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Pseudpocalypse
Here’s a conjecture: If you put any significant amount of text on the internet under different names, those identities can be linked using only the text itself.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 7,740 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
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I'm a USB-C Maximalist
My wife and I recently went on a 7 week holiday around Europe. Although we each took a massive backpack, we wanted to travel fairly lightly. I took a single universal power brick. This little unit was all I needed to charge my various gadgets. It has a hefty USB-C PD (Power Delivery) port for rapid charging of my…
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Punch yourself in the face with reality
Who can punch themselves in the face with reality the most? This is who will win in the age of AI.
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Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks
Last year, my wife and I went on a 5,025 Km Interrail adventure. We got the month-long unlimited pass and saw 10 Countries in 30 Days. That was a bit too intense. So this year we got the 15 travel days in 2 months package. We grabbed the 1st class tickets when they went on sale in December. Here's how our journey…
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Against Usefulness
In a Brooklyn warehouse, a man handed me a piece of paper that was a running computer program.
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How to read more books
My method for reading more
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Networking and the Internet, from First Principles
How electricity, light, and radio move data across independently operated networks.
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My two year old taught me constraint solving
My two-year-old son used a Brio wooden train set to explain constraint solving to his silly Dada.
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Why write code in 2026
A bunch of reasons to write code in 2026
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A love letter to flashcards
A personal reflection on how spaced repetition and hand crafted flashcards helps me to keep understanding alive
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Punk, or why I don't stream anymore
If you’re the sun, I’m a black hole – The Stephen Hawking, Say Anything
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Why do you suck at juggling now?
This is an anecodote that I often think about. It comes up for me a few times a week, whenever I feel really dumb or inept. The story is about juggling but it is really about much more than juggling.
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I think I have LLM burnout
I didn't expect to get so tired of reading LLM output.
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A bug which affected only left handed users
Verily, some of our brethren (and sistren) be afflicted with a sinister disposition. While the righteous scroll using the thumb of their right hand - as is good and proper - an accurs'd minority swing the other way. Look, you try writing an interesting bug report without sounding like a clanker, OK! I try to optimise…
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98% isn't much
98% sounds like a lot. If someone wins the lottery 98% of the times they play, they are clearly blessed. Getting a top mark (e.g.: 10/10) on exams 98% of the time will likely lead to an honour diploma.
256
How to sequence your own DNA at home
I have now sequenced my own genome 5 times with an Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION. This means collecting them from a swab, prepping them for sequencing, running them through a sequencer, then doing analysis over them.
257
Alternate clock designs and time systems
A day has 24 hours in it. That's 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds. If you wonder why Americans don't understand the need for using the metric system then ask yourself why you use this inconsistent time measurement system.
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Learning to code is still worthwhile
Literally no one is uttering what we thought were the immortal lines “learn to code,” right? I don't think that sentence has been spoken for many months now in Silicon Valley
259
Has_not_been_viewed_much
Museum APIs and the art that hasn't been viewed much.
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Completing a computer science degree on Coursera
A short write-up on my experience completing a Computer Science BSc from my bedroom.
261
You need a webring
Yes you! You need a webring
262
Programmers need to start meditating
For over 20 years, the meditative focus of programming has been one of the best parts of my job. Every week I’d spend countless hours in a flow state, which quiets the default mode network. The DMN is responsible for daydreaming/reflection but also rumination/worrying, so quieting it settles your mind. If I didn’t…
263
The bottleneck might be the air in the room
You gather your most expensive people into a room to make your most important decisions. Then, somewhere in the second hour, the room quietly gets worse at making them. Not the people. The room.
264
Maybe you should learn something
You can learn new things. Pixel art, touch typing, 3d modelling, music, calligraphy, wood working, knitting, a language. Whatever is practical and calls to you, you can learn. In the long term, learning new things is fun and makes life richer in ways you can’t even imagine, and it’s a time investment that will pay…
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Synthesis is harder than analysis
Over the years, mathematicians, logicians and computer scientists have developed various calculi. If you have a background in computer science, you’ve likely heard of the lambda calculus, a m…
266
Software, from First Principles
How electrons flowing through billions of microscopic switches etched into silicon become arithmetic, memory, and the software you use every day.
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The difference between "today's task" and "accretive work"
One thing I've learned about paradoxes: often the answer to the riddle of "how can this one thing have such a contradictory set of features and effects?" is "it's not one thing, it's two things*."
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This blog is written in en-GB
Someone left a comment on my blog recently asking if I'd mind making my language more inclusive. They didn't get some of the cultural references I'd used and suggested it would be easier if I used tropes which were more globally known. Here's the thing. No. All my blog posts start with a simple declaration: Copied…
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Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
I am a software engineer, and I used to enjoy arguing with people for technical correctness. Code reviews, design meetings, mailing-list threads, dinner tables. If someone was wrong, I wanted them to know it, and I wanted them to know exactly why. I collected counterarguments the way I collected patches. I believed…