I don’t write as much about what I do at my day job as I used to. I probably should, because it’s all still relavant to my older readers. One example of that is that I have published a lot of articles on MySQL and sqlite. However, more and more of my development efforts use native json. I’ve slowly fallen in love with mongodb for this reason – I can have a local database that is fast, that stores data in native json. That makes my transactions cheaper when it’s time to read and write for databases. If I have to regex to put information in sql and then take…
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Cha’pa (Beaverfolk) Fighter stl
Here’s a Cha’pa (Beaverfolk) Fighter I just posted on Thingiverse A friend saw the badger I made and went to Oregon State, sooooooo… I guess Go Beavers! But also, the Spelljammer Dungeons & Dragons stuff has been fun to play through. For those that want to go beyond some of the existing animal hybrids, here’s a Beaverfolk (Cha’pa) fighter. Could probably use as an Opsu (Possumfolk) fighter as well, given the similarities and all that (if you just thinned the tail to make it look more like a possum tail). It’s unlicensed, so remix away and have fun! The badger turned out better, but throw this into blender, add some…
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Hadozee Monk .stl
Just posted this Hadozee Monk to Thingiverse For those who are playing with simian-inspired characters, here’s a Hadozee monk (or humanoid monk-ey hybrid). This one was going for more of an Eastern campaign setting (think Kara-Tur) based on a suit of armor I saw one time in Istanbul. Could be played as another class or whatever, but this stl was designed as a 28mm role-playing miniature for use in a Dungeons & Dragons one-shot I’m writing. Hope you enjoy! Oh, and to see my other designs to print, feel free to check out https://www.thingiverse.com/krypted/designs. I publish everything without a limited license, so feel free to print and sell, remix and…
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Bucky The Badgerfolk (Mustie) Ranger
Published this design to Thingiverse for that special spot in the venn diagram – people who went to the University of Wisconsin, play D&D, and like to 3D print your minis. His name is Bucky. See what I did there… 🦡😘 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6194852 Note: A bipedal badger feels similar to a bipedal racoon or if the tail were changed, maybe possum. Maybe some different paint. I should post the source so it’s easy to change the tail. I’ll get on that…
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3D Printable Banana Stand
Here’s a design I just published to print a simple banana stand. Thinking of you, Sweden (see ya’ soon)! https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6191695
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Our Journey To A Quantum-Safe Secret Manager
Once upon a time, when the COVID was upon us, I retreated into my lab to write a book on the history of computing. I was fortunate, privileged, and delighted to get the chance to interview some of the people who built the foundational technologies that power our digital lives. People who invented the first data packets, installed the first nodes on the internet, developed the first search engines, and founders of companies that have become household names. Many from the history of computing began their careers as academics. Their original research was published as they pursued their PhDs. I started to notice some trends. A few notable ones caught…
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Penn State and MacAD.UK Presentations
Working on presentations is always fun! Here are two that I’m giving this summer. The first is part one of a deck on Extensions Management (and more on the past of managing them). That was delivered at MacAD.UK and I’ll post the video once those are up. The second is a deeper dive into the current state of extensions management, which I’m giving at Penn State MacAdmins. Hope these help someone in some way, shape, or form.
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New App TestFairy Writes Unit Tests With AI
I just posted a new app to GitHub called TestFairy. It’s at https://github.com/krypted/TestFairy. It automatically generates unit tests for either a file or a highlighted piece of swift code. It does this using the OpenAI API, so leverages a LLM to write test code. It’s pretty straight forward. Simply highlight the code and in the Editor Menu, click TestFairy, then Generate Tests. I had hoped to post it for free to the App Store, but I didn’t want to distribute my OpenAI API key, or write an intermediary microservice that housed my key that an app uses. The use of an API key is considered an end-around to the In-App…
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Python script to identify CIDR notation
It’s not uncommon to expect CIDR notation vs an IP address in a script (e.g. one that’s being passed to another API. So the following script is an example of using the re module to identify if an entry is in CIDR or not (since it’s not always obvious how to go about doing so): The array can easily be changed or filled with a network mask or array of them rather than fixed as they are here – and the output could easily be to call another function rather than to just print output.
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Using Viruses For Good
I get prompted any time one of my books is cited in legitimate research journals. A group of Kuwaiti researchers wrote a paper that, to quote the researchers, finds that “In a nutshell, this research indicates that there is a possibility of converting computer viruses into beneficial programs for storage space and CPU optimization.” The paper is available here: http://www.jatit.org/volumes/Vol101No10/19Vol101No10.pdf I’ve often said that agent-based device management tools (and let’s keep in mind that MDM is an Apple-supplied agent) are in a way commercially supported advanced persistent threats. After all, they have similar command and control architectures… These are often larger, monolithic architectures that grow, and so consume more resources…