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2026-04-16

• 16:18 UTC Thoughts on the Bluesky public incident write-up – Thoughts on the Bluesky public incident write-up Good post on a classic C10K error scenario -- exhausting the ephemeral port range Tags: ports unix ops sysadmin c10k scaling bluesky outages
• 13:19 UTC Microsoft runs out of capacity, routes requests outside the GDPR region – Microsoft runs out of capacity, routes requests outside the GDPR region Oh dear, this is an absolute GDPR no-no: Apparently #Microsoft is not able to get enough compute within EU datacenters to handle #Copilot requests. Instead, it will do "Flex-Routing", which processes some requests in non-EU datacenters. This is Opt-Out. The only notification was an e-mail to Admins. If they missed that, companies might be leaking PII outside of the EU from tomorrow on. Get your GDPR Nightmare letters ready! Tags: fail microsoft gdpr regulation security copilot eu flex-routing pii privacy

2026-04-14

• 13:09 UTC Lean proved this program was correct; then I found a bug – Lean proved this program was correct; then I found a bug This is IMO very exciting. Formal verification and formally-proven correctness in code using Lean, which was in turn exercised heavily using Claude, which managed to turn up a totally unexpected runtime bug: The positive result here is actually the remarkable one. Across 105 million executions, the application code (that is, excluding the runtime) had zero heap buffer overflows, zero use-after-free, zero stack buffer overflows, zero undefined behaviour (UBSan clean), and zero out-of-bounds array reads in the Lean-generated C code. [...] The two bugs that were found both sat outside the boundary of what the proofs cover. The denial-of-service was a missing specification. The heap overflow was a deeper issue in the trusted computing base, the C++ runtime that the entire proof edifice assumes is correct (and now has a PR addressing). Overall verification resulted in a remarkably robust and rigorous codebase. AFL and Claude had a really hard time finding errors. But they did still find issues. Verification is only as strong as the questions you think to ask and the foundations you choose to trust. Tags: programming coding future lean formal-methods correctness linting bugs zip verification testing

2026-04-13

• 10:19 UTC Measuring bandwidth from a Fire TV stick – I was having some trouble playing files from my NAS using a Fire TV stick which was connected via a couple of hubs and an ethernet switch, so I wanted to double check the connection bandwidth. Here's how to do it from the command line, which is still possible on Android-based Fire sticks. First, enable adb in the Developer Options page in the Fire TV settings page. Then find it's IP address in the network settings page and use: adb connect 10.19.72.182 [permit the adb connection on the TV's dialog] adb shell Shell into the NAS in a window and type: dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=100 | nc -l -p 9999 -q 0 In the adb shell window run: date; time toybox nc 10.19.72.5 9999 > /dev/null ; date That'll result in something like: Sun Apr 12 11:10:10 IST 2026 0m08.92s real 0m00.03s user 0m00.96s system Sun Apr 12 11:10:19 IST 2026 8.92 is the real elapsed clock time to download 100MB of data from the NAS. 100 MB / 8.92s = 11.2 MB/s, or about 89.7 Mbps. 89 Mbps should be enough to handle 4K for most compressed streams -- although I may need to consider switching this to running off wifi to handle newer, bigger files. It may be time to upgrade my wifi setup in that room to fix some latency spike issues.

2026-04-12

• 22:21 UTC The Blockade Is the Message. How a Fuel Price Spike Became a Fascist Audition – The Blockade Is the Message. How a Fuel Price Spike Became a Fascist Audition This is 100% spot on, regarding Ireland's "fuel prices" blockades this week -- There is a particular tell, when a “spontaneous people’s protest” isn’t quite what it claims to be. It isn’t the placards. It isn’t the high-vis vests. It isn’t even the tractors. Ireland has plenty of legitimate reasons to bring a tractor to town, and a country built on agricultural grievance has every right to express it loudly. The tell is something subtler. It’s the moment someone in the crowd, their face contorted with what is supposed to be anger about diesel, screams “What’s a woman?” at a passing TD. Tags: fuel prices cost-of-living demonstrations ireland politics far-right farming blockades
• 15:04 UTC nFolio – nFolio This app does a very decent job of displaying a folder of images from a NAS via DLNA or SMB as a slideshow on an Android or Fire TV; can be set up as the screensaver with a little adb'ing Tags: nfolio screensavers tv video photos family

2026-04-07

• 11:27 UTC Software Licenses and Workers’ Rights · Agent IO – Software Licenses and Workers' Rights · Agent IO Huh, this is a thought-provoking blog post about OSS licensing. It is observably and objectively bad for society when investors own closed-source software. That starts by being bad for tech workers, creators lose the right to the value that they create, and users are still harmed because they don’t get the protection from spying and abuse that open source promised them. [...] The open source movement is a ladder that leans on the wall of users’ rights. We’ve spent forty years climbing that ladder. Where are we now? Our world is controlled by moguls who’ve built empires using open source software that they’ve locked behind proprietary barriers. Those empires exploit workers and harm the users that the open source movement was supposed to protect. Our ladder is leaning on the wrong wall. Tags: open-source closed-source oss licensing freedom software rights
• 10:19 UTC How Do You Find an Illegal Image Without Looking at It? – How Do You Find an Illegal Image Without Looking at It? A very good writeup of how illegal-image detection algorithms like PhotoDNA and PDQ work, and the Hasher-Matcher-Actioner three stage pattern (via Erin Kissane) Tags: csam detection filtering photodna pdq classifiers photos videos classification hashing fuzzy-hashing via:erin-kissane

2026-04-01

• 10:13 UTC OkCupid gave 3 million dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says – OkCupid gave 3 million dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says This is a staggering breach of privacy. At this stage one has to assume that any data uploaded to a US company will be shared with whichever scumbag pays them the most. OkCupid and its owner Match Group reached a settlement with the Trump administration for not telling dating-app customers that nearly 3 million user photos were shared with [Clarifai], an [AI] company making a facial recognition system. OkCupid also gave the facial recognition firm access to user location information and other details without customers’ consent, the Federal Trade Commission said. Tags: us-politics data-protection privacy dating-apps okcupid match.com clarifai ftc

2026-03-27

• 12:35 UTC Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green – Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green Turns out it's US standard Industrial Color Coding, thanks to "color theorist" Faber Birren: With the increase in wartime production in the US during WWII, Birren and DuPont created a master color safety code for the industrial plant industry, with the aim of reducing accidents and increasing efficiency within plants. These color codes were approved by the National Safety Council in 1944 and are now internationally recognized, having been mandatory practice since 1948. The color coding went as such: Fire Red: All fire protection, emergency stop buttons, and flammable liquids should be red Solar Yellow: Signifies caution and physical hazards such as falling Alert Orange: Hazardous parts of machinery Safety Green: Indicates safety features such as first-aid equipment, emergency exits, and eyewash stations. Caution Blue: Non-safety information, notices, or out-of-order signage Light Green: Used on walls to reduce visual fatigue Tags: green design history color-theory faber-birren control-rooms industrial-design color-coding

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