ruby

Inappropriate IOCTL

What the heck does "Errno::ENOTTY: Inappropriate ioctl for device" mean?

mentoring

Mentoring

Need someone to help you work through some code or solve an issue you're having with debugging? I'm ready to help you.

marriage

There's No One Like Amy

Want to know how to have a great marriage? I can't tell you, sorry. But I can tell you about what makes my wife special to me.

avatar Featured

Writing (Another) Avatar Service

Never write another avatar service again. Just use a self-contained, open-source service called Archtype.

chrome Featured

Getting Frame Data from Chrome Devtools for Devtools

Have you ever used Chrome's devtools for devtools? I'll show you how to use this to get statistical data about frames from performance captures.

linux

Setting up an existing Yubikey on Linux

Yesterday, I ran into an issue with Pop! OS that resulted in me having to reinstall my operating system. I wanted to re-enable my existing Yubikey for signing commits. This is how I did it.

creative

Pro Tip: Steal Like an Artist

I was speaking with a colleague at a different company yesterday, and she gave me some advice that I thought was really interesting. It involves stealing ideas legitimately.

docker

Containers, Composers, and Orchestrators

Containerization a difficult concept to wrap one's head around, simply because of the commonality of the different terms involved. To remedy this problem, I recently decided to solidify some of this terminology with an analogy.

git Featured

How I Write a Commit Message

You spend all day (or multiple days) getting your feature/bug fix mapped out, writing the code, debugging said code, writing tests to verify that nothing is broken in the future, and then, after all of that, you have to craft your commit(s).

wasm

Rust and Wasm Side-by-Side

Background At my work, we're considering using WebAssembly (hereafter abbreviated as WASM) because it allows us to cross-compile just about any language for use on the web. WebAssembly is a "binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine". Basically, this means it's a binary language designed to be run anywhere,

kung-fu

Creed of the Sinking Moon

At the Sinking Moon School of Kung Fu, we've developed a creed that identifies what we believe and unifies us as being travelers along the same path

bisect

git bisect: A Gentle Introduction

You're a software developer who's just been assigned a ticket. It's a bug. This is a _regression_, which means that the app used to correctly render quadrilaterals, and now it's rendering them as triangles.

kung-fu

Let Go of the Hilt

The idea is that, instead of continuing down a path that isn't working, it's better to change your strategy swiftly and suddenly, even if it means giving your opponent the upper hand temporarily.

software

Rebasing Toward Independence

Make sure every commit within a pull request at least compiles. Having a linear git commit history enables this much more easily.

fighting-sioux

Linesman Night

Immediately at the beginning of the game, the radio host started talking about wondering if it was going to be "linesman night" again at the Broadmoore World Arena.

development

Quick Filtration with RxAndroid

If you're not using RxAndroid, you should consider adding it as a dependency to your Android project. It makes life significantly easier when working with REST API calls. However, once you've added it, there are a bunch of other benefits besides just simplifying REST calls. Consider the following code snippet:

software

git transfusion

Motivation: Poor Judgement (and lack of patience) Recently, I've been working a lot with git, a version control system. My current company decided that it would be useful to switch from Bitbucket to GitHub. Given that we had a number of repositories already in Bitbucket, it became necessary to move

software

(Hopefully) Easier Firefox Building with JMozTools

Introducing JMozTools One of the things I learned when I first started at Mozilla a little over a year ago is that there's this kind-of unwritten 'rite of passage', so to speak. If you want to be a developer, one of the first things you have to do is learn

firefox

Prototyping Refloz (Reflow on Zoom)

As part of the Readability 2.0 project, we're trying a few different approaches to making text beautiful and easily readable on a mobile device in Firefox for Android. When text isn't readable, most people think that increasing the size of the text is the answer to making it readable,

software

Font Inflation, Fennec, and You

The Need for Readability Many people in the world now use mobile devices to browse the web. It's fast, convenient, and absolutely indispensable when you absolutely have to prove that you are correct in an argument. However, early on in the mobile browsing craze, my father asked me (and he

kung-fu

Now YOU Have a Friend in the Kung Fu Business

Almost two years ago, my friend Ryan Carden started a martial arts school here in Burnsville, MN, and was kind enough to ask me to assist him in teaching. Since then, we've grown quite a bit, but we're always looking for new students. During classes, we typically listen to the

cosmic-dice

The Lifecycle of Demons

I just finished reading In the Company of Ogres, by A. Lee Martinez[1]. The essential plot line follows an individual named Ned (called 'Never Dead Ned'), who is probably what I would consider an "anti-hero." Ned is pretty much incompetent at everything in his life - he can't really

mythology

Let the Games End

I recently finished the book Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins[1], which is the last in a trilogy including both The Hunger Games[2] and Catching Fire[3]. I was warned, by my sister, prior to starting the series, that she considered the series excellent, but she pretends that the last

cosmic-dice

Omnipotent and Omniscient

Introduction Recently, I've finished the book The Magician King[1], by Lev Grossman. It's an interesting book, although, in my opinion, not as interesting as his first book in the series, The Magicians. The series is like a combination of Harry Potter and Narnia, except significantly darker, with some mature

software

Foxes, Monsters, and Dinosaurs, Oh My!

During June and July, I was out in Mountain View, CA, at the Mozilla Corporation (and Foundation) headquarters, learning all I could about the process of creating Mozilla products. In June of this year, I chose to leave General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems to take a position as a Platform