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Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week
Last week, a debate flared up on twitter on working hours in academia and there was the claim that it is irrational to work over 40 hours as output actually goes down. I do not believe this claim. …
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Fun vs. Computer Science (2016)
It's not about technology for its own sake. It's about being able to implement your ideas.
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Things that Idris improves things over Haskell
The 1.0.0 of Idris has been released just a few months back, just enough to start trying out the language and some of the possibilities dependent typing offers. But this post is not about dependent…
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Literate SQL
Complex queries are hard to read. Literate SQL is about writing queries that are as easy to read as a good novel.
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My 20-Year Experience of Software Development Methodologies
‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Websites people say have changed their lives
I asked Kottke.org readers if they had ever seen, heard, or read something on the web that literally changed their lives. Fourteen people said no. Sixteen said
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Relicensing the GraphQL specification
Today we’re relicensing the GraphQL specification under the Open Web Foundation Agreement (OWFa) v1.0. We think the OWFa is a great fit for…
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Scaling Postgres with Read Replicas and Using WAL to Counter Stale Reads
Scaling out operation with read replicas and avoiding the downside of stale reads by observing replication progress.
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Apple Power Macintosh G5: Flame On
Let's have a look at the Apple Power Macintosh G5 , a weighty space heater that can also perform computing tasks. So weighty that it crea...
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What I Learned Managing Site Reliability for Some of the Busiest Gambling Sites
tl;dr For several years I managed the 3rd line site reliability operation for many of the world’s busiest gambling sites, working for a little-known company that built and ran the core backen…
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How I Used Deep Learning to Train a Chatbot to Talk Like Me
Can you see the resemblance?
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When did the golden age of The Simpsons end?
It’d be difficult to argue against the fact that The Simpsons isn’t quite the show it once was. Even just a quick glance at the IMDb ratings is enough to see that the show is routinely not hitting the highs it did so regularly in the earlier seasons. I’d suggest...
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50 days of postmarketOS
We are fed up with Android's endless forks! Fifty days ago I have announced postmarketOS, a touch-optimized, pre-configured Alpine Linux , which can be installed on smartphones. It avoids Android's bad habit of forking software for every single device (!) entirely by going the other way around and unifying as much as…
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The CIA's “Development Tradecraft Do's and Dont's”
Useful best practices for malware writers, courtesy of the CIA. Seems like a lot of good advice. General: DO obfuscate or encrypt all strings and configuration data that directly relate to tool functionality. Consideration should be made to also only de-obfuscating strings in-memory at the moment the data is needed…
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Game developer’s guide to graphical projections
Retronator Do It Yourself
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Security Keys
Security Keys are (generally) USB-connected hardware fobs that are capable of key generation and oracle signing. Websites can “enroll” a security key by asking it to generate a public key bound to an “appId” (which is limited by the browser based on the site's origin). Later, when a user wants to log in, the website…
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At Scale, Rare Events Aren’t Rare
I’m a connoisseur of failure. I love reading about engineering failures of all forms and, unsurprisingly, I’m particularly interested in data center faults. It’s not that I delight in engineering failures. My interest is driven by believing that the more faults we all understand, the more likely we can engineer…
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Understanding Git Filter-Branch and the Git Storage Model
The other day Steve wanted git alchemy done on the Rust repo. Specifically, he wanted the reference and nomicon moved out into their own repositories …
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How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job?
There are many ways to evaluate a developer. Should we use quantitative metrics or stick to qualitative ones?
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Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer
You should hire an old programmer. It’s true! Sure.. older programmers are not going to work as many hours as someone fresh out of college. They have kids and spouses and mortgages and softball games to attend. They won't hang out at the office playing Xbox and ping-pong all night. They will not work 80 hour weeks and…
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House Address “Twins” Proximity
In a previous post, I did a bit of analysis of the names of towns and streets . However, that clearly wasn’t enough to sate my bizarre interest in all things address-based, so here I am again with more street-name-based nerdery.