Words and Buttons...
Words and Buttons Online: current hiatus and future plans
Hello! I’m Oleksandr Kaleniuk. I do Words and Buttons Online. Just not too often lately.
Last night...
2nd Jul 2026
Hello! I’m Oleksandr Kaleniuk. I do Words and Buttons Online. Just not too often lately.
Last night reminded me that I probably owe my subscribers a “still alive” message. Literally still alive. So here it is. I’m still alive.
As for the site, I haven’t written a new piece for...
Words and Buttons...
Gauss–Seidel visually explained
An interactive demo of the Gauss-Seidel method for solving linear equation systems. When and why...
21st Sep 2025
An interactive demo of the Gauss-Seidel method for solving linear equation systems. When and why does it work? And why, when you flip the equations, it suddenly stop working? You can now play and see.
Words and Buttons...
Why learn about the golden-section search
An interactive demo of bisection search and golden ratio search algorithms. There is also a...
29th Jun 2025
An interactive demo of bisection search and golden ratio search algorithms. There is also a motivation to learn them both. Spoiler alert! One converges better, and the other has a better computational cost.
Words and Buttons...
A smooth and sharp image interpolation you probably haven't heard of
An image interpolation that gives us a continuous and smooth image, where every interpolated value...
29th Apr 2024
An image interpolation that gives us a continuous and smooth image, where every interpolated value only depends on the four neighboring pixel values. The image becomes smooth, but sharp features remain sharp.
Words and Buttons...
Rational interpolation
Rational interpolation is a step forward from polynomial interpolation towards rational splines....
5th Mar 2024
Rational interpolation is a step forward from polynomial interpolation towards rational splines. With rational interpolation, you can build functions that run through a set of points and also have vertical asymptotes whenever you want. With this capability, you can now model...
Words and Buttons...
Either your estimates suck or your job does
This page uses polynomial modeling to show why software engineering tasks are often impossible to...
19th Sep 2023
This page uses polynomial modeling to show why software engineering tasks are often impossible to estimate.
Words and Buttons...
Static typing isn’t free. Where do you think the C++ angry mob comes from?
Type inference works like logic deduction so any program in a statically typed language is two...
28th Jun 2023
Type inference works like logic deduction so any program in a statically typed language is two programs. The first one is the thing you sell, and the second – is a model that undergoes some sort of verification every time you run a compiler. This second program, although, often...
Words and Buttons...
[Renovated] Even if you can't write assembly like a poet, you can read disassembly like a hunter
This is a very concise introduction to x86 disassembly. It shows that you probably have all the...
3rd Mar 2023
This is a very concise introduction to x86 disassembly. It shows that you probably have all the skills to start reading disassembly right now even if you thought it was too complicated for you. It really isn't, see it for yourself.
Words and Buttons...
Why did I write Geometry for programmers
This is not an interactive page, it has zero didactic value. It does explain why Words and Buttons...
29th Dec 2022
This is not an interactive page, it has zero didactic value. It does explain why Words and Buttons has been stagnant for a while though. I have been writing a book. Why? Well, visit and see.
Words and Buttons...
Check if your performance intuition still works with CUDA
An interactive quiz about microoptimizations in CUDA. 10 rounds, two pieces of code per each, you...
1st Jun 2021
An interactive quiz about microoptimizations in CUDA. 10 rounds, two pieces of code per each, you get to guess which is the faster.
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