./techtipsy
Turning leftover PC parts into a decent gaming PC
Introduction
About a year ago, I bought an used PC based off of
a Lenovo Erazer X510. It had a...
over a year ago
Introduction
About a year ago, I bought an used PC based off of
a Lenovo Erazer X510. It had a dual-core Intel Pentium
G3220 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a crappy Codegen 400W power supply and a 60GB SSD. I added an Nvidia GTX 1050 and just like
that, a budget gaming PC was born. My...
Arduino Blog
Alumnus Software joins Arduino’s System Integrators Partnership Program
We are thrilled to announce that Alumnus Software, based in India and the United States, has joined...
a month ago
We are thrilled to announce that Alumnus Software, based in India and the United States, has joined our System Integrators Partnership Program (SIPP) at the Gold level. With over 20 years of expertise in embedded software, IoT applications, and Edge AI development, Alumnus has a...
Jonas Hietala
December Theme: New World Order
The The Experimental Gameplay Project drives on with the Art Game theme which will last the rest of...
over a year ago
The The Experimental Gameplay Project drives on with the Art Game theme which will last the rest of this year but that’s something we can’t accept! I’ve done my game and I didn’t force myself out from the Haskell world just to do nuthin so here’s a new little theme for me :)
What...
Arduino Blog
Massive tentacle robot draws massive attention at EMF Camp
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control...
6 months ago
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control several motors and monitor a bunch of sensors. But what if the robot is enormous and the motors are far apart? James Bruton found himself in that situation when he constructed this...
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...
./techtipsy
Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana
This post isn’t a detailed line-by-line tutorial on how to set up each individual piece of the setup...
8 months ago
This post isn’t a detailed line-by-line tutorial on how to set up each individual piece of the setup as those types of
guides tend to get out of date really easily, but if you know your way around Linux and the command line, then you can
definitely replicate this setup on your...
Jonas Hietala
Design for Hackers
I get these.. urges sometimes. Not like Dexter no, but sometimes I just have to buy a specific...
over a year ago
I get these.. urges sometimes. Not like Dexter no, but sometimes I just have to buy a specific thing. It happened again yesterday (or was it the day before I don’t know) when I saw this post on hackernews.
It’s a book this time, again, but this is something a little different -...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Smaller fixes
I’ve been busy.
Busy printing stuff.
Which is awesome, because one big worry I had was if I’d...
11 months ago
I’ve been busy.
Busy printing stuff.
Which is awesome, because one big worry I had was if I’d actually use the printer or just end up modding and tweaking it until the end of time.
But of course, I’ve been slowly working through my large mods-I-want list.
My initial plan was to...
Applied Cartography
Au revoir, Invoke
It's not quite interesting or noteworthy enough to warrant a full-on essay, but yesterday we...
7 months ago
It's not quite interesting or noteworthy enough to warrant a full-on essay, but yesterday we unshipped the last remaining Invoke commands and ported them over to just.
I think Invoke is a good, cool project, and I wish it well. If you're at the precise intersection of "you have...
Willem's Blog
Repairing a Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP
Reparing an old Nintendo Gameboy Advance to play classic Zelda again.
over a year ago
Reparing an old Nintendo Gameboy Advance to play classic Zelda again.
Applied Cartography
Migrating someone who's on Stripe Connect Express
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author...
11 months ago
Most Stripe accounts on Substack are “Standard Connect”, which essentially means that:
the author has full agency over their account and is the merchant of record;
they can revoke OAuth access from Substack (or whomever) at any time;
Substack continues to take that 10% as an...
Christian Selig
Server side Live Activities guide
iOS 17.2 gained the capability to start Live Activities from a server, which is pretty cool and...
3 months ago
iOS 17.2 gained the capability to start Live Activities from a server, which is pretty cool and handy! I’ve been playing around with it a bit and found some parts a bit confusing, so I thought I’d do a little write up for future me as well as anyone else who could benefit!
(For...
Jonas Hietala
Moving private repositories to Bitbucket
Long overdue, I recently moved my private repositories from Github to Bitbucket. Github is great of...
over a year ago
Long overdue, I recently moved my private repositories from Github to Bitbucket. Github is great of courseand they even gave me a free students account and I still host all my public repositories there. Still, Bitbucket has unlimited free private repositories for up to 5 users...
Ian's Blog
What the heck is OCSP?
The online certificate status protocol, or OCSP for short, is a way for TLS clients (like your web...
over a year ago
The online certificate status protocol, or OCSP for short, is a way for TLS clients (like your web browser) to check if a certificate has been revoked or not.
Certificate Revocation?
With asymmetrical encryption, your encryption is only as good as long as your private key remains...
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!
latest projects -...
Robot Slide Whistle Orchestrion
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
9 months ago
[Hardware] Army of Robot Slide Whistles
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...
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: Canon Cat
It's the Memorial Day holiday weekend and it's time for a little deferred maintenance, especially on...
7 months ago
It's the Memorial Day holiday weekend and it's time for a little deferred maintenance, especially on those machines I intend to work on more in the near future. So we'll start with one that's widely considered to be a remarkable cul-de-sac in computing history: the Canon...
Home on Erik...
Iterate or die
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a...
over a year ago
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a company innovates is limited by its iteration speed.
I don't even mean throughput here. I just mean the cycle time.
Matt Blewitt
So, You Want To Build A DBaaS
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a...
a year ago
So you’ve made the decision to build a Database-as-a-Service product (or something similar). As a result, you are making state and coordination your problem. Here are some things I’ve learned to keep in mind as you embark on this project, in no particular order (other than the...
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Wiring
Dread it. Run from it. Wiring arrives all the same.
It’s time for the part of my VORON build that...
a year ago
Dread it. Run from it. Wiring arrives all the same.
It’s time for the part of my VORON build that I’ve been dreading: the wiring.
It’s scary because I really have no clue what I’m doing, and mistakes can be very costly and time-consuming.
I’ve taken my time to double- and...
Home on Erik...
Domains for sale
Contact me at mail at erik bern dot com!
over a year ago
Contact me at mail at erik bern dot com!
computers are bad
2024-07-31 just disconnect the internet
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of...
5 months ago
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of their Windows install base with a poorly tested content
update. Rough day at the office, huh? There are lots of things you could say
about this, lots of reasons it happens this way,...
Arduino Blog
Improve indoor air quality with Arduino
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities...
8 months ago
When we think about air quality and pollution, it’s easy to conjure up images of smog-filled cities and power plants churning clouds of poison into the atmosphere. And while all this is still important, and has massive consequences for our health, it’s all too easy to overlook...
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.
Old Vintage...
The Fossil Wrist PDA becomes a tiny Gopher client (with Overbite Palm 0.3)
I don't always often wear watches. But when I do, I prefer Palm PDAs. Wired to my wrist.
all...
a year ago
I don't always often wear watches. But when I do, I prefer Palm PDAs. Wired to my wrist.
all about Palm devices on the Internet.
It turns out there's a reason for that, and we're going to patch the operating system so we can make the Fossil Wrist PDA into what may be the...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1982/08 Commodore Computing International Mag
Time for some humor
5 months ago
Notes on software...
Interview With Phil of DataStation
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external interview. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
latest projects -...
Hand-cranked Flux Capacitor
[Concept] Control the flow of time
a year ago
[Concept] Control the flow of time
Posts on Made of...
Git in pictures
In my previous blog post, I discussed how git is distinctive among version control system in the way...
over a year ago
In my previous blog post, I discussed how git is distinctive among version control system in the way in which it makes the backend model that is being used to store data the most important element of the tool, and that experts use it by having the complete model in their head,...
Good Enough
TIL: Rails has_one Nested Attributes Tweaking
In a project I'm working on right now I've been using a Rails nested form and a couple of things...
a year ago
In a project I'm working on right now I've been using a Rails nested form and a couple of things caught me off guard.
has_one Nested Form Sending id Attribute
In this case I have a nested form that is in a has_one relationship with the parent model.
I think this is a common thing...
Jonas Hietala
Done this, done that. What now?
Finished and uploaded our java game Grand Thief Arto, done an exam (didn’t quite go as intended) and...
over a year ago
Finished and uploaded our java game Grand Thief Arto, done an exam (didn’t quite go as intended) and starting some new courses in school. I’m liking my choice of Computer Science more and more. Data structures and Algorithms was a super fun course, I actually ordered a new book...
Posts on Made of...
Write yourself an strace in 70 lines of code
Basically anyone who’s used Linux for any amount of time eventually comes to know and love the...
over a year ago
Basically anyone who’s used Linux for any amount of time eventually comes to know and love the strace command. strace is the system-call tracer, which traces the calls that a program makes into the kernel in order to interact with the outside world. If you’re not already familiar...
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 4 (Pet Sounds)
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
Louwrentius
Is storage really that cheap?
Nowadays you can buy a 1 TB harddrive for less than 100 euro's . So I build
myself a 4 TB NAS box,...
over a year ago
Nowadays you can buy a 1 TB harddrive for less than 100 euro's . So I build
myself a 4 TB NAS box, which is already 50% full. However, although it is to
some degree fault-tollerant by using RAID 6, one mistake or catastrophic
hardware faillure and all data is lost.
And that's...
Louwrentius
Why security is all about defense in depth
Many people asume that if you regularly update your computer, you are safe from hackers. But nothing...
over a year ago
Many people asume that if you regularly update your computer, you are safe from hackers. But nothing could be further from the truth. Keeping your systems up-to-date only protects you against exploits for publicly known vulnerabilities.
Your systems are still not protected...
Notes on software...
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure...
over a year ago
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure out
how to use Hashicorp's Raft
implementation.
There weren't any examples I could find in the Hashicorp repo
itself. And the only example I could find was Philip O'Toole's
hraftd. It's...
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...
Home on Erik...
coin2dice
Here's a problem that I used to give to candidates. I stopped using it seriously a long time ago...
over a year ago
Here's a problem that I used to give to candidates. I stopped using it seriously a long time ago since I don't believe in puzzles, but I think it's kind of fun.
Let's say you have a function that simulates a random coin flip.
Old Vintage...
Virtualizing the 6502 on a 6502 with 6o6 (and The Incredible KIMplement goes 1.0)
Okay, promises, promises. Here's the first of my bucket list projects I'm completing which I've...
8 months ago
Okay, promises, promises. Here's the first of my bucket list projects I'm completing which I've intermittently worked on for literally two decades. Now that I've finally shaken out more bugs, tuned it up and cleaned it off, it's time to let people play with the source...
Christian Selig
Juno for YouTube has been removed from the App Store
For those not aware, a few months ago after reaching out to me, YouTube contacted the App Store...
3 months ago
For those not aware, a few months ago after reaching out to me, YouTube contacted the App Store stating that Juno does not adhere to YouTube guidelines and modifies the website in a way they don’t approve of, and alludes to their trademarks and iconography.
I don’t personally...
Willem's Blog
Flying in a C47-A (DC-3) classic plane
Flying in a C47-A Skytrain over The Netherlands is one magnificent birthday gift I received,...
over a year ago
Flying in a C47-A Skytrain over The Netherlands is one magnificent birthday gift I received, experiencing aviation history unlike anything else!
Jonas Hietala
Getting Comfortable
So I physically built the computer and now I’ve been using it a while, configuring stuff and getting...
over a year ago
So I physically built the computer and now I’ve been using it a while, configuring stuff and getting used to my new screens. I think they’re about three times wide as my old laptop and now I have this one huge vertical space which is absolutely wonderful for surfing forums and...
Arduino Blog
Agitating homemade PCBs with ease
If you want to make PCBs at home and you don’t happen to own a CNC mill, then you’ll probably need...
3 months ago
If you want to make PCBs at home and you don’t happen to own a CNC mill, then you’ll probably need to turn to chemical etching. Use one of several different techniques to mask the blank PCB’s copper that you want to keep, then toss the whole thing into a bath to dissolve away 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...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Writing good technical explanations
Software engineering is mainly learning. There is a great demand for technical explanations, and...
over a year ago
Software engineering is mainly learning. There is a great demand for technical explanations, and many thousands of books, talks and blog…
Vitalik Buterin's...
Binius: highly efficient proofs over binary fields
8 months ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Degen communism: the only correct political ideology
9 months ago
Good Enough
That time Marvel secretly endorsed my podcast with “the greatest comic book cover of all time”
This is a blog post that has nothing to do with Good Enough, but I was told “There needs to be a...
a year ago
This is a blog post that has nothing to do with Good Enough, but I was told “There needs to be a record of this somewhere on the internet!” and I don’t have my own blog.
Years ago my friend and I ran a radio show called Gorilla Madness, which we also spun out into a podcast after...
./techtipsy
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G: first impressions on Fedora 34
Introduction
I’ve covered my self-hosting setup in a previous post. It has been a couple of
months...
over a year ago
Introduction
I’ve covered my self-hosting setup in a previous post. It has been a couple of
months and the setup has mostly been fine. Sure, the power usage was pretty big under load, and yes, my internet did cut
out every time I turned the VM on with all the services starting,...
Simply Explained
Shelly 2.5 + ESPHome: potential fire hazard + fix
If you have flashed your Shelly 2.5 with ESPHome, make sure to configure GPIO16. Otherwise, the pin...
over a year ago
If you have flashed your Shelly 2.5 with ESPHome, make sure to configure GPIO16. Otherwise, the pin will be short-circuited and cause the unit to heat up significantly, creating a potential fire hazard!
Arduino Blog
Introducing Arduino cores with ZephyrOS (beta): take your embedded development to the next level
Last July, when we announced the beginning of the transition from Mbed to Zephyr, we promised to...
4 weeks ago
Last July, when we announced the beginning of the transition from Mbed to Zephyr, we promised to release the first beta by the end of 2024. Today, we are excited to announce the first release of Arduino cores with ZephyrOS in beta! ZephyrOS is an open-source, real-time operating...
Arduino Blog
Arduino Cloud is now natively supported on tablets
We’re excited to announce the release of IoT Remote v3.0.0, featuring a native tablet version...
8 months ago
We’re excited to announce the release of IoT Remote v3.0.0, featuring a native tablet version (available for both Android and iOS platforms) optimized for unlocking the full potential of larger screen sizes. What is the Arduino IoT Remote app? The Arduino IoT Remote app allows...
Willem's Blog
Something the smartwatch will never have: patina
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
over a year ago
Patina is often neglected when comparing smartwatches with regular watches.
Yazin Alirhayim
Braindump
Been having a hard time lately focusing.
It’s like whenever I start doing anything of any...
over a year ago
Been having a hard time lately focusing.
It’s like whenever I start doing anything of any significance I get derailed, and fall into this spiral of thought where I reconsider whether what I’m about to do matters, why it would, and whether I could be doing something else that...
latest projects -...
Simsim Pendant
[Concept] Mercurial Medallion
10 months ago
[Concept] Mercurial Medallion
Willem's Blog
Batavus Champion bike from 1978
Restore the retro glory of an old bike from the 70s using the internet.
over a year ago
Restore the retro glory of an old bike from the 70s using the internet.
Good Enough
Good Enough Marketing: The Preparation
We have a couple of exciting projects—Guestbook! Yay.Boo!—that we want to share with the world. But...
a year ago
We have a couple of exciting projects—Guestbook! Yay.Boo!—that we want to share with the world. But that’s a difficult task for us because, honestly, we’re terrible not good at self-promotion. We’d rather spend time making things than talking about the things we’ve made.
We’d...
Home on Erik...
3D
Andy Sloane decided to call my 2D visualization and raise it to 3D.
(Looks a little weird in the...
over a year ago
Andy Sloane decided to call my 2D visualization and raise it to 3D.
(Looks a little weird in the iframe but check out the link). It's based on a LDA model with 200 topics, so the artists tend to stick to clusters where each cluster is a topic.
Jonas Hietala
August theme: Bare Minimum
This time I’ll be following my inspiring site and declare Bare Minimum as the theme for my next...
over a year ago
This time I’ll be following my inspiring site and declare Bare Minimum as the theme for my next game. This could really be anything, from graphics to user interaction… But I’ve got an idea. It’ll be a real challange for me to make but hopefully I’ll have a game in a few weeks...
Notes on software...
How do databases execute expressions?
Databases are fun. They sit at the confluence of Computer
Science topics that might otherwise not...
a year ago
Databases are fun. They sit at the confluence of Computer
Science topics that might otherwise not seem practical in life as a
developer. For example, every database with a query language is also a
programming language implementation of some caliber. That doesn't
include all...
Louwrentius
Achieving 220 MB/s network file transfers using Linux Bonding
I wrote an article about the subject of getting beyond the limits of gigabit network file transfers....
over a year ago
I wrote an article about the subject of getting beyond the limits of gigabit network file transfers. My solution is to use multiple gigabit network cards and use Linux interface bonding to create virtual 2 gigabit network interfaces. The solution is to use mode 0 or round robin...
Notes on software...
Notes from Neal Gabler's Walt Disney
Disney was a celebrity by his mid-30s, Disney the company was famous
by 1930s.
Even though...
a year ago
Disney was a celebrity by his mid-30s, Disney the company was famous
by 1930s.
Even though politically the 1930s was considered the decade of
Roosevelt (elected President in 1933), culturally the 1930s was
considered the decade of Mickey Mouse.
Almost every new...
Good Enough
Strong Prototypes, Weakly Held
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in...
a year ago
Excuse any obtuse thoughts that make their way into this writing. I sat down to type with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne as my soundtrack. This is an album I've never listened to before, and apparently I'm supposed to love it or hate it. Mostly the...
Posts on Made of...
todo.pl ratmenu
broder has been hacking on some better quicksilver integration for Hiveminder using todo.pl.
I don’t...
over a year ago
broder has been hacking on some better quicksilver integration for Hiveminder using todo.pl.
I don’t use a mac, but I don’t see why linux users shouldn’t get fun toys to. So I hacked up the following two-liner that uses todo.pl and ratmenu to pop up a list of tasks, and mark one...
Posts on Made of...
Using wpa_supplicant on Debian/Ubuntu
I’ve been using wpa_supplicant to manage wifi on my Ubuntu laptop for a while, and have found that...
over a year ago
I’ve been using wpa_supplicant to manage wifi on my Ubuntu laptop for a while, and have found that it’s pretty close to what I want for managing wireless — closer than anything else I’ve found, at least. I figured I should document my setup and experiences.
Some Background You...
Jonas Hietala
Why is my file so huge?
My latest game was absolutely huge! And I’m not talking about the music (which was pretty huge too -...
over a year ago
My latest game was absolutely huge! And I’m not talking about the music (which was pretty huge too - roughly 20mb) but the little .exe file.
It was 14,6mb!!
Now every way you look at it, that’s incredibly huge. It’s like comparing an ant to a human. Normally the little ant is the...
Posts on Made of...
New Blog Location
I finally got fed up with Blogger, and am moving this blog to live on Wordpress hosted off of...
over a year ago
I finally got fed up with Blogger, and am moving this blog to live on Wordpress hosted off of scripts.mit.edu. In the process of converting everything over and setting up Wordpress I’ve decided I hate it, but hopefully I hate it less than I hate Blogger. We’ll see.
I’ve also...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me
over a year ago
./techtipsy
Steam Deck: I like it
I got a Steam Deck.
Only took me a year or so of contemplating getting
one, and trying out HoloISO,...
7 months ago
I got a Steam Deck.
Only took me a year or so of contemplating getting
one, and trying out HoloISO, the unofficial SteamOS installer
finally convinced me to get one.1
It took another year to actually get down to writing down my thoughts on it.
This post is written from the...
Jonas Hietala
February gets Themed: Rejection
The Experimental Gameplay Project has announced their next theme - and shame on me if I wouldn’t...
over a year ago
The Experimental Gameplay Project has announced their next theme - and shame on me if I wouldn’t follow suite! With valentine coming up I might just have found a pretty nice idea, just now, writing this…
Booyah!!
Jonas Hietala
2018 in review
A new year and a lingering feeling of not having done enough during the year. A fast review of the...
over a year ago
A new year and a lingering feeling of not having done enough during the year. A fast review of the year usually makes me feel better.
2018 non-geek achievements
Was on parental leave for about 7 months.
It was great although I’ve been crawling up the walls a little the last...
Willem's Blog
Measuring cholesterol levels in blood
This week I had my blood examined to measure my cholesterol levels, taking a lipid profile. Know...
over a year ago
This week I had my blood examined to measure my cholesterol levels, taking a lipid profile. Know your LDL, HDL and Triglycerides numbers with a simple test.
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Bed & electronics
I’ve made a lot of progress on my VORON.
Electronics and other stuff are installed to the degree...
a year ago
I’ve made a lot of progress on my VORON.
Electronics and other stuff are installed to the degree that I’ve begun wiring, but I’m going to separate the wiring into it’s own post.
This will be a short post about bed preparation and installing electronics components.
Feedback from...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1983/08 Today Mag
Time for some levity. The following comics were all found in the August 1983 issue of Today...
9 months ago
Time for some levity. The following comics were all found in the August 1983 issue of Today magazine. Enjoy! What computer ads would you like to see in the future? Please comment below. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends and relatives. Thank you.
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...
Jonas Hietala
The T-34/1 keyboard layout
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this...
over a year ago
This is the revision of the T-34 keyboard layout that I use as my primary driver. I’ve used this particular version without any major changes for almost 3 months, so I’d say it’s a good improvement over the last revision.
There are two large changes from T-34/0: swapping o and...
Birchtree
Squashing links on social media
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are...
3 weeks ago
Anil Dash: “Link in Bio” Is a Slow Knife
For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram — meaning Facebook, Instagram’s increasingly-overbearing owner — tightly
Willem's Blog
Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner
This week it was time for some maintenance on my iRobot Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Read along to...
over a year ago
This week it was time for some maintenance on my iRobot Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Read along to learn how I did it.
Posts on Made of...
Implementing a declarative mini-language in the C preprocessor
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time,...
over a year ago
Last time, I announced Check Plus, a declarative language for defining Check tests in C. This time, I want to talk about the tricks I used to implement a declarative minilanguage using the C preprocessor (and some GCC extensions).
The Problem We want to write some toplevel...
Arduino Blog
Why is STEAM education important for kids? 6 activity tips
School’s out for summer – at least for most of us. While the majority of children (and teachers!)...
6 months ago
School’s out for summer – at least for most of us. While the majority of children (and teachers!) will probably be breathing a huge sigh of relief, parents face a new challenge: how to keep kids engaged during the long break. Of course, downtime is important, but there are also...
Willem's Blog
Hello, stranger
"Discover the transformative power of simple conversations in our tech-dominated world, as one...
a year ago
"Discover the transformative power of simple conversations in our tech-dominated world, as one individual delves into the lost art of talking to strangers and the profound connections it can forge."
Neil Madden
Some incomplete thoughts about Gödel
I saw another article on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems linked from Reddit today. It’s a topic I’ve...
over a year ago
I saw another article on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems linked from Reddit today. It’s a topic I’ve wanted to write about for some time. Although many articles do a decent job in giving an idea of what the big deal is (and this one is pretty good), they can sometimes give a...
Old Vintage...
Teaching Apple Cyberdog 1.0 new tricks (featuring OpenDoc)
this cyberdog (image credit).
that cyberdog, though this is one of my favourite weirdo pinball...
a year ago
this cyberdog (image credit).
that cyberdog, though this is one of my favourite weirdo pinball machines.
that cyberdog.
our PowerBook Duo 2300 rehabilitated, guess what we're gonna look at?
Internet document?
Thus was the nucleus of Cyberdog (named for the famous New...
Notes on software...
A reawakening of systems programming meetups
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich...
6 months ago
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich Database
Meetup, Berlin
Systems Group, SF Distributed
Systems Meetup, NYC
Systems, Bengaluru
Systems, to name a few.
This post summarizes a bit of disappointing recent tech meetup
history,...
./techtipsy
This page looks better in the app
You’re a web developer at a social media company that has recently made a big push for
modernizing...
over a year ago
You’re a web developer at a social media company that has recently made a big push for
modernizing their frontend for the mobile-first era. It has taken a lot of time and effort from many people.
Countless challenges, arguments, testing.
The release is near. You’re probably a bit...
Arduino Blog
Magnus is an electromagnetic exoskeleton for your hands
One of the primary goals of wearable technology is to provide the user with capabilities and data...
5 months ago
One of the primary goals of wearable technology is to provide the user with capabilities and data that exceed their current abilities. And for motion, this has traditionally existed in the form of electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), where current is applied via electrodes to...
Ian's Blog
GitHub Notification Emails Hijacked to Send Malware
As an open source developer I frequently get emails from GitHub, most of these emails are...
3 months ago
As an open source developer I frequently get emails from GitHub, most of these emails are notifications sent on behalf of GitHub users to let me know that somebody has interacted with something and requires my attention. Perhaps somebody has created a new issue on one of my...
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...
Willem's Blog
Hospitalised with MCADD
This week our son was hospitalised because a regular illness caused him to keep vomiting, a...
over a year ago
This week our son was hospitalised because a regular illness caused him to keep vomiting, a dangerous situation if you're diagnosed with MCADD.
Simply Explained
Smart lights behind a wall switch (Shelly + ESPHome)
Using smart light bulbs means you can no longer use your physical wall switches because the bulbs...
over a year ago
Using smart light bulbs means you can no longer use your physical wall switches because the bulbs need constant power. I think that's pretty dumb. Using a physical switch can be way faster than using an app to control the lights.Here's how you can put a Shelly in between the...
axio.ms
32-bit hat, with LEDs
Built in November 2015 (now-traditional multi-year writeup delay applied)
A hat,...
over a year ago
Built in November 2015 (now-traditional multi-year writeup delay applied)
A hat, bejewelled with 38 RGB LEDs
Is this thing on..? It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these.
So, the hat. It’s been on the writeup pile for almost 6 years, nagging away. Finally...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond
over a year ago
Willem's Blog
Rolex DateJust 36
Celebrating a major milestone, I treated myself to a Rolex DateJust 36. Want to know what it's like?...
over a year ago
Celebrating a major milestone, I treated myself to a Rolex DateJust 36. Want to know what it's like? Keep reading!
Applied Cartography
Tailwind black magic: swallowing all pointer events
I wrote two days ago about a real and useful application of Tailwind black magic; here's...
9 months ago
I wrote two days ago about a real and useful application of Tailwind black magic; here's another.
Buttondown has a dropzone component lets folks drag-and-drop items or click on it to get a file-picker. It's used for importing images, archives, CSVs, the works: because it's so...
Posts on Made of...
Fun with the preprocessor: CONFIG_IA32_EMULATION hacks in Linux
About two months ago, Linux saw CVE-2010-0307, which was a trival denial-of-service attack that...
over a year ago
About two months ago, Linux saw CVE-2010-0307, which was a trival denial-of-service attack that could crash essentially any 64-bit Linux machine with 32-bit compatibility enabled. LWN has an excellent writeup of the bug, which turns out to be a subtle error related to the details...
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
11 months ago
If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week
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.
Style over Substance
How I made HA-meural: a Meural Canvas integration for Home Assistant
One of my 2020 lockdown projects I’m extremely proud of is HA-meural – a custom integration for the...
over a year ago
One of my 2020 lockdown projects I’m extremely proud of is HA-meural – a custom integration for the Home Assistant home automation software that lets you control a NETGEAR Meural Canvas digital frame. It’s the result of a few months of work, lots of trial and error, and many...
Jonas Hietala
Sat-E
So I entered Ludum Dare 22 this weekend as a preamble for tomorrow’s linear algebra exam. The theme...
over a year ago
So I entered Ludum Dare 22 this weekend as a preamble for tomorrow’s linear algebra exam. The theme this time around was Alone and the game I came up with is about a lonely satellite in space, kinda like Wall-E.
Sat-E
Instructions
Collect junk and other items for you to buy...
Simply Explained
ESP32: Tips to increase battery life
Running an ESP32 on a battery is a tricky operation. The chip is a powerhouse, and with power comes...
over a year ago
Running an ESP32 on a battery is a tricky operation. The chip is a powerhouse, and with power comes great responsibility. In this post, I’ll outline how I got an ESP32 to run for over 15 weeks (and counting) on a single 1000mAh battery.
Old Vintage...
Niklaus Wirth dies
Reported yesterday. The first computer program I remember in school was Apple Presents Apple, which...
12 months ago
Reported yesterday. The first computer program I remember in school was Apple Presents Apple, which was written in UCSD Pascal; the first actual compiler I ever used was Turbo Pascal 5.5 (purloined from a campus NetWare server), and the first actual compiler I ever used on the...
Computer Ads from...
Black Friday - Happy Birthday sale
Let's mix things up!
a month ago
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 2: Just the Two of Us
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing...
over a year ago
0. Everyone Likes a Giveaway
Stick around to hear how you can win a fabulous prize by hardly doing anything. Take it away, fellas…
1. Still Positive
Did you know that once you acquire COVID-19 your PCR test can be positive for up to 90 days? Did you know that the at-home tests...
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.
Louwrentius
Unattended automatic installation of Linux nvidia binary driver
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver....
over a year ago
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver. This is a manual proces by default. However, it can be
done fully automatic:
prerequisite: install xserver-xorg-dev package or similar xorg development
package.
sh NVIDIA-.run -q...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #47: I think this YouTube video just changed my life
Plus vertical farming, the Russia/EU border, and more on why the Lobby is bad.
2 weeks ago
Plus vertical farming, the Russia/EU border, and more on why the Lobby is bad.
computers are bad
2023-02-14 something up there pt I
Over the last few weeks, there has been an astounding increase in the number of
objects shot down by...
a year ago
Over the last few weeks, there has been an astounding increase in the number of
objects shot down by North American air defense. Little is yet known about some
of these objects, but it is clearly one of the more dramatic UFO turns in
recent memory. Some of the mystery is simply...
./techtipsy
ThinkPad T40: it can still run modern Linux, for now
I recently busted out my old ThinkPad T40, the last of the OG IBM ThinkPads.
I picked it up some...
7 months ago
I recently busted out my old ThinkPad T40, the last of the OG IBM ThinkPads.
I picked it up some time around my university days because I liked collecting
ThinkPads at the time, and it was a nice complement to my existing ThinkPad T60
and T430.
The battery is dead, but everything...
Arduino Blog
Machine-to-machine communication is easier than ever: Opta now supports OPC UA
OPC Unified Architecture – OPC UA in short – is a cross-platform, open-source machine-to-machine...
a month ago
OPC Unified Architecture – OPC UA in short – is a cross-platform, open-source machine-to-machine communication protocol for industrial automation. It was developed by the Open Platform Communications (OPC) Foundation and is defined in detail in the IEC 62541 standard. With the...
Buck on Software
Thoughts on SaaS and other things
Welcome to Buck on Software!
over a year ago
Welcome to Buck on Software!
Posts on Made of...
Confessions of a programmer: I hate code review
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work...
over a year ago
Most of the projects I've been working on today have fairly strict code review policies. My work requires code review on most of our code, and as we bring on an army of interns for the summer, I've been responsible for reviewing lots of code. Additionally, about five months ago...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #44: The New Statesman still needs fixing
Plus Channel Tunnel news, a NIMBY assault on an excellent pub, and more!
a month ago
Plus Channel Tunnel news, a NIMBY assault on an excellent pub, and more!
Arduino Blog
Easy and fun block-based coding with the Alvik robot is here, now Chromebook compatible!
At Arduino, we believe coding should be accessible to everyone – including the youngest learners....
a month ago
At Arduino, we believe coding should be accessible to everyone – including the youngest learners. With this in mind, we’re thrilled to announce that the Arduino Alvik robot now officially supports block-based coding! Coding has never been easier thanks to Alvik’s seamless...
Home on Erik...
Being data driven
I picked up an issue of Foreign Affairs while flying back to NYC from SFO. It features this long...
over a year ago
I picked up an issue of Foreign Affairs while flying back to NYC from SFO. It features this long interview with U.S. General Stanley McChrystal and I thought it was pretty interesting how striking some of the similarities are between fighting in a war and developing software.
Computer Ads from...
Maxell's MF 2-DD Floppies
The Gold Standard
a month ago
csvbase blog
My favourite API is a zipfile on the European Central Bank's website
Simple data pipeline powertools: sqlite, pandas, gnuplot and friends
a year ago
Simple data pipeline powertools: sqlite, pandas, gnuplot and friends
Good Enough
Cool Songs Don’t Die
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing...
a year ago
Earlier this week, I watched the pilot episode of Alias. Yes, that Alias – the one that began airing 22 years ago and ran for 5 seasons and was a pretty big hit and launched the careers of two bonafide movie stars and featured a cast of very well known supporting actors. So yeah,...
Jonas Hietala
Printing Hextraction for my kids
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with...
10 months ago
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with my 3D printer instead of just tinkering with it.
I printed Hextraction, a very cool 3D printed board game for my kids—and they love it.
Hextraction is a gamified marble run, where...
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...
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...
Home on Erik...
Deep learning for… chess (addendum)
My previous blog post about deep learning for chess blew up and made it to Hacker News and a couple...
over a year ago
My previous blog post about deep learning for chess blew up and made it to Hacker News and a couple of other places. One pretty amazing thing was that the Github repo got 150 stars overnight.
On Life and Lisp
Software freedom isn't about licenses -- it's about power.
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When...
over a year ago
A restrictive end-user license agreement is one way a company can exert power over the user. When the free software movement was founded thirty years ago, these restrictive licenses were the primary user-hostile power dynamic, so permissive and copyleft licenses emerged as...
Old Vintage...
After 41 years, my first assembly program on my first computer, the Tomy Tutor
We got it in 1983, I think, so it only took me about 41 years to get around to it. This Tomy Tutor...
9 months ago
We got it in 1983, I think, so it only took me about 41 years to get around to it. This Tomy Tutor isn't a replacement system I secondarily acquired, nor is it a Ship of Theseus Frankenstein rebuild. This is my actual first computer, in its original case, on its original...
Louwrentius
My Ceph test cluster based on Raspberry Pi's and HP MicroServers
Introduction
To learn more about Ceph, I've build myself a Ceph Cluster based on actual hardware. In...
over a year ago
Introduction
To learn more about Ceph, I've build myself a Ceph Cluster based on actual hardware. In this blogpost I'll discus the cluster in more detail and I've also included (fio) benchmark results.
This is my test Ceph cluster:
The cluster consists of the following...
Opsbros
The Bindicator
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it....
over a year ago
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it. The one shown is the Rev-1 design which is far from perfect, in fact it has several major issues I will discuss below, however it definitely works,
Posts on Made of...
Software Engineers should keep lab notebooks
Software engineers, as a rule, suck at writing things down. Part of this is training – unlike...
over a year ago
Software engineers, as a rule, suck at writing things down. Part of this is training – unlike chemists and biologists who are trailed to obsessively document everything they do in their lab notebooks, computer scientists are taught to document the end results of their work, but...
Home on Erik...
The software engineering rule of 3
Here's a dumb extremely accurate rule I'm postulating* for software engineering projects: *you need...
over a year ago
Here's a dumb extremely accurate rule I'm postulating* for software engineering projects: *you need at least 3 examples before you solve the right problem*.
This is what I've noticed:
Don't factor out shared code between two classes.
Ken Shirriff's blog
Two interesting XOR circuits inside the Intel 386 processor
Intel's 386 processor (1985) was an important advance in the x86 architecture, not only moving to a...
a year ago
Intel's 386 processor (1985) was an important advance in the x86 architecture, not only moving to a 32-bit processor but also switching to a CMOS implementation.
I've been reverse-engineering parts of the 386 chip and came across two interesting and completely different
circuits...
Good Enough
TIL: Fixing Broken Action Text Images in Atom Feeds
For a while now we've seen that images in our Pika atom feeds were not displaying in some feed...
7 months ago
For a while now we've seen that images in our Pika atom feeds were not displaying in some feed readers.
In fact, they weren't displaying in my own feed reader, which routes through Feedly.
I was sad.
I spent a lot of time troubleshooting this.
Compared our feed with a lot of atom...
Arduino Blog
This 3D-printed robotic arm can be built with just a few inexpensive components
Robotics is already an intimidating field, thanks to the complexity involved. And the cost of parts,...
3 months ago
Robotics is already an intimidating field, thanks to the complexity involved. And the cost of parts, such as actuators, only increases that feeling of inaccessibility. But as FABRI Creator shows in their most recent video, you can build a useful robotic arm with just a handful of...
Old Vintage...
Cracking DesignWare's The Grammar Examiner on the C64
It's been awhile since I've stripped the copy protection off a Commodore 64 software package. This...
a year ago
It's been awhile since I've stripped the copy protection off a Commodore 64 software package. This weekend I had a reason to.
The Grammar Examiner from 1984, something like a mashup between a board game and Strunk and White's Elements of Style, where you get to edit a fictional...
Neil Madden
Hybrid encryption and the KEM/DEM paradigm
If you know a bit about public key cryptography, you probably know that you don’t directly encrypt a...
over a year ago
If you know a bit about public key cryptography, you probably know that you don’t directly encrypt a message with a public key encryption algorithm like RSA. This is for many reasons, one of which being that it is incredibly slow. Instead you do what’s called hybrid encryption:...
computers are bad
2023-04-30 los alamos - compound to county pt II
Where we left off, Los Alamos had become a county, but the town itself
continued to be directly...
a year ago
Where we left off, Los Alamos had become a county, but the town itself
continued to be directly administered by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
The Atomic Energy Communities Act (AECA) mandated the AEC to dispose of the
towns it owned by transferring the property to private...
Home on Erik...
Buffet lines are terrible, but let's try to improve them using computer simulations
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives....
over a year ago
My company has a buffet every Friday, and the lines grow to epic proportions when the food arrives. I've suspected for years that the “classic” buffet line system is a deeply flawed and inefficient method, and every time I'm stuck in the line has made me more convinced.
Gwern.net Newsletter
June gwern.net newsletter
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening,...
over a year ago
June 2020 gwern.net newsletter with 3 new pages/essays, and links on CRISPR, population screening, AI scaling, politics, and technological unemployment.
Applied Cartography
Buttondown Analytics 3.0
Working on a new analytics engine — a scant eleven months after the previous 'new analytics...
10 months ago
Working on a new analytics engine — a scant eleven months after the previous 'new analytics engine'.
Calling this 3.0 is a bit of a misnomer: most of the code, design, and plumbing from the 2023 redesign is sticking around, just in a more modular format. The goal here is to...
Louwrentius
Convert dos file to linux format wit vim
If you have some file that has been saved on a (Win)do(w)s host you may notice
that all lines end...
over a year ago
If you have some file that has been saved on a (Win)do(w)s host you may notice
that all lines end with ^M.
To fix this, you can use the tool dos2unix. If however this tool is not at
your disposal, you may have a problem. If vim is available, you do not have a
problem:
The trick...
Arduino Blog
Bringing Quake to Arduino: a game-changing project by Nicola Wrachien
Following up on his successful Doom port last year, engineer Nicola Wrachien – who works at Silicon...
3 months ago
Following up on his successful Doom port last year, engineer Nicola Wrachien – who works at Silicon Labs, a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world and long-time Arduino partner – has now tackled an even bigger challenge: porting Quake, the...
Arduino Blog
Kickstart your tech journey, with the new Arduino Plug and Make Kit!
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone....
5 months ago
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone. That’s why we’ve developed the whole new, beginner-friendly Plug and Make Kit – the easiest way to get started with Arduino! Inside the box, you’ll find everything you need to create...
Notes on software...
Writing a storage engine for Postgres: an in-memory Table Access Method
With Postgres 12,
released in 2019, it became possible to swap out Postgres's storage
engine.
This...
a year ago
With Postgres 12,
released in 2019, it became possible to swap out Postgres's storage
engine.
This is a feature MySQL has supported for a long time. There are at
least 8 different built-in
engines you can pick from. MyRocks, MySQL on
RocksDB, is another popular third-party...
axio.ms
Pickle plus mains
Back in February 2014, it was a cold (but dry) winter’s night and we decided to warm our hearts with...
over a year ago
Back in February 2014, it was a cold (but dry) winter’s night and we decided to warm our hearts with some science.
Our experiment was to observe the conduction of electricity through a pickle, using salt ions. We connected a pickle to the mains supply. Pickles have a strong...
Notes on software...
One year as a solo dev building open-source data tools without funding
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.
Posts on Made of...
Two kinds of testing
While talking about thinking about tests and testing in software engineering recently, I’ve come to...
over a year ago
While talking about thinking about tests and testing in software engineering recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are (at least) two major ideas and goals that people have when they test or talk about testing. This post aims to outline what I see as these two schools,...
Jonas Hietala
October theme says: Numbers
New month and a new theme. As with the two previous games I’m following The Experimental Gameplay...
over a year ago
New month and a new theme. As with the two previous games I’m following The Experimental Gameplay Project theme which this month is numbers. What’s it gonna be? A sudoku game or something more… thrilling? I’ll see what I can do :)
Good Enough
Having Trouble Getting Started? Pair Up!
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on...
a year ago
A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by a net external force.
Sir Isaac Newton
I often find that just getting started is the hardest part of doing something. This is especially true when the project is large or...
Posts on Made of...
The Window Manager I Want
Since I first discovered ratpoison in 2005 or so, I've basically exclusively used tiling window...
over a year ago
Since I first discovered ratpoison in 2005 or so, I've basically exclusively used tiling window managers, going through, over the years, StumpWM, Ion 3, and finally XMonad. They've all had various strengths and weaknesses, but I've never been totally happy with any of them. This...
Home on Erik...
Blogroll
Remember when everyone had a really ugly blog with a blogroll? Anyway, just think the word is...
over a year ago
Remember when everyone had a really ugly blog with a blogroll? Anyway, just think the word is funny.
I follow a few hundred blogs using Feedly and Reeder and have been reading a few hundred thousand blog posts over the last 10 years.
Notes on software...
What's the big deal about Deterministic Simulation Testing?
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And...
4 months ago
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And even once you've found a bug, it can be
anywhere from simple to impossible to reproduce it. It's about as far
away as you can get from the ideal test environment: property...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Why some engineers get trusted with high-impact work
It’s fun and rewarding to work on critical tasks. But there’s only so much important work to go...
a week ago
It’s fun and rewarding to work on critical tasks. But there’s only so much important work to go around. Worse still, the chances to work on…
Arduino Blog
Amassing a mobile Minion militia
Channeling his inner Gru, YouTuber Electo built a robotic minion army to terrorize and amuse the...
4 months ago
Channeling his inner Gru, YouTuber Electo built a robotic minion army to terrorize and amuse the public in local shopping malls. Building one minion robot is, in theory, pretty straightforward. That is especially true when, like these, that robot isn’t actually bipedal and...
./techtipsy
You can use almost anything as a key file for your encrypted storage device
Imagine that you have an unencrypted drive containing your private data and one day it starts...
a month ago
Imagine that you have an unencrypted drive containing your private data and one day it starts throwing a bunch of
errors. You have backups of the data so you’ve got that part covered, but would you feel comfortable sending the drive
in to be warrantied? You have no control over...
Arduino Blog
Track the location history of your devices in Arduino Cloud IoT dashboards
Asset tracking has become increasingly crucial across various industries and applications. Whether...
7 months ago
Asset tracking has become increasingly crucial across various industries and applications. Whether you’re a logistics company monitoring your fleet, a conservation organization tracking wildlife, or an individual passionate about outdoor adventures, the ability to track and...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Wealth distribution in the United States
Forbes recently published the Forbes 400 List for 2024, listing the
400 richest people in the United...
2 months ago
Forbes recently published the Forbes 400 List for 2024, listing the
400 richest people in the United States.
This inspired me to
make a histogram to show the distribution of wealth in the United States.
It turns out that if you put Elon Musk on the graph,
almost the entire US...
Jonas Hietala
Doing some online Personality tests
For some reason I’ve done a couple of personality tests the last month, mostly to satisfy my own...
over a year ago
For some reason I’ve done a couple of personality tests the last month, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity.
The Braverman Test
Inspired by Charles Poliquin’s visit on The Tim Ferriss Show I tried out the Braverman test to determine my neurotransmitter type. The point Charles...
Louwrentius
Linux on Mac Mini - boot after power failure
When using a Mac Mini as a server or router, it is very nice if the machine
automatically boots if a...
over a year ago
When using a Mac Mini as a server or router, it is very nice if the machine
automatically boots if a power failure has occurred.
User chirhoxi on the ubuntu forum found out how this can be achieved:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1209576
Basically you need one of these...
Arduino Blog
Light up the holiday season, with a new Plug and Make Kit tutorial!
Looking for a fun and creative way to brighten up the holiday season? With the Arduino Plug and Make...
3 weeks ago
Looking for a fun and creative way to brighten up the holiday season? With the Arduino Plug and Make Kit, you can build an interactive LED light installation that reacts when someone walks by – perfect for spreading cheer and adding a high-tech twist to your decorations. This...
Willem's Blog
Fixed Gear Gran Fondo
Taking a fixed gear road bike for a gran fondo! Let some of my fun be of inspiration to you!
over a year ago
Taking a fixed gear road bike for a gran fondo! Let some of my fun be of inspiration to you!
computers are bad
2023-05-07 electrical characteristics of telephone lines
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring...
a year ago
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring topic: implementation details of telephone lines.
The conventional "copper pair" analog telephone line is fading away. The FCC
has begun to authorize abandonment of copper outside...
Neil Madden
Galois/Counter Mode and random nonces
It turns out you can encrypt more than 2^32 messages with AES-GCM with a random nonce under certain...
7 months ago
It turns out you can encrypt more than 2^32 messages with AES-GCM with a random nonce under certain conditions. It’s still not a good idea, but you can just about do it. #cryptography
Arduino Blog
7 powerful ways to integrate Collaborative Coding into education with the Arduino Cloud
Collaborative coding in education can be a game-changer for students, providing them with real-world...
2 months ago
Collaborative coding in education can be a game-changer for students, providing them with real-world skills in communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. With the new collaborating coding feature of the Arduino Cloud, students can collaborate in real time on coding projects,...
lcamtuf’s thing
Analog filters, part 2: let it ring
A continuation of the gentle intro to analog signal filtering. In today's episode: the Sallen-Key...
3 months ago
A continuation of the gentle intro to analog signal filtering. In today's episode: the Sallen-Key topology.
Matt Blewitt
Everything I Know About Operations, I Learned From NHS 111
Ever heard someone say “It’s only software/money/<trivial thing>, not life or death”, in the context...
over a year ago
Ever heard someone say “It’s only software/money/<trivial thing>, not life or death”, in the context of incidents at your company? Although mostly true, I want to talk about a time in my career when sometimes, just sometimes, it was the latter, and how it shaped my approach to...
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.
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 2 (Linting)
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
The second in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
./techtipsy
Database optimization adventures on low-end hardware
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that...
over a year ago
I used to work on a short-term project a while ago where the goal was to visualize some metrics that were collected from
a pretty fancy smart home setup. This data included power usage of various sections of the building, temperature
sensors, water usage levels and more. The data...
Yazin Alirhayim
How do you know that an API does what it says it does?
Having been in fintech for a while, I’ve noticed something in common between the many new startups...
over a year ago
Having been in fintech for a while, I’ve noticed something in common between the many new startups that come and go. They all require access to personal information.
A specific example that comes to mind is the Plaid-like solution we developed while working on amal. We’d ask...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell
4 months ago
Odds and Ends of...
How to fix The Observer
Slow news is good news?
a month ago
anderegg.ca
Halls of Torment: a thematically questionable downtime game
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! I hope everyone out there has a joyful and relaxing day, however...
a week ago
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! I hope everyone out there has a joyful and relaxing day, however you celebrate. During the downtime I got to play a game I’d been wanting to try for a while.
Last summer on The Besties podcast, Russ Frushtick mentioned that he was enjoying...
Jonas Hietala
Evolution of RTS games
Introduction
This is an essay for the course Game Design and I’m going to give you a ride through...
over a year ago
Introduction
This is an essay for the course Game Design and I’m going to give you a ride through the evolution of RTS game genre. I like RTS games and I’ve played them for as long as I can remember, from the classic Red Alert and Age of Empires to the newer Supreme Commander and...
Arduino Blog
How to customize your Arduino Cloud IoT dashboards on the go
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage...
2 months ago
The Arduino Cloud has long been a trusted platform for makers, engineers, and developers to manage their IoT projects with ease. From tracking sensor data to automating smart devices, the cloud enables seamless connectivity. Complementing this, the Arduino IoT Remote mobile app...
Arduino Blog
Making fire detection more accurate with ML sensor fusion
The mere presence of a flame in a controlled environment, such as a candle, is perfectly acceptable,...
4 months ago
The mere presence of a flame in a controlled environment, such as a candle, is perfectly acceptable, but when tasked with determining if there is cause for alarm solely using vision data, embedded AI models can struggle with false positives. Solomon Githu’s project aims to lower...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Blockchain voting is overrated among uninformed people but underrated among informed people
over a year ago
Posts on Made of...
On git and usability
I’ve been helping a number of people get started working with git over the last couple of weeks, as...
over a year ago
I’ve been helping a number of people get started working with git over the last couple of weeks, as Ksplice has brought on some new interns, and we’ve had to get them up to speed on our internal git repositories. (As you might expect from a bunch of kernel hackers, we use git for...
Applied Cartography
Migrating to Django 5
The total LOC delta to migrate Buttondown from Django 4 to Django 5 was +143, -150. (I was...
2 months ago
The total LOC delta to migrate Buttondown from Django 4 to Django 5 was +143, -150. (I was incentivized to do so because our search right now is quite slow, and the lowest hanging piece of fruit is to move some of the tsvector generation out of band, and I'd rather do that using...
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...
3 weeks 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?
Notes on software...
Thinking about functional programming
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial...
a year ago
Someone on Discord asked about how to learn functional programming.
The question and my initial tweet on the subject prompted an
interesting
discussion
with Shriram
Krishnamurthi and other folks.
So here's a slightly more thought out exploration.
And just for backstory sake: I...
GitButler
The New Era of Town Hall Chat
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and...
4 months ago
We're moving from Slack to Discord so we can involve our community more. Here's how we did it and more importantly, why.
Bryan Braun - Blog
Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it’s haunted
In mid-2022 I bought a new domain name.
The name was musicbox.fun. I got it for a side-project, an...
2 months ago
In mid-2022 I bought a new domain name.
The name was musicbox.fun. I got it for a side-project, an interactive online music box that I had built and hosted at musicboxfun.com. The new name was shorter and more quirky. I felt lucky to have grabbed it.
Unfortunately, musicbox.fun...
./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...
Jonas Hietala
2016 Read Books
Yeah so I managed to not read a single fiction book this year. To compensate and make myself feel...
over a year ago
Yeah so I managed to not read a single fiction book this year. To compensate and make myself feel better I’ll add in some new mangas I’ve read, but I may may have missed some.
Fiction
Crickets
Non-Fiction
Getting to Yes
Relax into Stretch
Thinking, Fast and Slow
59 seconds
The...
./techtipsy
Things I've learned during my self-hosting adventure
This is a list of lessons that I’ve learned while playing around with my computer setup during the...
over a year ago
This is a list of lessons that I’ve learned while playing around with my computer setup during the last 6-7 years or so.
USB connected storage is a bad idea when you are using BTRFS.
USB connected storage is still a bad idea when you are using ZFS, but it is at least much more...
Neil Madden
Newsletter
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably...
12 months ago
Happy new year! I’m hoping to write a few posts on here over the next few weeks, but probably exploring a few topics around AI and philosophy. If you’d prefer some more technical content around security and cryptography, then take a look at the newsletter I put out for my...
Notes on software...
Static analysis with semgrep: practical examples using Docker
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules...
over a year ago
In this post we'll get a basic semgrep environment set up in Docker
running some custom rules against our code.
Existing linters
Linters like pylint for Python or
eslint for JavaScript are great for general,
broad language standards. But what about common nits in code review
like...
Electronics etc…
HP 8656A Signal Generator Schematics
Agilent has made the 8656A Signal Generator Operating & Service Manual
available as a PDF, but the...
10 months ago
Agilent has made the 8656A Signal Generator Operating & Service Manual
available as a PDF, but the schematics of chapter 8 are all spread over 3 or 4 pages, which makes
them hard to follow.
I spent a good evening extracting the schematics pages, cutting-and-pasting
them together...
Willem's Blog
Visiting an international hackers conference
This month I attended Global AppSec Amsterdam, an international conference for hackers and security...
over a year ago
This month I attended Global AppSec Amsterdam, an international conference for hackers and security specialists. Read along for some of the highlights.
Jonas Hietala
Starcraft 2 Keycaps
When I ordered this computer I was compelled, utterly compelled to buy a mechanical keyboard. Sure...
over a year ago
When I ordered this computer I was compelled, utterly compelled to buy a mechanical keyboard. Sure they cost almost 10x as much as a “regular” one and they didn’t even have these funky multimedia keys, what gives? Did I loose my insanity? It was supposed to give a great typing...
Matt Blewitt
7 Languages in 7 Weeks for 2025
It’s been over 14 years since the original 7 Languages in 7 Weeks was first published, giving a...
a month ago
It’s been over 14 years since the original 7 Languages in 7 Weeks was first published, giving a hands on tour of Ruby, Clojure, Haskell, Io, Scala, Erlang and Prolog. Ruby achieved critical mass, to some degree so did Scala, with the others being popular within their specific...
Notes on software...
Practical? Common Lisp on the JVM: A quick intro to ABCL for modern web apps
In a ridiculous attempt to prove an internet
wrong about the
practicality of Lisp (Common Lisp...
over a year ago
In a ridiculous attempt to prove an internet
wrong about the
practicality of Lisp (Common Lisp specifically), I tried to get a
simple (but realistic) web app running. After four days and a patch
to ABCL I got something
working.
The code I had in mind would look something like...
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...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Notes on Puzzles
1. I mostly don’t play chess anymore — it’s too addictive, and tends to take over your brain in a...
a year ago
1. I mostly don’t play chess anymore — it’s too addictive, and tends to take over your brain in a way I don’t like — but one habit I’ve retained is solving puzzles.
Matt Blewitt
Corporate Legibility for Software Engineers
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those...
over a year ago
Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those not directly involved. I’ll help you understand why this is an important thing to be aware of and how to use it to help your career.
Christian Selig
Autonomous Standing Desk and Chair Review
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair...
a year ago
Autonomous was nice enough to send me one of both their Smart Desk Pro standing desks and ErgoChair Pro chairs in exchange for posting about them on Twitter, and I wanted to cover them in more detail on my blog as well so I could give my full thoughts on them for anyone in the...
Old Vintage...
A mostly merry Southern Hemisphere Commodore Christmas
A merry Christmas and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere, where it's my year to be with my...
a week ago
A merry Christmas and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere, where it's my year to be with my wife's family in regional New South Wales, Australia. A friend of the family had an "old Commodore" in their house and asked if I wanted it. Stupid question, yeah?
The...
computers are bad
2024-08-31 ipmi
I am making steady progress towards moving the Computers Are Bad enterprise
cloud to its new home,...
4 months ago
I am making steady progress towards moving the Computers Are Bad enterprise
cloud to its new home, here in New Mexico. One of the steps in this process is,
of course, purchasing a new server... the current Big Iron is getting rather
old (probably about a decade!) and here in...
Arduino Blog
Adding voice commands to a LEGO planetarium set with an Arduino Nano 33 IoT
From Mindstorms to Technic, LEGO has produced a wide variety of sets that give users new learning...
5 months ago
From Mindstorms to Technic, LEGO has produced a wide variety of sets that give users new learning and creative experiences, and for Electromaker’s Robin Mitchell, this was the LEGO planetarium set. With it, rotational input will cause the Earth and moon models to orbit around the...
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Hard Forks, Soft Forks, Defaults and Coercion
over a year ago
Notes on software...
First few hurdles writing a Scheme interpreter
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after...
over a year ago
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after my coworker built bshift, a
compiler for a C-like language. BSDScheme is an interpreter for a
(currently small subset of) Scheme written in D. It implements a few
substantial...
Jonas Hietala
Friend of the Tree
I just noticed I was recognized as a friend of the tree in a weekly meeting by the rust team. It...
over a year ago
I just noticed I was recognized as a friend of the tree in a weekly meeting by the rust team. It came during my documentation sprint during IDA Summer of Code and I discovered it now, only two and a half month later. Still a very pleasant surprise!
Home on Erik...
The hacker's guide to uncertainty estimates
It started with a tweet:
New years resolution: every plot I make during 2018 will contain...
over a year ago
It started with a tweet:
New years resolution: every plot I make during 2018 will contain uncertainty estimates
— Erik Bernhardsson (@bernhardsson) January 7, 2018 Why? Because I've been sitting in 100,000,000 meetings where people endlessly debate whether the monthly number of...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Commodore, Part 1
Chuck Peddle, the 6502, MOS, and the PET
a year ago
Chuck Peddle, the 6502, MOS, and the PET
Jonas Hietala
Mining Incorporated (unfinished)
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbr-mLi4DU
I made a very serious attempt at making a grand game for Ludum Dare 29. Unfortunately it was a far, far, too big of a game for me to be able to finish it in one weekend. But I had a great...
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to hobby CNC
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
3 months ago
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
Jonas Hietala
Robot Project Start
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot....
over a year ago
So it has begun, the long road until christmas when we’re supposed to have a working warrior robot. We’re gonna do battle with infrared lasers instead of axes but it might be fun anyway. Luckily for me I’m responsible for software and nothing harder than that! w00p!
We could...
Vitalik Buterin's...
An incomplete guide to stealth addresses
a year ago
lcamtuf’s thing
The 8-bit (MCU) manifesto
Eight-bit microcontrollers aren't relics; they are a design philosophy. You might want to use them...
6 months ago
Eight-bit microcontrollers aren't relics; they are a design philosophy. You might want to use them more.
Willem's Blog
Dig for dummies
Learn how to use the dig command to query domain name servers to find the source of network...
over a year ago
Learn how to use the dig command to query domain name servers to find the source of network problems, IP-addresses, hostnames, mail servers and related info.
./techtipsy
Zimaboard: the closest thing to my dream home server setup
I stumbled upon this Hardware Haven video about the Zimaboard recently.
I liked it a lot.
I finally...
a year ago
I stumbled upon this Hardware Haven video about the Zimaboard recently.
I liked it a lot.
I finally bought one.
In short, Zimaboard is a small single-board computer that is relatively affordable and comes
with an interesting selection of ports, which includes an exposed PCI...
Arduino Blog
Harness the power and connectivity of your Arduino UNO R4 WiFi with this IoT lamp
It can be tough to get started with building an Internet of Things (IoT) project from the ground-up,...
7 months ago
It can be tough to get started with building an Internet of Things (IoT) project from the ground-up, as getting connected, serving a webpage, and managing other devices can all be a challenge to a beginner. This is why the YouTuber known as “Mario’s Ideas” made an end-to-end...
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...
Willem's Blog
CAPTCHA Alternative
If you're looking for a user-friendly alternative for CAPTCHA's you should check this post out where...
over a year ago
If you're looking for a user-friendly alternative for CAPTCHA's you should check this post out where I outline how I protect web forms against malicious actors and spammers.
Style over Substance
Shooting the Ligero 3D-printed Mamiya Press camera by MaxWanderlush
Last year I started shooting my first 3D-printed camera, a Goodman Zone. It was soon followed by the...
over a year ago
Last year I started shooting my first 3D-printed camera, a Goodman Zone. It was soon followed by the panoramic pinhole Goodman Scura and the MPWide, a modified Fuji Instax Wide 300. The MPWide is a mod by the talented Mario, otherwise known as MaxWanderlush. He has been releasing...
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios: Signaling and Job Control
(This is part three of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read...
over a year ago
(This is part three of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part 1 or part 2 if you’re new here)
For my final entry on termios, I will be looking at job control in the shell (i.e. backgrounding and foreground jobs) and the very closely related...
Jonas Hietala
Why Cryptocurrencies? is now available in print
Today is a big milestone for me, as this marks a big milestone in the biggest personal project I’ve...
over a year ago
Today is a big milestone for me, as this marks a big milestone in the biggest personal project I’ve undertaken.
My book ‘Why Cryptocurrencies?’ is released in print today! It’s my attempt to explain what cryptocurrencies are and what problems they solve, in a simple and...
Notes on software...
First month on a database team
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The...
9 months ago
A little over a month ago, I joined EnterpriseDB on a
distributed Postgres product
(PGD). The process of onboarding
myself has been pretty similar at each company in the last decade,
though I think I've gotten better at it. The process is of course
influenced by the team, and my...
GitButler
Git Merge 2024
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
3 months ago
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
Jonas Hietala
Browse posts with telescope.nvim
I’ve used telescope.nvim's find files with
require("telescope.builtin").find_files for quite some...
8 months ago
I’ve used telescope.nvim's find files with
require("telescope.builtin").find_files for quite some time.
I use find files together with it’s cousin .oldfiles (find recently opened files) all the time for finding source code files, blog posts, and more.
But it’s naturally...
On Life and Lisp
Hilariously Fast Volume Computation with the Divergence Theorem
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a...
over a year ago
(No, there won’t be jokes.)
The following presents a fast algorithm for volume computation of a simple, closed, triangulated 3D mesh. This assumption is a consequence of the divergence theorem. Further extensions may generalise to other meshes as well, although that is presently...
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 1 (Teacher's Pet)
The first in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
8 months ago
The first in a series of posts about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
Louwrentius
My 71 TiB ZFS NAS after 10 years and zero drive failures
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going...
3 months ago
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going strong.
Although now on its second motherboard and power supply, the system has yet to experience a single drive failure (knock on wood).
Zero drive failures in ten years, how is that...
Arduino Blog
Save 20% on Arduino Cloud Maker Plan this May!
Enhance your IoT projects with our special offer! Get 20% off a yearly subscription to the Arduino...
7 months ago
Enhance your IoT projects with our special offer! Get 20% off a yearly subscription to the Arduino Cloud Maker Plan using code CLOUD20MAY. Valid until the end of May, this deal saves you $14.38, reducing the price from $71.88 to $57.50. Benefits of the Maker Plan: What is Arduino...
Matt Blewitt
Shunn
The Shunn manuscript format is a set of guidelines for writers to follow when submitting manuscripts...
7 months ago
The Shunn manuscript format is a set of guidelines for writers to follow when submitting manuscripts to publishers. It was created by author William Shunn and is widely used in the publishing industry. Here is a brief demonstration of a tool I wrote to facilitate generating...
lcamtuf’s thing
RAM: the forgotten history
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working...
2 months ago
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working memory.
watchTowr Labs
QNAP QTS - QNAPping At The Wheel (CVE-2024-27130 and friends)
Infosec is, at it’s heart, all about that data. Obtaining access to it (or disrupting access to it)...
7 months ago
Infosec is, at it’s heart, all about that data. Obtaining access to it (or disrupting access to it) is in every ransomware gang and APT group’s top-10 to-do-list items, and so it makes sense that our research voyage would, at some point, cross paths with products
Home on Erik...
Luigi conquering the world
I keep forgetting to buy a costume for Halloween every year, so this year I prepared and got myself...
over a year ago
I keep forgetting to buy a costume for Halloween every year, so this year I prepared and got myself a Luigi costume a month in advance. Only to realize I was going to be out of town the whole weekend.
Jonas Hietala
I'm writing a book: Why Cryptocurrencies?
I decided to write a book. It’s called “Why Cryptocurrencies?” and I will be uploading chapters as I...
over a year ago
I decided to write a book. It’s called “Why Cryptocurrencies?” and I will be uploading chapters as I complete them. It’s available to read online for free. I’ve only uploaded the introductory parts but I’ve got a bunch more planned.
Why write a book you ask? Well, why not?
I...
Arduino Blog
This unique wall sconce welcomes you home with warm light
Have you ever walked through your front door after a long day of work and realized that your home...
3 weeks ago
Have you ever walked through your front door after a long day of work and realized that your home just isn’t as inviting as it seems like it should be? While it may not work miracles, some nice and welcoming lighting can make a big difference. That’s why Lauren Palazzi made this...
Avestura's Blog
Creating a Git commit: The Hard Way
Let's create a Git commit using Git's low-level (plumbing) commands
4 months ago
Let's create a Git commit using Git's low-level (plumbing) commands
Jonas Hietala
My MCU movie ranking
I did the MCU Movie Re-Watch again this year in preparation for Avengers: Endgame. I wasn’t a huge...
over a year ago
I did the MCU Movie Re-Watch again this year in preparation for Avengers: Endgame. I wasn’t a huge MCU fan before doing the same re-watch for Infinity War, but after that I became one.
For fun I tried to rank the movies as I saw them, this is some sort of accounting my rankings...
Good Enough
Our Favorite Video Games Right Now
While everyone at Good Enough is their own kind of nerd, thank you very much, as builders of the web...
a year ago
While everyone at Good Enough is their own kind of nerd, thank you very much, as builders of the web you probably expect that we also play video games. And we do! Well, collectively we do, but not to an unhealthy degree. Usually.
I asked the team to share with me what their...
Birchtree
Apple’s 2024 report card: Apple Watch
This is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2024 across their major product lines. I...
5 days ago
This is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2024 across their major product lines. I did this last year and you can read last year’s Apple Watch report card here.
Series 10
It’s always fun when we get a new Apple
Posts on Made of...
How I Write Tests
The longer I spend as a software engineer, the more obsessive I get about testing. I fully subscribe...
over a year ago
The longer I spend as a software engineer, the more obsessive I get about testing. I fully subscribe to the definition of legacy code as “code without an automated test suite.” I’m convinced that the best thing you can do to encourage fast progress in a test suite is to design...
Louwrentius
Firewire: the forgotten security risk
The battle between Firewire and USB has been won by USB, but Firewire is still
arround. It is not...
over a year ago
The battle between Firewire and USB has been won by USB, but Firewire is still
arround. It is not that prevalent, cheap computers lack Firewire, but they often
have a PCMCIA slot.
The thing is this: Firewire allows direct access to all RAM of your computer.
An attacker...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Objects, Inc's Layout
Build Programs Without Programming
11 months ago
Build Programs Without Programming
Notes on software...
What makes a great technical blog
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely...
8 months ago
I want to explain why the blogs in My favorite technical
blogs are my favorite. That
page is solely about non-corporate tech blogs. So this post is
too. I'll have to make another list for favorite corporate tech blogs.
In short, they:
Tackle hard and confusing topics
Show working...
Vitalik Buterin's...
My 40-liter backpack travel guide
over a year ago
Louwrentius
8 TB RAID 6 Linux software RAID using EXT4
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID...
over a year ago
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 (16x poorten)
PSU: CooMas Silent Pro M 600W ATX2 (definitely not overkill)
HD: Samsung 1 TB SAT2 HD103UJ (10x)
OS: Debian Lenny with custom kernel (backported)
FS: EXT4
RAID...
Good Enough
TIL: Merge nested attributes in Rails permit params
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting...
a year ago
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting refamiliarized with nested parameters in Rails has been interesting.
In this case imagine I have a discussion that, when creating it I also want to create the first comment.
The...
Jonas Hietala
2013 Read Books
I actually read more books in 2013 than in 2012.
In a somewhat unorganized list:
Fiction
Livet...
over a year ago
I actually read more books in 2013 than in 2012.
In a somewhat unorganized list:
Fiction
Livet Deluxe - Jens Lapidius
Escape from camp 14 - Blaine Harden
Wonderful. A great book.
Edge - Jeffery Deaver
Dollar - Lee Child
Gisslan - Lee Child
Bränd - Lee Child
Besökaren - Lee...
Style over Substance
How to use a Phase One H20 digital back on a medium format Hasselblad V camera (500EL/M)
My newest purchase was a bit of a gamble. I bought a $500 Phase One H20 digital back for my...
over a year ago
My newest purchase was a bit of a gamble. I bought a $500 Phase One H20 digital back for my Hasselblad 500EL/M medium format camera. Or, simply put, I bought an expensive old gadget for my even older analog camera, making it a digital camera. A gadget that was released in the...
Birchtree
I’m Knee-Deep in Turkey
Another week, another fantastically fun episode of Comfort Zone! This week Niléane talked about her...
3 weeks ago
Another week, another fantastically fun episode of Comfort Zone! This week Niléane talked about her new Flight Simulator obsession, we go on a tangent about PC gaming, Chris (who says he’s an iPad guy) brings another Mac to talk about, and I had the gang look
Louwrentius
Performance monitoring using dstat
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is...
over a year ago
I'd like to introduce the utility 'dstat'. Dstat provides detailed statistics
about what is currently happening on your Linux box.
Dstat allows you to monitor the system load, disk troughput, disk io, network
bandwith, and many more items.
Dstat is so valuable because it...
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
4 weeks ago
Plus how to avoid the road pricing landmine
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside an IBM/Motorola mainframe controller chip from 1981
In this article, I look inside a chip in the IBM 3274 Control Unit.1
But before I discuss the chip,...
5 months ago
In this article, I look inside a chip in the IBM 3274 Control Unit.1
But before I discuss the chip, I need to give some background on mainframes.
(I didn't completely analyze the chip, so don't expect a nice narrative or solid conclusions.)
Die photo of the Motorola/IBM SC81150...
computers are bad
2024-08-12 a pedantic review of the las vegas loop
Did you hear that Elon Musk dug a tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention
Center?
I think it is pretty...
4 months ago
Did you hear that Elon Musk dug a tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention
Center?
I think it is pretty universally known by now that the "Las Vegas Loop" is
impractical, poorly thought out, and generally an embarrassment to society and
industry. I will spare an accounting of the...
Matt Mullenweg
Where is Lee Wittlinger?
Lee controls the board of WP Engine. The board is why WP Engine hasn’t done a trademark deal for...
3 months ago
Lee controls the board of WP Engine. The board is why WP Engine hasn’t done a trademark deal for their use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. You hide behind lawyers and corporate PR when you’re wrong, not when you’re right. I’m replying on Twitter, I’m commenting on...
Simply Explained
How I Use Alfred to Search My Obsidian Notes Faster (with Spotlight!)
In this post, I’ll show you how I integrated Obsidian into Alfred so I can search my vault from...
a year ago
In this post, I’ll show you how I integrated Obsidian into Alfred so I can search my vault from anywhere on my Mac. I just open Alfred, type “note” followed by my query, and see my search results. Hit enter and the correct note opens in Obsidian. Easy and quick!
lcamtuf’s thing
The untimely demise of an image upscaler
ML-based image enhancement models are great. Unfortunately, some of them are great only once.
4 months ago
ML-based image enhancement models are great. Unfortunately, some of them are great only once.
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...
Louwrentius
Which file system for a large storage array under Linux?
There are many file systems available under Linux, however only a few of them
can be used for a...
over a year ago
There are many file systems available under Linux, however only a few of them
can be used for a large storage array.
I am assuming that you want to create a single file system. I don't care if
you use LVM or other layers beneath, this is about which file system to use.
I will...
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...
10 months ago
Discover how saying 'no' can lead to more innovative and meaningful work in this blog post: "No, I Won't Build That!"
Arduino Blog
Arduino Nicla Sense Env: adding advanced environmental sensing to a broad range of applications
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Nicla Sense Env: the latest addition to our portfolio of...
2 months ago
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Nicla Sense Env: the latest addition to our portfolio of system-on-modules and sensor nodes, empowering innovators with the tools to unlock new possibilities. This tiny yet powerful sensor node is designed to elevate your environmental...
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
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...
Louwrentius
Setting up a VPN with your iPhone using L2TP, IPSec and Linux
This blogpost discusses how to setup an IPSec-based VPN between your iPhone and a Linux server....
over a year ago
This blogpost discusses how to setup an IPSec-based VPN between your iPhone and a Linux server.
Updated 16 October 2012 - now compatible with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
IMPORTANT! (update January 2013)
I find using OpenVPN with the new iOS OpenVPN client a way better solution. OpenVPN...
Arduino Blog
Shop vac becomes a Roomba on steroids
A robotic vacuum, such as a Roomba, offers a lot of convenience. Instead of having to vacuum and...
8 months ago
A robotic vacuum, such as a Roomba, offers a lot of convenience. Instead of having to vacuum and sweep your own floors, you have a little maid robot to do the job for you. But these devices have very little power and capacity, which makes them useless for anything other than...
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...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Reading Notes on “Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp”
by Josef Czapski
over a year ago
./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...
4 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
Design for Hackers has arrived!
Design for Hackers
It’s here! After about a month of waiting I’ve finally gotten the book that will...
over a year ago
Design for Hackers
It’s here! After about a month of waiting I’ve finally gotten the book that will make me a design god! Or at least make me aware of something called design. Joking aside I’m really terrible at design and making things look good. Admittedly my programming art...
Jonas Hietala
My first rust Contribution
The problem with open-source for most people isn’t writing code, but it’s all the other things.
How...
over a year ago
The problem with open-source for most people isn’t writing code, but it’s all the other things.
How shall I push my changes? How do I handle git? What should I do?
I was the same and I actually dreaded my awesome summer job, just a little bit, because now I’m supposed to...
Computer Ads from...
Salamander Software's Franklin's Tomb
My name is Diamond, Dan Diamond. I'm a private cop.
10 months ago
My name is Diamond, Dan Diamond. I'm a private cop.
Good Enough
Season 1, Issue 4: Issue 4-evah
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious....
over a year ago
0. It’s Been a Long Time
Sorry 4 the silence these past weeks. Life happened fast and furious. Barry’s daughters all had marching band, and he chaperoned 4 the parades. His eldest daughter also went and got a boyfriend. Shawn’s been feeling a little under the weather, and his two...
Willem's Blog
Removing paint from a bike frame
Using dichloromethane and sanding paper I removed the paint from my bike frame to create a minimal,...
over a year ago
Using dichloromethane and sanding paper I removed the paint from my bike frame to create a minimal, raw aluminium look.
Louwrentius
Debian Lenny and Dell R410 network card not supported
For those who are running Debian Lenny and want to order the new Dell R410
server, beware!
There is...
over a year ago
For those who are running Debian Lenny and want to order the new Dell R410
server, beware!
There is no safe solution to get Debian Lenny working with the on-board
Broadcom network cards. A fairly recent kernel is required. Basically, you
will have to install back-ported kernels,...
Willem's Blog
Harvesting boredom to let creativity flourish
What does it mean for my state of mind and creativity if I am no longer be constantly connected to...
over a year ago
What does it mean for my state of mind and creativity if I am no longer be constantly connected to the Internet using a smartphone.
Ian's Blog
Securing Your GitHub Account
Let's talk about some of the simple & practical steps you can take to improve your GitHub account...
over a year ago
Let's talk about some of the simple & practical steps you can take to improve your GitHub account security.
There's plenty of good reasons why you should try to keep any online account safe, but I feel that GitHub deserves special attention among developers. With automation...
Simply Explained
HEIC to JPG: Build a Quick Action with Automator
With the release of iOS 11, Apple switched from JPG to HEIC to store your photos. The...
over a year ago
With the release of iOS 11, Apple switched from JPG to HEIC to store your photos. The High-Efficiency Image File Format saves a lot of storage space on your devices while still maintaining your photos' quality. However, it does become problematic if you want to share those files...
./techtipsy
Your Wi-Fi might be terrible because of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5...
a month ago
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5 GHz one would
suddenly stop working and completely disappear from the available Wi-Fi networks. OpenWRT upgrades also didn’t improve
the situation. This was very annoying.
After...
somenice
Painting of Russet Lake
Summer in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, is a breathtaking experience, where the...
4 months ago
Summer in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, is a breathtaking experience, where the natural world is alive with vibrant colours and serene beauty. One of the most stunning scenes unfolds at Russet Lake, where the iconic Fissile Mountain is mirrored perfectly in the...
Louwrentius
Why filtering DHCP traffic is not always possible with iptables
When configuring my new firewall using iptables, I noticed something very
peculiar. Even if all...
over a year ago
When configuring my new firewall using iptables, I noticed something very
peculiar. Even if all input, forward and output traffic was dropped, DHCP
traffic to and from my DHCP server was not blocked even if there were no
rules permitting this traffic.
I even flushed all rules,...
Posts on Made of...
Advent of Code in C++ Template Metaprogramming
This December, the imp of the perverse struck me, and I decided to see how many days of Advent of...
a year ago
This December, the imp of the perverse struck me, and I decided to see how many days of Advent of Code I could do purely in compile-time C++ metaprogramming.
As of this writing, I’ve done two days, and I’m not sure I’ll make it any further. However, that’s one more day than I...
Simply Explained
Multitasking on ESP32 with Arduino and FreeRTOS
By now, it's no secret that the ESP32 is my go-to chip for making IoT devices. They're small,...
over a year ago
By now, it's no secret that the ESP32 is my go-to chip for making IoT devices. They're small, powerful, have a ton of onboard features, and they're relatively easy to program.However, when using it together with Arduino, all your code runs on a single core. That seems a bit...
Jonas Hietala
A Christmas Game
I’m going through a bit of a boardgame stint, as I usually do during christmas time. I had exactly...
over a year ago
I’m going through a bit of a boardgame stint, as I usually do during christmas time. I had exactly one thing on my wishlist for this christmas for my little brother: Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. Guess what? I got something from my wishlist!
This was our 5th or 6th game (or...
Computer Ads from...
Creative Computing Magazine Interviews Clive Sinclair (1980)
This British inventor speaking about his ZX-80 computer system
3 weeks ago
This British inventor speaking about his ZX-80 computer system
./techtipsy
Good reads
This is an unsorted list of articles that I find to be good in one way
or another.
Maker’s Schedule,...
a year ago
This is an unsorted list of articles that I find to be good in one way
or another.
Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule
a must-read for anyone working in a software development team. Helps
express what most of us have felt at some point in our careers.
The case of the 500-mile...
Neil Madden
On PBKDF2 iterations
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to...
a year ago
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to the number of PBKDF2 iterations applied to the master password to derive the vault encryption key. Other people have already dissected this particular breach, but I want to more...
Notes on software...
Make your own way
Over the years, I have repeatedly felt like I missed the timing for a
meetup or an IRC group or...
a year ago
Over the years, I have repeatedly felt like I missed the timing for a
meetup or an IRC group or social media in general. I'd go to a meetup
every so often but I'd never make a meaningful connection with people,
whereas everyone else knew each other. I'd join an IRC group and...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Notes on Karl Popper
A woven web of guesses
over a year ago
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Summer Tournament Linköping
There was another Netrunner tournament this Sunday with 8 entrants. We had two new legal data packs...
over a year ago
There was another Netrunner tournament this Sunday with 8 entrants. We had two new legal data packs with Old Hollywood and The Universe of Tomorrow so a lot of new things were tried. I heard a rumor that a full playset of both Aesop’s Pawnshop and Wyldside were available so I...
Odds and Ends of...
Christmas Mailbag - Questions Wanted!
Ask me stuff!
3 weeks ago
Jonas Hietala
New Computer!
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s...
over a year ago
I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I’d make a post about it, as it’s awesome (as all new computers are).
The specs:
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550Ti OC 1GB
CPU: Intel core i5 2500K
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS-9900NT
Motherboard: MSI P67A-C45 REV B3
Ram:...
Louwrentius
Benchmarking cheap SSDs for fun, no profit (be warned)
The price of Solid-state drives (SSDs) has dropped significantly over the last few years. It's now...
a year ago
The price of Solid-state drives (SSDs) has dropped significantly over the last few years. It's now possible to buy a 1TB solid-state drive for less than €60. However, at such low price points, there is a catch.
Although cheap SSDs do perform fine regarding reads, sustained write...
Good Enough
How We Made A Good Enough Zine
We made a zine!
The first issue was released in August, and I finished the second issue just last...
a year ago
We made a zine!
The first issue was released in August, and I finished the second issue just last week. Right now, a hundred copies are on their way from the printer to me (update: they've just arrived!). Today I'd like to share the story of how this zine came about.
(Sorry for...
Jonas Hietala
Widening the horizon
This is a game making site but where are the games? What gives?
I’ve been slightly less motivated in...
over a year ago
This is a game making site but where are the games? What gives?
I’ve been slightly less motivated in making games lately and I’ve been doing different things, just to get my ideas and my motivation up. As I said in an earlier post I wanted a break from Experimental Games and I...
Louwrentius
Parallel / distributed password cracking with John the Ripper and MPI
This article has been updated to reflect the changes for John version 1.7.8 as released in june...
over a year ago
This article has been updated to reflect the changes for John version 1.7.8 as released in june 2011.
The most important change is the fact that MPI support is now integrated in the jumbo patch.
The original John the Ripper off-line password cracker only uses a single processor...
GitButler
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge to help move towards a more sustainable open source...
4 months ago
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge to help move towards a more sustainable open source ecosystem.
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1982/02 Creative Computing Mag
Time for some humor
7 months ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Encapsulated vs systemic complexity in protocol design
over a year ago
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