2026-04-15
Immutable Systems: NixOS + systemd-repart + systemd-sysupdate
x86.lol/generic/2024/08/28/systemd-sysupdate.htmlWhen you build software for embedded devices (your Wi-Fi router or home automation setup on your Raspberry Pi), there is always the question how to build these images and how to update them.
2026-04-05
Killing the ISP Appliance: An eBPF/XDP Approach to Distributed BNG
markgascoyne.co.uk/posts/ebpf-bngAn open-source, eBPF-accelerated BNG that runs directly on OLT hardware - eliminating expensive centralised appliances
2026-02-25
Tracking NixOS option values and dependencies | oddlama's blog
oddlama.org/blog/tracking-options-in-nixosThere are thousands of options in NixOS, but as users, we usually only interact with a select few of them. Despite that, a huge amount of those options does influence the final result in some way. Have you ever wondered which of them were actually relevant for your specific system?
Finding the Bottom Turtle · blog.dave.tf
blog.dave.tf/post/finding-bottom-turtleSome reflections on trusting trust, and how deep the rabbit hole goes.
2025-12-17
A security model for systemd
lwn.net/Articles/1042888Poettering said that he does have a vision for how all of the security-related pieces of systemd are meant to fit together. He wanted to use his talk to explain ""how the individual security-related parts of systemd actually fit together and why they exist in the first place"".
2025-07-07
Rewriting Kafka in Rust Async: Insights and Lessons Learned in Rust | Rex Wang
wangjunfei.com/2025/06/18/Rewriting-Kafka-in-Rust-Async-Insights-and-Lessons-Learned#SummaryAchieving high-performance asynchronous Rust projects transcends mere usage of the async/await syntax; it fundamentally relies on a deep understanding of the underlying task scheduling, lock optimization, and architecture design principles.
2025-06-27
How fast are Linux pipes anyway?
mazzo.li/posts/fast-pipes.htmlPipes are ubiquitous in Unix --- but how fast can they go on Linux? In this post we'll iteratively improve a simple pipe-writing benchmark from 3.5GiB/s to 65GiB/s, guided by Linux
perf.
2025-03-19
Comptime Zig ORM
matklad.github.io/2025/03/19/comptime-zig-orm.htmlThis post can be considered an advanced Zig tutorial. I will be covering some of the more unique
aspects of the language, but won't be explaining the easy part. If you haven't read the Zig
Language Reference, you might start there. Additionally,
we will also learn the foundational trick for implementing relational model.
2025-01-22
Building a tiny Linux from scratch
blinry.org/tiny-linuxLast week, I built a tiny Linux system from scratch, and booted it on my laptop!
2024-11-22
Protecting Signal Keys on Desktop
cryptographycaffe.sandboxaq.com/posts/protecting-signal-desktop-keysThis blogpost describes our investigation and proof of concept to enhance the security of Signal Messenger key management on desktop.
2024-11-19
Using Nix to Fuzz Test a PDF Parser (Part One)
mtlynch.io/nix-fuzz-testing-1Fuzz testing is a technique for automatically uncovering bugs in software. The problem is that it’s a pain to set up. Read any fuzz testing tutorial, and the first task is an hour of building tools from source and chasing down dependencies upon dependencies.
I recently found that Nix eliminates a lot of the gruntwork from fuzz testing. I created a Nix configuration that kicks off a fuzz testing workflow with a single command.
2024-10-18
Optimizing Mandelbrot Generation with SIMD
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2024/01/27/optimizing-mandelbrot-generation-with-simd2024-09-12
Computational Journalism | At the Tow Center for Digital Journalism
compjournalism.comThe course is a hands-on, research-level introduction to the areas of computer science that have a direct relevance to journalism, and the broader project of producing an informed and engaged public $100 installment loan. We study two big ideas: the application of computation to produce journalism (such as data science for investigative reporting), and journalism about areas that involve computation (such as the analysis of credit scoring algorithms.)
2024-09-10
What is the best pointer tagging method?
coredumped.dev/2024/09/09/what-is-the-best-pointer-tagging-methodIn this post, we are going to take a deep dive into pointer tagging, where metadata is encoded into a word-sized pointer. Doing so allows us to keep a compact representation that can be passed around in machine registers. This is very common in implementing dynamic programming languages, but can really be used anywhere that additional runtime information is needed about a pointer. We will look at a handful of different ways these pointers can be encoded and see how the compiler can optimize them for different hardware.
2024-09-07
About
www.braggoscope.com/aboutExplore the In Our Time archive.
2024-08-29
Overloaded fields, type safety, and you
educatedguesswork.org/posts/text-type-safetyThe underlying problem we are facing here with all these examples is the same: having the same set of bits which can mean two different things and needing some way to distinguish those two meanings. Failure to do so leads to ambiguity at best and serious defects at worst. That's why you see so much emphasis in modern systems on type safety and on strict domain separation between different meanings.
2024-07-31
Compiler Options Hardening Guide for C and C++
best.openssf.org/Compiler-Hardening-Guides/Compiler-Options-Hardening-Guide-for-C-and-C++.htmlThe Best Practices for OSS Developers working group is dedicated to raising awareness and education of secure code best practices for open source developers.
2024-07-28
Windows Security best practices for integrating and managing security tools | Microsoft Security Blog
www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/07/27/windows-security-best-practices-for-integrating-and-managing-security-toolsWe examine the recent CrowdStrike outage and provide a technical overview of the root cause.