Simply Explained
Smart lights behind a wall switch (Shelly + ESPHome)
Using smart light bulbs means you can no longer use your physical wall switches because the bulbs...
7th Oct 2022
Using smart light bulbs means you can no longer use your physical wall switches because the bulbs need constant power. I think that's pretty dumb. Using a physical switch can be way faster than using an app to control the lights.Here's how you can put a Shelly in between the...
Can We Still Govern?
Which stories about academia matter?
The Arday affair got more attention than systematic assaults on academic freedom
2 weeks ago
The Arday affair got more attention than systematic assaults on academic freedom
Jonas Hietala
Finishing Stuff
I haven’t done much blogging or game programming in a while but instead I’ve finished some school...
7th Dec 2011
I haven’t done much blogging or game programming in a while but instead I’ve finished some school stuff. We completed the assembly course labs, which were pretty fun actually, and I managed to finally complete the electronics course I’ve been holding off on for like forever… But...
csvbase blog
Client libraries are better when they have no API
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
10th Apr 2024
fsspec is secretly everywhere, and boss
Construction Physics
Reading List 12/06/2025
3D printed legos, exploding wire detonators, the David Taylor model basin, multi-point metal...
6th Dec 2025
3D printed legos, exploding wire detonators, the David Taylor model basin, multi-point metal forming, and more.
Elevation Lab - Blog
Introducing TagVault Universal for AirTag
We wanted an ultra-secure AirTag case that could be mounted to anything. Easy to change AirTags...
13th Nov 2024
We wanted an ultra-secure AirTag case that could be mounted to anything. Easy to change AirTags battery. Waterproof. Robust. And discreet.
So we designed TagVault Universal Mount for AirTag.
It has mounting holes for screws, rivets, and slots for zip ties. Or just epoxy it down....
Neil Madden
Entity authentication with a KEM
In cryptography, the process of authenticating a user (or app/service) is known as entity...
20th Apr 2023
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...
./techtipsy
What I've learned running Linux and Windows off of USB flash drives
I’ve recently made an effort to reduce the amount of tech stuff that I own. Lack of space, lack of...
2nd Dec 2024
I’ve recently made an effort to reduce the amount of tech stuff that I own. Lack of space, lack of time and the guilt
of storing perfectly functional hardware unused in a box were the main motivators.
This has resulted in experiments with my assortment of USB flash storage that...
Simply Explained
Secure Home Assistant Access with Cloudflare and Ubiquiti Dream Machine
I've become increasingly reliant on Home Assistant to automate various tasks around the house. But...
12th Dec 2020
I've become increasingly reliant on Home Assistant to automate various tasks around the house. But how do you safely expose your instance to the internet for remote access?You want to be able to log in from a remote location, but how to keep others out? This post will show how...
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...
16th Aug 2018
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.
watchTowr Labs
More Evidence That Words Don't Mean What We Thought They Meant (Ivanti Sentry Pre-Auth OS Command...
Today, Ivanti published an advisory.
“No way?” we hear you say. "Yes way!" a random dog screams back...
10th Jun 2026
Today, Ivanti published an advisory.
“No way?” we hear you say. "Yes way!" a random dog screams back at you, across the street.
Today’s rare advisory outlines two vulnerabilities in Ivanti’s Sentry product, appealing directly to our inner desire for sophisticated server-side,
computers are bad
2025-04-06 Airfone
We've talked before about
carphones,
and certainly one of the only ways to make phones even more...
6th Apr 2025
We've talked before about
carphones,
and certainly one of the only ways to make phones even more interesting is to
put them in modes of transportation. Installing telephones in cars made a lot
of sense when radiotelephones were big and required a lot of power; and they
faded...
Jonas Hietala
The T-34/0 keyboard layout
This is an update to the T-34 keyboard layout I’ve been using for a solid number of weeks. While...
5th Sep 2021
This is an update to the T-34 keyboard layout I’ve been using for a solid number of weeks. While there are more changes I’d like to try, I’m quite pleased with these changes so I figured I might as well immortalize them before I explore further. (And I do have a bunch of big...
Engineers Need Art
Building Quarter-Cab - Phase I
Lets build a simple virtual pinball controller to bring more immersion to your game.
8th May 2024
Lets build a simple virtual pinball controller to bring more immersion to your game.
Posts on Made of...
Some thoughts on Quora
With the announcement this week that Quora had taken $11 million in VC at an $86 million valuation,...
4th Apr 2010
With the announcement this week that Quora had taken $11 million in VC at an $86 million valuation, there’s been an awful lot of attention on Quora. I’ve had an account there and wanted to write up some of my initial thoughts.
If you haven’t heard about Quora, it’s yet another...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #50: The weird thing about London's New Year's Fireworks
Plus how the government should respond to Musk's nonsense, and an AI video that might just show us...
4th Jan 2025
Plus how the government should respond to Musk's nonsense, and an AI video that might just show us how video production is going to change.
somenice
5 Frames of Kodacolor 100 with the Nikon FM
Many years have past since I last shot colour film. Maybe 20 years ago I was using the Lomo Smena 8m...
28th Jun 2026
Many years have past since I last shot colour film. Maybe 20 years ago I was using the Lomo Smena 8m camping. Mostly FujiFilm because I liked the greens. Once I started shooting Black & White and developing the film myself, I really didn’t see the need to have someone else...
Greater Still by...
Enjoying the Journey
Reflections on training for a marathon and a lesson from my late Uncle Murray
1st Jan 2024
Reflections on training for a marathon and a lesson from my late Uncle Murray
Eric Migicovsky's...
Verge interview at CES 2016
2025 Note - Behind the scenes, Pebble was a mess. We were about to do a layoff and enter the final...
8th Jan 2016
2025 Note - Behind the scenes, Pebble was a mess. We were about to do a layoff and enter the final year…
Old Vintage...
Mini-review: David Pogue's Apple: The First 50 Years
Apple: The First 50 Years to see if I even wanted to bother with the hardcover. Previously the...
1st Apr 2026
Apple: The First 50 Years to see if I even wanted to bother with the hardcover. Previously the essential tome on Apple (and especially Mac) history was Owen Linzmeyer's Apple Confidential, still on my shelf in the well-thumbed 2.0 paperback. I was prepared to find this book...
Arduino Blog
This Kenyan engineer modernizes vintage cars with a custom ECU and EFI upgrades
The automotive industry’s switch from carburetion to fuel injection was one of the most effective...
1st Oct 2024
The automotive industry’s switch from carburetion to fuel injection was one of the most effective advancements of the 20th century. Electronic fuel injection allows for precise control over an internal combustion engine’s air-fuel mixture, which dramatically improves fuel...
Electronics etc…
Inside an Isotemp OCXO107-10 Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator
The Isotemp OCXO107-10
Gathering Information from time-nuts
Getting It to Run
On the Bench
Inside...
26th Oct 2025
The Isotemp OCXO107-10
Gathering Information from time-nuts
Getting It to Run
On the Bench
Inside the OCXO107-10
Looking Forward
The Isotemp OCXO107-10
I spent $5 at the Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market
on an Isotemp OCXO107-10 oscillator.
Compared to my other OCXOs, this...
Louwrentius - Solar
Fully unattended deployment of Windows clients using limited resources
Introduction
Anyone who ever installed Windows on a computer by hand must have wished for a solution...
7th Jul 2012
Introduction
Anyone who ever installed Windows on a computer by hand must have wished for a solution that automate this task. It's just waiting a lot and pressing a button now and then. But installing the operating system itself is only the beginning. Once installed, you need to...
Applied Cartography
January, 2025
Hello, 2025! (As always, Death Cab remains the soundtrack by which you should read this.)
5th Jan 2025
Hello, 2025! (As always, Death Cab remains the soundtrack by which you should read this.)
Abishek Muthian
Backup PostgreSQL to cloud
This post will help you with easy, cost-effective and secure way to backup your PostgreSQL database...
9th Sep 2020
This post will help you with easy, cost-effective and secure way to backup your PostgreSQL database to cloud.
Create local scheduled backup of PostgreSQL database Login as postgres user on the console (tmux is recommended).
Create .pgpass file to access database without entering...
Software and Tech...
And 18 very popular NPM Packages are compromised
On September 8th, 18 npm packages were compromised with malicious code. These packages are very...
8th Sep 2025
On September 8th, 18 npm packages were compromised with malicious code. These packages are very popular. They receive an average of 2 billion downloads every week. If you are not sure whether you are affected, you can run this grep command on your repository to search for the...
Tiny struggles
Learning can be a waste of time
Learning and studying isn’t universally a good thing.
I found that saying “sometimes spending some...
13th Nov 2021
Learning and studying isn’t universally a good thing.
I found that saying “sometimes spending some time studying and learning can be a waste of time” is very contentious. Especially in a quickly evolving tech environment.
If you stop learning and become rigid in your ways, you...
Construction Physics
Reading List 09/06/2025
London homebuilding, historical home prices, a humanoid robot loading a dishwasher, France’s history...
6th Sep 2025
London homebuilding, historical home prices, a humanoid robot loading a dishwasher, France’s history of nuclear reactor construction, and more.
Writing
The First Ninety Days
This book is an excellent example of the “would this be better as a long blog post” litmus test...
3rd Aug 2020
This book is an excellent example of the “would this be better as a long blog post” litmus test (which it strongly fails.)
Eric Migicovsky's...
February Shenzhen Trip Update
It took me a few days to get back to normal after returning from my trip to Shenzhen last week....
3rd Mar 2025
It took me a few days to get back to normal after returning from my trip to Shenzhen last week. Overall, pretty decent trip - I met with 1…
Applied Cartography
What Are You Going Through
The book was good but it felt like a step back from the masterwork of The Friend; they are so...
3rd Jan 2021
The book was good but it felt like a step back from the masterwork of The Friend; they are so similar in structure and style but it felt a little bit like everything in this one was a few percentage points less powerful, which accumulated. The writerly citations and digressions...
Alyssa Rosenzweig
Vulkan 1.3 on the M1 in 1 month
u{text-decoration-thickness:0.09em;text-decoration-color:skyblue}
Finally, conformant Vulkan for the...
5th Jun 2024
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”...
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
...
8th Dec 2019
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...
Jonas Hietala
Netrunner Spring Tournament
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very...
4th May 2015
There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very casual setting but there were also some guys who came from… Västerås I think, but I’m not sure. We managed to scrape together 9 people at least, and I didn’t notice anyone bringing...
Krebs on Security
Canvas Breach Disrupts Schools & Colleges Nationwide
An ongoing data extortion attack targeting the widely-used education technology platform Canvas...
8th May 2026
An ongoing data extortion attack targeting the widely-used education technology platform Canvas disrupted classes and coursework at school districts and universities across the United States today, after a cybercrime group defaced the service’s login page with a ransom demand...
joshua stein
Adding Custom Sleep Screen Images to the Kindle Scribe
Last year I upgraded my Kindle Paperwhite to a Kindle Scribe to be able to write
notes and draw...
24th Feb 2025
Last year I upgraded my Kindle Paperwhite to a Kindle Scribe to be able to write
notes and draw diagrams while programming to help visualize things.
One thing that bothered me about the Scribe was that its sleep screen images
were pretty boring and because I'm now often reading...
Style over Substance
My Home Assistant setup (2023 edition)
For the past few years, I have been running Home Assistant to make my apartment a smart home. It’s...
23rd Jan 2023
For the past few years, I have been running Home Assistant to make my apartment a smart home. It’s become such a hobby of mine that I’ve even started coding add-ons for it. While there are other popular automation platforms, Home Assistant’s versatility blows the rest out of the...
Fabien Sanglard
Game timers: Issues and solutions
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/>
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More...
25th Dec 2012
Home on Erik...
The hacker's guide to uncertainty estimates
It started with a tweet:
New years resolution: every plot I make during 2018 will contain...
8th Oct 2018
It started with a tweet:
New years resolution: every plot I make during 2018 will contain uncertainty estimates
— Erik Bernhardsson (@bernhardsson) January 7, 2018 Why? Because I've been sitting in 100,000,000 meetings where people endlessly debate whether the monthly number of...
axio.ms
A small ode to the CRT
Built October 2018
I used to hate Cathode Ray Tubes. As a kid in Europe, everything flickered at...
8th Feb 2022
Built October 2018
I used to hate Cathode Ray Tubes. As a kid in Europe, everything flickered at 50Hz, or made a loud whistle at 15.625KHz (back when I could still hear it). CRTs just seemed crude, “electro-brutalist” contraptions from the valve era. They were heavy, and...
Greater Still by...
In Defense of the New
The future is being crafted out on the edge. Are you paying attention?
3rd Jun 2024
The future is being crafted out on the edge. Are you paying attention?
Jonas Hietala
Planning my Kubernetes homelab
The Kubernetes iceberg.
If I’d have to describe my homelab setup via analogy I guess it would be...
5th May 2026
The Kubernetes iceberg.
If I’d have to describe my homelab setup via analogy I guess it would be similar to me on a unicycle carrying plates with both of my hands, or maybe a leaking barrel with water that I try to patch up with silver tape.
I’ve also been Kubernetes-curious so...
Tiny struggles
Browser caching with Django & Webpack
Table of contents
What is browser caching and why is it useful?
Crude approaches ...
8th Jan 2022
Table of contents
What is browser caching and why is it useful?
Crude approaches
Disable all caching!
Change the filename/import every time you edit
Content hashes in filenames
Let Django do it for you
...
Arduino Blog
Repurpose gadgets as Arduino-ready modules
Most people have a general awareness of how economies of scale play into the cost of products; a...
5th Sep 2025
Most people have a general awareness of how economies of scale play into the cost of products; a bespoke, handcrafted vase is going to cost a lot more than a mass-produced vase sold in the millions. But the ramifications of that concept can be really counterintuitive when it...
The Pragmatic...
Stack overflow is almost dead
Today, Stack overflow has almost as few questions asked per month, as when it launched back in 2009....
15th May 2025
Today, Stack overflow has almost as few questions asked per month, as when it launched back in 2009. A recap of its slow, then rapid, downfall.
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Zk-SNARKs: Under the Hood
1st Feb 2017
Pea Bee
Pea Bee #8: GT-I5800
Only a few days back, I heard the news that Blackberry has finally died.
14th Jan 2022
Only a few days back, I heard the news that Blackberry has finally died.
Neil Madden
On PBKDF2 iterations
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to...
9th Jan 2023
There has been a lot of discussion recently around the LastPass breach, especially with regards to the number of PBKDF2 iterations applied to the master password to derive the vault encryption key. Other people have already dissected this particular breach, but I want to more...
Pea Bee
#14: Extreme ironing
A couple of months back, I made a search engine to look for half loaves of bread in stores. I was...
3rd Jul 2022
A couple of months back, I made a search engine to look for half loaves of bread in stores. I was tired of wasting leftover bread and made this because, well I could. You can try it here: halfloafnear.me
Eric Migicovsky's...
Startup School - A Conversation on Hard Tech
2025 Note - good convo with Adora for Startup School
12th Oct 2018
2025 Note - good convo with Adora for Startup School
On Life and Lisp
Clip control on the Apple GPU
Neverball rendered on the Apple M1 GPU with an open source OpenGL driver
After a year in...
22nd Aug 2022
Neverball rendered on the Apple M1 GPU with an open source OpenGL driver
After a year in development, the open source “Asahi” driver for the Apple GPU is running real games. There’s more to do, but Neverball is already playable (and a lot of fun!).
Neverball uses legacy “fixed...
Comments for Lars...
Why I’m Switching Web Hosts
Recently, I’ve gotten fed up with my web host. Since I stood this site up, I’ve used MediaTemple....
5th Jul 2019
Recently, I’ve gotten fed up with my web host. Since I stood this site up, I’ve used MediaTemple. This was before WP Engine was around. At the time, MediaTemple had carved out a nice niche for themselves as the premium web host. Tim Ferriss also raved about them back in the day....
Notes on software...
A database without dynamic memory allocation
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
12th Oct 2022
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Freewheeling Apps
2026-01-28
As I start teaching the kids programming, I’ve been thinking about how to motivate it to them. They...
29th Jan 2026
As I start teaching the kids programming, I’ve been thinking about how to motivate it to them. They do a lot of drawing, so that seemed like a potential hook to show how drawing on the computer may make some things easier (erasing, manipulating, repeating) and other things harder...
./techtipsy
How I blew up my backup server (Valve pls fix)
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck...
10th Jun 2023
It all started with me getting a Steam Deck.
Background
After getting familiar with the Steam Deck and how the Proton compatibility layer works, I decided to write a
backup script that would back up everything in the home folder, excluding the Steam games themselves due to the...
Style over Substance
Guy’s Cool Tools
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their...
16th Jul 2022
This is a placeholder post! I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools site and have loved their recommendations for years. So much, so that I even started a Pinterest board filled with my own recommendations. But after a few years of running into the limitations of the form, I...
Engineers Need Art
Op-Amp Helper PCB
A PCB for breadboards to make working with op-amps easier.
8th Nov 2023
A PCB for breadboards to make working with op-amps easier.
Neil Madden
When a KEM is not enough
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation...
16th Feb 2021
In my previous post, I described the KEM/DEM paradigm for hybrid encryption. The key encapsulation mechanism is given the recipient’s public key and outputs a fresh AES key and an encapsulation of that key that the recipient can decapsulate to recover the AES key. In this post I...
Tiny struggles
Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google
I started writing this retrospective during my last week at Google, I have already wrapped up...
16th Aug 2024
I started writing this retrospective during my last week at Google, I have already wrapped up everything, had my goodbyes. In the spirit of SRE (as an ex-SRE), I thought it would be fun to write a little retrospective in the form of a postmortem.
Introduction
I joined Google...
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...
13th Dec 2023
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...
Abishek Muthian
The immediate threat is AR and not AI
Disclaimer: This is an attempt at trolling and satire.
Don’t just tag me under technology fear...
8th Sep 2017
Disclaimer: This is an attempt at trolling and satire.
Don’t just tag me under technology fear mongerer, I’m going to present an acute scenario in which AR could be misused to inflict significant damage to a large population.
As a technology evangelist, I’am very excited to see...
Project Blog on...
RailScan: Museum Track and Wire Scanner
I volunteer at a train, trolley, and subway museum, including working on restoration of full-sized...
25th Jun 2026
I volunteer at a train, trolley, and subway museum, including working on restoration of full-sized rail vehicles and maintaining railway infrastructure. As a non-authoritative, hobby project combining my love of trains, electronics, mapping, and data, I am building a LiDAR...
Butler's Log
Going down the rabbit hole of Git's new bundle-uri
Git's new bundle-uri could help significantly speed up clones, but what bugs lurk within?
13th Mar 2025
Git's new bundle-uri could help significantly speed up clones, but what bugs lurk within?
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...
6th Mar 2016
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Note On Charity Through Marginal Price Discrimination
11th Mar 2017
Posts on Made of...
Indices point between elements
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a...
17th Jul 2015
If you’re familiar with nearly any mainstream programming language, and I asked you to draw a diagram of an array, the array indices, and the array elements, odds are good you’d produce a diagram something like this:
In this post, I want to persuade you to replace that image, or,...
Eric Migicovsky's...
Final post on the inPulse blog
2nd Feb 2012
Posts on Made of...
Transformers for software engineers
Ever since its introduction in the 2017 paper, Attention is All You Need, the Transformer model...
1st Apr 2022
Ever since its introduction in the 2017 paper, Attention is All You Need, the Transformer model architecture has taken the deep-learning world by storm. Initially introduced for machine translation, it has become the tool of choice for a wide range of domains, including text,...
GitButler
Git Merge 2024
GitButler is organizing the 2024 Git Merge conference, Sep 19/20 in Berlin!
22nd Jul 2024
GitButler is organizing the 2024 Git Merge conference, Sep 19/20 in Berlin!
Simply Explained
Building Air Quality Sensor: Luftdaten + Home Assistant
Luftdaten (now Sensor Community) is a global sensor network that measures air quality around the...
3rd Sep 2020
Luftdaten (now Sensor Community) is a global sensor network that measures air quality around the world. Best of all: it's open-source and anyone can build a sensor.I was very curious to see the air quality in my neighborhood, so I decided to build myself a sensor. And of course,...
Christian Selig
A slept on upscaling tool for macOS
I uploaded YouTube videos from time to time, and a fun comment I often get is “Whoa, this is in...
30th Jun 2025
I uploaded YouTube videos from time to time, and a fun comment I often get is “Whoa, this is in 8K!”. Even better, I’ve had comments from the like, seven people with 8K TVs that the video looks awesome on their TV.
And you guessed it, I don’t record my videos in 8K! I record them...
watchTowr Labs
Should Security Solutions Be Secure? Maybe We're All Wrong - Fortinet FortiSIEM Pre-Auth Command...
It’s Friday, but we’re here today with unscheduled content - pushing our previously scheduled...
15th Aug 2025
It’s Friday, but we’re here today with unscheduled content - pushing our previously scheduled shenanigans to next week.
Fortinet is no stranger to the watchTowr Labs research team. Today we’re looking at CVE-2025-25256 - a pre-authentication command injection in FortiSIEM that...
Home on Erik...
Headcount goals, feature factories, and when to hire those mythical 10x people
When I started building up a tech team for Better, I made a very conscious decision to pay at the...
21st Feb 2019
When I started building up a tech team for Better, I made a very conscious decision to pay at the high end to get people. I thought this made more sense: they cost a bit more money to hire, but output usually more than compensates for it.
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to involute gears
Involute gears are everywhere: toys, kitchen appliances, cars. But what's so special about their...
17th Nov 2024
Involute gears are everywhere: toys, kitchen appliances, cars. But what's so special about their shape?
Eric Migicovsky's...
Startup School - How to talk to users
2025 Note - I based this off the Mom Test , written by a fellow YC founder. Interestingly enough -...
25th Jul 2019
2025 Note - I based this off the Mom Test , written by a fellow YC founder. Interestingly enough - if you look at the products I build…
Freewheeling Apps
2025-09-02
As an experiment, I've machine-translated the help docs in Lua Carousel into 7 languages:
Spanish...
2nd Sep 2025
As an experiment, I've machine-translated the help docs in Lua Carousel into 7 languages:
Spanish (Peninsular and Latin American)
German
French
Japanese
Chinese
Portuguese
Hopefully it...
Applied Cartography
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
a bad book with a good thesis. the author warns you of its incoherence early on, which is a shame...
1st Mar 2020
a bad book with a good thesis. the author warns you of its incoherence early on, which is a shame because there are very good pieces of logos amidst the circumlocution
Louwrentius - Solar
A practical understanding of lead acid batteries
Introduction
The goal of this article is to give you a practical understanding Lead Acid batteries....
29th Aug 2021
Introduction
The goal of this article is to give you a practical understanding Lead Acid batteries. We won't address the underlying chemistry, we'll treat them as a black-box and we will discover their characteristics and how to keep them healthy.
Disclaimer
I'm an amateur. I...
Tiny struggles
Generating Hundreds of Consistent Illustrations with Gemini Image Generation
A deep dive into building an automated illustration pipeline for storytelling...
20th Jul 2025
A deep dive into building an automated illustration pipeline for storytelling applications
Introduction
AI image generation has revolutionized creative workflows, but there’s a significant difference between generating a single stunning image and producing hundreds of consistent...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Monolithic vs Microservices software architecture
This week I flew to Gothenburg to meet people from a large international shipping company, talking...
2nd Mar 2020
This week I flew to Gothenburg to meet people from a large international shipping company, talking about the development of enterprise level software. During the meeting there were various experts in the room, one of them asked me on choosing the right software architecture (for...
The Pragmatic...
Tech hiring: is this an inflection point?
We might be seeing the end of remote coding interviews as we know them, and a return of in-person...
15th Apr 2025
We might be seeing the end of remote coding interviews as we know them, and a return of in-person interviews, trial days and longer trial periods. Could hiring be returning to pre-pandemic norms?
Computer Ads from...
Discwasher SpikeMaster
Meet the Mighty SpikeMaster, Protector of Computers.
1st Feb 2025
Meet the Mighty SpikeMaster, Protector of Computers.
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...
12th Feb 2013
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...
Never Met a Science
For-Profit Academic Publishers Love LLM Garbage
Against For-Profit "Open Access"
4th Apr 2026
Against For-Profit "Open Access"
Louwrentius - Solar
Bose SoundLink on-ear headphones battery replacement
Skip to the bottom two paragraph for instructions on how to replace the battery.
I bought my Bose...
25th Feb 2025
Skip to the bottom two paragraph for instructions on how to replace the battery.
I bought my Bose SoundLink on-ear Bluetooth headphones for 250 Euros around 2017 and I really like them. They are small, light, comfortable and can easily fit in a coat pocket when folded.
Up until...
Jonas Hietala
2022 in review
A bit late, but it’s time for my yearly review. It’s something I like doing for myself and it’s nice...
15th Feb 2023
A bit late, but it’s time for my yearly review. It’s something I like doing for myself and it’s nice to see that despite a tough year I’ve done some good things.
2022 Non-Geek Achievements
We got our third child!
This time we got a girl to complement our two boys, and I love them...
computers are bad
forecourt networking
The way I see it, few parts of American life are as quintessentially American
as buying gas. We love...
8th Feb 2026
The way I see it, few parts of American life are as quintessentially American
as buying gas. We love our cars, we love our oil, and an industry about as old
as automobiles themselves has developed a highly consistent, fully automated,
and fairly user friendly system for filling...
Daniel De Laney
Never Use the Confirm Dialog
It’s a standard function of all browsers, it’s everywhere, and it’s time to retire it. Here’s an...
8th Sep 2015
It’s a standard function of all browsers, it’s everywhere, and it’s time to retire it. Here’s an example from JIRA. Trying to “Cancel” a comment brings up the confirm dialog:
Even if we assume confirmation is necessary, the standard confirm dialog is a bad way to get it:
Most of...
Jonas Hietala
A Simple Thought
I wrote that we where doing some microprogramming, making the processor work etc. We had a lab about...
2nd Feb 2012
I wrote that we where doing some microprogramming, making the processor work etc. We had a lab about that yesterday and I was very, very nervous. The preparations weren’t that hard, but they where very bothersome. Converting the instructions to binary/hex by hand is never nice....
Louwrentius - Solar
FFmpeg performance on a Core i7 920 @ 3.6 Ghz
The system i'm running is a Core i7 920 @ 3.6 Ghz.
I am transcoding a DVD (Grave Of The Fire Flies)...
22nd Apr 2009
The system i'm running is a Core i7 920 @ 3.6 Ghz.
I am transcoding a DVD (Grave Of The Fire Flies) to iPod format (640x480
x264).
Thread support is enabled, to FFmpeg uses about 250% CPU. That's 2.5 of the 4
cores available. If possible, I would have liked to see it use all four...
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 29 Entry
After months of procrastination it is time for me to enter Ludum Dare again!
I am totally...
25th Apr 2014
After months of procrastination it is time for me to enter Ludum Dare again!
I am totally unprepared, but I did setup a setup which actually compiles. I never got audio to run but hopefully I can manage something.
Repository: https://github.com/treeman/LD29. Going for C++ this...
Louwrentius - Solar
My experiences with DFS replication on Windows 2008 R2
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS...
15th Jun 2014
If you are considering implementing DFS replication, consider using Windows 2012 R2 because DFS replication has been massively improved. It supports larger data sets and performance has dramatically been improved over Windows 2008 R2.
I've implemented DFS replication to keep two...
Comments for Lars...
Comment on How Live Chat Tools Impact Conversions and Why I Launched a Bad Variant by Jeffrey...
I would love to talk to you about this but there's no live chat on this site!
26th Jun 2018
I would love to talk to you about this but there's no live chat on this site!
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Cantor was Wrong: debunking the infinite set hierarchy
1st Apr 2019
Vitalik Buterin's...
Gitcoin Grants Round 5 Retrospective
30th Apr 2020
Applied Cartography
Gosling’s Old Rum
Virginia has draconian liquor laws, which means I have to get interesting bottles shipped from...
3rd Feb 2024
Virginia has draconian liquor laws, which means I have to get interesting bottles shipped from [REDACTED], a site on which I am very prone to judging a book by its cover; every month I'll end up purchasing a bottle of something purely because it looks interesting and I can...
Construction Physics
Information and Technological Evolution
I spend a lot of time reading about the nature of technological progress, and I’ve found that the...
2nd Apr 2026
I spend a lot of time reading about the nature of technological progress, and I’ve found that the literature on technology is somewhat uneven.
benn.substack
Get out of the token path
What would you build if you couldn't build AI?
5th Jun 2026
What would you build if you couldn't build AI?
benn.substack
How much agency do we actually want?
"Mr. Torres did as instructed."
13th Jun 2025
"Mr. Torres did as instructed."
Pea Bee
#11: Searchable list of all the mistakes
I have more than a decade old google account that I am no longer able to access even though I know...
13th Feb 2022
I have more than a decade old google account that I am no longer able to access even though I know the correct password.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Does digital ID have risks even if it's ZK-wrapped?
28th Jun 2025
Project Blog on...
Train Simulator Controller: Dashboard Prototyping, Part 1
After sourcing rough measurements of the dashboard of a Class 80x train, I began creating a...
31st Jul 2025
After sourcing rough measurements of the dashboard of a Class 80x train, I began creating a cardboard prototype, plus associated CAD designs to get the design fabricated.
Applied Cartography
The Rehearsal
As many people have mentioned, this show owes a lot to Synecdoche; New York (a film that I have very...
3rd Sep 2022
As many people have mentioned, this show owes a lot to Synecdoche; New York (a film that I have very strong memories of and for despite having only seen once, in a haze, ten years ago.) It's also a show in the discourse, which I think belies a little just how deeply weird it...
Arduino Blog
Forgot your safe combination? This Arduino-controlled autodialer can crack it for you
Safes are designed specifically to be impenetrable — that’s kind of the whole point. That’s great...
1st Apr 2025
Safes are designed specifically to be impenetrable — that’s kind of the whole point. That’s great when you need to protect something, but it is a real problem when you forget the combination to your safe or when a safe’s combination becomes lost to history. In such situations,...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Go Viral on X
Earlier this week one of my posts on the social network X went viral and attracted 32K views in two...
9th Nov 2024
Earlier this week one of my posts on the social network X went viral and attracted 32K views in two days. With no major presence on Elon Musk's platform, and no paid advertising, gaining that kind of attention is something special. Let me explain how this happened.
The Post
If...
Himanshu Mishra |...
About Metakgp
You can listen to this in background Before The Beginning - John Frusciante (YouTube)...
13th Dec 2017
You can listen to this in background Before The Beginning - John Frusciante (YouTube) :name-retracted: wrote - I wrote this couple of days…
Applied Cartography
Fatherhood
Read essay: Fatherhood
10th May 2025
./techtipsy
TOMO M4: probably the coolest power bank I've owned
A friend once showed me a power bank that was so cool that I had to get one
myself. Ended up getting...
3rd Mar 2023
A friend once showed me a power bank that was so cool that I had to get one
myself. Ended up getting two, and here’s why.
This post is not sponsored.
Removable batteries
Let’s start with the feature that I appreciate the most: removable batteries!
The TOMO M4 accepts up to 4...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Quantum Software Systems Ltd's QNX
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
1st Apr 2024
Operating Systems Come in Many Flavors But QNX Can Take the Heat
Eric Migicovsky's...
What working on Pebble taught me about building hardware
Building hardware is fun but tough. We worked on Pebble for a full four years before we launched on...
19th Sep 2017
Building hardware is fun but tough. We worked on Pebble for a full four years before we launched on Kickstarter in 2012. We went on to sell…
Never Met a Science
What is "Theory"?
Substack is clearly growing.
9th Dec 2025
Substack is clearly growing.
Construction Physics
How China Is Like the 19th Century U.S.
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly...
1st Nov 2024
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly reading about the times and places where radical changes in manufacturing were taking place: Britain in the late 18th century, the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,...
Avestura's Blog
Using Tor outside of the Tor Browser
This post shows how to run Tor with a simple PowerShell script and use it in other apps like...
13th May 2019
This post shows how to run Tor with a simple PowerShell script and use it in other apps like Telegram...
watchTowr Labs
XSS To RCE By Abusing Custom File Handlers - Kentico Xperience CMS (CVE-2025-2748)
We know what you’re waiting for - this isn’t it. Today, we’re back with more tales of our adventures...
1st Apr 2025
We know what you’re waiting for - this isn’t it. Today, we’re back with more tales of our adventures in Kentico’s Xperience CMS. Due to it’s wide usage, the type of solution, and the types of enterprises using this solution
Louwrentius - Solar
Setting up a Jabber instant messaging server |_http-title: Site doesn't have a title (text/html;...
I wanted to see how dificult it is to setup an instant messaging server based on open source...
5th Feb 2011
I wanted to see how dificult it is to setup an instant messaging server based on open source software. Now I know that it is very easy, unless you are stubborn and do things your own way. In this example, I'm setting up a small IM server that is only for internal company use, but...
Willem's Blog
Updating Snake '97
This month I bit the bullet big time: I redesigned the game engine of the wildly popular Snake '97...
20th Feb 2018
This month I bit the bullet big time: I redesigned the game engine of the wildly popular Snake '97 game. Read about the design challenges in this blog post.
Applied Cartography
Cult Classic
I can't find where I wrote this, but I described Crosley's writing persona (having read her other...
8th Nov 2022
I can't find where I wrote this, but I described Crosley's writing persona (having read her other two books) as that of a friend you run into at a party who fits in perfectly and has the best bon mots and she knows it and needs to make sure you know it, too.
Old Vintage...
They call it Mister Pibb (again)
As Pibb is the official beverage of Old Vintage Computing Research, no doubt to the profound chagrin...
2nd Nov 2025
As Pibb is the official beverage of Old Vintage Computing Research, no doubt to the profound chagrin of the Coca-Cola Company, I feel compelled to offer a public service announcement.
Old and busted:
inconsistent on their own brand name) is back and Pibb Xtra, the face of...
Writing
The MANIAC
One third of the way through The MANIAC, I found myself wondering why this book was not more...
2nd Nov 2024
One third of the way through The MANIAC, I found myself wondering why this book was not more popular: it seemed to be a perfect storm of formalism and postmodernism (it being told in a fugue-like oral history), scientistic reckoning (suddenly in vogue thanks to oppenheimer),...
Home on Erik...
Detecting corporate fraud using Benford's law
Note: This is a silly application. Don't take anything seriously.
Benford's law describes a...
7th Oct 2014
Note: This is a silly application. Don't take anything seriously.
Benford's law describes a phenomenon where numbers in any data series will exhibit patterns in their first digit. For instance, if you took a list of the 1,000 longest rivers of Mongolia, or the average daily...
Notes on software...
Interpreting Go
After spending some time at work on tooling for keeping documentation
in sync with Go struct...
12th Oct 2019
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...
Vitalik Buterin's...
An incomplete guide to stealth addresses
20th Jan 2023
Willem L. Middelkoop
The best keyboard for iPad
The tablet is at the frontier of mobile computing and its hardware form factor is evolving. This...
10th Aug 2020
The tablet is at the frontier of mobile computing and its hardware form factor is evolving. This year Apple introduced a new Magic Keyboard for iPad that includes a trackpad. Everybody is raving about it, yet I think there is something to be said for the "mouse-less" Smart...
lcamtuf’s thing
RAM: the forgotten history
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working...
15th Oct 2024
We owe computers not to Charles Babbage, but to the invention of electronically-controlled working memory.
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...
3rd Feb 2011
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...
benn.substack
Leaderbored
Is it a race or a run?
1st May 2026
Applied Cartography
Mindwalk
Let us know how the water rises.
1st Apr 2026
Let us know how the water rises.
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Quadratic Arithmetic Programs: from Zero to Hero
10th Dec 2016
Birchtree
Some low-stakes misinformation spread like wildfire, and I got it wrong too
Giovanni Colantonio writing for Digital Trends: The Confusion Around $90 Switch 2 Games Proves How...
1st May 2025
Giovanni Colantonio writing for Digital Trends: The Confusion Around $90 Switch 2 Games Proves How Broken the Internet Is
There’s just one problem: *Mario Kart World* does not cost $90, at least based on what we know right now. No currently announced Nintendo Switch 2 game...
Notes on software...
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure...
17th Sep 2022
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure out
how to use Hashicorp's Raft
implementation.
There weren't any examples I could find in the Hashicorp repo
itself. And the only example I could find was Philip O'Toole's
hraftd. It's...
Home on Erik...
My issue with GPU-accelerated deep learning
I've been spending several hundred bucks renting GPU instances on AWS over the last year. The...
3rd Feb 2016
I've been spending several hundred bucks renting GPU instances on AWS over the last year. The speedup from a GPU is awesome and hard to deny. GPUs have taken over the field. Maybe following the footsteps of Bitcoin mining there's some research on using FPGA (I know very little...
Blog | Sam Curry
Exploiting Directory Traversal to View Customer Credit Card Information on Yahoo's Small...
10th Nov 2017
The Pragmatic...
Survey: What’s in your tech stack?
We want to capture an accurate snapshot of software engineering, today – and need your help! Tell us...
18th Mar 2025
We want to capture an accurate snapshot of software engineering, today – and need your help! Tell us about your tech stack and get early access to the final report, plus extra analysis
Freewheeling Apps
2025-10-30
An experiment involving scrollbars
Keeping scrollbars easy to acquire even in large...
31st Oct 2025
An experiment involving scrollbars
Keeping scrollbars easy to acquire even in large files.
Demo of an idea for a scrollbar with a shadow or "penumbra" which makes it easier to acquire to drag around, even as the conventional and smaller central object continues to be...
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 2. user-defined functions and variables
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
3. LLVM
4. LLVM conditionals and...
20th Jan 2019
Previously in compiler basics:
1. lisp to assembly
3. LLVM
4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
5. LLVM system calls
6. an x86 upgrade
In this post we'll extend the compiler to support defining functions
and variables. Additionally, we'll require the...
Butler's Log
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge to help move towards a more sustainable open source...
2nd Sep 2024
GitButler is joining the Open Source Pledge to help move towards a more sustainable open source ecosystem.
Notes on software...
What's the big deal about Deterministic Simulation Testing?
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And...
20th Aug 2024
Bugs in distributed systems are hard to find, largely because systems
interact in chaotic ways. And even once you've found a bug, it can be
anywhere from simple to impossible to reproduce it. It's about as far
away as you can get from the ideal test environment: property...
Joel Gustafson
Visualizing 13 million Bluesky users
12th Nov 2024
Willem L. Middelkoop
From tree to table
Right next to the house were I was born there was this chestnut tree, sadly it died one and a half...
22nd Oct 2017
Right next to the house were I was born there was this chestnut tree, sadly it died one and a half year ago. When it was taken down, my brother saved me a slab of wood. I intended to create something from it, a nice "do it yourself" adventure, worthy of a blog post!
The chestnut...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Outside the comfort zone: amateur acting
This month I made my debut as amateur actor. I am no Hollywood star, nor do I envy to become one....
17th Apr 2018
This month I made my debut as amateur actor. I am no Hollywood star, nor do I envy to become one. But I do like crazy experiments and operating outside of my comfort zone often leads to new and refreshing insights. I took part in an amateur drama play and - in the name of science...
Posts on Made of...
Some opinionated thoughts on SQL databases
People who work with me tend to realize that I have Opinions about databases, and SQL databases in...
30th Mar 2021
People who work with me tend to realize that I have Opinions about databases, and SQL databases in particular. Last week, I wrote about a Postgres debugging story and tweeted about AWS’ policy ban on internal use of SQL databases, and had occasion to discuss and debate some of...
Applied Cartography
Happy Endings
This, to me, is the perfect sit-com. It’s that simple: for two seasons (skip the first season; you...
27th Nov 2017
This, to me, is the perfect sit-com. It’s that simple: for two seasons (skip the first season; you don’t need it and the show tries to be too conventional) it shits out an outrageous level of humor with a cast that has a perfect chemistry. There is a tiny bit of “aw, shucks”...
latest projects -...
Precision Clock Mk IV
[Hardware] GPS synchronised, millisecond precision, automatic timezones and more!
31st May 2025
[Hardware] GPS synchronised, millisecond precision, automatic timezones and more!
Fabien Sanglard
Be A Donor
This is probably the proudest moment of my Computer Science career so far: On April 17th, 2012 the...
22nd Apr 2012
This is probably the proudest moment of my Computer Science career so far: On April 17th, 2012 the Government of Ontario released the Mobile Website I designed and implemented for the major part of 2011. Beadonor.ca allows you reinforce your decision to be an organ donor. I feel...
Daniel De Laney
Data Center Monitoring
“I like to use sketches to validate ideas quickly, without a lot of investment in the wrong...
25th Jul 2019
“I like to use sketches to validate ideas quickly, without a lot of investment in the wrong direction.”
The Challenge
The computing power that runs the world is hidden away in data centers that few people get to see. While many data centers are lights-out operations most of the...
The New Oil
Cybersecurity 101: A Guide to Staying Safe Online
30th Nov 2024
Electronics etc…
$17 GM1312 Thermometer Review, Test, and Teardown
Introduction
What is a thermocouple
The GM1213 Thermometer
A few...
11th Feb 2023
Introduction
What is a thermocouple
The GM1213 Thermometer
A few tests
Internals
Conclusion
References
Introduction
I’ve been doing a bunch of measurements on oven-controlled oscillators lately,
including their temperature. There are multiple ways to measure...
Krebs on Security
FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses
A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more...
2 weeks ago
A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the United States and Canada. Based on interviews with individuals whose licenses are available for purchase on this service, it...
GitButler
GitButler for Windows
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
12th Apr 2024
The GitButler client is now available natively on Windows.
Willem's Blog
For the love of mini
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love...
8th Dec 2021
The iPhone Mini has intangible greatness that most folks don't know about: read along for the love of mini!
Fabien Sanglard
How to build Doom3 on Mac OS X with XCode
More...
25th Nov 2011
./techtipsy
Quest towards energy efficiency part 1: the water heater
While listening to the SelfHosted podcast, one of the hosts brought up their peculiar...
25th Jan 2021
While listening to the SelfHosted podcast, one of the hosts brought up their peculiar living
arrangement multiple times. Essentially, he and his family are living in an RV that runs off of batteries, has solar
panels, utilizes Home Assistant for automation, supports multiple...
Jeff Geerling
Testing the Mono Gateway, a custom-built 10 Gbps Router
Testing the Mono Gateway, a custom-built 10 Gbps Router
Last month, the stars aligned...
2nd Jan 2026
Testing the Mono Gateway, a custom-built 10 Gbps Router
Last month, the stars aligned for me to bring the Mono Gateway (a 10 Gbps router that YouTuber Tomaž Zaman and his team at Mono built from scratch) on a trip to Phoenix, and test it with one of the most OP...
Scott Kennedy
It’s not just an IDE: building the developer cloud is hard
9th Aug 2023
Vitalik Buterin's...
How will Ethereum's multi-client philosophy interact with ZK-EVMs?
31st Mar 2023
Birchtree
+ The only thing of value I can provide
There is one main type of value I can bring to this blog. If I lose that, what am I even doing?
2nd Nov 2025
There is one main type of value I can bring to this blog. If I lose that, what am I even doing?
Vitalik Buterin's...
Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again
28th Dec 2023
Fabien Sanglard
Game Engine Black Book Postmortem
More...
7th Sep 2017
Writing
Klute
A terrific, terrific film, with a great performance by Jane Fonda (insert quip of "the film should...
2nd Sep 2023
A terrific, terrific film, with a great performance by Jane Fonda (insert quip of "the film should be called Bree!" here.) I think some of the noir aspects felt a little more obvious than in The Conversation, but the pair of performances and the deep sense of sonic dread that...
Willem L. Middelkoop
Escaping the flat tires
You might wonder how puncture proof a "puncture-proof" bicycle tire really is. I set out to find the...
18th Nov 2021
You might wonder how puncture proof a "puncture-proof" bicycle tire really is. I set out to find the answer when I installed Schwalbe Durano Plus tires on my bike. It was inevitable for me to find the answer to the question: How many kilometers can you ride without flats using...
Applied Cartography
Being John Malkovich
I had held off on watching Being John Malkovich for a while, mostly because I think I had a pretty...
1st Feb 2025
I had held off on watching Being John Malkovich for a while, mostly because I think I had a pretty good idea of what it was and, while I wanted to watch it at some point, it never felt particularly urgent. (The vision in my head was a sort of Bosch painting filled with John...
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....
5th Jan 2022
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...
Open for Business
On The Contrary: “Hook” Is A Great Film
Hook, the absolutely star-studded film directed by Stephen Spielberg, has received mixed reviews...
7th Jan 2026
Hook, the absolutely star-studded film directed by Stephen Spielberg, has received mixed reviews from critics since its release in 1991. I still can’t figure out why. One could have given the Academy Award for Best Actor to Dustin Hoffman, and Best Supporting Actor to Robin...
Abishek Muthian
Scam alert : mail from IPTI
Mail from IPTI
This is a physical scam mail alert yeah because we don’t get enough of cyber...
22nd Dec 2016
Mail from IPTI
This is a physical scam mail alert yeah because we don’t get enough of cyber phishing; right!
Those who have filed international patents, keep an eye out for mails such as the above. I received a professional looking mail from IPTI & from what it looks like on the...
Evan Hahn (dot com)
Things I wish I knew about Ring Fit Adventure
I’ve played a lot of Ring Fit Adventure, the fitness game for Nintendo Switch. Here are some things...
4th May 2025
I’ve played a lot of Ring Fit Adventure, the fitness game for Nintendo Switch. Here are some things I wish I knew when I got started.
Jump over battles to skip them
You can jump over enemies to avoid fighting them!
I first discovered this when watching a speedrun of the game. If...
The New Oil
The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon
5th Jul 2025
Applied Cartography
Content debt
There’s a nascent trend of releasing ostensibly-private material (changelogs, public wikis,...
4th Jul 2024
There’s a nascent trend of releasing ostensibly-private material (changelogs, public wikis, handbooks, etc.) to the public as a bit of a marketing push. This is essentially a form of debt, to the extent that you’re taking a lump-sum payment now in exchange for the implicit cost...
Project Blog on...
Train Simulator Controller: Simulator Takes Shape with Custom Table
With the center console of my train simulator built, I rapidly modeled and fabricated prototypes of...
11th Jan 2026
With the center console of my train simulator built, I rapidly modeled and fabricated prototypes of the four other panels.
Writing
Slay the Spire
In lieu of more to say, I think this is the most well-designed game I've ever played. The size of a...
16th May 2019
In lieu of more to say, I think this is the most well-designed game I've ever played. The size of a given session is perfect for me (45-75 minutes); the difficulty curve is elegant and sloping; variety is strong. I have poured at least a hundred hours into the game and could see...
anderegg.ca
YouTube is a mysterious monopoly
Yesterday I saw this Bluesky post from Adrian Black. He runs Adrian’s Digital Basement, a retro...
8th Sep 2025
Yesterday I saw this Bluesky post from Adrian Black. He runs Adrian’s Digital Basement, a retro computer repair channel I really enjoy. In the post, he points out a trend I didn’t know about: YouTube views seem to have fallen off a cliff recently.
Further down the thread, Jeff...
Louwrentius - Solar
8 TB RAID 6 Linux software RAID using EXT4
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID...
5th Jul 2009
Mobo: Asus P5Q-EM DO ( 6x sata)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400
RAM: 4 GB
Controller; HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 (16x poorten)
PSU: CooMas Silent Pro M 600W ATX2 (definitely not overkill)
HD: Samsung 1 TB SAT2 HD103UJ (10x)
OS: Debian Lenny with custom kernel (backported)
FS: EXT4
RAID...
heavymeta.org
CrowdStrike's Impact on Aviation
Just after midnight Eastern Time on July 19, 2024, the enterprise cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike...
28th Jul 2024
Just after midnight Eastern Time on July 19, 2024, the enterprise cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike YOLOed a software update to millions of Windows machines. Or
as they put it:
On July 19, 2024 at 04:09 UTC, as part of ongoing operations, CrowdStrike
released a sensor...
Jonas Hietala
Why I still blog after 15 years
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you...
25th Sep 2024
Time flies when you’re having fun.
Before you know it, your little babies have started school, you celebrate the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park, and that little blog you started have now been going for 15 years.
15 years is a long time; longer than I’ve been waiting for Winds...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of the IBM 5100
IBM's First Personal Computer
2nd Dec 2023
IBM's First Personal Computer
Neil Madden
Machine Learning and the triumph of GOFAI
I’ve been slowly reading Brian Cantwell Smith’s “The Promise of Artificial Intelligence” recently. I...
30th Jun 2024
I’ve been slowly reading Brian Cantwell Smith’s “The Promise of Artificial Intelligence” recently. I haven’t finished reading it yet, and like much of BCS’s writing, it’ll probably take me 3 or 4 read-throughs to really understand it, but there’s one point that I want to pick up...
Electronics etc…
Remote Controlling an HP 1670G Logic Analyzer with a Linux PC X Server
Introduction
Reserving a fixed IP address for the logic analyzer
Assign the chosen IP address to the...
26th Dec 2023
Introduction
Reserving a fixed IP address for the logic analyzer
Assign the chosen IP address to the logic analyzer
Allow the logic analyzer to access your Ubuntu X server
Configure the X-window Settings on the logic analyzer
Install and declare the HP logic analyzer font...
Push to Prod
Stop Babysitting Your AI Coding Agents
Move 10x as fast, break 10x as many things
20th Jan 2026
Move 10x as fast, break 10x as many things
computers are bad
LotusNotes
I tend to focus on the origin of the computer within the military. Particularly
in the early days of...
14th Mar 2026
I tend to focus on the origin of the computer within the military. Particularly
in the early days of digital computing, the military was a key customer, and
fundamental concepts of modern computing arose in universities and laboratories
serving military contracts. Of course, the...
Writing
Baccano!
I wanted to like this one so much. It seemed tailor-made to what I love in anime: interesting,...
4th Nov 2021
I wanted to like this one so much. It seemed tailor-made to what I love in anime: interesting, anachronistic setting; weird alchemy stuff; a huge slew of characters and viewpoints; framing devices within framing devices.
Louwrentius - Solar
I resurrected my Dutch movie review site from 2003
Introduction
Between 2003 and 2006, I ran a Dutch movie review site called moevie.nl.1
I built the...
9th Jun 2022
Introduction
Between 2003 and 2006, I ran a Dutch movie review site called moevie.nl.1
I built the site and wrote the reviews. It never made any money. It cost me money to host, and it cost me a lot of time writing reviews, but I remember enjoying writing reviews about films I...
computers are bad
megawatts by microwave
In 1914 the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation,
investigated the...
4th Jul 2026
In 1914 the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation,
investigated the possibilities of developing the Columbia River. Thousands of
arid but potentially fertile acres needed only water to become the Imperial
Valley of the Northwest. Locked in the mountain...
Vitalik Buterin's...
From prediction markets to info finance
9th Nov 2024
Jonas Hietala
Entering Pintos
First week of school is over and it’s been full throttle from the start, in a good way. We’re having...
3rd Sep 2012
First week of school is over and it’s been full throttle from the start, in a good way. We’re having four courses and for once I like them all. We have an interesting math course, a useful course “Software Development in Theory” (boring but useful) and a big project course where...
Project Blog on...
RailScan: First Point Clouds from Railroad Museum Scanner
I volunteer at a train, trolley, and subway museum. As a non-authoritative, hobby project combining...
16th Jul 2026
I volunteer at a train, trolley, and subway museum. As a non-authoritative, hobby project combining my love of trains, electronics, mapping, and data, I am building a LiDAR scanner to map and analyze the museum. After designing the initial hardware and software for a GNSS-enabled...
Krebs on Security
ShinyHunters Wage Broad Corporate Extortion Spree
A cybercriminal group that used voice phishing attacks to siphon more than a billion records from...
7th Oct 2025
A cybercriminal group that used voice phishing attacks to siphon more than a billion records from Salesforce customers earlier this year has launched a website that threatens to publish data stolen from dozens of Fortune 500 firms if they refuse to pay a ransom. The group also...
Bryan Braun - Blog
Goodbye Evernote, Hello Obsidian
I use note-taking software every day. I use it for journaling, blogging, capturing ideas,...
10th Jun 2024
I use note-taking software every day. I use it for journaling, blogging, capturing ideas, researching technologies, managing my projects, and many other things. Writing is how I think through problems, and note-taking software makes all that thinking easy to search and...
MIT News - Civil and...
Desirée Plata appointed associate dean of engineering
Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial...
8th Apr 2026
Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial initiatives across the School of Engineering.
Applied Cartography
The Design of Everyday Things
My favorite book of the year. I’m not going to gush about it — enough others have in the decades of...
30th Dec 2014
My favorite book of the year. I’m not going to gush about it — enough others have in the decades of its existence — but know that it is that good and that timeless. Norman changed the way I thought about technology.
Greater Still by...
In Crypto, Apps Need Infrastructure Like Infrastructure Needs Apps
Or, maybe the real infrastructure was the applications we made along the way
6th Oct 2023
Or, maybe the real infrastructure was the applications we made along the way
Butler's Log
20 years of Git. Still weird, still wonderful.
Twenty years ago, Git was born. How did this unlikely "information manager" take over the world?
7th Apr 2025
Twenty years ago, Git was born. How did this unlikely "information manager" take over the world?
Push to Prod
Why Do Great Engineers Lose Architecture Debates?
Because being right isn't enough, unfortunately
11th Nov 2025
Because being right isn't enough, unfortunately
Odds and Ends of...
I don't know how to feel about Palantir
Normal company or uniquely evil? Let's reason through it.
3rd May 2026
Normal company or uniquely evil? Let's reason through it.
Applied Cartography
It's All Smiles
The production is too glitchy & clever to be pleasant or interesting, which in of itself is not a...
1st Dec 2021
The production is too glitchy & clever to be pleasant or interesting, which in of itself is not a huge deal except that the lyrics & vocals are so featherweight that it's not worth the effort of digestion.
Vitalik Buterin's...
The promise and challenges of crypto + AI applications
30th Jan 2024
Writing
Emma
this was so fun. i am reminded of walter scott's description of austen as a flemish painter: "[the]...
1st Apr 2020
this was so fun. i am reminded of walter scott's description of austen as a flemish painter: "[the] subjects are not often elegant and certainly never grand; but they are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader"
Neil Madden
Digital signatures and how to avoid them
Wikipedia’s definition of a digital signature is: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for...
18th Sep 2024
Wikipedia’s definition of a digital signature is: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for verifying the authenticity of digital messages or documents. A valid digital signature on a message gives a recipient confidence that the message came from a sender known to the...
Butler's Log
How Core Git Developers Configure Git
What `git config` settings should be defaults by now? Here are some settings that even the core...
22nd Feb 2025
What `git config` settings should be defaults by now? Here are some settings that even the core developers change.
Odds and Ends of...
Reels are destroying our brains and I hate them
It's time for a new moral panic
2nd May 2025
It's time for a new moral panic
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