When, in the spring of 2030, he almost incidentally invented the most terrible biological weapon known to humanity it took him about three seconds to realize that should his invention fall into the hands of one of the superpowers -- or into the hands of any common idiot, really -- it could well mean the end of the…
Yesterday I explained how a good background job framework is critical to scaling business applications. Today, meet Faktory. I’ve spent the last six months building Faktory, a new background job system which aims to bring the best practices developed over the last five years in Sidekiq to every programming language…
Write-up of the polygon renderer used for the Mega Drive demo “Overdrive 2”.
Today I put online two diagrams depicting the architecture of the Unix operating system , one for the 1972 First Research Edition and one for FreeBSD, one of its direct descendants. Here are the details on how I created these diagrams.
Google bought the .dev gTLD and Chrome 63 started force-redirecting every .dev domain to HTTPS via preloaded HSTS, breaking local dev setups. Here's why, and …
Trello was so focused on building its free customer base first and monetizing later that by the time it looked to its paid subscribers, it was too late.
How to score a perfect 100/100 on Google PageSpeed with a Middleman static site behind Nginx.
For the distinct purpose of getting a job in tech, side projects are either a great use of your time or a great waste of your time.
Building your own UNIX shell in parts. This post focuses on the semantics of the fork system call.
Omar Metwally, MD University of California, San Francisco DDASH – Ethereum Operating System for Knowledge Creation and Sharing ============================================= Github repo…
Fully reproducible builds are important because they bridge the gap between auditable open source and convenient binary artifacts. Technologies like TUF and Binary Transparency provide accountability for what binaries are shipped to users, but that’s of limited utility if there is no way (short of reverse engineering)…
This was a busy week, I had no time to read anything new, so I'm sharing a note that I wrote for myself, for no other reason than to understand things better. It's a kind of cookbook of various "transformations" you can apply to...
I'm killing Disqus comments on my blog. Here's why.
I happen to be going through a very productive time right now. I’m working on a project that I’m very excited about, and the threads are all coming together to create a very satisfying tapestry.
Update: Precision 7520 and 7720 available as of March 28; Dell Precision 5720, a 27” All-in-One available as of April 18. Today I am excited to announce the next generation of our Ubuntu-based Pre…
In his most in-depth interview, Naval Ravikant discusses reading, happiness, decision making, habits, the meaning of life, and Mental Models.
I’m afraid of a robot taking my job. I don’t care about the job part much, I’m afraid of the actual robot. To replace my job it’d need to exhibit human level intelligence. That’s scary. Before that happens though, maybe some of its infantile, and less scary, brethren can make my job a bit easier. […]
I've an unhealthy amount of smart gadgets at home. Enough so that it's worth running an orientation session when friends come to visit. This is what the Alexa does, here's which light switches not to use, don't be scared if the Roomba attacks. That sort of thing. I don't know how long we'll live in this place. It's…
Despite my love for the previous Retina MacBook Pro , I won’t be able to use it forever. The best laptop to ever exist should be in the future, not the past.
Simplex Sigillum Veri
The morning of 6th January 1942 was a going to be a cold one. Not that this was unusual for New York, mused the controller manning LaGuardia’s airport’s tower, but it meant he’d have to remember to wrap up extra warm when he headed home.
The Laziest Programmer - Because someone else has already solved your problem.
I spent a few days a while back in a board meeting for a national astronomy organization and noticed a property of the population in that ro...
