Home — Leandro Pereira
06 October 2014 Life of a HTTP request, as seen by my toy web server When learning a new programming language, I tend to write two things with it: a language interpreter (usually a FORTH-like language or Brainfuck if I’m feeling lazy), and a HTTP server. Sometimes, just as a challenge or a way to qu…
Aboard Amtrak
For some months, Amtrak was my home. It began simply somewhat unintentionally. A friend was getting married in Spokane, Washington, I was in New York, and the 45 day Amtrak pass was cheaper than rent. And so, I was on a train stopped in Washington DC. The station there is really magnificent, marbled…
Hasnain says:
Hands down one of the best pieces I've read in a really long time. It has a little bit of everything and is quite interesting.
(Apparently I had a facebook tab open with this text a week ago, but forgot to post)
Posted on 2014-10-12T19:06:42+0000
Move Fast and Break Nothing
Writings, screencasts, and talks by Zach Holman. Zach works at GitHub and enjoys consuming cherry pies.
Hasnain says:
This is a great talk on software development practices.
Posted on 2014-10-12T19:02:21+0000
Reverse Engineering Star Wars: Yoda Stories
Zach Barth zach@zachtronics.com October 5th, 2014 Background I don't know why, but I've always gotten a kick out of reverse engineering data files for computer games. Although decompiling a game's code is a challenging task, data files are often much easier to figure out (as they contain lots of hig…
Hasnain says:
This is a really cool read on reverse engineering data formats.
Posted on 2014-10-12T19:00:42+0000
The Man Who Smuggles Traders Joe’s into Canada
Imagine -- maybe you don’t have to -- you’re Canadian. You’re at a dinner party, and the host has put out a bowl of the best snack you’ve ever had. Love at first bite, and it’s going fast. Soon enough, your fingers graze the bottom of the bowl and you realize that the end is nigh. You master your pa…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2014-10-04T00:02:34+0000
How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math - Issue 17: Big Bangs - Nautilus
I was a wayward kid who grew up on the literary side of life, treating math and science as if they were pustules from the plague.…
The NSA and Me - The Intercept
James Bamford literally wrote the book on the National Security Agency, spending 30 years obsessively documenting the secretive agency in print. Today, for the first time, he tells the story of his brief turn as an NSA whistleblower.
Hasnain says:
"Despite the threats, I refused to alter my manuscript or return the documents. Instead, we argued that according to Executive Order 12065, “classification may not be restored to documents already declassified and released to the public” under the Freedom of Information Act. That prompted the drama to move all the way up to the White House. On April 2, 1982, President Reagan signed a new executive order on secrecy that overturned the earlier one and granted him the authority to “reclassify information previously declassified and disclosed.”"
Posted on 2014-10-02T22:49:50+0000
Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers
Search and perform data mining operations against academic publications, using social network analysis to identify connections between researchers, conferences, and publications.
Hasnain says:
I find it interesting how a lot of the best paper award winning papers end up becoming false positives, and the really great papers are not recognized immediately.
Posted on 2014-10-01T23:21:24+0000
The Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
A lithograph of the massive 1883 eruption of KrakatoaThe eruption of Krakatoa, and subsequent phenomena, 1888; Parker & Coward;…
PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum
There are two ways to teach quantum mechanics. The first way -- which for most physicists today is still the only way -- follows the historical order in which the ideas were discovered. So, you start with classical mechanics and electrodynamics, solving lots of grueling differential equations at eve…
Hasnain says:
"The second way to teach quantum mechanics leaves a blow-by-blow account of its discovery to the historians, and instead starts directly from the conceptual core -- namely, a certain generalization of probability theory to allow minus signs. Once you know what the theory is actually about, you can then sprinkle in physics to taste, and calculate the spectrum of whatever atom you want. This second approach is the one I'll be following here."
Posted on 2014-09-28T00:21:25+0000