AI Doompop
As a long term Microsoft Windows programmer I (used to?) feel a bit tense when someone proposes switching to Linux or even something crazy like MacOS. I'd see it as a personal attack on my financial future of me and my family, and it was eventually tensions like that that make me want to move on from being a one-man-developing team. Over my last 20 years as a professional programmer I went from Assembly to C to C++ and (...)
It Has Fallen Far From The Tree
I mentioned in an earlier Slog that I've got a M1 MacBook Pro. Which I do! I'm using it right now in fact! It's very good for what I use it for; a general web browsing machine that has good battery life and a holistically decent hardware. Which it does, even about five years later. It's one of those with the TouchBar. A feature I thought was cool but less cool than it could have been since it replaced the function keys in the process. But it's still supported; I really like how when typing (...)
The First Time I Thought Software That Exists Today Could End Modern Society As We Know It
...and any further examples as they happen.
But yeah, this one.
How a ‘swarm’ of AI agents hacked another company, in the AI’s own words
As a Microsoft Engineer, This Is (...)
VLC is patently free
When I first (reluctantly) moved to the PC world I was in need of software to do the work I had in mind; viewing/editing images at the time. Support in Windows at the time (Win95) was atrocious and I ended up buying an image viewer.... and then a general file viewer... (...and I still want to write my own version of that concept...) then when audio became possible things had started changing. Winamp was kinda Freemium, and VLC is free. So why? Are they just crazy generous? Should Sinner (...)
The Bit Where You Unlock Your Bits in the Bitlocker Locker
Bitlocker has been around for almost 20 years. I've never chose to use it, but it's been on by default and my policy is generally to give something a go and not rock the boat unless it's seems to be required. It's never given me any issues; I've tended to print out recovery keys if they are thrust in my face but it's never given me a reason to look into it more or remove it.
Recently though I've had two issues. One with my new ASUS where on a start it asked for the recovery key, (...)
Quick Update One: July 2026
As a way of keeping me on track as well as giving updates as well as giving me an easy news I'll be every few months giving quick updates to things that I have kinda dropped on the floor and want to pick up. So lets go!
- VocoPro SDR-4000. Not much to say right now. I've been using it for it's intended purpose but I've made some changes to my audio system that I'll be discussing more later...
- LG V60. I did buy one. I did try to convert to using one. But my carrier didn (...)
Dave's garage
Dave Plummer had a cool video with associated source last week highlighting some of the how's and why's of Windows ASM software. It's an interesting summary of the power of Windows software... and at the same time why it's a bit pointless doing ASM; you're at the mercy of the Win32 libraries so if they are not running as efficient as your own code you are no longer the (...)
EMail has been around for over 40 years
..yeah. Really. It's been around in some form in the 70s, more standardised in the 80s, and was decently embedded in education and business in the 90s. Heck, there was a movie that was about an EMail based romance in the 90s... yet.... people keep making same embarrassing mistakes with stuff like replies. Not sure why. I still see cases in professional environments where people reply to a group EMail, expecting to get to the sender when in most cases it'll just go to the group (or at best an (...)
Dual and half double are sadly not the same
I've been into multi screen for 20+ years. Obviously it started with computers but it extended to laptops (probably a rant in itself) and phones as well. First time I got one was a on-sale LG V50. A very clunky device that was almost exactly what I wanted. I could at last solve the old problem of referring to X while working on Y, as well as monitoring Y while doing X. Sadly after a few years of use the case hinge cracked in a very odd way and I lost the second screen. Case? Yeah. The V50 is (...)
The Sky was the limit
OneDrive... oh how I dislike how it's got. It used to be seen as a drive, like the name, now it's trying to masquerade as a one stop storage and backup stop. Which is a shame, as it's horrible as the latter, but generally useful as the former. I've been using it since it was SkyDrive, and I've got the "SkyDrive Photos" to prove it, so I've been riding this horse for a while.
I was one of the few who got into the Windows Phone thing. I got one of the Windows 7 phones, which I still (...)
