Richard Stallman's response to the Facebook scandal

In an opinion piece in The Guardian, Richard Stallman shares his view on the latest Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook shattered

The last week has been devastating for Facebook, with revelations about the Cambridge Analytica data abuse, but also uncontrolled access...

Orange Pi Zero - $20 single-board computer

The single-board computer space is getting crowded, and Orange Pi is yet another fruit-flavored Raspberry Pi clone, from China based...

Samsung 30 TB Enterprise SSD

Samsung recently announced mass production of a 30.72TB SAS SSD, the PM1643. The drive combines "32 of the new 1TB...

Backblaze Hard Drive Stats for 2017

Backblaze recently published their yearly stats for hard drive failures for 2017. It covers the latest rate of replacement of...

Decorative LED light bulbs

In a quest to create a light-arrangement similar to the photo below, I've tried out a number of LED filament...

Desktop build - an expensive attempt

Planning my next desktop build, here's an attempt at putting together a modern machine that will last. Only problem is, at more then €2000, it's a bit too expensive. Maybe...

Hello World with Docker

Docker is a nice and easy way to isolate and precisely define and execution environment, both for production and testing. The following includes basic setup and start-up steps for few...

DealExtreme orders

Products ordered from DealExtreme over the years. Show item descriptions USB 2.0 to Micro USB Data Charging Cable for HTC / Samsung - White(2M) 15W 4-Port USB Desktop Charger w/...

Review: "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", Yuval Noah Harari

In "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", Yuval Noah Harari sets out to tell the story of Sapiens' early beginnings,...

Historical Cost of Computer Memory and Storage

Following up on the last post, here is the long view of cost of computer storage. In the categories magnetic disks; RAM; and flash / SSD, it plots the cheapest...

Storage prices – end of 2017

HDD Since last year's update, there are a few interesting newcomers in the very large HDD section, including 10 TB...

Getting started with Jenkins plugin development

Getting started with Jenkins plugin development is surprisingly easy. There is neat integration with Maven for building and testing a debug instance, and the build artifact can quickly be installed...

Spain: Political censorship

First they came for the ... The slippery slope of censorship, surveillance and oppression expressed through variations of Martin Niemöller's...

Wired: Mother Earth Mother Board

In a blast from the past, this 1996 Wired article about the intrigues of the underwater optical fiber cable business resurfaced. It's a real long-read about the construction of the...

Review: "Against the Fascist Creep", Alexander Reid Ross

In Against the Fascist Creep (2017), Alexander Reid Ross summarizes the history of the fascist political and cultural movement from...

DIY passive audio mixer

In previous posts, I've mentioned my TB-03 synthesizer and TR-8 drum machine. While both offer analog audio input and output to chain the sound, it gets tricky when trying to...

Hello World with Qt 5

Getting started with Qt development is rather easy. As with other C++ development discussed earlier, all tools and libraries are native in the Debian / Ubuntu repositories. The following packages...

Review: "The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin", Steven Lee Myers

Lee Myers' book is a fascinating and detailed biography of Putin's life; from early childhood in a poor family in St. Petersburg; as a low level KGB officer; a loyal...

C++ and gtest setup

The neat thing about C and C++ on Linux, is that it's very much a native language. It means that compilers, tools and libraries are part of the core repositories,...

QNAP compatible encrypted disks

I've previously written about encryption on the QNAP TS-431P NAS and basic cryptsetup usage. Since then, encryption standards and defaults have changed, and it is now easy to create an...

Review: "Dreaming in Code", Scott Rosenberg

What makes software so hard? Why does it take so long to develop? Why is it always late, always full of bugs, always over budget? In "Dreaming in Code" by...

Ubuntu 16.10 on Asus ZenBook UX330

As mentioned in a previous post, I recently got the Asus ZenBook UX330 (UX330CA-FC020T, to be specific). It's a very...

Review: "Amusing Ourselves to Death", Neil Postman

In "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman, he warns against the perils of television as a communication channel for serious content, and explores why typographic media should be preferred...

How to disable the touchpad while typing

Most modern laptops come with a touchpad for cursor control. It is typically located below the space-bar, which means it's easy to rest your palms on it while typing and...

Linux compatible notebooks and laptops

You'd think that there would be a sizable market for a Linux based laptop, but Microsoft maintains its stronghold, and...

Asus Thinker Board

Asus recently released their single board computer "Thinker Board", modeled on the same form-factor and pin layout as the Raspberry...

Linus: Hash function as identifier vs. crypto security

Linus had an interesting observation last week, after it was announced that collisions could be found for the SHA1 hash algorithm. On the "Shattered" page, they declare that everything is...

Expanding police and surveillance powers across Europe

In January, two interesting and thorough reports on expanding police and surveillance powers across Europe were published: Amnesty International published a 70 page report which summarizes its research into expanding...

808 documentary

As a follow-up to the TR-8 post, here's an interesting and entertaining documentary about the original drum machine TR-808. Featuring...