Applied Cartography
Bluesky is good
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for...
a week ago
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for the dubious title of "Twitter's successor" and landed on Bluesky as being my favorite, perhaps less out of its ostensible inherent virtues and more out of the size of its...
Jonas Hietala
Groar
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was to actually make something! It continues to amaze me what fantastic stuff everyone manage to make in just 48 hours. This is what I came up with for the theme You are the Monster....
Home on Erik...
Annoy 1.10 released, with Hamming distance and Windows support
I've been a bit bad at posting things with a regular cadence lately, partly because I'm trying to...
over a year ago
I've been a bit bad at posting things with a regular cadence lately, partly because I'm trying to adjust to having a toddler, partly because the hunt for clicks has caused such a high bar for me that I feel like I have to post something Pulitzer-worthy.
Vitalik Buterin's...
What else could memecoins be?
8 months ago
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
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Exploring Elliptic Curve Pairings
over a year ago
Construction Physics
Do U.S. Ports Need More Automation?
On October 1st, 47,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), primarily...
2 months ago
On October 1st, 47,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), primarily dockworkers on East and Gulf Coast ports, went on strike after failing to agree contract terms with USMX, an alliance of port operators and employers.
Neil Madden
CVE-2022-21449: Psychic Signatures in Java
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to...
over a year ago
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to get out of trouble by showing an identity card which is actually completely blank. Of course, this being Doctor Who, the card is really made out of a special “psychic paper“, which...
Arduino Blog
Explore e-paper technology with Nano Matter and the new EPDK-Matter from Pervasive Displays
We’re excited to share that Pervasive Displays has just launched the E-Paper Development Kit for...
a week ago
We’re excited to share that Pervasive Displays has just launched the E-Paper Development Kit for Matter! This groundbreaking, self-contained kit is designed to revolutionize how smart home devices use e-paper displays, enhancing user experience while driving down energy...
Louwrentius
Don't be afraid of RAID
Introduction
I sense this sentiment on the internet that RAID is dangerous, that the likelihood of...
over a year ago
Introduction
I sense this sentiment on the internet that RAID is dangerous, that the likelihood of your RAID array failing during a rebuild is almost a certainty, because hard drives have become so large.
I think nothing is further from the truth and I would like to dispel this...
Christian Selig
Logging information from iOS Widgets
Lately users have been emailing me with a few odd things happening with their Apollo iOS 14 home...
over a year ago
Lately users have been emailing me with a few odd things happening with their Apollo iOS 14 home screen widgets, and some well-placed logs can really help with identifying what’s going wrong. iOS has a sophisticated built in logging mechanism, os_log, and now with SwiftLogger in...
Home on Erik...
We're hiring at Better
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the...
over a year ago
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the team here in NYC lately—the tech team has actually grown from 35 to 60 in just ~3 months.
watchTowr Labs -...
Cleo Harmony, VLTrader, and LexiCom - RCE via Arbitrary File Write (CVE-2024-50623)
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators...
a week ago
We were having a nice uneventful week at watchTowr, when we got news of some ransomware operators using a zero-day exploit in Cleo MFT software - namely, LexiCom, VLTransfer, and Harmony - applications that many large enterprises rely on to share files securely.
Cleo have a...
Home on Erik...
Stuff that bothers me: “100x faster than Hadoop”
The simple way to get featured on big data blog these days seem to be
Build something that does 1...
over a year ago
The simple way to get featured on big data blog these days seem to be
Build something that does 1 thing super well but nothing else Benchmark it against Hadoop Publish stats showing that it's 100x faster than Hadoop $$$ Spark claims their 100x faster than Hadoop and there's a...
Willem's Blog
Influencing purchase behaviour
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance,...
over a year ago
For my work I am continuously looking into scientific sources to improve e-commerce performance, conversion rates and online revenue. Use this useful report to apply behavioural sciences principles to your advantage.
Style over Substance
Using the Olympus XA as an everyday carry camera
The Olympus XA has been my EDC camera this year and I gotta say – it’s a ton of fun. The concept of...
over a year ago
The Olympus XA has been my EDC camera this year and I gotta say – it’s a ton of fun. The concept of EDC – Every Day Carry – is that a piece of equipment should be light and compact enough to have with you every day, yet still versatile enough to be useful in […]
The post Using...
computers are bad
2023-01-16 huff-duff
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an...
a year ago
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an extremely useful property of HF radio here is that HF
frequencies can reflect off of the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing them
to rebound towards earth at a range much further...
Arduino Blog
ardEEG is an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi shield for measuring biosignals
The secrets to most of the mind’s mysteries may still elude us, but we’ve made a tremendous amount...
7 months ago
The secrets to most of the mind’s mysteries may still elude us, but we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in reading signals produced by the brain. We may not understand exactly what is going on, but we can see the result and utilize it. And now you can start...
Louwrentius
Is there an easy and secure way to transfer files?
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network...
over a year ago
Many organisations just assume that the local physical network is trusted. That their network equipment is physically secure and that it is impossible for an attacker to get on the wire and start eavesdropping on network traffic.
Many organisations do not seem too concerned about...
Louwrentius
Affordable server with server-grade hardware part II
If you want to build a home server, it may be advised to actually use server-grade components. I...
over a year ago
If you want to build a home server, it may be advised to actually use server-grade components. I documented the reasons for choosing server-grade hardware already in an earlier post on this topic.
It is recommended to read the old post first. In this new post, I only show new...
Home on Erik...
ML+Hadoop at NYC Predictive Analytics
I was just at the NYC Predictive Analytics meetup talking about how we build machine learning...
over a year ago
I was just at the NYC Predictive Analytics meetup talking about how we build machine learning algorithms using Hadoop to power music recommendations.
Great meetup, where we had two speakers, me and Blake Shaw from Foursquare.
Louwrentius
'Secure programming: how to implement user account management'
Most web applications work like this:
The application uses a single database account to perform all...
over a year ago
Most web applications work like this:
The application uses a single database account to perform all actions. Users
are just some records in a table. Account privileges and roles are part of
this table, or separate tables.
This implies that all security must be designed and build...
Willem's Blog
Upgrading a 27-inch iMac 5K to 14 terabytes
This month I nearly destroyed my iMac during an attempt to upgrade it. Thanks to determination and...
over a year ago
This month I nearly destroyed my iMac during an attempt to upgrade it. Thanks to determination and some spare time I was able to resurrect it from the death!
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...
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...
Willem's Blog
Escaping the flat tires
Finding the answer to the question how resilient a puncture-proof tire really is took me quite some...
over a year ago
Finding the answer to the question how resilient a puncture-proof tire really is took me quite some time, but alas - here it is!
Neil Madden
Digital signatures and how to avoid them
Wikipedia’s definition of a digital signature is: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for...
3 months ago
Wikipedia’s definition of a digital signature is: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for verifying the authenticity of digital messages or documents. A valid digital signature on a message gives a recipient confidence that the message came from a sender known to the...
Louwrentius
Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) released.
The Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) is a small Bash script that acts as a
library for bash...
over a year ago
The Bash Shell Function Library (BSFL) is a small Bash script that acts as a
library for bash scripts. It provides a couple of functions that makes the
lives of most people using shell scripts a bit easier.
The purpose of this library is to provide pre-build functions for...
Home on Erik...
What is the right level of specialization? For data teams and anyone else.
This isn't as much of a blog post as an elaboration of a tweet I posted the other day:
I think this...
over a year ago
This isn't as much of a blog post as an elaboration of a tweet I posted the other day:
I think this specialization of data teams into 99 different roles (data scientist, data engineer, analytics engineer, ML engineer etc) is generally a bad thing driven by the fact that tools are...
Odds and Ends of...
Book now! Where we're going, we need roads (and trains)
My next in-person event/meet-up, with transport policy expert Michael Dnes!
3 weeks ago
My next in-person event/meet-up, with transport policy expert Michael Dnes!
Notes on software...
The limitations of LLMs, or why are we doing RAG?
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
6 months ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Home on Erik...
State drift
I generally haven't written much about software architecture. People make heuristics into religion....
over a year ago
I generally haven't written much about software architecture. People make heuristics into religion. But here is something I thought about: how to build in self-correction into systems. This has been something just vaguely sitting in my head lacking a clear conceptual definition...
Louwrentius
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...
Arduino Blog
Axiom is Arduino’s newest Gold Integration Partner!
Digital manufacturing consultancy and solutions provider, Axiom Manufacturing Systems, based in the...
6 months ago
Digital manufacturing consultancy and solutions provider, Axiom Manufacturing Systems, based in the United States, has recently joined our System Integrators Partnership Program. As Gold-level partners, Axiom will supercharge their mission – to empower manufacturers to rapidly...
Good Enough
Cool URLs Don’t Die
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen...
a year ago
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen that I've been building some printers.
This is actually the resurrection of a project I began in 2012 with the help of some colleagues, and while I've been updating it, it's been...
Ian's Blog
Learn how Windows builds its store of trusted root CA certificates
Today I learned something fascinating about how Windows deals with trusted root CA certificates. It...
over a year ago
Today I learned something fascinating about how Windows deals with trusted root CA certificates. It might surprise you, and it certainly did for me, but out-of-the-box Windows doesn't come with a set of root CA certificates sufficient for web browsing.
You can see this for...
Electronics etc…
Zephyr Ravenna Control Board Replacement
Blog post that probably has an audience of one, myself.
Introduction
Zephyr Ravenna - Confusing...
7 months ago
Blog post that probably has an audience of one, myself.
Introduction
Zephyr Ravenna - Confusing Information
Two PCBs - Control Board & Switch Assembly
Switch of the Breaker!!!
Glass Canopy Removal
Duct Cover Removal
Swapping the Control...
Computer Ads from...
Dipco's Easy Reader
"Sight for Sore Eyes"
a month ago
Jonas Hietala
Notifications with xmonad/irssi/urxvt
So I’ve been idling on irc for years now and I’ve been using irssi for that, which works fine. I...
over a year ago
So I’ve been idling on irc for years now and I’ve been using irssi for that, which works fine. I have not had notifications enabled, so I can see from the statusbar whenever someone messages me. As I’ve never been very active this has been fine, but now I figured it’s time to fix...
Louwrentius
LFS - Linux Firewall Script released
I started a small new Google project for a new script I wrote called LFS.
It stands for Linux...
over a year ago
I started a small new Google project for a new script I wrote called LFS.
It stands for Linux Firewall Script.
I run a small Linux box as an internet router that doubles as a firewall. The
firewall is configured using iptables. In my opinion, iptables is not the
easiest tool to...
./techtipsy
How to fix ZFS pool not importing at boot
Issue description
You are running a Linux-based machine with an install of ZFS on Linux. Everything...
over a year ago
Issue description
You are running a Linux-based machine with an install of ZFS on Linux. Everything seems to work correctly, but
after restarting your machine, the ZFS pool is not visible. You can still import your pool manually using
zpool import poolname or zpool import -a.
In...
Jonas Hietala
Eduroam for wicd in Linkoping's University
So we have eduroam at our University and unsurprisingly wicd is not on their official support list...
over a year ago
So we have eduroam at our University and unsurprisingly wicd is not on their official support list but with some googling the wonderful Arch Wiki had the answer. Well, almost.
Save the following as /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/ttls-80211:
name = TTLS for Wireless
author =...
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...
./techtipsy
I've reached the self-hosting endgame
Setup
After I had a perfectly functional, quiet and performant server up and running, I fell
victim...
over a year ago
Setup
After I had a perfectly functional, quiet and performant server up and running, I fell
victim to my imagination and completely changed my self-hosting setup. Again.
Here it is, in all its glory:
Well, at least that’s what’s on the table.
This machine is a true all-in-one:...
Matt Mullenweg
Disrupt Interview
On Wednesday I had a great chat with Connie Loizos, the editor in chief of TechCrunch, you can view...
a month ago
On Wednesday I had a great chat with Connie Loizos, the editor in chief of TechCrunch, you can view the video here: Then yesterday Automattic filed its legal responses to the spurious lawfare from WP Engine, Silver Lake, and Quinn Emanuel. It’s a bit long, but if you have time...
./techtipsy
About the time my ThinkPad T430 ran with an external GPU
The ThinkPad T430 is not a remarkable laptop. It’s thick, bulky and built like
a tank. I got mine in...
5 months ago
The ThinkPad T430 is not a remarkable laptop. It’s thick, bulky and built like
a tank. I got mine in 2016 when the first university scholarship money dropped,
and it’s still my backup laptop of choice.
Around 2017 I did something every reasonable poor computer science...
Applied Cartography
How Buttondown uses HAProxy
There are few technical decisions I regret more with Buttondown than the decision to combine the...
3 months ago
There are few technical decisions I regret more with Buttondown than the decision to combine the author-facing app, the subscriber-facing app, and the marketing site all under a single domain. Most technical decisions are reversible with sufficient grit and dedication; this one...
Jonas Hietala
Trying and returning the Eight Sleep Pod 4
I recently bought the Eight Sleep Pod 4—a smart mattress cover that tracks your heart rate, HRV,...
2 months ago
I recently bought the Eight Sleep Pod 4—a smart mattress cover that tracks your heart rate, HRV, snoring, and cools or warms the mattress during the night.
There’s a lot to like about the mattress but in the end I opted to return it.
This post describes my experience with the Pod...
Louwrentius
AI is critically important but not for you
Before Chat-GPT caused a sensation, big tech companies like Facebook and Apple were betting their...
7 months ago
Before Chat-GPT caused a sensation, big tech companies like Facebook and Apple were betting their future growth on virtual reality. But I'm convinced that virtual reality will never be a mainstream thing. If you ever used VR you know why:
A heavy thing on your head that messes up...
Opsbros
Debug Header
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor...
over a year ago
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor driver connected to a Raspberry Pi, I thought a breakout header might help; so I whipped up this little board.
Posts on Made of...
The architecture of declarative configuration management
With the ongoing move towards “infrastructure-as-code” and similar notions, there’s been an ongoing...
over a year ago
With the ongoing move towards “infrastructure-as-code” and similar notions, there’s been an ongoing increase in the number and popularity of declarative configuration management tools. This post attempts to lay out my mental model of the conceptual architecture and internal...
Louwrentius
'Tool of the month: iftop - advanced bandwidth monitoring'
The utility iftop allows you to monitor bandwidth usage. It is in some
sense similar to tools like...
over a year ago
The utility iftop allows you to monitor bandwidth usage. It is in some
sense similar to tools like iptraf, dstat and bwm-ng. Iftop is more special
than those. Because iftop lets you monitor the speed of individual TCP / UDP
connections. Basically, you will be able to determine...
./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...
Jonas Hietala
Death to the Forum
Well it was fun while it lasted, but now it’s gone and it’ll stay gone for a long time I think. It...
over a year ago
Well it was fun while it lasted, but now it’s gone and it’ll stay gone for a long time I think. It was mainly a test to see if I could do it and I’m really proud of my styling of it but it’s deader than in a grave, which isn’t really surprising, and it bothered me that I didn’t...
Jonas Hietala
Why I still blog after 15 years
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you...
2 months ago
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you celebrate the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park, and that little blog you started have now been going for 15 years.
15 years is a long time; longer than I’ve been waiting for Winds...
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.
Christian Selig
The Caldera: a sleek split and wireless keyboard
I designed my own keyboard and it’s freely available! I’m calling it the Caldera, and it’s basically...
5 months ago
I designed my own keyboard and it’s freely available! I’m calling it the Caldera, and it’s basically my dream wireless split keyboard.
I’ve been using it for months, and I love it.
Video overview
If you’re a visual person, I made a fun little video showcasing the...
Home on Erik...
Mortality statistics and Sweden's "dry tinder" effect
We live in a year of about 350,000 amateur epidemiologists and I have no desire to join that “club”....
over a year ago
We live in a year of about 350,000 amateur epidemiologists and I have no desire to join that “club”. But I read something about COVID-19 deaths that I thought was interesting and wanted to see if I could replicated it through data.
Good Enough
TIL: Rails Testing
I had to figure out how to run browser-based tests in Rails again. In part that meant working around...
a year ago
I had to figure out how to run browser-based tests in Rails again. In part that meant working around my lack of Chrome. Rails System Tests with Safari.
I also had some problems with Rails Turbo Drive taking over EVERYTHING, which required me to figure out how to deal with a Rails...
Jonas Hietala
Installing Krita on Slackware 14.1
This is a guide on how to build Krita on Slackware 14.1. This is based on this guide for...
over a year ago
This is a guide on how to build Krita on Slackware 14.1. This is based on this guide for linux.
removepkg calligra
Install some dependencies from Slackbuilds.
gsl
libgexiv2
libpqxx
pstoedit
Get Krita.
The original guide recommends building in ~/kde4 but I moved i to...
Computer Ads from...
Oberon International' Omni-Reader
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
5 days ago
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
Louwrentius
IKEA $50 VINDSTYRKA vs. $290 Dylos air quality monitor
This is a brief article in which I compare the IKEA VINDSTYRKA $50 air quality monitor (PM2.5) with...
a year ago
This is a brief article in which I compare the IKEA VINDSTYRKA $50 air quality monitor (PM2.5) with a $290 air quality monitor made by Dylos to see if it's any good.
Context
If you care about indoor air quality, you may already own a CO2 to determine if it's time to ventilate...
Notes on software...
1 million page views
I was delighted to notice this morning that this site has recently
passed 1M page views. And since...
3 weeks ago
I was delighted to notice this morning that this site has recently
passed 1M page views. And since Murat
wrote
about his 1M page view accomplishment at the time, I felt compelled to
now too.
I started regularly blogging in 2018. For some reason I decided to
write a blog post...
Home on Erik...
Books I consumed in 2017
Turns out having a toddler isn't super compatible with reading. I used to read ~100 books/year as a...
over a year ago
Turns out having a toddler isn't super compatible with reading. I used to read ~100 books/year as a teenager, but it has slowly deteriorated to maybe 20-30 books, at most. And I don't even finish all of them because life is too short!
Jonas Hietala
My first theme: Addictive Gaming
In true experimental spirit I’ll now announce the theme for my first game: Addictive Gaming. I won’t...
over a year ago
In true experimental spirit I’ll now announce the theme for my first game: Addictive Gaming. I won’t be following the lead from the Experimental Gameplay Project’s site but I will follow their three laws (7 days, alone, themes).
Puh… my first game! Wish me luck =)
Matt Mullenweg
Bezos at Dealbook
It looks like the Dealbook Summit had a number of great interviews this year, major props to Andrew...
2 weeks ago
It looks like the Dealbook Summit had a number of great interviews this year, major props to Andrew Ross Sorkin, but this one with Jeff Bezos was particularly good.
Yazin Alirhayim
The best bank in Bahrain … is Meem
Yes, that’s right. The best bank in Bahrain is … Meem. This nomination will be especially shocking...
over a year ago
Yes, that’s right. The best bank in Bahrain is … Meem. This nomination will be especially shocking to those of you that read my last post that ripped the Meem app to shreds.
Criteria for ‘best bank’
My criteria for “best bank” isn’t the best user experience or customer support....
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.
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...
computers are bad
2023-03-13 the door close button
This will probably be a short one, and I know I haven't written for a while,
but it has always been...
a year ago
This will probably be a short one, and I know I haven't written for a while,
but it has always been the case that you get what you pay for and Computers
Are Bad is nothing if not affordable. Still, this is a topic on which I am
moderately passionate and so I can probably stretch...
Good Enough
TIL: Blocking Password App Autocomplete on Form Fields
I wanted to disable password managers, particularly 1Password, from interacting with a username...
a year ago
I wanted to disable password managers, particularly 1Password, from interacting with a username field in Contact Me. It was pretty simple in the end:
<%= form.text_field :username, "data-lpignore": true, "data-1p-ignore": true %>
Reference: 1Password, Lastpass.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Moving beyond coin voting governance
over a year ago
Home on Erik...
MLConf 2014
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a...
over a year ago
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a whole range of great speakers (actually almost 2/3 women which was pretty cool in itself).
Here are my slides:
Home on Erik...
What's up with music recommendations?
I just answered a Quora question about what, if any, are the differences in the algorithms that are...
over a year ago
I just answered a Quora question about what, if any, are the differences in the algorithms that are behind recommendations for music and movies.
Of course, every media type is different. For instance, there's fundamental reasons why latent factor models works really well for...
Engineers Need Art
Kim-1 User Manual
For sale: a few KIM-1 User Manuals I printed up.
a year ago
For sale: a few KIM-1 User Manuals I printed up.
Good Enough
Season 3, Issue 2: Britney Coltrane
1. I ❤️HR
The past two weeks Barry and Lettini have been building our next little project, and I...
a year ago
1. I ❤️HR
The past two weeks Barry and Lettini have been building our next little project, and I tried to deal with the company-side of work: setting up payroll, health insurance, and making sure we’re compliant (hello, bureaucracy!). Back in the day when Danny and I started...
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...
Opsbros
WiFi Binary Clock
Who doesn't love a classic Binary Clock? I remember getting one of these when I was in my 20's from...
over a year ago
Who doesn't love a classic Binary Clock? I remember getting one of these when I was in my 20's from ThinkGeek, and it was pride of place on my desk. LED's are a thing of beauty.
Matt Blewitt
Leadership Power Tools: SQL and Statistics
A common pattern I’ve seen over the years have been folks in engineering leadership positions that...
2 weeks ago
A common pattern I’ve seen over the years have been folks in engineering leadership positions that are not super comfortable with extracting and interpreting data from stores, be it databases, CSV files in an object store, or even just a spreadsheet. We’re going to cover SQL &...
Computer Ads from...
Lintek Computer Accessories' Paper Tamer
Restore Order (to your printer)
8 months ago
Restore Order (to your printer)
Home on Erik...
On the Equifax breach and how to really prevent identity theft
A funny thing about being a foreigner is how you realize people take broken things for granted. I'm...
over a year ago
A funny thing about being a foreigner is how you realize people take broken things for granted. I'm going to go out on a limb here claiming that the US has a pretty dumb banking system.
Avestura's Blog
Problems of C, and how Zig addresses them
What are the problems of C, and how Zig addresses them?
a year ago
What are the problems of C, and how Zig addresses them?
Notes on software...
dsq: Commandline tool for running SQL queries against JSON, CSV, Excel, Parquet, and more.
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
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...
Arduino Blog
A DIY bottle-labeling machine perfect for homebrewers
While it is certainly possible (and common) to put homebrewed beer into kegs, that requires...
6 months ago
While it is certainly possible (and common) to put homebrewed beer into kegs, that requires regulated gas and large refrigeration space. A keg is also more difficult to transport and overkill if you just want to bring a few beers to a friend’s backyard BBQ. For those reasons,...
Buck on Software
The Software Slog
As a newly minted high school grad I had a brief stint as a wildland firefighter.
a year ago
As a newly minted high school grad I had a brief stint as a wildland firefighter.
Lars Lofgren
CNN and USA Today Have Fake Websites, I Believe Forbes Marketplace Runs Them
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had...
2 months ago
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had agreements with CNN and USA Today? And that Forbes Marketplace was stuffing those sites full of affiliate content just like it is with Forbes? And what if Forbes Marketplace went to...
Notes on software...
Active and influential NYC infrastructure people
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I...
a month ago
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I actually see them attend events) in the
NYC infrastructure scene (that I have a personal connection to).
If you're running a dinner or are just looking to meet interesting
people in...
Odds and Ends of...
Here's how AI can REDUCE health misinformation
How the government can build a bullshit detector
2 months ago
How the government can build a bullshit detector
Computer Ads from...
Vote for the Topic of the March 2024 Plus Post
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
9 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
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.
Birchtree
Everything is a reaction, nothing is forever, and everything comes back (members post)
Why nothing stays popular forever.
2 weeks ago
Why nothing stays popular forever.
Vitalik Buterin's...
How will Ethereum's multi-client philosophy interact with ZK-EVMs?
a year ago
Home on Erik...
What can startups learn from Koch Industries?
I recently finished the excellent book Kochland. This isn't my first interest in Koch—I read The...
over a year ago
I recently finished the excellent book Kochland. This isn't my first interest in Koch—I read The Science of Success by Charles Koch himself a couple of years ago.
Charles Koch inherited a tiny company in 1967 and turned it into one of the world's largest ones.
Electronics etc…
Installing Linux GPIB Drivers for the Agilent 82357B
Introduction
Other Installation Instructions
Agilent 82357B Initialization Process
Installing the...
a year ago
Introduction
Other Installation Instructions
Agilent 82357B Initialization Process
Installing the Agilent 82357B GPIB Driver on an Ubuntu Linux Distribution
References
Introduction
I’ve started to grow a collection of older test equipment from the eighties, the
nineties, and the...
Notes on software...
How to get better at recursion
tldr; reimplement standard library functions in your favorite
language without loops.
Background
For...
over a year ago
tldr; reimplement standard library functions in your favorite
language without loops.
Background
For a few years after college I spent a lot of free time doing
projects in Standard ML and Scheme. As a result I got really
comfortable doing recursion. The two big reasons for this...
Vitalik Buterin's...
An incomplete guide to stealth addresses
a year ago
computers are bad
2023-04-10 solving problems with chatgpt
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is...
a year ago
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is to automate away our jobs. When your job is (put simply) to
get computers to work correctly, there's sort of an irony to this view of
things. Still, just within the span of my...
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.
Willem's Blog
Cyber security: 5 easy tips to protect your server against hackers
These 5 practical cyber security measures will improve the safety of server, website and data.
over a year ago
These 5 practical cyber security measures will improve the safety of server, website and data.
Jonas Hietala
Black and White
Here it is at last! Boasting a unoriginal name, themed Bare Minimum. My thoughts where to create a...
over a year ago
Here it is at last! Boasting a unoriginal name, themed Bare Minimum. My thoughts where to create a game where graphics where included into the gameplay but sadly it didn’t come out nearly as good as I expected it too.
Yes I know there are a lot of things bad and wrong with this...
latest projects -...
Analemmagraph
[Concept] Video of a day, one year in every frame
a year ago
[Concept] Video of a day, one year in every frame
Jonas Hietala
Long Term Goals (part 2)
A few minutes after I wrote about my long term goals, in the shower, I realize I forgot a few major...
over a year ago
A few minutes after I wrote about my long term goals, in the shower, I realize I forgot a few major goals I have:
Write my own Programming Language
Why? Because it sounds fun and epic as hell.
Write a Book
So I like books and I like to collect them and I have my whole bookcase...
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...
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...
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,...
Avestura's Blog
How to change visibility in massive GitHub organizations like EpicGames?
How to publicize and un-publicize your visibility in massive GitHub orgs?
over a year ago
How to publicize and un-publicize your visibility in massive GitHub orgs?
Louwrentius
71 TiB DIY NAS based on ZFS on Linux
This is my new 71 TiB DIY NAS. This server is the successor to my six year old, twenty drive 18 TB...
over a year ago
This is my new 71 TiB DIY NAS. This server is the successor to my six year old, twenty drive 18 TB NAS (17 TiB). With a storage capacity four times higher than the original and an incredible read (2.5 GB/s)/write (1.9 GB/s) performance, it's a worthy successor.
Purpose
The...
Simply Explained
My Sixth Year as YouTube Creator (statistics + retrospective)
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most...
over a year ago
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most successful year on YouTube so far, and I'd like to share some statistics and thoughts. I will also go over how my email newsletter is doing and where I'm headed. And finally, I'll set...
Louwrentius
An affordable server platform based on server-grade hardware
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true...
over a year ago
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true server-grade harware when building a server, wether it's for home or business use.
This is why I want to introduce you to the Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard.
This motherboard costs...
Notes on software...
Experimenting with column- and row-oriented datastructures
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.
latest projects -...
Robot Slide Whistle Orchestrion
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
8 months ago
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
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...
computers are bad
2023-11-25 the curse of docker
I'm heading to Las Vegas for re:invent soon, perhaps the most boring type of
industry extravaganza...
a year ago
I'm heading to Las Vegas for re:invent soon, perhaps the most boring type of
industry extravaganza there could be. In that spirit, I thought I would write
something quick and oddly professional: I'm going to complain about Docker.
Packaging software is one of those fundamental...
Neil Madden
Macaroon access tokens for OAuth: Part 2 – transactional auth
In part 1, I showed how Macaroon access tokens in ForgeRock Access Management 7.0 can be used as a...
over a year ago
In part 1, I showed how Macaroon access tokens in ForgeRock Access Management 7.0 can be used as a lightweight and easy-to-deploy alternative to proof of possession (PoP) schemes for securing tokens in browser-based apps. The same techniques can be adapted to secure tokens in...
somenice
Cake Hole Whistler Mountain
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of...
3 weeks ago
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of untouched powder.Understanding that you need to come back up the same way you go down, can make you question if it’s really worth it.Know before you go. Cake Hole by Andrew...
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...
Jonas Hietala
2011 in Review
It’s time to wrap up the year that’s been. Be warned for slight ego boosting here.
2011 Geek...
over a year ago
It’s time to wrap up the year that’s been. Be warned for slight ego boosting here.
2011 Geek Achievements
Wrote three games this year:
My Minions
Grand Thief Arto
Sat-E
Bought a new computer!
Bought a mechanical keyboard.
Bought custom Starcraft 2 keycaps for the...
Azad's Blog
Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic...
2 months ago
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a...
Gwern.net Newsletter
May 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
over a year ago
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
Jonas Hietala
Preventing Firefox from creating Desktop directories
With a fresh firefox installation I found that it kept creating a ~/Desktop directory. But I found...
over a year ago
With a fresh firefox installation I found that it kept creating a ~/Desktop directory. But I found how to turn it off.
Edit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs...
Simply Explained
Filtering spam on YouTube with TensorFlow & AI
My YouTube channel has been attracting a lot of spammers. They try to trick people by saying they...
over a year ago
My YouTube channel has been attracting a lot of spammers. They try to trick people by saying they know how to profit from trading cryptocurrencies or that they can recover lost wallet keys.I've been marking these comments as spam, thinking that YouTube would learn to recognize...
Willem's Blog
Building a product platform
Leverage platform capabilities to quickly launch new products, designing for reusability,...
over a year ago
Leverage platform capabilities to quickly launch new products, designing for reusability, flexibility and extensibility.
Notes on software...
Surveying SQL parser libraries in a few high-level languages
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Buck on Software
23 things you should know
1: Management’s true confidence is reflected in how fast they are hiring
over a year ago
1: Management’s true confidence is reflected in how fast they are hiring
Louwrentius
The impact of the MDADM bitmap on RAID performance
Introduction
I'm aware that most people with intensive storage workloads won't run those workloads...
over a year ago
Introduction
I'm aware that most people with intensive storage workloads won't run those workloads on hard drives anymore, that ship has sailed a long time ago. SSDs have taken their place (or 'the cloud').
For those few left who do use hard drives in Linux software RAID setups...
Arduino Blog
A drone remote designed to enhance magic shows
Maker culture has always been a major part of magic performance. Some tricks are well-rehearsed...
7 months ago
Maker culture has always been a major part of magic performance. Some tricks are well-rehearsed slight of hand, but many of them rely on clever engineering to sell an illusion. And modern technology offers a great deal of interesting possibilities. That is the idea behind Peter...
Louwrentius
Why I believe the new Mac Pro won't be a great machine for gaming
In Accidental Tech Podcast episode 18 (love the show), I learned that John Siracusa was thinking...
over a year ago
In Accidental Tech Podcast episode 18 (love the show), I learned that John Siracusa was thinking about buying a new Mac Pro for gaming.
I believe that gaming on the new Mac Pro will be a mediocre experience.
Driver support: as John mentioned himself, the video cards are...
./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...
Good Enough
TIL: JavaScript Turbo Stream Requests
I am working on search for Album Whale and I was very confused when my JavaScript fetch requests...
a year ago
I am working on search for Album Whale and I was very confused when my JavaScript fetch requests were not resulting in turbo_stream rendering getting displayed on my page. I checked my logs to see if the render was happening. I looked for missing <%= tags. Debugged and...
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...
Applied Cartography
Is cool enough?
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL...
9 months ago
Via HN I ran into not one but two extremely neat
and pleasant-looking libraries for URL manipulation. They look like great libraries, and a prior version of me would have taken a brief set of cursory
glances at the hodgepodge of janky URL manipulation code that I wrote for...
Posts on Made of...
Some notes on CVE-2010-3081 exploitability
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity...
over a year ago
Most of you reading this blog probably remember CVE-2010-3081. The bug got an awful lot of publicity when it was discovered an announced, due to allowing local privilege escalation against virtually all 64-bit Linux kernels in common use at the time.
While investigating...
Louwrentius
Why I still won't switch to Linux and keep my Mac
The current state of Linux is amazing. If we take a look at, for example,
Ubuntu Linux, we have to...
over a year ago
The current state of Linux is amazing. If we take a look at, for example,
Ubuntu Linux, we have to admit that the Linux desktop is really becoming a
nice, user-friendly environment. I'm truly starting to like what I see. I
considered whiping Mac OS X from my macbook, but there...
Home on Erik...
Installing TensorFlow on AWS
Curious about Google's newly released TensorFlow? I don't have a beefy GPU machine, so I spent some...
over a year ago
Curious about Google's newly released TensorFlow? I don't have a beefy GPU machine, so I spent some time getting it to run on EC2. The steps on how to reproduce it are pretty brutal and I wouldn't recommend going through it unless you want to waste five hours of your live.
Arduino Blog
Synjets provide non-contact haptic feedback
If the COVID pandemic showed us anything, it is that our public spaces are overflowing with...
7 months ago
If the COVID pandemic showed us anything, it is that our public spaces are overflowing with opportunity for germ transmission. In 2019, most people didn’t think twice about touching a gas pump handle or an ATM touchscreen, but it quickly became apparent that such contact presents...
Willem's Blog
Riding with Omata One
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely...
over a year ago
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely special: it indicates your speed, distance, ascent and time ridden using mechanical hands!
Louwrentius
Making cowpatty recognize a four-way handshake
I was unable to get cowpatty working with a packet capture that actually
contains a four-way...
over a year ago
I was unable to get cowpatty working with a packet capture that actually
contains a four-way handshake of a WPA session.
I got it working like this:
First, download cowpatty 4.6 right here, within the source directory of
cowpatty.
Extract cowpatty and apply this patch using these...
Posts on Made of...
amd64 and va_arg
A while back, I was poking around LLVM bugs, and discovered, to my surprise, that LLVM doesn’t...
over a year ago
A while back, I was poking around LLVM bugs, and discovered, to my surprise, that LLVM doesn’t support the va_arg intrinsic, used by functions to accept multiple arguments, at all on amd64. It turns out that clang and llvm-gcc, the compilers that backend to LLVM, have their own...
Simply Explained
MAX17043: Battery Monitoring Done Right (Arduino & ESP32)
Building a battery-powered IoT device? Then you'll want to monitor the battery's percentage. Here's...
over a year ago
Building a battery-powered IoT device? Then you'll want to monitor the battery's percentage. Here's how to do it properly.
Vitalik Buterin's...
On Medium-of-Exchange Token Valuations
over a year ago
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Rockwell AIM 65
The Company Rockwell International has been around for quite a while. Willard Rockwell started the...
7 months ago
The Company Rockwell International has been around for quite a while. Willard Rockwell started the company in 1919 to sell a newly designed truck axle bearing. Over the years, Rockwell acquired businesses in many different fields, including defense, industrial electronics,...
Jonas Hietala
2017 in Review
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got...
over a year ago
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got a child in October! It really alters your perspectives and other things suddenly feel a little less important and of course there’s less time to do other stuff.
A little late and...
Buck on Software
Vertical Aggregation
I’ve written in the past that I think returns for SaaS won’t be as attractive over the next decade.
over a year ago
I’ve written in the past that I think returns for SaaS won’t be as attractive over the next decade.
Applied Cartography
Improving Django's default pagination performance
Buttondown's API calls are very fast, and one of the reasons why is that we've removed every single...
4 months ago
Buttondown's API calls are very fast, and one of the reasons why is that we've removed every single possible database query that we can.
The most recent was what looked like a fairly benign COUNT(*) query, coming from the default Django paginator; if you're gonna paginate things,...
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
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping 20241208
Corrections, stats, and an update
2 weeks ago
Corrections, stats, and an update
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Some reflections on the Bitcoin block size war
6 months ago
detreville
A writer's autobiography
(Just not mine.)
a year ago
Arduino Blog
This device prevents garage door security breaches
Your automatic garage door is almost certainly the most vulnerable access point in your house....
2 months ago
Your automatic garage door is almost certainly the most vulnerable access point in your house. Traditional systems are notorious for their susceptibility to replay attacks, but even more sophisticated modern garage door openers and those that lack remote functionality entirely...
watchTowr Labs -...
Palo Alto - Putting The Protecc In GlobalProtect (CVE-2024-3400)
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by...
8 months ago
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by now-familiar news—a nation-state was exploiting a “sophisticated” vulnerability for full compromise in yet another enterprise-grade SSLVPN device.
We’ve seen all the commentary around the...
Simply Explained
Migrating This Blog From Jekyll to Eleventy
Jekyll has been powering this site for many years now. It replaced my WordPress setup, and I haven't...
over a year ago
Jekyll has been powering this site for many years now. It replaced my WordPress setup, and I haven't looked back. Over the last few months, I have become fed up with Jekyll. It's slowing me down. Time to replace it with something new and shiny!
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 6: The Splurge
a month ago
csvbase blog
Parquet: more than just "Turbo CSV"
Quicker, but also more convenient
a year ago
Quicker, but also more convenient
Jonas Hietala
November Theme: Art Game
Back over at The Experimental Gameplay Project a new theme has come up. My last three themes haven’t...
over a year ago
Back over at The Experimental Gameplay Project a new theme has come up. My last three themes haven’t been “my” themes: I’ve been following their lead and their themes and this month is no exception. This months’ apparently a big theme - Art. It’s even a collaboration with a big...
Willem's Blog
Climbing Mount Etna
Climbing Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily Italy.
over a year ago
Climbing Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily Italy.
./techtipsy
Shrinkflation, SanDisk style
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that...
a year ago
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that you
notice after formatting the device in an OS. Please read the article in full before
making inaccurate comments online.
For many years, I have used two SanDisk Ultra 16 GB USB flash...
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...
Applied Cartography
Notes on Zed, revisited
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a...
2 months ago
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a lot of great choices and felt really good to use, but lacked parity with VS Code's feature/ecosystem to its detriment.
Six months later, I spent a few days using it as my daily...
./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,...
Louwrentius
My home network setup based on managed switches and VLANs
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet...
over a year ago
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet and my living room. The bottom floor contains a bedroom with all my servers and networking gear.
So this is my setup (click for a bigger version):
I like to run my own router but...
Notes on software...
Finishing up a FreeBSD experiment
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and...
over a year ago
I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver at work since
December. I've successfully done my job and I've learned a hell of a
lot forcing myself on CURRENT... But there's been a number of issues
with it that have made it difficult to keep using, so I replaced it
with Arch Linux...
Old Vintage...
The unreleased Commodore HHC-4's secret identity
Once upon a time (and that time was Winter CES 1983), Commodore announced what was to be their one...
a month ago
Once upon a time (and that time was Winter CES 1983), Commodore announced what was to be their one and only handheld computer, the Commodore HHC-4. It was never released and never seen again, at least not in that form. But it turns out that not only did the HHC-4 actually exist,...
computers are bad
2024-07-13 the contemporary carphone
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation...
5 months ago
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation that
has stuck in my brain: sophisticated computer users, nerds if you will, have
a tendency to completely ignore things that they know are worthless. He was
referring to the...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows NT 4
Taking the Server Market
a year ago
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows NT 3.1
A Highly Portable Future
a year ago
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Beebop The Island Hopper
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop...
over a year ago
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop The Island Hopper for the theme Islands.
About Ludum Dare
Ludum Dare is a competition which runs maybe two times a year and the competition is 24 hours long with a specific theme....
computers are bad
2024-04-26 microsoft at work
I haven't written anything for a bit. I'm not apologizing, because y'all don't
pay me enough to...
8 months ago
I haven't written anything for a bit. I'm not apologizing, because y'all don't
pay me enough to apologize, but I do feel a little bad. Part of it is just that
I've been busy, with work and travel and events. Part of it is that I've
embarked on a couple of writing projects only to...
Notes on software...
Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go: 4. a database/sql driver
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions...
over a year ago
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
3. indexes
In this post, we'll extend gosql
to implement the database/sql driver interface. This will
allow us to interact with gosql the same way we would...
Jonas Hietala
Understanding the Computer
When I discovered programming it felt like a whole new world opened up for me with endless...
over a year ago
When I discovered programming it felt like a whole new world opened up for me with endless possibilities. It granted unlimited power and I could create virtually anything and it explained so much to me - how did a program work? How could you make a game or a website? But there...
computers are bad
2023-12-05 vhf omnidirectional range
The term "VHF omnidirectional range" can at first be confusing, because it
includes "range"---a...
a year ago
The term "VHF omnidirectional range" can at first be confusing, because it
includes "range"---a measurement that the technology does not provide. The
answer to this conundrum is, as is so often the case, history. The "range"
refers not to the radio equipment but to the space...
anderegg.ca
The “Home Alone” / “NiGHTS into Dreams” connection
NiGHTS into Dreams is one of those games I tend to think about when Christmas rolls around. It’s one...
2 weeks ago
NiGHTS into Dreams is one of those games I tend to think about when Christmas rolls around. It’s one of my favourites from the Saturn lineup, and it also had a free Christmas version.
In it, there’s a song I really love that plays on the level select screen called Gate of Your...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #46: The transformation of London's skyline, a big week for nuclear, and installing...
Plus how to avoid the road pricing landmine
2 weeks ago
Plus how to avoid the road pricing landmine
Applied Cartography
Typesafe routes in Vue
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would...
6 months ago
I watched Gary Bernhardt's talk on static routing back a few years ago and — I'm not sure if I would call it formative, but it stuck in my craw as a platonic ideal of sorts, as something I couldn't really justify adopting within Buttondown but really wanted.
I built out and...
Louwrentius
Core i7 920 @ 3,6 Ghz is a true beast!
Even today, Core 2 Duo processors clocked at 2 ghz are no slugs. However, the
Core i7 920 is of a...
over a year ago
Even today, Core 2 Duo processors clocked at 2 ghz are no slugs. However, the
Core i7 920 is of a different kind. First, it is not only clocked at a higher
speed (default 2,8 Ghz), it is also a quad-core processor. Thanks to the re-
introduction of hyperthreading, this processor...
Posts on Made of...
What MongoDB got Right
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the...
over a year ago
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the mockery is out-of-date or rooted in misunderstandings, much of it is well-deserved, and it’s difficult to disagree that much of MongoDB’s engineering is incredibly simplistic,...
Arduino Blog
How to use vintage LED bubble displays with your Arduino
If you want to add a display to your Arduino project, the easiest solution will likely be an LCD or...
a month ago
If you want to add a display to your Arduino project, the easiest solution will likely be an LCD or OLED screen. But though those are affordable and work really well, they may not provide the vibe you’re looking for. If you want a more vintage look, Vaclav Krejci has a great...
Applied Cartography
Order, Tailwind, DRY
(Order in the CSS rule sense, not the metaphysical sense.)
The time has come to begin exfiltrating...
4 days ago
(Order in the CSS rule sense, not the metaphysical sense.)
The time has come to begin exfiltrating some higher-traffic, higher-leverage parts of Buttondown's admin UI away from the autogenerated Django admin and into some more bespoke components.
Take, for instance, this rather...
Jonas Hietala
Drawing a self portrait
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m...
over a year ago
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m really slow so I stopped a bit before it really was finished.
Obviously I’d like it to be a bit better, but I’m still a little happy about the glasses and the eyebrows. The mouth...
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.
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...
Jonas Hietala
Gruvbox Syntax Highlighting for Pandoc
Edit: I have updated the highlighting again so the inline code used as examples have changed. I...
over a year ago
Edit: I have updated the highlighting again so the inline code used as examples have changed. I guess I should’ve used images to record the look.
Recently when I reinstalled Slackware I decided to restyle my workspace as well. I settled on gruvbox with neovim and using the...
Computer Ads from...
Small Systems Engineering's PETSPEED
Fast Enough for the Human Race
5 months ago
Fast Enough for the Human Race
Matt Blewitt
Tools for a Culture of Writing
One of the hardest things we do, as humans, is try and communicate what is going on in our minds to...
over a year ago
One of the hardest things we do, as humans, is try and communicate what is going on in our minds to each other. With significant room for misunderstanding, biases, assumptions and cultural differences, communicating with other engineers (or to stakeholders) appears fraught....
Bryan Braun - Blog
The flood of AI website builders
There are so many of them.
instead of markdown to enable lazy-loading -->
How good...
7 months ago
There are so many of them.
instead of markdown to enable lazy-loading -->
How good are these site builders? I don’t know.
Are you worried about job security? I have two thoughts…
1. We’ve seen this before
Wordpress, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow… all these tools...
Arduino Blog
This portable Starmap could be your guide to the cosmos
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a...
6 months ago
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a clear, moonless, cloudless night away from city lights. You might be able to identify a couple of them, along with a handful of constellations. But what about the rest? If they...
Neil Madden
XSS doesn’t have to be game over
There’s a persistent belief among web security people that cross-site scripting (XSS) is a “game...
over a year ago
There’s a persistent belief among web security people that cross-site scripting (XSS) is a “game over” event for defence: there is no effective way to recover if an attacker can inject code into your site. Brian Campbell refers to this as “XSS Nihilism”, which is a great...
Good Enough
Grassroots
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends,...
8 months ago
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends, shouting on socials, and sharing links to our stuff with your favorite influencers–all of these things will help Good Enough succeed and continue making amazing stuff!
As we’ve been...
Construction Physics
How China Is Like the 19th Century U.S.
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly...
a month ago
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly reading about the times and places where radical changes in manufacturing were taking place: Britain in the late 18th century, the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,...
Notes on software...
A paper reading club at work; databases and distributed systems research
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems...
8 months ago
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems research. I posted in a general channel about
the premise and asked if anyone was interested. I clarified the
intended topic and that discussions would be asynchronous over email,
run...
Jonas Hietala
Dijkstra's Algorithm
For rust, I’m updating the documentation for the standard library and specifically with the...
over a year ago
For rust, I’m updating the documentation for the standard library and specifically with the collections. For the priority queue I had the idea to use Dijkstra’s algorithm as a fun example. That idea was well received and that example is now live.
At first I wanted to use A* to...
Computer Ads from...
Vote for the Topic of the February 2024 Plus Post
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
10 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
Applied Cartography
Globals in Histoire
Histoire, like so many other tools in the Vue ecosystem, is a bit of a neglected younger sibling to...
9 months ago
Histoire, like so many other tools in the Vue ecosystem, is a bit of a neglected younger sibling to Storybook — a little bit uglier, with worse documentation and a couple rough edges, but much more tightly integrated with Vue and Vite. [1]
One thing that was not particularly...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure transducers
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache:...
11 months ago
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
},
chtml: { displayAlign: 'left' }
};
MathJax.Hub.Config({
"HTML-CSS": { scale: 175}
});
.MathJax {font-size: 1em !important}
The Bendix Central Air...
Neil Madden
A few clarifications about CVE-2022-21449
Just a few quick notes/updates to correct some potentially inaccurate statements that are floating...
over a year ago
Just a few quick notes/updates to correct some potentially inaccurate statements that are floating around on Reddit/Twitter etc: The bug only impacts Java 15 and above. The original advisory from Oracle incorrectly listed earlier versions (like 7, 8 and 11) as being impacted....
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 4: The Verge
2 months ago
Home on Erik...
Antipodes
I was playing around with D3 last night and built a silly visualization of antipodes and how our...
over a year ago
I was playing around with D3 last night and built a silly visualization of antipodes and how our intuitive understanding of the world sometimes doesn't make sense. Check out the visualization at bl.ocks.org!
Basically the idea is if you fly from Beijing to Buenos Aires then you...
Jonas Hietala
The killer features of the Steam Deck
In the beginning of the year I gave myself a late Christmas gift and bought a Steam Deck for...
a year ago
In the beginning of the year I gave myself a late Christmas gift and bought a Steam Deck for myself.
There were two main reasons I decided to buy it:
burnout and depression by picking up gaming again.
And boy did it deliver.
The Deck is probably the most impressive thing I can...
Posts on Made of...
Record/Replay testing in Sorbet
In 2017 and 2018, I (along with Paul Tarjan and Dmitry Petrashko) was a founding member of the...
over a year ago
In 2017 and 2018, I (along with Paul Tarjan and Dmitry Petrashko) was a founding member of the Sorbet project at Stripe to build a gradual static typechecking system for Ruby, with the aim of enhancing productivity on Stripe’s millions of lines of Ruby, and eventually producing a...
./techtipsy
How to copy media off of an iPhone the hard way (using Linux)
I helped a family member upgrade to a newer iPhone and make some room so that the internal storage...
3 months ago
I helped a family member upgrade to a newer iPhone and make some room so that the internal storage does not run out.
They had Nextcloud installed on the current phone, but due to limitations of the Nextcloud iOS
app, the backups only take place if the app itself is open, meaning...
Jonas Hietala
fish_update_completions in Slackware 14.1
I’ve been trying out fish shell lately. A cool feature with fish is that it can automatically...
over a year ago
I’ve been trying out fish shell lately. A cool feature with fish is that it can automatically generate completions by parsing the installed man pages by running fish_update_completions.
Unfortunately this is what I got:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File...
Applied Cartography
Letters to a Young Bartender
Every straight white male is forced, character-creation-screen-style, to choose one overtly...
2 weeks ago
Every straight white male is forced, character-creation-screen-style, to choose one overtly consumptive hobby that in some small part defines their twenties and – God willing — their enduring adulthood. Some choose sourdough; many choose barbecue; I chose mixology.
(A...
Arduino Blog
How makers can use AR and VR
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are both currently experiencing a meteoric rise in...
6 months ago
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are both currently experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity, with the combined market expected to reach $77 billion by 2025, from just $15.3 billion in 2020. For makers, AR and VR represent exciting opportunities to build new...
anderegg.ca
My 2024 Upgradies Picks
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I...
3 weeks ago
The latest instalment of The Upgradies is coming soon from our friends at the Upgrade podcast. I submitted my recommendations earlier today, and thought it would be fun to share my picks.
Best Overall iOS App
Bear
I once again don’t have a new app for this category, but Bear has...
./techtipsy
ThinkPad as a server: the follow-up
It’s been a while since I last wrote about my ThinkPad T430 that was tasked with being a home...
a year ago
It’s been a while since I last wrote about my ThinkPad T430 that was tasked with being a home server.
After doing some experiments with my setup a couple of times, it is once again the main server for all my self-hosting
needs. However, this time I have made some...
./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...
computers are bad
2023-02-17 something up there pt II
As we discussed previously,
the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of...
a year ago
As we discussed previously,
the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of 2017:
the public revelation of the AATIP and alien-hunting efforts by Robert Bigelow
and Tom DeLonge. While widely publicized, these programs seem to have lead to
very little. I...
computers are bad
2023-10-22 cooler screens
Audible even over the squeal of an HVAC blower with a suffering belt, the whine
of small, high...
a year ago
Audible even over the squeal of an HVAC blower with a suffering belt, the whine
of small, high velocity fans pervades the grocery side of this Walgreens. Were
they always this loud? I'm not sure; some of the fans sound distinctly
unhealthy. Still, it's a familiar kind of noise to...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Hard Forks, Soft Forks, Defaults and Coercion
over a year ago
Notes on software...
RFCs and asynchronous-first culture
I hated writing documentation before working on features. But after a
while I realized I couldn't...
over a year ago
I hated writing documentation before working on features. But after a
while I realized I couldn't communicate well enough, even with folks I
had a good connection with. It took me a number of mistaken deliveries
to get the message.
Sketches and mockups
Designers solve this by...
Applied Cartography
You should build this:
A prior iteration of this site had a page called "Project ideas" that listed a bunch of things that...
2 months ago
A prior iteration of this site had a page called "Project ideas" that listed a bunch of things that I'd like to build. This was a good idea and useful in its own right (I got a few people to build companies and projects based on them, and it was a useful avenue by which folks...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Acing the design interview
If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work...
over a year ago
If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work with a particular web service or…
Vitalik Buterin's...
From prediction markets to info finance
a month ago
Posts on Made of...
DEF CON
I’m sitting in the airport in Las Vegas on the way back from DEF CON 15. It’s the first time I’ve...
over a year ago
I’m sitting in the airport in Las Vegas on the way back from DEF CON 15. It’s the first time I’ve been at the con, and it wasn’t really what I expected. Frankly, I walked away feeling kinda underwhelmed.
Very few of the talks were as technical as I was hoping – they were almost...
Home on Erik...
The number of letters in the word for each number
Just for fun, I generated these graphs of the number of letters in the word for each number. I...
over a year ago
Just for fun, I generated these graphs of the number of letters in the word for each number. I really spent about 10 minutes on this (ok…possibly also another 40 minutes tweaking the plots):
More languages!
Louwrentius
Determining smartphone market share using wireless sniffing
I started a project to see if I could track smartphone users by sniffing for
wifi-clients. Most...
over a year ago
I started a project to see if I could track smartphone users by sniffing for
wifi-clients. Most smartphones support wifi and most people don't bother disabling
wifi when they go outdoors1. If wifi is left on, it is possible to detect these
smartphones and track their movement. To...
Willem's Blog
Enjoy a festival without alcohol
This year I didn't drink alcohol during Rock Werchter, leading to interesting observations during...
over a year ago
This year I didn't drink alcohol during Rock Werchter, leading to interesting observations during the music festival.
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...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 5: motor/tachometers
The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) is an electromechanical analog computer that uses
gears...
10 months ago
The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) is an electromechanical analog computer that uses
gears and cams for its mathematics. It was a key part of military planes such as the F-101 and the F-111 fighters,
computing
airspeed, Mach number, and other "air data".
The rotating...
Louwrentius
'Tip of the day: Scrolling in GNU screen'
Just the answer:
By default, on Debian, the scroll back buffer is about 1K lines. This can...
over a year ago
Just the answer:
By default, on Debian, the scroll back buffer is about 1K lines. This can be
changed in the .screenrc file in your home directory. The following example
sets the scroll back buffer to 5K lines.
defscrollback 5000
Set the scroll back buffer on the fly with:
First...
Electronics etc…
Teardown of the TM4313 GPS Disciplined Oscillator
Introduction
What is a GPSDO?
The TM4313 GPSDO
Power Consumption
Inside the TM4313
The TM4313...
a year ago
Introduction
What is a GPSDO?
The TM4313 GPSDO
Power Consumption
Inside the TM4313
The TM4313 Schematic
Frequency or Phase Lock Loop?
OCXO Temperature
The Curious Case of the MAX6192 Voltage Reference
The Discrete Tuning DAC
GPS Module
Microcontroller instead of NMEA Serial...
Gwern.net Newsletter
February 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
links on AI scaling, semaglutide, and ethicist ethics
over a year ago
links on AI scaling, semaglutide, and ethicist ethics
anderegg.ca
Jet Lag: The Game: The Game
Some fun news today from the creators of Jet Lag: The Game. They officially announced the next...
a month ago
Some fun news today from the creators of Jet Lag: The Game. They officially announced the next season, and also a “home version” of the game. I’ve written about Jet Lag: The Game before, so you might want to start there if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
On the latest...
Home on Erik...
Some more font links
My blog post about fonts generated lots of traffic – it landed on Hacker News, took down my site...
over a year ago
My blog post about fonts generated lots of traffic – it landed on Hacker News, took down my site while I was sleeping, and then obviously vanished from HN before I woke up. But it also got retweeted by a ton of people.
Willem's Blog
Using the reMarkable paper tablet
The paper-like display makes you forget about reMarkable's digital innards, working with this tablet...
over a year ago
The paper-like display makes you forget about reMarkable's digital innards, working with this tablet is therefore quite remarkable!
Good Enough
The Space Between Us
Good Enough is a fully-remote team, and I think it's safe to say that we'll never have a physical...
a year ago
Good Enough is a fully-remote team, and I think it's safe to say that we'll never have a physical office. I've been working remotely for more than ten years, and overall I really like it. I love the flexibility it affords, being more present with our families, and that my...
Louwrentius
The iPhone, iPad and iOS are powering a revolution
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people...
over a year ago
Most people just don't understand computers. Are these people dumb? Some may
be dumb, but the people who make them are maybe even dumber. Because they
can't seem to figure out how to create a computer that the majority of people
understand.
When the original macintosh arrived at...
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...
Avestura's Blog
An opinion on what's a good general-purpose programming language
What features should a programming language have to be ideal, in my opinion?
over a year ago
What features should a programming language have to be ideal, in my opinion?
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Giro AEON bicycle helmet
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out...
over a year ago
Try fixing your Giro bicycle helmet? I went through some trouble to do it! Read along to find out how.
watchTowr Labs -...
We Spent $20 To Achieve RCE And Accidentally Became The Admins Of .MOBI
Welcome back to another watchTowr Labs blog. Brace yourselves, this is one of our most astounding...
3 months ago
Welcome back to another watchTowr Labs blog. Brace yourselves, this is one of our most astounding discoveries.
Summary
What started out as a bit of fun between colleagues while avoiding the Vegas heat and $20 bottles of water in our Black Hat hotel rooms - has now seemingly...
Jonas Hietala
Long Term Goals
I have a lot of things I want to do. Right now I want to go to the kids training tomorrow and also...
over a year ago
I have a lot of things I want to do. Right now I want to go to the kids training tomorrow and also to our training time. I haven’t trained a lot lately so it feels good to do something again and training the kids is very rewarding. On Monday I have the next graph theory lecture...
computers are bad
2024-01-31 multi-channel audio part 2
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple...
10 months ago
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple formats. Most of the time, there is a stereo version of the
audio, and a multi-channel version of the audio that is perhaps 5.1 or 7.1 and
compressed using one of several codecs that...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: More mods
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and...
9 months ago
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and personalize it.
There a tons of mods you can do, and while I’ve done a few there are lots more that I’d like to do some day.
It’s a wonderful feeling to augment the printer with...
Arduino Blog
Galco goes Platinum! Welcome our newest SIPP
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, Galco is a leading e-commerce...
7 months ago
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, Galco is a leading e-commerce distributor that specializes in providing a wide range of industrial and commercial electrical and electronic products, focusing on maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO). Known for...
Willem's Blog
Migrating to the Cloud
Helping a customer clear its on-premise data room and migrate to the cloud: an adventure full of...
over a year ago
Helping a customer clear its on-premise data room and migrate to the cloud: an adventure full of cables, cabinets and bandwidth!
Christian Selig
Announcing Apollo: a new Reddit app for iPhone
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called...
over a year ago
I’m really excited to unveil a project I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It’s called Apollo and it’s a new Reddit app for iPhone.
I’ve been a Reddit user for about four years now, and the site is a constant source of interesting discussion, hilarity and news for me...
./techtipsy
Disabling the crappy Broadcom Bluetooth adapter in your ThinkPad T430 running Linux
You’ve disabled the boneheaded Lenovo WiFi adapter whitelist using a tool like
1vyrain, installed a...
over a year ago
You’ve disabled the boneheaded Lenovo WiFi adapter whitelist using a tool like
1vyrain, installed a better adapter like the
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260,
and found that Bluetooth is not working as intended on your ThinkPad T430
running Linux?
Here’s a guide on what you can...
Willem's Blog
Snake '97 High Scores
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was...
over a year ago
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was totally WOW!
Louwrentius
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...
Arduino Blog
Arduino and Truesense partner to bring UWB technology to millions
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB)...
a month ago
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, known for its innovative software and hardware solutions. This collaboration enhances our ecosystem of hardware products, software solutions, and cloud services,...
Applied Cartography
Use Rails
I have a good number of people ask me what software stack they should use. I always have a two-part...
7 months ago
I have a good number of people ask me what software stack they should use. I always have a two-part answer:
Use what you're familiar with. If there's something that you've spent a good amount of time using, stick with that one.
Rails. People are usually surprised when I say this...
Arduino Blog
Ride safer with these DIY bicycle lights
Many people around the world live in cities designed for cars, with bicycle use being a distant...
5 months ago
Many people around the world live in cities designed for cars, with bicycle use being a distant afterthought. That makes cycling dangerous and lights can do a lot to make riding safer. That’s why Giovanni Aggiustatutto designed this DIY system that includes headlights, a...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner ID draft Örebro
I entered an ID draft tournament in Netrunner hosted in Örebro and this is a brief overview of what...
over a year ago
I entered an ID draft tournament in Netrunner hosted in Örebro and this is a brief overview of what happened. Disclaimer: My memory is a little bit fuzzy and the events may or may not correspond to what actually happened.
The draft
The idea was to randomly sort all entrants and...
Willem's Blog
My first weeks as dad
Last Christmas my wife gave birth of our son. It's a life changing experience to become a parent....
over a year ago
Last Christmas my wife gave birth of our son. It's a life changing experience to become a parent. Read along for my (biometric) findings and some practical tips.
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240701
Another correction
5 months ago
Louwrentius
The future of ZFS now that OpenSolaris is dead
With the probable loss of OpenSolaris, there may be another, maybe more
devastating loss.
The very...
over a year ago
With the probable loss of OpenSolaris, there may be another, maybe more
devastating loss.
The very popular and very advanced Zetabyte File System (ZFS)
The only open source platform that actively supports ZFS is FreeBSD. And they
just 'copied' the code from OpenSolaris. Are they...
Jonas Hietala
MenuCity: Level 0 Walkthrough
It hasn’t even been a week since I released my latest game MenyCity and already so much positive...
over a year ago
It hasn’t even been a week since I released my latest game MenyCity and already so much positive feedback! I’m so thrilled :) However, all isn’t blue skies and nice sunshine. A lot of times the first question is: How do you play it? or How do you get past the first level? I admit...
Willem's Blog
No, I Won't Build That!
Discover how saying 'no' can lead to more innovative and meaningful work in this blog post: "No, I...
9 months ago
Discover how saying 'no' can lead to more innovative and meaningful work in this blog post: "No, I Won't Build That!"
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 2: The Surge
2 months ago
Arduino Blog
This rolling ball game brings Skee-Ball-style fun from the arcade to your home
Ask your friends about their favorite games at the arcade and the most common answer will likely be...
5 months ago
Ask your friends about their favorite games at the arcade and the most common answer will likely be Skee-Ball. But while many other popular arcade games have viable at-home alternatives, Skee-Ball doesn’t — at least not unless you’re willing to spend a serious amount of money....
Willem's Blog
Impact of training
Join me on an intriguing journey as I explore the transformative impact of effective training and...
a year ago
Join me on an intriguing journey as I explore the transformative impact of effective training and data analysis on my performance in the Fietselfstedentocht 2023.
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...
anderegg.ca
Using WordPress is risky
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote about WordPress. Stuff’s been happening in the...
a month ago
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote about WordPress. Stuff’s been happening in the background, but I’ve been trying to ignore it. This morning I read a story that bothered me enough to require another round of therapy-by-blog-post.
First up, a couple of things that...
latest projects -...
Light comms on the 003
[Hardware] Tiny terrahertz transmissions
4 months ago
[Hardware] Tiny terrahertz transmissions
Good Enough
Our ChatGPT Mission Statement
What follows is an edited transcript of my interaction with ChatGPT to help craft a mission...
a year ago
What follows is an edited transcript of my interaction with ChatGPT to help craft a mission statement for Good Enough.
The resulting mission statement was surprisingly good and I had some literal LOLs along the way.
Though I think we'll leave out the haiku.
You are an expert at...
Home on Erik...
Giving more tools to software engineers: the reorganization of the factory
It's a popular attitude among developers to rant about our tools and how broken things are. Maybe...
over a year ago
It's a popular attitude among developers to rant about our tools and how broken things are. Maybe I'm an optimistic person, because my viewpoint is the complete opposite! I had my first job as a software engineer in 1999, and in the last two decades I've seen software engineering...
Arduino Blog
This Arduino-controlled machine dispenses the perfect bowl of cereal
Breakfast cereal is controversial. Milk or cereal first? Best cereal to milk ratio? Favorite cereal?...
7 months ago
Breakfast cereal is controversial. Milk or cereal first? Best cereal to milk ratio? Favorite cereal? Most attractive mascot? The opportunities for debate never end. But we can all agree that consistency is key when it comes to the milk:cereal ratio — nobody changes that up from...
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...
Distributed cloud builds for everyone
CPU cycles are cheaper than they have ever been, and cloud computing has never been more ubiquitous....
over a year ago
CPU cycles are cheaper than they have ever been, and cloud computing has never been more ubiquitous. All the major cloud providers offer generous free tiers, and services like GitHub Actions offer free compute resources to open-source repositories. So why do so many developers...
Willem's Blog
The birth of a child
Witnessing the birth of a child changes a man, for science and curiosity I wore a biometric sensor...
over a year ago
Witnessing the birth of a child changes a man, for science and curiosity I wore a biometric sensor capturing the impact of birth on yours truly.
Applied Cartography
Peak Newsletter
A handful of folks sent me this quip from Nate Silver a few days ago:
Slightly against interest to...
5 months ago
A handful of folks sent me this quip from Nate Silver a few days ago:
Slightly against interest to admit this (I don't want more competition lol) but I think we're still probably a year or two away from Peak Newsletter. It's just a really good distribution mechanism for certain...
./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...
Notes on software...
A write-ahead log is not a universal part of durability
A database does not need a write-ahead log (WAL) to achieve
durability. A database can write its...
5 months ago
A database does not need a write-ahead log (WAL) to achieve
durability. A database can write its long-term data structure durably
to disk before returning to a client. Granted, this is a bad idea! And
granted, a WAL is critical for durability by design in most
databases. But I...
Willem's Blog
Using a budget Android as main smartphone
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive...
over a year ago
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive iPhone.
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...
Arduino Blog
BrainPatch.AI: How a British neurotech startup built a working prototype fast, using Arduino Nano 33...
The field of neurotechnology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, opening up to safe and...
3 months ago
The field of neurotechnology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, opening up to safe and effective non-invasive interfaces that can deliver tiny milliamp currents to the right stimulation location on the head, neck or body. One example of the new players in this field is...
lcamtuf’s thing
Electric chainsaws and the gorge of misery
Lithium batteries are great -- so why do mid-size electric power tools suck in 2024?
4 months ago
Lithium batteries are great -- so why do mid-size electric power tools suck in 2024?
Arduino Blog
Team Ikaro scores success with the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect!
Team Ikaro is a vibrant group of high school students from the Pacinotti Archimede Institute in...
3 months ago
Team Ikaro is a vibrant group of high school students from the Pacinotti Archimede Institute in Rome, sharing a strong passion for electronics and turning heads in the world of robotics! Specializing in Soccer Lightweight games (where robot-soccer players compete to score goals...
Jonas Hietala
Balls
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god...
over a year ago
Here’s my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god I’ll be making another tetris clone but the end result turned out a bit different. I’m not sure it’s very addictive but it’s actually okay! =D
Balls is a game about… balls. Well...
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...
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...
Jonas Hietala
Plans for Summer of Code
My first summer job is now over, and after a weekend of rest, it is now time to plan for my second...
over a year ago
My first summer job is now over, and after a weekend of rest, it is now time to plan for my second summer job: IDA Summer of Code.
I will work a month, or 4 weeks, with contributing to rust! The only issue is, I have no idea where to start. I didn’t have a strict plan or a vision...
Louwrentius
Understanding Windows KMS and MAK volume license activation
Introduction
If you have to administer a large number of PCs running Windows, you will end up...
over a year ago
Introduction
If you have to administer a large number of PCs running Windows, you will end up creating an automated deployment platform for your Windows clients. You may implement something like Windows Deployment Services.
I used WDS to create a fully automated installation of...
Posts on Made of...
Iron Blogger: Blogging for Beer
So, you may have noticed that I suddenly started updating this blog for the first time in a while....
over a year ago
So, you may have noticed that I suddenly started updating this blog for the first time in a while. The reason is that I’ve recently started an ongoing event with a whole bunch of friends around here to encourage us to blog more.
Like so many good ideas, it all started with a...
Jonas Hietala
It's Time for More School
Today it’s finally starting again and it’s off with a flying start. We have 11 lectures this first...
over a year ago
Today it’s finally starting again and it’s off with a flying start. We have 11 lectures this first week and an absolutely smacked schedule. If that wasn’t enough I also have a mentor time to prepare for and I need to start Taekwon-do again.
On another note Ḯ’m currently plowing...
Jonas Hietala
A small LED Cube
As a follow up of my hobby project goals this autumn I have now completed the smallest goal there. I...
over a year ago
As a follow up of my hobby project goals this autumn I have now completed the smallest goal there. I got started a little with soldering by constructing a small 3x3x3 LED cube.
Although extremely hard to see in this picture it actually worked without a hitch! It’s not the...
Louwrentius
Why VMware vSphere replication is changing the game
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller...
over a year ago
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller setups, many people do employ multiple VMware hosts, but the SAN is a single point of failure.
SANs are often fully redundant devices, with redundant PSUs, storage controllers,...
Birchtree
When do the Trump flags come down? (members post)
The flags are still flying, celebrating the man, not the country. Why is this something that happens...
a week ago
The flags are still flying, celebrating the man, not the country. Why is this something that happens now, and why is it something only happening on one end of the political spectrum?
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.
OH8HUB’s Substack
A quick visit to Vaajasalo island
Vaajasalo is a small island in lake Kallavesi in eastern Finland with population less than hundred....
a year ago
Vaajasalo is a small island in lake Kallavesi in eastern Finland with population less than hundred. There’s also a winery called Alahovi Berry Wine Farm. They produce berry wines, cider, beer and liqueur. The temptation to visit them was huge, but I was on tight schedule. Maybe...
Louwrentius
Using ncat to provide SSL-support to non-ssl capable software
Sometimes, people are using software that does not support encrypted
connections using SSL. To...
over a year ago
Sometimes, people are using software that does not support encrypted
connections using SSL. To provide SSL-support to such a client, ncat can be
used. Ncat is part of nmap, the famous port-scanner.
The main principle is that the non-ssl capable software does not connect to
the...
Jonas Hietala
My first netrunner store championship
My girlfriend has told me I get these narrow interests where I pour all my energy and thoughts into...
over a year ago
My girlfriend has told me I get these narrow interests where I pour all my energy and thoughts into and about 1,5 months ago I discovered Netrunner, a very awesome card game. Check out this how to play or team covenant’s channel if you want to know more.
So this Sunday I went to...
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
Home on Erik...
Modeling conversion rates using Weibull and gamma distributions
This is a blog post originally featured on the Better engineering blog. If you want to link to this...
over a year ago
This is a blog post originally featured on the Better engineering blog. If you want to link to this article or share it, please go to the original post URL! Separately, I'm sorry it's been so long with no posts on this blog.
Engineers Need Art
SystemSix
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an...
over a year ago
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an e-ink display.
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