Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 3,290 posts.
I was personally useless for most of the Spring of 2020. There was a period of time, though, after the peak in coronavirus cases here in NYC and before the onslaught of police violence here in NYC that I managed to scrounge up the motivation to do something other than drink and maniacally refresh my Twitter feed. I…
I have a particular view of Python performance from my experience on the Pyston project, and since this view is somewhat nonstandard I wanted to take some time to explain it and give a motivating e…
Apple and Facebook seem like they are in conflict, but have often been each other’s best partners.
Your body requires viruses, but viruses don’t always require a body
A gentle and beginner friendly overview of Rust Ownership Rules
In Bash, there are two closely related "special parameters" for accessing how the current script was invoked: $* and $@ . For both variables, the behavior is affected by whether or not the variable is enclosed in double quotes. The following table summarizes all cases:
(contains amazon affiliate links) I have had repetitive stress injury (RSI) flareups on and off for many years. I’ve kept them under control mostly through use of a Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard that I’ve had for fifteen years. However, several months ago, I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and…
Upon re-reading Mathematical Apocrypha , a collection of tales dealing with great mathematicians as well as their quirks and foibles, I thought about my own interactions with some of The Elders of Mathematics (from here on abbreviated as THEM) and what I would add to such a book. While I have a few interesting and…
Learn how to use OpenCV in the web without a lot of headaches.
Back in August of 2019 I had a Sing-Along Week contest on RetroBattlestations with the challenge of playing a MIDI file synchronized to a speech synthesizer singing the lyrics. In my stash of cards I found an MQX-32M MIDI card (Roland MPU-401 clone) which I wanted to use for converting MIDI signals to interface to an…
Straight talk on Canadian online privacy, open-source software, PIPEDA, browser extension security, and practical tools to protect your personal data.
The impact of PHP 8 on my code
When you own a short email address at a popular email provider, you are bound to get gobs of spam, and more than a few alerts about random people trying to seize control over the account. If your account name is short and desirable enough, this kind of activity can make the account less reliable for day-to-day…
Since the 1940s, electric guitarists, keyboardists, and other instrumentalists have been using effects pedals, devices that modify the sound of the original audio source. Typical effects include distortion, compression, chorus, reverb, and delay. Early effects pedals consisted of basic analog circuits, often along…
AlphaFold from Google DeepMind is said to solve the protein folding problem. What is that, and why is it hard?
I spent 3 years as an analyst in the reinsurance industry. During this time, I witnessed firsthand how Python is driving rapid technological change. (Goodbye, Excel!)
The news has just broken that Google's Authenticator App can have its codes stolen by malware. I doubt Google will ever release a fix for this issue - their 2FA app hasn't been updated since September 2017. Update! 3 months after I published this post, Google updated their app For two-and-a-half years, Google hasn't…
I frequently see debates about whether it's better to be a cog at a giant semi-monopoly, or to take investment money in the hopes of one day growing to be head cog at a giant semi-monopoly.
Compare and Choose the Best Medical Lawyers What are you looking for? Search Search Search More Filters Review Radius Search Miles Apply Filters Reset Filters Find Trusted Medical Malpractice & Birth Injury Lawyers Near You Finding the right legal representation is crucial when dealing with medical malpractice and…
I remember when mosh first came out and thinking "that sounds like a great idea, maybe I'll set it up sometime" and then never getting around to it. Several times over the years I've thought similarly, but it never seemed worth it. A week ago a coworker asked if there were good tools for handling remote terminal use…
The following is a list of many bugs caught on or near leap day, February 29th, 2020. Each link below references the issue with supporting details where available.
The original Roman mile was 1000 paces (milia passuum), or 5000 feet. The modern mile was defined as 5280 feet under Queen Elizabeth at the end of the 16th century in order to reconcile multiple di…
A website with The Big Lebowski quotes was blocked for no reason by Facebook. Looking for justice at a tech company that has automated the…
A lot of tech discussion these days is focused around scaling infrastructures to handle huge traffic. But it's important not to forget how far simple optimizations can go.
