1771
The short tale of an online scam
How I used Python to get back at an online scammer - and what I discovered in the process
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,497 posts.
1772
Lucky Lotto, chaos engineering but for teams
Building resilience teams with chaos engineering principles.
1773
Download speeds: What Do 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mean?
There are four types of mobile internet connection: 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G. We compare the real-world impact in terms of speeds and download times.
1774
Alcohol, health, and the ruthless logic of the Asian flush
Why did the Asian flush evolve? What does this say about alcoholism? What does this have to do with Odysseus?
1775
Hacking a PC sound card to read temperature and liquid level sensors
Measure with Music: How to Read Analog Sensors Using a PC Sound Card
1776
The most precious resource is agency
I have edited and expanded this in a newer post, you should read that instead: School is Not Enough
1777
Move fast, but understand the problem first
Software engineer, etc etc
1778
Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit
When people call the US Supreme Court "corporate-friendly," it's often hard to know what that means in concrete terms. But here's an example of what it means when the highest court in the land is in the tank for big business.
1779
1970s mainframe RPGs we can no longer play
A blog in which a dedicated addict plays through all PC computer role-playing games (CRPGs), in chronological order.
1780
Lessons from Building a Static Site Generator (2020)
The backstory behind Elder.js and the thinking behind the 5 biggest design decisions.
1781
Black Hat Exploits of the Stupid-Easy 80s
I'm not saying there was no computer security in the 1980's but, wait... Yes. Yes I am.
1782
Software estimation is hard – do it anyway
It’s well established that estimating software projects is hard. This is true, but you should learn how anyway.
1783
Book Review: A Philosophy of Software Design (2020)
View this page on my new site This review is largely in response to the article "It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code", and the ensuing Redd...
1784
Data notation in Clojure
Homoiconicity (code as a data structure) is one of the pillars of the Clojure language. It gives the extensibility and flexibility to the language.
1785
Conspiracy: In Theory and Practice
Would you like to know a secret?
1786
1787
Stepping Back from Speaking
a short post
1788
I loved jQuery, and still do (2019)
In defense of one of the most important JavaScript libraries ever
1789
Learn by reading code: Python standard library design decisions explained
On your Python learning journey, you may have heard that a great way to get better is to read code written by other people. That's true, but finding good code to study is not easy, mostly because the design philosophy and the reasoning behind the code are rarely documented. The Python standard library is special in…
1790
1791
The Connection Machines CM-1 and CM-2 (2015)
Thirty years after its launch in 1987, a CM-2 was acquired by MoMA NY. It is only on display in selected shows - its inaugural exhibit was in " Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959-1989"
1792
Maps Of Matter
Status: Rough working notes – me thinking aloud. Speculative, and likely contains errors, misconceptions, and omissions; thoughtful, informed comments are welcome. Intended for a general scientifically curious audience, not requiring much detailed specialist background.
1793
Building Permanent and Censorship-Resistant Blog with Ethereum ENS and IPFS
The internet nowadays is ephemeral. Layers upon layers of trusted 3rd parties are necessary to distribute content online. It requires ongoing maintenance and is susceptible to censorship or hostile takedowns. In this blog post, I describe the steps I took to host my blog in a trustless, permanent, and…
1794
Shorting Bitcoin
I just bought put options on MicroStrategy ($MSTR) , Coinbase ($COIN) , and Purpose Bitcoin ETF ($BTCC-B.TO) , all at a strike price not far off the current (late June) price, expiring around Christmas. Here’s the thinking.
1795
1796
Incremental note-taking
I’ve been delving deeper into the vast and strange world of knowledge organizing tools (notes apps, contact organizers, personal search engines). During this rather abstract expedition, one of my goals has been to emerge with some opinionated thesis about the way these tools should be designed to harbor and extend our…
1797
We moderns are status-drunk
Twelve years ago I posted on how our era is a rare unique “dreamtime” of fast growth, wide cultural integration, and delusional beliefs.
1798
The 'Fuck You' Pattern
In the software industry, there is a term for intentional designs which coerce the user into doing something, be it consciously or subconsciously - a ‘dark pattern’. These patterns are employed by social media networks, e-commerce, video games, and many more places. I’m coining a new term called the ‘Fuck You’ pattern…
1799
“The Martian” + Starship
“The Martian” by Andy Weir, and its film adaptation directed by Ridley Scott, remain some of my all time favorite science fiction works. Way back in the day I wrote a technical commenta…
1800
The Lightness of Windows
The Windows 11 announcement was fun and interesting, but there is a reason that Windows is no longer the center of Microsoft’s business.