Articles

Articles are single-page pieces that give a whirlwind tour of a specific topic.

They're different from series, which go very in-depth, taking many detours.

🗓️ November 2024

Highlighted code in slides

I have obsessed about this long enough, I think it's only fair I (and you!) get some content out of it.

When I started writing this article, I was working on my P99 CONF slides. Those slides happen to include some bits of code. And because I'm a perfectionist, I would like this code to be syntax highlighted, like this:

let addr: SocketAddr = config?
 ln = addr?
 configbase_url
🗓️ September 2024

ktls now under the rustls org

What's a ktls

I started work on ktls and ktls-sys, a pair of crates exposing Kernel TLS offload to Rust, about two years ago.

kTLS lets the kernel (and, in turn, any network interface that supports it) take care of encryption, framing, etc., for the entire duration of a TLS connection... as soon as you have a TLS connection.

For the handshake itself (hellos, change cipher, encrypted extensions, certificate verification, etc.), you still have to use a userland TLS implementation.

🗓️ August 2024

State of the fasterthanlime 2024

It's time for some personal and professional news!

TL;DR: I started a podcast with James, I'm stable on antidepressants, I'm giving a P99 CONF about my Rust/io_uring/HTTP work, I'm trying on "they/them" as pronouns, I'm open-sourcing merde_json, rubicon and others, I got a divorce in 2023, I found a new business model.

🗓️ March 2024

Face cams: the missing guide

I try to avoid doing "meta" / "behind the scenes" stuff, because I usually feel like it has to be "earned". How many YouTube channels are channels about making YouTube videos? Too many.

Regardless, because I've had the opportunity to make my own mistakes now for a few years (I started doing the video thing in earnest in 2019), and because I've recently made a few leaps in quality-of-life re: shooting and editing video, I thought I'd publish a few notes, if only for reference for my future self.

🗓️ October 2023

Just paying Figma $15/month because nothing else fucking works

My family wasn't poor by any stretch of the imagination, but I was raised to avoid spending money whenever possible.

I was also taught "it's a poor craftsman that blames their tools", which apparently means "take responsibility for your fuckups", but, to young-me, definitely sounded more like "you don't deserve nice things".

🗓️ July 2023

Cracking Electron apps open

I use the draw.io desktop app to make diagrams for my website. I run it on an actual desktop, like Windows or macOS, but the asset pipeline that converts .drawio files, to .pdf, to .svg, and then to .svg again (but smaller) runs on Linux.

So I have a Rust program somewhere that opens headless chromium, and loads just the HTML/JS/CSS part of draw.io I need to render my diagrams, and then use Chromium's "print to PDF" functionality to save a PDF.

🗓️ May 2023

The RustConf Keynote Fiasco, explained

Disclaimer:

At some point in this article, I discuss The Rust Foundation. I have received a $5000 grant from them in 2023 for making educational articles and videos about Rust.

I have NOT signed any non-disclosure, non-disparagement, or any other sort of agreement that would prevent me from saying exactly how I feel about their track record.

Disclaimer:

Rust: The wrong people are resigning

(Note: this was originally posted as a gist)

Reassuring myself about Rust

Up until recently, I was part of two private online discussion spaces where a bunch of Rust people hung out.

So, whenever there was drama, like when the entire mod team resigned, or when a trademark draft got a lot of people seriously worried, or just recently when RustConf took back the keynote from ThePHD then and , I had some place to go, to assess how serious things were this time around.