Arduino Blog
Can this tiny lawn mower robot cut it in the real world?
We’re finally starting to see robotic lawn mowers gain a little bit of traction as prices come down...
6 months ago
We’re finally starting to see robotic lawn mowers gain a little bit of traction as prices come down and consumer trust goes up. They work a bit like Roomba vacuums and pathfinding sophistication varies from one model to the next. But even the most basic models are still a lot...
Louwrentius
'Linux: monitor a directory for files'
Inotify is a mechanism in the Linux kernel that reports when a file system
event occurs.
The...
over a year ago
Inotify is a mechanism in the Linux kernel that reports when a file system
event occurs.
The inotifywait comand line utility can be used in shell scripts to monitor
directories for new files. It can also be used to monitor files for changes.
Inotifywait must be installed and is...
Good Enough
Season 3, Issue 2: Britney Coltrane
1. I ❤️HR
The past two weeks Barry and Lettini have been building our next little project, and I...
a year ago
1. I ❤️HR
The past two weeks Barry and Lettini have been building our next little project, and I tried to deal with the company-side of work: setting up payroll, health insurance, and making sure we’re compliant (hello, bureaucracy!). Back in the day when Danny and I started...
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...
Computer Ads from...
Small Systems Engineering's PETSPEED
Fast Enough for the Human Race
5 months ago
Fast Enough for the Human Race
Arduino Blog
Monitoring the weather with an Arduino MKR WiFi 1010-based station
Being able to monitor the weather in real-time is great for education, research, or simply to...
7 months ago
Being able to monitor the weather in real-time is great for education, research, or simply to analyze how the local climate changes over time. This project by Hackster.io user Pradeep explores how he was able to design a simple station outdoors that could communicate with a...
Willem's Blog
Upgrading a 27-inch iMac 5K to 14 terabytes
This month I nearly destroyed my iMac during an attempt to upgrade it. Thanks to determination and...
over a year ago
This month I nearly destroyed my iMac during an attempt to upgrade it. Thanks to determination and some spare time I was able to resurrect it from the death!
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: More mods
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and...
9 months ago
The printer is done, but I feel one of the best part of a VORON printer is the ability to modify and personalize it.
There a tons of mods you can do, and while I’ve done a few there are lots more that I’d like to do some day.
It’s a wonderful feeling to augment the printer with...
Willem's Blog
Whoop strap review: 24/7 wearable sensor
over a year ago
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside the mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure transducers
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache:...
11 months ago
MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
},
svg: {
fontCache: 'global'
},
chtml: { displayAlign: 'left' }
};
MathJax.Hub.Config({
"HTML-CSS": { scale: 175}
});
.MathJax {font-size: 1em !important}
The Bendix Central Air...
Good Enough
TIL: Overriding Permalink Generation in FriendlyId
FriendlyId is a helpful Ruby gem that streamlines
creating permalinks and slugs for Rails...
3 months ago
FriendlyId is a helpful Ruby gem that streamlines
creating permalinks and slugs for Rails applications. In Pika we're using it to help with
generating permalinks for blog posts and pages as well as slugs for tags. When a customer
wrote in with a request to modify the behavior of...
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 6. an x86 upgrade
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
...
over a year ago
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
2. user-defined functions and variables
3. LLVM
4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
5. LLVM system calls
This post upgrades the ulisp x86 backend from using a limited set of
registers (with no spilling...
./techtipsy
My experience at the k-space hackerspace hackathon
k-space is a hackerspace in Tallinn, Estonia, and they organized
a hackathon recently. Unlike in...
a year ago
k-space is a hackerspace in Tallinn, Estonia, and they organized
a hackathon recently. Unlike in most hackathons, in this one you could whatever you like with no
expectations about building a business or coming up with an MVP, just come on down to the space and
start working on...
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...
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...
Matt Blewitt
Sensibly Default
There are two programming principles that I hold dear to my heart: the principle of least surprise...
2 months ago
There are two programming principles that I hold dear to my heart: the principle of least surprise and provide sensible defaults. I’ve recently been working within the GraphQL ecosystem, and the number of violations of both here has frustrated me. This will be a little bit ranty.
OH8HUB’s Substack
Spring ham radio activation of Korkattivuori (Mt. Korkatti)
Korkattivuori (“Mount Korkatti”, 186m above sea level) is a small hill and Natura 2000 nature...
a year ago
Korkattivuori (“Mount Korkatti”, 186m above sea level) is a small hill and Natura 2000 nature reserve area near town Haapavesi (pop. 6588) in Finland. The nature reserve area consist of short family friendly hiking path of approximately 1.5km. One end of the path has parking...
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...
The Grand Stand
Joystick Stabilizer Support & Score Enhancer
a month ago
Joystick Stabilizer Support & Score Enhancer
On Life and Lisp
The Apple GPU and the Impossible Bug
In late 2020, Apple debuted the M1 with Apple’s GPU architecture, AGX, rumoured to be derived from...
over a year ago
In late 2020, Apple debuted the M1 with Apple’s GPU architecture, AGX, rumoured to be derived from Imagination’s PowerVR series. Since then, we’ve been reverse-engineering AGX and building open source graphics drivers. Last January, I rendered a triangle with my own code, but...
Notes on software...
Interpreting Go
After spending some time at work on tooling for keeping documentation
in sync with Go struct...
over a year ago
After spending some time at work on tooling for keeping documentation
in sync with Go struct definitions I had enough exposure to Go's
built-in parsing package that next steps were clear: write an
interpreter. It's a great way to get more comfortable with a
language's
AST.
In...
Jonas Hietala
2017 in Review
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got...
over a year ago
In contrast to previous years I haven’t kept up with the blog. For good reason I’d say since we got a child in October! It really alters your perspectives and other things suddenly feel a little less important and of course there’s less time to do other stuff.
A little late and...
Applied Cartography
You should use Helpscout
Was digging through old issues of the personal site and found this draft snippet:
I was evaluating...
10 months ago
Was digging through old issues of the personal site and found this draft snippet:
I was evaluating HelpScout as a potential first step in a series of many, many steps to onboard a dedicated support engineer for Buttondown, and it turns out that the process of adding custom...
Jonas Hietala
No game this month
Well here I am in the end of the month - without a game. It’s a failure I know but once again I lack...
over a year ago
Well here I am in the end of the month - without a game. It’s a failure I know but once again I lack inspiration and then it’s really hard to do something. Instead I’ve been thinking of something I could do that would make me wanna code like really bad again. I’m thinking of...
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...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1985/12 Australian Personal Computer Mag
Some computer related levity from OZ
2 weeks ago
Some computer related levity from OZ
Applied Cartography
Postgres batch enqueuing in ten lines of Django
It hasn't failed me yet:
BATCH_SIZE = 100
def batch_proess(queryset) -> None:
count =...
a year ago
It hasn't failed me yet:
BATCH_SIZE = 100
def batch_proess(queryset) -> None:
count = queryset.count()
if count == 0:
time.sleep(10)
return
with transaction.atomic():
batch = list(
queryset.select_for_update(of=("self",),...
Home on Erik...
Everything I learned about technical debt
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover...
over a year ago
I just made it to Sweden suffering from jet lag induced insomnia, but this blog post will not cover that. Instead, I will talk a little bit about technical debt.
The concept of technical debt always resonated with me, partly because I always like the analogy with “real” debt.
Notes on software...
Container scheduling strategies for integration testing 14 different databases in Github Actions
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...
Design for Testability
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to...
over a year ago
When designing a new software project, one is often faced with a glut of choices about how to structure it. What should the core abstractions be? How should they interact with each other?
In this post, I want to argue for a design heuristic that I’ve found to be a useful guide to...
Home on Erik...
Business secrets from terrible people
I get bored reading management books very easily and lately I've been reading about a wide range of...
over a year ago
I get bored reading management books very easily and lately I've been reading about a wide range of almost arbitrary topics. One of the lenses I tend to read through is to see different management styles in different environments.
Lighthouse Blog
Updates September 16: Explore all available articles of a feed
3 months ago
Arduino Blog
Arduino and Truesense partner to bring UWB technology to millions
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB)...
a month ago
We are excited to announce our latest partnership with Truesense, a leader in ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, known for its innovative software and hardware solutions. This collaboration enhances our ecosystem of hardware products, software solutions, and cloud services,...
computers are bad
2023-09-10 the Essex GWEN site
Programming note: this post is in color. I will not debase myself to the
level of sending HTML...
a year ago
Programming note: this post is in color. I will not debase myself to the
level of sending HTML email, so if you receive Computers Are Bad by email
and want the benefit of the pictures, consider reading this online instead
(the link is at the top of the email).
In the aftermath of...
Jonas Hietala
An Epic Start
Oh what a mistake. I woke up at 05.00 when my girlfriend woke up, she’s working early today, and...
over a year ago
Oh what a mistake. I woke up at 05.00 when my girlfriend woke up, she’s working early today, and went to the bathroom. After I was done, still pretty tired, I made a big mistake. I checked the current theme for Ludum Dare 29: Beneath the Surface and guess what? Now I wasn’t tired...
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...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Links #10
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast...
4 months ago
How to Get on a Podcast - This is a short and invaluable post for anyone who wants to be a podcast guest. It puts you in the shoes of a podcaster, showing you what they need, and how you can be a “sure thing” for them. As usual, there are no short cuts. You gotta do the work!
A...
Louwrentius
Building a RAID 6 array of mixed drives
To be honest, 4 TB of storage isn't really necessary for home usage.
However, I like to collect...
over a year ago
To be honest, 4 TB of storage isn't really necessary for home usage.
However, I like to collect movies in full DVD or HD quality and so I need some
storage.
I decided to build myself a NAS box based on Debian Etch. Samba is used to
allow clients to access the data. The machine...
computers are bad
2023-06-02 the reinvention of owens lake
Programming note: In an effort to introduce an exciting new social aspect to
Computers Are Bad (a...
a year ago
Programming note: In an effort to introduce an exciting new social aspect to
Computers Are Bad (a functional necessity to appease early-stage investor
demands for "engagement")¸ I am launching a Matrix room for CAB readers.
You can join it! Do whatever you do to join rooms in...
computers are bad
2024-05-06 matrix
For those of you who are members of the Matrix project, I wanted to let you
know that I am running...
7 months ago
For those of you who are members of the Matrix project, I wanted to let you
know that I am running for the Governing Board, and a bit about why. For those
of you who are not, I hope you will forgive the intrusion. Maybe you'll find my
opinions on the topic interesting anyway.
I...
Jonas Hietala
The Little Things in Life
It’s the little things in life that makes it extra special. Sometimes it’s the luxury of coffee...
over a year ago
It’s the little things in life that makes it extra special. Sometimes it’s the luxury of coffee together with the morning paper and other times it’s just a small simple smile from a random stranger, kid or dog. Today when I got this bad headache I got saved by a two hour nap and...
Computer Ads from...
Dipco's Easy Reader
"Sight for Sore Eyes"
a month ago
Arduino Blog
Check out these Arduino-powered research projects from CHI 2024
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference...
6 months ago
Held in Hawaii this year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) hosted its annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) that focuses on the latest developments in human-computer interaction. Students from universities all across the world attended the...
Notes on software...
Extending gosql to supporting LIMIT and OFFSET
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface...
over a year ago
It's been a few months since I picked up
gosql and I wanted to use it to
prototype a SQL interface for data stored in S3. But one missing
critical feature in gosql is LIMIT and OFFSET support. This post walks
through the few key changes to gosql to support LIMIT and OFFSET.
You...
Computer Ads from...
UNIX Review Magazine Interviews Larry Tesler
They discuss Tesler's involvement with Xerox, Apple and office automation with Unix.
3 months ago
They discuss Tesler's involvement with Xerox, Apple and office automation with Unix.
Willem's Blog
Commuter bike checkup
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to...
over a year ago
This week my trustworthy commuter bike started making strange squeaking noises when braking, time to have a look at the bike after 21.000KM!
Computer Ads from...
Maxell's MF 2-DD Floppies
The Gold Standard
3 weeks ago
./techtipsy
My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
It turns out that you can’t trust any USB type A power adapter to be within spec.
I have a Catit...
a year ago
It turns out that you can’t trust any USB type A power adapter to be within spec.
I have a Catit Flower Fountain
for my two adorable cats. The idea of a water fountain for cats may sound odd,
but having one really helps with cats staying hydrated and that alone avoids all
sorts...
Posts on Made of...
Graceful behavior at capacity
Suppose we’ve got a service. We’ll gloss over the details for now, but let’s stipulate that it...
a year ago
Suppose we’ve got a service. We’ll gloss over the details for now, but let’s stipulate that it accepts requests from the outside world, and takes some action in response. Maybe those requests are HTTP requests, or RPCs, or just incoming packets to be routed at the network layer....
Jonas Hietala
Undo git reset --hard
I purposefully and more or less idiotically executed git reset --hard <hash> in hopes of going back...
over a year ago
I purposefully and more or less idiotically executed git reset --hard <hash> in hopes of going back a bit. What I didn’t realize then is that you throw away all the commits between now until <hash>. Not quite what was planned.
After a bit of panic I found the answer:
Find your...
Jonas Hietala
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros
Aaah feels good having a game ready after the last month’s failure! This time it’s a small...
over a year ago
Aaah feels good having a game ready after the last month’s failure! This time it’s a small shooter.
The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afro
Bullet masher - can you keep up with 100 enemies at the screen?
Instruction
W: up
Credits
Music: The Last Prophecy - Matthew Le Blanc...
Notes on software...
Running SQL Server in a container on Github Actions
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Notes on software...
A database without dynamic memory allocation
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Arduino Blog
Transform trash into treasure with the DIY Bottle Plotter
Manufacturers put a lot of effort into their packaging (there is an entire engineering discipline...
3 months ago
Manufacturers put a lot of effort into their packaging (there is an entire engineering discipline just for that) and some of it can be quite beautiful. But it usually still ends up in the landfill or, at best, in a recycling center. However, if you’re the type of person who can...
Vitalik Buterin's...
DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters
over a year ago
Posts on Made of...
reptyr: Changing a process's controlling terminal
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal,...
over a year ago
reptyr (announced recently on this blog) takes a process that is currently running in one terminal, and transplants it to a new terminal. reptyr comes from a proud family of similar hacks, and works in the same basic way: We use ptrace(2) to attach to a target process and force...
Arduino Blog
RIoT Secure joins Arduino’s SIPP as Gold Partner
We are excited to announce that RIoT Secure has joined Arduino’s System Integrators Partnership...
6 months ago
We are excited to announce that RIoT Secure has joined Arduino’s System Integrators Partnership Program at the Gold level. Founded in 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden, RIoT Secure is at the forefront of IoT security, especially in regards to resource-constrained microcontrollers,...
Computer Ads from...
EPYX's Pitstop
Where Winning is the Pits.
6 months ago
Where Winning is the Pits.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Updating my blog: a quick GPT chatbot coding experiment
over a year ago
Posts on Made of...
wpa_supplicant: GUI and wpa_action
I’ve made two new interesting discoveries about wpa_supplicant since writing my last blog post on...
over a year ago
I’ve made two new interesting discoveries about wpa_supplicant since writing my last blog post on the subject. (Actually, I pretty much made both of them while reading documentation in order to write it, and have been lame about writing them up).
Using wpa_gui It turns out that...
somenice
Cake Hole Whistler Mountain
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of...
3 weeks ago
Often inviting. This terrain just off the Whistler peak road can be an enticing sun-swept run of untouched powder.Understanding that you need to come back up the same way you go down, can make you question if it’s really worth it.Know before you go. Cake Hole by Andrew...
Louwrentius
Systemd Forward Secure Sealing of system logs makes little sense
Systemd is a more modern replacement of sysvinit and its in the process of being integrated into...
over a year ago
Systemd is a more modern replacement of sysvinit and its in the process of being integrated into most mainstream Linux distributions. I'm a bit troubled by one of it's features.
I'd like to discuss the Forward Secure Sealing (FSS) feature for log files that is part of systemd....
latest projects -...
POV Candle
[Hardware] Tiny volumetric display
a year ago
[Hardware] Tiny volumetric display
Notes on software...
An intuition for distributed consensus in OLTP systems
Distributed consensus in transactional databases (e.g. etcd or
Cockroach) is a big deal these days....
10 months ago
Distributed consensus in transactional databases (e.g. etcd or
Cockroach) is a big deal these days. Most often under the hood are
variations of log-based Paxos-like algorithms such as MultiPaxos,
Viewstamped Replication, or Raft. While there are new variations that
come out each...
csvbase blog
Client libraries are better when they have no API
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
8 months ago
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
Willem's Blog
Your own addressbook and calendar cloud
You can setup a CardDAV/CalDAV server to manage your own contacts, addressbook, agenda and task data...
over a year ago
You can setup a CardDAV/CalDAV server to manage your own contacts, addressbook, agenda and task data and share it between your devices.
Arduino Blog
These Shattered Space helmet replicas stay video game accurate using an Arduino Nano
Starfield, a game set in the vast expanse of our galaxy, is receiving a new expansion called...
2 months ago
Starfield, a game set in the vast expanse of our galaxy, is receiving a new expansion called “Shattered Space” in which players can don novel weapons and gear to take on the latest challenge. As part of its release, the expansion’s publisher Bethesda reached out to cosplayer...
Good Enough
How We Built Quack (Beta)
We recently launched Quack, a simple utility for you to share a beautifully rendered version of any...
a year ago
We recently launched Quack, a simple utility for you to share a beautifully rendered version of any Markdown text. This software is completely front-end based, and for me personally it was a bit of a challenging puzzle to implement. Thankfully we have genius hackers like Arun...
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...
Jonas Hietala
Slackware update
The last time I (re)installed Slackware I documented what I did. Somehow I managed to really bork my...
over a year ago
The last time I (re)installed Slackware I documented what I did. Somehow I managed to really bork my installation and I decided to go through with a larger reinstallation once more. This is a log of some things I did differently.
Kernel
Before installing the kernel it’s nice to...
Push to Prod
Best Questions and Answers to the “Terrifying Netflix Concurrency Bug” Post
Why couldn't we roll back? Weren't we concerned about costs? Why is operating Netflix so...
3 weeks ago
Why couldn't we roll back? Weren't we concerned about costs? Why is operating Netflix so complicated? Plus many others.
Willem's Blog
Riding with Omata One
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely...
over a year ago
If you're looking for an alternative for common cycling computers, the Omata One is something truely special: it indicates your speed, distance, ascent and time ridden using mechanical hands!
Louwrentius
The minimum requirements for a secure system
The most secure server system is a system that is not connected to a network
and turned off....
over a year ago
The most secure server system is a system that is not connected to a network
and turned off. However, little work seems to be getting done this way. So we
want to turn systems on and connect them to a network, or even (God forbid)
the internet.
The thing is this. A system...
Posts on Made of...
A week with the iPhone
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about...
over a year ago
I’ve had a new iPhone for about a week now, so I figure it’s time to write up some thoughts about it.
First, the little things. It is, in typical Apple fashion, an incredibly slick piece of work. Scrolling and zooming images or webpages is simple, easy, and, well, just fun to do...
OH8HUB’s Substack
Eliminating Radio Interference from Apple charger
Apple's product design teams should do a better job eliminating unwanted radio frequency emissions...
a year ago
Apple's product design teams should do a better job eliminating unwanted radio frequency emissions from their product!
Good Enough
My Tears of the Kingdom Addiction
I don’t know how big my internet social bubble really is, but it feels like everyone in the world...
a year ago
I don’t know how big my internet social bubble really is, but it feels like everyone in the world that bubble has been playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lately. Me included! It’s amazing, and I’m thoroughly engrossed—I think I’ve stayed up playing until...
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
Applied Cartography
Against Against Innovation Tokens
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote...
5 months ago
Glyph (whose writing and contributions to the Python ecosystem I am deeply grateful for) wrote Against Innovation Tokens yesterday:
In 2015, Dan McKinley laid out a model for software teams selecting technologies. He proposed that each team have a limited supply of “innovation...
Jonas Hietala
Faster than Light
So I returned to Faster than Light again this weekend, this time for real. I bought it when it came...
over a year ago
So I returned to Faster than Light again this weekend, this time for real. I bought it when it came out and I played it only in passing, but this weekend I played it a ton.
Aaahh a new beginning in FTL. Will it be death once more
I generally don’t like games where you have to...
Vitalik Buterin's...
El recurso escaso más importante es la legitimidad
over a year ago
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...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Reverse engineering the barrel shifter circuit on the Intel 386 processor die
The Intel 386 processor (1985) was a large step from the 286 processor, moving x86 to a 32-bit...
a year ago
The Intel 386 processor (1985) was a large step from the 286 processor, moving x86 to a 32-bit architecture.
The 386 also dramatically improved the performance of shift and rotate operations by adding a
"barrel shifter", a circuit that can shift by multiple bits in one step.
The...
Louwrentius
Why you should not use IPsec for VPN connectivity
IPsec is a well-known and widely-used VPN solution. It seems that it's not widely known that Niels...
over a year ago
IPsec is a well-known and widely-used VPN solution. It seems that it's not widely known that Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier performed a detailed security analysis of IPsec and that the results were not very positive.
We strongly discourage the use of IPsec in its current form...
On Life and Lisp
Vulkan 1.3 on the M1 in 1 month
u{text-decoration-thickness:0.09em;text-decoration-color:skyblue}
Finally, conformant Vulkan for the...
6 months ago
u{text-decoration-thickness:0.09em;text-decoration-color:skyblue}
Finally, conformant Vulkan for the M1! The new “Honeykrisp” driver is
the first conformant
Vulkan® for Apple hardware on any operating system, implementing the
full 1.3 spec without “portability”...
Arduino Blog
Using Arduino with gaming
It’s not surprising that the Arduino community is packed to the brim with examples of gaming-related...
a month ago
It’s not surprising that the Arduino community is packed to the brim with examples of gaming-related projects. Both activities tend to attract people with a love for problem-solving, technology, and getting immersed in one challenging activity for hours at a time. The result is...
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.
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...
2 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...
Matt Blewitt
Long Distance Relationships
I’ve been managing a fully remote, fully distributed team, covering timezones from UTC-8 through...
2 months ago
I’ve been managing a fully remote, fully distributed team, covering timezones from UTC-8 through UTC+10, for the last couple of years. Through that time, I’ve learned a lot on organising work, interpersonal relationships, and ultimately how to overcome a lack of promximity to my...
Neil Madden
Entity authentication with a KEM
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity...
a year ago
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity authentication or identification (to distinguish it from message authentication or data origin authentication). There are lots of ways to do this. In this post I’m going to talk about...
Jonas Hietala
I, Robot
Here are the results of the big robot construction course we had before christmas! The whole process...
over a year ago
Here are the results of the big robot construction course we had before christmas! The whole process went smooth and our group was amazing. The design and building of the robot went well even though in hindsight I would’ve changed a lot of stuff. The ending competition didn’t go...
Jonas Hietala
The 4-Hour Chef: Scrambled Eggs
I’ve been listening to The Tim Ferriss Show a while now and he and his guests often inspire me to...
over a year ago
I’ve been listening to The Tim Ferriss Show a while now and he and his guests often inspire me to make changes and start doing new things. I got introduced to Josh Waitzkin’s excellent The Art of Learning and the meta skill of learning has since then fascinated me. So when I got...
Home on Erik...
Nearest neighbors and vector models – part 2 – algorithms and data structures
This is a blog post rewritten from a presentation at NYC Machine Learning on Sep 17. It covers a...
over a year ago
This is a blog post rewritten from a presentation at NYC Machine Learning on Sep 17. It covers a library called Annoy that I have built that helps you do nearest neighbor queries in high dimensional spaces.
Louwrentius
'Syslog: the hidden security risk'
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to...
over a year ago
People sometimes forget that there are also a number of UDP-based services
that may pose a threat to the security of your systems. SNMP is a well-known
service, notorious for being configured with a default password (or community
string).
But there is another service that is...
./techtipsy
So you need some tech tips...
I’m an experienced software developer located in Estonia 🇪🇪🇪🇺 .
I don’t simply get things done,...
over a year ago
I’m an experienced software developer located in Estonia 🇪🇪🇪🇺 .
I don’t simply get things done, I get them done done.
Here’s what I bring to the table:
software development skillset
building useful solutions
monitoring, observability
incident response
I know how to use...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 4: The Verge
2 months ago
Good Enough
Beware of Free Software
Beware of free pizza
If I want a slice of pizza, I don't expect it to be free. In fact, if you try...
a year ago
Beware of free pizza
If I want a slice of pizza, I don't expect it to be free. In fact, if you try to offer me a slice of free pizza, I'd suspect there's something wrong with it.
And ever since my kids can understand me, I've taught them to be careful of free stuff. Nothing is...
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...
Notes on Blockchain Governance
over a year ago
Yazin Alirhayim
The Trouble With Optionality
Optionality’s one of those things you don’t really think about. People don’t generally wake up one...
over a year ago
Optionality’s one of those things you don’t really think about. People don’t generally wake up one morning thinking “Why, it appears I’ve spent the past several decades of my life optimizing for optionality. Perhaps I should figure out why?”.
Most don’t even recognize the term –...
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...
Jonas Hietala
(Fake) Bittman Chinese Chicken
Lesson 6! I went to Cervera and bought a holder to allow me to steam chicken.
I broke the recipe on...
over a year ago
Lesson 6! I went to Cervera and bought a holder to allow me to steam chicken.
I broke the recipe on multiple fronts: chicken wings instead of chicken breasts, mushroom soy instead of tamarin, roman salad instead of baby bok choi (where the heck do you find that…) and I even...
computers are bad
2023-06-30 calling in the alarm
I currently find myself on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, where internet is
hard to come by. But...
a year ago
I currently find myself on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, where internet is
hard to come by. But here's something short while I'm temporarily back in the
warm embrace of 5G: more about burglar alarms. I recently gave a presentation
on this topic and I'll probably record it for...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Notes on Karl Popper
A woven web of guesses
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...
Notes on software...
Effective unemployment and social media
Being unemployed can be incredibly depressing. So much
rejection. Everything seems to be out of your...
a month ago
Being unemployed can be incredibly depressing. So much
rejection. Everything seems to be out of your control. Everything
except for one thing: what you produce.
You might know that repeatedly posting on social media that you are
looking for work is ineffective. That it looks (or...
Home on Erik...
Implicit data and collaborative filtering
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right?...
over a year ago
A lot of people these days know about collaborative filtering. It's that Netflix Prize thing, right? People rate things 1-5 stars and then you have to predict missing ratings.
While there's no doubt that the Netflix Prize was successful, I think it created an illusion that all...
Notes on software...
Writing a simple JSON library from scratch: a tour through modern C++
Modern C++ has a lot of cool features. Move semantics means passing
around structs in functions is...
over a year ago
Modern C++ has a lot of cool features. Move semantics means passing
around structs in functions is cheap. std::shared_ptr
means I don't have to manage any memory; no
more new/delete! (But try as I might to
understand std::unique_ptr, I'm just not there yet.)
The syntax has also...
Buck on Software
Crypto and Chasing the Dragon
Marc and Ben’s midlife crisis and the Crypto Crusades
over a year ago
Marc and Ben’s midlife crisis and the Crypto Crusades
Vitalik Buterin's...
Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Simple sabotage for software
CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out...
a year ago
CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out various ways for infiltrators to ruin productivity of a company. Some of the advice is timeless, for instance the section about “General interference with Organizations and...
Notes on software...
Checking linearizability in Go
You want to check for strict consistency
(linearizability)
for your project but you don't want to...
a month ago
You want to check for strict consistency
(linearizability)
for your project but you don't want to have to deal with the
JVM. Porcupine,
used by a number of real-world systems like etcd and TiDB, has you
covered!
Importantly, neither Jepsen projects nor Porcupine can...
Simply Explained
How WebP Images Reduced My Bandwidth Usage by 50%
Last year I migrated this website from Jekyll to Eleventy. This year, I’m finally implementing WebP...
over a year ago
Last year I migrated this website from Jekyll to Eleventy. This year, I’m finally implementing WebP images to save bandwidth and make this site even faster to load! This simple change reduced my bandwidth usage by 50% and is still backwards compatible with old devices and...
Home on Erik...
Better precision and faster index building in Annoy
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index...
over a year ago
Sometimes you have these awesome insights. A few days ago I got an idea for how to improve index building in Annoy.
For anyone who isn't acquainted with Annoy – it's a C++ library with Python bindings that provides fast high-dimensional nearest neighbor search.
Ken Shirriff's blog
The first microcomputer: The transfluxor-powered Arma Micro Computer from 1962
What would you say is the first microcomputer?1 The Apple I from 1976? The Altair 8800 from...
10 months ago
What would you say is the first microcomputer?1 The Apple I from 1976? The Altair 8800 from 1974?
Perhaps the lesser-known Micral N (1973) or Q1 (1972)?
How about the Arma Micro Computer from way back in 1962.
The Arma Micro Computer was a compact 20-pound transistorized...
Notes on software...
Languages you can run in the browser, part 1: Python, JavaScript, SQLite
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
./techtipsy
The little Wi-Fi AP that could
I have a bad habit of testing things whenever a “good” idea pops into my head. This is a short...
over a year ago
I have a bad habit of testing things whenever a “good” idea pops into my head. This is a short overview of one of them.
The Orange Pi Zero is a SBC (single board computer) that has a slow 32-bit ARM 4 core CPU, 512MB of RAM and no display output.
It’s actually quite OK for many...
Jonas Hietala
The eBook for 'Why Cryptocurrencies?' is now available for free
The eBook for my book Why Cryptocurrencies? is now available for free.
It’s been almost 4 years...
10 months ago
The eBook for my book Why Cryptocurrencies? is now available for free.
It’s been almost 4 years since the web version was done, and 3 since the physical copy was available…
Which can hardly be called a success.
Things happened, so let’s do a quick retrospective to, maybe, learn...
Opsbros
The Bindicator
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it....
over a year ago
So I made this project for my dad for Fathers Day a couple of years ago, and thought i'd share it. The one shown is the Rev-1 design which is far from perfect, in fact it has several major issues I will discuss below, however it definitely works,
Jonas Hietala
Language spec in code blocks
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I...
a year ago
Even though I just recently restyled the blog and wasn’t going to touch it, there was one thing I wanted to add, but it felt a little bothersome so I skipped it.
It was to display the highlighted language in code blocks:
The code spec displays what programming language the code...
Notes on software...
My favorite software subreddits
Originally published on December 5, 2021.
If you are an experienced software developer whose only...
a year ago
Originally published on December 5, 2021.
If you are an experienced software developer whose only exposure to
reddit is dank memes, proggit or even
language-specific subreddits like
/r/python, you're missing out.
What follows are my favorite subreddits in tech. My criteria is...
computers are bad
2023-04-10 solving problems with chatgpt
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is...
a year ago
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is to automate away our jobs. When your job is (put simply) to
get computers to work correctly, there's sort of an irony to this view of
things. Still, just within the span of my...
Willem's Blog
Replacing a Shimano shift cable
After some adventure with our cargo bike, the Shimano Nexus 7-speed shifter cable got damaged and...
over a year ago
After some adventure with our cargo bike, the Shimano Nexus 7-speed shifter cable got damaged and needed replacement. Read my blog post to learn how to do this yourself.
Notes on software...
Notes on running Electron
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.
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...
Posts on Made of...
What MongoDB got Right
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the...
over a year ago
MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.
While some of the mockery is out-of-date or rooted in misunderstandings, much of it is well-deserved, and it’s difficult to disagree that much of MongoDB’s engineering is incredibly simplistic,...
Jonas Hietala
Going into Being Busy mode
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or...
over a year ago
I’m in the civil service atm and, sadly, we’re going to be extremely busy the coming… two months or something? So I can’t promise a game the next two months. Kinda beats the point of this site doesn’t it? I’m really sorry and that’s all I can say really…
Hopefully I’ll get a week...
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!
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...
The year in books: 11 to recommend in 2021
Last year (2021) I finished 17 books, a five year low. But that's ok!
4 fiction and 13 non-fiction....
over a year ago
Last year (2021) I finished 17 books, a five year low. But that's ok!
4 fiction and 13 non-fiction. Another 30 started but not finished.
Non-fiction
It seems I was pretty focused on business history books and history of
tech. The 8 non-fiction books I liked the most:
Designing...
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...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Talking to memory: Inside the Intel 8088 processor's bus interface state machine
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's...
7 months ago
In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor.
IBM's decision to use the 8088 processor in the IBM PC (1981) was a critical point in computer history,
leading to the success of the x86 architecture.
The designers of the IBM PC selected...
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Beebop The Island Hopper
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop...
over a year ago
So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop The Island Hopper for the theme Islands.
About Ludum Dare
Ludum Dare is a competition which runs maybe two times a year and the competition is 24 hours long with a specific theme....
Opsbros
Debug Header
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor...
over a year ago
After watching a livestream by UnexpectedMaker struggling to put probe pins on his Stepper Motor driver connected to a Raspberry Pi, I thought a breakout header might help; so I whipped up this little board.
Arduino Blog
This smart spice box makes cooking a breeze
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and...
6 months ago
Many people shy away from cooking because they’re overwhelmed by all of the different steps and ingredients. Recipes are useful, but they aren’t very intuitive to those who are more comfortable with visual thinking. To help these people enjoy the cooking experience, Purdue...
Willem's Blog
Half Marathon
Discover my journey from noob to (half) marathon finisher and how I balanced data with fitness -...
9 months ago
Discover my journey from noob to (half) marathon finisher and how I balanced data with fitness - read about my experiences!
computers are bad
2023-08-07 STIRred AND SHAKEN
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps...
a year ago
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps spurred by boredom, I looked through the schedule to see
what's in store in the world of telephony. There is a workshop on SS7, of
course [1], plenty of content on cellular, but...
Matt Blewitt
What Is a Senior Engineer, Anyway?
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to...
a month ago
I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with my team about our career ladder, and what it means to be “senior” in a software engineering context. It’s a little different in every company, but here is my view.
Jonas Hietala
Preventing Firefox from creating Desktop directories
With a fresh firefox installation I found that it kept creating a ~/Desktop directory. But I found...
over a year ago
With a fresh firefox installation I found that it kept creating a ~/Desktop directory. But I found how to turn it off.
Edit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs...
Home on Erik...
Modeling conversion rates using Weibull and gamma distributions
This is a blog post originally featured on the Better engineering blog. If you want to link to this...
over a year ago
This is a blog post originally featured on the Better engineering blog. If you want to link to this article or share it, please go to the original post URL! Separately, I'm sorry it's been so long with no posts on this blog.
Computer Ads from...
Flash Sale and a Slight Change to Subscriptions
Time for a little business
3 months ago
Time for a little business
Posts on Made of...
A Cursed Bug
In my day job at Anthropic, we run relatively large distributed systems to train large language...
over a year ago
In my day job at Anthropic, we run relatively large distributed systems to train large language models. One of the joys of using a lot of computing resources, especially on somewhat niche software stacks, is that you spend a lot of time running into the long-tail of bugs which...
Good Enough
Why We're Writing Blog Software
We’re seven months into our Cosmic Maelstrom
and we have started writing blogging software.
What the...
a year ago
We’re seven months into our Cosmic Maelstrom
and we have started writing blogging software.
What the why?!
First, let me say that, yes, I do realize there are probably 100s of blog software options out there.
In terms of static-site generators (SSGs) alone, there are probably...
./techtipsy
Recovering a password-protected ThinkPad T60
A couple of years ago, I worked on a ThinkPad T60. That ThinkPad had been in use
by a family member...
over a year ago
A couple of years ago, I worked on a ThinkPad T60. That ThinkPad had been in use
by a family member before that, and I started its cleanup by disassembling the
whole machine and making sure that it was pristine. However, once I put it all
back together, I saw that it was password...
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...
Jonas Hietala
A Four-Eyed Update
Wow it’s been a while! Almost a month and a half since my last update. There I complained about my...
over a year ago
Wow it’s been a while! Almost a month and a half since my last update. There I complained about my almost constant headaches which hampered me a lot actually. Luckily now I have joined the rank of cool.
I took home three frames I think and tried them out and I settled some I...
Arduino Blog
Venderoo is an Arduino Mega-powered DIY vending machine
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics,...
2 months ago
For now-college student Joel Grayson, making something that combined his interests in mechanics, electronics, and programming while being simultaneously useful to those around him was a longtime goal. His recent Venderoo project is exactly that, as the creatively named vending...
Jonas Hietala
Why make games
Why did I start making games? Because I like to play them of course. Think of all the fantastic...
over a year ago
Why did I start making games? Because I like to play them of course. Think of all the fantastic games; Super Mario, Lemmings, Tetris, GTA, The Sims, Counterstrike, Theme Hospital, SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon… Damn - when you count them like this you’ll see how many great...
Jonas Hietala
The current Cybershard layout
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and...
3 weeks ago
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and hand-wired.
It’s a minimalistic keyboard of 35 keys and features an integrated trackball on the right-hand side.
The keyboard layout started out as a direct copy of the T-34 keyboard...
Jonas Hietala
IDA Summer of Code 2014: Summary
This is a wrap-up post of my entry to IDA Summer of Code this year.
Quick stats
65 merged...
over a year ago
This is a wrap-up post of my entry to IDA Summer of Code this year.
Quick stats
65 merged commits
6790 lines added
2822 lines deleted
36 pull requests, 34 merged
12 pull requests directly fixing issues
rest either documentation or cleanup
1 RFC submitted...
Arduino Blog
Introducing Opta Expansions: scalable simplicity!
Last year, we launched the Arduino Pro Opta: it was an instant success with our community, and...
7 months ago
Last year, we launched the Arduino Pro Opta: it was an instant success with our community, and allowed us to reach PLC engineers with a new solution specifically designed for their needs. To further expand Opta’s capabilities, today the Arduino ecosystem welcomes various...
Home on Erik...
Benchmark of Approximate Nearest Neighbor libraries
Annoy is a library written by me that supports fast approximate nearest neighbor queries. Say you...
over a year ago
Annoy is a library written by me that supports fast approximate nearest neighbor queries. Say you have a high (1-1000) dimensional space with points in it, and you want to find the nearest neighbors to some point.
Louwrentius
RAID 5 is perfectly fine for home usage
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you...
over a year ago
RAID 5 gets a lot of flak these days. You either run RAID 1, RAID 10 or you use RAID 6, but if you run RAID 5 you're told that you are a crazy person.
Using RAID 5 is portrayed as an unreasonable risk to the availability of your data. It is suggested that it is likely that you...
Computer Ads from...
Oberon International' Omni-Reader
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
5 days ago
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
Construction Physics
Why the U.S. Can’t Build Icebreaking Ships
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post,...
2 months ago
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post, especially those who shared their own stories of loss.
Computer Ads from...
ViaGrafix Computer Training Videos
Learn...by Simply Watching TV
a month ago
Learn...by Simply Watching TV
Applied Cartography
You should build this:
A prior iteration of this site had a page called "Project ideas" that listed a bunch of things that...
2 months ago
A prior iteration of this site had a page called "Project ideas" that listed a bunch of things that I'd like to build. This was a good idea and useful in its own right (I got a few people to build companies and projects based on them, and it was a useful avenue by which folks...
Home on Erik...
NoDoc
We had an unconference at Spotify last Thursday and I added a semi-trolling semi-serious topic about...
over a year ago
We had an unconference at Spotify last Thursday and I added a semi-trolling semi-serious topic about abolishing documentation. Or NoDoc, as I'm going to call this movement. This was meant to be mostly a thought experiment, but I don't see it as complete madness.
Jonas Hietala
Postmortem: Black and White
All this time working on my latest game I thought it sucked and I was trying hard to make it to not...
over a year ago
All this time working on my latest game I thought it sucked and I was trying hard to make it to not suck. My spirit wasn’t high, just check this post and this but now when it’s done it’s like night and day, or like black and white! I’m damn happy I got it done!! Aah I’ll try to...
Jonas Hietala
Long Term Goals
I have a lot of things I want to do. Right now I want to go to the kids training tomorrow and also...
over a year ago
I have a lot of things I want to do. Right now I want to go to the kids training tomorrow and also to our training time. I haven’t trained a lot lately so it feels good to do something again and training the kids is very rewarding. On Monday I have the next graph theory lecture...
Notes on software...
The year in books: 2022
In 2022 I finished 20
books
spanning 15,801 pages. 3 more than I read in 2021, but about twice
the...
a year ago
In 2022 I finished 20
books
spanning 15,801 pages. 3 more than I read in 2021, but about twice
the number of pages. 3 fiction and 17 non-fiction. Another ~30 started
but not finished.
I had a hard time reading books while I was trying to start my own
company. But I also...
Simply Explained
Preventing Cumulative Layout Shifts with lazy loaded images (Eleventy + markdown-it)
There's nothing more annoying than a website shifting down just as you're about to click on a button...
over a year ago
There's nothing more annoying than a website shifting down just as you're about to click on a button or link. This is called a layout shift, and Google has declared war on them. They've added layout shifts to the Core Web Vitals, and if your website has a lot of them, it will get...
GitButler
Git Merge 2024
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
2 months ago
Git Merge 2024 has wrapped and we all had a heck of a good time. Here's the overview.
Posts on Made of...
Write testable code by writing generic code
Alex Gaynor recently asked this question in an IRC channel I hang out in (a channel which contains...
over a year ago
Alex Gaynor recently asked this question in an IRC channel I hang out in (a channel which contains several software engineers nearly as obsessed with software testing as I am):
uhh, so I’m writing some code to handle an econnreset… how do I test this?
This is a good question!...
Willem's Blog
Lessons from a takeaway plastic bag
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of...
over a year ago
How we're tricked into repeated purchases replacing perfectly fine products just for the sake of change.
Notes on software...
Emulating linux/AMD64 userland: interpreting an ELF binary
In this post we'll stumble toward a working emulator for a barebones C
program compiled for...
over a year ago
In this post we'll stumble toward a working emulator for a barebones C
program compiled for linux/AMD64. The approach will be slightly more
so based on observation than by following a spec; a great way
to quickly become familiar with a topic, and a bad way to...
./techtipsy
I encourage you to write a blog
It’s been over 4 years since my first post on this blog.
During those 4 years I’ve written over 90...
3 months ago
It’s been over 4 years since my first post on this blog.
During those 4 years I’ve written over 90 posts, received over 1 million clicks,
a dozen legitimate reader e-mails and thousands of spam e-mails.
And I love it!
I’ve found that writing can be very fulfilling and I encourage...
Applied Cartography
Letters to a Young Bartender
Every straight white male is forced, character-creation-screen-style, to choose one overtly...
2 weeks ago
Every straight white male is forced, character-creation-screen-style, to choose one overtly consumptive hobby that in some small part defines their twenties and – God willing — their enduring adulthood. Some choose sourdough; many choose barbecue; I chose mixology.
(A...
Simply Explained
Make Your Garage Door Opener Smart: Shelly 1, ESPHome and Home Assistant
I've been adding more and more devices to my smart home lately, so naturally, my garage door opener...
over a year ago
I've been adding more and more devices to my smart home lately, so naturally, my garage door opener had to follow. But instead of swapping it out for a new unit, I used a Shelly 1 and a cheap door contact sensor to make it smart for less than $20!It runs ESPHome (open-source, no...
Lighthouse Blog
Updates December 15: Rebranding to Lighthouse and complete redesign
a year ago
GitButler
Fearless Rebasing
GitButler now supports first class conflicts, which makes rebasing much less annoying. What is...
2 months ago
GitButler now supports first class conflicts, which makes rebasing much less annoying. What is "fearless rebasing"?
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Where to use a blockchain in non-financial applications?
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
The Most Important Scarce Resource is Legitimacy
over a year ago
Neil Madden
Making things
I made my daughter a toy tree house thing for Christmas out of old firewood (and a slice of cedar...
over a year ago
I made my daughter a toy tree house thing for Christmas out of old firewood (and a slice of cedar donated by a neighbour). It’s a bit clunky in places — “rustic” shall we say? But I probably enjoyed making this, over a few weeks of lunchtimes and evenings, more than anything I’ve...
watchTowr Labs -...
Palo Alto - Putting The Protecc In GlobalProtect (CVE-2024-3400)
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by...
8 months ago
Welcome to April 2024, again. We’re back, again.
Over the weekend, we were all greeted by now-familiar news—a nation-state was exploiting a “sophisticated” vulnerability for full compromise in yet another enterprise-grade SSLVPN device.
We’ve seen all the commentary around the...
Computer Ads from...
Electronic Protection Devices' Electro-Clamp line
The Underrated Virtues of Plain Vanilla
9 months ago
The Underrated Virtues of Plain Vanilla
Jonas Hietala
Ores
Now we can build rooms, we can place objects and the worker will do things for us. Now I’ve added...
over a year ago
Now we can build rooms, we can place objects and the worker will do things for us. Now I’ve added some ores which makes the game look a bit less boring. I realize I’ve spent all my time on these little things and I still don’t have a game! But it doesn’t matter, maybe I can...
Applied Cartography
Notes from May
Lots of writing this month:
Why you should use Rails
A reminder that things take time
How...
6 months ago
Lots of writing this month:
Why you should use Rails
A reminder that things take time
How shadcn/ui's previews work
Why I hate that 1.01% meme
A lovely term, 'grace note'
Au revoir, invoke!
A quick check-in on 11ty
A rant/snippet for auth.js
The first edition of what will be a...
Home on Erik...
Looking for smart people
I haven't mentioned what I'm currently up to. Earlier this year I left Spotify to join a small...
over a year ago
I haven't mentioned what I'm currently up to. Earlier this year I left Spotify to join a small startup called Better. We're going after one of the biggest industries in the world that also turns out to be completely broken.
Posts on Made of...
Lightweight Linux Kernel Development with KVM
I don’t do a ton of Linux kernel development these days, but I’ve done a fair bit in the past, and...
over a year ago
I don’t do a ton of Linux kernel development these days, but I’ve done a fair bit in the past, and picked up a number of useful techniques for doing kernel development in a relatively painless fashion. This blog post is a writeup of the tools and techniques I use when developing...
Good Enough
Yes, Facebook Is Terrible, but Also…
I’m not on Facebook.
It was eight or ten years ago when I left for good.
While there were some good...
a year ago
I’m not on Facebook.
It was eight or ten years ago when I left for good.
While there were some good and useful interactions, the algorithm brought me down, I didn’t have a lot of desire to keep up with old acquaintances, and hearing everyone’s political stance was not good for...
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...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 3
Windows becomes competitive
a year ago
Windows becomes competitive
./techtipsy
The optimization treadmill: why I keep changing my computing setup all the time
I have a bad habit of changing my computing setups all the time. I tend to see new gear, then I...
a year ago
I have a bad habit of changing my computing setups all the time. I tend to see new gear, then I get
some new ideas, and then I obsessively think about it for weeks and months until I just buy it.
And then the cycle repeats.
I’ve had time to think about why that keeps happening...
Louwrentius
Linux: script that creates table of network interface properties
My server has 5 network interfaces and I wanted a quick overview of some properties. There may be an...
over a year ago
My server has 5 network interfaces and I wanted a quick overview of some properties. There may be an existing linux command for this but I couldn't find it so I quickly wrote my
own script (download).
This is the output:
The only requirement for this script is that you have...
Notes on software...
A paper reading club at work; databases and distributed systems research
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems...
8 months ago
I started a paper reading club this week at work, focused on databases
and distributed systems research. I posted in a general channel about
the premise and asked if anyone was interested. I clarified the
intended topic and that discussions would be asynchronous over email,
run...
Jonas Hietala
The current T-34 keyboard layout
I’ve been documenting my own keyboard layout in a series for a while now. But as the layout is...
over a year ago
I’ve been documenting my own keyboard layout in a series for a while now. But as the layout is constantly changing it’s been difficult to piece together how the layout currently looks like, so this post tries to show how the layout looks right now in it’s entirety.
If you want to...
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: PowerBook Duo 2300c
Jerry Seinfeld had one.
many other TV shows and even movies, most notoriously Hackers:
my...
a year ago
Jerry Seinfeld had one.
many other TV shows and even movies, most notoriously Hackers:
my favourite PowerBook 1400: the metal hinges are starting to tear out of their attachment points in the plastic back of the display, and naturally it's the one with all the upgrades in...
Willem's Blog
Clouds below my floor
Building a little datacenter in my basement utilising a very fast internet connection.
over a year ago
Building a little datacenter in my basement utilising a very fast internet connection.
Jonas Hietala
Let's build a VORON: Wrap-up
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to...
9 months ago
It’s finally done™.
I’ve built a VORON that prints reliably and I’ve modded it enough to be able to leave it alone for a while, so I think it’s time to wrap up this build series with a little retrospective.
Building the printer was really fun and rewarding
I’ve always seen...
Louwrentius
I switched my blog from Blogofile to Pelican
This blog is a static website, which makes it fast, simple and secure. It was generated by Blogofile...
over a year ago
This blog is a static website, which makes it fast, simple and secure. It was generated by Blogofile but I switched to Pelican.
Blogofile has seen almost no updates over the years and I consider the project dead. Realising that blogofile is dead, I decided to look around for...
Posts on Made of...
Towards solving Ultimate Tic Tac Toe
Summary: Read about my efforts to solve the game of Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. It’s been a fun journey...
over a year ago
Summary: Read about my efforts to solve the game of Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. It’s been a fun journey into interesting algorithms and high-performance parallel programming in Rust.
Backstory Starting around the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, I’ve gotten myself deeply nerdsniped...
Home on Erik...
Conversion rates – you are (most likely) computing them wrong
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and...
over a year ago
How hard can it be to compute conversion rate? Take the total number of users that converted and divide them with the total number of users. Done. Except… it's a lot more complicated when you have any sort of significant time lag.
Notes on software...
Implementing a simple jq clone in Go, and basics of Go memory profiling
In this post we'll build a basic jq clone in Go. It will only be able
to pull a single path out of...
over a year ago
In this post we'll build a basic jq clone in Go. It will only be able
to pull a single path out of each object it reads. It won't be able to
do filters, mapping, etc.
$ cat large-file.json | head -n2 | ./jqgo...
Simply Explained
Good Home Automation Should be Boring
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other...
over a year ago
I'm a huge fan of Home Assistant to automate various things around the house. I often look at other people's setup for inspiration, and one thing struck me. Many people have cluttered dashboards and use Home Assistant to track just about any metric they can.That's quite different...
Home on Erik...
Ping the world
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some...
over a year ago
I just pinged a few million random IP addresses from my apartment in NYC. Here's the result:
Some notes:
What's going on with Sweden? Too much torrenting? Ireland is likewise super slow, but not Northern Ireland Eastern Ukraine is also super slow, maybe not surprising given...
watchTowr Labs -...
Pots and Pans, AKA an SSLVPN - Palo Alto PAN-OS CVE-2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474
It'll be no surprise that 2024, 2023, 2022, and every other year of humanities' existence has been...
a month ago
It'll be no surprise that 2024, 2023, 2022, and every other year of humanities' existence has been tough for SSLVPN appliances.
Anyhow, there are new vulnerabilities (well, two of them) that are being exploited in the Palo Alto Networks firewall and SSLVPN offering, and as ever,...
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.
Old Vintage...
Adding a cooling fan to the Commodore 128DCR
Call it a "refurb weekend sequel" to our previous work on my beloved Commodore 128DCR. It's been a...
a year ago
Call it a "refurb weekend sequel" to our previous work on my beloved Commodore 128DCR. It's been a hot, horrid summer in Floodgap Very Sub-Orbital Headquarters and I was somewhat concerned about the heat in the house computer lab even with the A/C cranked up to "Vegas weekend for...
Good Enough
Grassroots
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends,...
8 months ago
TLDNR: If you have an interest in Good Enough succeeding, we need your help! Telling friends, shouting on socials, and sharing links to our stuff with your favorite influencers–all of these things will help Good Enough succeed and continue making amazing stuff!
As we’ve been...
Louwrentius
Additional proof that Apple is ditching the optical drive
I'm a strong advocate of killing the optical drive. As of 2011, there is no need for it anymore....
over a year ago
I'm a strong advocate of killing the optical drive. As of 2011, there is no need for it anymore. Laptops could get lighter, smaller or have more room for additional battery capacity if the optical drive would no longer be present.
In my life, I never see people use the optical...
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...
Arduino Blog
DexteriSync lets you walk a mile in the gloves of a user with manual disability
Good designers prioritize the user experience — particularly the experience of users with...
a month ago
Good designers prioritize the user experience — particularly the experience of users with disabilities that affect their perception and fine motor skills. A young person without disabilities, for example, may feel that jars are easy to open, while an elderly person with reduced...
./techtipsy
The hidden media play/pause/stop keys on the Lenovo ThinkPad L390 Yoga
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This...
7 months ago
ThinkPad keyboards were once well known for their great layouts, feel and
functionality. This included the media playback control keys.
On the ThinkPad T430, the new chiclet keyboard layout moved the media keys to
the function row. Still there, but less convenient to access.
The...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Antenna diodes in the Pentium processor
I was studying the silicon die of the Pentium processor and noticed some puzzling structures...
4 weeks ago
I was studying the silicon die of the Pentium processor and noticed some puzzling structures where
signal lines were connected to the silicon substrate for no apparent reason.
Two examples are in the photo below, where the metal wiring (orange) connects to small square regions of...
Odds and Ends of...
Christmas Mailbag - Questions Wanted!
Ask me stuff!
a week ago
Jonas Hietala
Groar
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was...
over a year ago
Download
Linux 64bit
Windows
So I actually finished Ludum Dare 33. I can’t believe how hard it was to actually make something! It continues to amaze me what fantastic stuff everyone manage to make in just 48 hours. This is what I came up with for the theme You are the Monster....
Louwrentius
Why I believe the new Mac Pro won't be a great machine for gaming
In Accidental Tech Podcast episode 18 (love the show), I learned that John Siracusa was thinking...
over a year ago
In Accidental Tech Podcast episode 18 (love the show), I learned that John Siracusa was thinking about buying a new Mac Pro for gaming.
I believe that gaming on the new Mac Pro will be a mediocre experience.
Driver support: as John mentioned himself, the video cards are...
Push to Prod
Metrics Are The Map, Not The Territory
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have...
4 months ago
We can never obtain a complete and perfect understanding of what our systems are doing. All we have are incomplete signals to inform our theories.
Computer Ads from...
Page 6 Magazine Interviews the Godfather of Adventure Games, Scott Adams
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
4 months ago
Scott McNealy talks about Sun Microsystems, RISC, UNIX, and NeXT
Jonas Hietala
Monty Hall
I’m currently reading The Drunkard’s Walk, a well written book about probabilities.
There they...
over a year ago
I’m currently reading The Drunkard’s Walk, a well written book about probabilities.
There they discussed the famous Monty Hall Problem. I’ve heard about it before
and I know the answer, but he mentioned a simulation of the problem and that sounded
cool so I made a simulation of...
Posts on Made of...
Automounting sshfs
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally...
over a year ago
For some time now, many of us around MIT have noticed just how awesome sshfs is. It gives a totally lightweight way to access the remote filesystem of any machine you have ssh to, without requiring any extra setup on the host. I’ve been running for at least a year now with my...
Engineers Need Art
SystemSix
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an...
over a year ago
SystemSix is a desk calendar project that displays the weather forecast and phase of the moon on an e-ink display.
Willem's Blog
Cleaning a vintage watch
This week I cleaned an automatic vintage watch and fitted it to with a new strap, rediscovering old...
over a year ago
This week I cleaned an automatic vintage watch and fitted it to with a new strap, rediscovering old beauty underneath layers of dirt!
Louwrentius
RAID 5 vs. RAID 6 or do you care about your data?
Storage is cheap. Lots of storage with 10+ hard drives is still cheap. Running
10 drives increases...
over a year ago
Storage is cheap. Lots of storage with 10+ hard drives is still cheap. Running
10 drives increases the risk of a drive failure tenfold. So often RAID 5 is
used to keep your data up and running if one single disks fails.
But disks are so cheap and storage arrays are getting so...
Louwrentius
Debian Linux Preseeding - an installation framework
Look Ma!
No hands!
just watching a system PXE-boot and install itself into a fully...
over a year ago
Look Ma!
No hands!
just watching a system PXE-boot and install itself into a fully operational
system is fun. PXE boot and preseeding is not enough however to accomplish
this.
By itself, preseeding only installs a basic operating system. Next, you need
to configure all sorts of...
Avestura's Blog
Problems of C, and how Zig addresses them
What are the problems of C, and how Zig addresses them?
a year ago
What are the problems of C, and how Zig addresses them?
./techtipsy
DIY cloud gaming setup with VFIO, Parsec and AMD
This is a follow-up to my previous post where I covered
the VFIO setup in general. For many people...
over a year ago
This is a follow-up to my previous post where I covered
the VFIO setup in general. For many people that would have been good enough, but my goal with this setup was to have a
powerful gaming setup that I could access from my living room PC with 20 meters of Ethernet cables...
Notes on software...
A Programmer-Friendly I/O Abstraction Over io_uring and kqueue
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.
Home on Erik...
Vote for our SXSW panel!
If you have a few minutes, you should check out mine and Chris Johnson‘s panel proposal. Go here and...
over a year ago
If you have a few minutes, you should check out mine and Chris Johnson‘s panel proposal. Go here and vote: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/24504
Algorithmic Music Discovery at Spotify
****Spotify crunches hundreds of billions of streams to analyze user's music taste and provide...
Neil Madden
The square roots of all evil
Every programmer knows Donald Knuth’s famous quote that “premature optimization is the root of all...
2 weeks ago
Every programmer knows Donald Knuth’s famous quote that “premature optimization is the root of all evil”, from his 1974 Turing Award lecture (pdf). A fuller quotation of the surrounding context gives a rounder view: I am sorry to say that many people nowadays are condemning...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Blockchain for beginners
Introduction This is a guide for developers who kinda sorta know what blockchains are for (making...
over a year ago
Introduction This is a guide for developers who kinda sorta know what blockchains are for (making distributed crypto-currencies like Bitcoin…
Arduino Blog
Giving Billy Bass the arti-fish-al intelligence he always deserved
If you were unlucky enough to visit a big box retail store or goofy uncle’s home around the turn of...
3 months ago
If you were unlucky enough to visit a big box retail store or goofy uncle’s home around the turn of the century, you would have undoubtedly come across a Big Mouth Billy Bass. That’s an animatronic fish that wiggles on a plaque while older, very licensable hit songs play. But...
Louwrentius
Lustre and the risk of Serious Data Loss
Personally I have a weakness for big-ass storage. Say 'petabyte' and I'm
interested. So I was...
over a year ago
Personally I have a weakness for big-ass storage. Say 'petabyte' and I'm
interested. So I was thinking about how you would setup a large, scalable
storage infrastructure. How should such a thing work?
Very simple: you should be able just to add hosts with some bad-ass huge...
Good Enough
Actual Customer Support Is Remarkable
What a sad thing to write.
We believe in good software around here.
There is a lot of poorly built...
a year ago
What a sad thing to write.
We believe in good software around here.
There is a lot of poorly built software on the Internet and in the app stores.
Our motivation with Good Enough is to try to put together a few products that feel just right to the folks using them.
The things we...
Willem's Blog
Moving to the countryside
Join me on a journey from the bustle of Amsterdam to the tranquility of Noord-Limburg's countryside.
over a year ago
Join me on a journey from the bustle of Amsterdam to the tranquility of Noord-Limburg's countryside.
Good Enough
Cool URLs Don’t Die
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen...
a year ago
If you've been reading our newsletter (and you should be reading our newsletter) you will have seen that I've been building some printers.
This is actually the resurrection of a project I began in 2012 with the help of some colleagues, and while I've been updating it, it's been...
Louwrentius
How to determine which process causes IO ?
There is a nifty little program called 'iotop'. Iotop is part of Debian or
Ubuntu and can be...
over a year ago
There is a nifty little program called 'iotop'. Iotop is part of Debian or
Ubuntu and can be installed with a simple apt-get.
Once you have determined with 'top' that the system is waiting on IO-access,
It is nice to know
which process is responsibe for this IO. Therefore, you...
Home on Erik...
Predicting solar eclipses with Python
As I am en route to see my first total solar eclipse, I was curious how hard it would be to compute...
8 months ago
As I am en route to see my first total solar eclipse, I was curious how hard it would be to compute eclipses in Python. It turns out, ignoring some minor coordinate system head-banging, I was able to get something half-decent working in a couple of hours.
Engineers Need Art
Soft Dorothy Software — Shareware Projects
Wherein I attempt to recover and restore old shareware code and program again like it's 1989.
3 months ago
Wherein I attempt to recover and restore old shareware code and program again like it's 1989.
computers are bad
2024-01-16 the tacnet tracker
Previously on Deep Space Nine, I wrote that "the mid-2000s were an unsettled
time in mobile...
11 months ago
Previously on Deep Space Nine, I wrote that "the mid-2000s were an unsettled
time in mobile computing."
Today, I want to share a little example. Over the last few weeks, for various
personal reasons, I have been doing a lot of reading about embedded operating
systems and ISAs for...
Good Enough
Why We Built Quack (Beta)
Today we're launching a tiny beta tool called Quack. It is a simple utility for you to share a...
a year ago
Today we're launching a tiny beta tool called Quack. It is a simple utility for you to share a beautifully rendered version of any markdown text. Type away in our simple editor. When you're done writing, click Share to grab the link for sending to others. There are no servers in...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Windows 95
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
a year ago
The Dawn of Microsoft's Golden Age
./techtipsy
Dell Latitude 5411: the Linux compatibility sweet spot
Oh boy, here I go testing a new laptop again!
Well, it was new back in 2020.
You might remember my...
a year ago
Oh boy, here I go testing a new laptop again!
Well, it was new back in 2020.
You might remember my article on why I went back to a ThinkPad T430 in 2022.
Or that other time when I got a new HP laptop for testing and got so frustrated that I wrote about it.
Well, today I’m writing...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Reading Notes on “Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp”
by Josef Czapski
over a year ago
Notes on software...
The world of PostgreSQL wire compatibility
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.
Simply Explained
Retrospective: 4 years on YouTube
Every year I sit down and take a look at how my YouTube channel has been doing. I reflect, evaluate,...
over a year ago
Every year I sit down and take a look at how my YouTube channel has been doing. I reflect, evaluate, and set goals for the coming year. This year is no exception. January 13th, 2020, marks my fourth year on YouTube. Time to do a little retrospective.
Jonas Hietala
Before the Games: The Site
I’ve got some things I want to do before I start with my next game and they’re all about improving...
over a year ago
I’ve got some things I want to do before I start with my next game and they’re all about improving the site. The last week or so has been extremely productive with me throwing out a lot of wasted code, speeding up the site and adding/removing features and I want to continue with...
Willem's Blog
Scalable application design without magic
I needed to design a scalable backend infrastructure that could handle lots of concurrent users. I...
over a year ago
I needed to design a scalable backend infrastructure that could handle lots of concurrent users. I did this by leveraging the client's computing power having it handle most of the user interaction workload.
Jonas Hietala
My Dream Game: The Tycoon
I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 a little this christmas. It wasn’t dead serious 1v1 which really is my...
over a year ago
I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 a little this christmas. It wasn’t dead serious 1v1 which really is my favorite but I’ve played 2v2 with some friends and I actually played the campaign a bit and it was pretty fun! Usually I never play the campaign on RTS games but this one I liked....
Vitalik Buterin's...
Against overuse of the Gini coefficient
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
An approximate introduction to how zk-SNARKs are possible
over a year ago
./techtipsy
How I treat my urge to hoard data
The tagline for /r/datahoarder reads:
“It’s A Digital Disease!”. I agree.
At some point I realized...
over a year ago
The tagline for /r/datahoarder reads:
“It’s A Digital Disease!”. I agree.
At some point I realized that the pursuit to hoard all the things will just keep
on consuming more and more of my time and money. Storage is cheap up until to a
point, once you find yourself tracking hard...
Old Vintage...
Two tiny 65816 DTV consoles
The 21st century direct-to-TV game console: a dirt-cheap toy dragging poor ports of cherished games...
5 months ago
The 21st century direct-to-TV game console: a dirt-cheap toy dragging poor ports of cherished games to a more downmarket age. If you couldn't afford the real device, your alternative was these inexpensive, inadequate facsimiles faithful only to one's gauzy recollection. As their...
computers are bad
2024-07-13 the contemporary carphone
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation...
5 months ago
Cathode Ray Dude, in one of his
many excellent "Quick Start" videos, made an interesting observation that
has stuck in my brain: sophisticated computer users, nerds if you will, have
a tendency to completely ignore things that they know are worthless. He was
referring to the...
Old Vintage...
Programming the Convergent WorkSlate's spreadsheet microcassette future
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking...
3 months ago
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking to each other via speakerphone, and probably listening to Devo and New Order a lot. (Though that part isn't too different from my actual present.)
a computer whose manufacturer...
Louwrentius
I made my blog solar-powered, then things escalated
In 2020 I wondered if I could run my blog on solar power, being inspired by Low-tech Magazine, doing...
a year ago
In 2020 I wondered if I could run my blog on solar power, being inspired by Low-tech Magazine, doing the same thing (but better)1. The answer was 'yes', but only through spring and summer.
I live in an apartment complex in The Netherlands and my balcony is facing west. This...
Willem's Blog
Computer says no
The weather app indicating rain caused an empty bike lane this morning, making me wonder about the...
over a year ago
The weather app indicating rain caused an empty bike lane this morning, making me wonder about the power we put into these things.
Applied Cartography
October, 2024
Hello! Lots of writing in October (what early parenthood takes away in terms of deep flow, it gives...
a month ago
Hello! Lots of writing in October (what early parenthood takes away in terms of deep flow, it gives back in terms of twenty-minute pockets of time and thought):
On the content front, I wrote about Monster Sanctuary (a delightful JRPG), The Anderson Tapes (a solid late-period Sean...
lcamtuf’s thing
Random objects: Guycot & Jarre
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
6 months ago
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
Willem's Blog
Creating a minimal iPhone stand
Today I created a minimal iPhone stand from oak wood. I used a single piece of wood to get it done.
over a year ago
Today I created a minimal iPhone stand from oak wood. I used a single piece of wood to get it done.
Jordan’s Substack
Coming soon
This is Jordan’s Substack.
a month ago
This is Jordan’s Substack.
Odds and Ends of...
WATCH: Talking trains with Jonn Elledge!
The new Overground names, why the north always loses out, and more!
3 weeks ago
The new Overground names, why the north always loses out, and more!
Louwrentius
What home NAS builders should understand about silent data corruption
Introduction
When it comes to dealing with storage in a DIY NAS context, two important topics come...
over a year ago
Introduction
When it comes to dealing with storage in a DIY NAS context, two important topics come up:
Unrecoverable read errors (UREs) or what old people like me call 'bad sectors'
Silent data corruption (data corruption unnoticed by the storage layers)
I get a strong impression...
Notes on software...
Exploring Postgres's arena allocator by writing an HTTP server from scratch
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
a month ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Old Vintage...
So thieves broke into your storage unit - again
If you've been wondering why entries have been a little slow lately, let me tell you a story.
All...
2 months ago
If you've been wondering why entries have been a little slow lately, let me tell you a story.
All collectors tend to be a bit obsessive by nature, and us classic computer nerds probably pick up more hardware than we can (or should) store in our residence — especially if the...
Old Vintage...
The Hall SC-VGA-2 video processor, the Atari ST and NeXTSTEP: more tales of the unscreenshotable
A periodic fascination on this blog is figuring out better ways to get better screenshots of our...
3 weeks ago
A periodic fascination on this blog is figuring out better ways to get better screenshots of our classic systems, which often hail from the Wild Wild West/East in terms of video standards (read all entries in this series). Naturally the best way is a bitwise direct grab of the...
Jonas Hietala
Mailto: links with FastMail in Firefox
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications....
over a year ago
You can change the application to handle mailto: links in Firefox in Preferences -> Applications. The problem is that you can’t input custom urls and some email providers, like hotmail or fastmail, aren’t supported. I managed to fix it with the plugin MailtoWebmails. It annoys me...
Willem's Blog
Lunch by plane
This week I went out for lunch by plane from Hilversum to Texel with a good buddy of mine.
over a year ago
This week I went out for lunch by plane from Hilversum to Texel with a good buddy of mine.
Computer Ads from...
Gould Electronic's PowerNode 6000
The Firebreathers from Gould blast the competition into oblivion.
4 months ago
The Firebreathers from Gould blast the competition into oblivion.
Willem's Blog
My first weeks as dad
Last Christmas my wife gave birth of our son. It's a life changing experience to become a parent....
over a year ago
Last Christmas my wife gave birth of our son. It's a life changing experience to become a parent. Read along for my (biometric) findings and some practical tips.
Gwern.net Newsletter
May 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
over a year ago
links on AI hardware, diffusion models, optogenetics, brain scanning.
Willem's Blog
Is the Apple Watch the modern tool watch?
I tested the Apple Watch during my work in Frankfurt this week where I had to go inside an internet...
over a year ago
I tested the Apple Watch during my work in Frankfurt this week where I had to go inside an internet data centre.
Home on Erik...
MLConf 2014
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a...
over a year ago
Just spent a day at MLConf where I was talking about how we do music recommendations. There was a whole range of great speakers (actually almost 2/3 women which was pretty cool in itself).
Here are my slides:
Old Vintage...
Refurb weekend: the Symbolics MacIvory Lisp machine I have hated
Every collector has that machine, the machine they sunk so much time and, often, money into that...
2 months ago
Every collector has that machine, the machine they sunk so much time and, often, money into that they would have defenestrated it years ago except for all the aforementioned time and money. Yours truly is no exception.
a future article.) They existed in highly technical...
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 -...
Good Enough
TIL: Victory Symbol
We noticed that the victory symbol at the bottom of our homepage looked different in Chrome than...
a year ago
We noticed that the victory symbol at the bottom of our homepage looked different in Chrome than Safari––it was playing smart and rendered the unicode character as an emoji. Lettini found a fix though! Append this string of code to the symbol: ︎.
So ✌︎ renders...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Talking to ChatGPT costs 5ml of water, not 500ml
There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50...
a month ago
There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50 responses. Here are some randomly-chosen…
Computer Ads from...
Sundial Systems' Relish
The Premier Workplace Shell Calendar, Phone Book, To Do List, and Program Runner, too
2 months ago
The Premier Workplace Shell Calendar, Phone Book, To Do List, and Program Runner, too
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...
Arduino Blog
This portable Starmap could be your guide to the cosmos
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a...
6 months ago
Estimates vary, but there are generally a few thousand stars bright enough to see in the sky on a clear, moonless, cloudless night away from city lights. You might be able to identify a couple of them, along with a handful of constellations. But what about the rest? If they...
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...
Willem's Blog
Working Offline First
Dive into a digital blast from the past and learn how a 15-year-old ThinkPad X200 can revolutionise...
a year ago
Dive into a digital blast from the past and learn how a 15-year-old ThinkPad X200 can revolutionise your workflow – join my cloud-free adventure today!
Posts on Made of...
A Brief Introduction to termios: termios(3) and stty
(This is part two of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part...
over a year ago
(This is part two of a multi-part introduction to termios and terminal emulation on UNIX. Read part 1 if you’re new here)
In this entry, we’ll look at the interfaces that are used to control the behavior of the “termios” box sitting between the master and slave pty. The behaviors...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Blockchain voting is overrated among uninformed people but underrated among informed people
over a year ago
lcamtuf’s thing
The secret lives of snowblowers
Yes, they throw snow. But the mechanical design of residential snowblowers is more interesting than...
4 months ago
Yes, they throw snow. But the mechanical design of residential snowblowers is more interesting than it seems.
GitButler
The Birth of THE MERGE
Sitting at lunch one day, the GitButler team were having our usual conversations of how awesome our...
7 months ago
Sitting at lunch one day, the GitButler team were having our usual conversations of how awesome our community is, product feature ideas, and how much Kiril loves food. As we shifted toward the topic of conferences, the idea of hosting our own event emerged. Wouldn’t it be fun
Home on Erik...
Wikiphilia
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles...
over a year ago
I've been obsessed with Wikipedia for the past ten years. Occasionally I find some good articles worth sharing and that's why I created the wikiphilia Twitter handle. Just a long stream of stuff that for one reason or another may be interesting.
Simply Explained
Migrating This Blog From Jekyll to Eleventy
Jekyll has been powering this site for many years now. It replaced my WordPress setup, and I haven't...
over a year ago
Jekyll has been powering this site for many years now. It replaced my WordPress setup, and I haven't looked back. Over the last few months, I have become fed up with Jekyll. It's slowing me down. Time to replace it with something new and shiny!
Willem's Blog
Health and fitness data
Exploring the balance between health data and intuition, this blog post delves into how personal...
11 months ago
Exploring the balance between health data and intuition, this blog post delves into how personal well-being and fitness goals shape our relationship with technology and self-awareness.
Posts on Made of...
amd64 and va_arg
A while back, I was poking around LLVM bugs, and discovered, to my surprise, that LLVM doesn’t...
over a year ago
A while back, I was poking around LLVM bugs, and discovered, to my surprise, that LLVM doesn’t support the va_arg intrinsic, used by functions to accept multiple arguments, at all on amd64. It turns out that clang and llvm-gcc, the compilers that backend to LLVM, have their own...
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...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of OS/2
Getting a Divorce
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Iterate or die
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a...
over a year ago
Here's a conclusion I've made building consumer products for many years: the speed at which a company innovates is limited by its iteration speed.
I don't even mean throughput here. I just mean the cycle time.
Home on Erik...
NYC Machine Learning meetup
From the NYC Machine Learning talk I had last week:
Haven't looked at it yet except briefly....
over a year ago
From the NYC Machine Learning talk I had last week:
Haven't looked at it yet except briefly. Unfortunately the quality isn't the best.
Notes on software...
Windows
It has been six years since I last used Windows for any remotely
serious software development. I've...
over a year ago
It has been six years since I last used Windows for any remotely
serious software development. I've used Ubuntu, Arch, or FreeBSD
since. But eventually I spent so much time working around common
workplace tasks that I decided to put Windows 10 Pro on my work
laptop.
Windows...
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...
Applied Cartography
Auth.js + Square
Internal tools and small, well-scoped projects are a great avenue to tinker with technologies on the...
7 months ago
Internal tools and small, well-scoped projects are a great avenue to tinker with technologies on the periphery of your understanding, and a Third South project has led me to spin up a small Next project using Bun [1] and Auth.js (nee next-auth), which has been quite bad and I...
Arduino Blog
This device prevents garage door security breaches
Your automatic garage door is almost certainly the most vulnerable access point in your house....
2 months ago
Your automatic garage door is almost certainly the most vulnerable access point in your house. Traditional systems are notorious for their susceptibility to replay attacks, but even more sophisticated modern garage door openers and those that lack remote functionality entirely...
Good Enough
Fixing Things
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage:...
a year ago
In 2009 I started doing something called "business travel." I bought a piece of dependable luggage: the Travelpro WalkAbout Lite 2 22" Rollaboard Suiter. The reality was that this wasn't proper business travel. First, it'd only be two or three round-trip flights a year. Second,...
Home on Erik...
Snakebite
Just promoting Spotify stuff here: check out the Snakebite repo on Github, written by Wouter de Bie....
over a year ago
Just promoting Spotify stuff here: check out the Snakebite repo on Github, written by Wouter de Bie. It's a super fast tool to access HDFS over CLI/Python, by accessing the namenode directly over sockets/protobuf.
Spotify's developer blog features a nice blog post outlining what...
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.
csvbase blog
You can't just assume UTF-8
How to infer character encodings with statistics
7 months ago
How to infer character encodings with statistics
Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List 