technology Dear Chinese Hackers How stupid do you think I am? I see you, from the 163data network. It's not that I don't admire your tactics, in fact, I would very much like to know exactly how
programming Bowling Game Kata in ABAP Last month, I wrote about the Bowling Game Kata in Scheme, one of my favorite programming languages. Today, I've like to go through the same exercise in a completely different language: ABAP. In
fiction "Answer" by Fredric Brown Today I read the short story "Answer" by Fredric Brown, and was impressed at how current it still is. Despite it having been written in 1954, it could have been written
python RoboBrowser to the rescue Last week I applied for a new passport at the Dutch embassy. While these cost €64,- and take one to three days to be ready in the Netherlands, outside of the Netherlands,
programming MQTT to Adafruit-IO Adafruit recently opened up a beta for their Adafruit.io IoT Dashboard. This service provides a simple way to aggregate IoT data and create dashboards with various graphs with them. For a good
politics On terrorism and propaganda A few days ago China published their new counter-terrorism law, and ever since the "red scare" propaganda has exploded all over the media. While I try to ignore most of it,
More proof Google has been compromised One of my contacts in the WebID community alerted me to a very troubling proposal from Google, to remove support of the <keygen> HTML attribute, and support for the application/x-x509-*
personal Sleeping in the street I had a very vivid dream last night of the period in my life I was homeless. In fact, it was of the first night I slept in the streets. I've never written
history Reading Update May/June 2015 This update actually covers my reading during both May and June. As mentioned previously, I haven't had the time to write my May update. So it's going to be a rather long list.
personal Chinese Green Card After much trial and tribulation, my application for the Chinese Permanent Residence Permit ("Green Card") has finally been accepted today. This kicks off an investigation that can take up to a
programming Preventing NodeMCU Bootloops I've been playing with the NodeMCU development board a lot over the last couple of days, in particular, communicating with it through MQTT and connecting it to one of those tiny OLED display
javascript Lua Classes While waiting for my NodeMCU development kit to arrive, I've started playing with the Lua programming language a bit. NodeMCU The NodeMCU kit is a development board build around the very popular ESP8266
programming Mea Culpa - Eudyptula I have been neglecting my blog for a while. I have been spending a good deal of my free time on studying the Linux kernel, while working on the Eudyptula Challenge. This is
china Chinese meat pie (牛肉馅饼) During the Dragonboat festival (more commonly known as Zongzi Festival here) we took a family vacation to a countryside "hotel" over the weekend. We've been to the place before and keep
history Reading Update April 2015 1. Takashi Hiraide - The Guest Cat Takashi Hiraide is primarily a poet, and it comes through in this delightful novel. The writing style is terse, I think you could best describe it
internet Refining Internet QoS and A* Search with SunEvet Many of you have been wondering what I've been working on for the past almost one year. Due to legal restrictions (because of the patent filing process), unfortunately, I wasn't able to disclose
china Google must be obeyed Google is really enjoying shooting themselves in the foot in China. In an update to an old post, the following was released: As a result of a joint investigation of the events surrounding
philosophy Reading Update March 2015 1. E. M. Cioran - The New Gods This is a difficult book to read. It's well worth the effort, but is has been a struggle to get through. Cioran is heralded as
fukushima The case of the missing Corium A disturbing new development in the Fukushima Saga came across my desk today. Apparent TEPCO can't seem to find the reactor fuel from the Daiichi Unit-1 ruins. This is bad. When a meltdown
philosophy Waves The First Wave [Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave ], from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, is described as the establishment of a Gemeinschaft [Roughly translated as communityFerdinand Tönnies, Community and Society ]. The Second Wave, from agriculture
fiction Reading update February 2015 1. Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore So far I've only read short stories and novella's by Murakami, this was the first full length novel. It was a little slow reading to
programming Table driven FizzBuzz State Machine This morning I woke up with another implementation for the classic FizzBuzz problem in my mind, a table driven state machine. This is easy to implement, since there are only 15 possible states
Grow update February 2015 If you follow my posts on Google+, you'll probably know I'm currently running an experiment with growing vegetables hydroponically, in my apartment. I thought I'd share a slightly longer status update here for
fiction Reading update January 2015 1. Haruki Murakami - After Dark I don't recall how I came across Murakami initially, possibly through rumors of his nomination for a Nobel Prize for Literature. Regardless, I'm glad I did! The