Willem's Blog
Using a budget Android as main smartphone
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive...
8th Oct 2018
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive iPhone.
Butler's Log
A couple of git nits
A small rant on git papercuts, and why they are like that.
16th Mar 2026
A small rant on git papercuts, and why they are like that.
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Philosophy of Blockchain Validation
17th Aug 2020
Birchtree
+ The only thing of value I can provide
There is one main type of value I can bring to this blog. If I lose that, what am I even doing?
2nd Nov 2025
There is one main type of value I can bring to this blog. If I lose that, what am I even doing?
./techtipsy
Home is where the home server is
I moved recently, and so did my home server. You might have noticed it due to the downtime.
This...
15th May 2025
I moved recently, and so did my home server. You might have noticed it due to the downtime.
This time I have built a dedicated shelf for it, which allows for more flexibility and room for additional expensive
ideas.
The internet connection is a fiber line, which is fantastic for...
Jonas Hietala
Moving private repositories to Bitbucket
Long overdue, I recently moved my private repositories from Github to Bitbucket. Github is great of...
10th Oct 2012
Long overdue, I recently moved my private repositories from Github to Bitbucket. Github is great of courseand they even gave me a free students account and I still host all my public repositories there. Still, Bitbucket has unlimited free private repositories for up to 5 users...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Zk-SNARKs: Under the Hood
1st Feb 2017
tim.sh
Deploying apps in Coolify, part 1
1st Oct 2025
Home on Erik...
Annoy 1.10 released, with Hamming distance and Windows support
I've been a bit bad at posting things with a regular cadence lately, partly because I'm trying to...
26th Nov 2017
I've been a bit bad at posting things with a regular cadence lately, partly because I'm trying to adjust to having a toddler, partly because the hunt for clicks has caused such a high bar for me that I feel like I have to post something Pulitzer-worthy.
axio.ms
Classical virtualisation rules applied to RISC-style atomics
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable...
15th May 2022
In 1974, Gerald Popek and Robert Goldberg published a paper, “Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures”, giving a set of characteristics for correct full-machine virtualisation.
Today, these characteristics remain very useful. Computer architects will...
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Quick Gasprice Market Analysis
14th Dec 2017
Ian's Blog
Having a Website Used to Be Fun
According to the Wayback Machine, I launched my website over a decade ago, in 2013. Just that...
27th Oct 2024
According to the Wayback Machine, I launched my website over a decade ago, in 2013. Just that thought alone makes me feel old, but going back through the old snapshots of my websites made me feel a profound feeling of longing for a time when having a website used to be a novel...
Open for Business
I Want People To Agree With Me, Not Die
Pastor Tim has already written about this in light of another assassination attempt on either...
6th May 2026
Pastor Tim has already written about this in light of another assassination attempt on either President Trump or other members of the administration.
Many people are unhealthily and dangerously angry, and it seems like it’s getting worse.
Good Enough
We’re Shutting Down Yay.Boo and Ponder
Update 12/03/2025: Yay.Boo is staying alive! 🙌 Keep your eyes peeled to Yay.Boo for updates.
We...
3rd Nov 2025
Update 12/03/2025: Yay.Boo is staying alive! 🙌 Keep your eyes peeled to Yay.Boo for updates.
We have built a lot of good products here at Good Enough. Whether you’re sharing an inbox with your team or avoiding social media with a blog, we’ve got you covered. Unfortunately,...
Notes on software...
Writing a simple JSON parser
Writing a JSON parser is one of the easiest ways to get familiar with
parsing techniques. The format...
6th May 2018
Writing a JSON parser is one of the easiest ways to get familiar with
parsing techniques. The format is extremely simple. It's defined
recursively so you get a slight challenge compared to, say, parsing
Brainfuck; and you probably
already use JSON. Aside from that last point,...
Electronics etc…
Increasing Frequency Counter Precision with Linear Regression
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [...
16th Jun 2023
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$', '$'], ["\\(", "\\)"] ],
displayMath: [ ['$$', '$$'], ["\\[", "\\]"] ],
processEscapes: true,
skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',...
Joel Gustafson
Syntax highlighting on the web
31st May 2022
Applied Cartography
Fatherhood
Read essay: Fatherhood
10th May 2025
anderegg.ca
Some spoiler free thoughts about the first episode of “Jet Lag: The Game” season 13
Tom Scott is playing to win.
The intro music made me wonder if the Wendover team watch...
5th Mar 2025
Tom Scott is playing to win.
The intro music made me wonder if the Wendover team watch c90dventures.
At one point in the episode, Adam breaks out some Scatman.
This is going to be a great season.
Applied Cartography
Looper
In retrospect, almost a proto-Blade Runner 2049. I thought the acting and general plot was kinda...
3rd Aug 2020
In retrospect, almost a proto-Blade Runner 2049. I thought the acting and general plot was kinda milquetoast but the underlying setting was a hair above neat, and the depiction of an unevenly distributed future is probably one of the best realizations of science fiction I’ve ever...
anderegg.ca
Liquid Glass updates in 26.4
Apple recently updated all their OSs to 26.4, and there were plenty of Liquid Glass updates. Most of...
29th Mar 2026
Apple recently updated all their OSs to 26.4, and there were plenty of Liquid Glass updates. Most of them of the better! Here are some of the changes that stood out to me, as well as a bit more grumbling about Liquid Glass in general (sorry).
When I last wrote about Liquid Glass,...
Willem's Blog
Commuter bike checkup
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to...
9th Jan 2021
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to have a look at the bike after 21.000KM!
axio.ms
MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building...
15th Jun 2024
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building a simple desktop/GUI for it. I’d made a comment along the lines of “or, just run some old OS”, and it got me thinking about the original Macintosh.
The original Macintosh was...
./techtipsy
DIY cloud gaming: NVIDIA and Moonlight
As you might have read from my previous post on this topic, I
have a pretty neat “cloud” gaming...
13th Oct 2021
As you might have read from my previous post on this topic, I
have a pretty neat “cloud” gaming setup running. I have one powerful desktop PC, one virtual machine with a GPU attached
to it, and client machines that can be used to stream games from. To keep things simple (and...
Willem's Blog
iPad Pro next to my primary machine
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
29th Jan 2017
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
Notes on software...
A paper reading club at work; databases and distributed systems research
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems...
5th Apr 2024
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems research. I posted in a general channel about
the premise and asked if anyone was interested. I clarified the
intended topic and that discussions would be asynchronous over email,
run...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Quality vs quantity in the age of AI
Over the last four months I’ve increased my use of AI for web dev work pretty dramatically. I use it...
27th Apr 2026
Over the last four months I’ve increased my use of AI for web dev work pretty dramatically. I use it every day at work, as do most of my coworkers. I don’t think it’s disputed anymore that AI-assisted development can save a lot of time and effort. The question is, what do we do...
Writing
The Flamethrowers
“Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for...
1st Mar 2025
“Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it.”
Neil Madden
Are we any closer to the Quantum Apocalypse?
Another day, another urgent pronouncement on the need to transition to post-quantum cryptography...
2nd Jul 2026
Another day, another urgent pronouncement on the need to transition to post-quantum cryptography ASAP: this one from the White House, in the form of an Executive Order requiring certain “high value” systems to transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) by the end of 2030 (for...
Posts on Made of...
Property-Based Testing Is Fuzzing
“Property-based testing” refers to the idea of writing statements that should be true of your code...
3rd Oct 2017
“Property-based testing” refers to the idea of writing statements that should be true of your code (“properties”), and then using automated tooling to generate test inputs (typically, randomly-generated inputs of an appropriate type), and observe whether the properties hold for...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Dig for dummies
When you're building websites, apps or email services you may run into domain names and their...
23rd May 2019
When you're building websites, apps or email services you may run into domain names and their configurations. When everything is working as it should, most of this is invisible. But when troubleshooting a domain name configuration, it may be necessary to dig a little deeper......
Willem L. Middelkoop
The birth of a child
Today I witnessed the birth of my daughter! You feel humble as a man, witnessing the labour and...
12th Jul 2021
Today I witnessed the birth of my daughter! You feel humble as a man, witnessing the labour and magic. Not sure if I can come up with something having more impact on a man than this. For the purposes of science and curiosity I wore a biometric sensor, and this is what it...
Willem L. Middelkoop
I see dead people
Imagine seeing your dead family members - not just on a picture, but lifelike and in three...
9th Sep 2024
Imagine seeing your dead family members - not just on a picture, but lifelike and in three dimensions! You can almost touch them. It hits you differently, I can assure you. I'm still in awe: I just saw my dead grandfather, lifelike and for the first time ever in three dimensions!...
./techtipsy
Trying out open weights LLM-s on hardware that I can actually afford
Seize the means of code production!
2 weeks ago
Seize the means of code production!
eieio.games
Bad Apple but it's 6,500 regexes that I search for in vim
Bad Apple but it's 6,500 regexes that I search for in vim
Look. There's simply no reason that I...
10th Jan 2025
Bad Apple but it's 6,500 regexes that I search for in vim
Look. There's simply no reason that I should have to exit vim when I want to watch Bad Apple, the shadow-art video that folks enjoy embedding in fun spots. So I got Bad Apple running inside vim just using vim's search...
Willem's Blog
One year of cycling
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
30th Dec 2016
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
Jonas Hietala
A Vacation Filled with Obsession
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to...
7th Jan 2013
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to our dear home village Övertorneå and spent two weeks celebrating Christmas and New Years Eve. What did we do? I practiced some obsessive behavior with Power Grid and Minecraft (and...
Birchtree
A blown up iPhone, not the next Mac
Federico Viticci: Headless Macs and Hamstrung iPads
In a funny twist of fate, Apple spent years...
2nd Jul 2026
Federico Viticci: Headless Macs and Hamstrung iPads
In a funny twist of fate, Apple spent years trying to make iPadOS catch up to macOS on the surface, only for macOS’ underlying nature to unlock a new generation of apps that are rewriting the rules of modern software. No amount
Louwrentius - Solar
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...
25th Mar 2017
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...
Greater Still by...
Joining a16z
I’m excited to share that I’m joining Andreessen Horowitz as a Partner on the New Media team,...
18th May 2026
I’m excited to share that I’m joining Andreessen Horowitz as a Partner on the New Media team, focusing on the intersection of comms, networks, and investing.
Home on Erik...
Buffet lines are terrible, but let's try to improve them using computer simulations
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives....
16th Oct 2019
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives. I've suspected for years that the “classic” buffet line system is a deeply flawed and inefficient method, and every time I'm stuck in the line has made me more convinced.
Willem's Blog
Creating a minimal iPhone stand
Today I created a minimal iPhone stand from oak wood. I used a single piece of wood to get it done.
1st Jun 2018
Today I created a minimal iPhone stand from oak wood. I used a single piece of wood to get it done.
Electronics etc…
Breaking Rohde & Schwarz AMIQ License Key Generation - the Hard and the Easy Way
Or better: the fun and the unsatisfying way…
Introduction
How AMIQ License Keys Work
An Easter...
12th Apr 2026
Or better: the fun and the unsatisfying way…
Introduction
How AMIQ License Keys Work
An Easter Egg
Reverse Engineering the License Check
A Funny Disabled Master Key
Using Codex
Conclusion
Introduction
One of the guilty pleasures of playing with old test equipment is to enable...
watchTowr Labs
You’re Back In The Room (Citrix NetScaler Pre-Auth RCE CVE-2026-8452(?))
Suddenly, you’re in a room. You look around - oh, you’re surrounded by other new starters at your...
14th Aug 2026
Suddenly, you’re in a room. You look around - oh, you’re surrounded by other new starters at your new job. Yes, it’s Monday, and you’re being onboarded.
You know the drill - it’s the typical enterprise “please don’t be
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...
5th Aug 2020
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...
Louwrentius - Solar
'Linux: show graphical layout of disk temperatures'
graphic, representation
To get a visual representation of hard drive temperatures, I wrote a...
3rd Jan 2010
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...
Louwrentius - Solar
Raspberry Pi as a router using a single network interface
Introduction
Disclaimer: this article is intended for consumers and hobbyists.
If you want to run...
29th Sep 2021
Introduction
Disclaimer: this article is intended for consumers and hobbyists.
If you want to run your own router at home, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B1 can be an excelent hardware choice:
it's fairly cheap
it's fast enough
it can saturate it's gigabit network port
it is...
Louwrentius - Solar
Fio-plot: creating nice charts from FIO storage benchmark data
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice...
27th Nov 2019
New release of fio-plot
I've rewritten fio-plot, a tool that turns FIO benchmark data into nice charts. It allows you to create four types of graphs which will be discussed below.
The github project page explains how to run this tool.
Fio-plot also includes a benchmark script...
Writing
It's All Smiles
The production is too glitchy & clever to be pleasant or interesting, which in of itself is not a...
1st Dec 2021
The production is too glitchy & clever to be pleasant or interesting, which in of itself is not a huge deal except that the lyrics & vocals are so featherweight that it's not worth the effort of digestion.
Willem's Blog
Scalable application design without magic
I needed to design a scalable backend infrastructure that could handle lots of concurrent users. I...
10th May 2020
I needed to design a scalable backend infrastructure that could handle lots of concurrent users. I did this by leveraging the client's computing power having it handle most of the user interaction workload.
./techtipsy
Meet the Garbage PC
This is the Garbage PC.
Not too long ago, I received a half-broken Dell Inspiron N5110, sporting 6...
2nd Feb 2026
This is the Garbage PC.
Not too long ago, I received a half-broken Dell Inspiron N5110, sporting 6 GB of RAM, a dual core Intel i3-2110M, and an
unsupported NVIDIA GPU of some sort.
One of the hinges was loose from the case because it was screwed into plastic (common issue for...
Louwrentius - Solar
Setting up a Squid proxy with Clamav anti-virus using c-icap
Security is all about a defence-in-depth strategy. Create multiple layers of defence. Every layer...
26th Aug 2012
Security is all about a defence-in-depth strategy. Create multiple layers of defence. Every layer presenting a different set of challenges, requiring different skill sets and technology. So every layer will increase the time and effort to compromise your environment.
A...
Comments for Lars...
The Sleazy World of Reddit Marketing, Everything is Fake
I’m going to show you how to cash grab as a Reddit moderator. 5 minutes of work, then thousands of...
21st Aug 2024
I’m going to show you how to cash grab as a Reddit moderator. 5 minutes of work, then thousands of dollars per month for doing nothing. Maybe tens of thousands. With a 100% real example. I’ve edited nothing. When you’re a Reddit mod, you have a TON of power in that subreddit. You...
videah's blog
My E-Reader Setup
I bought an e-reader recently, specifically the Kobo Libra 2. I felt like I wasn't reading...
10th Aug 2023
I bought an e-reader recently, specifically the Kobo Libra 2. I felt like I wasn't reading books/manga as much as I wanted and I think the convenience of being able to carry my entire library around with me will help with that. I own an iPad Pro but I wanted a device I didn't...
Willem's Blog
Building the blog... in style!
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
22nd Jun 2016
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
Fabien Sanglard
Why Android developers no longer need Windows USB drivers
30th Dec 2023
Project Blog on...
Train Simulator Controller: Dashboard Prototyping, Part 2
My cardboard prototype of the central portion of a Class 80x dashboard allowed me to iterate to a...
6th Sep 2025
My cardboard prototype of the central portion of a Class 80x dashboard allowed me to iterate to a laser-cut hardboard prototype.
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1984/04 Creative Computing Mag
Sorry for the delay. - JP
22nd Jan 2025
Sorry for the delay. - JP
Home on Erik...
Subway waiting math
Why does it suck to wait for things? In a previous post I analyzed a NYC subway dataset and found...
9th Jul 2016
Why does it suck to wait for things? In a previous post I analyzed a NYC subway dataset and found that at some point, quite early, it's worth just giving up.
This isn't a proof that the subway doesn't run on time – in fact it might actually proves that the subway runs really...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Talking tablets: what makes a great tablet?
Earlier this year Microsoft released their brand new Surface Pro X tablet computer, in many ways...
13th Apr 2020
Earlier this year Microsoft released their brand new Surface Pro X tablet computer, in many ways this is a forward thinking device. As I like working with tablets I wondered what exactly makes a great tablet? Is Surface Pro X any good? Read along to find out.
Surface Pro X
Unlike...
watchTowr Labs
Backdooring Your Backdoors - Another $20 Domain, More Governments
After the excitement of our .MOBI research, we were left twiddling our thumbs. As you may recall, in...
8th Jan 2025
After the excitement of our .MOBI research, we were left twiddling our thumbs. As you may recall, in 2024, we demonstrated the impact of an unregistered domain when we subverted the TLS/SSL CA process for verifying domain ownership to give ourselves the ability to issue valid and...
Louwrentius - Solar
Buying a new computer
*** Desktop or Laptop ***
When deciding on which computer to buy, the first decision you have to...
3rd Apr 2011
*** Desktop or Laptop ***
When deciding on which computer to buy, the first decision you have to make is about whether to go for a desktop or a laptop. There was a time that many believed that the desktop would become a niche product. Most people want a laptop because they can...
matduggan.com
Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse
I have never been an "online community first" person. The internet is how I stay in touch with...
6th Mar 2026
I have never been an "online community first" person. The internet is how I stay in touch with people I met in real life. I'm not a "tweet comments at celebrities" guy. I was never funny enough to be the funniest person on Twitter.
Lighthouse Blog
Introducing Lighthouse - The RSS reader, newsletter reader, and read-it-later app to fight content...
3rd Apr 2024
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....
7th Mar 2013
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...
MIT News - Civil and...
Desirée Plata appointed associate dean of engineering
Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial...
8th Apr 2026
Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial initiatives across the School of Engineering.
Posts on Made of...
A week with the iPhone
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about...
31st Dec 2007
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about it.
First, the little things. It is, in typical Apple fashion, an incredibly slick piece of work. Scrolling and zooming images or webpages is simple, easy, and, well, just fun to do...
Ian's Blog
All About Apache Cassandra: Snapshots
The concept of a "Snapshot"
In computing, a snapshot is a point-in-time copy of data or state of a...
27th Jul 2019
The concept of a "Snapshot"
In computing, a snapshot is a point-in-time copy of data or state of a machine.
You ever end up doing something like this?
Each one of these files is a snapshot, as it's a copy of your essay at the point-in-time when you saved it.
Snapshots provide us...
Posts on Made of...
The ITTAGE indirect branch predictor
While investigating the performance of the new Python 3.14 tail-calling interpreter, I learned (via...
4th Jul 2025
While investigating the performance of the new Python 3.14 tail-calling interpreter, I learned (via this very informative comment from Sam Gross) new (to me) piece of performance trivia: Modern CPUs mostly no longer struggle to predict the bytecode-dispatch indirect jump inside a...
Matt Mullenweg
RIP Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, has passed. He is probably my favorite saxophonist, and while...
27th May 2026
Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, has passed. He is probably my favorite saxophonist, and while the aforementioned album is one of the five I would take to a deserted island, he has so many other good ones like The Cutting Edge which also has bagpipes, or Sonny Side Up with...
matduggan.com
OTel Isn't Going Well (And I Made A Spreadsheet About It)
For years now one of the most reliable complaints I hear when I try to drag a team off their vendor...
12th Aug 2026
For years now one of the most reliable complaints I hear when I try to drag a team off their vendor specific SDK and onto OpenTelemetry is some variation of: "why does it seem like this isn't done yet?"
Vendor SDKs for observability are, to put
The Pragmatic...
Which IDEs do software engineers love, and why?
oftware engineers shared their favorite IDEs on social media, and the most-mentioned one by a...
26th Nov 2024
oftware engineers shared their favorite IDEs on social media, and the most-mentioned one by a comfortable margin was Cursor. WindSurf and Zed also seem to be getting traction at the expense of Visual Studio, and JetBrains.
./techtipsy
Zimaboard: the closest thing to my dream home server setup
I stumbled upon this Hardware Haven video about the Zimaboard recently.
I liked it a lot.
I finally...
9th Oct 2023
I stumbled upon this Hardware Haven video about the Zimaboard recently.
I liked it a lot.
I finally bought one.
In short, Zimaboard is a small single-board computer that is relatively affordable and comes
with an interesting selection of ports, which includes an exposed PCI...
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...
17th Apr 2018
This month I strapped myself with sensors during a little experiment outside my comfort zone: I debuted as amateur actor!
Himanshu Mishra |...
Python's easter eggs and hidden jokes
Just when you thought, Python could not be more fun. Read on GitHub...
8th May 2017
Just when you thought, Python could not be more fun. Read on GitHub https://github.com/OrkoHunter/python-easter-eggs 1. Hello World 2. The…
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 3. LLVM
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
...
10th Mar 2019
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
5. LLVM system calls
6. an x86 upgrade
In this post we'll extend the
compiler to emit LLVM
IR as an option instead of...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Improve your sleep by blocking light
Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with wearing a sleep mask in bed, blocking all...
23rd Jan 2020
Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with wearing a sleep mask in bed, blocking all light. Our bodies produce the sleep hormone, melatonin, in darkness. Living in an environment awash in artificial light, is therefore exactly the sort of thing that disrupts one's...
MIT News - Civil and...
Markus Buehler receives 2025 Washington Award
Materials scientist is honored for his academic leadership and innovative research that bridge...
3rd Mar 2025
Materials scientist is honored for his academic leadership and innovative research that bridge engineering and nature.
Pea Bee
#13: GoogleWhacking
It has blocked a total of 2.337 Million network requests in the last 3 years for me. That is an...
5th Mar 2022
It has blocked a total of 2.337 Million network requests in the last 3 years for me. That is an astonishing no. of ads and trackers. The 21% here means that for every 5 network requests made on a webpage I opened, roughly one of them was for an ad or a tracker. 1 in 5!!!
watchTowr Labs
Buy A Help Desk, Bundle A Remote Access Solution? (SolarWinds Web Help Desk Pre-Auth RCE Chain(s))
It’s been a while, but we’re back - in time for story time.
Gather round, strap in, and prepare for...
25th Feb 2026
It’s been a while, but we’re back - in time for story time.
Gather round, strap in, and prepare for another depressing journey of “all we wanted to do was reproduce an N-day, and here we are with 0-days”.
Today, friends, we’re
anderegg.ca
YouTube is a mysterious monopoly
Yesterday I saw this Bluesky post from Adrian Black. He runs Adrian’s Digital Basement, a retro...
8th Sep 2025
Yesterday I saw this Bluesky post from Adrian Black. He runs Adrian’s Digital Basement, a retro computer repair channel I really enjoy. In the post, he points out a trend I didn’t know about: YouTube views seem to have fallen off a cliff recently.
Further down the thread, Jeff...
Ian's Blog
What's New in TLS Inspector 3.0
On March 30th 2016 the first commit of TLS Inspector, back then called Certificate Inspector, was...
11th Apr 2026
On March 30th 2016 the first commit of TLS Inspector, back then called Certificate Inspector, was made - and just shy of two weeks later version 1.0 was released. Now, 10 years later, TLS Inspector celebrates its 10th year, and I've got some exciting changes to share with you...
Daniel De Laney
Artificial Intelligence
In 2018 I worked with argodesign on an artificial intelligence client project, and Fast Company...
4th Jun 2019
In 2018 I worked with argodesign on an artificial intelligence client project, and Fast Company published an article on our work: This Is The World’s First Graphical AI Interface. For confidentiality reasons I can’t publicly go into more detail on the project than to link to that...
Writing
Breasts and Eggs
I think if I were to recommend this book to someone I would do it simply: do not read the second...
3rd Jan 2021
I think if I were to recommend this book to someone I would do it simply: do not read the second part. This is an amalgam of two novellas (explicitly demarcated as such in the final product), and the first book — rife with a crisper style and interesting voices — is dulled by the...
Butler's Log
Virtual Branches Alpha
GitButler is introducing an entirely new way to work on branches in Git. Join the alpha!
1st Sep 2023
GitButler is introducing an entirely new way to work on branches in Git. Join the alpha!
MIT News - Civil and...
Concrete “battery” developed at MIT now packs 10 times the power
Improved carbon-cement supercapacitors could turn the concrete around us into massive energy storage...
1st Oct 2025
Improved carbon-cement supercapacitors could turn the concrete around us into massive energy storage systems.
Notes on software...
Picking up volleyball in NYC with Goodrec and New York Urban
I was so intimidated to go at first, but it is in fact easy and fun to
start playing beginner...
26th Dec 2024
I was so intimidated to go at first, but it is in fact easy and fun to
start playing beginner volleyball in New York. The people are so
friendly and welcoming that it has been easy to keep playing
consistently every week since I started for the first time this
August. It's been a...
Greater Still by...
Towards Crypto Literacy
Consumer scale isn’t reached by abstracting the crypto away — not yet, at least.
6th Feb 2023
Consumer scale isn’t reached by abstracting the crypto away — not yet, at least.
Jonas Hietala
An update on my book 'Why Cryptocurrencies?'
Five months ago I gloriously declared that “my book was done”. Since then I’ve been working hard to...
9th Oct 2020
Five months ago I gloriously declared that “my book was done”. Since then I’ve been working hard to finish the book.
Sorry that’s a bit of a lie, I’ve had a nice long vacation where I didn’t work on the book and I’m also on part-time parental leave. And believe me there’s not a...
Notes on software...
Writing a Jinja-inspired template library in Python
In this post we'll build a minimal text templating library in Python
inspired by Jinja. It will be...
23rd May 2021
In this post we'll build a minimal text templating library in Python
inspired by Jinja. It will be able to display variables and iterate
over arrays.
By the end of this article, with around 300 lines of code, we'll be
able to create this program:
from pytemplate import...
Project Blog on...
"AI" on a Calculator: Part 1
Can AI run on a calculator? Machine learning and computer vision algorithms can certainly be run on...
28th Mar 2023
Can AI run on a calculator? Machine learning and computer vision algorithms can certainly be run on a calculator albeit slowly: I ported a convolutional neural network (CNN) to a TI-84 Plus CE, making it capable of using “AI” to identify handwritten digits. As an added challenge,...
Krebs on Security
Hackers Used Meta’s AI Support Bot to Seize Instagram Accounts
The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space...
1st Jun 2026
The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages over the weekend, after instructions began circulating on Telegram showing how to trick Meta’s “AI support assistant”...
Home on Erik...
Pinterest open sources Pinball
Pinterest just open sourced Pinball which seems like an interesting Luigi alternative. There's two...
14th Mar 2015
Pinterest just open sourced Pinball which seems like an interesting Luigi alternative. There's two blog posts: Pinball: Building workflow management (from 2014) and Open-sourcing Pinball (from this week). The author has a comment in the comments thread on Hacker News:
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240102
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
3rd Jan 2024
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
Eric Migicovsky's...
Watchduino - first video
2025 Note - I created the first prototype of Pebble by myself in 2008. It was powered by an ATmega...
8th Jun 2008
2025 Note - I created the first prototype of Pebble by myself in 2008. It was powered by an ATmega (Arduino) and used a display from a Nokia…
Willem L. Middelkoop
Innovation Is Software
In August my computer setup changed more than it had in years. And yet the lesson of the month was...
3 weeks ago
In August my computer setup changed more than it had in years. And yet the lesson of the month was the opposite of new hardware: the existing gear has stretch, innovation is software. This post is about one brain, the machine in the homelab where my files and my agents live, the...
Simply Explained
ESP32 Cam: cropping images on device
The ESP32 camera is the cheapest microcontroller with a built-in camera that you can buy. The OV2640...
23rd Feb 2021
The ESP32 camera is the cheapest microcontroller with a built-in camera that you can buy. The OV2640 sensor has a max resolution of 1600x1200, but sometimes you don't need the entire image.In this post I'll show how to crop the images on the ESP32 itself, before sending it of to...
watchTowr Labs
QNAP QTS - QNAPping At The Wheel (CVE-2024-27130 and friends)
Infosec is, at it’s heart, all about that data. Obtaining access to it (or disrupting access to it)...
17th May 2024
Infosec is, at it’s heart, all about that data. Obtaining access to it (or disrupting access to it) is in every ransomware gang and APT group’s top-10 to-do-list items, and so it makes sense that our research voyage would, at some point, cross paths with products
computers are bad
2024-06-02 consumer electronics control
In a previous episode, I discussed audio
transports
and mention that they have become a much less...
2nd Jun 2024
In a previous episode, I discussed audio
transports
and mention that they have become a much less important part of the modern home
theater landscape. One reason is the broad decline of the component system:
most consumers aren't buying a television, home theater receiver,...
Ken Shirriff's blog
A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer
The noted Diné (Navajo) weaver Marilou Schultz recently completed an intricate weaving
composed...
6th Sep 2025
The noted Diné (Navajo) weaver Marilou Schultz recently completed an intricate weaving
composed of
thick white lines on a black background, punctuated with reddish-orange diamonds.
Although this striking rug may appear abstract, it shows the internal circuitry of a tiny silicon...
Posts on Made of...
Towards solving Ultimate Tic Tac Toe
Summary: Read about my efforts to solve the game of Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. It’s been a fun journey...
15th Jul 2020
Summary: Read about my efforts to solve the game of Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. It’s been a fun journey into interesting algorithms and high-performance parallel programming in Rust.
Backstory Starting around the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, I’ve gotten myself deeply nerdsniped...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me
5th Dec 2022
Posts on Made of...
How is duct tape like the force?
I’m at Dragon*Con this weekend, my second time here now. I decided that if I was going to Dragon*Con...
5th Sep 2010
I’m at Dragon*Con this weekend, my second time here now. I decided that if I was going to Dragon*Con again, I needed to do something in terms of costuming, and I wanted it to be something unique – I wasn’t going to come anywhere near as epic as some of the costumes people pull...
The Pragmatic...
Klarna’s AI chatbot: how revolutionary is it, really?
Klarna launched its AI chatbot, built in collaboration with OpenAI, which the company wants to use...
8th Aug 2024
Klarna launched its AI chatbot, built in collaboration with OpenAI, which the company wants to use to eliminate 2/3rds of customer support positions. But is it as revolutionary, and as likely to replace jobs, as Klarna claims?
Writing
Happy Endings
This, to me, is the perfect sit-com. It’s that simple: for two seasons (skip the first season; you...
27th Nov 2017
This, to me, is the perfect sit-com. It’s that simple: for two seasons (skip the first season; you don’t need it and the show tries to be too conventional) it shits out an outrageous level of humor with a cast that has a perfect chemistry. There is a tiny bit of “aw, shucks”...
Azad's Blog
RealityCapture to Gaussian Splatting using PostShot
TLDR: Tutorial on using RealityCapture to align an image dataset, export the alignment, and import...
21st Jul 2024
TLDR: Tutorial on using RealityCapture to align an image dataset, export the alignment, and import it into PostShot to train Gaussian Splats without using COLMAP. Video tutorial RealityCapture Import your images and align them. If you ever need help with tricky dataset, refer to...
GitButler
GitButler for Windows
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
12th Apr 2024
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
Old Vintage...
MkLinux and the pimped-out Apple Workgroup Server 9150
As is typical here in the Floodgap lab, it all started so innocently: rebuilding a flaky Apple...
2nd Aug 2026
As is typical here in the Floodgap lab, it all started so innocently: rebuilding a flaky Apple Workgroup Server 9150, the odd duck of the Workgroup Server line and older cousin to our beloved Apple Network Server. And then I just had to pimp it out for MkLinux.
sui generis IBM...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Scalable application design without magic
As part of the online food ordering app I'm building, I needed to design a scalable backend...
10th May 2020
As part of the online food ordering app I'm building, I needed to design a scalable backend infrastructure that could handle lots of concurrent users. Scalability is considered a hard problem to tackle. Often it's presented like it's something magical, done by million dollar...
watchTowr Labs
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire - Mitel MiCollab CVE-2024-35286, CVE-2024-41713 And An 0day
It is not just APTs that like to target telephone systems, but ourselves at watchTowr too.
We can't...
5th Dec 2024
It is not just APTs that like to target telephone systems, but ourselves at watchTowr too.
We can't overstate the consequences of an attacker crossing the boundary from the 'computer system' to the 'telephone system'. We've seen attackers realise this in 2024,
Push to Prod
Queueing Requests Queues Your Capacity Problems, Too
On queues, capacity, and why your dashboard is lying to you
23rd Mar 2026
On queues, capacity, and why your dashboard is lying to you
Notes on software...
Coolest hard-tech companies in NYC 2021
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed...
4th Jun 2021
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed it's the perfect time to publish. This
list is influenced by 1) my perception of the difficulty of the
engineering behind the product and 2) the company's educational and
OSS...
Gwern.net Newsletter
June gwern.net newsletter
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening,...
2nd Jul 2020
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening, AI scaling, politics, and technological unemployment.
axio.ms
Mac SE/30 odyssey
I’ve always wanted an Apple Macintosh SE/30. Released in 1989, they look quite a lot like the other...
1st Oct 2021
I’ve always wanted an Apple Macintosh SE/30. Released in 1989, they look quite a lot like the other members of the original “compact Mac” series, but pack in a ton of interesting features that the other compact Macs don’t have.
This is the story of my journey to getting to the...
./techtipsy
How I treat my urge to hoard data
The tagline for /r/datahoarder reads:
“It’s A Digital Disease!”. I agree.
At some point I realized...
8th Mar 2022
The tagline for /r/datahoarder reads:
“It’s A Digital Disease!”. I agree.
At some point I realized that the pursuit to hoard all the things will just keep
on consuming more and more of my time and money. Storage is cheap up until to a
point, once you find yourself tracking hard...
Willem's Blog
From tree to table
Creating a night stand from a raw slab of chestnut wood.
22nd Oct 2017
Creating a night stand from a raw slab of chestnut wood.
computers are bad
2025-01-05 pairs not taken
So we all know about twisted-pair ethernet, huh? I get a little frustrated with
a lot of histories...
5th Jan 2025
So we all know about twisted-pair ethernet, huh? I get a little frustrated with
a lot of histories of the topic, like the recent neil breen^w^wserial port
video, because they often fail to
address some obvious questions about the origin of twisted-pair network
cabling. Well, I...
Electronics etc…
An In-Depth Look at the ICE-V Wireless FPGA Development Board
Introduction
The ICE-V Wireless FPGA Board
Preloading the PSRAM with User Data
The Overall Boot...
27th Dec 2022
Introduction
The ICE-V Wireless FPGA Board
Preloading the PSRAM with User Data
The Overall Boot Process
UART Console
Getting Started with the ICE-V Wireless Board for Real
Reinstalling or Modifying the ESP32C3 Firmware
The RISC-V Example FPGA Design
Compiling the RISC-V Example...
Jonas Hietala
Hearthstone on Wine
I like Hearthstone and recently the next expansion Goblins vs Gnomes so I wanted to install and play...
12th Nov 2014
I like Hearthstone and recently the next expansion Goblins vs Gnomes so I wanted to install and play it. It didn’t work in vanilla wine, with a “time out error”, but I found a bug report which makes it work. Here’s a short summary:
Get wine source from git. My version was...
Arduino Blog
Zoo elephants get a musical toy to enrich their lives
Everyone loves looking at exotic animals and most of us only get to do that at zoos. But, of course,...
2nd Dec 2024
Everyone loves looking at exotic animals and most of us only get to do that at zoos. But, of course, there is a lot to be said about the morality of keeping those animals in captivity. So, good zoos put a lot of effort into keeping their animals healthy and happy. For more...
Home on Erik...
Benchmarking nearest neighbor libraries in Python
Radim Rehurek has put together an excellent summary of approximate nearest neighbor libraries in...
12th Jan 2014
Radim Rehurek has put together an excellent summary of approximate nearest neighbor libraries in Python. This is exciting, because one of the libraries he's covering, annoy, was built by me.
After introducing the problem, he goes through the list of contestants and sticks with...
Never Met a Science
Action Syllabus
Week 1: Decide Technology Policy in the Classroom
22nd Apr 2024
Week 1: Decide Technology Policy in the Classroom
Blog | Sam Curry
How I gained access to chef, docker, AWS, and MongoDB instances in a single request
3rd Aug 2017
Willem's Blog
Backup Rotation Scheme
Learn about the rsync-backup-rotator tool that helps you automatically rotate backups using rsync,...
14th Dec 2023
Learn about the rsync-backup-rotator tool that helps you automatically rotate backups using rsync, creating and maintaining multiple recovery points from your backups.
./techtipsy
The best laptop is the one somebody else had
In 2011, I was finishing 9th grade. As a gift, I got to choose a laptop in the
400 EUR range. I...
1st Nov 2024
In 2011, I was finishing 9th grade. As a gift, I got to choose a laptop in the
400 EUR range. I ended up picking
an ASUS Eee PC 1201PN. It was new and the
first computer in my life that was 100% mine, but awfully slow for a lot of tasks.
It was so slow that I ended up giving...
Krebs on Security
FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses
A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more...
2 weeks ago
A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the United States and Canada. Based on interviews with individuals whose licenses are available for purchase on this service, it...
./techtipsy
FOSDEM 2024: my experience, some notes and tech tips
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the...
12th Feb 2024
I finally went to FOSDEM. I’m sleep-deprived, completely exhausted, but incredibly excited
about the whole experience.
I’ve split this post into three separate sections.
overall notes on the conference and the city
less technical, but sheds light on the FOSDEM experience
the...
Matt Blewitt
Software Sprezzatura
Sprezzatura is “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says...
26th Jan 2020
Sprezzatura is “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”, coined by Castiglione in 1528’s The Book of the Courtier.
Opsbros
Nix Windows Feedback
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
11th Oct 2020
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
Willem's Blog
For the love of mini
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love...
8th Dec 2021
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love of mini!
Good Enough
Album Listening in Album Whale
Back in March we added Album Search in Album Whale. This was a very nice update because it meant you...
4th Aug 2026
Back in March we added Album Search in Album Whale. This was a very nice update because it meant you no longer had to first grab an album share link from a music service (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, etc) in order to save an album to a list. You can just head straight to...
Electronics etc…
Remote Controlling an HP 1670G Logic Analyzer with a Linux PC X Server
Introduction
Reserving a fixed IP address for the logic analyzer
Assign the chosen IP address to the...
26th Dec 2023
Introduction
Reserving a fixed IP address for the logic analyzer
Assign the chosen IP address to the logic analyzer
Allow the logic analyzer to access your Ubuntu X server
Configure the X-window Settings on the logic analyzer
Install and declare the HP logic analyzer font...
Vitalik Buterin's...
In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism
1st Apr 2022
Jonas Hietala
Automating the Hue Tap Dial Switch in Elixir via MQTT
I recently bought a couple of Hue Tap Dial switches for our house to enhance our smart home.
We have...
1st Sep 2025
I recently bought a couple of Hue Tap Dial switches for our house to enhance our smart home.
We have quite a few smart lights and I figured the tap dial—with it’s multiple buttons and rotary dial—would be a good fit.
Since I’ve been moving away from standard Home Assistant...
./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...
10th Jun 2023
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...
Azad's Blog
How to Remove Virtual Desktop’s Leftover macOS Audio Devices
Uninstalling Virtual Desktop Streamer can leave Virtual Desktop Mic and Virtual Desktop Speakers...
2 weeks ago
Uninstalling Virtual Desktop Streamer can leave Virtual Desktop Mic and Virtual Desktop Speakers behind in macOS Sound settings. Copy-paste this prompt to your AI agent Prompt: Remove the leftover Virtual Desktop Streamer audio components from my Mac. Move these exact items to...
watchTowr Labs
Should Security Solutions Be Secure? Maybe We're All Wrong - Fortinet FortiSIEM Pre-Auth Command...
It’s Friday, but we’re here today with unscheduled content - pushing our previously scheduled...
15th Aug 2025
It’s Friday, but we’re here today with unscheduled content - pushing our previously scheduled shenanigans to next week.
Fortinet is no stranger to the watchTowr Labs research team. Today we’re looking at CVE-2025-25256 - a pre-authentication command injection in FortiSIEM that...
Posts on Made of...
What's with ML software and pickles?
I have spent many years as an software engineer who was a total outsider to machine-learning, but...
8th Nov 2023
I have spent many years as an software engineer who was a total outsider to machine-learning, but with some curiosity and occasional peripheral interactions with it. During this time, a recurring theme for me was horror (and, to be honest, disdain) every time I encountered the...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma
14th Nov 2023
Eric Migicovsky's...
Announcing Startup School Beijing
26th Apr 2018
Fabien Sanglard
To become a good C programmer
More...
2nd Feb 2011
Himanshu Mishra |...
Why should one do Open Source in college?
More and more students are now being involved with Open Source programming. Thanks to programs like...
19th Dec 2020
More and more students are now being involved with Open Source programming. Thanks to programs like Google Summer of Code who have seriously…
Avestura's Blog
Understanding zero-knowledge proofs
What are zero-knowledge proofs, really?
24th Jul 2022
What are zero-knowledge proofs, really?
Willem's Blog
Health and fitness data
Exploring the balance between health data and intuition, this blog post delves into how personal...
15th Jan 2024
Exploring the balance between health data and intuition, this blog post delves into how personal well-being and fitness goals shape our relationship with technology and self-awareness.
Jonas Hietala
Minor site updates
As it happens I got a little tired of the syntax highlighter Pandoc uses so on a whim I started...
29th Apr 2020
As it happens I got a little tired of the syntax highlighter Pandoc uses so on a whim I started looking at moving to Pygments as my highlighter. With some searching around I found a blog post about just that! That’s lucky because while I like Haskell, I’ve never really grocked it...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Multidimensional gas pricing
9th May 2024
Arduino Blog
Boomba is a Roomba with every upgrade imaginable
In the classic Ship of Theseus thought experiment, we’re led to wonder if a ship is still the same...
5th May 2026
In the classic Ship of Theseus thought experiment, we’re led to wonder if a ship is still the same ship after all of its parts have been replaced. But we might need to rename that to the “Robot of Boomba,” after Lucas completely rebuilt a Roomba to serve as a robotics platform....
Evan Hahn (dot com)
Notes from "Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology"
Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology
is a book of essays by Ellen Ullman.
In the book,...
8th Apr 2025
Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology
is a book of essays by Ellen Ullman.
In the book, Ullman laments the bad parts of computers and the internet. These
systems eroded privacy, deepened income inequality, and enabled the rise of
modern fascism. And they were built by a...
computers are bad
2024-05-06 matrix
For those of you who are members of the Matrix project, I wanted to let you
know that I am running...
6th May 2024
For those of you who are members of the Matrix project, I wanted to let you
know that I am running for the Governing Board, and a bit about why. For those
of you who are not, I hope you will forgive the intrusion. Maybe you'll find my
opinions on the topic interesting anyway.
I...
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...
27th Nov 2024
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
Greater Still by...
Life lessons after one year at Rostra
Today marks one year at Rostra, where I’ve had the incredible privilege of working alongside Lulu...
16th Sep 2025
Today marks one year at Rostra, where I’ve had the incredible privilege of working alongside Lulu Meservey to help some of the most consequential companies of our time tell their stories.
Jonas Hietala
Minecraft Server Hosting
I play the phenomena that is Minecraft on and off. Sometimes the laid back building or the exploring...
22nd Apr 2013
I play the phenomena that is Minecraft on and off. Sometimes the laid back building or the exploring is just what I need. Sometimes I can challange myself to build cool complex stuff and I’m even an avid follower of Doc’M and Etho and the other mindcrackers over at the youtube....
Opsbros
WetSocks Revival
How to get a broken METAR/TAF Toolbar application working again; the fun way! Seeing what we can do...
25th Aug 2021
How to get a broken METAR/TAF Toolbar application working again; the fun way! Seeing what we can do to get WetSocks Windows 98 tray weather app working again.
Notes on software...
First month on a database team
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The...
11th Mar 2024
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The process of onboarding
myself has been pretty similar at each company in the last decade,
though I think I've gotten better at it. The process is of course
influenced by the team, and my...
Willem's Blog
Programming on Apple Watch
Programming with VIM over SSH on Apple Watch using a bluetooth keyboard
15th Feb 2017
Programming with VIM over SSH on Apple Watch using a bluetooth keyboard
Louwrentius - Solar
Belkin Gigabit USB 2.0 adapter works perfectly with Linux
My ISP upgraded my internet connection speed to a whopping 120 Mbit. I am
using a mac mini as my...
8th Dec 2010
My ISP upgraded my internet connection speed to a whopping 120 Mbit. I am
using a mac mini as my internet router. As you may be aware, the mini has
only one network interface, so I added a second interface using a USB to
ethernet adapter. This adapter was limited to 100 Mbit, so...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Climbing Mount Etna
Last week me and my wife went to Sicily for a little summer holiday. It is the largest island in the...
1st Sep 2017
Last week me and my wife went to Sicily for a little summer holiday. It is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands. It's home to Europe's largest active volcano: Mount Etna. We had a chance to visit...
Abishek Muthian
Postmortem of Butt Mover
I suffer from chronic lower back pain, Since I don't consume opioids I find exercises 1 to be the...
13th Dec 2022
I suffer from chronic lower back pain, Since I don't consume opioids I find exercises 1 to be the best pain management technique.
In addition to the specific exercises for managing back pain, Not sitting for long durations seems to be the key factor for me to not trigger the back...
Fabien Sanglard
Switching to Lenovo Carbon X1
2nd Oct 2020
Engineers Need Art
Camera Genealogica (Part 1)
I’m very much into genealogy. I came to realize that my interest was more specifically as a kind of...
30th Jul 2025
I’m very much into genealogy. I came to realize that my interest was more specifically as a kind of photograph genealogist.
Willem L. Middelkoop
Marathon
Last Sunday I completed my first full marathon, covering a distance of 42KM in and around Amsterdam....
19th Oct 2024
Last Sunday I completed my first full marathon, covering a distance of 42KM in and around Amsterdam. An idea that started in a bar with some beers and concluded with a finish in the Olympic Stadium. What a journey, what an experience, well worthy of a blog post.
About a year ago,...
computers are bad
extremely low frequencies
The submarine is a surprisingly ancient technology—at least in its early,
primitive forms. The idea...
9th May 2026
The submarine is a surprisingly ancient technology—at least in its early,
primitive forms. The idea is quite simple, that a well-enough-sealed boat ought
to be able to submerge and resurface. It's the practicalities that make the
whole thing difficult. It is generally considered...
Posts on Made of...
Using wpa_supplicant on Debian/Ubuntu
I’ve been using wpa_supplicant to manage wifi on my Ubuntu laptop for a while, and have found that...
22nd Aug 2008
I’ve been using wpa_supplicant to manage wifi on my Ubuntu laptop for a while, and have found that it’s pretty close to what I want for managing wireless — closer than anything else I’ve found, at least. I figured I should document my setup and experiences.
Some Background You...
Tiny struggles
Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google
I started writing this retrospective during my last week at Google, I have already wrapped up...
16th Aug 2024
I started writing this retrospective during my last week at Google, I have already wrapped up everything, had my goodbyes. In the spirit of SRE (as an ex-SRE), I thought it would be fun to write a little retrospective in the form of a postmortem.
Introduction
I joined Google...
Jonas Hietala
The End of the Tunnel
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from...
19th Oct 2011
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from the last time.
One course about data structure and algorithms (super fun to be honest) has wrapped up. We thought we were ahead with the assignments but in the end it got very...
latest projects -...
Motorised Camera Slider
[Hardware] Simple smooth motor mod
7th Jul 2024
[Hardware] Simple smooth motor mod
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...
5th Aug 2021
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...
Home on Erik...
Data architecture vs backend architecture
A modern tech stack typically involves at least a frontend and backend but relatively quickly also...
10th Jan 2019
A modern tech stack typically involves at least a frontend and backend but relatively quickly also grows to include a data platform. This typically grows out of the need for ad-hoc analysis and reporting but possibly evolves into a whole oil refinery of cronjobs, dashboards, bulk...
Home on Erik...
Interviewing is a noisy prediction problem
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence...
2nd May 2018
I have done roughly 2,000 interviews in my life. When I started recruiting, I had so much confidence in my ability to assess people. Let me just throw a couple of algorithm questions at a candidate and then I'll tell you if they are good or not!
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios
If you’re a regular user of the terminal on a UNIX system, there are probably a large number of...
22nd Dec 2009
If you’re a regular user of the terminal on a UNIX system, there are probably a large number of behaviors you take mostly for granted without really thinking about them. If you press ^C or ^Z it kills or stops the foreground program – unless it’s something like emacs or vim, in...
Willem's Blog
Realtime service uptime monitoring
Downtime happens and it is nothing to be ashamed of, just make sure that you set yourself up to...
1st Feb 2021
Downtime happens and it is nothing to be ashamed of, just make sure that you set yourself up to discover problems as soon as possible! Know about problems before your customers do!
Willem's Blog
Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner
This week it was time for some maintenance on my iRobot Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Read along to...
19th Mar 2019
This week it was time for some maintenance on my iRobot Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Read along to learn how I did it.
On Life and Lisp
Hilariously Fast Volume Computation with the Divergence Theorem
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a...
16th Feb 2018
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a simple, closed, triangulated 3D mesh. This assumption is a consequence of the divergence theorem. Further extensions may generalise to other meshes as well, although that is presently...
Willem's Blog
I see dead people
This may be Apple Vision Pro's killer feature, enabling you to see dead people: augmenting old...
9th Sep 2024
This may be Apple Vision Pro's killer feature, enabling you to see dead people: augmenting old photos into lifelike representations.
Arduino Blog
Improving bicycle safety with voice-activated turn signals
Bicycle safety is always a concern, but is a particularly big problem in cities where cycling is...
2nd Nov 2025
Bicycle safety is always a concern, but is a particularly big problem in cities where cycling is less common. Drivers in cars don’t expect to encounter cyclists and don’t know how to share the road properly. To protect themselves, cyclists need to be as predictable as possible...
./techtipsy
Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 Tiny: how does it fare as a home server?
My evenings of absent-minded local auction site scrolling1 paid off: I now own
a Lenovo ThinkCentre...
6th Jun 2025
My evenings of absent-minded local auction site scrolling1 paid off: I now own
a Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 Tiny.
It’s relatively old, being manufactured in 20162, but it’s tiny and has a lot of useful life left in it.
It’s also featured in the TinyMiniMicro series by...
Daniel De Laney
Network Engineering
“My first job was to understand what network engineers do. Then, I had to show them complex data in...
24th May 2017
“My first job was to understand what network engineers do. Then, I had to show them complex data in a comprehensible and usable way. Finally, I had to make it less ugly.”
The Challenge
When you type “google.com” into your browser and press the Enter key, what happens? How do you...
Electronics etc…
Polyphase Channelizers with Frequency Offset - a Bluetooth LE Example
Introduction
A Bluetooth LE Trace as Example
Input Complex Heterodyne
Derivation of Post-Decimation...
5th Mar 2026
Introduction
A Bluetooth LE Trace as Example
Input Complex Heterodyne
Derivation of Post-Decimation Offset Correction
Simplifying for the Half-Bin Offset Case
The Odd Case of an Odd Number of Channels
Reducing the Number of Phase Adjustment...
Home on Erik...
Missing the point about microservices: it's about testing and deploying independently
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the...
4th Jun 2018
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the term microservices. I can't put my finger on exactly why. Maybe because the term is hopelessly ill-defined, maybe because it's gotten picked up by the hype train.
watchTowr Labs
More Evidence That Words Don't Mean What We Thought They Meant (Ivanti Sentry Pre-Auth OS Command...
Today, Ivanti published an advisory.
“No way?” we hear you say. "Yes way!" a random dog screams back...
10th Jun 2026
Today, Ivanti published an advisory.
“No way?” we hear you say. "Yes way!" a random dog screams back at you, across the street.
Today’s rare advisory outlines two vulnerabilities in Ivanti’s Sentry product, appealing directly to our inner desire for sophisticated server-side,
Daniel De Laney
There is Definitely a Grid
Grids are the best thing to ever happen to graphic design. They form a rational basis for organizing...
10th Jun 2016
Grids are the best thing to ever happen to graphic design. They form a rational basis for organizing information. They support the harmonious distribution of elements and visual weight. We don’t design things with grids because it’s easy, or because everyone else is doing it....
Posts on Made of...
Why node.js is cool (it's not about performance)
For the past N months, it seems like there is no new technology stack that is either hotter or more...
12th Mar 2012
For the past N months, it seems like there is no new technology stack that is either hotter or more controversial than node.js. node.js is cancer! node.js cures cancer! node.js is bad ass rock star tech!. I myself have given node.js a lot of shit, often involving the phrase...
axio.ms
A small ode to the CRT
Built October 2018
I used to hate Cathode Ray Tubes. As a kid in Europe, everything flickered at...
8th Feb 2022
Built October 2018
I used to hate Cathode Ray Tubes. As a kid in Europe, everything flickered at 50Hz, or made a loud whistle at 15.625KHz (back when I could still hear it). CRTs just seemed crude, “electro-brutalist” contraptions from the valve era. They were heavy, and...
Freewheeling Apps
2025-04-04
Automatically selecting colors with sufficient contrast.
Here's a test build of my hypertext...
5th Apr 2025
Automatically selecting colors with sufficient contrast.
Here's a test build of my hypertext browser where every "page load" picks a random background. The foreground and link colors adapt to preserve a minimum contrast (WCAG AAA level).
I repeatedly click on links in...
Louwrentius - Solar
8 TB RAID 6 Linux software RAID using EXT4
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID...
5th Jul 2009
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 (16x poorten)
PSU: CooMas Silent Pro M 600W ATX2 (definitely not overkill)
HD: Samsung 1 TB SAT2 HD103UJ (10x)
OS: Debian Lenny with custom kernel (backported)
FS: EXT4
RAID...
Jonas Hietala
How I wrote a book using Pollen
I wrote an online book using Pollen, a static site generator in Racket. An earlier post contains my...
3rd May 2020
I wrote an online book using Pollen, a static site generator in Racket. An earlier post contains my first impressions of it, but as the book is now completed I think I can summarize some implementation details in more detail with this post.
I really like the markup language and...
Fabien Sanglard
0x4 reasons to write and publish
7th Nov 2023
Notes on software...
Logical replication in Postgres: Basics
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
17th Jan 2025
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Why I used to prefer permissive licenses and now favor copyleft
7th Jul 2025
Posts on Made of...
Why scons is cool
I’ve recently started playing with scons a little for some small personal projects. It’s not...
7th Nov 2010
I’ve recently started playing with scons a little for some small personal projects. It’s not perfect, but I’ve rapidly come to the conclusion that it’s a probably far better choice than make in many cases. The main exceptions would be cases where you need to integrate into legacy...
computers are bad
LotusNotes
I tend to focus on the origin of the computer within the military. Particularly
in the early days of...
14th Mar 2026
I tend to focus on the origin of the computer within the military. Particularly
in the early days of digital computing, the military was a key customer, and
fundamental concepts of modern computing arose in universities and laboratories
serving military contracts. Of course, the...
Software and Tech...
Disable Auto-Update
How is it possible that a feature I use every day, in an app I rely on daily, entirely offline, just...
1st May 2026
How is it possible that a feature I use every day, in an app I rely on daily, entirely offline, just disappeared from my phone?
I use a fitness app. My metrics, such as steps, workout routines, heart rate, are collected from a wearable device like a smartwatch and sent to the app...
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