Matrix

The grid was built for a different era. Massive, centralised plants and long transmission lines made sense when generation was expensive and demand was concentrated. That architecture has a cost: one break in the chain and millions go dark. It is not bad engineering; it is a design that scaled well past its limits. At Blueprint Power, the strategy was simple: push generation and load as close together as possible. Move to the edge. The shorter the distance between where power is made and where it is used, the less you depend on the transmission backbone. The networking mindset was the means, not the message. ...

Not my proudest work, but I needed a quick shell script. I’ve been diving deeper into Matrix bridges lately — those connectors that let Matrix users communicate with other platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, and more. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot about how these bridges are built, deployed, and maintained. The twist? I’m running everything on OpenBSD. Running -current on OpenBSD is great, but it does mean I often need to compile packages faster than the official release cycle provides. That’s where this little helper script came in — a quick way to clone, patch, and compile the Go-based Matrix bridges so they run cleanly on my OpenBSD systems. ...

Why I stopped using Discord for open source and how I bridged IRC into Matrix using Heisenbridge on OpenBSD.

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. ...

I would argue it is pretty sad that the tools needed to abstract the OS from hardware are tied to specific platforms. Companies that pride themselves on delivering “cloud services” without the constraints of operating system force us admin types to have machines we wouldn’t otherwise. Take for example my ESXi cluster in the basement. I have a single XP Virtual Machine who’s sole purpose is to admin vSphere. A company with such a rich history of Linux and OSS support drives me crazy at times. (see also PCoIP support from VMware with their Linux/Mac Client) ...