BlogDB

Backpack: helm charts but for Hashicorp Nomad

I recently decided to replace my k8s home cluster with a Hashicorp Nomad cluster on my 3 Raspberry Pis. When I was using it, I found myself writing a significant amount of HCL files, and I have bee...

Common Issues With Attaching Huge Capacity Hard Disks To Your Raspberry Pi

Hello, :focus-visible!

Good focus indication has often been neglected. But now we got :focus-visible which you should always implement on your site.

Server Side Includes, the hottest of the web in 1995

Maybe using old tech solutions is not that bad even as late as 2020?

Seeing Like an Algorithm

In my previous post on TikTok I discussed why its For You Page algorithm is the connective tissue that makes TikTok work. It is the bus on its motherboard that connects and closes all its feedback ...

I Want to Fix Goodreads

I use goodreads a lot because I like to read books and want to find more books to read. This morning I was reading a thread on hackernews on Sarah Manavis’s NewStatesman article and it reminds me o...

Cross-platform package.json scripts

Making your project work in all the environments, including Windows, is often desirable for maximum reach of a project.

My Simple Custom Blog Software

My Simple Custom Blog Software The pages on this site are generated by my own primitive blog engine. This post summarizes why I wrote my own, what my priorities for it were and how I went about ach...

Scary Terrorism Math

The August 4th explosions in Beirut were very jarring to me due to the loss of human life, and the numerous, direct videos that looked like something out my 80s youth nightmares. Hearing that it wa...

Guide to Optionals in Java 8

Simulating Solitaire

Like many of us, I’ve been spending the past 6 months living in a frightening emotional rollercoaster. Covid-19 has devastated so many lives, and the extent of the long-term increase in mental illn...

TikTok and the Sorting Hat

I often describe myself as a cultural determinist, more as a way to differentiate myself from people with other dominant worldviews, though I am not a strict adherent. It’s more that in many situat...

Using a GitLab to build a Debian Repository

I have the feeling that a blog post about distributing packages is needed. 😮 In a word filled with Containers, PaaS, and SaaS, it seems weird to talk about how we can automate the creation of Debia...

One-click random password generator

I’m frequently required to quickly get a hold of a random password. I’m either resetting password for a client or I’m testing something and I need a throwaway set of credentials. There are many way...

Web feeds are not dead yet!

I remember using the web feeds (RSS and Atom) in Mozilla Firefox in the early 2000s. It was the time before social networks such as Facebook and Twitter took the web by storm. Sharing, liking, and ...

Defective by Design: Reflected Attacks on Email Privacy using DMARC

Email privacy is dead, confirmed for the umpteenth time. In this post I present the SOILED-PRIVACY attacks (Systemic Online Information Leakage using Email+DMARC against Privacy). These are two ref...

Vim as Python IDE

I’m by no means a Python developer, but as a sysadmin, I’m constantly interacting with Python - my scripting language of choice. My preferred text editor is Vim, which I’ve been using for as long a...

Wayland is Almost There

I finally break down and install wayland on my desktop at home, using sway to replace i3. Things go OK, mostly.

How to make a decentralized like button

All static websites meet a hard limit when a comment form, “like” buttons, or any interactive content is required. These extra components force people to build an API, host a server, a database or ...

Measuring Data Maturity

Lately I’ve been thinking about data maturity models within large organizations, and how to measure maturity and ability to use data. Specifically, what it means to be data literate or data fluent ...