Jonas Hietala
Fun or Frustration? Ludum Dare 33
One of my goals this year was to participate in a Ludum Dare. I have cleared up my schedule,...
over a year ago
One of my goals this year was to participate in a Ludum Dare. I have cleared up my schedule, negotiated with my better half and everything is set up for epicness.
At first the idea was to make a game in rust, even tough I basically haven’t used it in almost a year, but when I...
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While some of the mockery is out-of-date or rooted in misunderstandings, much of it is well-deserved, and it’s difficult to disagree that much of MongoDB’s engineering is incredibly simplistic,...
Applied Cartography
Using Cursor to port Django tests to pytest
When it comes to AI tooling, I am equal parts optimist and cynic. I have no moral qualm with using...
4 months ago
When it comes to AI tooling, I am equal parts optimist and cynic. I have no moral qualm with using these tools (Supermaven is a pretty heavy part of my day-to-day work), but have found most tools quite bad by the metric of "do they make me more productive on Buttondown's code...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Objects, Inc's Layout
Build Programs Without Programming
11 months ago
Build Programs Without Programming
Old Vintage...
Programming the Convergent WorkSlate's spreadsheet microcassette future
In this particular future, we will all use handheld spreadsheets stored on microcassettes, talking...
4 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...
Home on Erik...
Interview with a Data Scientist: Erik Bernhardsson
I was featured in Peadar Coyle's interview series interviewing various “data scientists” – which is...
over a year ago
I was featured in Peadar Coyle's interview series interviewing various “data scientists” – which is kind of arguable since (a) all the other ppl in that series are much cooler than me (b) I'm not really a data scientist.
anderegg.ca
Two flavours of open social media
Yesterday, the Mastodon team announced it would be handing over control of its project to a new...
5 days ago
Yesterday, the Mastodon team announced it would be handing over control of its project to a new non-profit organization. The timing of this announcement is perfect given everything that’s happening with WordPress, Meta, and… well, everything else. To date, I think Eugen Rochko...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
I don't know how to build software and you don't either
Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it...
2 months ago
Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it better to have that dictated by some…
./techtipsy
The absolute state of Bluetooth audio in 2022
I have the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. They’re good for consuming content.
Audio calls with your...
over a year ago
I have the Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones. They’re good for consuming content.
Audio calls with your colleagues? Forget about it.
This is the setup I have to go with, and it has all to do with how Bluetooth
works. Your options with Bluetooth headsets are the following:
high quality...
./techtipsy
My very first career day
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the...
11 months ago
This post is a short overview of my experience at
a career day in Valga, Estonia, hosted with the help of GreenDice.
I’ve never spoken at a career day before nor attended one as a student, which is why I instantly agreed to going to one
when GreenDice reached out to me.
Why? I...
Willem's Blog
WordPress: 10 tips to secure your website
A lot of people use WordPress to manage their website. Prevent your site from being hacked using...
over a year ago
A lot of people use WordPress to manage their website. Prevent your site from being hacked using this blog post.
Old Vintage...
CAP-X and COMP-X: how the Tandy Pocket Computers got a sucky Japanese assembler
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and...
11 months ago
I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and useful, you had to do it in 6502 assembly language. Today I still write 6502 assembly, plus some Power ISA and even a little TMS9900. I like assembly languages and how in control of the...
Computer Ads from...
Oberon International' Omni-Reader
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
a month ago
Audio Engineers announce a revolution in taking words from page to your computer
Willem's Blog
Back to the University
Join me on a special course exploring scientific programming, the perfect moment to learn Python...
a year ago
Join me on a special course exploring scientific programming, the perfect moment to learn Python with recent advancements in machine learning like ChatGPT!
Good Enough
TIL: Don’t forget your Web Manifest file
We’re primarily a web shop. We’re dipping our toes into mobile app development, but our collective...
a year ago
We’re primarily a web shop. We’re dipping our toes into mobile app development, but our collective expertise is in making products and services for the web. And like everyone else, our use of the web has shifted from our desktops and laptops to our phones.
As we’re creating and...
Christian Selig
Qi2 is kinda underwhelming
Using MagSafe for portable battery packs has so many niceties versus Qi1:
Increased communication...
9 months ago
Using MagSafe for portable battery packs has so many niceties versus Qi1:
Increased communication with the device, allowing for better efficiency due to better thermal management and charging
Easily view the charge percentage of the external battery when first attaching it, and...
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...
Birchtree
When do the Trump flags come down? (members post)
The flags are still flying, celebrating the man, not the country. Why is this something that happens...
a month ago
The flags are still flying, celebrating the man, not the country. Why is this something that happens now, and why is it something only happening on one end of the political spectrum?
Matt Mullenweg
State of the Word Tokyo
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an...
a month ago
It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press. We’ve...
Engineers Need Art
Virtual Pinhead
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual...
9 months ago
Discovering virtual pinball, a hobbyist community devoted to it, and building a full-size virtual pinball cabinet.
detreville
This is "detreville"
It's my name, and the name of my Substack too. That's one less thing for everyone to remember.
a year ago
It's my name, and the name of my Substack too. That's one less thing for everyone to remember.
Vitalik Buterin's...
Sidechains vs Plasma vs Sharding
over a year ago
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1985/12 Australian Personal Computer Mag
Some computer related levity from OZ
a month ago
Some computer related levity from OZ
./techtipsy
What changing the CPU on a laptop looks like
This post illustrates something that is not common on modern laptops:
changing the...
over a year ago
This post illustrates something that is not common on modern laptops:
changing the CPU.
Background
One of the modifications that you can do to a ThinkPad T430 laptop is changing
the CPU to a more powerful quad core model. That’s exactly what I did back in 2017,
but due to the...
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,...
over a year ago
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...
Posts on Made of...
Iron Blogger: Blogging for Beer
So, you may have noticed that I suddenly started updating this blog for the first time in a while....
over a year ago
So, you may have noticed that I suddenly started updating this blog for the first time in a while. The reason is that I’ve recently started an ongoing event with a whole bunch of friends around here to encourage us to blog more.
Like so many good ideas, it all started with a...
Neil Madden
Book review: The Joy of Cryptography
Mike Rosulek, Oregon State University. Draft of January 3, 2021. Online: The Joy of Cryptography....
a year ago
Mike Rosulek, Oregon State University. Draft of January 3, 2021. Online: The Joy of Cryptography. This is a freely-available book covering introductory material on cryptography. It’s suitable for anyone with undergraduate-level computer science knowledge. As is often the case in...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond
over a year ago
Computer Ads from...
ProHance Technologies' Power Mouse
Even A Totally Souped up PC Is A Dog Without PowerMouse
4 months ago
Even A Totally Souped up PC Is A Dog Without PowerMouse
Vitalik Buterin's...
Layer 1 Should Be Innovative in the Short Term but Less in the Long Term
over a year ago
GitButler
GitButler 0.12 - "Stingy Baker"
New GitButler release is out! Undo anything, modify your commits with ease, new AI stuff and more!
7 months ago
New GitButler release is out! Undo anything, modify your commits with ease, new AI stuff and more!
Notes on software...
Writing a minimal Lua implementation with a virtual machine from scratch in Rust
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from...
over a year ago
By the end of this guide we'll have a minimal, working implementation
of a small part of Lua from scratch. It will be able to run the
following program (among others):
function fib(n)
if n < 2 then
return n;
end
local n1 = fib(n-1);
local n2 = fib(n-2);
...
Willem's Blog
Working with special hardware from China
This month I reversed engineered my way into developing software for a Chinese Android device with...
over a year ago
This month I reversed engineered my way into developing software for a Chinese Android device with an embedded printer!
Jonas Hietala
Gruvbox Syntax Highlighting for Pandoc
Edit: I have updated the highlighting again so the inline code used as examples have changed. I...
over a year ago
Edit: I have updated the highlighting again so the inline code used as examples have changed. I guess I should’ve used images to record the look.
Recently when I reinstalled Slackware I decided to restyle my workspace as well. I settled on gruvbox with neovim and using the...
Applied Cartography
Bluesky is good
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for...
a month ago
Three months ago, I wrote Bluesky et al, in which I walked through the various platforms vying for the dubious title of "Twitter's successor" and landed on Bluesky as being my favorite, perhaps less out of its ostensible inherent virtues and more out of the size of its...
computers are bad
2024-01-31 multi-channel audio part 2
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple...
11 months ago
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple formats. Most of the time, there is a stereo version of the
audio, and a multi-channel version of the audio that is perhaps 5.1 or 7.1 and
compressed using one of several codecs that...
Home on Erik...
We're hiring at Better
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the...
over a year ago
Just a quick note that my team is always hiring at Better. A lot of new people have been joining the team here in NYC lately—the tech team has actually grown from 35 to 60 in just ~3 months.
Home on Erik...
Annoying blog post
I spent a couple of hours this weekend going through some pull requests and issues to Annoy, which...
over a year ago
I spent a couple of hours this weekend going through some pull requests and issues to Annoy, which is an open source C++/Python library for Approximate Nearest Neighbor search.
I set up Travis-CI integration and spent some time on one of the issues that multiple people had...
anderegg.ca
The trouble with openness
Back in the early 2000s, there was this nebulous idea called the semantic web. It never really went...
a month ago
Back in the early 2000s, there was this nebulous idea called the semantic web. It never really went anywhere, but I found it exciting at the time.
One piece that particularly spoke to me was the notion of including data in websites so that web scrapers could easily get at it....
Ken Shirriff's blog
Pi in the Pentium: reverse-engineering the constants in its floating-point unit
Intel released the powerful Pentium processor in 1993, establishing a long-running brand of...
a week ago
Intel released the powerful Pentium processor in 1993, establishing a long-running brand of high-performance processors.1
The Pentium includes a floating-point unit that can rapidly compute functions such as sines, cosines, logarithms, and exponentials.
But how does the Pentium...
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,...
Matt Blewitt
Logical Replication Guardrails
I’ve been working with logical replication in PostgreSQL recently, and I wanted to share a few...
7 months ago
I’ve been working with logical replication in PostgreSQL recently, and I wanted to share a few thoughts on how to implement some guardrails to make things easier on operators.
Arduino Blog
Adding proximity unlock to an old car with the Arduino Nano 33 BLE
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically...
6 months ago
A lot of newer cars have a really nifty feature called “proximity unlock,” which automatically unlocks the doors when the driver approaches while carrying their key fob. When paired with a push-to-start ignition switch, the driver never has to take their keys out of their pocket....
Jonas Hietala
Building my ultimate keyboard
The Cybershard keyboard.
What comes to mind when you see the description “the ultimate...
a month ago
The Cybershard keyboard.
What comes to mind when you see the description “the ultimate keyboard”?
There are many keyboards in this world; here are some that might fit the “ultimate” moniker:
Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate mechanical keyboard
DataHand
Ergodox EZ
Glove80
Happy...
Jonas Hietala
Browse posts with telescope.nvim
I’ve used telescope.nvim's find files with
require("telescope.builtin").find_files for quite some...
8 months ago
I’ve used telescope.nvim's find files with
require("telescope.builtin").find_files for quite some time.
I use find files together with it’s cousin .oldfiles (find recently opened files) all the time for finding source code files, blog posts, and more.
But it’s naturally...
Notes on software...
On NYC, Tokyo and Seoul
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a...
over a year ago
I’ve lived in NYC for the past year — moved here after years in Philly
and after growing up in a rural community a few hours west of
there. My wife is South Korean and last week concluded my second trip
to the suburbs of Seoul to visit her family. We finished up that trip
with a...
Applied Cartography
Stripe Sessions 2024
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I...
9 months ago
Stripe held the keynote for Sessions, their annual WWDC/re:invent-esque conference, this morning. I wanted to jot down some thoughts while they’re still fresh. (I think the changelog is the best way to poke around both the changes I’m writing about and the ones that I...
Posts on Made of...
DEF CON
I’m sitting in the airport in Las Vegas on the way back from DEF CON 15. It’s the first time I’ve...
over a year ago
I’m sitting in the airport in Las Vegas on the way back from DEF CON 15. It’s the first time I’ve been at the con, and it wasn’t really what I expected. Frankly, I walked away feeling kinda underwhelmed.
Very few of the talks were as technical as I was hoping – they were almost...
Arduino Blog
This Arduino-controlled machine dispenses the perfect bowl of cereal
Breakfast cereal is controversial. Milk or cereal first? Best cereal to milk ratio? Favorite cereal?...
8 months ago
Breakfast cereal is controversial. Milk or cereal first? Best cereal to milk ratio? Favorite cereal? Most attractive mascot? The opportunities for debate never end. But we can all agree that consistency is key when it comes to the milk:cereal ratio — nobody changes that up from...
Louwrentius
Unattended automatic installation of Linux nvidia binary driver
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver....
over a year ago
As part of an unattended installation, it was necessary to install a binary
nvidia graphics driver. This is a manual proces by default. However, it can be
done fully automatic:
prerequisite: install xserver-xorg-dev package or similar xorg development
package.
sh NVIDIA-.run -q...
Applied Cartography
Truncating timedeltas in Django
Consider a fan-out-ish model that you want to aggregate a bunch of: likes on a post, for...
6 days ago
Consider a fan-out-ish model that you want to aggregate a bunch of: likes on a post, for instance.
class Post(models.Model):
created_at = models.DateTimeField()
class Event(models.Model):
post = models.ForeignKey(Post, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
created_at =...
Louwrentius
My home network setup based on managed switches and VLANs
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet...
over a year ago
My home networking setup
I live in a two story apartment, with on the top floor my utilities closet and my living room. The bottom floor contains a bedroom with all my servers and networking gear.
So this is my setup (click for a bigger version):
I like to run my own router but...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #48: The most important week of Labour government so far?
Plus a British tech unicorn, a nuclear energy ticking time bomb and... New Zealand's weird...
3 weeks ago
Plus a British tech unicorn, a nuclear energy ticking time bomb and... New Zealand's weird Parliament.
Vitalik Buterin's...
In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism
over a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Encapsulated vs systemic complexity in protocol design
over a year ago
Lars Lofgren
CNN and USA Today Have Fake Websites, I Believe Forbes Marketplace Runs Them
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had...
3 months ago
What if I told you that Forbes Marketplace, the affiliate company operating on Forbes.com ALSO had agreements with CNN and USA Today? And that Forbes Marketplace was stuffing those sites full of affiliate content just like it is with Forbes? And what if Forbes Marketplace went to...
Christian Selig
Using PHPickerViewController Images in a Memory-Efficient Way
PHPickerViewController is (in my opinion) one of the more exciting parts of iOS 14. We developers...
over a year ago
PHPickerViewController is (in my opinion) one of the more exciting parts of iOS 14. We developers now have a fully-fledged photo picker that we can just use, rather than having to spend a bunch of our time creating our own (much like SFSafariViewController did for developers and...
Willem's Blog
Fietselfstedentocht 2017
Cycling the 235KM long Fietselfstedentocht through Friesland
over a year ago
Cycling the 235KM long Fietselfstedentocht through Friesland
Arduino Blog
Kickstart your tech journey, with the new Arduino Plug and Make Kit!
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone....
6 months ago
Hey, creating an IoT device shouldn’t be rocket science. We believe technology is for everyone. That’s why we’ve developed the whole new, beginner-friendly Plug and Make Kit – the easiest way to get started with Arduino! Inside the box, you’ll find everything you need to create...
Louwrentius
The iPad will be the death of Flash
So Apple finally released their tablet computer: the iPad. One of the most
debated drawbacks is that...
over a year ago
So Apple finally released their tablet computer: the iPad. One of the most
debated drawbacks is that it lacks support for Adobe Flash. The iPhone does
not support Flash either, and since the iPad is based on the iPhone OS, this
should not come as a surprise.
Now many people see...
Jonas Hietala
CS:GO AWP Nerf
When this man opens his mouth, truth comes out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsFnJYJ2buU
If I...
over a year ago
When this man opens his mouth, truth comes out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsFnJYJ2buU
If I ever make a game and I want someone to balance it and I had the money, I would hire Thorin.
Notes on software...
The case for comments in code
When I first started programming, especially when asked for code
samples, my comments lacked purpose...
over a year ago
When I first started programming, especially when asked for code
samples, my comments lacked purpose and would often duplicate in
English what the code clearly indicated. I knew that "commenting is
good" but as a beginner I had no further insight.
Over time with the help of books...
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Lobo MAX-80
The Computer Tandy Should Have Built (at least according to the ad).
10 months ago
The Computer Tandy Should Have Built (at least according to the ad).
Home on Erik...
Annoy – now without Boost dependencies and with Python 3 Support
Annoy is a C++/Python package I built for fast approximate nearest neighbor search in high...
over a year ago
Annoy is a C++/Python package I built for fast approximate nearest neighbor search in high dimensional spaces. Spotify uses it a lot to find similar items. First, matrix factorization gives a low dimensional representation of each item (artist/album/track/user) so that every item...
Engineers Need Art
VPX Scripting - Part 4 (Pet Sounds)
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
9 months ago
Teacher's Pet gets new sounds in this post in a series about scripting Visual Pinball tables.
computers are bad
2024-05-15 catalina connections
Some things have been made nearly impossible to search for. Say, for example,
the long-running...
8 months ago
Some things have been made nearly impossible to search for. Say, for example,
the long-running partnership between Epson and Catalina: a query that will
return pages upon pages of people trying to use Epson printers with an old
version of MacOS.
When you think of a point of sale...
Matt Blewitt
Modifying pg_dump To Exclude Event Triggers
At $WORK, we have a case where we have implemented an event trigger to prevent customers from...
6 months ago
At $WORK, we have a case where we have implemented an event trigger to prevent customers from dropping an extension. As this extension is part of contrib and normally installed by users, we can’t prevent them from dropping it normally. However, event triggers can only be created...
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...
a month ago
Why couldn't we roll back? Weren't we concerned about costs? Why is operating Netflix so complicated? Plus many others.
Home on Erik...
Approximate nearest news
As you may know, one of my (very geeky) interests is Approximate nearest neigbor methods, and I'm...
over a year ago
As you may know, one of my (very geeky) interests is Approximate nearest neigbor methods, and I'm the author of a Python package called Annoy.
I've also built a benchmark suite called ann-benchmarks to compare different packages.
Birchtree
The best app for gaming on the Vision Pro will soon be Safari
Andrew Fear writing for the official NVIDIA blog: PC Gaming in the Cloud Goes Everywhere With New...
a week ago
Andrew Fear writing for the official NVIDIA blog: PC Gaming in the Cloud Goes Everywhere With New Devices and AAA Games on GeForce NOW
Get immersed in a new dimension of big-screen gaming as GeForce NOW brings AAA titles to life on Apple Vision Pro spatial computers, Meta Quest 3
csvbase blog
Parquet: more than just "Turbo CSV"
Quicker, but also more convenient
a year ago
Quicker, but also more convenient
Notes on software...
Active and influential NYC infrastructure people
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I...
2 months ago
These are some of the most influential (mostly due to experience or
expertise) and active folks (I actually see them attend events) in the
NYC infrastructure scene (that I have a personal connection to).
If you're running a dinner or are just looking to meet interesting
people in...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of OS/2
Getting a Divorce
a year ago
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Notes on Puzzles
1. I mostly don’t play chess anymore — it’s too addictive, and tends to take over your brain in a...
a year ago
1. I mostly don’t play chess anymore — it’s too addictive, and tends to take over your brain in a way I don’t like — but one habit I’ve retained is solving puzzles.
Louwrentius
Solaris is an obsolete platform
Assuming that the rumor is true and OpenSolaris will be slain by Oracle, we
must conclude that the...
over a year ago
Assuming that the rumor is true and OpenSolaris will be slain by Oracle, we
must conclude that the Solaris operating system is obsolete. Solaris can be
considered legacy. Sun was a hardware shop and to sell their hardware, they
needed a great operating system.
Sun had a great...
Willem's Blog
iPad Pro next to my primary machine
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
over a year ago
Using iPad Pro with Apple Pencil next to my computer to form a create powerhouse
Jonas Hietala
Trying and returning the Eight Sleep Pod 4
I recently bought the Eight Sleep Pod 4—a smart mattress cover that tracks your heart rate, HRV,...
3 months ago
I recently bought the Eight Sleep Pod 4—a smart mattress cover that tracks your heart rate, HRV, snoring, and cools or warms the mattress during the night.
There’s a lot to like about the mattress but in the end I opted to return it.
This post describes my experience with the Pod...
latest projects -...
Motorised Camera Slider
[Hardware] Simple smooth motor mod
6 months ago
[Hardware] Simple smooth motor mod
Arduino Blog
A drone remote designed to enhance magic shows
Maker culture has always been a major part of magic performance. Some tricks are well-rehearsed...
8 months ago
Maker culture has always been a major part of magic performance. Some tricks are well-rehearsed slight of hand, but many of them rely on clever engineering to sell an illusion. And modern technology offers a great deal of interesting possibilities. That is the idea behind Peter...
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.
Willem's Blog
Beast of the Green Hell
Blog post about an amazing AMG Circuit day at the race track of Zolder, Belgium.
over a year ago
Blog post about an amazing AMG Circuit day at the race track of Zolder, Belgium.
Applied Cartography
The taste of beer
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a...
7 months ago
Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.
There’s a relatively famous line from Bezos, circulated first at YC in ’08 and then more recently by the folks at Acquired (a great pod!):
Jeff uses this analogy for AWS. He talks about...
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.
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Acing the coding challenge
How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview...
over a year ago
How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview scenarios, typically a coding challenge is not a…
Applied Cartography
Notes on Zed
I was late to the VS Code zeitgeist, and as penitence I try to go out of my way to try new editors...
10 months ago
I was late to the VS Code zeitgeist, and as penitence I try to go out of my way to try new editors whenever I see them — which is why this morning I installed Zed, which makes its bones on performance (yay!) and teams functionality (irrelevant for my use cases, but seems...
Simply Explained
How I Structure My ESPHome Config Files
I'm a big fan of ESPHome. I have 24 devices running it, and I only buy new IoT devices when I know...
over a year ago
I'm a big fan of ESPHome. I have 24 devices running it, and I only buy new IoT devices when I know they can run ESPHome.ESPHome is a modular firmware that you have to configure with YAML files. You define what components it should load and how it should talk to the hardware of...
Neil Madden
The square roots of all evil
Every programmer knows Donald Knuth’s famous quote that “premature optimization is the root of all...
a month 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...
Good Enough
TIL: Easily Support Gravatars in Rails
We’re building some software where we’d like to display avatars for email contacts
even if they...
11 months ago
We’re building some software where we’d like to display avatars for email contacts
even if they aren’t users of our software.
While Gravatar is a relic of Web 2.0,
we’ve found that there are still a significant number of people who have their
email addresses in that...
./techtipsy
I finally found an use case for my Raspberry Pi Model B+
You have probably heard about the Raspberry Pi. It’s a nice little affordable
single-board computer...
over a year ago
You have probably heard about the Raspberry Pi. It’s a nice little affordable
single-board computer with a huge community using it for all sorts of projects.
I got my first Raspberry Pi, the Model B+,
during my first year at university, which was around the winter of...
Willem's Blog
The best keyboard for iPad
While everybody is raving about the Magic Keyboard there is something to be said for the...
over a year ago
While everybody is raving about the Magic Keyboard there is something to be said for the "mouse-less" Smart Keyboard Folio. Read along for a detailed analyses based on actual iPad use.
Jonas Hietala
2019 in Review
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on...
over a year ago
As is tradition a quick rundown of the year is due. It’s been good to do as it makes me reflect on the past year, and see that I did indeed do some things, and to look ahead a little.
2019 Non-Geek Achievements
Played around with Isidor.
It’s hard to describe how happy a kid can...
Arduino Blog
Speed up your project’s compile time by up to 50% in Arduino Cloud!
At Arduino, we know how precious your time is when you’re building your next big project or...
a month ago
At Arduino, we know how precious your time is when you’re building your next big project or experimenting with new ideas. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce a game-changing update to the Cloud Editor Builder — the engine behind compiling your sketches in Arduino Cloud. This...
Jonas Hietala
Ludum Dare 22 Here I Come
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on...
over a year ago
The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on studying for it, I am now ready to declare my entry into Ludum Dare 22! I’ve been away far too long, with my entries for the 17th and the 20th dare being almost a century away, the...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #46: The transformation of London's skyline, a big week for nuclear, and installing...
Plus how to avoid the road pricing landmine
a month ago
Plus how to avoid the road pricing landmine
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.
Lighthouse Blog
Updates December 15: Rebranding to Lighthouse and complete redesign
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Domains for sale
Contact me at mail at erik bern dot com!
over a year ago
Contact me at mail at erik bern dot com!
Willem's Blog
How to use rsync to make backups
In this post I'll explain how to use rsync to transfer files to another computer system in an...
over a year ago
In this post I'll explain how to use rsync to transfer files to another computer system in an efficient manner, suitable to be used in a backup script.
Neil Madden
CVE-2022-21449: Psychic Signatures in Java
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to...
over a year ago
The long-running BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who has a recurring plot device where the Doctor manages to get out of trouble by showing an identity card which is actually completely blank. Of course, this being Doctor Who, the card is really made out of a special “psychic paper“, which...
Odds and Ends of...
Odds and Ends #49: How bat protection regulations broke Britain's planning system
Plus how Europe isn't *all bad* at growth, why every Netflix film is forgettable, and why you should...
2 weeks ago
Plus how Europe isn't *all bad* at growth, why every Netflix film is forgettable, and why you should visit Jimmy Carter's hometown.
Willem's Blog
Helping people with free software
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
over a year ago
This week I helped a man with repairing and reinstalling his computer with Debian GNU/Linux.
Home on Erik...
In defense of false positives (why you can't fail with A/B tests)
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the...
over a year ago
Many years ago, I used to think that A/B tests were foolproof and all you need to do is compare the metrics for the two groups. The group with the highest conversion rate wins, right?
Home on Erik...
New benchmarks for approximate nearest neighbors
UPDATE(2018-06-17): There are is a later blog post with newer benchmarks!
One of my super nerdy...
over a year ago
UPDATE(2018-06-17): There are is a later blog post with newer benchmarks!
One of my super nerdy interests include approximate algorithms for nearest neighbors in high-dimensional spaces. The problem is simple. You have say 1M points in some high-dimensional space.
Applied Cartography
Notes on Zed, revisited
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a...
3 months ago
A little over six months ago, I wrote Notes on Zed. My conclusion at that time was that Zed made a lot of great choices and felt really good to use, but lacked parity with VS Code's feature/ecosystem to its detriment.
Six months later, I spent a few days using it as my daily...
Vitalik Buterin's...
What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Deep learning for… chess (addendum)
My previous blog post about deep learning for chess blew up and made it to Hacker News and a couple...
over a year ago
My previous blog post about deep learning for chess blew up and made it to Hacker News and a couple of other places. One pretty amazing thing was that the Github repo got 150 stars overnight.
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",),...
Buck on Software
Don't be foie gras
If 2016-2020 was the golden unicorn age of SaaS, 2021 nearly hurtled us into the foie gras* era.
over a year ago
If 2016-2020 was the golden unicorn age of SaaS, 2021 nearly hurtled us into the foie gras* era.
Jonas Hietala
Writing Home Assistant automations using Genservers in Elixir
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its...
3 months ago
I’ve been a fan of Home Assistant a while now;
it’s a great platform for home automation with its beginner friendly and feature rich UI,
support for a ton of different devices and integrations,
and there’s a bunch of ways to create automations.
But there’s no engine for writing...
./techtipsy
Your Wi-Fi might be terrible because of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5...
2 months ago
For a few months, I had issues with my Wi-Fi network. The 2.4 GHz network would be fine, but the 5 GHz one would
suddenly stop working and completely disappear from the available Wi-Fi networks. OpenWRT upgrades also didn’t improve
the situation. This was very annoying.
After...
Willem's Blog
Six months with MCADD
It's six months since our son was born with MCADD, a good moment to reflect upon the experience of...
over a year ago
It's six months since our son was born with MCADD, a good moment to reflect upon the experience of being a parent with some thoughts and tips.
Jonas Hietala
The great Hochstapler
Hey there. A lot has happened lately since my last update and my last game here.
I’m now a pretty...
over a year ago
Hey there. A lot has happened lately since my last update and my last game here.
I’m now a pretty happy student at Linköpings university and I’m reading something similar to Computer Science or Computer engineering, but I guess it’ll become whatever you make it to be. For...
Ian's Blog
Pragmatically Generating a Self-Signed Certificate and Private Key using OpenSSL
Recently I found myself needing to generate a HTTPS Server Certificate and Private Key for an iOS...
over a year ago
Recently I found myself needing to generate a HTTPS Server Certificate and Private Key for an iOS app using OpenSSL, what surprised me was the total lack of documentation for OpenSSL.
While there is plenty of function documentation, what OpenSSL really lacks is examples of how it...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Glue and coprocessor architectures
4 months ago
computers are bad
2024-07-31 just disconnect the internet
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of...
5 months ago
So, let's say that a security vendor, we'll call them ClownStrike, accidentally
takes down most of their Windows install base with a poorly tested content
update. Rough day at the office, huh? There are lots of things you could say
about this, lots of reasons it happens this way,...
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Principles
// This was originally a Google Doc where I gathered hard-won life lessons; eventually I open...
a week ago
// This was originally a Google Doc where I gathered hard-won life lessons; eventually I open sourced it. It got a great response, including a shoutout from Tim Ferriss, so here it is on Substack.
Jonas Hietala
Rising from the Dead, it's Ludum Dare
I’ve been a long time gone, been busy with school then having summer vacation and generally not...
over a year ago
I’ve been a long time gone, been busy with school then having summer vacation and generally not making games or blogging. But I have revived! I scrambled to push my new website live because today it’s Ludum Dare time! The theme is “Evolution” and it’s the 24th time for Ludum Dare...
Willem's Blog
Using Google Free Android
Using a Google Free Android phone is uncommon these days, yet I decided to try the Volla Phone to...
over a year ago
Using a Google Free Android phone is uncommon these days, yet I decided to try the Volla Phone to experience its freedom and privacy.
Notes on software...
Writing a Jinja-inspired template library in Python
In this post we'll build a minimal text templating library in Python
inspired by Jinja. It will be...
over a year ago
In this post we'll build a minimal text templating library in Python
inspired by Jinja. It will be able to display variables and iterate
over arrays.
By the end of this article, with around 300 lines of code, we'll be
able to create this program:
from pytemplate import...
Good Enough
TIL: Turbo Stream and personalised content
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages...
a year ago
Hotwire and Turbo are great for very quickly and easily adding real-time updating of webpages without requiring the browser to reload the whole page.
But if the information you want to stream back from your server to the client has anything specific to the current user — like...
Matt Mullenweg
Falling Snow
The talented Felix Arntz has given an incredible Christmas gift to the WordPress community with his...
a month ago
The talented Felix Arntz has given an incredible Christmas gift to the WordPress community with his fast, light, and accessible Snow Fall plugin, which is live on this site and you can install on yours. I hope everyone is having a happy holidays! Search for “snow fall” in your...
Louwrentius
The ZFS Event Daemon on Linux
If something goes wrong with my zpool, I'd like to be notified by email. On Linux using MDADM, the...
over a year ago
If something goes wrong with my zpool, I'd like to be notified by email. On Linux using MDADM, the MDADM daemon took care of that.
With the release of ZoL 0.6.3, a brand new 'ZFS Event Daemon' or ZED has been introduced.
I could not find much information about it, so consider...
Jonas Hietala
We moved away from the city
When me and my girlfriend Veronica moved to Linköping to study at the University the plan was never...
over a year ago
When me and my girlfriend Veronica moved to Linköping to study at the University the plan was never to stay there permanently. We just moved there to study but the longterm plan, if you can have one at that stage, was always to move back to the north of Sweden where we came...
Vitalik Buterin's...
A Guide to 99% Fault Tolerant Consensus
over a year ago
Notes on software...
Leaders, you need to share organization success stories more frequently
This post goes out to anyone who leads a team: managers, directors,
VPs, executives. You need to...
over a year ago
This post goes out to anyone who leads a team: managers, directors,
VPs, executives. You need to share organization success stories with
your organization on a regular and frequent basis. Talk about sales
wins, talk about new services released, talk about the positive impact
of a...
Louwrentius
The 'hidden' cost of using ZFS for your home NAS
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor...
over a year ago
Introduction
Update December 2023:
In June, it was announced that iXsystems would sponsor implementing the VDEV expansion feature. A new pr has been created for this effort. The feature was merged into the code base, but may not be available to the general public before the end...
Jonas Hietala
A Nice Weekend
I’ve had a pretty nice weekend. On Friday MLG Orlando began and I’ve been staying up to 2 and...
over a year ago
I’ve had a pretty nice weekend. On Friday MLG Orlando began and I’ve been staying up to 2 and sleeping until at least 10 the last days. My inner night-owl is very happy about it, my early-rising girlfriend perhaps not as much, but I think she’s a bit understanding?
On Saturday we...
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to hobby CNC
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
4 months ago
In which the author tilts at windmills for a brief while.
Notes on software...
Responsibility and ownership
Responsibility is only possible by granting ownership and setting
expectations. If you don't turn...
over a year ago
Responsibility is only possible by granting ownership and setting
expectations. If you don't turn over ownership, don't expect folks to
take responsibility. When you grant ownership and set expectations,
you'll be astounded what folks will accomplish without you.
I am astounded.
Lighthouse Blog
Updates December 08: YouTube support
a year ago
Home on Erik...
Black Box Machine Learning in the Cloud
There's a bunch of companies working on machine learning as a service. Some old companies like...
over a year ago
There's a bunch of companies working on machine learning as a service. Some old companies like Google, but now also Amazon and Microsoft.
Then there's a ton of startups: PredictionIO ($2.7M funding), BigML ($1.6M funding), Clarifai, etc, etc.
./techtipsy
My very first Dungeons and Dragons campaign
In December 2024, I did something that I had never done before: I participated in a short (~6 hours)...
2 weeks ago
In December 2024, I did something that I had never done before: I participated in a short (~6 hours) Dungeons and
Dragons campaign.
It was the nerdiest thing ever, and I loved it!
The setting
After another day of keeping a critical production service up, the whole team met up at...
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...
Applied Cartography
Things take time
Things take time.
Nintendo fairly famously was born in 1889, and the modern incarnation — Yamamuchi...
8 months ago
Things take time.
Nintendo fairly famously was born in 1889, and the modern incarnation — Yamamuchi Nintendo & Co., LTD — was established nearly fifty years later, in 1933. They spent forty years selling playing cards, then another decade operating merely as a distributor of...
Birchtree
It's time for some more YouTube videos just in time for the weekend
This behind-the-scenes of one of my favorite 2024 movies was so much fun
Shout out to Truth social,...
a week ago
This behind-the-scenes of one of my favorite 2024 movies was so much fun
Shout out to Truth social, which got called out as having the best UX in this video...which is based on Mastodon
The internet's dad, Hank Green, is starting a new podcast
I'm
Notes on software...
A reawakening of systems programming meetups
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich...
6 months ago
This year has seen a resurgence in really high quality systems
programming meetups. Munich Database
Meetup, Berlin
Systems Group, SF Distributed
Systems Meetup, NYC
Systems, Bengaluru
Systems, to name a few.
This post summarizes a bit of disappointing recent tech meetup
history,...
Avestura's Blog
Creating a Git commit: The Hard Way
Let's create a Git commit using Git's low-level (plumbing) commands
4 months ago
Let's create a Git commit using Git's low-level (plumbing) commands
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Mistakes engineers make in large established codebases
Working in large established codebases is one of the hardest things to learn as a software engineer....
2 weeks ago
Working in large established codebases is one of the hardest things to learn as a software engineer. You can’t practice it beforehand (no…
Arduino Blog
An engineer’s journey to bring the ultimate TMJ pain relief tool to market
To the average person, invention and new product development seem like pretty straightforward...
3 months ago
To the average person, invention and new product development seem like pretty straightforward processes; you come up with a killer idea, do the engineering work to cobble together a working prototype, have a truckload of units manufactured, and then sell those to turn a profit....
Louwrentius
'Linux: show graphical layout of disk temperatures'
graphic, representation
To get a visual representation of hard drive temperatures, I wrote a...
over a year ago
graphic, representation
To get a visual representation of hard drive temperatures, I wrote a small
script. The output of this script looks like this:
This output is tailored to the exact disk lay-out of my storage
server. However, it is also usable for other servers. You have to...
latest projects -...
Talking Tines
[Concept] Tuning forks that talk
6 months ago
[Concept] Tuning forks that talk
Avestura's Blog
How optimistic or pessimistic are the Kurzgesagt videos?
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
a year ago
A sentiment analysis on the last 20 videos of Kurzgesagt.
Ken Shirriff's blog
It's time to abandon the cargo cult metaphor
The cargo cult metaphor is commonly used by programmers.
This metaphor was popularized by Richard...
a week ago
The cargo cult metaphor is commonly used by programmers.
This metaphor was popularized by Richard Feynman's
"cargo cult science" talk with a vivid description of South Seas cargo cults.
However, this metaphor has three major problems.
First,
the pop-culture depiction of cargo...
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...
Arduino Blog
A DIY weather display with dedicated outdoor sensor station
Weather stations are popular projects in the maker community because they’re useful and usually...
7 months ago
Weather stations are popular projects in the maker community because they’re useful and usually quite affordable to construct. But most that we see are really weather information displays that gather data through the internet from stations in the region. That data is fairly...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Degen communism: the only correct political ideology
9 months ago
./techtipsy
Stupid project ideas: the War Machine
LinusTechTips has some pretty great videos about building
insane PC and server setups, such...
over a year ago
LinusTechTips has some pretty great videos about building
insane PC and server setups, such as:
unboxing and deploying petabytes of storage
7 gamers, 1 CPU
building sleeper PC-s
testing sketchy CPU-s
opening up a 100TB SSD
I have the ideas, but not the budget of LinusTechTips, so...
Jorge Arango
Gall’s Law Strikes Again: the Sonos Debacle
Update: in the afternoon of January 14, news emerged that Sonos CPO Maxime Bouvat-Merlin is also...
5 days ago
Update: in the afternoon of January 14, news emerged that Sonos CPO Maxime Bouvat-Merlin is also leaving the company.
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is out, felled by last year’s disastrous app launch. I have no inside track on what happened, but from what I’ve read, Sonos’s leaders...
Vitalik Buterin's...
Epochs and slots all the way down: ways to give Ethereum users faster transaction confirmation times
6 months ago
Arduino Blog
Arduino IDE 2.3.3: discover new support for shared spaces and more!
We’re excited to announce that the Arduino IDE 2.3.3 is now live! What’s in the new version This...
3 months ago
We’re excited to announce that the Arduino IDE 2.3.3 is now live! What’s in the new version This new release is packed with improvements, including one feature we’re particularly proud of: support for shared spaces in Arduino Cloud. If you have a Cloud Business plan or School...
Home on Erik...
Exploding offers are bullshit
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I...
over a year ago
I do a lot of recruiting and have given maybe 50 offers in my career. Although many companies do, I never put a deadline on any of them. Unfortunately, I've often ended up competing with other companies who do, and I feel really bad that this usually tricks younger developers...
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...
Jonas Hietala
The current Cybershard layout
This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and...
a month 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...
Good Enough
TIL: Merge nested attributes in Rails permit params
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting...
a year ago
I am working on a new product that's a bit more complicated than our prior releases.
Getting refamiliarized with nested parameters in Rails has been interesting.
In this case imagine I have a discussion that, when creating it I also want to create the first comment.
The...
lcamtuf’s thing
Random objects: Guycot & Jarre
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
7 months ago
Early repeating handguns, or another unnecessary excursion into the bowels of history.
./techtipsy
Whacky setups: seedbox on a wall
The Orange Pi Zero is one hell of an SBC. It has served as
a Wi-Fi access point for months without...
over a year ago
The Orange Pi Zero is one hell of an SBC. It has served as
a Wi-Fi access point for months without issues
and as a testbed for playing around with MySQL.
I wanted it to be a useful device again, but had trouble finding an use case for it due to its hardware limitations.
After...
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...
Good Enough
Pika: Start Your Happy Blog
Have you thought about starting or restarting a blogging habit? Have you wanted to write on the...
11 months ago
Have you thought about starting or restarting a blogging habit? Have you wanted to write on the internet, but at your own place and at your own address rather than on a social network? Have you been overwhelmed by the online writing options that you’ve found? Well, have we got...
Louwrentius
Got myself a Norco RPC-4020
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion....
over a year ago
I've got this fetish for storage. So I bought a case that gives me some room
for future expantion. The current 6 TB RAID 6 storage server does not have any
room for expantion.
This Norco RPC-4020 case with 20 hot swap drive bays does however. Don't know
what to fill it with yet.
Computer Ads from...
Plus Post: Rockwell AIM 65
The Company Rockwell International has been around for quite a while. Willard Rockwell started the...
8 months ago
The Company Rockwell International has been around for quite a while. Willard Rockwell started the company in 1919 to sell a newly designed truck axle bearing. Over the years, Rockwell acquired businesses in many different fields, including defense, industrial electronics,...
Louwrentius
Linux Software RAID benchmarking script
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use...
over a year ago
Just a small post.
To benchmark your Linux software RAID array as setup with MDADM, please use my
new benchmark script. I used this script to create these results.
You may need to configure some values within the header of this file to make
it fit your enviroment.
...
Lighthouse Blog
Deep dive into finding RSS feeds
a month ago
Posts on Made of...
Computers can be understood
Introduction This post attempts to describe a mindset I’ve come to realize I bring to essentially...
over a year ago
Introduction This post attempts to describe a mindset I’ve come to realize I bring to essentially all of my work with software. I attempt to articulate this mindset, some of its implications and strengths, and some of the ways in which it’s lead me astray.
Software can be...
Jonas Hietala
Where's Teddy?
So I did this course Game Design and what’s a course on Game Design without a game? Well, here it...
over a year ago
So I did this course Game Design and what’s a course on Game Design without a game? Well, here it is. Made in about seven days (more likely eight) and I thought it became quite cool.
Where’s Teddy?
How to Play
Your mission is to find teddy and his teddybear friends. The...
Willem's Blog
Fighting backscatter spam at server level
Deal with backscatter spam by implementing a stringent SMTP delivery policy at MTA level.
over a year ago
Deal with backscatter spam by implementing a stringent SMTP delivery policy at MTA level.
Jonas Hietala
Bullets and AI
The game is still far from being an actual game but some progress has been made. I fixed most of the...
over a year ago
The game is still far from being an actual game but some progress has been made. I fixed most of the collision detection problems and I’m now trying to make some sort of AI working for the ship. It’s a bit hard and time consuming and I don’t know how to make things good.
Maybe...
Good Enough
TIL: Overriding Permalink Generation in FriendlyId
FriendlyId is a helpful Ruby gem that streamlines
creating permalinks and slugs for Rails...
4 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...
latest projects -...
LED Matrix Earrings
[Hardware] Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow dot-matrix LED
11 months ago
[Hardware] Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow dot-matrix LED
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...
over a year ago
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...
Notes on software...
Notes from Neal Gabler's Walt Disney
Disney was a celebrity by his mid-30s, Disney the company was famous
by 1930s.
Even though...
a year ago
Disney was a celebrity by his mid-30s, Disney the company was famous
by 1930s.
Even though politically the 1930s was considered the decade of
Roosevelt (elected President in 1933), culturally the 1930s was
considered the decade of Mickey Mouse.
Almost every new...
Louwrentius
My 71 TiB ZFS NAS after 10 years and zero drive failures
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going...
4 months ago
My 4U 71 TiB ZFS NAS built with twenty-four 4 TB drives is over 10 years old and still going strong.
Although now on its second motherboard and power supply, the system has yet to experience a single drive failure (knock on wood).
Zero drive failures in ten years, how is that...
Willem's Blog
Building a professional 72TB NAS
This month I installed a professional HPE ProLiant DL380p server in a datacenter in Amsterdam, read...
over a year ago
This month I installed a professional HPE ProLiant DL380p server in a datacenter in Amsterdam, read this post to see how this was done!
Jonas Hietala
Focusing Attention: Study Hacking
A week of drawing is over, but I didn’t draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my...
over a year ago
A week of drawing is over, but I didn’t draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my part.
But the past is the past and this week I’m going to be study focused. Not that I need to study, but I really need to rework my study technique. I’ve been going on like a classical...
Computer Ads from...
Comics from 1986/06 Australian Personal Computer Mag
It’s that time of the month. This time let’s look at humor from down under. These comics are from...
9 months ago
It’s that time of the month. This time let’s look at humor from down under. These comics are from the June 1986 issue of Australian Computer magazine. Enjoy! What computer ads would you like to see in the future? Please comment below. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your...
Jonas Hietala
Breaking the rule of three
It’s pretty darn stressful making a game in a week, especially when you have this big great vision...
over a year ago
It’s pretty darn stressful making a game in a week, especially when you have this big great vision on how your game should be (which is always grand). For me making Balls, Black and White and Jonas IceCream Stand where truly stressful, MenuCity and Bugger not so much but...
Louwrentius
Eztables: simple yet powerful firewall configuration for Linux
I've created and released Eztables on Github. Anyone who ever has a need to setup a firewall on...
over a year ago
I've created and released Eztables on Github. Anyone who ever has a need to setup a firewall on Linux may be interested in this project.
It doesn't matter if you need to protect a laptop, server or want to setup a network firewall. Eztables supports it all.
If you're not afraid...
Lighthouse Blog
What I want to achieve with Lighthouse
10 months ago
Louwrentius
HP Procurve "auto DoS" feature causing network problems
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS"....
over a year ago
A feature on more recent HP Procurve models (18xx series, such as 1810G etc.)
is called "Auto DoS". You can find it in the section "Security" and then
"Advanced security".
If you enable the Auto DoS feature, traffic is blocked based on one of these
conditions:
the source port...
computers are bad
2023-01-29 the parallel port
A few days ago, on a certain orange website, I came across an article about an
improvised parallel...
a year ago
A few days ago, on a certain orange website, I came across an article about an
improvised parallel printer capture device.
This contains the line:
There are other projects out there, but when you google for terms such as
"parallel port to usb", they drown in a sea of "USB to...
watchTowr Labs
Veeam Backup & Response - RCE With Auth, But Mostly Without Auth (CVE-2024-40711)
Every sysadmin is familiar with Veeam’s enterprise-oriented backup solution, ‘Veeam Backup &...
4 months ago
Every sysadmin is familiar with Veeam’s enterprise-oriented backup solution, ‘Veeam Backup & Replication’. Unfortunately, so is every ransomware operator, given it's somewhat 'privileged position' in the storage world of most enterprise's networks. There's no point deploying...
Notes on software...
The impact of management teams as a decision-making group, in startups and enterprise
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you....
over a year ago
Ambitious companies form management teams at every level above you,
sometimes including you. Management teams meet periodically and have
private chat rooms. They discuss customers, product and organizational
direction. Sometimes discussions are well documented and...
Louwrentius
An affordable server platform based on server-grade hardware
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true...
over a year ago
Updated post (June 2014) found HERE
There are some reasons why you should consider buying true server-grade harware when building a server, wether it's for home or business use.
This is why I want to introduce you to the Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard.
This motherboard costs...
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...
Jonas Hietala
Rewriting my blog in Rust for fun and profit
Background
I’ve used Hakyll as my static site generator for around 9 years now. Before that I think...
over a year ago
Background
I’ve used Hakyll as my static site generator for around 9 years now. Before that I think I used Jekyll and also more dynamic pages with Mojolicious in Perl and Kohana in PHP, but I can’t be completely sure as the git history doesn’t go back that far.
But all good...
Arduino Blog
This automatic laser turret keeps the cats entertained for hours
Cats may be adorable, but they evolved to be predators. Unfortunately, responsible owners keep their...
3 months ago
Cats may be adorable, but they evolved to be predators. Unfortunately, responsible owners keep their cats indoors to avoid decimating the local wildlife population and that means Mr. Whiskers and Ms. Socks don’t get much opportunity to express their hunting urges. That’s why...
Notes on software...
Interview with the D Language Blog: BSDScheme
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.
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Acing the design interview
If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work...
over a year ago
If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work with a particular web service or…
Arduino Blog
An ultra-affordable DIY underwater ROV
ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) let us explore bodies of water and it is hard not to be excited by...
8 months ago
ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) let us explore bodies of water and it is hard not to be excited by the possibilities. But traditional ROVs cost a lot of money and often require serious expertise to operate and maintain. Luckily there are affordable alternatives, such as this...
latest projects -...
LED Industrial Piercing
[Hardware] Illuminated circuit inside a hypodermic
a year ago
[Hardware] Illuminated circuit inside a hypodermic
lcamtuf’s thing
A 15-minute intro to resin casting
At one point in my life, I penned an epic, 110-page opus on hobby manufacturing.
4 weeks ago
At one point in my life, I penned an epic, 110-page opus on hobby manufacturing.
Vitalik Buterin's...
How will Ethereum's multi-client philosophy interact with ZK-EVMs?
a year ago
Vitalik Buterin's...
Don't overload Ethereum's consensus
a year ago
Applied Cartography
Notes from May
Lots of writing this month:
Why you should use Rails
A reminder that things take time
How...
7 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...
Posts on Made of...
Testing and feedback loops
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about...
over a year ago
Testing and feedback loops This post tries to set out one mental model I have for thinking about testing and the purpose testing serves in software engineering, and to explore some of the suggestions of this model.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I think a lot about working in...
Jonas Hietala
Good and Bad Programmers
Every now and day blog posts about what it takes to be a good programmer or how you figure out if...
over a year ago
Every now and day blog posts about what it takes to be a good programmer or how you figure out if someone is a bad programmer arrives. There’s always talk about how you find the good programmers in interviews and the topic is always hot in schools and universities.
Today I read...
Jonas Hietala
Jonas IceCream Stand
Ahoy there! This time I’ll take you along for a ride with an arty Tycoon game.
Jonas IceCream...
over a year ago
Ahoy there! This time I’ll take you along for a ride with an arty Tycoon game.
Jonas IceCream Stand
Instructions
It should be pretty self-explanatory, it’s a very simply tycoon game.
Credits
Music:
Eric Maskol
Steve Chatterton
Sound effects:
freesound
Rest:
Me
Home on Erik...
Learning from users faster using machine learning
I had an interesting idea a few weeks ago, best explained through an example. Let's say you're...
over a year ago
I had an interesting idea a few weeks ago, best explained through an example. Let's say you're running an e-commerce site (I kind of do) and you want to optimize the number of purchases.
Let's also say we try to learn as much as we can from users, both using A/B tests but also...
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240102
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
a year ago
Some stats, updates, and whatnot
Arduino Blog
Discover #Virgil: history comes to life with Arduino
We’re excited to introduce #Virgil, an innovative project that combines the power of Arduino...
2 months ago
We’re excited to introduce #Virgil, an innovative project that combines the power of Arduino technology with a passion for history, creating a groundbreaking interactive experience for museums. Using Arduino’s versatile and scalable ecosystem, #Virgil operates completely...
Willem's Blog
Optical vs chest strap heart rate monitors
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness...
over a year ago
Understanding the differences in common HR monitors used in wearables, smartwatches and fitness trackers
Jonas Hietala
Early Christmas Present
School is almost over and it’s almost time to travel back up to Övertorneå. This year me and...
over a year ago
School is almost over and it’s almost time to travel back up to Övertorneå. This year me and Veronica opened our Christmas presents a bit early - we’re impatient like that.
I got one of the best presents yet I think! A Raspberry Pi!
Just look at this bad boy!
She got some...
Louwrentius
Why VMware vSphere replication is changing the game
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller...
over a year ago
If you are running a serious VMware environment, chances are you do have a SAN. Often with smaller setups, many people do employ multiple VMware hosts, but the SAN is a single point of failure.
SANs are often fully redundant devices, with redundant PSUs, storage controllers,...
Birchtree
📕 I recommend: Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
Hey everyone, this post is for everyone, but it’s a part of a new series I’m doing on More Birchtree...
a week ago
Hey everyone, this post is for everyone, but it’s a part of a new series I’m doing on More Birchtree where I review the books and games I read and play in 2025. My movie reviews have been a relative hit on social media for the
Notes on software...
btest: a language agnostic test runner
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian,...
over a year ago
btest is a minimal,
language-agnostic test runner originally written for testing
compilers. Brian, an ex- co-worker from Linode, wrote the first
implementation in Crystal (a compiled
language clone of Ruby) for testing
bshift, a compiler
project. The tool accomplished exactly...
Jonas Hietala
Printing Hextraction for my kids
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with...
11 months ago
A session of Hextraction, a 3D printed board game.
I did it.
I made something actually useful with my 3D printer instead of just tinkering with it.
I printed Hextraction, a very cool 3D printed board game for my kids—and they love it.
Hextraction is a gamified marble run, where...
./techtipsy
Running on fumes
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with...
over a year ago
After a run-of-the-mill Windows BSOD, I was redirected to the UEFI
settings and was presented with this fun little bug:
0GB ought to be enough for anybody.
Electronics etc…
The HP 423A and a Beginner’s Deep Dive into RF Crystal Detectors
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [...
a year ago
MathJax.Hub.Config({
jax: ["input/TeX", "output/HTML-CSS"],
tex2jax: {
inlineMath: [ ['$', '$'], ["\\(", "\\)"] ],
displayMath: [ ['$$', '$$'], ["\\[", "\\]"] ],
processEscapes: true,
skipTags: ['script', 'noscript', 'style', 'textarea', 'pre',...
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240309
Super quick updates
10 months ago
Arduino Blog
Massive tentacle robot draws massive attention at EMF Camp
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control...
7 months ago
Most of the robots we feature only require a single Arduino board, because one Arduino can control several motors and monitor a bunch of sensors. But what if the robot is enormous and the motors are far apart? James Bruton found himself in that situation when he constructed this...
Jonas Hietala
Default audio card in linux
There are a bunch of posts about making your audio work by default in Linux but none that just...
over a year ago
There are a bunch of posts about making your audio work by default in Linux but none that just worked for me.
I had three separate problems:
Getting sound
Playing sound from multiple sources at the same time
Audio card getting different numbers on reboot
Getting sound
Here I...
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...
over a year ago
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...
anderegg.ca
Playing with the Bluesky firehose
Over the weekend I started playing around with Jetstream, a project from the Bluesky team to deliver...
a month ago
Over the weekend I started playing around with Jetstream, a project from the Bluesky team to deliver a JSON based firehose of atproto data. Here’s an overview of the simple project I built with that data.
I was inspired by a post from Simon Willison where he showed off a tool for...
Electronics etc…
Symmetricom 58532A GPS Antenna Supply Voltage Mod
The Symmatricom 58532A
Opening up the 58532A
Voltage Regulation
Result
What about the other 58532A...
10 months ago
The Symmatricom 58532A
Opening up the 58532A
Voltage Regulation
Result
What about the other 58532A variant?
References
The Symmatricom 58532A
As part of a package deal, I got my hands on a Symmetricom 58532A L1
GPS antenna.
Microchip, which acquired Symmetricom in 2013, doesn’t...
Jonas Hietala
Christmas break
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and...
over a year ago
So school is on a break and I welcome it with all of my heart. The semester has been pretty fun and I really enjoy studying here. We had lisp the whole time which is a pretty sweet little language and if you haven’t, give it a shot. Then we had math and I do like math, although I...
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...
over a year ago
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...
Notes on software...
First few hurdles writing a Scheme interpreter
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after...
over a year ago
I started working on BSDScheme last October, inspired to get back
into language implementation after my coworker built bshift, a
compiler for a C-like language. BSDScheme is an interpreter for a
(currently small subset of) Scheme written in D. It implements a few
substantial...
Jonas Hietala
How I made a kick-ass cover for my self-published book
If you want to publish a book, one of the most important things to consider is the cover—after all,...
over a year ago
If you want to publish a book, one of the most important things to consider is the cover—after all, we judge the book by the cover.
And I did it the universally recommended way:
I hired a designer.
Simple, right?
But real talk; it’s not exactly that simple and I did a bunch of...
Willem's Blog
Solo around the Markermeer (211KM)
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read...
over a year ago
This week I took my bike for a long distance (211)KM ride around the Dutch Markermeer, solo! Read along for practical tips for long distance cycling.
Notes on software...
Writing a lisp compiler from scratch in JavaScript: 3. LLVM
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
4. LLVM conditionals and compiling fibonacci
5. LLVM system calls
6. an x86 upgrade
In this post we'll extend the
compiler to emit LLVM
IR as an option instead of...
Style over Substance
Leitz Summicron 50mm f/2 rigid (type 2) lens
My newest lens acquisition wasn’t actually originally on my wishlist. I already had a 50mm Summicron...
over a year ago
My newest lens acquisition wasn’t actually originally on my wishlist. I already had a 50mm Summicron lens, though that was the first generation collapsible model known as a Type 1. This lens has lived on my Leica M3 permanently for the past few years, and I have enjoyed the hell...
Abort Retry Fail
Unboxing New Old Stock Windows 3.11
A Photo Gallery
a year ago
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.
Posts on Made of...
autocutsel
As most of you probably know, X has several different mechanisms for copy-paste, used by different...
over a year ago
As most of you probably know, X has several different mechanisms for copy-paste, used by different applications in different ways. I know some people who use them deliberately, juggling two pieces of text in different clipboards at once, but for me, it’s always just been...
Ken Shirriff's blog
Inside an unusual 7400-series chip implemented with a gate array
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple...
9 months ago
When I look inside a chip from the popular 7400 series, I know what to expect: a fairly simple die,
implemented in a straightforward, cost-effective way.
However, when I looked inside a military-grade chip built by Integrated Device Technology (IDT)4
I found a very unexpected...
Willem's Blog
Using a budget Android as main smartphone
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive...
over a year ago
I switched to Android to find out how good a budget smartphone performs compared to an expensive iPhone.
Abort Retry Fail
Housekeeping for 20240701
Another correction
6 months ago
Posts on Made of...
Property-Based Testing Is Fuzzing
“Property-based testing” refers to the idea of writing statements that should be true of your code...
over a year ago
“Property-based testing” refers to the idea of writing statements that should be true of your code (“properties”), and then using automated tooling to generate test inputs (typically, randomly-generated inputs of an appropriate type), and observe whether the properties hold for...
Jonas Hietala
Drawing a self portrait
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m...
over a year ago
Drawing is hard. I’d like to improve though. Here’s a self portrait I tried to draw in Krita. I’m really slow so I stopped a bit before it really was finished.
Obviously I’d like it to be a bit better, but I’m still a little happy about the glasses and the eyebrows. The mouth...
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...
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...
./techtipsy
Shrinkflation, SanDisk style
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that...
a year ago
2023-02-16 update: this post is not about the “GB vs GiB” issue, or the “lost disk space” that you
notice after formatting the device in an OS. Please read the article in full before
making inaccurate comments online.
For many years, I have used two SanDisk Ultra 16 GB USB flash...
Odds and Ends of...
Nobody knows what the National Data Library is (not even the government)
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
2 months ago
A policy wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Abort Retry Fail
The History of the IBM 5100
IBM's First Personal Computer
a year ago
IBM's First Personal Computer
./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...
Neil Madden
XSS doesn’t have to be game over
There’s a persistent belief among web security people that cross-site scripting (XSS) is a “game...
over a year ago
There’s a persistent belief among web security people that cross-site scripting (XSS) is a “game over” event for defence: there is no effective way to recover if an attacker can inject code into your site. Brian Campbell refers to this as “XSS Nihilism”, which is a great...
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...
./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...
a year ago
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...
Simply Explained
My Sixth Year as YouTube Creator (statistics + retrospective)
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most...
over a year ago
Every new year I reflect on the previous year and set new goals. Last year has been my most successful year on YouTube so far, and I'd like to share some statistics and thoughts. I will also go over how my email newsletter is doing and where I'm headed. And finally, I'll set...
Arduino Blog
Exercise while you game with this interactive treadmill add-on
Motion-based controls for games have been around for decades, but even with the latest generation of...
4 months ago
Motion-based controls for games have been around for decades, but even with the latest generation of virtual reality headsets, gaming is still done with relatively limited movement unless one has access to an expensive VR walking/running setup. As an effort to get more physical...
Engineers Need Art
Offline Advocate
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of...
2 months ago
Digital hoarding as a check against the ephemeral nature of the internet ... and maybe some peace of mind.
Engineers Need Art
Apple Interview (1995)
Recalling my somewhat unusual interview with Apple back in 1995.
over a year ago
Recalling my somewhat unusual interview with Apple back in 1995.
Jonas Hietala
My Minions
So I think I made it! It became a pretty different game from what I set out to create, but I’m glad...
over a year ago
So I think I made it! It became a pretty different game from what I set out to create, but I’m glad with how it turned out.
My Minions
Instructions
Build a pathway and then place objects or release minions on it, everything must be on a path. Place musical objects or make the...
Willem's Blog
Building the blog... in style!
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
over a year ago
Find out if it is possible to turn a computer from the 90s into a modern development machine.
Louwrentius
Understanding Ceph: open-source scalable storage
Introduction
In this blog post I will try to explain why I believe Ceph is such an interesting...
over a year ago
Introduction
In this blog post I will try to explain why I believe Ceph is such an interesting storage solution. After you finished reading this blog post you should have a good high-level overview of Ceph.
I've written this blog post purely because I'm a storage enthusiast and I...
Old Vintage...
The spawn of AtariLab and the Universal Lab Interface
We were a Commodore 64/128 household growing up, and Apple IIe systems at school, but that doesn't...
a year ago
We were a Commodore 64/128 household growing up, and Apple IIe systems at school, but that doesn't mean I was unaware of Atari 8-bits. There was a family at church who had an 800XL and later a 130XE — and a stack of COMPUTE!'s I used to read through for hours — and it was...
Neil Madden
Towards a standard for bearer token URLs
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include...
over a year ago
In XSS doesn’t have to be Game Over, and earlier when discussing Can you ever (safely) include credentials in a URL?, I raised the possibility of standardising a new URL scheme that safely allows encoding a bearer token into a URL. This makes it more convenient to use lots of...
Matt Blewitt
Table Stakes
This is a short post on what I see are table stakes for any new user-facing service, security-wise....
over a year ago
This is a short post on what I see are table stakes for any new user-facing service, security-wise. Mostly focused on user-focused, rather than intra-service, considerations.
Birchtree
Ghostty is the hot new terminal and it’s out now
Ghostty is a hip new terminal from Mitchell Hashimoto, who he described in October’s Ghostty 1.0 Is...
3 weeks ago
Ghostty is a hip new terminal from Mitchell Hashimoto, who he described in October’s Ghostty 1.0 Is Coming:
With Ghostty, I set out to build a terminal emulator that was fast, feature-rich, and had a platform-native GUI while still being cross-platform. I believe Ghostty 1.0...
Vitalik Buterin's...
[Mirror] Central Planning as Overfitting
over a year ago
seangoedecke.com RSS...
MCTS and LLMs: what's the big deal?
Everyone on the internet is recently very excited about large language models and Monte Carlo tree...
7 months ago
Everyone on the internet is recently very excited about large language models and Monte Carlo tree search. Going back months, the “Q*” leak…
Arduino Blog
Boring rice cooker becomes uruchimai powerhouse
Rice cookers are staple appliances in about half of the world and basic models are very affordable....
6 months ago
Rice cookers are staple appliances in about half of the world and basic models are very affordable. But those are simple machines that are about as “dumb” as electric kettles. The result is often rice that has been sitting in the warming stage for too long, making the bottom...
Home on Erik...
Missing the point about microservices: it's about testing and deploying independently
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the...
over a year ago
Ok, so I have to first preface this whole blog post by a few things:
I really struggle with the term microservices. I can't put my finger on exactly why. Maybe because the term is hopelessly ill-defined, maybe because it's gotten picked up by the hype train.
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...
Notes on software...
Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go: 3. indexes
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions...
over a year ago
Previously in database basics:
1. SELECT, INSERT, CREATE and a REPL
2. binary expressions and WHERE filters
4. a database/sql driver
In this post, we extend gosql
to support indexes. We focus on the addition of PRIMARY
KEY constraints on table creation and some easy...
Applied Cartography
Au revoir, Invoke
It's not quite interesting or noteworthy enough to warrant a full-on essay, but yesterday we...
8 months ago
It's not quite interesting or noteworthy enough to warrant a full-on essay, but yesterday we unshipped the last remaining Invoke commands and ported them over to just.
I think Invoke is a good, cool project, and I wish it well. If you're at the precise intersection of "you have...
lcamtuf’s thing
Random objects: Intel Edison
A glimpse of the missteps of x86 in the embedded world.
7 months ago
A glimpse of the missteps of x86 in the embedded world.
Louwrentius
Did you know that RDP is as insecure as telnet?
Microsoft developed the remote desktop protocol in order to allow remote GUI-
based access to hosts....
over a year ago
Microsoft developed the remote desktop protocol in order to allow remote GUI-
based access to hosts. It is easy to pick on Microsoft and I do respect what
they have accomplished, however, it may not come as a surprise that they did
it all wrong with RDP in terms of security.
By...
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...
Abort Retry Fail
The History of Slackware
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
a year ago
The Oldest Surviving Linux Distribution
Jonas Hietala
Done this, done that. What now?
Finished and uploaded our java game Grand Thief Arto, done an exam (didn’t quite go as intended) and...
over a year ago
Finished and uploaded our java game Grand Thief Arto, done an exam (didn’t quite go as intended) and starting some new courses in school. I’m liking my choice of Computer Science more and more. Data structures and Algorithms was a super fun course, I actually ordered a new book...
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...
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...
seangoedecke.com RSS...
Building LLM-driven agents
If you want a large language model like GPT-3 to perform a task for you, the simplest way is to just...
a year ago
If you want a large language model like GPT-3 to perform a task for you, the simplest way is to just ask it. Writing out a single prompt…
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...
2 months 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...
Louwrentius
Why I bought a digital projector (Panasonic PT-AT5000E)
I don't have a TV. I haven't been watching TV for more than 10 years. But I love to watch movies or...
over a year ago
I don't have a TV. I haven't been watching TV for more than 10 years. But I love to watch movies or great series like Dexter and Game of Thrones. Until recently, I watched movies or series on my 27" iMac. Twenty-seven inch is large for a computer screen but for a TV, it's quite...
Computer Ads from...
Sundial Systems' Relish
The Premier Workplace Shell Calendar, Phone Book, To Do List, and Program Runner, too
3 months ago
The Premier Workplace Shell Calendar, Phone Book, To Do List, and Program Runner, too
Posts on Made of...
Systems that defy detailed understanding
Last week, I wrote about the mindset that computer systems can be understood, and behaviors can be...
over a year ago
Last week, I wrote about the mindset that computer systems can be understood, and behaviors can be explained, if we’re willing to dig deep enough into the stack of abstractions our software is built atop. Some of the ensuing discussion on Twitter and elsewhere lead me to write...
Applied Cartography
Applied Cartography × Val Town
Had a blast live-coding some experimentations with Steve and Shovel yesterday using Val Town. (If...
2 months ago
Had a blast live-coding some experimentations with Steve and Shovel yesterday using Val Town. (If you haven't used Val, well, watch the stream — think live, zero-deploy code snippets that can be arbitrarily extended and executed.)
Reflecting on the experience, the most exciting...
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!
Construction Physics
How Good Are American Roads?
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
a month ago
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
Notes on software...
A minimal distributed key-value database with Hashicorp's Raft library
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure...
over a year ago
When I wrote the "build a distributed PostgreSQL proof of
concept" post I first had to figure out
how to use Hashicorp's Raft
implementation.
There weren't any examples I could find in the Hashicorp repo
itself. And the only example I could find was Philip O'Toole's
hraftd. It's...
Arduino Blog
A pair of Arduino UNO R4 boards power this Tron-inspired, decked-out shop room
Bob Clagett of the “I Like to Make Stuff” YouTube channel has recently undertaken an extensive shop...
7 months ago
Bob Clagett of the “I Like to Make Stuff” YouTube channel has recently undertaken an extensive shop renovation project where he is rearranging tools, tidying up various spaces, and even creating a dedicated “clean” room for his collection of 3D printers/electronics work. With its...
Christian Selig
The Case for Getting Rid of TestFlight Review
I tweeted today about how I think TestFlight review should become a thing of the past and many...
over a year ago
I tweeted today about how I think TestFlight review should become a thing of the past and many developers seemed to agree, but some had questions so I wanted to expand on my thoughts a little.
TestFlight’s awesome. But like App Store submissions, TestFlight betas also require a...
Jordan’s Substack
Coming soon
This is Jordan’s Substack.
2 months ago
This is Jordan’s Substack.
Birchtree
My default apps of 2024
Last year I was the 27th of four hundred and freaking eight people to write about their default...
3 weeks ago
Last year I was the 27th of four hundred and freaking eight people to write about their default apps, and I though it would be fun to turn this into a tradition and revisit the list to see if anything has changed since last year.
✨ next to each change
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.
Louwrentius
Migration from blogger to blogofile and disqus is complete
As stated in my previous post, I migrated all posts from blogger.com to my own host running...
over a year ago
As stated in my previous post, I migrated all posts from blogger.com to my own host running blogofile.
At the time of my previous post, I was not able to restore all comments made on my old blog. Thanks to some help
from disqcus I fixed an error on my behalf and all old comments...
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!
Notes on software...
Interpreting TypeScript
In addition to providing a static type system and compiler for a
superset of JavaScript, TypeScript...
over a year ago
In addition to providing a static type system and compiler for a
superset of JavaScript, TypeScript makes much of its functionality
available programmatically. In this post we'll use the TypeScript
compiler API to build an interpreter. We'll build off of a...
Arduino Blog
Using Arduino UNO to sync a visual neuroscience lab
Common research methods to study the visual system in the laboratory include recording and...
2 months ago
Common research methods to study the visual system in the laboratory include recording and monitoring neural activity in the presence of sensory stimuli, to help scientists study how neurons encode and respond, for example, to specific visual inputs. One of the biggest technical...
Jorge Arango
LLMs Give You Power User Abilities
LLMs are a general-purpose technology with seemingly endless use cases. Among my favorite is...
2 days ago
LLMs are a general-purpose technology with seemingly endless use cases. Among my favorite is unlocking the potential of other technologies.
For example, all modern “desktop” OSs come with shell environments. If you know a bit of scripting, you can automate tasks in ways that go...
./techtipsy
OpenWRT, ISP modem and dynamic IP addresses: how to fix connectivity issues without rebooting your...
My current ISP provides an internet connection over a
copper wire. To use it,
I have a crappy modem...
8 months ago
My current ISP provides an internet connection over a
copper wire. To use it,
I have a crappy modem (Technicolor CGA2121, DOCSIS 3.0). It’s running in bridge
mode,
meaning that all it does is convert the signal running over the coax cable
into plain old Ethernet.
My main...
Notes on software...
Benchmarking esbuild, swc, tsc, and babel for React/JSX projects
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
over a year ago
This is an external post of mine. Click
here
if you are not redirected.
Willem's Blog
Snake '97 High Scores
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was...
over a year ago
Happily accepting the invitation to attend an exhibition of Snake 97 art works in Antwerp. This was totally WOW!
Home on Erik...
The relationship between commit size and commit message size
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's...
over a year ago
Wow I guess it was more than a year ago that I tweeted this. Crazy how time flies by. Anyway, here's my rationale:
When I update one line of code I feel like I have to put in a long explanation about its side effects, why it's fully backwards compatible, and why it fixes some...
Willem's Blog
Saving a MacBook Air with exploded battery
Saving a MacBook Air with a swollen battery pack.
over a year ago
Saving a MacBook Air with a swollen battery pack.
Home on Erik...
Microsoft's new marketing strategy: give up
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to...
over a year ago
I think it's funny how MS at some point realized they are not the cool kids and there's no reason to appeal to that target audience. Their new marketing strategy finally admits what's been long known: the correlation between “business casual” and using Microsoft products:
Jonas Hietala
Reinstalling Slackware
So I reinstalled slackware on my machine and decided to take some rough notes of the most important...
over a year ago
So I reinstalled slackware on my machine and decided to take some rough notes of the most important steps I made. I did not document the steps in detail, and some are very specific for my setup. But maybe it can be useful for someone, or myself.
Basic steps
Make slackware usb...
./techtipsy
Testing a cheap ExpressCard to NVMe SSD adapter on my ThinkPad T430
I stumbled upon this post in /r/thinkpad,
which got my attention. It showcases an ExpressCard to M.2...
over a year ago
I stumbled upon this post in /r/thinkpad,
which got my attention. It showcases an ExpressCard to M.2 NGFF adapter that
they purchased from AliExpress. The adapter has a similar purpose to the one
designed by thinkmods.store, with the added bonus
that it could fit longer NVMe...
Notes on software...
Book Review: ANSI Common Lisp
Score: 4.5 / 5
Paul Graham and his editor(s) are excellent. His prose is light and
easy to follow....
over a year ago
Score: 4.5 / 5
Paul Graham and his editor(s) are excellent. His prose is light and
easy to follow. The only awkward component of the book's organization
is that he tends to use a concept one section before explicitly
introducing and defining that concept. I'm not sure yet if this...
Buck on Software
Winds of Change
Software is maybe, just maybe about to get exciting
7 months ago
Software is maybe, just maybe about to get exciting