The Existential Terror of Battle Royale
5.11.2017
It's been a while since I wrote a blog post, I guess in general, but also a blog post about video games. Video games are probably the single thing most attributable to my career as a programmer, and everything else I've done professionally after that. I still feel video games
Hacker, Hack Thyself
2.6.2017
We've read so many sad stories about communities that were fatally compromised or destroyed due to security exploits. We took that lesson to heart when we founded the Discourse project; we endeavor to build open source software that is secure and safe for communities by default, even if there are
Thunderbolting Your Video Card
24.3.2017
When I wrote about The Golden Age of x86 Gaming, I implied that, in the future, it might be an interesting, albeit expensive, idea to upgrade your video card via an external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure.
I'm here to report that the future is now.
Yes, that's right, I paid $500
Password Rules Are Bullshit
10.3.2017
Of the many, many, many bad things about passwords, you know what the worst is? Password rules.
If we don't solve the password problem for users in my lifetime I am gonna haunt you from beyond the grave as a ghost pic.twitter.com/Tf9EnwgoZv— Jeff Atwood
I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream
30.1.2017
There is much I take for granted in my life, and the normal functioning of American government is one of those things. In my 46 years, I've lived under nine different presidents. The first I remember is Carter. I've voted in every presidential election since 1992, but I do not
An Inferno on the Head of a Pin
17.1.2017
Today's processors contain billions of heat-generating transistors in an ever shrinking space. The power budget might go from:
1000 watts on a specialized server
100 watts on desktops
30 watts on laptops
5 watts on tablets
1 or 2 watts on a phone
100 milliwatts on an embedded system
That's
Let's Encrypt Everything
23.11.2016
I'll admit I was late to the HTTPS party.
But post Snowden, and particularly after the result of the last election here in the US, it's clear that everything on the web should be encrypted by default.
Why?
You have an unalienable right to privacy, both in the real world
Your Digital Pinball Machine
2.11.2016
I've had something of an obsession with digital pinball for years now. That recently culminated in me buying a Virtuapin Mini.
OK, yes, it's an extravagance. There's no question. But in my defense, it is a minor extravagance relative to a real pinball machine.
The mini is much smaller than
Can Software Make You Less Racist?
25.8.2016
I don't think we computer geeks appreciate how profoundly the rise of the smartphone, and Facebook, has changed the Internet audience. It's something that really only happened in the last five years, as smartphones and data plans dropped radically in price and became accessible – and addictive –...
The Raspberry Pi Has Revolutionized Emulation
25.7.2016
Every geek goes through a phase where they discover emulation. It's practically a rite of passage.
I think I spent most of my childhood – and a large part of my life as a young adult – desperately wishing I was in a video game arcade. When I finally obtained my driver's
Computer says NO to HTML5 document outline
9.6.2016
What a brilliant idea! For the longest time HTML5 specified, and advised developers, that it no longer mattered what the number (1 to 6) was in a heading element (when used in conjunction with sectioning elements). What mattered was the nesting level of the H1-h6 in sectioning elements, just like...
Computer says NO to HTML5 document outline
9.6.2016
What a brilliant idea! For the longest time HTML5 specified, and advised developers, that it no longer mattered what the number (1 to 6) was in a heading element (when used in conjunction with sectioning elements). What mattered was the nesting level of the H1-h6 in sectioning elements, just like...