Semi-technical thoughts

It's official, I have corporate sponsors now (which will hopefully be closer to strategic partnership soon, at least I'd like that). Thanks for the steaks and wine and equipment and all other resources for my distributed hacker team (I'm hoping for a cool demo for ETHOnline hackathon), and local Web3 meatup group I facilitate in Tbilisi (steaks and gas money for everyone participating in the ecosystem), and my Web3 community support army in training. A large bag of kudos for our general sponsor: Inference Labs! If anybody needs help onboarding into the decentralised world, reach me privately and we'll help you navigating the options, we have the expenses covered and good people for this (better points of contact are being established, things are being worked on, stay tuned). I should probably tell a few words about what we actually do at Inference Labs but things change so often I hope we're still bringing decentralized AI to the Web3 world when you read this (maybe...

I'm currently in a process of getting access to a multi-GPU cloud instance for zk-verified ML experiments (well, I'm just waiting for the Google guys to process a request and thinking about another blog post and a little infrastructure-related project but mostly trying to clear my head to see strategy). Any interesting results will inevitably be published in the company blog but I just wanted to express how I love this opportunity to play with shiny toys helping meaningful cutting-edge research. I only recently joined Inference Labs, had to catch up on a lot of things and don't have many cool results to show yet but I already feel right at home there with all the support and resources being available to me whenever I need something while not restricting my creative freedom in any way. Well, it helps that I have a long history with some of the guys and also that absolutely everyone is just brilliant, if I had to trust the future of the world to just one team I'd think no...

I originally started this blog with ideas of reviewing devices and services and hoping that eventually if it gets popular enough somebody starts sending me stuff to review. A lot has changed since, I stopped obsessing that much about new gadgets and got into vintage electronics, many of things that were new and interesting a few years ago are a commodity now. I thought about reviewing the phone I finally got to refreshing last year (S23 Ultra is ok upgrade for Note 8, I'm glad that new ultras will finally have flat screen again, I might upgrade next year or so just for that) but I don't really feel like it or think it would mean much for the readers. Most of my vintage electronics is at home where I haven't been for a couple years and it's not something I can currently do something about, I touched a soldering iron like once or twice this year. I might post something work-related once I get the hang of what I'm actually doing there and have some rough ideas wen dece...

A few lives ago I started my professional career by trying to sell custom office software. Having opinions about that kind of stuff I've chosen Python and PyGTK and some NoSQL database library and it's been quite a struggle. In this present moment I live as a digital nomad traveling neutral zones around World War Z and I use many different online services in my professional life and all desktop clients for them are super shitty, starting with google-built web browsers. And whenever I consider building a kind of desktop utility those programs are there's a lot of resistance and comparative lack of tools (in comparison with what web backend context provides). And a lot of primary consumers for some of those services (think collaboration services) are educated, experienced, and opinionated folks like myself. Perhaps there's profit in coding desktop linux software again? And combined with my backend proficiency I could be weird full stack dev services developer... I should ...

It's starting to happen more and more often to me. I'm trying to use some service and all of a sudden I see an error page, sometimes a custom one but more often generated by cloudflare or a similar service, with error message effectively saying that IP addresses from Russia are banned on the service. And what is even more interesting, most of this services don't have any particular policy reasons not to allow Russian users, it's not not like they are publishing prescribed materials or doing anything interesting whatsoever. A payment processor, a popular online course provider, some random forums and information sites, one site with educational videos that I like (that one is especially funny because I'm banned from the subscription page and so can't pay them but their cdn does't care and I can actually download any video I want). But why does it happen? Is there some recommendation in some popular security guideline "block Russia, Cambodia, and Afghan...

If you own a Bluetooth A2DP headset and any kind of personal computer, good chance is you tried connecting them together. Isn't it nice to watch movies and listen to music free from cluttering wires? Well, good chance is you hated that experience and if that was the reason for buying the headset, you might've even considered throwing it away (or using it only with your phone). Why do they suck so much? Everything points to the fact that it's not a hardware problem. The same headset most likely will work flawlessly paired with an android device or even the same computer under a different operating system (windows users report huge difference between, like, 8.0 and 8.1, and not in favor of the latter, surprisingly, I think only mac users report good stuff about their macbooks and beats although I didn't try it myself so they might all be faking it :) ). And most likely it's not even the drivers or other low-level stuff, android and desktop linux has mostly the same ...

Sorry, it's not a complete instruction, just a thought. It occurred to me (some time ago) that Python's virtualenv is, essentially, a simplified version of system "prefix", it has bin, lib, include, and can have more stuff when needed. If you're willing to experiment (you'll probably have to set a few additional environment variables and/or build flags but that's no big deal), you can install various other tools there up until you have a complete system with its own compiler and complete set of libraries although it's much simpler to keep using system compiler and libraries only complimenting them when needed. Granted, prefixes are nothing new, people were using /opt (and their home directory) this way since the beginning of time. But with little help of virtualenv-wrapper or pyenv you can easily switch between them and isolate environments better. Binaries and stuff installed in virtualenv would override system defaults but only when venv is activat...

Generation 2 of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga was announced at this year's CES with both small and big improvements. They finally added Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB-PD charging support, which makes it slightly better deal than Yoga 910 (which is still visually more pleasing to me but no thunderbolt = muh). Anyway, the best part is it's virtually the only laptop with OLED display and I love OLED. I almost immediately decided that I'm gonna buy it eventually (not right now unless something happens, my Yoga 900 is not yet outdated, probably next year or whenever they make Gen 3) provided there are no deal breakers. Then I saw its keyboard: Apart from weird Home/End position (why not make it Fn-PgUp/Fn-PgDn like everyone does? F1-F12 keys are pretty small as a result. But maybe they could be used for some hotkeys with a little xmodmap magic?..) the obvious elephant in the room is swapped Fn-Ctrl keys: seriously, who does that? I even wrote it off as a dealbreaking thing and forgo...

More than once I've written about stuff made by Big Brand manufacturers so I decided to balance things out by writing about a mostly-unknown but good things. In short, if you need something small like HDD enclosure or some cable or USB hub or a dongle of some kind, check if ORICO makes it and chances are you won't be disappointed. It's usually slightly more expensive than low-end stuff from aliexpress but, in my opinion, it's usually worth it. Disclaimer. This post is a shameless promotion of their brand although, unfortunately, nobody paid me for it or even sent me any free stuff. Guys from ORICO and not, if you read this, I'll gladly review whatever free goodies you send me :) I only do honest reviews so better make sure to send the good stuff. At this point I own a USB hub, three different 2.5" HDD enclosures, and a precision screwdriver set from them. And probably something else I don't remember. Here are the pics: USB hub in its natural habitat...

While we are on the topic of sockets and chargers. UK three-prong plug (type G) allows you to put heavier things into the socket and they will sit there securely. Also it's rated 250V/13A allowing more powerful appliances and probably safer than any other plug type  (not mentioned there that almost every socket has an off switch, as an additional safety feature, apart from all the shutters, insulation, and built-in fuses). (Photo from Wikimedia Commons) If the world ever comes to a standard AC plug type, I hope it will be either that or at least something as robust and safe. And, let's face it, the only two alternatives (EU and US plugs) are not that universal, there are dozens of variations (where to put the ground prong, how to ensure polarity, even how big the prongs themselves must be) that makes either harder to adopt as a single universal standard.

Adapter I had for charging my laptop broke yesterday. Now I need to give you a bit of a background to explain what kind of adapter that was. So, Lenovo produces lots of different laptops. And, just like all other manufacturers, they have lots of different charger connectors. With Yoga series, it was always some weird variation of USB, not a (more typical until recently) round connector. In particular, for Yoga 3 and 4 it looks like this: (Photo from Aliexpress) It's unclear why apart from making people buy their stupid chargers. You hardly can use the port for anything else when not charging (it's not even 3.0). And I mean stupid, just look at this: (Photo from Aliexpress) How can even call it a "travel" adapter is beyond understanding. If you actually travel, you have either to buy a new one for every socket type, or use a socket adapter which (considering most wall sockets are located in walls) will make this massive charger fall out every few minute...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 So, I've generated a new GPG keypair. It has a set of subkeys (one per usage), which, theoretically, should make it all more convenient and secure. Also it uses currently-recommended algorithms (4096-bit key RSA and SHA512) and was generated using my new hardware entropy source which was the main reason for this change. The old key will be expired in a couple months unless I revoke it as superseded first. There is no reason to believe it was compromised or anything. New key's fingerprint is F819 3F12 6021 6B7D D53B 959F E273 25A3 92D7 0FFB for copying and pasting: 0xF8193F1260216B7DD53B959FE27325A392D70FFB ), long key id is 0xE27325A392D70FFB. Please import my new public key from the keyserver you prefer or using PKA dns records. You can use this command on most platforms: gpg --search-keys 0xE27325A392D70FFB (Unfortunately, GnuPG or/and keyservers don't really support search by fingerprint or showing it in the imp...

Although there's a trend of making single-page applications with frontend static files managed separately from backend api, the need of managing static files haven't gone away just yet. And everyone who does web is aware of common issues with it. Probably the most common one is browser cache. Files get cached in user's browser and are used even after you changed and deployed them. Cache-controlling headers can help somewhat but not much. That's my cache-boosting techniques are usually a must. There are many ways to do cache boosting. Usually, it involves adding some version info into all static urls (e.g. /style.css becomes /style-13.29.css or /13.29/style.css ), hence it's often called "versioning". If you use some Django app to manage your static files (compress, combine, minify, etc.) it often can provide you with some solution. Use it, it's probably reliable and easy. This proposal, however, is cool if you happen to use Amazon's S3 for your...

As I wrote in my last post, I'm moving this blog to a new domain. I also decided to put it behind cloudflare to enforce HTTPS and other cool stuff (IPv6, HTTP/2, ChaCha20/Poly1305, etc.) Apparently, google doesn't like that. Now, instead of a nice 301 redirect I get this Which will totally wreck my search results. I guess I'll have to turn off cloudflare until search engines reindex everything and only then turn it back on.

Some of my 3.5 loyal readers might see themselves to this new domain sometime next week when they care to come here. What is this? Have I gone all corporate and will start to earn money on this somehow? I wish, bro. No, I just saw this domain in the expiring list yesterday and thought that it could fit my blog nicely and I never liked 3rd-level domains. The only reason I ever had a blog not on a custom domain is that I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to write more than a couple posts. It appears I was, after all, even though this is neither the most actively updated nor the most popular blog, so it's time to personalize it and make it possible to become google-independent one day if I ever want to. As with everything else, custom domain is the way to be independent from any particular provider. It's true for blogs, it's true for email (I'm one of those who do have custom-domain emails yet are too lazy to migrate from gmail completely). I'm not likely t...

I have posted a review of Lenovo Yoga 900-ISK awhile back in which I concluded that it's probably the ultimate choice if you need a high-end machine for running Linux. Now that it got renewed to 900-ISK2 it's no longer the case and probably nobody should buy Lenovo products if running Linux is your intention. 900-ISK2 looks really sweet on the hardware side, even faster SSD, and slightly better CPU with IRIS video card (which is probably just enough for decoding 4k HEVC video) while everything else is the same old good. Yet, a slight change in its firmware hiding the AHCI option makes it virtually unusable, locked out without possibility to change the preinstalled OS. A thread on Lenovo forums (19 pages at the time of this writing) included both a Lenovo person promising to escalate this issue with the developers and quote from some other unknown person telling that it's been done this way per agreement with Microsoft. Someone also mentioned that it's possible ...

Today a delivery person came to collect my recalled Note7. I was given a temporary replacement S6 Edge for non-determined period of time, estimated about two weeks. And it sucks for two reasons: replacement is less than ideal and it's too long a wait. So, here's my short comparison of S6 Edge with everything else while I'm biding my time. First of all, I don't like Edge's curved screen, I would've been better off with a non-edge version. Yes, I also tolerate Note7's one (I wouldn't uses as strong a word as "like" here) and it's nothing weird. Note7 feels very natural in hand with its symmetrical body, narrow bezel, and very smooth round edges (less so when using a cover but still), while Edge is way more angular and even somehow bulkier (though Note is both heavier and bigger). Wider curves make Edge UI more useful than on Note, where it requires a very precise gesture to activate, but I'm not that big a fan of those panels and stuf...

As I was saying, for half a year I was a proud S7 user and everything was well except somewhat smallish display. My wife started playing Pokemon GO seriously and S6's short battery life was quite frustrating for her. Meanwhile, Note7 was announced and I had to think hard whether I want one. Good part was that hardware is just as good as in S7 (slightly better but who cares about one more gig of RAM and stuff like that) but with bigger screen and even bigger battery. Lack of a non-curved option sounded like a deal breaker to me though, I'd never buy an S7 Edge. Yet, after carefully watching all the video reviews I decided to try it. Curves are more sloped, with larger flat surface (mainly to make S Pen usable, I guess) and symmetrical design looked cool. Fortunately, my situation is not as it used to be a couple years ago and I don't have to limit myself with only one toy per year (although this year I did indulge myself quite a bit) and S7 didn't go to waste — I gave ...

I'm very new to Samsung devices, not so long ago I was sure that expensive phones are not worth it. You have to replace them every year or two anyway, they don't provide new features to justify the price tag, cheaper devices come in better variety and you don't feel bad throwing them away if you don't like them, etc. So for a few years I used whatever cheap Chinese brick was on the market. And before that, well before that I didn't actually own a smartphone. And it was quite all right, comparing notes with friends I thought that annoying bugs and lags from time to time are universal, even if you have four CPU cores and 2 gigs of RAM, that it's mostly a software thing and Java is a bad language for mobile platform, and all that. And then, quite recently, I changed my mind about those things. Partly because my income situation changed slightly. It all started when I needed a birthday present for my lovely wife last year and S6 was out for just a couple months. I...

So, I've got a free Gear Fit2 with my Note 7 preorder. After trying it a little bit, I've decided I don't like it much and now I wonder who might want it (maybe my wife will). And now some photos and pros and contras. Device feels very sleek, I could totally wear it if software were more usable. There is even some security, you can set a pin code that you need to enter after you take it off. Display is large enough for analog clock and date S Health app is not too bad overall (I like its approach to tracking exercise, for one) and syncs quickly but it does a poor job with sleep tracking which is a deal breaker to me. Doesn't estimate how much energy you spend during the day. S Health is not the only app that interacts with Gear, for some things you need to use Samsung Gear app, installing apps to the device is done with Galaxy Apps. There might be more of them. Not sure whether it's good or bad to have several apps for not so many features but probabl...