Notes on software...
Languages you can run in the browser, part 1: Python, JavaScript, SQLite
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over a year ago
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Posts on Made of...
Software Engineers should keep lab notebooks
Software engineers, as a rule, suck at writing things down. Part of this is training – unlike...
over a year ago
Software engineers, as a rule, suck at writing things down. Part of this is training – unlike chemists and biologists who are trailed to obsessively document everything they do in their lab notebooks, computer scientists are taught to document the end results of their work, but...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Glue and coprocessor architectures
3 months ago
watchTowr Labs -...
Fortinet FortiGate CVE-2024-23113 - A Super Complex Vulnerability In A Super Secure Appliance In...
Today we'd like to share a recent journey into (yet another) SSLVPN appliance vulnerability - a...
2 months ago
Today we'd like to share a recent journey into (yet another) SSLVPN appliance vulnerability - a Format String vulnerability, unusually, in Fortinet's FortiGate devices.
It affected (before patching) all currently-maintained branches, and recently was highlighted by CISA as...
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240309
Super quick updates
9 months ago
Home on Erik...
ML at Twitter
I recently came across this paper describing how they do ML at Twitter.
TL;DR Their approach is...
over a year ago
I recently came across this paper describing how they do ML at Twitter.
TL;DR Their approach is pretty interesting. Everything is a Pig workflow and then they do everything as UDF's.
This approach seems pretty interesting.
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.
Arduino Blog
Seaside Sweeper keeps beaches pristine
Without anyone caring for them, beaches quickly become trash-covered swaths of disappointment. That...
7 months ago
Without anyone caring for them, beaches quickly become trash-covered swaths of disappointment. That care is necessary to maintain the beautiful sandy havens that we all want to enjoy, but it requires a lot of labor. A capstone team of students from the University of Colorado...
Posts on Made of...
Using X forwarding with screen by proxying $DISPLAY
If you’re reading this blog, I probably don’t have to explain why I love GNU screen. I can keep a...
over a year ago
If you’re reading this blog, I probably don’t have to explain why I love GNU screen. I can keep a long-running session going on a server somewhere, and log in and resume my session without losing any state.
I also love X-forwarding. I love being able to log into a remote server...
Jonas Hietala
What's up
It’s been a while again since the last time we met mr. Blog. I’ve been busy with school and other...
over a year ago
It’s been a while again since the last time we met mr. Blog. I’ve been busy with school and other stuff. I’ve thought about you but I just never really picked up emacs to write to you. I know it’s my fault but I beg of your mercy mr. Blog. You know that I had laid off school for...
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 6. LLVM system calls
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
4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
5. an x86 upgrade
In this post we'll extend the ulisp
compiler's LLVM backend to
support printing integers to...
Style over Substance
Using the EZCOO / AVStar HAE118 HDMI2.1 Audio Extractor for PS5/Xbox audio
Back in 2021, we bought a PlayStation 5 (PS5) as our main living room console. Making the most out...
a year ago
Back in 2021, we bought a PlayStation 5 (PS5) as our main living room console. Making the most out of this console meant we also had to buy a new TV, as our old TV was not 4K-compatible and did not support HDMI2.1, the new A/V standard required to support all of the PS5’s...
Simply Explained
ESP32: Tips to increase battery life
Running an ESP32 on a battery is a tricky operation. The chip is a powerhouse, and with power comes...
over a year ago
Running an ESP32 on a battery is a tricky operation. The chip is a powerhouse, and with power comes great responsibility. In this post, I’ll outline how I got an ESP32 to run for over 15 weeks (and counting) on a single 1000mAh battery.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Some reflections on the Bitcoin block size war
6 months ago
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Filters
I can print, but the printer is missing a very important thing that I alluded to in the previous...
a year ago
I can print, but the printer is missing a very important thing that I alluded to in the previous post: filtering dangerous particles and fumes.
This is mostly covered by the kit, but I was missing some parts from the print it forward and the kit didn’t include a HEPA...
Odds and Ends of...
Book now! Where we're going, we need roads (and trains)
My next in-person event/meet-up, with transport policy expert Michael Dnes!
3 weeks ago
My next in-person event/meet-up, with transport policy expert Michael Dnes!
computers are bad
2024-07-20 minuteman missile communications
A programming note: I am looking at making some changes to how I host things
like Computers Are Bad...
5 months ago
A programming note: I am looking at making some changes to how I host things
like Computers Are Bad and wikimap that are going to
involve a lot more recurring expense. For that and other reasons, I want to see
if y'all would be willing to throw some money my way. If everyone...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Against overuse of the Gini coefficient
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go: 2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
3. indexes
4. a...
over a year ago
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
3. indexes
4. a database/sql driver
In this post, we'll extend gosql
to support binary expressions and very simple filtering on SELECT
results via WHERE. We'll introduce a general mechanism...
Arduino Blog
A new Plug and Make Kit challenge! A game of rhythm and creativity
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit is all about unleashing creativity while simplifying the process of...
a week ago
The Arduino Plug and Make Kit is all about unleashing creativity while simplifying the process of turning ideas into reality. It enables everyone to focus on the fun of creating with the power of the UNO R4 WiFi and a user-friendly, modular design – bypassing the complexities of...
./techtipsy
How to start your self-hosting adventure: a high-level overview
Reddit is a great starting point for getting new ideas for your homelab: racks full of machines
in...
over a year ago
Reddit is a great starting point for getting new ideas for your homelab: racks full of machines
in /r/homelab, storage measured in terabytes (or even petabytes) over
at /r/datahoarder, all the different services that people host over at
/r/selfhosted. This can be a bit...
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...
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Beebop The Island Hopper
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop...
over a year ago
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop The Island Hopper for the theme Islands.
About Ludum Dare
Ludum Dare is a competition which runs maybe two times a year and the competition is 24 hours long with a specific theme....
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...
Neil Madden
Machine Learning and the triumph of GOFAI
I’ve been slowly reading Brian Cantwell Smith’s “The Promise of Artificial Intelligence” recently. I...
5 months ago
I’ve been slowly reading Brian Cantwell Smith’s “The Promise of Artificial Intelligence” recently. I haven’t finished reading it yet, and like much of BCS’s writing, it’ll probably take me 3 or 4 read-throughs to really understand it, but there’s one point that I want to pick up...
computers are bad
2023-05-07 electrical characteristics of telephone lines
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring...
a year ago
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring topic: implementation details of telephone lines.
The conventional "copper pair" analog telephone line is fading away. The FCC
has begun to authorize abandonment of copper outside...
Willem's Blog
One year of cycling
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
over a year ago
GPS recording an entire year of bike rides using Garmin and Strava.
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 20 Timelapse
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I...
over a year ago
So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I lost the first few hours as I forgot to turn it on…
Anyway here’s the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABVPlRaA5iI
Buck on Software
Don't be foie gras
If 2016-2020 was the golden unicorn age of SaaS, 2021 nearly hurtled us into the foie gras* era.
over a year ago
If 2016-2020 was the golden unicorn age of SaaS, 2021 nearly hurtled us into the foie gras* era.
computers are bad
2023-04-10 solving problems with chatgpt
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is...
a year ago
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is to automate away our jobs. When your job is (put simply) to
get computers to work correctly, there's sort of an irony to this view of
things. Still, just within the span of my...
Louwrentius
Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) released.
The Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) is a small Bash script that acts as a
library for bash...
over a year ago
The Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) is a small Bash script that acts as a
library for bash scripts. It provides a couple of functions that makes the
lives of most people using shell scripts a bit easier.
The purpose of this library is to provide pre-build functions for...
./techtipsy
I have a 'Dall UD19PB ThundeRbglt Dock': my experience with the HP Elitebook 845 G9
I’ve decided to give a new laptop a test drive, mainly because I had the
opportunity at work, and...
over a year ago
I’ve decided to give a new laptop a test drive, mainly because I had the
opportunity at work, and also out of morbid curiosity.
It’s the HP Elitebook 845 G9, and it has pretty good specifications:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U
RAM: 2x16GB DDR5
Storage: 512GB KIOXIA NVMe SSD...
Neil Madden
When a KEM is not enough
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation...
over a year ago
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation mechanism is given the recipient’s public key and outputs a fresh AES key and an encapsulation of that key that the recipient can decapsulate to recover the AES key. In this post I...
Matt Blewitt
Movement for Engineers
Until we get get to be chromed-up cyborgs, we’re stuck with our meat bodies, and like many things,...
a year ago
Until we get get to be chromed-up cyborgs, we’re stuck with our meat bodies, and like many things, they need regular maintenance. Here is a brief introduction to keeping your body moving as someone who spends a lot of time sitting down.
Jonas Hietala
December Theme: New World Order
The The Experimental Gameplay Project drives on with the Art Game theme which will last the rest of...
over a year ago
The The Experimental Gameplay Project drives on with the Art Game theme which will last the rest of this year but that’s something we can’t accept! I’ve done my game and I didn’t force myself out from the Haskell world just to do nuthin so here’s a new little theme for me :)
What...
Avestura's Blog
Versioning microservices in GitLab monorepos and polyrepos
What are some possible options to version projects for a microservices project in Gitlab?
over a year ago
What are some possible options to version projects for a microservices project in Gitlab?
Arduino Blog
This smart spice box makes cooking a breeze
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and...
6 months ago
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and ingredients. Recipes are useful, but they aren’t very intuitive to those who are more comfortable with visual thinking. To help these people enjoy the cooking experience, Purdue...
Louwrentius
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...
./techtipsy
How to take down production with a single Helm command
You’re Cletus Kubernetus: a software developer, and a proud Fedora Linux
user.1
You know Kubernetes,...
8 months ago
You’re Cletus Kubernetus: a software developer, and a proud Fedora Linux
user.1
You know Kubernetes, especially after the time you migrated some services to it.
Everything is calm.
Your pods are running. Your service is up. Business as usual.
You release some minor changes to...
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
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!
Applied Cartography
MD5-based uniqueness constraints in Django
Yesterday, I was trying to set a unique constraint for comments in Buttondown to prevent accidental...
3 months ago
Yesterday, I was trying to set a unique constraint for comments in Buttondown to prevent accidental double-commenting, and I ran into a problem that I hadn't seen before:
index row size 2816 exceeds btree version 4 maximum 2704 for index...
Jonas Hietala
Blogging in Djot instead of Markdown
What if we weren’t chained to the past? What if we tried to create a light markup syntax that keeps...
10 months ago
What if we weren’t chained to the past? What if we tried to create a light markup syntax that keeps what is good about Markdown, while revising some of the features that have led to bloat and complexity in the CommonMark spec?
John Macfarlane, Beyond Markdown
I recently...
Matt Blewitt
Lua: The Little Language That Could
Lua is probably my favourite “little language” - a language designed to have low cognitive load, and...
a year ago
Lua is probably my favourite “little language” - a language designed to have low cognitive load, and be easy to learn and use. It’s embedded in a lot of software, such as Redis, NGINX via OpenResty and Wireshark. It’s also used as a scripting language in games such as World of...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Gitcoin Grants Round 9: The Next Phase of Growth
over a year ago
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.
./techtipsy
My very first career day
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the...
10 months ago
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the help of GreenDice.
I’ve never spoken at a career day before nor attended one as a student, which is why I instantly agreed to going to one
when GreenDice reached out to me.
Why? I...
Louwrentius
Apple is killing off the optical drive just like the floppy disk
With the release of the new MacBook Air we are one step closer to killing off
the cd-rom and the...
over a year ago
With the release of the new MacBook Air we are one step closer to killing off
the cd-rom and the dvd. As with the previous MacBook Air, this device has no
optical drive. And that is a good thing. People do not need an optical drive.
You have the network and you have USB disks....
Jonas Hietala
Poking at Emacs
I’ve been a vim vim fan for a while now and with some recent configs I’m starting to feel pretty...
over a year ago
I’ve been a vim vim fan for a while now and with some recent configs I’m starting to feel pretty confident and happy with it. For those who don’t know it’s basically a text editor, like notepad, but with a lot of keycommands which allows you to edit code (and text in general)...
Neil Madden
A controversial opinion about REST API design
I was just reading yet another article on REST API design guidelines. Some of it is good advice,...
a year ago
I was just reading yet another article on REST API design guidelines. Some of it is good advice, some of it I could quibble with. But several of the rules are about how to design the path hierarchy of your API: use plural nouns, don’t use nested sub-paths unnecessarily, etc. In...
Home on Erik...
My favorite management failures
For most people straight out of school, work life is a bit of a culture shock. For me it was an...
over a year ago
For most people straight out of school, work life is a bit of a culture shock. For me it was an awesome experience, but a lot of the constraints were different and I had to learn to optimize for different things.
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...
Arduino Blog
The web-based Arduino Lab for MicroPython Editor is out! With Chromebook support to code Alvik and...
We’re excited to announce the release of the web-based version of the Arduino Lab for MicroPython...
a month ago
We’re excited to announce the release of the web-based version of the Arduino Lab for MicroPython Editor. This lightweight platform makes it even easier to code with MicroPython using Arduino hardware such as Alvik, Nano ESP32, Nano RP2040 Connect, Nano 33 BLE Sense – and more!...
Vitalik Buterin's...
In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP
Reparing an old Nintendo Gameboy Advance to play classic Zelda again.
over a year ago
Reparing an old Nintendo Gameboy Advance to play classic Zelda again.
Home on Erik...
Toxic meeting culture
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading...
over a year ago
I spent six years at a company that went from 50 people to 1500 and one contributing factor leading to my departure was that I went from a “maker” to a person stuck in meetings every day.
latest projects -...
Robot Slide Whistle Orchestrion
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
8 months ago
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside a vintage aerospace navigation computer of uncertain purpose
I recently obtained an aerospace computer from the early 1970s, apparently part of a navigation...
6 months ago
I recently obtained an aerospace computer from the early 1970s, apparently part of a navigation system.
Aerospace computers are an interesting but mostly neglected area of computer hardware, so I'm always delighted to
examine one up close.
In an era when most computers were large...
computers are bad
2023-02-13 my homelab
I have always found the term "homelab" a little confusing. It's a bit like the
residential version...
a year ago
I have always found the term "homelab" a little confusing. It's a bit like the
residential version of "on-premises cloud," in that it seems to presuppose that
a lab is the normal place that you find computer equipment. Of course I get
that "homelab" is usually used by those who...
Willem's Blog
Wearing two watches
Why you should wear two watches, don't choose between a mechanical watch and a smartwatch!
over a year ago
Why you should wear two watches, don't choose between a mechanical watch and a smartwatch!
Louwrentius
This blog is now running on solar power
Introduction
This blog is now running on solar power.
I've put a solar panel on my balcony, which...
over a year ago
Introduction
This blog is now running on solar power.
I've put a solar panel on my balcony, which is connected to a solar charge controller. This device charges an old worn-out car battery and provides power to a Raspberry Pi ~~3b+~~ 4B, which in turn powers this (static)...
Jonas Hietala
Balls
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god...
over a year ago
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god I’ll be making another tetris clone but the end result turned out a bit different. I’m not sure it’s very addictive but it’s actually okay! =D
Balls is a game about… balls. Well...
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,...
2 weeks ago
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...
Implicit data and collaborative filtering
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right?...
over a year ago
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right? People rate things 1-5 stars and then you have to predict missing ratings.
While there's no doubt that the Netflix Prize was successful, I think it created an illusion that all...
Home on Erik...
More Luigi!
Elias Freider just talked about Luigi at PyData 2013:
The presentation above is much better than one...
over a year ago
Elias Freider just talked about Luigi at PyData 2013:
The presentation above is much better than one I put together a few weeks ago. In case anyone is interested I'll include it too:
Electronics etc…
Hideo Okawara’s Mixed Signal Lecture Series
Introduction
Hideo Okawara’s Mixed Signal Lecture Series
Frequency/Phase Movement Analysis by...
11 months ago
Introduction
Hideo Okawara’s Mixed Signal Lecture Series
Frequency/Phase Movement Analysis by Orthogonal Demodulation
Misc
Introduction
While researching a DSP related topic, Google dug up an excellent article,
written by Hideo Okawara, that is just one part of a series of ~53. I...
Applied Cartography
Tailwind black magic: styling paragraphs within tables
The new version of the Buttondown docs site is all in on Keystatic, Markdoc, and Tailwind's...
8 months ago
The new version of the Buttondown docs site is all in on Keystatic, Markdoc, and Tailwind's typography plugin — which makes it really easy to author beautiful docs in plaintext.
We ran into one small issue, which is that the Markdoc renderer likes to place paragraph tags in table...
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...
Home on Erik...
It's called Berkson's paradox!
As noted by multiple tweets, my previous post describes a phenomenon denoted Berkson's...
over a year ago
As noted by multiple tweets, my previous post describes a phenomenon denoted Berkson's paradox.
Here's another example: Why Are Handsome Men Such Jerks?
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: More mods
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and...
9 months ago
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and personalize it.
There a tons of mods you can do, and while I’ve done a few there are lots more that I’d like to do some day.
It’s a wonderful feeling to augment the printer with...
Notes on software...
Errors and Zig
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing...
a year ago
At TigerBeetle these last few weeks I've been doing a mix of
documenting client libraries, writing sample code for client
libraries, and writing integration tests against the sample code.
The client library documentation is generated with a Zig script. The
sample code is...
Applied Cartography
Notes on ActivityPub
By far the single most-fruitful tactic has been "just look at raw GET responses from Mastodon and...
7 months ago
By far the single most-fruitful tactic has been "just look at raw GET responses from Mastodon and see what things are shaped like." I know that "ActivityPub is under-specified" is a bit of a meme, but it's wild how little prior art there is.
Something that gives distinctly bad...
computers are bad
2024-01-31 multi-channel audio part 2
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple...
10 months ago
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple formats. Most of the time, there is a stereo version of the
audio, and a multi-channel version of the audio that is perhaps 5.1 or 7.1 and
compressed using one of several codecs that...
Jonas Hietala
Back to lazy.nvim
Around a month ago I had an affair with rocks.nvim.
It was fun, but I’m back together with lazy.nvim...
6 months ago
Around a month ago I had an affair with rocks.nvim.
It was fun, but I’m back together with lazy.nvim again.
This is a short post to explain why—at this point in time—the grass wasn’t greener on the other side.
Problems with rocks.nvim
Too many weird issues.
I had quite a few...
Arduino Blog
Storing ephemeral micropoetry on RFID cards for bite-sized readings
Most people don’t consume poetry in the same way that they do novels. Instead of reading a book of...
3 months ago
Most people don’t consume poetry in the same way that they do novels. Instead of reading a book of poetry from cover-to-cover over the course of a few sessions, the majority of people seem to prefer enjoying poetry in occasional little chunks. And unlike the epic poems of Greek...
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...
Willem's Blog
Optimising images for the web and performance
Make your website faster by optimising the images. This posts explains how you can do this.
over a year ago
Make your website faster by optimising the images. This posts explains how you can do this.
axio.ms
MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building...
6 months ago
A microcontroller Macintosh
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building a simple desktop/GUI for it. I’d made a comment along the lines of “or, just run some old OS”, and it got me thinking about the original Macintosh.
The original Macintosh was...
Willem's Blog
Minimalistic road bike with Gates carbon drive
For the past few months I have been riding the Schindelhauer Siegfried Road bike with the Gates CDX...
over a year ago
For the past few months I have been riding the Schindelhauer Siegfried Road bike with the Gates CDX Carbon Drive, read about this beautiful minimal bike in this post.
Arduino Blog
Create your own affordable Arduino-powered smart glasses
When Google Glass launched in 2013, the public opinion seemed to be “interesting technology, but the...
7 months ago
When Google Glass launched in 2013, the public opinion seemed to be “interesting technology, but the world isn’t ready yet.” Now that more than a decade has passed, the world may finally be ready — especially with the omission of controversial features like video recording. If...
Jonas Hietala
Monty Hall
I’m currently reading The Drunkard’s Walk, a well written book about probabilities.
There they...
over a year ago
I’m currently reading The Drunkard’s Walk, a well written book about probabilities.
There they discussed the famous Monty Hall Problem. I’ve heard about it before
and I know the answer, but he mentioned a simulation of the problem and that sounded
cool so I made a simulation of...
Good Enough
The Element of Surprise
Good Enough happens to be a remote team. This isn't from some strongly-held belief that remote is...
a year ago
Good Enough happens to be a remote team. This isn't from some strongly-held belief that remote is best, but rather as a side effect of how we all happened to meet each other. We met remotely, we did not end up all moving into some commune, and so to work together we must work...
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...
Matt Blewitt
Death, and Utsuge
This post discusses topics some may wish to avoid: terminal illness, hospice care, death, and...
a month ago
This post discusses topics some may wish to avoid: terminal illness, hospice care, death, and Japanese visual novels.
Applied Cartography
Globals in Histoire
Histoire, like so many other tools in the Vue ecosystem, is a bit of a neglected younger sibling to...
9 months ago
Histoire, like so many other tools in the Vue ecosystem, is a bit of a neglected younger sibling to Storybook — a little bit uglier, with worse documentation and a couple rough edges, but much more tightly integrated with Vue and Vite. [1]
One thing that was not particularly...
Engineers Need Art
Jigsaw Puzzle
Those of us who fiddled while Apple Computer burned. Well, actually some of us put together a big...
over a year ago
Those of us who fiddled while Apple Computer burned. Well, actually some of us put together a big jigsaw puzzle.
Notes on software...
Exploring a Postgres query plan
I learned this week that you can intercept and redirect Postgres query
execution. You can hook into...
a year ago
I learned this week that you can intercept and redirect Postgres query
execution. You can hook into the execution layer so you're given a
query plan and you get to decide what to do with it. What rows to
return, if any, and where they come from.
That's very interesting. So I...
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...
over a year ago
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...
Home on Erik...
Momentum and mean reversion might just be volatility bias
The Economist just published an article called The best, the worst and the ugly. By looking at...
over a year ago
The Economist just published an article called The best, the worst and the ugly. By looking at historical performance for mutual funds, they find strong support for momentum and mean reversion. Picking the best or the worst fund over the previous five years gives great returns...
Matt Mullenweg
Those Other Lawsuits
It’s a heavy day, and I’m sad to write this. Not sure where to start. In 2022, a lawyer recruited...
2 months ago
It’s a heavy day, and I’m sad to write this. Not sure where to start. In 2022, a lawyer recruited two people who took care of my Mom—an assistant and one of her dozen nurses—to resign and demand a million dollars each, or they would publish horrible things about her in a lawsuit....
Willem's Blog
Commuter bike checkup
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to...
over a year ago
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to have a look at the bike after 21.000KM!
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...
Jonas Hietala
On The Decline of FPS Games
Mr. Eriksson just sent me this link as a fitting video on my post on The Decline of FPS...
over a year ago
Mr. Eriksson just sent me this link as a fitting video on my post on The Decline of FPS Games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU
Oh How true!
Home on Erik...
How to set compensation using commonsense principles
Compensation has always been one of the most confusing parts of management to me. Getting it right...
over a year ago
Compensation has always been one of the most confusing parts of management to me. Getting it right is obviously extremely important. Compensation is what drives our entire economy, and you could look at the market for labor as one gigantic resource-allocating machine in the same...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Sidechains vs Plasma vs Sharding
over a year ago
Home on Erik...
Microsoft's new marketing strategy: give up
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to...
over a year ago
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to appeal to that target audience. Their new marketing strategy finally admits what's been long known: the correlation between “business casual” and using Microsoft products:
Louwrentius
20 disk 18 TB RAID 6 storage based on Debian Linux
This system is no longer operational and has been decomissioned (2017)
This is my NAS storage server...
over a year ago
This system is no longer operational and has been decomissioned (2017)
This is my NAS storage server based on Debian Linux. It uses software RAID and 20 one
terrabyte hard drives. It provides a total usable storage capacity of 18 terrabytes in a single RAID 6 array.
One of the...
./techtipsy
The Fedora Linux starter pack: everything you need for a smooth experience
I like Fedora Linux.
It’s the Linux distro that stopped my habit of distro-hopping. Big
deal? Ooh,...
2 months ago
I like Fedora Linux.
It’s the Linux distro that stopped my habit of distro-hopping. Big
deal? Ooh, big deal!
It’s stable in day-to-day use, ships with up-to-date software, and the software selection is adequate out of the box.
It also ships with a fresh Linux kernel version1,...
Matt Mullenweg
Automattic Alignment
Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Since I last blogged here, WP Engine...
2 months ago
Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Since I last blogged here, WP Engine filed a meritless lawsuit and Automattic responded, and there’s been a hurricane of public activity and press. Inside of Automattic, there’s been a parallel debate and process....
Posts on Made of...
Indices point between elements
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a...
over a year ago
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a diagram of an array, the array indices, and the array elements, odds are good you’d produce a diagram something like this:
In this post, I want to persuade you to replace that image, or,...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
What kind of work I want
This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of...
over a year ago
This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of places I’d like to work. The short version…
Louwrentius
Compiling Ceph on the Raspberry Pi 3B+ (armhf) using Clang/LLVM
UPDATE 2019 / 2020
There are official ARM64 binaries of Ceph that you can run on a 64-bit version of...
over a year ago
UPDATE 2019 / 2020
There are official ARM64 binaries of Ceph that you can run on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 18.04.
Important: I consider this page obsolete. I will keep it up for transparency's sake
Introduction
In this blog post I'll show you how to compile Ceph Luminous for...
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...
watchTowr Labs -...
Auth. Bypass In (Un)Limited Scenarios - Progress MOVEit Transfer (CVE-2024-5806)
In the early hours of a day in a month in 2024, watchTowr Labs was sent a chat log:
13:37 -!-...
6 months ago
In the early hours of a day in a month in 2024, watchTowr Labs was sent a chat log:
13:37 -!- dav1d_bl41ne [def_not_phalanx@kernel.org] has joined #!hack (irc.efnet.nl)
13:37 -!- dav1d_bl41ne changed the topic of #!hack to: mag1c sh0w
Vitalik Buterin's...
STARKs, Part II: Thank Goodness It's FRI-day
over a year ago
GitButler
Git Merge 2024
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
2 months ago
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
Old Vintage...
After 41 years, my first assembly program on my first computer, the Tomy Tutor
We got it in 1983, I think, so it only took me about 41 years to get around to it. This Tomy Tutor...
9 months ago
We got it in 1983, I think, so it only took me about 41 years to get around to it. This Tomy Tutor isn't a replacement system I secondarily acquired, nor is it a Ship of Theseus Frankenstein rebuild. This is my actual first computer, in its original case, on its original...
./techtipsy
Tech tip: eliminate HDD humming noise
Anyone that has bought themselves external WD drives from the Elements/My Book/Easystore series are...
over a year ago
Anyone that has bought themselves external WD drives from the Elements/My Book/Easystore series are probably familiar
with the acoustic characteristics of the drives. The drives have a loud hum caused
by WD running the drives at 7200rpm while claiming the drives to be...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 4: The Verge
2 months ago
Posts on Made of...
Some musings on ORMs
I’m pretty sure every developer who has ever worked with a modern database-backed application,...
over a year ago
I’m pretty sure every developer who has ever worked with a modern database-backed application, particularly a web-app, has a love/hate relationship with their ORM, or object-relational mapper.
On the one hand, ORMs are vastly more pleasant to work with than code that constructs...
Willem's Blog
Something the smartwatch will never have: patina
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
over a year ago
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
./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...
a month ago
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...
Avestura's Blog
Understanding zero-knowledge proofs
What are zero-knowledge proofs, really?
over a year ago
What are zero-knowledge proofs, really?
Louwrentius
Creating configuration backups of HP procurve switches
I've created a tool called procurve-watch. It creates a backup of the running switch configuration...
over a year ago
I've created a tool called procurve-watch. It creates a backup of the running switch configuration through secure shell (using scp).
It also diffs backed up configurations against older versions, in order to keep track of changes. If you run the script from cron every hour or...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The near and mid-term future of improving the Ethereum network's permissionlessness and...
7 months ago
Notes on software...
Writing a simple JSON path parser
Let's say we want to implement a simple list filtering language so
we can enter a.b = 12 and return...
over a year ago
Let's say we want to implement a simple list filtering language so
we can enter a.b = 12 and return only results in a
list where the a column is an object that contains a
field b that is set to the value 12. What would a
filter(jsonPath, equals, listOfObjects) function...
Jonas Hietala
Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar
One of my favorite features in Neovim is the Tree-sitter integration.
It allows for fast syntax...
9 months ago
One of my favorite features in Neovim is the Tree-sitter integration.
It allows for fast syntax highlighting that works well even in an error state (often the case when you’re editing code), and it has additional semantics (you can differentiate between function parameters and...
anderegg.ca
The trouble with openness
Back in the early 2000s, there was this nebulous idea called the semantic web. It never really went...
3 weeks ago
Back in the early 2000s, there was this nebulous idea called the semantic web. It never really went anywhere, but I found it exciting at the time.
One piece that particularly spoke to me was the notion of including data in websites so that web scrapers could easily get at it....
lcamtuf’s thing
Deep dive: the (in)stability of op-amps
A closer look at op-amp feedback loops and the stability criteria for circuits that use them.
a month ago
A closer look at op-amp feedback loops and the stability criteria for circuits that use them.
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Learning incident response with problem sets
It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production...
over a year ago
It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production is essential, but how do you build that…
Style over Substance
Guy’s Cool Tools
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their...
over a year ago
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their recommendations for years. So much, so that I even started a Pinterest board filled with my own recommendations. But after a few years of running into the limitations of the form, I...
Opsbros
Debug Header
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor...
over a year ago
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor driver connected to a Raspberry Pi, I thought a breakout header might help; so I whipped up this little board.
Applied Cartography
Is cool enough?
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL...
9 months ago
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL manipulation. They look like great libraries, and a prior version of me would have taken a brief set of cursory
glances at the hodgepodge of janky URL manipulation code that I wrote for...
Willem's Blog
Talking tablets: what makes a great tablet?
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be...
over a year ago
Over the past few weeks I worked with Microsoft Surface Pro X to see if it is any good, can it be your main computer?
Arduino Blog
“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...
Applied Cartography
Gosling’s Old Rum
Virginia has draconian liquor laws, which means I have to get interesting bottles shipped from...
10 months ago
Virginia has draconian liquor laws, which means I have to get interesting bottles shipped from [REDACTED], a site on which I am very prone to judging a book by its cover; every month I'll end up purchasing a bottle of something purely because it looks interesting and I can...
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...
Odds and Ends of...
Why we need seven bins
It's time for some #binchat
6 days ago
It's time for some #binchat
Matt Mullenweg
State of the Word Tokyo
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an...
6 days ago
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. We’ve...
Engineers Need Art
SystemSix
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an...
over a year ago
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an e-ink display.
Opsbros
Nix Windows Feedback
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
over a year ago
There turns out to be a far easier way to disable the 'Win+F' Windows Feedback app.
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.
lcamtuf’s thing
Random objects: Guycot & Jarre
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
6 months ago
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
Louwrentius
My home lab server with 20 cores / 40 threads and 128 GB memory
Update fall 2024
I have decided to decomission this machine and it is no longer in use.
As of this...
over a year ago
Update fall 2024
I have decided to decomission this machine and it is no longer in use.
As of this moment, it's replaced by a cluster of four 1L PCs which use about a third of the idle power usage and boot within 20 seconds. The single-core performance of these low-power 1L PCs...
./techtipsy
Things I've learned during my self-hosting adventure
This is a list of lessons that I’ve learned while playing around with my computer setup during the...
over a year ago
This is a list of lessons that I’ve learned while playing around with my computer setup during the last 6-7 years or so.
USB connected storage is a bad idea when you are using BTRFS.
USB connected storage is still a bad idea when you are using ZFS, but it is at least much more...
Louwrentius
Performance monitoring using dstat
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is...
over a year ago
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is currently happening on your Linux box.
Dstat allows you to monitor the system load, disk troughput, disk io, network
bandwith, and many more items.
Dstat is so valuable because it...
Good Enough
Having Trouble Getting Started? Pair Up!
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on...
a year ago
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by a net external force.
Sir Isaac Newton
I often find that just getting started is the hardest part of doing something. This is especially true when the project is large or...
Jonas Hietala
Building my ultimate keyboard
The Cybershard keyboard.
What comes to mind when you see the description “the ultimate...
3 weeks ago
The Cybershard keyboard.
What comes to mind when you see the description “the ultimate keyboard”?
There are many keyboards in this world; here are some that might fit the “ultimate” moniker:
Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate mechanical keyboard
DataHand
Ergodox EZ
Glove80
Happy...
Push to Prod
4 Ways To Say No, Elegantly and Effectively
In my early days at Netflix, my inability to say no led me into unpleasant terrain. Here's how I...
3 months ago
In my early days at Netflix, my inability to say no led me into unpleasant terrain. Here's how I evolved to navigate these situations more fluidly.
Applied Cartography
Finding null JSON values in Postgres
Postgres' JSONB functionality is fast and useful but when I find myself dropping down from the...
7 months ago
Postgres' JSONB functionality is fast and useful but when I find myself dropping down from the Django ORM into
SQL to do weird things, the syntax strikes me as confusing and arcane. As such, when I need to do esoteric things it
takes me longer time than I'd like, and in hopes...
Louwrentius
Firewire: the forgotten security risk
The battle between Firewire and USB has been won by USB, but Firewire is still
arround. It is not...
over a year ago
The battle between Firewire and USB has been won by USB, but Firewire is still
arround. It is not that prevalent, cheap computers lack Firewire, but they often
have a PCMCIA slot.
The thing is this: Firewire allows direct access to all RAM of your computer.
An attacker...
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.
Applied Cartography
Notes on Zed, revisited
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a...
2 months ago
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a lot of great choices and felt really good to use, but lacked parity with VS Code's feature/ecosystem to its detriment.
Six months later, I spent a few days using it as my daily...
Old Vintage...
xa (xa65) 2.4.1
A quick one: xa (xa65), André Fachat's compatible fast two-pass cross-assembler for 6502, 65C02,...
9 months ago
A quick one: xa (xa65), André Fachat's compatible fast two-pass cross-assembler for 6502, 65C02, R65C02 and 65816 processors that André and I maintain is now at version 2.4.1. This optionally expands the syntax from 2.4.0 and fixes some bugs primarily with relocatable .o65...
Home on Erik...
Simple sabotage for software
CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out...
a year ago
CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out various ways for infiltrators to ruin productivity of a company. Some of the advice is timeless, for instance the section about “General interference with Organizations and...
axio.ms
32-bit hat, with LEDs
Built in November 2015 (now-traditional multi-year writeup delay applied)
A hat,...
over a year ago
Built in November 2015 (now-traditional multi-year writeup delay applied)
A hat, bejewelled with 38 RGB LEDs
Is this thing on..? It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these.
So, the hat. It’s been on the writeup pile for almost 6 years, nagging away. Finally...
Posts on Made of...
Running Tensorflow on AWS GPUs
I’ve been spending some time learning deep learning and tensorflow recently, and as part of that...
over a year ago
I’ve been spending some time learning deep learning and tensorflow recently, and as part of that project I wanted to be able to train models using GPUs on EC2. This post contains some notes on what it took to get that working. As many people have commented, the environment setup...
Posts on Made of...
A brief look at Linux's security record
After the fuss of the last two weeks because of CVE-2010-3081 and CVE-2010-3301, I decided to take a...
over a year ago
After the fuss of the last two weeks because of CVE-2010-3081 and CVE-2010-3301, I decided to take a look at a handful of the high-profile privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Linux from the last few years. So, here's a summary of the ones I picked out. There are also a large...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows NT 4
Taking the Server Market
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Iterate or die
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a...
over a year ago
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a company innovates is limited by its iteration speed.
I don't even mean throughput here. I just mean the cycle time.
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
Back to Training
Five days of school now and things are starting to settle down a bit. The courses are pretty cool;...
over a year ago
Five days of school now and things are starting to settle down a bit. The courses are pretty cool; we have linear algebra which is pretty interesting, we have a java course where we’re going to make a game (!) and one about structures and algorithms. Pretty promising but we’ll...
Willem's Blog
Climbing Mount Etna
Climbing Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily Italy.
over a year ago
Climbing Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily Italy.
Engineers Need Art
Apple Interview (1995)
Recalling my somewhat unusual interview with Apple back in 1995.
over a year ago
Recalling my somewhat unusual interview with Apple back in 1995.
Good Enough
TIL: Merge nested attributes in Rails permit params
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting...
a year ago
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting refamiliarized with nested parameters in Rails has been interesting.
In this case imagine I have a discussion that, when creating it I also want to create the first comment.
The...
Simply Explained
MAX17043: Battery Monitoring Done Right (Arduino & ESP32)
Building a battery-powered IoT device? Then you'll want to monitor the battery's percentage. Here's...
over a year ago
Building a battery-powered IoT device? Then you'll want to monitor the battery's percentage. Here's how to do it properly.
Home on Erik...
My issue with GPU-accelerated deep learning
I've been spending several hundred bucks renting GPU instances on AWS over the last year. The...
over a year ago
I've been spending several hundred bucks renting GPU instances on AWS over the last year. The speedup from a GPU is awesome and hard to deny. GPUs have taken over the field. Maybe following the footsteps of Bitcoin mining there's some research on using FPGA (I know very little...
Louwrentius
The kind of sound you never want to hear from your computer
The sounds of hard drives that have perished
These sounds are only frightening or scary if you...
over a year ago
The sounds of hard drives that have perished
These sounds are only frightening or scary if you imagine your precious data
only exists on that failing drive. If you make consistent and frequent backups
and/or you run a fault-tolerant RAID flavour, it is but a nuisance.
./techtipsy
Tiered storage: use the right tool for the job
Hard drives are still the default choice for many homelab and data hoarding
enthusiasts. They still...
a year ago
Hard drives are still the default choice for many homelab and data hoarding
enthusiasts. They still hold the gigabytes per dollar advantage over SSD-s (for now),
and if you buy the big external drives and take the drives out of the enclosures,
you can get a pretty good...
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...
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...
Jonas Hietala
2014 in Review
Previous reviews: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
2014 Geek Achievements
Solved 73 UVa problems.
Won a...
over a year ago
Previous reviews: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
2014 Geek Achievements
Solved 73 UVa problems.
Won a turn in IMPA and solved a bunch of problems.
Completed a doctorand course about algorithmic problem solving.
Finished my 4 first years in University.
Became a contributor to rust and...
./techtipsy
What I've learned running Linux and Windows off of USB flash drives
I’ve recently made an effort to reduce the amount of tech stuff that I own. Lack of space, lack of...
2 weeks ago
I’ve recently made an effort to reduce the amount of tech stuff that I own. Lack of space, lack of time and the guilt
of storing perfectly functional hardware unused in a box were the main motivators.
This has resulted in experiments with my assortment of USB flash storage that...
Matt Blewitt
Unreasonably Effective Patterns
Much of my current job is maintaining and enhancing control planes for Heroku’s managed data...
over a year ago
Much of my current job is maintaining and enhancing control planes for Heroku’s managed data services. This post explores three patterns used to reduce operational burden and increase system safety and resiliency: state machines (and associated state-transition tables),...
Jonas Hietala
Weekend Tournaments
This weekend was filled by playing cards. On Saturday I hosted a small Game of Thrones tournament...
over a year ago
This weekend was filled by playing cards. On Saturday I hosted a small Game of Thrones tournament and on Sunday the local Netrunner community hosted a small summer kit tournament.
Game of Thrones
We’ve had a similar tournament once before when me and my girlfriend invited two of...
Willem's Blog
Snake '97 High Scores
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was...
over a year ago
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was totally WOW!
Louwrentius
Scanning many hosts in parallel with Nmap using PPSS
Scanning a large number of hosts using Nmap often takes a lot of time. During
this time, no output...
over a year ago
Scanning a large number of hosts using Nmap often takes a lot of time. During
this time, no output is written to a file or disk. Only when Nmap is finished,
is all output written to the output file. Often, I want to start processing
results of hosts that have already been...
Louwrentius
Difference of behavior in SATA Solid State Drives
Introduction
Update: I've noticed some strange behavior of SSDs when benchmarking them with FIO....
over a year ago
Introduction
Update: I've noticed some strange behavior of SSDs when benchmarking them with FIO. After further investigation and additional testing, I've found the reason for the strange patterns in the graphs.
The 'strange' test results are due to the fact that they were...
Jonas Hietala
The ASIC pit of despair
Monero has once again changed the POW to brick ASICs following confirmation that 85% of Monero’s...
over a year ago
Monero has once again changed the POW to brick ASICs following confirmation that 85% of Monero’s hashrate were ASICs.
Recurring hard forks to brick ASICs is a very dangerous game and what better to illustrate this than with an xkcd-style plot?
You’re safe on the edges but how do...
Louwrentius
Visual representation of hard drives and their temperature
If you build a NAS with many drives, it may be of interest to you which
drives get hot and where...
over a year ago
If you build a NAS with many drives, it may be of interest to you which
drives get hot and where they are located in the chassis. My Norco 4020 case
has twenty drives in RAID 6, plus two operating system drives in RAID 1. I
wrote a script that shows me the temperature of each...
./techtipsy
Turning leftover PC parts into a decent gaming PC
Introduction
About a year ago, I bought an used PC based off of
a Lenovo Erazer X510. It had a...
over a year ago
Introduction
About a year ago, I bought an used PC based off of
a Lenovo Erazer X510. It had a dual-core Intel Pentium
G3220 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a crappy Codegen 400W power supply and a 60GB SSD. I added an Nvidia GTX 1050 and just like
that, a budget gaming PC was born. My...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Noise
The build is going well and the printer is printing tons of random stuff and I’m generally in awe of...
9 months ago
The build is going well and the printer is printing tons of random stuff and I’m generally in awe of how cool the printer is.
But there’s one thing that sucks: it’s damn loud.
I knew that it wouldn’t be silent, but I wasn’t prepared for this kind of noise.
Silent controller...
Willem's Blog
MUSE in Carré
MUSE's legendary rock fused with Amsterdam's Royal Theatre Carré for an unforgettable, electrifying...
over a year ago
MUSE's legendary rock fused with Amsterdam's Royal Theatre Carré for an unforgettable, electrifying experience - read about my experience!
Vitalik Buterin's...
An incomplete guide to stealth addresses
a year ago
latest projects -...
Light comms on the 003
[Hardware] Tiny terrahertz transmissions
4 months ago
[Hardware] Tiny terrahertz transmissions
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...
over a year ago
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...
Louwrentius
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...
over a year ago
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...
Jonas Hietala
My book 'Why Cryptocurrencies?' is done
My first commit on my book Why Cryptocurrencies? is from Dec 19, 2018, and now about 17 months later...
over a year ago
My first commit on my book Why Cryptocurrencies? is from Dec 19, 2018, and now about 17 months later and 1006 more commits I’m finally done!
Well, I’m done with the online version at least. I still plan to create an e-book, a PDF and a paperback and who knows how long that will...
Louwrentius
Understanding the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Server Autoinstaller
Introduction
Ubuntu Server version 18.04 LTS uses the debian-installer (d-i) for the installation...
over a year ago
Introduction
Ubuntu Server version 18.04 LTS uses the debian-installer (d-i) for the installation process. This includes support for 'preseeding' to create unattended (automated) installations of ubuntu.
the debian installer
With the introduction of Ubuntu Server 20.04 'Focal...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Cantor was Wrong: debunking the infinite set hierarchy
over a year ago
Opsbros
The Bindicator
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it....
over a year ago
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it. The one shown is the Rev-1 design which is far from perfect, in fact it has several major issues I will discuss below, however it definitely works,
Jonas Hietala
Reinstalling Slackware
So I reinstalled slackware on my machine and decided to take some rough notes of the most important...
over a year ago
So I reinstalled slackware on my machine and decided to take some rough notes of the most important steps I made. I did not document the steps in detail, and some are very specific for my setup. But maybe it can be useful for someone, or myself.
Basic steps
Make slackware usb...
Jonas Hietala
Establishing Habits with Habitica
I have used Habitica the last 18 months to organize my habits and things I want to get done. I...
over a year ago
I have used Habitica the last 18 months to organize my habits and things I want to get done. I believe it all started with an amazing book called The Power of Habit which describes the amazing benefits habits can give, both in the context of your own life but also in business....
Birchtree
Gemini 2.0: speed and deep research impress
From The Keyword Google blog: Introducing Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era
Today...
a week ago
From The Keyword Google blog: Introducing Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era
Today we’re excited to launch our next era of models built for this new agentic era: introducing Gemini 2.0, our most capable model yet. With new advances in multimodality —
Willem's Blog
Collecting health data with Biostrap
Wearing a clinical-grade PPG sensor for a month to collect advanced biometrics from my wrist.
over a year ago
Wearing a clinical-grade PPG sensor for a month to collect advanced biometrics from my wrist.
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...
Gwern.net Newsletter
March 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
2 major new site features: 'popins' and recursive Wikipedia popups
over a year ago
2 major new site features: 'popins' and recursive Wikipedia popups
Style over Substance
Adding night shading to a Home Assistant mini-graph-card chart
One of my favorite Lovelace interface cards for Home Assistant is the mini-graph-card by kalkih....
over a year ago
One of my favorite Lovelace interface cards for Home Assistant is the mini-graph-card by kalkih. It’s the card running most of the graphs in our smart home‘s dashboard. Surprisingly, mini-graph card is actually not included in Home Assistant by default – honestly, it should be,...
Applied Cartography
Incumbency
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt...
5 months ago
Andrew Rea with an interesting and increasingly familiar take about how AI will disrupt software-focused private equity:
Distribution and brand moats can protect your legacy products for a while (esp in enterprise) but eventually you get lapped by competitors with better...
Louwrentius
My 71 TiB ZFS NAS after 10 years and zero drive failures
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going...
3 months ago
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going strong.
Although now on its second motherboard and power supply, the system has yet to experience a single drive failure (knock on wood).
Zero drive failures in ten years, how is that...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Central Planning as Overfitting
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
A Vacation Filled with Obsession
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to...
over a year ago
A nice thing about school are the nice long vacations. Directly after my last exam we went north to our dear home village Övertorneå and spent two weeks celebrating Christmas and New Years Eve. What did we do? I practiced some obsessive behavior with Power Grid and Minecraft (and...
Vitalik Buterin's...
How do trusted setups work?
over a year ago
Louwrentius
ZFS performance on HP Proliant Microserver Gen8 G1610T
I think the HP Proliant Microserver Gen8 is a very interesting little box if you want to build your...
over a year ago
I think the HP Proliant Microserver Gen8 is a very interesting little box if you want to build your own ZFS-based NAS. The benchmarks I've performed seem to confirm this.
The Microserver Gen8 has nice features such as:
iLO (KVM over IP with dedicated network interface)
support...
Jonas Hietala
The Little Things in Life
It’s the little things in life that makes it extra special. Sometimes it’s the luxury of coffee...
over a year ago
It’s the little things in life that makes it extra special. Sometimes it’s the luxury of coffee together with the morning paper and other times it’s just a small simple smile from a random stranger, kid or dog. Today when I got this bad headache I got saved by a two hour nap and...
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):...
Lighthouse Blog
Overview of the reading view
6 months ago
Louwrentius
Calculating EXT2 EXT3 EXT4 stride size when using RAID
When formatting a RAID device with an EXT filesystem, it is always advised to
specify a stride size....
over a year ago
When formatting a RAID device with an EXT filesystem, it is always advised to
specify a stride size. The format utility will take this stride size into
account when formatting a device. The stride size is the number you get when
you divide the 'chunck' size, as specified with...
./techtipsy
LattePanda V1 - my experience with a Raspberry Pi alternative
As with many homelab experiments around 2022/2023, it all started with Raspberry Pi-s
being either...
a year ago
As with many homelab experiments around 2022/2023, it all started with Raspberry Pi-s
being either out of stock or absurdly overpriced.
I once noticed a listing for a LattePanda V1 on a local auction site.
The price was reasonable at 45 EUR, and after I looked at the...
lcamtuf’s thing
Electric chainsaws and the gorge of misery
Lithium batteries are great -- so why do mid-size electric power tools suck in 2024?
4 months ago
Lithium batteries are great -- so why do mid-size electric power tools suck in 2024?
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...
computers are bad
2024-09-26 the GE switched services network
We currently find ourselves in something of a series, working our way from
private lines to...
2 months ago
We currently find ourselves in something of a series, working our way from
private lines to large
private line systems like the four-wire private-line national warning
system.
Let's continue to build on the concept of the private line into large
corporate systems.
In principle, a...
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...
Willem's Blog
Six months with MCADD
It's six months since our son was born with MCADD, a good moment to reflect upon the experience of...
over a year ago
It's six months since our son was born with MCADD, a good moment to reflect upon the experience of being a parent with some thoughts and tips.
Louwrentius
Cryptocurrencies are detrimental to society
Want to listen to this article?
audio element.
Introduction
How would you explain the inner...
over a year ago
Want to listen to this article?
audio element.
Introduction
How would you explain the inner workings of bitcoin to a person in simple, understandable terms?
source
This explanation seems perfect to me because it illustrates some seriously problematic aspects of...
Matt Mullenweg
Falling Snow
The talented Felix Arntz has given an incredible Christmas gift to the WordPress community with his...
4 days ago
The talented Felix Arntz has given an incredible Christmas gift to the WordPress community with his fast, light, and accessible Snow Fall plugin, which is live on this site and you can install on yours. I hope everyone is having a happy holidays! Search for “snow fall” in your...
Notes on software...
Finishing up a FreeBSD experiment
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and...
over a year ago
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and I've learned a hell of a
lot forcing myself on CURRENT... But there's been a number of issues
with it that have made it difficult to keep using, so I replaced it
with Arch Linux...
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.
Arduino Blog
The end of Mbed marks a new beginning for Arduino
As you might have heard, on July 9th, Arm announced that the Mbed platform and OS are officially...
5 months ago
As you might have heard, on July 9th, Arm announced that the Mbed platform and OS are officially destined to reach end of life in July 2026, and therefore will no longer be maintained. The news has sent ripples through the embedded development community, particularly affecting...
Good Enough
TIL: Turbo Stream and personalised content
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages...
a year ago
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages without requiring the browser to reload the whole page.
But if the information you want to stream back from your server to the client has anything specific to the current user — like...
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...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates November 24: Content parsing improvements
a year ago
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 2 (Linting)
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
Jonas Hietala
Black and White
Here it is at last! Boasting a unoriginal name, themed Bare Minimum. My thoughts where to create a...
over a year ago
Here it is at last! Boasting a unoriginal name, themed Bare Minimum. My thoughts where to create a game where graphics where included into the gameplay but sadly it didn’t come out nearly as good as I expected it too.
Yes I know there are a lot of things bad and wrong with this...
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
Netrunner Spring Tournament
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very...
over a year ago
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very casual setting but there were also some guys who came from… Västerås I think, but I’m not sure. We managed to scrape together 9 people at least, and I didn’t notice anyone bringing...
computers are bad
2024-04-05 the life of one earth station
Sometimes, when I am feeling down, I read about failed satellite TV (STV)
services. Don't we all?...
8 months ago
Sometimes, when I am feeling down, I read about failed satellite TV (STV)
services. Don't we all? As a result, I've periodically come across a company
called AlphaStar Television Network. PrimeStar may have had a rough life, but
AlphaStar barely had one at all: it launched in...
Posts on Made of...
Finding near-duplicates with Jaccard similarity and MinHash
Suppose we have a large collection of documents, and we wish you identify which documents are...
5 months ago
Suppose we have a large collection of documents, and we wish you identify which documents are approximately the same as each other. For instance, we may have crawled the web over some period of time, and expect to have fetched the “same page” several times, but to see slight...
Home on Erik...
State drift
I generally haven't written much about software architecture. People make heuristics into religion....
over a year ago
I generally haven't written much about software architecture. People make heuristics into religion. But here is something I thought about: how to build in self-correction into systems. This has been something just vaguely sitting in my head lacking a clear conceptual definition...
Louwrentius
Script that deletes old files to keep disk from filling up
When a disk has no free space left, all kinds of trouble can occur.
Therefore, I've created a...
over a year ago
When a disk has no free space left, all kinds of trouble can occur.
Therefore, I've created a script that monitors the used space of a volume
and deletes the oldest file if a certain threshold is reached.
The script will keep on deleting the oldest file present on disk until...
Louwrentius
Why I do not use ZFS as a file system for my NAS
Many people have asked me why I do not use ZFS for my NAS storage box. This is a good question and I...
over a year ago
Many people have asked me why I do not use ZFS for my NAS storage box. This is a good question and I have multpile reasons why I do not use ZFS and probably never will.
** A lot has changed since this article was first published. I do now recommend using ZFS. I've also based my...
Notes on software...
Coolest hard-tech companies in NYC 2021
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed...
over a year ago
For years I've kept a private list of really cool tech companies in
NYC. Now that I'm funemployed it's the perfect time to publish. This
list is influenced by 1) my perception of the difficulty of the
engineering behind the product and 2) the company's educational and
OSS...
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 22 results!
The results from Ludum Dare 22 are in! I made the game Sat-E for the 48 hour competition and I was...
over a year ago
The results from Ludum Dare 22 are in! I made the game Sat-E for the 48 hour competition and I was quite happy with it.
#24 Community 3.71
#40 Fun 3.38
#49 Theme 3.69
#65 Overall 3.42
#95 Humor 2.82
#167 Mood 2.92
#247 Innovation 2.69
#338 Audio 2.23
#340 Graphics 2.62
#376...
computers are bad
2024-07-31 just disconnect the internet
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of...
4 months ago
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of their Windows install base with a poorly tested content
update. Rough day at the office, huh? There are lots of things you could say
about this, lots of reasons it happens this way,...
Home on Erik...
Tumblr's awesome project names
Not sure how I managed to miss this, but I'm watching this Tumblr presentation and they talk about...
over a year ago
Not sure how I managed to miss this, but I'm watching this Tumblr presentation and they talk about their projects named after Arrested Development topics: Gob, Parmesan, Buster, Jetpants, Oscar, George and Motherboy.
Still, the best software project name is probably still Apple's...
Notes on software...
Lessons learned streaming building a Scheme-like interpreter in Go
I wanted to practice making coding videos so I did a four-part
series
on writing a basic Scheme-like...
a year ago
I wanted to practice making coding videos so I did a four-part
series
on writing a basic Scheme-like language (minus macros and arrays and
tons of stuff).
I picked this simple topic because I wanted a low-stakes way to learn
what I did not know about making videos.
Here was the...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Hard Problems in Cryptocurrency: Five Years Later
over a year ago
Applied Cartography
PSA: mess around with Kolo
I had bookmarked Kolo many months ago to try out and finally got a chance to integrate it with...
9 months ago
I had bookmarked Kolo many months ago to try out and finally got a chance to integrate it with Buttondown — a process that I expected to take a couple hours on a lazy Sunday and in fact took ten minutes and three lines of code.
If you have a Django app, I think you should drop...
./techtipsy
OpenWRT, ISP modem and dynamic IP addresses: how to fix connectivity issues without rebooting your...
My current ISP provides an internet connection over a
copper wire. To use it,
I have a crappy modem...
7 months ago
My current ISP provides an internet connection over a
copper wire. To use it,
I have a crappy modem (Technicolor CGA2121, DOCSIS 3.0). It’s running in bridge
mode,
meaning that all it does is convert the signal running over the coax cable
into plain old Ethernet.
My main...
Posts on Made of...
What MongoDB got Right
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the...
over a year ago
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the mockery is out-of-date or rooted in misunderstandings, much of it is well-deserved, and it’s difficult to disagree that much of MongoDB’s engineering is incredibly simplistic,...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What do I think about network states?
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Saving a MacBook Air with exploded battery
Saving a MacBook Air with a swollen battery pack.
over a year ago
Saving a MacBook Air with a swollen battery pack.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Quadratic Payments: A Primer
over a year ago
axio.ms
Axio.ms site refresh
This is the obligatory “first post on new platform” post, coupled with a bit of “first post in 4...
over a year ago
This is the obligatory “first post on new platform” post, coupled with a bit of “first post in 4 years, I’m still alive”.
The original axio.ms site was a very HTML1.0 affair and while this was kind of intentional-tongue-in-cheek-chic, it was also a PITA to update. It wasn’t...
Louwrentius
Blu Ray is dead
HD-DVD may be dead, but Blu Ray is just as dead. The whole concept of optical
media is dead....
over a year ago
HD-DVD may be dead, but Blu Ray is just as dead. The whole concept of optical
media is dead. Honestly, who is still burning CD's or DVD's nowadays? (If you
are, why for Christ sake? I can't think of a single good reason) And at 10
euros ($100) for a single Blu Ray disk, you must...
Louwrentius
Finding a good blu-ray player for Mac OS X
I find playing a Blu-ray movie on my Mac cumbersome. I've been using Plex, XBMC and VLC but these...
over a year ago
I find playing a Blu-ray movie on my Mac cumbersome. I've been using Plex, XBMC and VLC but these free open-source products are all a usability nightmare.
To play a Blu-ray movie, you have to perform these steps:
right-click on the BDMV file
choose 'show packet contents'
go to...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Grifters, believers, grinders, and coasters
Why do engineers get mad at each other so often? I think a lot of programmer arguments bottom out...
2 weeks ago
Why do engineers get mad at each other so often? I think a lot of programmer arguments bottom out in a cultural clash between different…
Jonas Hietala
Going down
Ah my first game was so painless so I thought I could do any game I could imagine! Shooters, and...
over a year ago
Ah my first game was so painless so I thought I could do any game I could imagine! Shooters, and mario bros kinda stuff. Well now I’m not so upbeat anymore, I’ve worked on this game for 7 days now and it’s not playable at all. With seven days I don’t mean a week, I’ve had a big...
Willem's Blog
Do amazing things with a focused mind
Read about my experience during the workshop I got as a birth day present involving the Wim Hof...
over a year ago
Read about my experience during the workshop I got as a birth day present involving the Wim Hof Method.
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?
Matt Blewitt
Corporate Legibility for Software Engineers
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those...
over a year ago
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those not directly involved. I’ll help you understand why this is an important thing to be aware of and how to use it to help your career.
latest projects -...
Simsim Pendant
[Concept] Mercurial Medallion
9 months ago
[Concept] Mercurial Medallion
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 98
Echoes of an Explosion
a year ago
Buck on Software
Model transitions: A framework for value creation
And a quick and dirty look at SPLK, NTNX, and GWRE
over a year ago
And a quick and dirty look at SPLK, NTNX, and GWRE
Arduino Blog
Harness the power and connectivity of your Arduino UNO R4 WiFi with this IoT lamp
It can be tough to get started with building an Internet of Things (IoT) project from the ground-up,...
7 months ago
It can be tough to get started with building an Internet of Things (IoT) project from the ground-up, as getting connected, serving a webpage, and managing other devices can all be a challenge to a beginner. This is why the YouTuber known as “Mario’s Ideas” made an end-to-end...
Jonas Hietala
Ugly and Slow Progress
Ludum Dare is coming along… Slowly. The rust on me is probably so brown it’s nearly black. But I...
over a year ago
Ludum Dare is coming along… Slowly. The rust on me is probably so brown it’s nearly black. But I have an idea and it might be good, all I need to do is execute it. Right?
Programmer graphics coming to take you away!
Anyway it’s going to be a risk-like game with a twist: you can...
Old Vintage...
Teaching Apple Cyberdog 1.0 new tricks (featuring OpenDoc)
this cyberdog (image credit).
that cyberdog, though this is one of my favourite weirdo pinball...
a year ago
this cyberdog (image credit).
that cyberdog, though this is one of my favourite weirdo pinball machines.
that cyberdog.
our PowerBook Duo 2300 rehabilitated, guess what we're gonna look at?
Internet document?
Thus was the nucleus of Cyberdog (named for the famous New...
Willem's Blog
Visiting an international hackers conference
This month I attended Global AppSec Amsterdam, an international conference for hackers and security...
over a year ago
This month I attended Global AppSec Amsterdam, an international conference for hackers and security specialists. Read along for some of the highlights.
Neil Madden
Multiple input MACs
When working with Message Authentication Codes (MACs), you often need to authenticate not just a...
over a year ago
When working with Message Authentication Codes (MACs), you often need to authenticate not just a single string, but multiple fields of data. For example, when creating an authenticated encryption mode by composing a cipher and a MAC (like AES-CBC and HMAC), you need to ensure the...
Arduino Blog
Using Arduino with gaming
It’s not surprising that the Arduino community is packed to the brim with examples of gaming-related...
a month ago
It’s not surprising that the Arduino community is packed to the brim with examples of gaming-related projects. Both activities tend to attract people with a love for problem-solving, technology, and getting immersed in one challenging activity for hours at a time. The result is...
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...
Simply Explained
HEIC to JPG: Build a Quick Action with Automator
With the release of iOS 11, Apple switched from JPG to HEIC to store your photos. The...
over a year ago
With the release of iOS 11, Apple switched from JPG to HEIC to store your photos. The High-Efficiency Image File Format saves a lot of storage space on your devices while still maintaining your photos' quality. However, it does become problematic if you want to share those files...
Arduino Blog
Check out these Arduino-powered research projects from CHI 2024
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference...
6 months ago
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) that focuses on the latest developments in human-computer interaction. Students from universities all across the world attended the...
Notes on software...
Why (and how) to read books
The last time I read for fun was in elementary school. Since college I
knew I must read more, but I...
over a year ago
The last time I read for fun was in elementary school. Since college I
knew I must read more, but I never forced myself to build the
habit. Then three years ago I spent time around my brother and a
coworker who were avid readers. This "peer pressure" helped me get
started.
Since...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
The Serendipity Machine
Notes on Using Twitter
11 months ago
Notes on software...
First month on a database team
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The...
9 months ago
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The process of onboarding
myself has been pretty similar at each company in the last decade,
though I think I've gotten better at it. The process is of course
influenced by the team, and my...
Willem's Blog
The Ultimate Freedom Bike
With the Brompton foldable bike you find yourself a very versatile companion to go whenever and...
over a year ago
With the Brompton foldable bike you find yourself a very versatile companion to go whenever and wherever you please!
anderegg.ca
Anzu Castle Gracula
Turns out you can release a QBasic game on Steam if it’s packaged correctly. Beside being a nerdy...
a month ago
Turns out you can release a QBasic game on Steam if it’s packaged correctly. Beside being a nerdy oddity, this game is extremely well made and quite fun! Lots of Castlevania II vibes going on here. Check out Anzu Castle Gracula on Steam, or give it a shot on Itch.io.
Louwrentius
Why Debian/Ubuntu Linux is to be preferred
There are many Linux distributions around. However, I always come back to just
one: Debian. The...
over a year ago
There are many Linux distributions around. However, I always come back to just
one: Debian. The reason why so many people use Debian is the same reason I
like it so much: software management. With good old apt-get or the new
aptitude, software is installed within minutes. Due to...
Jonas Hietala
Moving private repositories to Bitbucket
Long overdue, I recently moved my private repositories from Github to Bitbucket. Github is great of...
over a year ago
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...
Louwrentius
Benchmark results of Random I/O performance of different RAID levels
Introduction
I have performed some benchmarks to determine how different RAID levels perform when...
over a year ago
Introduction
I have performed some benchmarks to determine how different RAID levels perform when handling a 100% random workload of 4K requests. This is a worst-case scenario for almost every storage subsystem. Normal day-to-day workloads may not be that harsh in a real-life...
Jonas Hietala
The End of the Tunnel
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from...
over a year ago
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s been a shit-ton of stuff going on, quite a turn-around from the last time.
One course about data structure and algorithms (super fun to be honest) has wrapped up. We thought we were ahead with the assignments but in the end it got very...
Willem's Blog
iPad Pro next to my primary machine
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
over a year ago
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
Matt Blewitt
So, You Want To Build A DBaaS
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a...
a year ago
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a result, you are making state and coordination your problem. Here are some things I’ve learned to keep in mind as you embark on this project, in no particular order (other than the...
Jonas Hietala
OP_RETURN based tokens are fundamentally flawed
Two new Bitcoin Cash token solutions have recently been suggested:
Simple Ledger Protocol: A token...
over a year ago
Two new Bitcoin Cash token solutions have recently been suggested:
Simple Ledger Protocol: A token system for Bitcoin Cash
Introducing Colored Coins: a Bitcoin Cash token implementation
Both are improvements over Tokeda as they allow permissionless transfers. However all commit...
Notes on software...
Leaders, you need to share organization success stories more frequently
This post goes out to anyone who leads a team: managers, directors,
VPs, executives. You need to...
over a year ago
This post goes out to anyone who leads a team: managers, directors,
VPs, executives. You need to share organization success stories with
your organization on a regular and frequent basis. Talk about sales
wins, talk about new services released, talk about the positive impact
of a...
computers are bad
2024-08-31 ipmi
I am making steady progress towards moving the Computers Are Bad enterprise
cloud to its new home,...
3 months ago
I am making steady progress towards moving the Computers Are Bad enterprise
cloud to its new home, here in New Mexico. One of the steps in this process is,
of course, purchasing a new server... the current Big Iron is getting rather
old (probably about a decade!) and here in...
Jonas Hietala
Up like a Sun, Down like a Pancake
I was looking forward to this weekend, for Ludum Dare and for me to finally make a game again. But...
over a year ago
I was looking forward to this weekend, for Ludum Dare and for me to finally make a game again. But it just don’t feel right to me. I’m not prepared, I feel a little bit stressed and I don’t really have faith in my game so I’m gonna step down this one as well. But it’s fine, Ludum...
Neil Madden
Entity authentication with a KEM
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity...
a year ago
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity authentication or identification (to distinguish it from message authentication or data origin authentication). There are lots of ways to do this. In this post I’m going to talk about...
csvbase blog
Client libraries are better when they have no API
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
8 months ago
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Giro AEON bicycle helmet
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out...
over a year ago
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out how.
Home on Erik...
Benchmark of Approximate Nearest Neighbor libraries
Annoy is a library written by me that supports fast approximate nearest neighbor queries. Say you...
over a year ago
Annoy is a library written by me that supports fast approximate nearest neighbor queries. Say you have a high (1-1000) dimensional space with points in it, and you want to find the nearest neighbors to some point.
Willem's Blog
Limitations of sleep tracking using a wearable
Limitations of heart rate analyses during sleep, why you should reconsider tracking your sleep.
over a year ago
Limitations of heart rate analyses during sleep, why you should reconsider tracking your sleep.
Jonas Hietala
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...
Arduino Blog
Deploy your smart meeting room management system with Arduino GIGA
Managing shared spaces, especially meeting rooms, can be a headache in busy offices. At Arduino,...
3 days ago
Managing shared spaces, especially meeting rooms, can be a headache in busy offices. At Arduino, we’ve experienced it firsthand in our flexible and dynamic offices around the world – where colleagues could often be seen wandering around with their laptops, trying to find a quiet...
Louwrentius
Additional proof that Apple is ditching the optical drive
I'm a strong advocate of killing the optical drive. As of 2011, there is no need for it anymore....
over a year ago
I'm a strong advocate of killing the optical drive. As of 2011, there is no need for it anymore. Laptops could get lighter, smaller or have more room for additional battery capacity if the optical drive would no longer be present.
In my life, I never see people use the optical...
Louwrentius
Linux RAID 6 performance using software RAID
So after toying around with RAID 0 just for fun, time to get serious. I
created a RAID 6 of 10 x 1...
over a year ago
So after toying around with RAID 0 just for fun, time to get serious. I
created a RAID 6 of 10 x 1 TB disks. This gives me raw device read speeds
of 850 MB/s and write speeds of 300 MB/s. I think this is exactly
what should be expected, but boy it is damn fast. Especially the...
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
Posts on Made of...
Write testable code by writing generic code
Alex Gaynor recently asked this question in an IRC channel I hang out in (a channel which contains...
over a year ago
Alex Gaynor recently asked this question in an IRC channel I hang out in (a channel which contains several software engineers nearly as obsessed with software testing as I am):
uhh, so I’m writing some code to handle an econnreset… how do I test this?
This is a good question!...
Home on Erik...
The relationship between commit size and commit message size
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's...
over a year ago
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's my rationale:
When I update one line of code I feel like I have to put in a long explanation about its side effects, why it's fully backwards compatible, and why it fixes some...
Applied Cartography
Git one-liner: get the earliest commit from X hours ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with...
7 months ago
I wanted to get a commit that was temporally some distance back as part of my experimentation with git cliff. This took some time to do, but here's what I ended up with:
git log --since="72 hours ago" --until="now" --reverse --pretty=format:"%h" | head -1
Nothing particularly...
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
Shunit2, unit testing for shell scripts
This may be of interest to people who are as stupid as I am and write
elaborate shell scripts...
over a year ago
This may be of interest to people who are as stupid as I am and write
elaborate shell scripts instead of using a proper scripting language such as
Python or Ruby. No I am deliberately not mentioning Perl here.
Anyway, testing is always an issue. With PPSS, I encountered many...
Old Vintage...
What the KIM-1 really needs is an LCD screen
Giving the 1976 1K RAM, 1MHz 6502-based KIM-1 single-board computer bubble memory storage was all...
a year ago
Giving the 1976 1K RAM, 1MHz 6502-based KIM-1 single-board computer bubble memory storage was all well and good, but the basic unit is still just six numeric LEDs for its display. Let's solve that problem.
Sure, you could hook up a serial terminal like the Silent 700 we used...
computers are bad
2023-04-27 los alamos - compound to county pt I
This weekend, I found myself staying in Los Alamos for a volunteer role in
which I judge children on...
a year ago
This weekend, I found myself staying in Los Alamos for a volunteer role in
which I judge children on the quality of their software. Clearly this is not
the kind of opportunity I would turn down, but I also always take an excuse to
drive back up the hill. I only lived in Los...
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.
Notes on software...
General book recommendations
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a year ago
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