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How to test without mocking
Mocking creates false security by testing isolation, not real behavior. Separate business logic from IO, use in-memory DBs, write server-side E2E tests instead.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 49,207 posts.
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The Programmer's Brain (2021)
by Felienne Hermans
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Being laid off and unplanned entrepreneurship
〰️ it’s weird to look back; I sometimes get confused on how I got here 〰️ Most folks dream of being an entrepreneur; “a path that seemed inevitable“, they say. None of that shit applies to me. I’m only here cause I kept getting laid off and that nonsense infuriated me. I treated my first ... Read more
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Don't store your cucumbers in the fridge (2012)
Image courtesy of UC Davis. Photographer: Don EdwardsJust in time for cucumber season, some news that surprises me. Did you know that you should store cucumbers at room temperature?Credit for my enlightenment goes to UC Davis.
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Pop culture has become an oligopoly (2022)
A cartel of superstars has conquered culture. How did it happen, and what should we do about it?
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A long guide to giving a short academic talk (2022)
Giving a talk is a lot like selling a car. Take them for a test drive, don’t read them the owner’s manual.
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The time keepers: pg_cron and pg_timetable
Need to schedule tasks in PostgreSQL? Compare pg_cron for simple in-database scheduling with pg_timetable for complex workflows and multi-cluster orchestration.
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How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
A few weeks ago I was roasting some pumpkin for a delicious soup and towards the end of the cooking time the fan on the oven started into overdrive, making a lot of noise then it started beeping and p…
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Software Friction
In his book On War, Clausewitz defines friction as the difference between military theory and reality: Thus, then, in strategy everything is very simple, but not on that account very easy. Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which…
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OpenBSD, the computer appliance maker's secret weapon
Between our ESP32 prokaryotic organisms and our 24/7 Internet-enabled megafauna servers, there exists a vast and loosely-defined ecosystem of things the B2B world likes to call computer appliances. Picture a bespoke Pi 4 packaged up neatly with some Python scripts, a little fancy plastic embossing, and maybe a…
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I learned Haskell in just 15 years
Haskell is a programming language invented sometime in the 20th century by Scottish logicians as a prank. ¹ Fifteen years or so ago, for reasons I can no longer remotely recall, I started learning Haskell. Now, I have finally written a useful program in Haskell, and I am pretty sure I can do it again, if I ever need…
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They make USB-C cables with displays now
How to turn something as ordinary as an USB-C cable into something that a lot of nerds will want to buy.
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Why Google Takeout is sooo bad
Author: IdeogramAI Prompt: The image shows a typical Google Takeout interface with a large error message indicating that the service is unavailable. In the background, there are frustrated users trying to download their data with unsuccessful attempts, represented by repeated “Failed” and “Retry” notifications. My…
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MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5
This all started from a conversation about the RP2040 MCU, and building a simple desktop/GUI for it. I’d made a comment along the lines of “or, just run some old OS”, and it got me thinking about the original Macintosh .
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First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini
I've owned Starlink Mini for about 6 months, using it for camping, backup internet, and in motion inside my car. Here is my honest review.
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Experts vs. Imitators
Learn how to spot the difference between and expert and an imitator with 5 key tells.
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Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
A blog by Professor Farooq Kperogi about Nigeria, America, politics, education, culture, identity, media, language, English grammar, and much more.
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Why "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" matters (2011)
In 2011, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of MIT, the Boston Globe made a list of the most important innovations developed there. They asked me to explain the importance of SICP, and this is what I sent them:
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Packaging Swift Apps for Alpine Linux
While trying to build my Age Apple Secure Enclave plugin , a small Swift CLI app, on Alpine Linux , I realized that the Swift toolchain doesn’t run on Alpine Linux. The upcoming Swift 6 will support (cross-)compilation to a static (musl-based) Linux target, but I suspect an Alpine Linux version of Swift itself isn’t…
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The Raspberry Pi 5 Is No Match for a Tini-Mini-Micro PC
I've always been fond of the idea of the Raspberry Pi. An energy efficient, small, cheap but capable computer. An ideal home server. Until the Pi 4, the Pi was not that capable, and only with the relatively recent Pi 5 (fall 2023) do I feel the Pi is OK performance wise, although still hampered by SD card performance…
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An interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su about solving hard problems
An interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su about her path to AMD, turning around the chip maker, the AI opportunity, and competing with Nvidia.
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Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest
Kindness beats brilliance in meetings. My Kind Framework for leaders: listen, be respectful, be empathetic and leave every meeting with a solution.
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Simple sabotage for software (2023)
How to sabotage software productivity, in the style of CIA
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The History of DR DOS
The last of Digital Research
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Making my first embedded Linux system
End-to-end documentation of a journey from no PCB experience to fabricating my own Linux-ready system that can boot the latest mainline kernel. This article is the recommended reading for someone building their first embedded Linux board. F1C100s SoC is used for this sample board.
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Hello world in C inline assembly (2018)
A C program that writes "hello, world!" to the console using inline assembly instead of standard library functions, demonstrating direct system call invocation.
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Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)
Final exam from Dr. Stuart Daggett's Harvard economics course on Railroad Practice taught in 1906-07.
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What You Get After Running an SSH Honeypot for 30 Days
Discover what 11,599 SSH login attempts reveal after running a honeypot for 30 days. Learn key cybersecurity insights—read now to protect your systems!
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Reformatting 100k Files at Google in 2011
Laurent Le Brun's blog