I like Go. I think it is a reasonable good language, and has some good qualities that makes up for its flaws. However, this doesn't mean I think the language couldn't be better, far from it. This blog post is a list of things that I miss from Go from other languages. Some of the things here could probably be implemented soon, some other would...
I like Go. I think it is a reasonable good language, and has some good qualities that makes up for its flaws. However, this doesn't mean I think the language couldn't be better, far from it. This blog post is a list of things that I miss from Go from other languages. Some of the things here could probably be implemented soon, some other would...
One flat white, please. I sometimes order food, too; a warm croissant or fruit. I sit down at a table and take out my book from my backpack, the book I packed the previous day. Sometimes, I have two, if I am on the cusp of finishing one of them. I recline back in the chair in which I am sitting, open to the last page I was reading. This page is...
Websites that use well-defined URL structures are easier for me to navigate. When I use a site enough, I can remember specific paths, infer the structure of a site so I can find the page to which I want to go, and more. Some affordances of clean URL design, such as ease of navigation, can be implemented directly on the page – for example,...
In the “How to build a search index in Python” tutorial, we walked through how to build a search index in Python. This index, when queried, gives equal weights to all words that you use in your query. Thus, you can retrieve documents that contain words, but the documents are not ordered in any way. Once you have a search index, the next step is...
In this guide, I walk through how to build a query language in Python. No required knowledge of query languages is required to follow this guide. You will find this article easier to understand if you have some knowledge of trees. This guide should get you set up with all the information you need to make your own query language. With that said,...
Many widespread internet protocols were written at a time when internet security wasn’t much of a consideration. From things like lack of From address verification in email to NTP reflection there are lots of protocols that are now considered badly designed. When they were authored there was a lot of implicit trust (For example because there were...
This morning I was pondering one of the anti-Israel protesters’ favorite phrases—I promise, out of broad philosophical curiosity rather than just parochial concern for my extended family’s survival. “We’re on the right side of history. Don’t put yourself on the wrong side by opposing us.” Why do the protesters believe they shouldn’t face legal or...
In the world of software engineering, we often glorify elegant algorithms and clean code. Yet, there’s a fundamental truth that frequently goes unacknowledged: the superiority of well-designed data structures over clever code. This principle, often attributed to Linus Torvalds, deserves far more attention than it typically receives.
How should we defend those people who have done great work that has inspired us, when they stand accused?
This is my Bear Blog theme. Modified from Archie with my own color scheme and tweaks. It is supposed to evoke coffee stained parchment vibes. Theme last modified 1 week, 4 days ago @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Fira+Code:wght@100;200;300;400;500;600;700;800;900&display=swap'); :root { --width: 900px; --font-main:...
Casey Newton on Platformer: X Is Just a Political Project NowThe Trump years were characterized by constant (and almost totally baseless) criticism on the part of Republicans that platforms had abandoned their political neutrality to promote Democrats. During those years, had Mark Zuckerberg hosted a friendly interview with Joe
You are flawed, and so am I. We carry our defects of character into fatherhood. But there's hope.Before we get kids, it's easier to ignore some of these flaws. People who care about us might give us feedback, but it's nothing compared to the feedback from a child.Kids mirror our repeated behaviors.Be generous around your son, and you will witness him being generous in turn. Show repeated impatience and expect your daughter to do it,...
Forman Acton’s book Numerical Methods that Work describes Chebyschev polynomials as cosine curves with a somewhat disturbed horizontal scale, but the vertical scale has not been touched. The relation between Chebyshev polynomials and cosines is Tn(cos θ) = cos(nθ). Some sources take this as the definition of Chebyshev polynomials. Other sources...
I’ve officially worked as a software developer since August 2016, and by now I have a fair share of stories to tell from those years. But those are stories for another time. Today I’d like to focus on where it all got started. The early days I never considered myself good with computers, or a nerd, or anything like that during my childhood. All...
My “quirk” on this blog years ago was the fact that I, an Apple fan, would try using Android and Windows devices for extended periods and share my thoughts on those products. Whenever I tried to go all-in on one of these other companies’ products, I’
In this paper, I examine connections between the speech acts of assertion, denial, polar questions and justification requests, and the common ground. When we pay attention to the structure of norms governing polar questions, we can clarify the distinction between strong and weak denial, together with the parallel distinction between strong and...
A deep dive into how I automated my now page on my personal website by creating a Go script and making use of GitHub Actions.
I have been writing a test suite for Knowledge Graph Language (KGL), a concise syntax for querying knowledge graphs. My test suite ensures that, given a specific input, the language execution engine returns the correct response. Specific functionalities are tested, too, such as data imports and class methods that allow someone to manipulate a...
When I was re-designing my website, I put a lot of thought into the content section. I wanted to ensure my content was as readable as possible for as many people as possible. This meant that I wanted to design a default experience that adheres to design best practices. The design also had to be accessible, which would ensure that those using...
Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 3 — Caprock Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Frontend took ill with a bad case of JavaScript fever at the worst possible moment. The predictable consequence is a web that feels terrible most of the time, resulting in low and falling use of the web on...
for a cleaner, better internetAdvertisementsWe hate them. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. What if you had a personal ad block server, with which you could... Protect your entire network from malware ridden sites Block ads in apps and websites, on all your devices, no extra configuration Have faster network performance...
Within a few hours of tickets going on sale for Relay's 10th anniversary live show last year there was a discussion in the Discord about ways to say what seats we had so other people could see who they're sitting next to[1]. So I got on it. NoteThe domain (lodon.lol) redirects to the GitHub repo now, I won't be renewing it. The first step was to...
This is part of my series on the This is part of my series on the scientific methodscientific method, but it's a bit of a tangent, an interlude if you will, so I'm not giving it a number. As you will see, that will turn out to be metaphorically significant. I'm writing this because my muse Publius raised the problem of infinity in comments on earlier installments in this series, and so I thought it would be worth discussing why these are..., but it's a bit of a tangent, an interlude if you will, so I'm not giving it a number. As you will see, that will turn out to be metaphorically significant. I'm writing this because my muse Publius raised the problem of infinity in comments on earlier installments in this series, and so I thought it would be worth discussing why these are...
I'm no wiser than last year, but at least I know a few more things.
Humans are controlling animals. They try to shape everything to their liking. The environment, themselves, and the people around them. Especially their offspring, whether they admit it or not. As new dads, we are well-intended but naïve. We believe we will always manage to control what we say and how we act around our kids. We think it is possible always to give a good example.Foolishness! Real life is messy, and kids grow like a patch of fresh dirt: one can sow grass...
Kind of Bloop is getting a surprise vinyl reissue for its 15th anniversary, the weird little chiptune album that changed my life.
I, like Jim, am also a keen(ish) golfer. Let me tell you about Golf: it’s one of the most over-engineered sports — quite possibly the most — out there. If you, like Jim says, watch the plethora of videos on social media you will almost certainly make golf not just more expensive, but also a joyless pursuit for yourself. I went down the...
AI Scientist is a groundbreaking system that automates the entire process of machine learning research, from generating novel ideas to producing publication-ready papers. This innovative tool represents a significant leap forward in leveraging AI to accelerate scientific discovery and push the boundaries of what’s possible in machine learning.
Substructural logics are non-classical logics weaker than classical logic, notable for the absence of structural rules present in classical logic. These logics are motivated by considerations from philosophy (relevant logics), linguistics (the Lambek calculus) and computing (linear logic). In addition, techniques from substructural logics are...
I don't know if this is just something that got me by surprise or not, but boot.kernelPackages option does not receive a derivation like most other packages, but instead receives a function and returns an attribute set with all packages. Here is the documentation: This option allows you to override the Linux kernel used by NixOS. Since things...
I don't know if this is just something that got me by surprise or not, but boot.kernelPackages option does not receive a derivation like most other packages, but instead receives a function and returns an attribute set with all packages. Here is the documentation: This option allows you to override the Linux kernel used by NixOS. Since things...
Growing up as a kid in rural Bavaria, I always dreamed of moving to the US to run a startup. Many kids in my generation shared that dream. To me, it felt like the only way to combine my two greatest passions: coding and building things. As I got older, I became disillusioned with the narrative surrounding Silicon Valley. The hockey stick growth,...
In response to my Ask the Website Maker blog post, a reader asked about my Moments of Joy series, curious about what moments I include, whether any moments are unpublished, and how I write the notes. That question inspired this blog post. In Februrary 2023, I blogged one of, if not the first, of my “Moments of Joy” blog posts. I ended the blog...
’Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style… Wait… that’s a Taylor Swift lyric. This blog post is about a different kind of style: CSS styles. (Long-time readers, please disregard that this is the second blog post in which the topic is style and I referenced a Taylor Swift song.) fLaMEd fury asked a thought-provoking question on...
We're excited to announce that "Drupal CMS" will be the official name for the product developed by the Drupal Starshot Initiative. The name "Drupal CMS" was chosen after user testing with both newcomers and experienced users. This name consistently scored highest across all tested groups, including marketers unfamiliar with Drupal. Participants...
Want some honesty about how I (mis)spend my time? These days, my daily routine includes reading all of the following: Many of these materials contain lists of links to other articles, or tweet threads, some of which then take me hours to read in themselves. This is not counting podcasts or movies or TV shows. […]
Imagine you’re driving a dirt road and you come to a fork. Which way do you go, left or right? This decision is much easier to make if you’ve been traveling that road for the last hour and you’re sitting there in your truck facing the reality of the decision. You can see the level of wear in each path based on previous treks by others, you know...
Apple today: Developers can soon offer in‑app NFC transactions using the Secure ElementStarting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.So just
I make a lot of personal software tools. One of these is "texttools.py", which is easiest to explain with an image: Paste text in the top box, choose a transform, output appears in the bottom box. I can already do most of these transformations in vim, or with one of the many online tools out there, but I prefer my script for two reasons:...
I had let the original TeeSpring stores I had set up languish, and TeeSpring changed a bunch of stuff that made all of my listings invalid. So I’ve relaunched the storefronts with the original designs, plus some new...
I had let the original TeeSpring stores I had set up languish, and TeeSpring changed a bunch of stuff that made all of my listings invalid. So I’ve relaunched the storefronts with the original designs, plus some new...
I had let the original TeeSpring stores I had set up languish, and TeeSpring changed a bunch of stuff that made all of my listings invalid. So I’ve relaunched the storefronts with the original designs, plus some new...
On a recent trip to the US, I learnt a surprising amount from watching the license plates on passing cars.
FYI This is the second part of our series on redesigning Piccalilli. To get the most out of this article, we recommend you read the first part. After getting through our first sprint we have now completed our second and last sprint of the prototype design phase of our full redesign of Piccalilli. View full size" /> We’ve done the first sprint, so...
PostgreSQL is the unsung hero of database engines, soundly trouncing mySQL in al,ost every aspect. Resources Category Date Link Notes Extensions 2023 pgvector Open-source vector similarity search for Postgres 2016 cstore_fdw a columnar store that supports the ORC format Ports 2024 pglite Lightweight Postgres packaged as WASM for the browser Tools...
In the world of programming, events serve as catalysts for action. Like many languages, JavaScript leverages this concept to execute code in response to specific triggers. Whether a user interaction or a system occurrence, events provide a mechanism to initiate predetermined processes.While the implementation may differ between client-side and
Garbage Collection and Metastability Cleaning up is hard to do. I’ve written a lot about stability and metastability, but haven’t touched on one other common cause of metastability in large-scale systems: garbage collection. GC is great. Garbage collected languages like Javascript, Java, Python, and Go power a big chunk of the internet’s...
I thought today about why I do what I do.When I was a child, I yearned very deeply to be seen and recognized for who I truly was. I didn’t quite realize the cause of this, or reason. I couldn’t have articulated it had I tried. Nevertheless, it was there.However, though I tried desperately, nobody ever saw me or recognized me, and so I grew up...
Other posts in the series include: Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when new installments go live. Complexity Perplexity Carrying Capacity Should This Be An SPA? The Pits Aftermath Last time, we looked at how JavaScript-based web development compounded serving errors on...
In the hours following the release of CVE-2024-38063 for the project Microsoft Windows, site reliability workers and systems administrators scrambled to desperately rebuild and patch all their systems to fix a vulnerability where a specially crafted IPv6 packet can result in remote code execution.. This is due to the affected components...
NOTE: This post was published while Rspack’s latest version was v1.0.0-beta.4. Some details are likely to change as Rspack approaches its 1.0 release. Rspack is a Rust-based alternative to Webpack that promises to be faster and includes a few common conveniences too. After a year of trying, I’ve finally finished converting my two largest Webpack...
The convention in math for writing numbers in bases larger than 10 is to insert capital letters after 9, starting with A. So, for example, the digits in base 12 are 0, 1, 2, …, 9, A, and B. So if you’re familiar with math but not Linux, and you run across the base32 utility, […] The post Math’s base 32 versus Linux’s base 32 first appeared on...
A few high-profile app updates have recently gone down like a lead balloon. I have a lot of sympathy for the developers involved, and today I wanted to explain what I think happened with Overcast specifically.
Imagine you got a job offer from a company but weren’t allowed to start work – or get paid – for almost a year. And if you can’t pass a security clearance your offer is rescinded. Or you get offered an internship but can’t work on the most interesting part of the project. Sounds like […]
John Gruber: Nick Heer on Patreon Creators Paying the Full 30 Percent App Store Rate for New SubscriptionsThe whole notion of a platform like Patreon just doesn’t fit with the App Store’s model of taking a fee out of every single transaction for digital goods