No. 0531 min read
undo for the shell, because rm has never once asked me if I was sure
A shell that can undo the last thing you did.
Patrick Padgett, telecom billing engineer and bass player, tells short true stories. Who is this man?
huh. What is this string, exactly?
File photo. Dramatization.
A timestamp, a cron line, an exit code, an invisible Unicode character. huh ranks the plausible readings and prints the Unix one-liner that proves each one.
No. 0543 min read
Must-read exclusives
No. 0521 min read
Recording Mantoloking with Steve Fisk. Yes, in Kansas.
The Sexy Accident made Mantoloking at Black Lodge in Eudora, Kansas, with Steve Fisk.
No. 0511 min read
RSS still works. Let the damned reader remember.
grime95 and this blog have RSS feeds, folks.
No. 0501 min read
What mediation taught me about people (not that kind of mediation)
Fourteen years reconciling billing records at Sprint taught me to check what I know before assigning blame.
No. 0491 min read
One master resume. The attachments don't get a vote.
My resume facts live in Markdown.
No. 0481 min read
Starting over at 47. The work didn't disappear, folks.
Job hunting at 47 means making a long career readable without rewriting it.
No. 0471 min read
The CAGE code. Five characters, folks.
VimOps became a registered federal vendor with CAGE code 8PMQ9.
No. 0461 min read
Local SEO for one truck. ONE truck, folks.
Our imaginary plumber has one truck.
No. 0451 min read
Splunk versus ELK. Put the holy war down, folks.
I used Splunk at Raymond James and ELK at Sprint and Jabil.
No. 0441 min read
Small programs survive. Their bugs do too.
Corkscrew fits in 291 lines, folks.
No. 0431 min read
Exit codes are an API. Yes, that little integer.
Corkscrew reported success without establishing a tunnel.
No. 0422 min read
Base64 and signed chars: four wrong damned slashes
The corkscrew audit turned three credential bytes into four wrong slashes.
No. 0411 min read
Autotools in 2026: don't delete the damned build
Corkscrew's build machinery looks like clutter until somebody needs it.
No. 0401 min read
Idempotency: can I run the damned thing again?
Your script worked once.
No. 0391 min read
Logs are for the poor bastard awake at 3 a.m.
Tell me what failed, what might already have happened, and what I can safely do next.
No. 0382 min read
Cron started the command. What the hell else did you expect?
Cron starts commands when the clock matches, folks.
No. 0371 min read
Atomic rename. Read the damned small print.
Unix rename can publish a finished file or claim a queue item.
No. 0361 min read
Reading hex dumps: quit guessing at the damned bytes
Corrupt how, folks?
No. 0351 min read
select() loops: ready does not mean done, folks
The corkscrew audit found ordinary socket-relay mistakes hiding behind a small loop.
No. 0341 min read
The error queue is unfinished accounting. Go get it.
Your parser rejected the record.
No. 0331 min read
Sequence numbers are a promise. Read the damned promise.
A bigger sequence number does not mean your missing file arrived, folks.
No. 0321 min read
Keroncong and Portuguese ghosts
Listen to the cak and cuk, folks.
No. 0311 min read
Protest music in Bahasa Indonesia: the bass doesn't get to take all the credit
Iwan Fals, Efek Rumah Kaca, .Feast, Navicula, and Homicide were not waiting for my bass drop.
Next issueOctober 15, 2026
whom. Who do I ask about this file, and are they awake?
A file you did not write, a person you need to find.