08 January 2019 [Docker, Tech] Docker is useful for some things, and not as useful as you think for others. Here’s something really useful: get a disposable bash prompt inside any version of Linux distribution in one command: docker run -i -t –mount “type=bind,src=$HOME/Desktop,dst=/Desktop” ubuntu:18.10 bash This command downloads the latest Ubuntu 18.10 image, mounts […]
08 May 2026 [Programming, Rust, Tech, Videos] Veteran super-coder Jez is back, and claims he has “finished” implementing Cell, Andy’s toy language, in Rust. Jez and Andy basically gossip a bit, about code types. Read Jez’s blog at Read my blog at Follow Jez on mastodon: @jezhiggins@mastodon.me.uk Follow me on mastodon: @andybalaam@mastodon.social PakarPBN A Private […]
January 24, 2019 [Programming, Programming Languages, Python, Tech] It was a pleasure to attend the London Python Meetup organized by @python_london. There were lots of friendly people and interesting conversation. I gave the talk “Making 100 million requests with Python aiohttp” (slides, Blog post) explaining the basics of writing async code in Python 3 and […]
May 05, 2026 [Tech] I really enjoy reimplementing things that already exist. Sometimes it’s just out of necessity, sometimes it’s to make it faster, or work in a different way, or improve the quality of the code, but I like having concrete expectations about how the code functions. So, when a colleague suggested we use […]
04 February 2019 [Java, Performance, Programming, Rabbit Escape] Series: operation, image, opacity I wanted to overhaul the UI of my desktop game Rabbit Escape to make it more comfortable and look nicer, so I looked at a new look at game-loop style graphics rendered to the canvas in a Java 2D (Swing) UI. For more […]
May 01, 2026 [Programming, Rust, Tech, Videos] Let’s fix the messy error handling in our Rust towncrier clone using anyhow library and add context() call to explain what went wrong. Can we match the output of towncrier under different circumstances? Do we really want to match it, or can we do better? You can find […]
08 February 2019 [Java, Performance, Programming, Rabbit Escape] Series: operation, image, opacity In my previous post I examined the performance of various drawing operations in Java 2D rendering. Here I looked at some specifics around image rendering, with the goal of finding optimizations I could apply to my game Rabbit Escape. You can find the […]
April 26, 2026 [Tech] Since I created this blog statically using Zola, I have been using Remark42 as my commenting system. I wanted something self-hosted and simple, and it worked. I currently get comments every few months, and about half of them are spam. Remark42 seems to forget who I am every time, so deleting […]
April 24, 2026 [Programming, Rust, Tech, Videos] Enthusiastically embracing test-driven development as usual, we attempted to write a minimal clone of a useful tool, towncrier, that allows us to create changelogs from individual “news fragment” files. In the end we had the outline of a viable solution that passed the first and only test! You […]
February 11, 2019 [Java, Performance, Programming] Series: operation, image, opacity Not because I enjoyed it, I seemed compelled to continue my quest to understand the performance of various Java 2D drawing operations. I’m hoping to make my game Rabbit Escape faster, especially on the Raspberry Pi, so you might see another post sometime actually trying […]
