Mastodawn

I wanted to register notfake.email to use for email aliasing, but it's already taken (blast!). However, the site that it forwards to (https://allenpooley.ca/) is glorious! It tickles me that someone else's mind has the same twists and turns. Let's be friends?

Allen Pooley; System Administrator, Wordpress Guy

The home of Allen Pooley Not literally; he has a place he lives. This is just a website. He does not live in the website. That would be silly, and he is a

Allen Pooley

technosophist May 30

How to reuse a macro like a function https://www.thoughtfull.systems/notes/2025-05-30-how-to-reuse-a-macro-like-a-function/ #clojure

How to reuse a macro like a function

Having fun discovering how things work and why they're here.

Thoughtfull Systems

technosophist May 28

mhoye May 27

Proposal: A “yes but only if there’s an agenda” option for meeting invitations.

I want the calendar equivalent of “come back with a warrant”.

technosophist May 23

My niece just had a babby [sic]. Now I'm a great uncle ... AMA

technosophist May 22

What do ethics (probably not the ethics you're thinking about) and compilers have to do with each other? An ethical compiler is one that lets the programmer express what ought to be (like security) and preserves that (by not optimizing away code that overwrites secrets).

Very interesting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72w9c2fFxW8

[PEPM'25] The Ethical Compiler: Addressing the Is-Ought Gap in Compilation (Invited Talk)

YouTube

technosophist May 21

There's this https://www.mentalfloss.com/where-did-all-the-minivans-go but I love my minivan. I'm at the beloved pet stage with my minivan where I may bluster about how there's a limit I'm willing to pay, etc, etc, but really I'd pay anything to keep it alive!

Where Did All the Minivans Go?

You’ll still spot the occasional minivan out on the road. But they’re a scarce sight in today’s school drop off lines.

Mental Floss

technosophist May 20

Some people protect their children from the horrors of the world. I instead make them watch the Magic School Bus episode where they race through the timezones so the Bus avoids a software update that would trap them all as moths.

technosophist May 16

I tried living with "natural" scrolling for a while, and I had to relearn how to scroll, but then I kind of liked it.

However, "natural" scrolling is really weird in certain situations (like zooming Google maps), so I ditched it. But now I have to relearn to scrolling again.

technosophist May 16

This was a good overview of passkeys https://blog.trailofbits.com/2025/05/14/the-cryptography-behind-passkeys/

I've been hesitant to invest too much into passkeys because I'm worried about losing keys.

If a site has a recovery mechanism that makes me feel better, but the recovery is the weakest link, so why bother.

However, if you consider that what we have now is passwords with recovery, then maybe passkeys with recovery is objectively better (even if not perfect)?

The cryptography behind passkeys

This post will examine the cryptography behind passkeys, the guarantees they do or do not give, and interesting cryptographic things you can do with them, such as generating cryptographic keys and storing certificates.

The Trail of Bits Blog

Show thread

technosophist May 14

As a corollary, I wonder what it must feel like to be a mockingbird and hear a car alarm and think "that slaps!" and start endlessly looping it.