Louwrentius
My experiences with DFS replication on Windows 2008 R2
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS...
over a year ago
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS replication has been massively improved. It supports larger data sets and performance has dramatically been improved over Windows 2008 R2.
I've implemented DFS replication to keep two...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Avoiding worry driven development
Sofware dysfunction is more often motivated by anxiety, fear, worry and embarassment than it is by a...
over a year ago
Sofware dysfunction is more often motivated by anxiety, fear, worry and embarassment than it is by a lack of technical skill. Engineers…
Jonas Hietala
5 Kup
After a season with very bad attendence, I blame school and lack of motivation, I still went to...
over a year ago
After a season with very bad attendence, I blame school and lack of motivation, I still went to grading. I slept well but I was super stressed all weekend so I had to constantly run to the bathroom and I couldn’t eat lunch or breakfast properly, and I don’t usually get...
Jonas Hietala
Regex substitution with unicode in Haskell
While remaking the site I noticed my automatic embedding of bare youtube links sometimes didn’t...
over a year ago
While remaking the site I noticed my automatic embedding of bare youtube links sometimes didn’t work. The culprit was unicode in the document which the regex library couldn’t handle.
Apparently while this would be supported by default by almost all modern languages it’s not the...
Louwrentius
'Linux: obtain motherboard model / type and vendor'
If you want to know what motherboard is installed in a system, use the tool
dmidecode:
dmidecode |...
over a year ago
If you want to know what motherboard is installed in a system, use the tool
dmidecode:
dmidecode | grep -e "Manufacturer|Product" | head -n 4 | tail -n 2
The result might be something like:
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Product Name: P5Q-EM DO
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer...
Jonas Hietala
Starcraft 2 Keycaps
When I ordered this computer I was compelled, utterly compelled to buy a mechanical keyboard. Sure...
over a year ago
When I ordered this computer I was compelled, utterly compelled to buy a mechanical keyboard. Sure they cost almost 10x as much as a “regular” one and they didn’t even have these funky multimedia keys, what gives? Did I loose my insanity? It was supposed to give a great typing...
Jonas Hietala
A Nice Weekend
I’ve had a pretty nice weekend. On Friday MLG Orlando began and I’ve been staying up to 2 and...
over a year ago
I’ve had a pretty nice weekend. On Friday MLG Orlando began and I’ve been staying up to 2 and sleeping until at least 10 the last days. My inner night-owl is very happy about it, my early-rising girlfriend perhaps not as much, but I think she’s a bit understanding?
On Saturday we...
Push to Prod
Metrics Are The Map, Not The Territory
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have...
4 months ago
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have are incomplete signals to inform our theories.
Matt Mullenweg
Cloudflare Stories
There are two great Cloudflare-related stories published this weekend. The first is Steven Levy’s...
2 months ago
There are two great Cloudflare-related stories published this weekend. The first is Steven Levy’s incredible story about Tim Jenkin, who created a secure communication protocol for the African National Congress to overthrow the apartheid regime in South Africa. Cloudflare’s CTO,...
Willem's Blog
Tips for Long-Distance Cycling
Embark on your own long-distance cycling adventure by learning from my post-COVID...
a year ago
Embark on your own long-distance cycling adventure by learning from my post-COVID Fietselfstedentocht experience, packed with invaluable tips and tricks.
Lighthouse Blog
How to combine multiple RSS feeds in one view
6 months ago
./techtipsy
I encourage you to write a blog
It’s been over 4 years since my first post on this blog.
During those 4 years I’ve written over 90...
3 months ago
It’s been over 4 years since my first post on this blog.
During those 4 years I’ve written over 90 posts, received over 1 million clicks,
a dozen legitimate reader e-mails and thousands of spam e-mails.
And I love it!
I’ve found that writing can be very fulfilling and I encourage...
Simply Explained
Good Home Automation Should be Boring
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other...
over a year ago
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other people's setup for inspiration, and one thing struck me. Many people have cluttered dashboards and use Home Assistant to track just about any metric they can.That's quite different...
lcamtuf’s thing
How do wood finishes hold up?
A quick 18-month experiment to shed light on traditional woodworking lore.
3 months ago
A quick 18-month experiment to shed light on traditional woodworking lore.
Matt Blewitt
Regular Restarts Are Good, Actually
Anecdotally, one of the more maligned features of the Heroku platform are the 24-hour limits on...
a month ago
Anecdotally, one of the more maligned features of the Heroku platform are the 24-hour limits on compute units, known as “dynos”. This is actually a good thing, but very misunderstood.
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Jonas IceCream Stand
Ah my latest game Jonas IceCream Stand is finished and up and running and I’m really proud of it!...
over a year ago
Ah my latest game Jonas IceCream Stand is finished and up and running and I’m really proud of it! And thanks for the feedback guys, it’s always welcome.
I spent almost exactly fifty hours on this game and that’s by far the most I’ve spent on a 7day project. To be honest it’s...
Home on Erik...
More MCMC – Analyzing a small dataset with 1-5 ratings
I've been obsessed with how to iterate quickly based on small scale feedback lately. One awesome...
over a year ago
I've been obsessed with how to iterate quickly based on small scale feedback lately. One awesome website I encountered is Usability Hub which lets you run 5 second tests. Users see your site for 5 seconds and you can ask them free-form questions afterwards.
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...
latest projects -...
Hand-cranked Flux Capacitor
[Concept] Control the flow of time
a year ago
[Concept] Control the flow of time
Jonas Hietala
Calling closures in a Vec
In rust one might want to have a list of closures, for example as a list of callbacks.
let mut fs:...
over a year ago
In rust one might want to have a list of closures, for example as a list of callbacks.
let mut fs: Vec<||> = Vec::new();
fs.push(|| { println!("imma firing my lazer"); });
for f in fs.iter() {
f(); // error: expected function but found `&||`
};
Maybe if we borrow...
Vitalik Buterin's...
El recurso escaso más importante es la legitimidad
over a year ago
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...
./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...
./techtipsy
Life is maintenance, maintenance is life
Over my relatively short career (6+ years), I’ve noticed a change in the way I approach building...
a year ago
Over my relatively short career (6+ years), I’ve noticed a change in the way I approach building things.
When I was still an inexperienced junior developer who barely survived operating in a Linux
environment and saw backend development as a black box, I was happy to get...
Push to Prod
When Overwhelmed, Make a List of Questions
In my first big project at Netflix, I learned this disturbingly simple problem-solving technique.
4 months ago
In my first big project at Netflix, I learned this disturbingly simple problem-solving technique.
lcamtuf’s thing
Shining light on photodiodes
Photodiodes are incredibly versatile, but commonly misused and misunderstood.
2 months ago
Photodiodes are incredibly versatile, but commonly misused and misunderstood.
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...
GitButler
The Future of Open Source
A GitHub founder's musings on the past, present and future of large groups of people collaborating...
4 months ago
A GitHub founder's musings on the past, present and future of large groups of people collaborating on software in awesome ways.
Arduino Blog
Does your sample contain DNA or RNA? DIYNAFLUOR can tell you on a budget
Lab equipment is — traditionally at least — tremendously expensive. While there are understandable...
3 days ago
Lab equipment is — traditionally at least — tremendously expensive. While there are understandable reasons for those costs, they are prohibitive to anyone operating outside of a university or corporate lab. But as the “citizen science” movement has grown, we’ve seen more and more...
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!...
Louwrentius
1.0 GB/s using Linux software RAID
I filled the Norco case with hardware. It is now up and running, based on
Debian Linux (Lenny).
I...
over a year ago
I filled the Norco case with hardware. It is now up and running, based on
Debian Linux (Lenny).
I immediately performed some initial tests with software RAID 0. The results
are just astounding.
debian:~# dd if=/dev/md0 of=/dev/null bs=1M count=50000
50000+0 records in
50000+0...
./techtipsy
What running out of SATA ports looks like
One day I stumbled upon a Craft Computing video
about his new server build, and on the parts list...
over a year ago
One day I stumbled upon a Craft Computing video
about his new server build, and on the parts list was a Sedna PCI Express 2x SATA adapter card:
There are different designs out there, including a 4x SATA card, which is bonkers.
Anyway, I thought that I might as well give this a...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Sidechains vs Plasma vs Sharding
over a year ago
Gwern.net Newsletter
October 2020 news
October 2020 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling, Euclid; further site reorganization &...
over a year ago
October 2020 gwern.net newsletter with links on AI scaling, Euclid; further site reorganization & improvement.
Bryan Braun - Blog
Links #10
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast...
4 months ago
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast guest. It puts you in the shoes of a podcaster, showing you what they need, and how you can be a “sure thing” for them. As usual, there are no short cuts. You gotta do the work!
A...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Multidimensional gas pricing
7 months ago
Jonas Hietala
We moved away from the city
When me and my girlfriend Veronica moved to Linköping to study at the University the plan was never...
over a year ago
When me and my girlfriend Veronica moved to Linköping to study at the University the plan was never to stay there permanently. We just moved there to study but the longterm plan, if you can have one at that stage, was always to move back to the north of Sweden where we came...
Good Enough
How We Built Unique Social Preview Images for Pika
One of the goals of Pika,
the happy blogging software that we recently launched,
is to help you find...
10 months ago
One of the goals of Pika,
the happy blogging software that we recently launched,
is to help you find your own place on the internet.
Along with a nice place on the internet, when you share links to your blog we want them to represent your internet home,
which you've likely taken...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The Dawn of Hybrid Layer 2 Protocols
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Helping people with free software
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
over a year ago
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
Willem's Blog
Riding with a power meter on your bike
In this post I describe my experience with installing the 4iiii Precision Powermeter on my road...
over a year ago
In this post I describe my experience with installing the 4iiii Precision Powermeter on my road bike.
Applied Cartography
Linear
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes...
5 days ago
I invited nickd to join our Linear instance yesterday, which reminded me that I had a slew of notes I wanted to publish on our own experience of migrating from GitHub Issues to Linear, and some reflections on it as a product now that we've been using it for a few months.
One...
Home on Erik...
Luigi success
So Luigi, our open sourced workflow engine in Python, just recently passed 1,000 stars on Github,...
over a year ago
So Luigi, our open sourced workflow engine in Python, just recently passed 1,000 stars on Github, then shortly after passed mrjob as (I think) the most popular Python package to do Hadoop stuff. This is exciting!
Louwrentius
Benchmarking a 1.44 MB floppy drive
I've used fio - a storage benchmarking tool - to benchmark a 1.44 MB floppy drive to gauge its...
over a year ago
I've used fio - a storage benchmarking tool - to benchmark a 1.44 MB floppy drive to gauge its random I/O performance. I have no real reason for doing this. I just thought it was funny.
I've run a benchmark against the floppy drives for different queue depths. The results are...
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.
Construction Physics
Why the U.S. Can’t Build Icebreaking Ships
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post,...
2 months ago
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post, especially those who shared their own stories of loss.
Construction Physics
What Learning by Doing Looks Like
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
a week ago
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits
Louwrentius
HP Proliant Microserver Gen10 as router or NAS
Introduction
In the summer of 2017, HP released the Proliant Microserver Gen10. This machine...
over a year ago
Introduction
In the summer of 2017, HP released the Proliant Microserver Gen10. This machine replaces the older Gen8 model.
For hobbyists, the Microserver always has been an interesting device for a custom home NAS build or as a router.
Let's find out if this is still the case....
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...
Notes on software...
Extending gosql to supporting LIMIT and OFFSET
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface...
over a year ago
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface for data stored in S3. But one missing
critical feature in gosql is LIMIT and OFFSET support. This post walks
through the few key changes to gosql to support LIMIT and OFFSET.
You...
./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,...
Jonas Hietala
Beginning Programming
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree...
over a year ago
I read a wonderful post, 3 Things I hate about “beginner” programming books, which I couldn’t agree more with. Basically he has these points:
Too long
Too many examples like “Hello World!”
No answers to exercises.
Nr 1 is a pretty curious one. Even though I think a book is good,...
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...
Notes on software...
First few hurdles writing a Scheme interpreter
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after...
over a year ago
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after my coworker built bshift, a
compiler for a C-like language. BSDScheme is an interpreter for a
(currently small subset of) Scheme written in D. It implements a few
substantial...
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...
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...
Ian's Blog
What the heck is OCSP?
The online certificate status protocol, or OCSP for short, is a way for TLS clients (like your web...
over a year ago
The online certificate status protocol, or OCSP for short, is a way for TLS clients (like your web browser) to check if a certificate has been revoked or not.
Certificate Revocation?
With asymmetrical encryption, your encryption is only as good as long as your private key remains...
Good Enough
Why We're Writing Blog Software
We’re seven months into our Cosmic Maelstrom
and we have started writing blogging software.
What the...
a year ago
We’re seven months into our Cosmic Maelstrom
and we have started writing blogging software.
What the why?!
First, let me say that, yes, I do realize there are probably 100s of blog software options out there.
In terms of static-site generators (SSGs) alone, there are probably...
Jonas Hietala
Laying off Pintos
Exam period is here which means all courses should be wrapping up and a week or so ago we finished...
over a year ago
Exam period is here which means all courses should be wrapping up and a week or so ago we finished up our lab series about pintos. The labs were among the best I’ve had yet and I learned a ton. We didn’t follow the official instructions but we had our own assigmnets....
Jonas Hietala
Going into Being Busy mode
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or...
over a year ago
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or something? So I can’t promise a game the next two months. Kinda beats the point of this site doesn’t it? I’m really sorry and that’s all I can say really…
Hopefully I’ll get a week...
Posts on Made of...
Testing and feedback loops
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about...
over a year ago
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about testing and the purpose testing serves in software engineering, and to explore some of the suggestions of this model.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I think a lot about working in...
Home on Erik...
What is your motivation?
I've been trying to learn Clojure. I keep telling people I meet that I really want to learn Clojure,...
over a year ago
I've been trying to learn Clojure. I keep telling people I meet that I really want to learn Clojure, but still every night I can't get myself to spend time with it. It's unclear if I really want to learn Clojure or just want to have learned Clojure?
Willem's Blog
Search like a pro: Google search operators
Read along for a comprehensive list of advanced Google search operators that allow you to filter...
over a year ago
Read along for a comprehensive list of advanced Google search operators that allow you to filter your search results.
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...
Applied Cartography
The taste of beer
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a...
6 months ago
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a relatively famous line from Bezos, circulated first at YC in ’08 and then more recently by the folks at Acquired (a great pod!):
Jeff uses this analogy for AWS. He talks about...
Matt Blewitt
What Is a Senior Engineer, Anyway?
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to...
a month ago
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to be “senior” in a software engineering context. It’s a little different in every company, but here is my view.
Louwrentius
RAID array size and rebuild speed
When a disk fails of a RAID 5 array, you are no longer protected against
(another) disk failure and...
over a year ago
When a disk fails of a RAID 5 array, you are no longer protected against
(another) disk failure and thus data loss. During this rebuild time, you are
vulnerable. The longer it takes to rebuild your array, the longer you are
vulnerable. Especially during a disk-intensive period,...
Vitalik Buterin's...
The near and mid-term future of improving the Ethereum network's permissionlessness and...
7 months ago
Home on Erik...
Why organizations fail
One of my favorite business hobbies is to reduce some nasty decision down to its absolute core...
over a year ago
One of my favorite business hobbies is to reduce some nasty decision down to its absolute core objective, decide the most basic strategy, and then add more and more modifications as you have to confront the complexity of reality (yes I have very lame hobbies thanks I know).
watchTowr Labs -...
No Way, PHP Strikes Again! (CVE-2024-4577)
Orange Tsai tweeted a few hours ago about “One of [his] PHP vulnerabilities, which affects XAMPP by...
6 months ago
Orange Tsai tweeted a few hours ago about “One of [his] PHP vulnerabilities, which affects XAMPP by default”, and we were curious to say the least. XAMPP is a very popular way for administrators and developers to rapidly deploy Apache, PHP, and a bunch of other tools, and
Home on Erik...
More Luigi!
Continuing in the same spirit of shameless self-promotion, here's some recent Luigi press:
Reddit...
over a year ago
Continuing in the same spirit of shameless self-promotion, here's some recent Luigi press:
Reddit thread A Guide to Python Frameworks for Hadoop (slides from the NYC Hadoop User Group) This presentation from the Open Analytics NYC meetup about how Foursquare uses Luigi Luigi...
Home on Erik...
Google diversity memo, global warming, Pascal's wager, and other stuff
There's about 765 million blog posts about the diversity “memo” that leaked out of Google a couple...
over a year ago
There's about 765 million blog posts about the diversity “memo” that leaked out of Google a couple of weeks ago. I think the case for any biological difference is pretty weak, and it bothers me when people refer to an “interest gap” as anything else than caused by the...
Electronics etc…
Measuring the HP 11720A Pulse Modulator and Coax Cables
Introduction
What is a pulse modulator and what are they used for?
The HP 11720A Pulse...
a year ago
Introduction
What is a pulse modulator and what are they used for?
The HP 11720A Pulse Modulator
Inside the HP 11720A
Measurement Setup for a Quick Testing Session
Pin Modulator Power Measurements with HP 432A
Cable Loss Measurements with HP 432A
Cable Power Measurements with...
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios
If you’re a regular user of the terminal on a UNIX system, there are probably a large number of...
over a year ago
If you’re a regular user of the terminal on a UNIX system, there are probably a large number of behaviors you take mostly for granted without really thinking about them. If you press ^C or ^Z it kills or stops the foreground program – unless it’s something like emacs or vim, in...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Layer 1 Should Be Innovative in the Short Term but Less in the Long Term
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal in-memory storage engine for MySQL/MariaDB
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and...
11 months ago
I spent a week
looking at MySQL/MariaDB internals along with ~80 other devs. Although
MySQL and MariaDB are mostly the same (more on that later), I focused
on MariaDB specifically this week.
Before last week I had never built MySQL/MariaDB before. The first day
of this hack week,...
Louwrentius
Compiling Handbrake CLI on Debian Lenny
In this post I will show you how to compile Handbrake for Debian Lenny. Please
note that although...
over a year ago
In this post I will show you how to compile Handbrake for Debian Lenny. Please
note that although the Handbrake GUI version does compile on Lenny, it crashes
with a segmentation fault like this:
Gtk: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5
and height...
Louwrentius
The 'hidden' cost of using ZFS for your home NAS
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor...
over a year ago
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor implementing the VDEV expansion feature. A new pr has been created for this effort. The feature was merged into the code base, but may not be available to the general public before the end...
Jonas Hietala
Writing Home Assistant automations using Genservers in Elixir
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its...
2 months ago
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its beginner friendly and feature rich UI,
support for a ton of different devices and integrations,
and there’s a bunch of ways to create automations.
But there’s no engine for writing...
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 22 Here I Come
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on...
over a year ago
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on studying for it, I am now ready to declare my entry into Ludum Dare 22! I’ve been away far too long, with my entries for the 17th and the 20th dare being almost a century away, the...
Louwrentius
Ubuntu and full disk encryption (FDE)
Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux. As part of a regular Debian installation, you
can choose to create...
over a year ago
Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux. As part of a regular Debian installation, you
can choose to create an encrypted disk volume based on LUKS. This is different
from the option within the Ubuntu installation to encrypt home directories. To
be able to install Ubuntu and use full disk...
Applied Cartography
A good H1
Buttondown was kindly featured in H1 Gallery last week, and Ryan asked me to opine a bit on how we...
3 weeks ago
Buttondown was kindly featured in H1 Gallery last week, and Ryan asked me to opine a bit on how we arrived at our current iteration, which is the anodyne yet pointed Email for you. Yes, you.
Historically, we've called Buttondown a 'newsletter tool' — the h1 before this was 'The...
Avestura's Blog
How optimistic or pessimistic are the Kurzgesagt videos?
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
a year ago
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
./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...
Jonas Hietala
Friend of the Tree
I just noticed I was recognized as a friend of the tree in a weekly meeting by the rust team. It...
over a year ago
I just noticed I was recognized as a friend of the tree in a weekly meeting by the rust team. It came during my documentation sprint during IDA Summer of Code and I discovered it now, only two and a half month later. Still a very pleasant surprise!
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 2: Just the Two of Us
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing...
over a year ago
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing anything. Take it away, fellas…
1. Still Positive
Did you know that once you acquire COVID-19 your PCR test can be positive for up to 90 days? Did you know that the at-home tests...
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...
Posts on Made of...
Property Testing Like AFL
In my last last post, I argued that property-based testing and fuzzing are essentially the same...
over a year ago
In my last last post, I argued that property-based testing and fuzzing are essentially the same practice, or at least share a lot of commonality. In this followup post, I want to explore that idea a bit more: I’ll first detour into some of my frustrations and hesitations around...
Jonas Hietala
Good and Bad Programmers
Every now and day blog posts about what it takes to be a good programmer or how you figure out if...
over a year ago
Every now and day blog posts about what it takes to be a good programmer or how you figure out if someone is a bad programmer arrives. There’s always talk about how you find the good programmers in interviews and the topic is always hot in schools and universities.
Today I read...
Arduino Blog
Coolest controllers ever? Icy gamepads melt in users’ hands
Nintendo’s Joy-Con controller system is very innovative and generally well-regarded, with one major...
5 months ago
Nintendo’s Joy-Con controller system is very innovative and generally well-regarded, with one major exception: stick drift. That’s a reliability issue that eventually affects a large percentage of Joy-Cons, to the frustration of gamers. But what if that was intentional and...
Arduino Blog
ThermoGrasp brings thermal feedback to virtual reality
Imagine playing Half-Life: Alyx and feeling the gun heat up in your hand as you take down The...
2 months ago
Imagine playing Half-Life: Alyx and feeling the gun heat up in your hand as you take down The Combine. Or operating a robot through augmented reality and feeling coldness on your fingers when you get close to exceeding the robot’s limits. A prototype device called ThermoGrasp...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Zk-SNARKs: Under the Hood
over a year ago
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What do I think about network states?
over a year ago
computers are bad
2023-07-29 Free Public WiFi
Remember Free Public WiFi?
Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree...
a year ago
Remember Free Public WiFi?
Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza
in Atlanta, Georgia. This was in the age when the price of a hotel room was
directly correlated with the price of the WiFi service, and as a high school
student I was not...
csvbase blog
I didn't write any Javascript, and other shortcuts
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
a year ago
Getting it done by not doing a lot of it
Louwrentius
'Improved' image gallery for Blogofile
This blog is just static HTML pages that are generated using Blogofile. The Blogofile website sports...
over a year ago
This blog is just static HTML pages that are generated using Blogofile. The Blogofile website sports a small image gallery that has been written to illustrate how to create your own 'controllers' or Blogofile plugins.
My Python skills are horrible buy I managed to improve a bit...
Home on Erik...
Fermat's principle
I was browsing around on the Internet and the physics geek in me started reading about Fermat's...
over a year ago
I was browsing around on the Internet and the physics geek in me started reading about Fermat's principle. And suddenly something came back to me that I've been trying to suppress for many years – how I never understood why there's anything fundamental about the principal of...
Louwrentius
Did you know that RDP is as insecure as telnet?
Microsoft developed the remote desktop protocol in order to allow remote GUI-
based access to hosts....
over a year ago
Microsoft developed the remote desktop protocol in order to allow remote GUI-
based access to hosts. It is easy to pick on Microsoft and I do respect what
they have accomplished, however, it may not come as a surprise that they did
it all wrong with RDP in terms of security.
By...
Jonas Hietala
Fun or Frustration? Ludum Dare 33
One of my goals this year was to participate in a Ludum Dare. I have cleared up my schedule,...
over a year ago
One of my goals this year was to participate in a Ludum Dare. I have cleared up my schedule, negotiated with my better half and everything is set up for epicness.
At first the idea was to make a game in rust, even tough I basically haven’t used it in almost a year, but when I...
computers are bad
2023-06-12 radio on the tv
Like many people in my generation, my memories of youth are heavily defined by
cable television. I...
a year ago
Like many people in my generation, my memories of youth are heavily defined by
cable television. I was fortunate enough to have a premium cable package in
my childhood home, Comcast's early digital service based on Motorola equipment.
It included a perk that fascinated me but...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?
a year ago
Applied Cartography
PSA: mess around with Keystatic
We've been using Keystatic in Buttondown for around six months now: we migrated most of the content...
9 months ago
We've been using Keystatic in Buttondown for around six months now: we migrated most of the content on the marketing site (which is backed by Next) from MDX onto Keystatic, and were so happy with the experience that the upcoming rebuild of the docs site will be featuring...
Willem's Blog
Working with special hardware from China
This month I reversed engineered my way into developing software for a Chinese Android device with...
over a year ago
This month I reversed engineered my way into developing software for a Chinese Android device with an embedded printer!
Neil Madden
Parse, don’t type-check
There’s a fantastic article from last year titled Parse, don’t validate. I’d highly recommend it to...
over a year ago
There’s a fantastic article from last year titled Parse, don’t validate. I’d highly recommend it to any programmer (along with the more recent follow up Names are not type safety). The basic idea is that there are two ways to check that some input to a function is valid: A...
Notes on software...
Languages you can run in the browser, part 1: Python, JavaScript, SQLite
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
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.
Christian Selig
Announcing Juno 2.0
Juno’s been a really fun project to build, and it’s been so great hearing how other people have been...
7 months ago
Juno’s been a really fun project to build, and it’s been so great hearing how other people have been enjoying Juno since its launch, as well as providing awesome feedback and input to improve it.
Today I’m releasing Juno 2.0, which incorporates a ton of that community feedback,...
Posts on Made of...
Confessions of a programmer: I hate code review
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work...
over a year ago
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work requires code review on most of our code, and as we bring on an army of interns for the summer, I've been responsible for reviewing lots of code. Additionally, about five months ago...
computers are bad
2024-08-12 a pedantic review of the las vegas loop
Did you hear that Elon Musk dug a tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention
Center?
I think it is pretty...
4 months ago
Did you hear that Elon Musk dug a tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention
Center?
I think it is pretty universally known by now that the "Las Vegas Loop" is
impractical, poorly thought out, and generally an embarrassment to society and
industry. I will spare an accounting of the...
Jonas Hietala
Focusing Attention: Programming
These last two weeks have been a small attempt at clearing up my head a bit. I have far too many...
over a year ago
These last two weeks have been a small attempt at clearing up my head a bit. I have far too many things I’d like to do and even if it’s not possible to do them all at once it didn’t stop me from thinking of them. One minute it’s that and the other it’s something completely...
Jonas Hietala
Language spec in code blocks
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I...
a year ago
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I wanted to add, but it felt a little bothersome so I skipped it.
It was to display the highlighted language in code blocks:
The code spec displays what programming language the code...
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.
Computer Ads from...
IBM RISC System/6000 Family
Just when PowerSeeker thought they had nowhere to go...
7 months ago
Just when PowerSeeker thought they had nowhere to go...
computers are bad
2023-12-23 ITT Technical Institute
Programming note/shameless plug: I am finally on Mastodon.
The history of the telephone industry is...
a year ago
Programming note/shameless plug: I am finally on Mastodon.
The history of the telephone industry is a bit of an odd one. For the greatest
part of the 20th century, telephony in the United States was largely a monopoly
of AT&T and its many affiliates. This wasn't always the case,...
Louwrentius
Understanding Storage Performance - IOPS and Latency
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want...
over a year ago
Introduction
The goal of this blogpost is to help you better understand storage performance. I want to discuss some fundamentals that are true regardless of your particular needs.
This will help you better reason about storage and may provide a scaffolding for further learning....
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1985/12 Australian Personal Computer Mag
Some computer related levity from OZ
2 weeks ago
Some computer related levity from OZ
Old Vintage...
Finally, an MOS 7600/7601 Video Game Array data sheet
A quick one. Many of you are aware of my rather abnormal fascination with the MOS 7600/7601, MOS...
a year ago
A quick one. Many of you are aware of my rather abnormal fascination with the MOS 7600/7601, MOS Technology's dedicated "Pong-on-a-chip" (from the company that brought you my favourite CPU, the MOS 6502) that's actually a rather sophisticated microcontroller for the era. I own...
Louwrentius
How to run Debian Linux on an Intel based Mac Mini
The Mac Mini is just a gorgeous device. It is beautiful, small, silent,
powerfull yet energy...
over a year ago
The Mac Mini is just a gorgeous device. It is beautiful, small, silent,
powerfull yet energy efficient. When idle, it uses around 20 watts. I'm using
one of the first Intel-based Minis with an Intel Core Duo chip, running at 1.6
Ghz.
I want to use this mini as an expensive router...
Old Vintage...
Ward Christensen dies
There was initially some issue verifying this, but there appears to be direct confirmation now that...
2 months ago
There was initially some issue verifying this, but there appears to be direct confirmation now that Ward Christensen passed away October 11 at the age of 78, co-founder of the pioneering Computerized Bulletin Board System in February 1978 with Randy Suess — now believed to be the...
Old Vintage...
Cracking DesignWare's The Grammar Examiner on the C64
It's been awhile since I've stripped the copy protection off a Commodore 64 software package. This...
a year ago
It's been awhile since I've stripped the copy protection off a Commodore 64 software package. This weekend I had a reason to.
The Grammar Examiner from 1984, something like a mashup between a board game and Strunk and White's Elements of Style, where you get to edit a fictional...
Notes on software...
SQLite in Go, with and without cgo
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Lotus
The Hardest Working Software in the World
a year ago
The Hardest Working Software in the World
lcamtuf’s thing
The marvelous disappearing capacitor
The performance of photodiode amplifiers can be improved in a clever way.
2 weeks ago
The performance of photodiode amplifiers can be improved in a clever way.
Willem's Blog
The value of notifications
It's easy to dismiss your phone's notifications as something that disturbs you, but if you take the...
over a year ago
It's easy to dismiss your phone's notifications as something that disturbs you, but if you take the time to set them up correctly, notifications can actually save you time!
./techtipsy
You can use almost anything as a key file for your encrypted storage device
Imagine that you have an unencrypted drive containing your private data and one day it starts...
a month ago
Imagine that you have an unencrypted drive containing your private data and one day it starts throwing a bunch of
errors. You have backups of the data so you’ve got that part covered, but would you feel comfortable sending the drive
in to be warrantied? You have no control over...
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...
Louwrentius
Thunderbolt, a cheap high-speed storage interconnect?
Intel and Apple released Thunderbolt a high-speed (10 Gigabit/s) interface, that seems to replace...
over a year ago
Intel and Apple released Thunderbolt a high-speed (10 Gigabit/s) interface, that seems to replace both USB and Firewire. It is mainly targeted at end-user systems allowing to connect peripherals with just a single cable to a computer. Thunderbolt devices, like external hard...
Jonas Hietala
2020 in review
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me...
over a year ago
And so 2020 has come to an end. On a global scale it’s been quite a horrible year, and for me personally it’s been both good and bad. Luckily we haven’t been directly affected by COVID too much, but it’s still been very disruptive. Either way as I’ve done for years now it always...
Louwrentius
Linux on Mac Mini - boot after power failure
When using a Mac Mini as a server or router, it is very nice if the machine
automatically boots if a...
over a year ago
When using a Mac Mini as a server or router, it is very nice if the machine
automatically boots if a power failure has occurred.
User chirhoxi on the ubuntu forum found out how this can be achieved:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1209576
Basically you need one of these...
Louwrentius
Linode hacked: thoughts about cloud security
I bought a Linode VPS for private usage just after the report that Linode had reset all passwords of...
over a year ago
I bought a Linode VPS for private usage just after the report that Linode had reset all passwords of existing users regarding the Linode management console.
Resetting passwords is not something you do when under a simple attack such as a DDOS attack. Such a measure is only taken...
Matt Mullenweg
Inc Hit Piece
When Inc Magazine reached out to have David H. Freedman (website powered by WordPress) write a...
3 days ago
When Inc Magazine reached out to have David H. Freedman (website powered by WordPress) write a feature piece I was excited because though Inc wasn’t a magazine I have read much since I was a teenager, David seemed like a legit journalist who usually writes for better publications...
Home on Erik...
Plotting author statistics for Git repos using Git of Theseus
I spent a few days during the holidays fixing up a bunch of semi-dormant open source projects and I...
over a year ago
I spent a few days during the holidays fixing up a bunch of semi-dormant open source projects and I have a couple of blog posts in the pipeline about various updates. First up, I made a number of fixes to Git of Theseus which is a tool (written in Python) that generates...
Posts on Made of...
Regular Expression Search with Suffix Arrays
Back in January of 2012, Russ Cox posted an excellent blog post detailing how Google Code Search had...
over a year ago
Back in January of 2012, Russ Cox posted an excellent blog post detailing how Google Code Search had worked, using a trigram index.
By that point, I’d already implemented early versions of my own livegrep source-code search engine, using a different indexing approach that I...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1982/08 Commodore Computing International Mag
Time for some humor
5 months ago
./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...
Louwrentius
How to resolve extreme memory usage on Windows 2008 R2-based file servers
I'm responsible for a file server with about 5 terrabytes of data. The file server is based on...
over a year ago
I'm responsible for a file server with about 5 terrabytes of data. The file server is based on Windows 2008 R2. I've noticed extreme memory usage on the server. After a reboot, it slowly builds up until almost all RAM memory is consumed.
So I googled around and found this post...
Willem's Blog
Being a volunteer in Amsterdam-Zuidoost
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
over a year ago
About my work as volunteer in the local community center in Amsterdam Zuidoost
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Printing & Tuning
It’s up and running, and now it’s finally printing time!
Less exciting—but necessary—tuning the...
a year ago
It’s up and running, and now it’s finally printing time!
Less exciting—but necessary—tuning the printer to make the prints better.
Filament shipment
Even though I’ve been building the printer for more than a month, I wasn’t ready for it being time for printing so soon.
I don’t...
Engineers Need Art
Op-Amp Helper PCB
A PCB for breadboards to make working with op-amps easier.
a year ago
A PCB for breadboards to make working with op-amps easier.
./techtipsy
Strangling your service with a Kubernetes misconfiguration
This is a quick story about a fun discovery that I made a while ago.
For legal reasons, all of this...
over a year ago
This is a quick story about a fun discovery that I made a while ago.
For legal reasons, all of this is made up and no such service ever existed.
Once upon a time, we had this Java service that handled all the backend
work that you’d expect to occur for a product with a web...
Louwrentius
Scrub your NAS hard drives regularly if you care about your data
Introduction
Lots of people run a NAS at home. Maybe it's a COTS device from one of the well-known...
over a year ago
Introduction
Lots of people run a NAS at home. Maybe it's a COTS device from one of the well-known vendors1, or it's a custom build solution (DIY2) based on hardware you bought and assembled yourself.
Buying or building a NAS is one thing, but operating it in a way that assures...
Good Enough
My Tears of the Kingdom Addiction
I don’t know how big my internet social bubble really is, but it feels like everyone in the world...
a year ago
I don’t know how big my internet social bubble really is, but it feels like everyone in the world that bubble has been playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lately. Me included! It’s amazing, and I’m thoroughly engrossed—I think I’ve stayed up playing until...
Applied Cartography
Consider the data product
The advice might seem dated these days, but I think the stair step approach to bootstrapping is...
2 months ago
The advice might seem dated these days, but I think the stair step approach to bootstrapping is evergreen:
It’s much easier to sell an add-on to an existing ecosystem like a WordPress plugin, a Shopify app, a Heroku add-on – they’re usually small things to build, relatively...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates September 16: Explore all available articles of a feed
3 months ago
Arduino Blog
A pair of Arduino UNO R4 boards power this Tron-inspired, decked-out shop room
Bob Clagett of the “I Like to Make Stuff” YouTube channel has recently undertaken an extensive shop...
6 months ago
Bob Clagett of the “I Like to Make Stuff” YouTube channel has recently undertaken an extensive shop renovation project where he is rearranging tools, tidying up various spaces, and even creating a dedicated “clean” room for his collection of 3D printers/electronics work. With its...
Arduino Blog
Meet Mr. Wallplate, an animatronic wall plate that speaks to you
Interactive robots always bring an element of intrigue, and even more so when they feature unusual...
7 months ago
Interactive robots always bring an element of intrigue, and even more so when they feature unusual parts and techniques to perform their actions. Mr. Wallplate, affectionately named by Tony K on Instructables, is one such robot that is contained within an electrical wall plate...
Notes on software...
Deploying FreeBSD on Linode unattended in minutes
I became a FreeBSD user over 2 years ago when I wanted to see what all
the fuss was about. I swapped...
over a year ago
I became a FreeBSD user over 2 years ago when I wanted to see what all
the fuss was about. I swapped my y410p dual-booting Windows / Ubuntu
with FreeBSD running Gnome 3. I learned a lot during the transition
and came to appreciate FreeBSD as a user. I soon began running...
Jonas Hietala
IDA Summer of Code 2014
IDA Summer of Code is Linköping University’s response to Google Summer of Code. Students can send in...
over a year ago
IDA Summer of Code is Linköping University’s response to Google Summer of Code. Students can send in a project of their choice and if selected they get paid to work on it for 4 weeks during the summer. In return the university get to show off the students and their projects in...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 4
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
a year ago
The Amiga, The Decline, The Fall
Computer Ads from...
Black Friday - Happy Birthday sale
Let's mix things up!
3 weeks ago
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
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...
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros
My first shooter! It’s working (although a friend got a null pointer error) so I’m a little...
over a year ago
My first shooter! It’s working (although a friend got a null pointer error) so I’m a little happy.
The Time
I spent about 24 hours on this game. A whopping 30% was break time, mostly me eating, reading manga or playing games… This is proof of me being really lazy this month I...
GitButler
GitButler for Windows
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
8 months ago
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
Notes on software...
Studying foreign languages with inbox zero
The only time I've been able to seriously, rapidly improve my ability
to speak a foreign language...
over a year ago
The only time I've been able to seriously, rapidly improve my ability
to speak a foreign language was through intensive language courses in
college. I was forced to actively speak, read, and write Chinese for
6-8 hours a week (1-2 hours every day). Then study another 5-10 hours
a...
Applied Cartography
Hypermodern Django
I've been on the hunt for a new way to dogfood Buttondown for the past month or so, and I've finally...
a week ago
I've been on the hunt for a new way to dogfood Buttondown for the past month or so, and I've finally found it: Hypermodern Django.
At this point, all of my/our usages of Buttondown for Buttondown don't involve archives: we're using it headlessly, with RSS-to-email and APIs...
Jonas Hietala
Home office renovation
When we moved back to our childhood community and bought a house I had one pretty big requirement: I...
over a year ago
When we moved back to our childhood community and bought a house I had one pretty big requirement: I had to have a home office as I need to work remote. There simply isn’t any software development work for me here.
So the later part of 2018 and early 2019 we’ve renovated an old...
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...
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
Jonas Hietala
How I did the layout for my self-published book
This is a rundown of how I typeset and laid out my self-published book for the web version, the EPUB...
10 months ago
This is a rundown of how I typeset and laid out my self-published book for the web version, the EPUB version, and the printed version.
I was planning to include many more details, but the project took a lot longer than planned so I’ve forgotten some things.
Web page
I started...
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 6. an x86 upgrade
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. LLVM system calls
This post upgrades the ulisp x86 backend from using a limited set of
registers (with no spilling...
latest projects -...
POV Candle
[Hardware] Tiny volumetric display
a year ago
[Hardware] Tiny volumetric display
Good Enough
Strong Prototypes, Weakly Held
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in...
a year ago
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne as my soundtrack. This is an album I've never listened to before, and apparently I'm supposed to love it or hate it. Mostly the...
Birchtree
I’m Not a Panda Person
Niléane has a new webcam, Chris is downing in keyboards, and everyone installs some web-ass web...
2 days ago
Niléane has a new webcam, Chris is downing in keyboards, and everyone installs some web-ass web apps.
Watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app!
Arduino Blog
This machine automatically creates chain art
Art is very personal and we often consider the process of creation itself when evaluating the...
5 months ago
Art is very personal and we often consider the process of creation itself when evaluating the resulting piece. Does a sculpture have more artistic value when molded by human hands rather than a 3D printer? Most would say that it does. But what if the automation was, itself, part...
Home on Erik...
Why I went into the mortgage industry
I just realized last Thursday that I have spent two full years at Better, incidentally on the same...
over a year ago
I just realized last Thursday that I have spent two full years at Better, incidentally on the same day as we announced a $15M round led by Kleiner Perkins. So it was a good point to reflect a bit and think back – what the F led me to abandon my role managing the machine learning...
Christian Selig
Using PHPickerViewController Images in a Memory-Efficient Way
PHPickerViewController is (in my opinion) one of the more exciting parts of iOS 14. We developers...
over a year ago
PHPickerViewController is (in my opinion) one of the more exciting parts of iOS 14. We developers now have a fully-fledged photo picker that we can just use, rather than having to spend a bunch of our time creating our own (much like SFSafariViewController did for developers and...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Capability makes your life simpler
If you can tolerate discomfort, then you can camp much lighter. Camping lighter means you spend less...
4 months ago
If you can tolerate discomfort, then you can camp much lighter. Camping lighter means you spend less time and energy packing, setting-up, tearing down, and unpacking. The same goes for travel. Fewer clothes and shoes means less luggage to carry, manage, and lose. You can board...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Winter Kit Tournament Linköping
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14...
over a year ago
After quite the hiatus from Netrunner I had a chance to join a tournament here in Linköping with 14 participants. The number of players has grown a lot since the previous tournament which is really great.
As I really wanted to win the wonderful Day Job playmat I went with two of...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Microsoft Encarta
Searchable Human Knowledge
a year ago
Searchable Human Knowledge
Electronics etc…
Fake Parallel Printer - A Parallel Port Traffic Capturing Tool
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake...
a year ago
Introduction
What Is Out There?
The Parallel Printer Port
Fake Printer Top Level Design Choices
Fake Printer HW Details
PCB Revision 1
PCB Revision 2
Firmware
Building a Fake Printer Tool Yourself
Programming the Raspberry Pico
Fake Printer as a USB Serial Device on your...
Old Vintage...
Programming the Convergent WorkSlate's spreadsheet microcassette future
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking...
3 months ago
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking to each other via speakerphone, and probably listening to Devo and New Order a lot. (Though that part isn't too different from my actual present.)
a computer whose manufacturer...
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?
Home on Erik...
Everything I learned about technical debt
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover...
over a year ago
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover that. Instead, I will talk a little bit about technical debt.
The concept of technical debt always resonated with me, partly because I always like the analogy with “real” debt.
computers are bad
2024-01-21 multi-channel audio part 1
Stereophonic or two-channel audio is so ubiquitous today that we tend to refer
to all kinds of...
11 months ago
Stereophonic or two-channel audio is so ubiquitous today that we tend to refer
to all kinds of pieces of consumer audio reproduction equipment as "a stereo."
As you might imagine, this is a relatively modern phenomenon. While stereo
audio in concept dates to the late 19th...
./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...
./techtipsy
Running on fumes
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with...
over a year ago
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with this fun little bug:
0GB ought to be enough for anybody.
Louwrentius
Do not buy a hardware RAID controller for home use
Hardware RAID controllers are considered 'the best' solution for high
performance and high...
over a year ago
Hardware RAID controllers are considered 'the best' solution for high
performance and high availability. However, this is not entirely true. Using a
hardware RAID controller might even endanger your precious data.
For enterprise environments, where performance is critical, it is...
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...
Arduino Blog
Arduino’s Alvik Robot shortlisted for the Bett Awards 2025 in the AV, VR/AR, Robotics, and Digital...
We’re thrilled to announce that Arduino Education has been shortlisted for the Bett Awards 2025,...
a month ago
We’re thrilled to announce that Arduino Education has been shortlisted for the Bett Awards 2025, this time in the AV, VR/AR, Robotics, or Digital Device category with our Alvik robot! This recognition highlights our dedication to innovation, inclusivity, and the advancement of...
Computer Ads from...
1988 Interview Between Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems and MicroTimes
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
6 months ago
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
Notes on software...
Zig, Rust, and other languages
Having worked a bit in Zig, Rust, Go and now C, I think there are a
few common topics worth having a...
9 months ago
Having worked a bit in Zig, Rust, Go and now C, I think there are a
few common topics worth having a fresh conversation on: automatic
memory management, the standard library, and explicit allocation.
Zig is not a mature language. But it has made enough useful choices
for a number...
Posts on Made of...
Three kinds of memory leaks
So, you’ve got a program that’s using more and more over time as it runs. Probably you can...
over a year ago
So, you’ve got a program that’s using more and more over time as it runs. Probably you can immediately identify this as a likely symptom of a memory leak.
But when we say “memory leak”, what do we actually mean? In my experience, apparent memory leaks divide into three broad...
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...
Good Enough
That time Marvel secretly endorsed my podcast with “the greatest comic book cover of all time”
This is a blog post that has nothing to do with Good Enough, but I was told “There needs to be a...
a year ago
This is a blog post that has nothing to do with Good Enough, but I was told “There needs to be a record of this somewhere on the internet!” and I don’t have my own blog.
Years ago my friend and I ran a radio show called Gorilla Madness, which we also spun out into a podcast after...
Applied Cartography
Migrating someone who's on Stripe Connect Express
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author...
11 months ago
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author has full agency over their account and is the merchant of record;
they can revoke OAuth access from Substack (or whomever) at any time;
Substack continues to take that 10% as an...
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...
Louwrentius
Smoking coolermaster Silent Pro M 600W TN6M50
So I was just messing around on my work station, when suddenly I smelled the
smell any person...
over a year ago
So I was just messing around on my work station, when suddenly I smelled the
smell any person familiar with electronics fears. The smell of some electrical
component burning.
The whole upper floor smelled like something was smoldering. So I shut down
both my storage servers....
Abort Retry Fail
The History of GM-NAA I/O and SHARE
The Birth of Computer Operating Systems
a year ago
The Birth of Computer Operating Systems
Posts on Made of...
A Go/C Polyglot
Writing a Go/C polyglot Someone on a Slack I’m on recently raised the question of how you might...
over a year ago
Writing a Go/C polyglot Someone on a Slack I’m on recently raised the question of how you might write a source file that’s both valid C and Go, commenting that it wasn’t immediately obvious if this was even possible. I got nerdsniped, and succeeded in producing one, which you can...
Louwrentius
A practical understanding of lead acid batteries
Introduction
The goal of this article is to give you a practical understanding Lead Acid batteries....
over a year ago
Introduction
The goal of this article is to give you a practical understanding Lead Acid batteries. We won't address the underlying chemistry, we'll treat them as a black-box and we will discover their characteristics and how to keep them healthy.
Disclaimer
I'm an amateur. I...
Matt Mullenweg
Carmack & Rogan
I guess something has changed with the Joe Rogan / Spotify deal and now all the old episodes are on...
3 weeks ago
I guess something has changed with the Joe Rogan / Spotify deal and now all the old episodes are on YouTube again, which means the gems from the archives can now pop up. I was alerted to this conversation between Joe Rogan and John Carmack, and it’s pure gold. I know I’m five...
./techtipsy
DIY cloud gaming setup with VFIO, Parsec and AMD
This is a follow-up to my previous post where I covered
the VFIO setup in general. For many people...
over a year ago
This is a follow-up to my previous post where I covered
the VFIO setup in general. For many people that would have been good enough, but my goal with this setup was to have a
powerful gaming setup that I could access from my living room PC with 20 meters of Ethernet cables...
./techtipsy
Oops, I published my drafts!
Those of you who follow my blog using the RSS feed might have seen that new, incomplete posts popped...
10 months ago
Those of you who follow my blog using the RSS feed might have seen that new, incomplete posts popped up around the time
I published my FOSDEM 2024 post.
Oops.
I recently tried looking for an alternative to writing blog posts in IntelliJ and out of all the options I stuck...
Jonas Hietala
Settled on an unoriginal idea
I think I’ve decided what to do. Some very slight progress has been made.
over a year ago
I think I’ve decided what to do. Some very slight progress has been made.
Jonas Hietala
Focusing Attention: Drawing
In my last post I wrote about some ideas and projects I have and how it’s a little bit too much at a...
over a year ago
In my last post I wrote about some ideas and projects I have and how it’s a little bit too much at a time, so now I’m going to try something new here. In the beginning of every week I’ll declare something I’ll be focusing on and then that’s the only thing I should focus on on my...
Willem's Blog
Rolex DateJust 36
Celebrating a major milestone, I treated myself to a Rolex DateJust 36. Want to know what it's like?...
over a year ago
Celebrating a major milestone, I treated myself to a Rolex DateJust 36. Want to know what it's like? Keep reading!
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Reflections on Palantir
A retrospective of an eight-year stint.
2 months ago
A retrospective of an eight-year stint.
Home on Erik...
σ-driven project management: when is the optimal time to give up?
Hi! It's your friendly project management theorician. You might remember me from blog posts such as...
over a year ago
Hi! It's your friendly project management theorician. You might remember me from blog posts such as Why software projects take longer than you think, which is a blog post I wrote a long time ago positing that software projects completion time follow a log-normal distribution.
Home on Erik...
Slides from NYC Machine Learning talk
Slides from the talk. Slightly edited because (a) some of the slides make little sense taken out of...
over a year ago
Slides from the talk. Slightly edited because (a) some of the slides make little sense taken out of context (b) Slideshare seem to have problem converting some of the stuff.
Collaborative filtering at Spotify from Erik Bernhardsson
Willem's Blog
Marathon
Read the story of how it feels to complete your first marathon.
2 months ago
Read the story of how it feels to complete your first marathon.
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...
Notes on software...
Metaprogramming in Zig and parsing CSS
I knew Zig supported some sort of reflection on types. But I had been
confused about how to use it....
a year ago
I knew Zig supported some sort of reflection on types. But I had been
confused about how to use it. What's the difference between
@typeInfo and @TypeOf? I ignored this aspect of Zig until a
problem came up at work where reflection
made sense.
The situation was parsing and storing...
Good Enough
All About CSS: Alphabetize, Normalize, and Dark-mode-itize
Hello reader, I’m Matthew, the newest member of Good Enough (LLC). The rest of the team are avid...
a year ago
Hello reader, I’m Matthew, the newest member of Good Enough (LLC). The rest of the team are avid writers and sharers… I’m not. But they keep chanting “One of us. One of us.” so I suppose you’ll see me around here sometimes.
For my inaugural post, I thought I’d quickly share what...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Objects, Inc's Layout
Build Programs Without Programming
10 months ago
Build Programs Without Programming
./techtipsy
Accidentally turning the ASRock DeskMini X300 into a semi-passively cooled PC
After playing around with fan curves on my ASRock DeskMini X300
based home server, I noticed one...
over a year ago
After playing around with fan curves on my ASRock DeskMini X300
based home server, I noticed one interesting thing. At least it was
interesting to me.
Background
I had one goal: to try to see if I could turn it into a semi-passive PC by only
turning the fan on when the PC was...
Home on Erik...
New approximate nearest neighbor benchmarks
As some of you may know, one of my side interests is approximate nearest neighbor algorithms. I'm...
over a year ago
As some of you may know, one of my side interests is approximate nearest neighbor algorithms. I'm the author of Annoy, a library with 3,500+ stars on Github as of today. It offers fast approximate search for nearest neighbors with the additional benefit that you can load data...
Good Enough
TIL: Rails has_one Nested Attributes Tweaking
In a project I'm working on right now I've been using a Rails nested form and a couple of things...
a year ago
In a project I'm working on right now I've been using a Rails nested form and a couple of things caught me off guard.
has_one Nested Form Sending id Attribute
In this case I have a nested form that is in a has_one relationship with the parent model.
I think this is a common thing...
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
Optical vs chest strap heart rate monitors
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness...
over a year ago
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness trackers
Christian Selig
Introducing Juno for Apple Vision Pro
YouTube is probably one of the parts of the internet I consume the most, so I was more than a little...
10 months ago
YouTube is probably one of the parts of the internet I consume the most, so I was more than a little sad when YouTube announced that they don’t have plans to build a visionOS app, and disabled the option to load the iPad app. This leaves you with Safari, and the website is okay,...
Lars Lofgren
The 9 Delusions From the Halo Effect
You’re being lied to. Well, not intentionally. We’re constantly being pinged with stories of...
over a year ago
You’re being lied to. Well, not intentionally. We’re constantly being pinged with stories of companies that have rocketed to success. Especially in tech, there’s always another $1 billion unicorn around the corner. Uber, Facebook, Airbnb, Slack, Zenefits, Box, Shopify, yadda...
Applied Cartography
11ty
.njk as the default templating language is an odd choice, and I find myself stubbing my toe on it a...
10 months ago
.njk as the default templating language is an odd choice, and I find myself stubbing my toe on it a good amount. Maybe that's a me thing!
It is extremely fast. This site has around 2300 pages; Eleventy is compiling it in around two seconds.
The extensibility ergonomics are...
Notes on software...
Writing an x86 emulator from scratch in JavaScript: 2. system calls
Previously in emulator basics:
1. a stack and register machine
In this post we'll extend x86e...
over a year ago
Previously in emulator basics:
1. a stack and register machine
In this post we'll extend x86e to
support the exit and write Linux system calls, or syscalls. A syscall
is a function handled by the kernel that allows the process to
interact with data outside of its memory....
Notes on software...
btest: a language agnostic test runner
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian,...
over a year ago
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian, an ex- co-worker from Linode, wrote the first
implementation in Crystal (a compiled
language clone of Ruby) for testing
bshift, a compiler
project. The tool accomplished exactly...
Louwrentius
Linux: get a list of al disks and their size
To get a list of all disk drives of a Linux system, such as this:
Disk /dev/md0: 58.0 GB
Disk...
over a year ago
To get a list of all disk drives of a Linux system, such as this:
Disk /dev/md0: 58.0 GB
Disk /dev/md1: 2015 MB
Disk /dev/md5: 18002.2 GB
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB
Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sde: 1000.1 GB
Disk /dev/sdf: 1000.1...
Home on Erik...
I already found the best gifs
Just search for “hackers gif“.
There you go. Fun for your work emails for the next 500 years. From...
over a year ago
Just search for “hackers gif“.
There you go. Fun for your work emails for the next 500 years. From the awesome movie Hackers. That movie together with The Warriors convinced me that I wanted to live in NYC when I was like… 14 years old.
Notes on software...
What makes a great technical blog
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely...
8 months ago
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely about non-corporate tech blogs. So this post is
too. I'll have to make another list for favorite corporate tech blogs.
In short, they:
Tackle hard and confusing topics
Show working...
axio.ms
Maths is Fun and Useful but Lasers Are More So
Way back when, I made a cool but basic paper sculpture (in Maths is Fun and Useful) by hand, using a...
over a year ago
Way back when, I made a cool but basic paper sculpture (in Maths is Fun and Useful) by hand, using a perl script for the shape template. For cultural reasons, I wanted to make a gift out of paper and it had to be Heaps Good.
I had finally got access to a laser cutter (omgomg)...
./techtipsy
What changing the CPU on a laptop looks like
This post illustrates something that is not common on modern laptops:
changing the...
over a year ago
This post illustrates something that is not common on modern laptops:
changing the CPU.
Background
One of the modifications that you can do to a ThinkPad T430 laptop is changing
the CPU to a more powerful quad core model. That’s exactly what I did back in 2017,
but due to the...
Arduino Blog
This DIY smart chicken coop features AI-based predator detection
Raising chickens can be a very rewarding endeavor, as they can provide fresh daily eggs and help get...
a month ago
Raising chickens can be a very rewarding endeavor, as they can provide fresh daily eggs and help get rid of pests in the yard. But, like all animals, they require care. Most importantly, you’ll need to ensure that they have regular food and water, and you’ll need to protect them...
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...
Computer Ads from...
Creative Computer Publishes Interview with the Guy Behind the Death Star Trench Run (1978)
An Interview With Star Wars Animator Larry Cuba
8 months ago
An Interview With Star Wars Animator Larry Cuba
Posts on Made of...
Wordpress tricks: Disabling editing shortcuts
One of the major reasons I can’t stand webapps is because I’m a serious emacs junkie, and I can’t...
over a year ago
One of the major reasons I can’t stand webapps is because I’m a serious emacs junkie, and I can’t edit text in anything that doesn’t have decent emacs keybindings.
Fortunately, on Linux, at least, GTK provides basic emacs keybindings if you add
gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs" to...
./techtipsy
Cool projects
This is an unsorted list of projects that really cool and neat.
Chromebook cluster
someone took...
a year ago
This is an unsorted list of projects that really cool and neat.
Chromebook cluster
someone took some old Chromebooks, stripped them down and built a cluster. I love this kind of jank!
Home on Erik...
Business secrets from terrible people
I get bored reading management books very easily and lately I've been reading about a wide range of...
over a year ago
I get bored reading management books very easily and lately I've been reading about a wide range of almost arbitrary topics. One of the lenses I tend to read through is to see different management styles in different environments.
Notes on software...
Writing an efficient object previewer for JavaScript
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Arduino Blog
Ready for SPS Italia 2024? Ready for accessible industrial automation!
Save the date on May 28th-30th, Arduino will be back at SPS Italia in Parma, showcasing how our...
7 months ago
Save the date on May 28th-30th, Arduino will be back at SPS Italia in Parma, showcasing how our open-source solutions are revolutionizing the industrial sector with high performance and accessibility. At Arduino’s booth #C020, hall 7, we’ll be presenting the latest additions to...
./techtipsy
The hidden media play/pause/stop keys on the Lenovo ThinkPad L390 Yoga
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This...
7 months ago
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This included the media playback control keys.
On the ThinkPad T430, the new chiclet keyboard layout moved the media keys to
the function row. Still there, but less convenient to access.
The...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 95
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
a year ago
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
Jonas Hietala
2021 in review
A new year is always a good time to review the past year. Funny how this is already the 12th year...
over a year ago
A new year is always a good time to review the past year. Funny how this is already the 12th year I’ve done this kind of quick review… Time sure flies.
2021 Non-Geek Achievements
Started strength training using a strength coach from Kabuki.
I got inspired by the book Peak that...
Notes on software...
A minimal REST API in Java
There's a style of Java that is a joy to write. This post will cover
how to set up a basic...
over a year ago
There's a style of Java that is a joy to write. This post will cover
how to set up a basic PostgreSQL-integrated REST API using
Jersey and
JOOQ in a style not dissimilar to Flask and
SQLAlchemy in Python.
In particular, we'll try to avoid as much runtime
reflection/class-loading...
Notes on software...
Intercepting and modifying Linux system calls with ptrace
How software fails is interesting. But real-world errors can be
infrequent to manifest....
a year ago
How software fails is interesting. But real-world errors can be
infrequent to manifest. Fault
injection
is a formal-sounding term that just means: trying to explicitly
trigger errors in the hopes of discovering bad logic, typically
during automated tests.
Jepsen
and ChaosMonkey...
Home on Erik...
More recommender algorithms
I wanted to share some more insight into the algorithms we use at Spotify. One matrix factorization...
over a year ago
I wanted to share some more insight into the algorithms we use at Spotify. One matrix factorization algorithm we have used for a while assumes that we have user vectors $$ bf{a}_u $$ and item vectors $$ bf{b}_i $$ .
Jonas Hietala
I designed my own keyboard layout. Was it worth it?
Almost two and a half years ago I embarked on the journey to change keyboard layout.
At first I...
a year ago
Almost two and a half years ago I embarked on the journey to change keyboard layout.
At first I tried out existing ones, but it didn’t take long before I figured it’s better to develop my own—and things went downhill fast from there.
(Some) combos of the T-34 layout.
But now...
Louwrentius
Please use ZFS with ECC Memory
In this blogpost I argue why it's strongly recommended to use ZFS with ECC memory when building a...
over a year ago
In this blogpost I argue why it's strongly recommended to use ZFS with ECC memory when building a NAS. I would argue that if you do not use ECC memory, it's reasonable to also forgo on ZFS altogether and use any (legacy) file system that suits your needs.
Why ZFS?
Many people...
Jonas Hietala
Writing lessons learned after writing a book
A good writer isn’t born; a good writer is created
It may sound dumb, but one of my reasons for...
a year ago
A good writer isn’t born; a good writer is created
It may sound dumb, but one of my reasons for writing a book was to improve my writing ability.
Maybe I could’ve practiced on the blog instead, but putting things on paper gave it some added weight I don’t think I would’ve gotten...
Louwrentius
Linux Software RAID benchmarking script
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use...
over a year ago
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use my
new benchmark script. I used this script to create these results.
You may need to configure some values within the header of this file to make
it fit your enviroment.
...
Willem's Blog
Giving AI Training
Explore the transformative power of AI in everyday work: Dive into firsthand insights from a recent...
a year ago
Explore the transformative power of AI in everyday work: Dive into firsthand insights from a recent AI training session that's reshaping professional landscapes.
Notes on software...
Eight years of organizing tech meetups
This is a collection of random personal experiences. So if you don't
want to read everything, feel...
a year ago
This is a collection of random personal experiences. So if you don't
want to read everything, feel free to skip to the end for takeaways.
I write because I'd like to see more high-quality meetups. And maybe
my little bit of experience will help someone out.
2015: Philadelphia
I...
Jonas Hietala
An invisible Remake
What does a guy like me do when not working on a new game? Except living my life, being a coach for...
over a year ago
What does a guy like me do when not working on a new game? Except living my life, being a coach for my little brother’s hockey team and eating strawberries? The last week or so I’ve been working hard with my webpage, yes this page. If you’ve visited my site before today you’ll...
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 4: Issue 4-evah
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious....
over a year ago
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious. Barry’s daughters all had marching band, and he chaperoned 4 the parades. His eldest daughter also went and got a boyfriend. Shawn’s been feeling a little under the weather, and his two...
Neil Madden
Towards a standard for bearer token URLs
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include...
over a year ago
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include credentials in a URL?, I raised the possibility of standardising a new URL scheme that safely allows encoding a bearer token into a URL. This makes it more convenient to use lots of...
Jonas Hietala
Stereotypes
I read a great essay or article about stereotypical programmers called The Little Printf. I really...
over a year ago
I read a great essay or article about stereotypical programmers called The Little Printf. I really couldn’t do it justice so do yourself a favor and go read it. It touches on several types of programmers or rather traits of programmers I recognize in my surroundings and also...
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.
Home on Erik...
The hardest challenge about becoming a manager
Note: this post is full of pseudo-psychology and highly speculative content. Like most fun stuff!
I...
over a year ago
Note: this post is full of pseudo-psychology and highly speculative content. Like most fun stuff!
I became a manager back in 2009. Being a developer is fun. You have this very tangible way to measure yourself.
Engineers Need Art
Offline Advocate
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of...
a month ago
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of mind.
Home on Erik...
Luigi conquering the world
I keep forgetting to buy a costume for Halloween every year, so this year I prepared and got myself...
over a year ago
I keep forgetting to buy a costume for Halloween every year, so this year I prepared and got myself a Luigi costume a month in advance. Only to realize I was going to be out of town the whole weekend.
Louwrentius
Corsair CM PSU-750HX seems ok
I had to replace my Coolermaster PSU and after some searching on the interweb,
I chose the Corsair...
over a year ago
I had to replace my Coolermaster PSU and after some searching on the interweb,
I chose the Corsair CMPSU-750HX. One of the reasons is that Corsair states
that this PSU can withstand 50 degree Celcius in continuous operation on full
load.
The package is very, clean, with all the...
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...
Computer Ads from...
Maxell's MF 2-DD Floppies
The Gold Standard
3 weeks ago
Louwrentius
overview of open-source load balancers
I was looking at open-source load balancing software and it seems that there isn't a nice overview...
over a year ago
I was looking at open-source load balancing software and it seems that there isn't a nice overview except from this website, although many of the listed projects seem dead.
I've made a selection of products that seem to be relevant. The biggest problem with open-source software...
Jonas Hietala
Computer upgrade
After 5 years or so I’ve made a large upgrade to my desktop, and this post contains details and some...
a year ago
After 5 years or so I’ve made a large upgrade to my desktop, and this post contains details and some pictures about the process.
It was time
I didn’t really want to do an upgrade right now, but I felt I had to do it.
Sometimes the lag had gotten very noticeable, for example when...
Louwrentius
Understanding Ceph: open-source scalable storage
Introduction
In this blog post I will try to explain why I believe Ceph is such an interesting...
over a year ago
Introduction
In this blog post I will try to explain why I believe Ceph is such an interesting storage solution. After you finished reading this blog post you should have a good high-level overview of Ceph.
I've written this blog post purely because I'm a storage enthusiast and I...
Electronics etc…
Cable Length Measurement with an HP 8007B Pulse Generator
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [...
a year ago
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$', '$'], ["\\(", "\\)"] ],
displayMath: [ ['$$', '$$'], ["\\[", "\\]"] ],
processEscapes: true,
skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',...
Applied Cartography
44%
If you spend enough time digesting hackneyed business or self-improvement advice, you've probably...
7 months ago
If you spend enough time digesting hackneyed business or self-improvement advice, you've probably seen someone wax poetic about the following image:
This is meant to be an illustration of the power of incrementalism (often referred to as kaizen when the writer is trying to be...
Louwrentius
'Linux: using disk labels to counter storage device name changes'
My router decided to change the device name for some USB storage devices. So
/dev/sdc was swapped...
over a year ago
My router decided to change the device name for some USB storage devices. So
/dev/sdc was swapped for /dev/sdd and vice versa. The result was some file
system corruption on /dev/sdc, because it was used on a remote system through
iSCSI, using a different file system from...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 2.0
Success and Litigation
a year ago
Jonas Hietala
Mailto: links with FastMail in Firefox
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications....
over a year ago
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications. The problem is that you can’t input custom urls and some email providers, like hotmail or fastmail, aren’t supported. I managed to fix it with the plugin MailtoWebmails. It annoys me...
Posts on Made of...
Dear Twitter: Stop screwing over your developers.
I really like Twitter. I think it’s a great, fun, service, that helps enable interesting online...
over a year ago
I really like Twitter. I think it’s a great, fun, service, that helps enable interesting online communities, and is a surprisingly effective way to spread news and information to lots of people online. One of the things that I’ve loved about Twitter is their API, and how open and...
./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...
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...
Posts on Made of...
Design for Testability
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to...
over a year ago
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to structure it. What should the core abstractions be? How should they interact with each other?
In this post, I want to argue for a design heuristic that I’ve found to be a useful guide to...
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.
Louwrentius
A 12.48 inch (1304x984) three-color e-paper display by Waveshare
Introduction
Update September 2023: A small horizontal and large vertical row of pixels died. Demo...
over a year ago
Introduction
Update September 2023: A small horizontal and large vertical row of pixels died. Demo of defective display here.
I'm running a solar-powered blog and I wanted to add a low-power display to show the daily solar 'harvest'1 and maybe some additional information.
So I...
Home on Erik...
Leaving Spotify
Febrary 6 was my last day at Spotify. In total I spent more than six years at Spotify and it was an...
over a year ago
Febrary 6 was my last day at Spotify. In total I spent more than six years at Spotify and it was an amazing experience.
I joined Spotify in Stockholm in 2008, mainly because a bunch of friends from programming competitions had joined already.
Posts on Made of...
Versioning dotfiles in git
I’ve been looking for a good solution for versioning and synchronizing my dotfiles between machines...
over a year ago
I’ve been looking for a good solution for versioning and synchronizing my dotfiles between machines for some time. I experimented with keeping all of ~ in subversion for a while, but it never worked out well for me.
I’ve finally settled on a solution that I like using git, and so...
Louwrentius
Speeding up Linux MDADM RAID array rebuild time using bitmaps
Update 2020: Please beware of the impact of random write I/O performance.
Please note that with a...
over a year ago
Update 2020: Please beware of the impact of random write I/O performance.
Please note that with a modern Linux distribution, bitmaps are enabled by default. They will not help speed up a rebuild after a failed drive. But it will help resync an array that got out-of-sync due to...
Notes on software...
An intuition for distributed consensus in OLTP systems
Distributed consensus in transactional databases (e.g. etcd or
Cockroach) is a big deal these days....
10 months ago
Distributed consensus in transactional databases (e.g. etcd or
Cockroach) is a big deal these days. Most often under the hood are
variations of log-based Paxos-like algorithms such as MultiPaxos,
Viewstamped Replication, or Raft. While there are new variations that
come out each...
Christian Selig
Juno 1.1
If you’re new, Juno is a visionOS app for YouTube!
Juno’s initial launch blew my socks off. It was...
10 months ago
If you’re new, Juno is a visionOS app for YouTube!
Juno’s initial launch blew my socks off. It was such a cool feeling to release an app on day one of the Apple Vision Pro’s launch, and having people be so excited about it and have such great feedback made it that much better....
Notes on software...
Analyzing large JSON files via partial JSON parsing
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Notes on software...
Is it worth writing about?
You acquire a skill or experience through time and effort,
then downplay the impact of writing and...
over a year ago
You acquire a skill or experience through time and effort,
then downplay the impact of writing and sharing the learning
process.
Professionals seem naturally to imagine a high bar for what
is worth writing about.
I think that's misguided. This article is not criticism of folks...
Louwrentius
Systemd Forward Secure Sealing of system logs makes little sense
Systemd is a more modern replacement of sysvinit and its in the process of being integrated into...
over a year ago
Systemd is a more modern replacement of sysvinit and its in the process of being integrated into most mainstream Linux distributions. I'm a bit troubled by one of it's features.
I'd like to discuss the Forward Secure Sealing (FSS) feature for log files that is part of systemd....
Arduino Blog
Arduino Education at Bett 2025: Shaping the future of K-12 and HE
Mark your calendars… Arduino Education is coming to Bett UK 2025! Taking place for three days from...
5 days ago
Mark your calendars… Arduino Education is coming to Bett UK 2025! Taking place for three days from January 22nd-24th at the ExCeL exhibition center in London, Bett is the ultimate global event for educational innovation. We are attending the stand with our partner CreativeHut...
Jonas Hietala
Christmas break
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and...
over a year ago
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and I really enjoy studying here. We had lisp the whole time which is a pretty sweet little language and if you haven’t, give it a shot. Then we had math and I do like math, although I...
Christian Selig
The Case for Getting Rid of TestFlight Review
I tweeted today about how I think TestFlight review should become a thing of the past and many...
over a year ago
I tweeted today about how I think TestFlight review should become a thing of the past and many developers seemed to agree, but some had questions so I wanted to expand on my thoughts a little.
TestFlight’s awesome. But like App Store submissions, TestFlight betas also require a...
Computer Ads from...
Bible Research Systems' THE WORD Processor
For Those Who Seek.
5 months ago
Posts on Made of...
Indices point between elements
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a...
over a year ago
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a diagram of an array, the array indices, and the array elements, odds are good you’d produce a diagram something like this:
In this post, I want to persuade you to replace that image, or,...
Applied Cartography
Fathom
I'd been meaning to jot down some thoughts on Fathom for a while, and did not have a particularly...
2 weeks ago
I'd been meaning to jot down some thoughts on Fathom for a while, and did not have a particularly good reason to do so until the news broke that Paul Jarvis was selling his share of the company to Jack Ellis, the technical co-founder. [1]
Anyway, the two thoughts:
I think Fathom...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1983/08 Today Mag
Time for some levity. The following comics were all found in the August 1983 issue of Today...
9 months ago
Time for some levity. The following comics were all found in the August 1983 issue of Today magazine. Enjoy! What computer ads would you like to see in the future? Please comment below. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends and relatives. Thank you.
Willem's Blog
Cleaning a vintage watch
This week I cleaned an automatic vintage watch and fitted it to with a new strap, rediscovering old...
over a year ago
This week I cleaned an automatic vintage watch and fitted it to with a new strap, rediscovering old beauty underneath layers of dirt!
Old Vintage...
CAP-X and COMP-X: how the Tandy Pocket Computers got a sucky Japanese assembler
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and...
10 months ago
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and useful, you had to do it in 6502 assembly language. Today I still write 6502 assembly, plus some Power ISA and even a little TMS9900. I like assembly languages and how in control of the...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of OS/2
Getting a Divorce
a year ago
Odds and Ends of...
We need more than Westminster reporters to understand government
Lobby correspondent hegemony is bad.
a week ago
Lobby correspondent hegemony is bad.
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...
Style over Substance
Create a Hue-compatible DIY LED light sculpture
Learn how to create your own Hue compatible LED light sculpture, inspired by by the REFLEKTION art,...
over a year ago
Learn how to create your own Hue compatible LED light sculpture, inspired by by the REFLEKTION art, using cheap LED strips and DIY parts you can order online.
The post Create a Hue-compatible DIY LED light sculpture appeared first on Style over Substance.
./techtipsy
DIY cloud gaming: NVIDIA and Moonlight
As you might have read from my previous post on this topic, I
have a pretty neat “cloud” gaming...
over a year ago
As you might have read from my previous post on this topic, I
have a pretty neat “cloud” gaming setup running. I have one powerful desktop PC, one virtual machine with a GPU attached
to it, and client machines that can be used to stream games from. To keep things simple (and...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates November 24: Content parsing improvements
a year ago
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...
./techtipsy
btrbk is awesome
I like having a safety net whenever I’m doing something potentially destructive,
which is why I use...
over a year ago
I like having a safety net whenever I’m doing something potentially destructive,
which is why I use the btrfs file system for my operating system and my data.
Snapshots are one half of my “whoops, there goes all my work” strategy (backups
are the other half).
I’ve written about...
Computer Ads from...
Applied Analytics' MicroSPEED
Test-Fly A $20 Million Jet On An Apple? Yes. With MicroSPEED
6 months ago
Test-Fly A $20 Million Jet On An Apple? Yes. With MicroSPEED
detreville
Father's Day
(First posted on Father's Day, 2022.)
a year ago
(First posted on Father's Day, 2022.)
Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List 