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Snap updates happen without user consent
Recent versions of Ubuntu turned on a particularly annoying feature: intrusive system notifications that warn of the pending update of a Snap managed application. Here’s an example:
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 49,216 posts.
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Booz Allen ticketmastered America’s public lands
An arms dealer makes millions on junk fees from National Parks visitors.
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Roman Egypt was a strange province
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022219 points53 commentscited by 3History & Retro Computing details
Welcome back! We are back from our November hiatus and thus back to regular weekly posts! This week we’re going to answer the runner-up question in the last ACOUP Senate poll (polls in which …
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How to JIT – An Introduction
When I wrote the introductory article for libjit , I aimed it at programmers who know what JITs are, at least to some extent. I did mention what a JIT is, but only very briefly. The purpose of this article is to provide a better introductory overview of JITing, with code samples that don't rely on any libraries.
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The Death of Quanta Magazine
Yesterday Quanta Magazine published an article written by Natalie Wolchover, Physicists Create a Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer . I’m shocked and disappointed. I thought Quanta Magazine was the most respectable source of science news, they have published several quality, in-depth articles in difficult topics. But…
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If PHP Were British (2011)
PHP, as the result of a spectacular error of judgement, appears to be written in US English. How do we developers ensure the traditions of the British Empire continue to be upheld, even in the digital age?
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Understanding Convolutions in Probability
In this post we take a look a how the mathematical idea of a convolution is used in probability. In probability a convolution is a way to add two random variables. Using a slightly ridiculous, mad-science, example we walk through multiple way to compute a convolution and ultimate arrive at the formu
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Experiment with Penrose Tilings and other patterns
Create And Share Mathematical Tiling Patterns
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Hi, hello, I’m back at it
*peeks hesitantly around the corner* Hey everyone. Tomorrow, after almost 7 months of a sabbatical break, I’m resuming regular publication of kottke.org. (Actua
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Hijacking infrared to make a dumb device smart
I own a very old ‘flat’ screen television from 2009. One of the reason this TV is still kicking around is because I have a strange sentimental affection for it. Another is that I have written automation for it that works really well and it would be a pain to migrate away from it.
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Isometric Pixel Art
Intro Isometric pixel art is based on the isometric projection, which is a method for accurately ‘projecting’ 3D objects into fancy 2D. Unlike perspective drawing, there is no vanishing point in isometric projection. Furthermore, the 3 coordinate axis have equal foreshortening, eliminating the need
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Consider Disabling Browser Push Notifications on Family and Friends Devices
A terrible user-hostile browser feature is being misused, surprising no one.
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Company, Team, Self
Back when I was managing at Uber, I latched onto a thinking tool that I drilled into the teams I worked with: reach the right outcomes by prioritizing the company first, your team second, and yourself third. This company/team/self framework proved itself a helpful decision-making tool, and almost always led to the…
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Surely you're publishing, Mr. Feynman
The so called publish-or-perish culture in academia is real. Academics, specially at top-tier Research Universities, have a tremendous pressure to continuously produce publishable results, i.e. results that can be published in good journals and/or conferences. In an ideal world, publishable would be synonymous to…
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The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
It’s been almost two years since my last update here. A lot has happened. I hope you all are continuing to weather the ongoing multiple global pandemics and other anthropogenic crises. Apolog…
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Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
The Estonian government estimates that going digital has saved the state and its citizens, 820 years in time and resources
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Why I am learning category theory
Category theory is a domain of mathematics that exerts a strange influence over programmers. One thing that can be said for sure about category theory is tha...
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The Casino-Chip Society
Why learning to see the layers of money will reveal the politics of 'cashless society', and much more
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Just Say No
Saying yes is easy—at first. It makes you feel better. And it makes you feel like you can do anything! And the person you're saying yes to also gets a happy feeling because you're going to do something for them. Saying no is hard. It's an admission you can't do something. And worse still, you're disappointing someone…
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Quarter-Scale Retrocomputing
Creating a quarter-scale replica of the iconic BeBox computer, complete with blinkenlights and custom case design
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Speeding up the JavaScript ecosystem, one library at a time
Most popular libraries can be sped up by avoiding unnecessary type conversions or by avoiding creating functions inside functions.
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Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (2017)
by James Wallace Harris, Friday, January 6, 2017 I first read The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder just after it came out in 1981, before it won the Pulitzer and National Book awards in 1982. …
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Dynamic types have the potential to be more than "no static types"
They have potential to be more than "no static types", but that hasn't happened.
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Emacs 29 is nigh
Table of Contents Major features Eglot is now part of Emacs core Tree-Sitter is also part of Emacs core Install packages from source with package.el Org mode 9.6 use-package in Emacs core Pure GTK Emacs is here for Wayland! Compile EmacsLisp files ahead of time Native access to SQLite databases HaikuOS support New…
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Working with Tailwind CSS every day for 2 years
For more than two years, I've been using Tailwind CSS almost every working day for company projects and a lot of weekends for my side projects.
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Goodbye, data science
This is more of a personal post than something intended to be profound. If you are looking for a point, you will not find one here. Frankly I am not even sure who the target audience is for this (p…