Dynamic type systems are not inherently more open
Internet debates about typing disciplines continue to be plagued by a pervasive myth that dynamic type systems are inherently better at modeling “open world” domains. The argument usually goes like this: the goal of static typing is to pin everything down as much as possible, but in the real world, that just isn’t…
Systemd, ten years later: a historical and technical retrospective
10 years ago, systemd was announced and swiftly rose to become one of the most persistently controversial and polarizing pieces of software in recent history, and especially in the GNU/Linux world. The quality and nature of debate has not improved in the least from the major flame wars around 2012-2014, and systemd…
Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
Fish market favourites such as orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among the species of fish and invertebrates in rapid decline around the world, according to new research.
“Why Using WhatsApp Is Dangerous“
A few months ago I wrote about a WhatsApp backdoor that allowed hackers to access all data on any phone running WhatsApp [1]. Facebook, its parent company, claimed at the time that they had no proof the flaw had ever been used by attackers [2]. Last week it became clear that this backdoor had been exploited to extract…
Over 400 vulnerabilities on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip
Over 400 vulnerabilities on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip threaten mobile phones’ usability worldwide With over 3 billion users globally, smartphones are an %
Elixir 1.11
Elixir v1.11 is out with improvements to the compiler and tighter integration with Erlang/OTP.
We abused Slack's TURN servers to gain access to internal services
Slack's TURN server allowed relaying of TCP connections and UDP packets to internal Slack network and meta-data services on AWS.
Atlassian moving to cloud-only, will stop selling server licenses
Plan your move to cloud with confidence, thanks to new innovation on cloud, new cloud deployment options, and hybrid deployment experiences.
My least favorite Rust type
Idx is typically an integral type, but you can make a Range of anything, which will become important later. Here’s a range of Unit:
Please Fund More Science
Experts on the COVID-19 pandemic seem to think there are three ways out—that is, for life, health, and the economy to return roughly to normal. Either we get a vaccine good enough that R0 for the...
GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark
If you hate it too this is why. Using color theory to show why GitHub dark mode is disappointing
My Eight-Year Quest to Digitize 45 Videotapes
My journey to create a YouTube of memories from my family’s old home videos.
How I operated as a staff engineer at Heroku
I was incredibly lucky to spend 5 amazing years at Heroku. By the end of my time, I was operating in a Staff capacity, although I’m honestly completely uncle...
Doing stupid stuff with GitHub Actions
TL;DR: DevOps doesn't have to be all work and no play. I built 5 stupid (but fun!) GitHub actions... because why not ?
Why are we so bad at software engineering?
From XKCD, released under the Creative Commons 2.5 License An app contributed to chaos at last week's 2020 Democratic Iowa Caucus. Hours after the caucus opened, it became obvious that something had gone wrong. No results had been reported yet. Reports surfaced that described technical problems and inconsistencies…
Lenovo to Certify ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation Portfolio for Linux
Lenovo is moving to certify the full workstation portfolio for top Linux distributions from Ubuntu® and Red Hat® – every model, every configuration.
Firefox 79
Firefox 79 offers a new Promise method, more secure target=_blank links, logical assignment operators, tooling improvements for better JavaScript debugging, and many other updates of interest to web developers. In ...
SQLite 3.32
A complete list of SQLite releases in a single page and a chronology are both also available. A detailed history of every check-in is available at SQLite version control site .
How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup
Canny recently hit a major revenue milestone: one million dollars in annual recurring revenue. Here's how we built a $1m ARR SaaS startup from the ground up.
I can't keep up with idiomatic Rust
Recently withoutboats posted a series of blog posts about some syntax sugar he would like added to Rust.
People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige
What does it look like to be obsessed with success and prestige? Imagine a guy who starts many endeavors and side projects just because he wants to be known as the creator of something. Or someone who builds another social app, not because he has an unique problem that's unaddressed, but because he wants to be the…
Why I Quit Using Google
So I was recently asked why I prefer to use free and open source software over more conventional and popular proprietary software and services. A few years ago I was an avid Google user. I was deep…
Flatpak: A security nightmare – two years later
Flatpak - a security nightmare