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loccount: A faster SLOC utility

Here’s my first new project in a while – loccount, inspired by David A. Wheeler’s sloccount tool but much faster and with broader language coverage. I actually wrote this as a learning exercise in the Go language. You can find more details in my NTPsec blog post on Grappling With Go. If you like it,… Continue reading loccount: A faster SLOC utility

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Things Every Hacker Once Knew: 1.4

New version 1.4 at: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/things-every-hacker-once-knew/ New content in this one is an expanded section about outboard modems, their descendants in today’s technology, and the curious survival of the Hayes AT command set. I had actually received a couple of previous requests to add material on the Hayes AT convention, but rejected them on the grounds… Continue reading Things Every Hacker Once Knew: 1.4

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Some of my blogging has moved

I’ve been pretty quiet lately, other than short posts on G+, because I’ve been grinding hard on NTPsec. We’re coming up on a 1.0 release and, although things are going very well technically, it’s been a shit-ton of work. One consequence is the NTPsec Project Blog. My first major post there expands on some of… Continue reading Some of my blogging has moved

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My first maker recipe

I’ve been learning more about tinkering with electronics lately, soldering and casemodding and that sort of thing. The major reason for this is NTPsec-related and will be discussed in a near-future post, but here is an early consequence unrelated to that project: Converting a PS/2 TrackMan Marble to USB

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Where your donations go (#1)

Because people do in fact drop money in my PayPal and Patreon accounts, I think a a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that I occasionally update everyone on where the money goes. First in an occasional series, Recently I’ve been buying Raspberry Pi GPS HATs (daughterboards with a GPS and real-time clock)… Continue reading Where your donations go (#1)

The midrange computer dies

About five years ago I reacted to a lot of hype about the impending death of the personal computer with an observation and a prediction. The observation was that some components of a computer have to be the size they are because they’re scaled to human dimensions – notably screens, keyboards, and pointing devices. Wander… Continue reading The midrange computer dies

Too clever by half

The British have a phrase “Too clever by half”, It needs to go global, especially among hackers. It can have any of several closely related meanings: the one I mean to focus on here has to do with overconfidence in one’s intelligence or skill, and the particular bad consequences that can have. It’s related to… Continue reading Too clever by half

SRC 1.0 is released

If you were reading A&D a year ago, you may recall that I invented a new version-control system to occupy an odd little niche that none of the exiting ones serve very well. Well, actually, it’s a shell around a very old version-control system that makes a reasonable fast version-storage manager but has a crappy… Continue reading SRC 1.0 is released

Hieratic documentation

Here’s where I attempt to revive and popularize a fine old word in a new context. hieratic, adj. Of or concerning priests; priestly. Often used of the ancient Egyptian writing system of abridged hieroglyphics used by priests. Earlier today I was criticizing the waf build system in email. I wanted to say that its documentation… Continue reading Hieratic documentation

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I improved time last night

Sometimes you find performance improvements in the simplest places. Last night I improved the time-stepping precision of NTP by a factor of up to a thousand. With a change of less than 20 lines. The reason I was able to do this is because the NTP code had not caught up to a change in… Continue reading I improved time last night

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