Tech

The Digital Archaeological Dig I recently assisted a friend with a codebase that felt like a digital archaeological dig—a chaotic mixture of Python versions and conflicting modules. The modern instinct was to upload the lot to an LLM to “fix” everything. The result was absolute carnage. No version control or history meant “editing on master” in real-time. More time spent reversing AI “improvements” than fixing the original bug. A stark reminder: tools are getting smarter, but engineering discipline is becoming a rare commodity. The Return of the Artisanal Mess This mirrors the “artisanal” FrontPage websites of the late 90s. A lower barrier to entry does not guarantee higher quality output. ...

Whether it’s the cadence of a score, the logic of a codebase, or the spoken word, language is the ultimate “human” terrain. I’ve been fortunate to work across the globe. Outside of local food and drink, language remains the primary metric for how a culture operates. It is their conceptual framework and their historical documentation. I initially feared AI would sanitise this beauty. I thought effortless translation would lead to a “lossy” compression of culture, flattening the landscape. Instead, I’m seeing the opposite. ...

OpenBSD and Me OpenBSD holds a place near and dear to my heart. Back in the Air Force, I deployed some of the first Snort sensors in 2003/2004 to detect network traffic. I quickly became engrossed with the elegance and simplicity of OpenBSD’s build system and ongoing maintenance. I wish I could dig back through my early eBay purchases and find the little Compaq machine that powered my first home server install. In my dorm room, I built my first PF firewall and router to practice network configurations. After spending all day working on Sidewinder firewalls and Cisco gear, I was blown away by what I could accomplish with a $200 computer and some persistence. ...

There’s something delightfully analog about growing up before smartphones. We don’t have TikTok timelines or Instagram reels of high school. Our memories live on dusty Hi8 and DV tapes, glitchy, lo-fi fragments from a time before social media ruled our lives. Back in Latimer, Mississippi, our English teacher Vadis Perkins, a true visionary, gave us the green light to launch a morning news show at St. Martin High. She handed us a makeshift newsroom: a few camcorders, some clear tape, and a ton of enthusiasm. We recorded, spliced, and narrated, one linear edit at a time. ...

I’ve been a loyal follower of Nokia’s mobile innovation journey for years, starting with the Nokia N800 and every subsequent device. Before Android fully established itself, Nokia’s Linux-based devices offered a genuinely geek-friendly alternative. I fondly recall a time in Tel Aviv when I used my N900 to SSH into a server and fix a config file while riding in a taxi—those were magical moments! Over the years, I’ve kept up with the evolution of Nokia and Jolla devices, purchasing each new iteration. While I’m still waiting on my Jolla Tablet, I was excited to grab the Jolla C2 after its launch under Russian ownership. Living in the US meant shipping it to my EU office first, but I was eager to give it a try. ...