beware of free pizza
If I want a slice of pizza, I don't expect it to be free. In fact, if you try to offer me a slice of free pizza, I'd suspect there's something wrong with it.
And ever since my kids can understand me, I've taught them to be careful of free stuff. Nothing is...
Good Enough
Fixing Things
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage:...
a year ago
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage: the Travelpro WalkAbout Lite 2 22" Rollaboard Suiter. The reality was that this wasn't proper business travel. First, it'd only be two or three round-trip flights a year. Second,...
Louwrentius
Linode hacked: thoughts about cloud security
I bought a Linode VPS for private usage just after the report that Linode had reset all passwords of...
over a year ago
I bought a Linode VPS for private usage just after the report that Linode had reset all passwords of existing users regarding the Linode management console.
Resetting passwords is not something you do when under a simple attack such as a DDOS attack. Such a measure is only taken...
Arduino Blog
Self-leveling workbench can travel without trouble
An actually level workbench is critical for many different jobs, such as pouring resin or...
6 months ago
An actually level workbench is critical for many different jobs, such as pouring resin or calibrating sensors. But it is difficult enough to level a stationary workbench and that becomes a nightmare for a workbench that needs to roll around a shop on casters, as shop floors...
Home on Erik...
More recommender algorithms
I wanted to share some more insight into the algorithms we use at Spotify. One matrix factorization...
over a year ago
I wanted to share some more insight into the algorithms we use at Spotify. One matrix factorization algorithm we have used for a while assumes that we have user vectors $$ bf{a}_u $$ and item vectors $$ bf{b}_i $$ .
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Acing the coding challenge
How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview...
over a year ago
How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview scenarios, typically a coding challenge is not a…
lcamtuf’s thing
Analog filters, part 2: let it ring
A continuation of the gentle intro to analog signal filtering. In today's episode: the Sallen-Key...
2 months ago
A continuation of the gentle intro to analog signal filtering. In today's episode: the Sallen-Key topology.
Louwrentius
Switching away from Debian to Ubuntu LTS
Over the last couple of years, Debian Linux has released new stable versions about every two years....
over a year ago
Over the last couple of years, Debian Linux has released new stable versions about every two years. This pace is great for progress, but there is a serious problem. This problem is related to their support for older Debian stable versions.
If you read the quote below from the...
Arduino Blog
Control your Raspberry Pi GPIOs with Arduino Cloud using Python | Part II
As a Python developer, you’re probably eager to control and monitor your Raspberry Pi GPIOs...
7 months ago
As a Python developer, you’re probably eager to control and monitor your Raspberry Pi GPIOs remotely. Well, you have landed in the right place. This article builds upon our previous introduction to “Visualize your Raspberry Pi data with Arduino Cloud | Part I.” Now, we’ll...
Jonas Hietala
5 Kup
After a season with very bad attendence, I blame school and lack of motivation, I still went to...
over a year ago
After a season with very bad attendence, I blame school and lack of motivation, I still went to grading. I slept well but I was super stressed all weekend so I had to constantly run to the bathroom and I couldn’t eat lunch or breakfast properly, and I don’t usually get...
Home on Erik...
Miscellaneous unsolicited (and possibly biased) career advice
No one asked for this, but I'm something like ~12 years into my career and have had my fair share of...
over a year ago
No one asked for this, but I'm something like ~12 years into my career and have had my fair share of mistakes and luck so I thought I'd share some.
Honestly, I feel like I've mostly benefitted from luck.
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: A Geek Valentine
Ah man the mush in my brain is finally letting go and I’m starting to feel this tiny little...
over a year ago
Ah man the mush in my brain is finally letting go and I’m starting to feel this tiny little programming urge again… This time it’s not Haskell or a new experimental game that’s luring me on, no this time it’s me longing to create this fantastic awesome epic RTS game. Sadly it’s a...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Porting and hacking Llama2.c for fun and profit
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is...
a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is basically a simple one-file C…
./techtipsy
How I blew up my backup server (Valve pls fix)
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck...
a year ago
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck and how the Proton compatibility layer works, I decided to write a
backup script that would back up everything in the home folder, excluding the Steam games themselves due to the...
Arduino Blog
Can remote co-presence keep distant human connections alive?
The pandemic made a lot of things obvious, not the least of which is that humans need social...
5 months ago
The pandemic made a lot of things obvious, not the least of which is that humans need social interaction to maintain good mental health. Sadly, many of us spend our lives physically separated from our loved ones by great distances or inopportune circumstances. That’s why a team...
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
Why I still blog after 15 years
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you...
2 months ago
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you celebrate the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park, and that little blog you started have now been going for 15 years.
15 years is a long time; longer than I’ve been waiting for Winds...
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,...
Neil Madden
SipHash-based encryption for constrained devices
I see a lot of attempts to define encryption schemes for constrained devices with short...
7 months ago
I see a lot of attempts to define encryption schemes for constrained devices with short authentication tags (e.g., 64 bits) using universal hashing. For example, there’s a proposal in CFRG at the moment for a version of AES-GCM with short tags for this kind of use-case. In my...
Louwrentius
An affordable server platform based on server-grade hardware
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true...
over a year ago
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true server-grade harware when building a server, wether it's for home or business use.
This is why I want to introduce you to the Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard.
This motherboard costs...
Vitalik Buterin's...
On Medium-of-Exchange Token Valuations
over a year ago
Good Enough
TIL: Use randomness to prevent email trimming
With conversation threading (which almost everyone has enabled), Gmail was trimming the bottom of...
a year ago
With conversation threading (which almost everyone has enabled), Gmail was trimming the bottom of the emails we send with our new app because they were too similar to the other emails in the conversation thread.
They’re similar because that’s just the link to get back into the...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Software
The build continues, now in a little more familiar territory.
Firmware flashing
To flash the...
a year ago
The build continues, now in a little more familiar territory.
Firmware flashing
To flash the firmware I had to order a microSD card reader.
With that on hand the flashing wasn’t difficult. The VORON docs walks you through the installation very well.
Mainsail
I chose to install...
Willem's Blog
Creating a minimal road bike
I wondered how hard it would be to make a bike from spare parts I had in my garage
over a year ago
I wondered how hard it would be to make a bike from spare parts I had in my garage
Vitalik Buterin's...
Glue and coprocessor architectures
3 months ago
computers are bad
2024-03-09 the purple streetscape
Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.
Purple streetlights...
9 months ago
Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.
Purple streetlights have been reported in Tampa, Vancouver, Wichita, Boston.
They're certainly in evidence here in Albuquerque, where Coal through downtown
has turned almost entirely to mood lighting....
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.
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: Canon Cat
It's the Memorial Day holiday weekend and it's time for a little deferred maintenance, especially on...
6 months ago
It's the Memorial Day holiday weekend and it's time for a little deferred maintenance, especially on those machines I intend to work on more in the near future. So we'll start with one that's widely considered to be a remarkable cul-de-sac in computing history: the Canon...
Notes on software...
Delightful, production-grade replication for Postgres
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
4 months ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Computer Ads from...
Gould Electronic's PowerNode 6000
The Firebreathers from Gould blast the competition into oblivion.
4 months ago
The Firebreathers from Gould blast the competition into oblivion.
Notes on software...
Writing a web server from scratch: 1. HTTP and sockets
Say we have some HTML:
<html>
<body>
<h1>Hello world!</h1>
</body>
</html>
And say we'd...
over a year ago
Say we have some HTML:
<html>
<body>
<h1>Hello world!</h1>
</body>
</html>
And say we'd like to be able to render this page in a web browser. If
the server is hosted locally we may want to enter
localhost:9000/hello-world.html in the address bar, hit
enter, make a...
Neil Madden
API Security in Action handed over to production
After a flurry of last-minute corrections and updates in response to review feedback, my book has...
over a year ago
After a flurry of last-minute corrections and updates in response to review feedback, my book has now been handed over to Manning’s production team. That means a few weeks of copy editing and graphics polish, then indexing and typesetting to produce the final version around...
Jonas Hietala
Doing some online Personality tests
For some reason I’ve done a couple of personality tests the last month, mostly to satisfy my own...
over a year ago
For some reason I’ve done a couple of personality tests the last month, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity.
The Braverman Test
Inspired by Charles Poliquin’s visit on The Tim Ferriss Show I tried out the Braverman test to determine my neurotransmitter type. The point Charles...
Vitalik Buterin's...
In-person meatspace protocol to prove unconditional possession of a private key
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Responsibility and ownership
Responsibility is only possible by granting ownership and setting
expectations. If you don't turn...
over a year ago
Responsibility is only possible by granting ownership and setting
expectations. If you don't turn over ownership, don't expect folks to
take responsibility. When you grant ownership and set expectations,
you'll be astounded what folks will accomplish without you.
I am astounded.
Computer Ads from...
Electronic Protection Devices' Electro-Clamp line
The Underrated Virtues of Plain Vanilla
9 months ago
The Underrated Virtues of Plain Vanilla
Jonas Hietala
2019 in Review
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on...
over a year ago
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on the past year, and see that I did indeed do some things, and to look ahead a little.
2019 Non-Geek Achievements
Played around with Isidor.
It’s hard to describe how happy a kid can...
Louwrentius
The future of ZFS now that OpenSolaris is dead
With the probable loss of OpenSolaris, there may be another, maybe more
devastating loss.
The very...
over a year ago
With the probable loss of OpenSolaris, there may be another, maybe more
devastating loss.
The very popular and very advanced Zetabyte File System (ZFS)
The only open source platform that actively supports ZFS is FreeBSD. And they
just 'copied' the code from OpenSolaris. Are they...
Willem's Blog
Supernova E3 Pro 2 dynamo powered headlight
over a year ago
Home on Erik...
Are data sets the new server rooms?
This blog post Data sets are the new server rooms makes the point that a bunch of companies raise a...
over a year ago
This blog post Data sets are the new server rooms makes the point that a bunch of companies raise a ton of money to go get really proprietary awesome data as a competitive moat. Because once you have the data, you can build a better product, and no one can copy it (at least not...
csvbase blog
Being on The Semantic Web is easy, and, frankly, well worth the bother
Web 3.0 was not about the blockchain, thank god
4 months ago
Web 3.0 was not about the blockchain, thank god
Old Vintage...
Thou shalt follow these Vintage Computing Commandments
Thou shalt check voltage and polarity on new-to-thee power supplies, or thy machines shall be smote...
10 months ago
Thou shalt check voltage and polarity on new-to-thee power supplies, or thy machines shall be smote and release smoke. This is sometimes very hard to judge without a load, but they should be somewhere in the ballpark, verily, and you should get in the habit of checking any new...
Willem's Blog
Whoop strap review: 24/7 wearable sensor
over a year ago
Matt Blewitt
Riding the Risk Railway
When building and operating a user-facing system, especially one that is open to the public, it is...
over a year ago
When building and operating a user-facing system, especially one that is open to the public, it is important to consider the riskiness of a user, which can also be characterised as trustworthiness. These will typically be negatively correlated, with low trust indicating high risk...
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
Posts on Made of...
reptyr: Changing a process's controlling terminal
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal,...
over a year ago
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal, and transplants it to a new terminal. reptyr comes from a proud family of similar hacks, and works in the same basic way: We use ptrace(2) to attach to a target process and force...
Home on Erik...
Why conversion matters: a toy model
There are often close relationships between top level business metrics. For instance, it's well...
over a year ago
There are often close relationships between top level business metrics. For instance, it's well known that retention has a super strong impact on the valuation of a subscription business. Or that the % of occupied seats is super important for an airline.
Notes on software...
On NYC, Tokyo and Seoul
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a...
over a year ago
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a rural community a few hours west of
there. My wife is South Korean and last week concluded my second trip
to the suburbs of Seoul to visit her family. We finished up that trip
with a...
Louwrentius
Script that shows smart values of all disks'
Please use this tool on github instead of this ancient script.
So you have a Linux system with a lot...
over a year ago
Please use this tool on github instead of this ancient script.
So you have a Linux system with a lot of hard drives. If you want to quickly check on some key SMART values to determine the health of individual disks, you might be interested in this script.
I wrote a small Python...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Binius: highly efficient proofs over binary fields
7 months ago
Neil Madden
Newsletter
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably...
11 months ago
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably exploring a few topics around AI and philosophy. If you’d prefer some more technical content around security and cryptography, then take a look at the newsletter I put out for my...
Notes on software...
Notes on running Electron
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Notes on software...
Generating a REST API from a database
I recently published an alpha version of a code generation tool,
DBCore, that reads a...
over a year ago
I recently published an alpha version of a code generation tool,
DBCore, that reads a database
schema from PostgreSQL or MySQL and generates an entire Go API with
CRUD operations, pagination, filtering, and authentication.
But more than just generating code like
xo/xo or...
Jonas Hietala
A simple timeline using CSS flexbox
As I added a /now page to the site I also decided to refresh my /about page and I figured it would...
3 months ago
As I added a /now page to the site I also decided to refresh my /about page and I figured it would be neat to have timeline element where I could list some of the larger events in my life.
To my surprise it wasn’t too difficult to create one that looks pretty clean—the flexbox...
./techtipsy
Can a laptop from 2012 be a viable home server?
I’m a man of many ideas. It’s a shame that most of them are quite stupid.
This is one of them, but...
over a year ago
I’m a man of many ideas. It’s a shame that most of them are quite stupid.
This is one of them, but at least it makes for a fun experiment.
Intro
After adding an UPS to accompany my server,
my setup was as complete as it could reasonably be. The server is low power,
but packs...
Home on Erik...
What I have been working on: Modal
Long story short: I'm working on a super cool tool called Modal. Please check it out — it lets you...
over a year ago
Long story short: I'm working on a super cool tool called Modal. Please check it out — it lets you run things in the cloud without having to think about infrastructure. Scaling out, scheduling, containerization, using GPUs, setting up webhooks, and all kinds of other stuff.
Home on Erik...
Why organizations fail
One of my favorite business hobbies is to reduce some nasty decision down to its absolute core...
over a year ago
One of my favorite business hobbies is to reduce some nasty decision down to its absolute core objective, decide the most basic strategy, and then add more and more modifications as you have to confront the complexity of reality (yes I have very lame hobbies thanks I know).
Louwrentius
'lm-sensors: hardware monitoring with the w83627ehf module'
I have two systems that use the w83627ehf driver for hardware monitoring.
However, if this driver is...
over a year ago
I have two systems that use the w83627ehf driver for hardware monitoring.
However, if this driver is installed with a regular modprobe like:
modprobe w83627ehf
The result will be:
FATAL: Error inserting w83627ehf
(/lib/modules/2.6.28-1-amd64/kernel/drivers/hwmon/w83627ehf.ko):...
Home on Erik...
More Luigi: Presentation from OSCON
I was in Portland, OR for a few days hanging out at OSCON. Was fun. I also talked a bit about...
over a year ago
I was in Portland, OR for a few days hanging out at OSCON. Was fun. I also talked a bit about Luigi:
Next week I'm presenting at the NYC Predictive Analytics meetup together with Blake Shaw from Foursquare.
Willem's Blog
Building a professional 72TB NAS
This month I installed a professional HPE ProLiant DL380p server in a datacenter in Amsterdam, read...
over a year ago
This month I installed a professional HPE ProLiant DL380p server in a datacenter in Amsterdam, read this post to see how this was done!
Louwrentius
Lion's Disk Utility not compatible with CoreStorage and Filevault
My 1 TB hard drive of my 2011 27" iMac was partitioned with:
A bootable partition with Mac OS X...
over a year ago
My 1 TB hard drive of my 2011 27" iMac was partitioned with:
A bootable partition with Mac OS X Lion
Time machine partition (I use an external SSD as my main OS)
Bootcamp partition with windows
A data partition containg... data.
The problem is that CoreStorage is too new. Disk...
Posts on Made of...
Confessions of a programmer: I hate code review
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work...
over a year ago
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work requires code review on most of our code, and as we bring on an army of interns for the summer, I've been responsible for reviewing lots of code. Additionally, about five months ago...
Willem's Blog
Harvesting boredom to let creativity flourish
What does it mean for my state of mind and creativity if I am no longer be constantly connected to...
over a year ago
What does it mean for my state of mind and creativity if I am no longer be constantly connected to the Internet using a smartphone.
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.
Posts on Made of...
Two Perspectives on the End-to-End Principle
Back when I was an undergraduate, as part of a class called “Computer Systems Engineering”, we read...
over a year ago
Back when I was an undergraduate, as part of a class called “Computer Systems Engineering”, we read numerous classic papers of systems design. I enjoyed and learned a great deal from many of these papers, but one that paper that has stuck with me in particular was Saltzer et al’s...
Home on Erik...
Exploding offers are bullshit
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I...
over a year ago
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I never put a deadline on any of them. Unfortunately, I've often ended up competing with other companies who do, and I feel really bad that this usually tricks younger developers...
Construction Physics
The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a...
a month ago
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
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...
computers are bad
2024-10-19 land art and isolation
Prescript: I originally started writing this with the intent to send it out to
my supporter's...
2 months ago
Prescript: I originally started writing this with the intent to send it out to
my supporter's newsletter, EYES ONLY, but it
got to be long and took basically all day so I feel like it deserves wider
circulation. You will have to tolerate that it begins in the more
conversational...
Arduino Blog
Adding proximity unlock to an old car with the Arduino Nano 33 BLE
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically...
5 months ago
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically unlocks the doors when the driver approaches while carrying their key fob. When paired with a push-to-start ignition switch, the driver never has to take their keys out of their pocket....
Jonas Hietala
Language spec in code blocks
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I...
a year ago
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I wanted to add, but it felt a little bothersome so I skipped it.
It was to display the highlighted language in code blocks:
The code spec displays what programming language the code...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Links #11
Here are some more links to things that I keep thinking about. I shared a bit more detail on these...
2 weeks ago
Here are some more links to things that I keep thinking about. I shared a bit more detail on these ones than I usually do—there were so many good quotes to include. Enjoy!
Selfishness & Therapy Culture
Earlier this year, there was a post in the New York Times called “Sometimes,...
Good Enough
Our Favorite Video Games Right Now
While everyone at Good Enough is their own kind of nerd, thank you very much, as builders of the web...
a year ago
While everyone at Good Enough is their own kind of nerd, thank you very much, as builders of the web you probably expect that we also play video games. And we do! Well, collectively we do, but not to an unhealthy degree. Usually.
I asked the team to share with me what their...
GitButler
Git Merge 2024
GitButler is organizing the 2024 Git Merge conference, Sep 19/20 in Berlin!
5 months ago
GitButler is organizing the 2024 Git Merge conference, Sep 19/20 in Berlin!
Home on Erik...
Calculating cosine similarities using dimensionality reduction
This was posted on the Twitter Engineering blog a few days ago: Dimension Independent Similarity...
over a year ago
This was posted on the Twitter Engineering blog a few days ago: Dimension Independent Similarity Computation (DISCO)
I just glanced at the paper, and there's some cool stuff going on from a theoretical perspective. What I'm curious about is why they didn't decide to use...
Odds and Ends of...
Nobody knows what the National Data Library is (not even the government)
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
a month ago
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Computer Ads from...
Intel's Inboard 386/PC
Welcome to the 1990s.
2 months ago
Willem's Blog
Backup Rotation Scheme
Learn about the rsync-backup-rotator tool that helps you automatically rotate backups using rsync,...
a year ago
Learn about the rsync-backup-rotator tool that helps you automatically rotate backups using rsync, creating and maintaining multiple recovery points from your backups.
Computer Ads from...
Vote for the Topic of the February 2024 Plus Post
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
10 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
Jonas Hietala
2017 in Review
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got...
over a year ago
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got a child in October! It really alters your perspectives and other things suddenly feel a little less important and of course there’s less time to do other stuff.
A little late and...
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...
Notes on software...
Writing an x86 emulator from scratch in JavaScript: 1. a stack and register machine
Better yet, take a look at this post walking through emulating x86 ELF binaries in Go:
Emulating...
over a year ago
Better yet, take a look at this post walking through emulating x86 ELF binaries in Go:
Emulating linux/AMD64 userland: interpreting an ELF binary
2. system calls
In this post we'll create a small virtual machine in JavaScript and
use it to run a simple C program compiled...
Birchtree
Squashing links on social media
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are...
2 weeks ago
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram — meaning Facebook, Instagram’s increasingly-overbearing owner — tightly
Notes on software...
Practical? Common Lisp on the JVM: A quick intro to ABCL for modern web apps
In a ridiculous attempt to prove an internet
wrong about the
practicality of Lisp (Common Lisp...
over a year ago
In a ridiculous attempt to prove an internet
wrong about the
practicality of Lisp (Common Lisp specifically), I tried to get a
simple (but realistic) web app running. After four days and a patch
to ABCL I got something
working.
The code I had in mind would look something like...
Jonas Hietala
Dijkstra's Algorithm
For rust, I’m updating the documentation for the standard library and specifically with the...
over a year ago
For rust, I’m updating the documentation for the standard library and specifically with the collections. For the priority queue I had the idea to use Dijkstra’s algorithm as a fun example. That idea was well received and that example is now live.
At first I wanted to use A* to...
Willem's Blog
Wearing Grand Seiko
I am glad I took the opportunity to wear a Grand Seiko, learning first hand about its craftsmanship,...
over a year ago
I am glad I took the opportunity to wear a Grand Seiko, learning first hand about its craftsmanship, innovation and practicality.
GitButler
The New Era of Town Hall Chat
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and...
3 months ago
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and more importantly, why.
lcamtuf’s thing
The 101 of analog signal filtering
Some intuition about this topic can be developed without summoning the ghost of Pierre-Simon...
5 months ago
Some intuition about this topic can be developed without summoning the ghost of Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Notes on software...
Static analysis with semgrep: practical examples using Docker
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules...
over a year ago
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules against our code.
Existing linters
Linters like pylint for Python or
eslint for JavaScript are great for general,
broad language standards. But what about common nits in code review
like...
Posts on Made of...
Test suites as classifiers
Suppose we have some codebase we’re considering applying some patch to, and which has a robust and...
over a year ago
Suppose we have some codebase we’re considering applying some patch to, and which has a robust and maintained test suite.
Considering the patch, we may ask, is this patch acceptable to apply and deploy. By this we mean to ask if the patch breaks any important functionality,...
Arduino Blog
Discover #Virgil: history comes to life with Arduino
We’re excited to introduce #Virgil, an innovative project that combines the power of Arduino...
2 months ago
We’re excited to introduce #Virgil, an innovative project that combines the power of Arduino technology with a passion for history, creating a groundbreaking interactive experience for museums. Using Arduino’s versatile and scalable ecosystem, #Virgil operates completely...
Willem's Blog
Talking tablets: what makes a great tablet?
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be...
over a year ago
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be your main computer?
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the Intel 386 processor die: the clock circuit
Processors are driven by a clock, which controls the timing of each step inside the chip.
In this...
a year ago
Processors are driven by a clock, which controls the timing of each step inside the chip.
In this blog post, I'll examine the clock-generation circuitry inside the Intel 386 processor.
Earlier processors such as the 8086 (1978) were simpler, using two clock phases internally.
The...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Slackware
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
a year ago
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240102
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
11 months ago
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
Applied Cartography
Always use an enum for your status field
When I was first starting my career at Amazon — even more bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked than I am now...
3 months ago
When I was first starting my career at Amazon — even more bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked than I am now — I was thrilled by the concept of an "architecture review", and by extension the concept of a "Principal Engineer" (Amazon's term for a staff-level engineer, someone beyond...
Arduino Blog
“Catch me if you can!” — How Alvik learns to dodge trouble with AI, featuring Roni Bandini
Have you ever discovered a cool piece of tech buried in your drawer and thought, “This could make...
3 months ago
Have you ever discovered a cool piece of tech buried in your drawer and thought, “This could make for an awesome project”? That’s exactly what happened to Roni Bandini, maker, writer, electronics artist – and Arduino Alvik Star! Bandini began coding at 10 years old, and has...
Home on Erik...
Pareto efficency
Pareto efficiency is a useful concept I like to think about. It often comes up when you compare...
over a year ago
Pareto efficiency is a useful concept I like to think about. It often comes up when you compare items on multiple dimensions. Say you want to buy a new TV. To simplify it let's assume you only care about two factors: price and quality.
Good Enough
TIL: Use touch-action: manipulation; to avoid double-tap-to-zoom
Recently we built and launched A Good Enough Guestbook, a place where you can send us doodles and...
a year ago
Recently we built and launched A Good Enough Guestbook, a place where you can send us doodles and they’ll print out on our little printer. It’s quite lovely and fun, and you should send us a doodle. We might also have more in store for these printers in the future.
In the...
Jonas Hietala
Robot Project Start
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot....
over a year ago
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot. We’re gonna do battle with infrared lasers instead of axes but it might be fun anyway. Luckily for me I’m responsible for software and nothing harder than that! w00p!
We could...
Jonas Hietala
ISOC update
I have now worked a bit more than 3 weeks out of my 4 weeks of IDA Summer of Code and this is an...
over a year ago
I have now worked a bit more than 3 weeks out of my 4 weeks of IDA Summer of Code and this is an update post of what I’ve done so far. I will write a more extensive summary post at the end of the project. I was planning on writing a weekly summary, but that ship sailed a long...
Home on Erik...
Everything I learned about technical debt
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover...
over a year ago
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover that. Instead, I will talk a little bit about technical debt.
The concept of technical debt always resonated with me, partly because I always like the analogy with “real” debt.
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Cantor was Wrong: debunking the infinite set hierarchy
over a year ago
Electronics etc…
Increasing Frequency Counter Precision with Linear Regression
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [...
a year ago
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$', '$'], ["\\(", "\\)"] ],
displayMath: [ ['$$', '$$'], ["\\[", "\\]"] ],
processEscapes: true,
skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',...
Simply Explained
Year in review: 2022
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. I'm focusing primarily on my...
a year ago
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. I'm focusing primarily on my YouTube channel and newsletter, but there are personal reflections in here as well. Last year was an off year for me, and I'm gearing up to make up for lost time in 2023.
Louwrentius
'Linux: show graphical layout of disk temperatures'
graphic, representation
To get a visual representation of hard drive temperatures, I wrote a...
over a year ago
graphic, representation
To get a visual representation of hard drive temperatures, I wrote a small
script. The output of this script looks like this:
This output is tailored to the exact disk lay-out of my storage
server. However, it is also usable for other servers. You have to...
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...
Matt Blewitt
Shunn
The Shunn manuscript format is a set of guidelines for writers to follow when submitting manuscripts...
6 months ago
The Shunn manuscript format is a set of guidelines for writers to follow when submitting manuscripts to publishers. It was created by author William Shunn and is widely used in the publishing industry. Here is a brief demonstration of a tool I wrote to facilitate generating...
Jonas Hietala
A *
After a few hours of coding I’ve made a little, little, bit of progress but it took a lot longer...
over a year ago
After a few hours of coding I’ve made a little, little, bit of progress but it took a lot longer than I would have liked.
I’ve basically managed to make a world and some tiles in the world and we have a worker who can move around on the tiles and he can’t move on all...
Louwrentius
HP Procurve "auto DoS" feature causing network problems
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS"....
over a year ago
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS". You can find it in the section "Security" and then
"Advanced security".
If you enable the Auto DoS feature, traffic is blocked based on one of these
conditions:
the source port...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Lindhska Store Championship Örebro
After the awesomeness during the previous store championship, I decided to go to the store...
over a year ago
After the awesomeness during the previous store championship, I decided to go to the store championship at Lindhska Bokhandel in Örebro.
I brought a modified version of the same corp I used the last time, a Blue Sun kill deck and a new runner with Leela Patel. See the links for...
Willem's Blog
Developing a native iOS app
How hard can it be to build your own cycling and running workout tracker app using native code with...
7 months ago
How hard can it be to build your own cycling and running workout tracker app using native code with some help from AI? Read along to find out!
Louwrentius
Got myself a Norco RPC-4020
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion....
over a year ago
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion. The current 6 TB RAID 6 storage server does not have any
room for expantion.
This Norco RPC-4020 case with 20 hot swap drive bays does however. Don't know
what to fill it with yet.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 6: The Splurge
a month ago
Good Enough
Season 3, Issue 4: Cosmic Staggering Tortoises
1. Weekly Studio Update
Hello. We're going to try doing this newsletter thing regularly. The...
a year ago
1. Weekly Studio Update
Hello. We're going to try doing this newsletter thing regularly. The ambitious goal is to write you a lovely letter every week. Aim for the moon, right? But wait, if you aim for the moon, how in this physical world can you possibly hit a star by...
Arduino Blog
Magnus is an electromagnetic exoskeleton for your hands
One of the primary goals of wearable technology is to provide the user with capabilities and data...
5 months ago
One of the primary goals of wearable technology is to provide the user with capabilities and data that exceed their current abilities. And for motion, this has traditionally existed in the form of electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), where current is applied via electrodes to...
computers are bad
2024-05-25 grc spinrite
I feel like I used to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with suspect
hard drives. I mean,...
7 months ago
I feel like I used to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with suspect
hard drives. I mean, like, back in high school. These days I almost never do,
or on the occasion that I have storage trouble, it's a drive that has
completely stopped responding at all and there's...
computers are bad
2023-07-10 the tragedy of beatrice foods
Occasionally, research into the history of telephony takes you into some
strange places. There are...
a year ago
Occasionally, research into the history of telephony takes you into some
strange places. There are conspiracy theories, of course, and there are people
who insist on their version of events so incessantly that details of dates and
places can become heated arguments. There is also...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Engineering Security Through Coordination Problems
over a year ago
Notes on software...
A minimal RocksDB example with Zig
I mostly programmed in Go the last few years. So every time I
wanted an embedded key-value database,...
over a year ago
I mostly programmed in Go the last few years. So every time I
wanted an embedded key-value database, I reached for Cockroach's
Pebble.
Pebble is great for Go programming but Go does not embed well into
other languages. Pebble was inspired by
RocksDB (and its...
Louwrentius
Script that shows relevant disk information
I wrote a small Python script called 'showdisks' that displays relevant information about any...
over a year ago
I wrote a small Python script called 'showdisks' that displays relevant information about any physical storage devices supported by hdparm.
Information such as model and capacity are shown, but also controller and device path.
This script only requires python and hdparm.
I hope...
Good Enough
TIL: Fixing Broken Action Text Images in Atom Feeds
For a while now we've seen that images in our Pika atom feeds were not displaying in some feed...
7 months ago
For a while now we've seen that images in our Pika atom feeds were not displaying in some feed readers.
In fact, they weren't displaying in my own feed reader, which routes through Feedly.
I was sad.
I spent a lot of time troubleshooting this.
Compared our feed with a lot of atom...
Home on Erik...
Building a data team at a mid-stage startup: a short story
I guess I should really call this a parable.
The backdrop is: you have been brought in to grow a...
over a year ago
I guess I should really call this a parable.
The backdrop is: you have been brought in to grow a tiny data team (~4 people) at a mid-stage startup (~$10M annual revenue), although this story could take place at many different types of companies.
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 2
The VIC-20
a year ago
Louwrentius
Is the iPhone OS a threat to our freedom?
There is one fundamental flaw with both the iPhone and the iPad. As a user,
you do not have full...
over a year ago
There is one fundamental flaw with both the iPhone and the iPad. As a user,
you do not have full control over your device. You can only install or run
software that is approved by Apple.
This is something that is unprecedented. All major platforms, Windows, Linux,
Mac OS X do...
Posts on Made of...
Measuring Capacity Through Utilization
(This post is cross-posted from Honeycomb’s instrumentation series).
One of my favorite concepts...
over a year ago
(This post is cross-posted from Honeycomb’s instrumentation series).
One of my favorite concepts when thinking about instrumenting a system to understand its overall performance and capacity is what I call “time utilization”.
By this I mean: If you look at the behavior of a...
Home on Erik...
In defense of false positives (why you can't fail with A/B tests)
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the...
over a year ago
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the metrics for the two groups. The group with the highest conversion rate wins, right?
Louwrentius
My experiences with DFS replication on Windows 2008 R2
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS...
over a year ago
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS replication has been massively improved. It supports larger data sets and performance has dramatically been improved over Windows 2008 R2.
I've implemented DFS replication to keep two...
computers are bad
2023-02-14 something up there pt I
Over the last few weeks, there has been an astounding increase in the number of
objects shot down by...
a year ago
Over the last few weeks, there has been an astounding increase in the number of
objects shot down by North American air defense. Little is yet known about some
of these objects, but it is clearly one of the more dramatic UFO turns in
recent memory. Some of the mystery is simply...
Arduino Blog
Arduino and Truesense partner to bring UWB technology to millions
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB)...
a month ago
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, known for its innovative software and hardware solutions. This collaboration enhances our ecosystem of hardware products, software solutions, and cloud services,...