Article: 14 min

This article discusses combining memory safety and sandboxing in a C/C++ implementation called Fil-C, specifically focusing on porting OpenSSH's seccomp-based Linux sandbox code to Fil-C.

• Memory safety vs. sandboxing are orthogonal concepts.
• Examples of memory safe but not sandboxed: pure Java program with file access vulnerabilities.
• Examples of sandboxed but not memory safe: assembly program with revoked capabilities and potential memory safety bugs.
• Best practice is to combine both for enhanced security.

Article: 20 min

The article discusses a technique for creating closures in C using Win32 window procedures, enhancing the standard WNDPROC prototype by adding an extra context argument. It explores methods to allocate executable memory and build a trampoline function that wraps around the original WNDPROC, allowing direct access to program state through the fifth parameter of the window procedure.

• Allocating executable memory using GNU-styled toolchains and COFF format

Article: 19 min

This post is a collection of various lists, notes, and personal preferences from Anthony Bourdain, covering topics such as TV series, films, music, hotels, food, and more.

• Lists of things Bourdain no longer has time or patience for, nice views he enjoys, TV series he would watch if trapped on a desert island, an untitled film he envisions, objects of desire, guilty pleasures, and favorite New York sandwiches.
• References to specific titles such as 'The Wire', 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', 'Ashenden' by Somerset Maugham, 'Agents of Innocence' by David Ignatius, etc.

Quality:
The content is presented in a personal and anecdotal style, but remains factual.

Article: 12 min

Susam Pal shared a Mark V. Shaney Junior program, a minimal Markov text generator inspired by the 1980s version. The program was trained on his blog posts and pages, producing amusingly incoherent but entertaining gibberish.

• Simplified approach to Markov chains
• Exploratory programming for recreation
• Generated text examples from various sources

Quality:
The article provides clear and concise information about the program, its purpose, and examples of generated text.

Article: 19 min

The author discusses their experience using Gleam for Advent of Code and shares insights on why they found it a suitable language for the event. They highlight features like clean syntax, helpful compiler, good error messages, strong functional programming nudges, and an excellent editor experience.

• Gleam's clean syntax and helpful compiler
• Ease of use for functional programming
• Strong list toolbox functionality

Article: 23 min

A large-scale analysis by IPinfo revealed that 17 out of 20 popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers do not route traffic through the countries they claim to support. The study found discrepancies between claimed locations and actual exit IPs across 137 possible exit countries, with some providers claiming over 100 countries but only supporting a fraction of them.

• 17 out of 20 popular VPNs were found to exit traffic from different countries than they claim.
• Some providers claim support for over 100 countries, but only a fraction of these are supported in reality.
• IPinfo's ProbeNet was used to measure the actual exit IPs and compare them with provider claims.

Quality:
The article presents factual information and analysis without advocating for a specific viewpoint.

Article: 3 min

This document describes an implementation of the J programming language in C, aimed at readers familiar with both J and C. It provides a detailed guide on interpreting sentences, displaying results, comparing values, and working with nouns and verbs within the J dialect.

• J Dictionary
• Interpreting a Sentence
• Displaying Results
• Comparative Analysis

Article: 38 min

The article discusses the 'cat gap', a period in the fossil record where there are few cat or cat-like species fossils found in North America, approximately 25 million to 18.5 million years ago. The cause of this gap is disputed and could be attributed to factors such as climate change, habitat changes, hypercarnivorous trends among cats, volcanic activity, evolutionary dental morphology changes, or van der Hammen cycles.

• Nimravids, large cat-like animals, were extinct in North America during this time.

Quality:
The article provides a detailed analysis of the 'cat gap' and its possible causes, supported by multiple references.

Article: 1 hr 12 min

The article provides an extensive history of the rise and development of computer games, focusing particularly on adventure games. It traces their origins back to a text-based game created by Will Crowther for time-sharing systems at BBN in 1975, which was later expanded upon by Don Woods. The article also discusses the commercialization of these games through entrepreneurs like Scott Adams and his Adventure series, as well as the development of more sophisticated adventure games such as Zork by Infocom. It highlights the role of graphical interfaces and the transition from text-based to graphical games in the 1980s.

• Don Woods' expansion and commercialization of the game through various platforms
• Scott Adams' Adventure series, which made adventure games popular on personal computers

Quality:
The article provides a detailed and comprehensive history of computer games, with extensive references to support its claims.

Article: 27 min

Twilio Segment moved from a microservices architecture back to a monolithic one due to issues with complexity, velocity, and operational overhead. The transition improved developer productivity, simplified testing and deployment processes, and made scaling the service easier.

• Microservices initially helped isolate destinations but led to complexity issues.
• Velocity and operational overhead increased as the number of services grew.
• Transitioning to a monolithic architecture simplified codebase management and reduced operational costs.
• Improved developer productivity with fewer repos, easier testing, and deployment processes.