How sad should I be about ChatGPT? Machines are encroaching on things I care about and now everyone needs to pay attention.
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Robert Heaton
@RobJHeaton
Software Engineer @ Stripe | Programming Feedback for Advanced Beginners @ advancedbeginners.substack.com
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How to use background electrical noise on a recording to work out exactly when it was made - a technique used to verify evidence in at least one court case! Includes an open source implementation.
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Parenting is magical but you have to do more of it than you have easy energy for. Gaby, sometimes: “I would kill to go on the internet right now.”
New blog post about parenthood.
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CAO CHANGE OF MIND CLOSES IN 15 DAYS
John says it may be the best software course in Europe but don't just take his word on it.
chats with 's
about his career and what makes ISE unique.
Full 12min Interview: software-engineering.ie/interview-with
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I wonder how many other people’s relationships with their kids are based on the ideas of intelligent but inexpert journalists who had a baby and wrote a book in order to make some money without having to travel or do extra research.
New post on parenthood
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I love you son no matter what, even though I don’t think I can say the same about myself yet.
New post about being a parent.
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I work as a security engineer at one of the larger financial tech companies and my hobby is writing about digital security. I was still only a whisker away from getting credit card-scammed. Here's how.
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I’ve started taking Oscar to a coffee shop for a “baby latte” first thing on Saturday mornings. This is a transparent cry for connection, but he doesn’t know that yet and still gets excited.
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One of Gaby’s new friends asked if she had any hobbies. Gaby said no not at the moment, I have a job and a baby. How about you? The woman said that she liked to go for walks and do yoga. Gaby does those too but didn’t realise that they counted.
New post.
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New post about writing better sentences, with 6 rewrites of both my and other people's work.
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How amazing are children? I have no idea. They’re gutsy, imaginative, and have online access to all the world’s knowledge. They’re also inexperienced, haven’t done the reading, and have access to TikTok.
New post about parenthood.
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Gaby and I got married in the Manhattan Court House. “This is a very beautiful moment,” the officiant said, “but I have fifty other couples to get through today so you will need to keep moving.”
New post about parenthood.
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98% of analogies that start "it's a lot like chess" describe something that is in fact nothing like chess.
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I found a vulnerability in the dating app Bumble that allowed an attacker to work out any user’s exact location.
Here’s a full writeup, as seen through the highly dubious eyes of you and your good buddy, Steve Steveington.
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Oscar can count to 30. Half the time he gets stuck in a loop: “16, 17, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12…” We’ll have to fix this at some point but for now it does keep him busy forever.
New blog post:
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For now my son Oscar can have big dreams and be anything that he wants to be, but eventually he’ll have to choose something and then he’ll just have a job and a hobby and maybe a blog.
New post about being a dad.
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After 15 years on Facebook, I’ve deleted my account.
New blog post:
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New blog post about a few more months as a lockdown parent: Don't worry son, all your friends are weirdos too.
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New post about parenthood: Don't worry son, all your friends are weirdos too.
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I was losing my mind but writing down everything she said.
I fucked up my great realization.
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It's hard when the people you've been commiserating with get better.
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New blog post about buying a first home. It was hard work. We had a new baby and no sense of style.
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There's too much abstraction to feel real wonder.
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Usually I'd be grumpy that they lifted my writing but I think this time I'll just ask them if "superior rookies" is trademarked and if I can use it.
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Some random website seems to have passed my post "Systems design for advanced beginners" through Google translate into Spanish and back. This process produced the much more awesome name "Programming for SUPERIOR ROOKIES."
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Am I having fun? I often wondered while playing The Last of Us Part 2. I decided that I must be, otherwise why would I still be playing?
More notes:
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From the archives:
You and your good buddy, Steve Steveington, have almost finished work on your company’s new video game. It’s a banal 2-D platformer in which you run from left to right and collect coins or rings or some other kind of doodad.
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If she learned to truly love and accept herself then maybe everything could go back to the way it was. Either way it couldn't hurt.
It’s not appropriate to smile in a graveyard so I didn’t smile with my eyes.
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She was candid about other people's demons.
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I've found another RCE in the KensingtonWorks mouse manager, and this one's unpatched. To get full code execution all an attacker needs to do is lure you onto an evil website; you don't need to click on or interact with the page in any way.
Writeup:
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Trimming your own hair with clippers is risky but at least it's idempotent.
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It's comforting to think it was inevitable but it wasn’t.
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She did have self-awareness, just not enough.
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In our household hierarchy Gaby and I have the strength and soft power, but Oscar doesn’t care about being reasonable and has no problem burning the system to the ground.
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When people without children ask about what it’s like having a child, the subtext (or sometimes just the text) is often “should I have one?” I think that the only responsible answer is “I don’t know, but here’s my experience so far.”
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There is a god damn load of traffic on the road to Damascus.
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