archevel's recent activity
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
archevel Link ParentThanks! I've now settled on starting out with a kill team of Hearthkyn Salvagers as the base. I haven't played 40k since late 90s so it is fun to get into the hobby again! Still have a based but...Thanks! I've now settled on starting out with a kill team of Hearthkyn Salvagers as the base. I haven't played 40k since late 90s so it is fun to get into the hobby again! Still have a based but unpainted metal dreadnought on a shelf so if I get bitten by the paint bug that's probably what I'll go for next (even if it's not a proper kin like mine definitely absolutely will be).
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
archevel LinkThe state of building secure software is rife with pitfalls. It's super easy to forget some flag or config, unintentionally leave some door open or not act quickly enough on the latest CVEs. You...The state of building secure software is rife with pitfalls. It's super easy to forget some flag or config, unintentionally leave some door open or not act quickly enough on the latest CVEs. You can even do most things right, but due to the tech stack you build on having vulnerabilities attackers can exfiltrate data in unexpected ways or gain a foothold to execute arbitrary commands in your infrastructure.
Over a few months I've been building a stack for secure software. It strictly limits what you can do and locks down the execution environment. At the core sits an orchestrator that listens for https connections. It sniffs the connection for the domain to pass the connection too and starts a VM in tens of milliseconds that's associated with that domain. The VM processes the request and sticks around for a few seconds (since requests are often "bursty") after which it gets stopped.
The app VM is very limited; no file system and no network stack (the request/response is mediated over vsock). Each app runs on boot without any other binaries installed so you'd have to pull off a hypervisor escape from within a unikernel in order to gain the a permanent foothold. The VM boots with certificates it uses for the https-connection so the orchestrator only ever sees the encrypted traffic. I ended up needing to make calls to external services so for that I mediated the calls through the orchestrator. The orchestrator checks an app specific allow-list to see if that ip/host is explicitly trusted before setting up a TCP connection. So the app is prevented to talk to anyone which you haven't explicitly allowed.
The above approach works great for stateless servers! But, most apps need a database. You could set this up via allowing connections to an external db, but I figured it would be nice with a similarly locked down approach to persiatence. So I ended up creating a small Linux application that starts on boot and launches postgres. This VM has access to an encrypted disk, but again no network. Instead it just runs on the same host as the VM app. The app-db communication is mediated over vsock (needed a small patch to postgres for this), which incidentally removes all network latency! I ended up setting up an encrypted export of the WAL and feed that asynchronously into a standby postgres on another node. That way data loss is unlikely, but I'm not sure if I should keep this part. The redundancy is nice, but it's quite a bit of code necessary to mediate the transfer and also a bunch to handle failovers etc... I might end up slimming the whole project down a bit.
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Comment on Timasomo 2026: Roll Call in ~creative.timasomo
archevel LinkMy goal is to build and paint at least one miniature for a Warhammer 40k army and/or Kill team. My idea is to do an ork version of the Leagues of Votann called "Legumes of Waaaghtann". They will...My goal is to build and paint at least one miniature for a Warhammer 40k army and/or Kill team. My idea is to do an ork version of the Leagues of Votann called "Legumes of Waaaghtann". They will be highly sneaky and thus painted in pink. Lore-wise I imagine them to be a band of Orks that took over a fallen squat stronghold and managed to convince the semi-senile Votann core that they were legitimate. To start I want to take a box of votann and print some ork heads to swap out. I might go with a kill team box if I like the models better.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
archevel Link ParentCool! I hope my move input didn't break it :) fun to see it act. Didn't dare to touch the "flip board"-button, bit it was tempting!Cool! I hope my move input didn't break it :) fun to see it act. Didn't dare to touch the "flip board"-button, bit it was tempting!
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Comment on Announcing the eighth annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
archevel LinkI will try to make something this time around... Have to pick which idea to pursue though. Choices!I will try to make something this time around... Have to pick which idea to pursue though. Choices!
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
archevel LinkMentioned in another post, but might be interesting for others to take a peek at https://archevel.github.io/laya/ It is a condensed model that runs in the browser similar to typesafe.ai's Jev model.Mentioned in another post, but might be interesting for others to take a peek at https://archevel.github.io/laya/
It is a condensed model that runs in the browser similar to typesafe.ai's Jev model.
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Comment on Typesafe AI: System One Models and Jev in ~tech
archevel LinkSo just a few days ago Laya was released which is an open weight variant on the same concept IIUC. I had claude slap together a version that runs locally in the browser (even works on chrome on...So just a few days ago Laya was released which is an open weight variant on the same concept IIUC. I had claude slap together a version that runs locally in the browser (even works on chrome on Android for me). Anyway, I can see it could be useful to run something like this, but it feels like you'd be putting a magic 8-ball into your system. From my example questions, if I switched the order of Arnold and Conan the answer flipped! It is also not consistent cross devices, i.e. if I ran it on my laptop I got one result and another on my phone... Doesn't inspire confidence for me at least.
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Comment on Independents/freelancers: how do you find new business? in ~finance
archevel LinkHad a chat with a sales person recently that work at my current company and who is doing a great job. I mentioned that I can't do sales; I don't like calling people at all and I don't think I'd...Had a chat with a sales person recently that work at my current company and who is doing a great job. I mentioned that I can't do sales; I don't like calling people at all and I don't think I'd enjoy it. Anyway, she told me her "process" was to call 5 people she knows and then call 5 people she don't. So she is basically cold 5 calling potential leads (after a bit of research) each day. To me that sounds exhausting. I mean even of I'd just call 5 friends that I know and like I'd be exhausted. But, I guess that doing this consistently teaches you what works and what doesn't after a while. I also guess that the pace she has isn't strictly necessary, maybe it would be enough to do 5 and 5 over the course of a week.
Anyway, I am clearly not a sales person so take it with a big pinch of salt!
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
archevel Link ParentFair enough. I don't think they are just sitting tight though. I think they are genuinely worried about AI and, like most people, not sure exactly what the right move is. That doesn't mean we...Fair enough. I don't think they are just sitting tight though. I think they are genuinely worried about AI and, like most people, not sure exactly what the right move is. That doesn't mean we should do nothing, just that it takes some time for parties etc to formulate their plans, agree on those internally, star to communicate those goals externally. Here where I live a party is divided into regional districts that are further divided into local districts. A discussion of any topic takes time to percolate through that machinery. That is partly by design, people need to get to wrestle with ideas a bit. Committing to an agenda shouldn't be up to individual politicians (though individuals can certainly champion some ideas), it ought to be done as s mandate of the party's members. Getting that mandate tend to be slow by the very nature of the organizations. This might be completely different elsewhere of course.
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
archevel Link ParentI personally really don't agree with putting this on politicians/lawmakers and them being slow. The pace of change is just so very fast it is hard even as an individual to react. Given that...Mostly at politicians and lawmakers to be so slow to respond to how these big tech firms just go rampant without any responsibility. If your AI starts hacking other systems, then you need to go to prison.
I personally really don't agree with putting this on politicians/lawmakers and them being slow. The pace of change is just so very fast it is hard even as an individual to react. Given that politics is in general fairly slow process, expecting well thought through solutions from that end is too much to ask. I might be a bit biased as I am semi-politically active, I just find the "blame the politicians" to be a bit ignorant. Politicians aren't some special breed of people that sit and wring their hands coming up with stupid ideas. They mostly have some ideological basis for their proposals, which can be fairly understandable if one tries to see things through that lens... Anyway, I think people should mostly just join some political party instead of being mad at "those politicians over there".
As for the hacking bit. I agree. That's a law enforcement issue though...
Just an example of small things, like now birthday party invitations or yardsale flyers are now ugly AI generated.
This will likely pass (I hope). But, I agree it's both annoying and unnecessary.
Edit:
the eternal continuous work on software systems with decades of legacy.
This is where LLMs struggle the most. Give it a greenfield project and you get to a legacy system much faster though ;) Improvement!
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
archevel LinkThere are two sides to this, it has already taken my job to a large extent, but otoh my job has changed drastically. It has gone from implementing features and carefully building a maintainable...Do you think AI will take your job? Why or why not?
There are two sides to this, it has already taken my job to a large extent, but otoh my job has changed drastically. It has gone from implementing features and carefully building a maintainable system to more of coaching an agent harness to produce the desired features. The code has essentially become assembly (nearly no one read or wrote code at that level before LLMs for the last few decades). The skills I've built up over the years are still valuable in nudging the agent in the right direction and having it avoid traps, but overall being a developer/progrmmer is in my case mostly gone.
Are you considering a career change or any other big life decisions because of the changing world?
Yes, there is less enjoyment in developing software this way if you enjoyed the craft. If you are motivated by the output, then now is really your golden era.
How are you advising your children, regarding schooling and careers?
My eldest is on his last year of the high school equivalent here. He has a penchant for progamming and he really enjoys it, but I think I will advice him to go into some other proffession and keep it as a hobby.
Do you have a subscription to an AI service? If you have one, how do you feel about it?
Via work; claude and via google some gemini (I've disabled all the tracking I could in this one). Gemini is usefull for finding out things and resolving issues and just general advice. I still ask it for references more often than not and it does lie not too infrequently. I asked it what the license was for a project I have on github and it confidently claimed it was MIT. I had not set up a license file for the project yet, and when I challenged it it immediately backed down.
Do you think that this technology will be a net positive or a net negative?
I lean towards net possitive. The economics of working with an agent productivity wise CAN be significant. The issues with energy/water consumption I think can be overcome. There might be some Jevons paradox going on such that we will just increase our use of this tech and the productivity baseline for regular office jobs will be higher... then again I kind of find most office work to be "bullshit jobs", sooo being more efficient bullshit jobs has little real world benefits. In the end we all basically need food, shelter and a sense of being valued. AI as is don't really contribute to any of those in a meaningful way (maybe negatively in the "sense of being valued" part).
How do you think the human race will change, if at all?
Not at all. We haven't changed that much in the last 200 000 years. We've just added more rituals :)
Do you think we will see a serious incident driven by AI in the near future?
Yes.
Does it bother you that humans may not be the dominant intelligence at some point? Do you think this is even possible?
Does it bother me? No. I'm quite secure in my own capabilities (and lack thereof). Other people will be smarter than me, some will be dumber. If these other people are instead AI, it's not that much different. The difference is in speed, not in kind.
Does any of this affect your sense of identity or individuality? How do you feel about your skill set and hobbies?
Being a software developer this has already impacted my sense of professional worth, but I am not my work nor my role at work. That is not where I derive my sense of worth as a person. Hobby wise I think I'll just keep playing pen and paper RPGs with my friends aka. the cheapest hobby known to man (maybe excluding singing).
What do you think it means to be human in a machine dominated world?
I don't think this is realistic to be honest... Humans will continue to human with or without machines... I'm not too worried about alignment issues.
Overall, are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic?
Neither. What will be will be, it will likely involve a bit of suffering and adjustment so short term it might be a bit rough. Long term I'm not too worried. On geological time scales we're all dust.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
archevel LinkNot sure if I should post it here or in the tech/comp topic. Anyway, I've started a new RPG campaign using the Scum and Villainy rules/setting. I wanted the players to have an easy way of creating...Not sure if I should post it here or in the tech/comp topic. Anyway, I've started a new RPG campaign using the Scum and Villainy rules/setting. I wanted the players to have an easy way of creating characters and get a feel for the setting since most haven't played in it before. So I started making a small webb page that essentially started out as an SVG image of the Procyon sector where you could see some small blurbs about each location. You can navigate around the sector zooming in on the animated systems etc... But, then I kind of went over board and set up character and ship creation, tracking of factions, contacts and clocks... Nothing is hosted anywhere, it is all stored in the browser. I also added a nice import/export feature that lets players export a png file with an image of their character and a summary of them. The anyone can then import that image (e.g. drag and drop in the site). The image metadata contains all the associated info! I thought it was pretty nice to be able to share an pc e.g. over discord and everyone can then see an overview! I also made my own localization attempt for names and such into Swedish. It's fun to pick a few tounge in cheek translations that don't quite match the original literal translation. However I think mine captures the essence well in a few cases, e.g. the starship Straylight is called Irrbloss.
The site was built for desktop, but some adjustments have been made to it to support mobile. It can be added as an app via the ... menu in chrome on Android at least.
I'm considering if I shouldake the effort to rework all the artwork (it was promoted via nanobanana and a local diffusion model), but not sure since it's just as tiny hobby project for me and my friends...
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Comment on Valheim | 1.0 release date reveal trailer – 9th September 2026 in ~games
archevel Link ParentSame for me. We played it a lot during 2021. I think we stopped after defeating the plains boss. Still a bit fond of my old blog post about how to enable single player sleep on a multiplayer...Same for me. We played it a lot during 2021. I think we stopped after defeating the plains boss. Still a bit fond of my old blog post about how to enable single player sleep on a multiplayer server by modding the sever binary "manually" (a bit technical, but lots of fun to do).
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Comment on What are your current pain points with Linux? in ~tech
archevel LinkMy only pain point at the moment is that the built-in camera on my Dell XPS 16 doesn't work on my nixos setup. It's an annoyance. I did get it to work before by fiddling around a lot (building...My only pain point at the moment is that the built-in camera on my Dell XPS 16 doesn't work on my nixos setup. It's an annoyance. I did get it to work before by fiddling around a lot (building some drivers from source and such IIRC), but then I updated and it stopped working and I kind of face up on it. Connecting a USB based webcam when I need it just works out of the box. I won't be surprised if everything just starts working one day due to an update, but for now I can live with it.
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Comment on Stop Killing The Internet: No digital ID and no age verification in ~tech
archevel (edited )LinkThe actual objectives text seem at to contradict the title if I'm not missreading: Emphasis is mine, but that part reads more like what I think is actually being worked on; i.e. an age...The actual objectives text seem at to contradict the title if I'm not missreading:
We call on the European Commission to propose legislation ensuring that digital identity and age-assurance systems used to access online services in the Union remain voluntary, privacy-preserving and non-discriminatory. Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law. The legislation should require anonymous or pseudonymous proof-of-age, data minimisation, selective disclosure, open-source implementation, independent security audits, prohibition of cross-service tracking by relying parties, and equivalent alternatives for citizens who do not use a digital wallet.
Emphasis is mine, but that part reads more like what I think is actually being worked on; i.e. an age verification system where e.g. a website can ask the user to prove that they are an adult (not their exact age mind you) and the user has a way to provide that via a trusted party. The trusted party also doesn't receive any information about who the user is trying to prove their identity too.
If that comes to pass I'd think that would be a fine balance to strike. You kind of have to trust someone and better if this isn't being controlled by some corporate entity and that retaining information and tracking is a strict non-goal.
I might be wrong, but I think eIDAS has something along these lines going?
edit: I think I found the link to some info regarding this: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/EUDIGITALIDENTITYWALLET/pages/930450954/The+Age+Verification+Manual
So essentially what the initiative is striving for is already happening? -
Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
archevel Link ParentThat has been my general experience with diffusion models. In my cas with the porch I used a base photo and it fairly consistently was ble to add a fence to it in various styles. So I think this...That has been my general experience with diffusion models. In my cas with the porch I used a base photo and it fairly consistently was ble to add a fence to it in various styles. So I think this depends a bit on the model you use and probably on Gemini's surrounding tooling.
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
archevel Link ParentTangentially related, as I actually found a nice use for stable diffusion models the other week. Generally, I think they've saturated the web with bland imagery. In short, I need to build a fence...Tangentially related, as I actually found a nice use for stable diffusion models the other week. Generally, I think they've saturated the web with bland imagery. In short, I need to build a fence for my porch. So I took a picture and asked Gemini to add a fence. I did this a few times with various descriptions of the fence to get an idea what it would look like. Some were really bad, e.g. making the fence where the current stair is thus blocking the entrance, but some were nice examples. I could show them to the rest of the family and we could pick a design that seem nice. Doing it by hand would be impossible for me at least and hiring someone to draw them (photorealistically) would be prohibitively expensive.
Other than that in the case of image generation I'm at a loss.
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Comment on Browser fingerprinting demonstration in ~comp
archevel Link ParentI wonder if I should just build a "be an iphone" extension for Firefox with a whitelist button to disable it if I absolutely need to. Better to hide as something very common rather than become...I wonder if I should just build a "be an iphone" extension for Firefox with a whitelist button to disable it if I absolutely need to. Better to hide as something very common rather than become fairly unique based on running various blockers etc.
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Comment on Browser fingerprinting demonstration in ~comp
archevel LinkNo one likes tracking technology. No one likes registering an account at various sites. No one likes the forced age verification being foisted on various websites. What if we combine all these...No one likes tracking technology. No one likes registering an account at various sites. No one likes the forced age verification being foisted on various websites. What if we combine all these things? Something horrible or something potentially amazing?
Imagine a site where your browser fingerprint along with your site interactions become your identity score for the things you post? It could be presented as the likelyhood of the author being the same as the author of other posts. Essentially you'd get a network of disparate posts with a degree of confidence that they were made by the same person/entity. You could weave in multiple fingerprinting techniques, various browser based JS checks, text analysis for style, interaction history (tracked client side and sever side with timings ought to be very unique).
I imagine this probably wouldn't be immune to age verification laws, but an accountless service seems like a nice possible use of this tech. I imagine stopping spam messages might be the hard problem here though.
Just finished Ashes of Man by Christopher Ruocchio. It's a space opera and this is the fourth book in the series. I liked this one better than the previous one which was a bit too dark and gruesome for my tastes. I'll likely pick up the next book in the series from the library, but this one ends kind of bleak for the protagonist...
I'm gonna read Ringworld by ??? niven? next in any case.