20 random bookmarks

@msfjarvis@androiddev.social's personal link log, mostly revolving around tech and tech-adjacent culture.

2025-09-21

87.

The day Return became Enter

aresluna.org/the-day-return-became-enter

A deep dive into the convoluted and fascinating story of one of the most important keys on the keyboard

2025-08-28

80.

Frame of preference

aresluna.org/frame-of-preference

A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

2025-08-27

79.

Forklifts Require Training

www.zacsweers.dev/forklifts-require-training

Great post explaining how the software engineering industry has been walking into a potential labor collapse by alienating junior engineers.

2025-06-01

75.

How I like to install NixOS (declaratively)

michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2025-06-01-nixos-installation-declarative

For one of my network storage PC builds, I was looking for an alternative to Flatcar Container Linux and tried out NixOS again (after an almost 10 year break). There are many ways to install NixOS, and in this article I will outline how I like to install NixOS on physical hardware or virtual machines: over the network and fully declaratively.

2025-05-26

74.

I made a font

blog.chay.dev/i-made-a-font

A quick look into the process of creating a font.

2025-05-01

71.

Escape (de)Velocity - Artisanal Debugging of Tasks

www.liutikas.net/2025/05/01/Escape-Velocity.html

Debugging Gradle tasks can be challenging, especially when you have no access to tools like Develocity or need to work offline. This post shares a couple of strategies to help you gain more insight into your Gradle build.

2025-04-23

69.

You wouldn't steal a font

fedi.rib.gay/notes/a6xqityngfubsz0f

Or would you?

2025-03-22

66.

When you deleted /lib on Linux while still connected via ssh

tinyhack.com/2022/09/16/when-you-deleted-lib-on-linux-while-still-connected-via-ssh

Some clever tricks you can employ to salvage an essentially un-salvageable machine. I learned a lot of new things from this!

2025-03-01

59.

How CouchDB Prevents Data Corruption: fsync

neighbourhood.ie/blog/2025/02/26/how-couchdb-prevents-data-corruption-fsync

Very neat explanation of how databases work hard to keep your data safe. I was surprised to learn about the failure mode of reading from page cache twice and the database convincing itself that the data has been written out even though it really hasn't.

2025-02-19

56.

Someone has to save the Film and TV that Studios won't

aftermath.site/ricky-jay-defector-archive-preservation

A great interview with Chris Person of Aftermath, who has over the course of the past 2 years has become something of a VHS decoding savant

2025-01-28

50.

DeepSeek: The Greatest Growth Hack of All Times meets its David in a Chinese Quant

centreforaileadership.org/resources/deepseeks_narrative_attack

Great read on the state of the AI industry post the release of DeepSeek R1, which has shattered the idea of AI training only being available to the biggest players in the field.

2024-11-29

43.

hi, i made some frogs for your desktop

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fxw1DqZaYA

Beautifully written and illustrated video explaining shar's journey of creating a frog pond idler game

2024-09-10

30.

You Want My Password or a Dead Patient?

web.archive.org/web/20240910052425/https://cohost.org/mononcqc/post/3647311-paper-you-want-my-p0

A great summary of a paper that analyzed how medical professionals teach themselves to work around security hygiene that prevents them from doing their job. It's a great look into how people working on securing systems often overlook the day to day reality of how these systems are operated.

2024-09-03

29.

Notes on Distributed Systems for Young Bloods

www.somethingsimilar.com/2013/01/14/notes-on-distributed-systems-for-young-bloods

A somewhat dated but still quite useful list of things to look out for when diving into building distributed systems

2024-07-26

22.

Restic Backups on NixOS

www.arthurkoziel.com/restic-backups-b2-nixos

Super simple and straightforward guide to setting up backups on your NixOS machine via https://restic.net

2024-07-06

17.

The history of Git

blog.brachiosoft.com/en/posts/git

Probably the most in-depth history of the events that led to the creation of Git by Linus. Great read!

2024-07-05

14.

Kowloon Walled City: An Illustrated Guide

aftermath.site/kowloon-walled-city-cross-section-illustrated

Kinda wild to me that such a city could ever have existed outside the pages of Science Fiction.

2024-07-04

13.

Generative AI, Which Is The Future Of Art, Cannot Draw A Map Of The United States

aftermath.site/generative-ai-map-of-the-united-states

2024-07-02

11.

On Burnout, Mental Health, And Not Being Okay

ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/on-burnout-mental-health-and-not-being-okay

Just beautifully written. I would recommend reading this even if you are in a good place mentally.

2024-06-09

2.

Stupid Slow | The perceived speed of computers

www.datagubbe.se/stupidslow