Rob Russell

81 Followers
154 Following
501 Posts

I write some code. I play with cameras and electronics. I'm a Googler working on Street View but opinions here are just mine.

Also writing at https://twitter.com/Rob_Russell and https://robr.dev/.

Bloghttps://robr.dev/
Githubhttps://github.com/robrussell
You where all thinking it. And the answer is 'yes!'. Yes you can totally LASER engrave a banana to exfiltrate data from your secured premises. Just out of the machine the text is barely noticable. But the next morning? Clear as day.

When committing bash crimes..:

πŸ‘Ž set -euo pipefail

πŸ‘ set -o errexit -o nounset -o pipefail

(Give the person reading your script a fighting chance at being able to search the manual for exactly how the heck the cryptic header incantations are influencing shell behaviour in crucial and subtle ways. Greybeards will already know, but it may give a new learner just a bit more of a chance to learn the old magic more easily. Help maintain the front door as well as the foundations and plumbing.)

I hereby coin the term "Ptolemaic Code" to refer to software that appears functional but is based on a fundamentally incorrect model of the problem domain. As more code is generated by AI, the prevalence of such code is likely to increase.
1/7

#TheGeneralTheoryOfSlop

I've been out of the loop for a couple of years on Linux phones. I'm poking around on blogs and Mastodon posts, but I figured I'd just ask:

Whats currently (as of January 2026) the most functional, stable, boring phone + OS combination?

Edit: I have been so thrilled with the conversations! Thank you all for sharing projects, experiences, knowledge, and links! I'm also following a lot of new folks :) This post is at 400+ boosts, so no need to continue boosting :)

#linuxmobile #linuxphone

When you're just a little hungry that should be called an apetititite.
I am now "checking with my doctors before taking this medicine" years old
I took a nap in a dream last night. I might be tired...
No it's fine, take your call on the bus. I'll just put in these earplugs and turn up my music...
Why do the disks spin in a hard drive? Don't the read/write heads have less mass than the platters?
Specifically about AI but I think this is helpful framing for working with/in/on systems with a lot of randomness in the output https://korymathewson.com/cherry-pick-ratio/
The Cherry Pick Ratio

Generative AI's 'Cherry Pick Ratio' measures how many outputs a user must generate to find a useful result, impacting user tolerance and adoption.

Kory Mathewson