jonah's recent activity
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Comment on 2025 NFL Season š Weekly Discussion Thread ā Week 1 in ~sports.american_football
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Comment on Do we have enough NFL fans to warrant weekly discussions? in ~sports.american_football
jonah LinkSorry to comment so late on this; Iām a casual NFL enjoyer and would very much enjoy conversation around the week! I may not contribute much as I too often lurk around here. Iād love to hear...Sorry to comment so late on this; Iām a casual NFL enjoyer and would very much enjoy conversation around the week! I may not contribute much as I too often lurk around here. Iād love to hear othersā thoughts on the games though!
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Comment on Moser's Frame Shop: I am an AI hater in ~tech
jonah Link ParentI left a very generic message in my claude.md for the agent to refer to me as "Batman" and it's very fun. At the end of a session if I say "thank you" it'll often say something to the effect of...I left a very generic message in my claude.md for the agent to refer to me as "Batman" and it's very fun. At the end of a session if I say "thank you" it'll often say something to the effect of "I'm glad I could assist you in protecting Gotham!"
I try to have fun
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I am still awake after feeding my newborn
Itās before 5am CT, and Iāve been awake sinceā¦ 2:30am. Most nights, I can feed my newborn and fall right back asleep. I believe that some work stress has kept me awake. It got me thinking about...
Itās before 5am CT, and Iāve been awake sinceā¦ 2:30am. Most nights, I can feed my newborn and fall right back asleep. I believe that some work stress has kept me awake. It got me thinking about some questions to ask the group:
- For those of us who would rather be productive than lie in bed awake for an extended period of time, how long before you decide to just get up and do something? Iām a little surprised I havenāt just gotten up yet. I think I will here in a few minutes.
- What are some fun activities you like to get up to when itās the middle of the night and everyone is asleep? Iām a software engineer by trade so I tend to work on a side project. Maybe a music project if itās something quiet.
- The age old question: how can I fall back asleep? I can usually count backwards from 100 and by the second time through Iāll be out. Does anyone have anything more interesting?
Iām sure variations of this topic have been posted before, so I apologize if this is less than novel. Retitle as necessary, I couldnāt think of a good one.
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Comment on iOS26 "Liquid Glass" - is it really such a big deal? in ~tech
jonah Link ParentSo FYI, iOS 26 jumped from iOS 18. So you got me there, I cannot name anything that came out in iOS 25 or 24! Anyways, as an example, iOS 18 introduced text formatting in iMessage if I am not...So FYI, iOS 26 jumped from iOS 18. So you got me there, I cannot name anything that came out in iOS 25 or 24!
Anyways, as an example, iOS 18 introduced text formatting in iMessage if I am not mistaken which was actually huge for me.
And yes, I do think Liquid Glass is a bigger deal than the other 4. I think I was clear about it being a big deal in my first reply. I just don't think it's a big deal from a technical perspective. There are certainly impressive things about it like I mentioned.
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Comment on iOS26 "Liquid Glass" - is it really such a big deal? in ~tech
jonah Link ParentAt the beginning of the video he says he's going through the top five features of iOS 26 with the Liquid Glass redesign coming in at number 1. That definitely seems like he's saying it's a big...At the beginning of the video he says he's going through the top five features of iOS 26 with the Liquid Glass redesign coming in at number 1. That definitely seems like he's saying it's a big deal. On one hand, it kind of is a big deal because it's a major front end redesign that most iPhone users are going to notice. On the other hand... it's not super impressive at a high level. I think the redesign really shines in the subtleties (like glass refraction at the edges of some areas), but I don't think most users will be very aware of those. At the end of the day, it's a different theme. Large visibility, but not ultimately super impressive from my own experiences.
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Comment on Question about REST APIS and encryption in ~tech
jonah LinkLots of excellent practical advice has been given to you so far in the thread, but I believe I am somewhat qualified to answer your theoretical questions more directly. I did my best to read...Lots of excellent practical advice has been given to you so far in the thread, but I believe I am somewhat qualified to answer your theoretical questions more directly. I did my best to read through all the comments, so I apologize if I'm adding thoughts that have already been added. Not too long ago, I was working at Mastercard for a couple of years developing in-house key management software which involved a lot of different encryption methods and some pretty complex architecture. Developing that kind of system requires diving deep into the world of cryptography. Before answering your questions, I want to concur with some other advice in the thread: Doing cryptography yourself is a great exercise, but the closer you are to the cryptographic implementation layer, the more likely it is that you'll screw something up. In a production setting you would want an expert in the subject to verify your architectural decisions and implementation. Now that that's out of the way, some direct answers to your questions:
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Google does not store their encryption keys (or at least their root encryption keys) in a database. Most likely, Google stores their encryption keys in Hardware Security Modules (HSMs). These are specially designed hardware devices for the specific purpose of securely generating and storing cryptographic keys. Without getting too technical, it is practically impossible for anyone (even most people at Google) to ever have access to these keys. Data encryption and decryption with those keys takes place inside the HSM, so the keys are never exposed "in the clear." So while Google at-large can decrypt the data that gets sent to its server, there is almost certainly a complicated web of cryptographic services within Google that ensure their encryption keys are never exposed.
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End-to-end encryption I think by definition means that the server or any other actor between the ends never receives sensitive data in plaintext. That would defeat the purpose. So if you have a server in the middle, that server should never receive plaintext data that should otherwise be encrypted, or cryptographic keys that can be used to decrypt any sensitive information. There's a whole wealth of knowledge on the internet, and some in this thread, that describes in detail how these systems work that I will not belabor here. Asymmetric cryptography plays a role, but there is usually some hybrid of asymmetric and symmetric cryptography that is in place for systems like this. To answer more directly, if I were designing an E2EE API, the sensitive bits would be encrypted the whole way through until it reached a client.
All that being said, I worked pretty closely with some of this stuff for a couple of years which makes me more knowledgeable on the subject than most, but it still does not make me an expert. Cryptography is a vast and complex web of math and computer science. Given the demographic of the site, it's very likely there are some engineers here with more experience than me on this topic. To those more experienced folks, please correct any info here if misleading or incorrect.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
jonah Link ParentI've been using Cursor at work which has actually done a much better job than I expected. I think because I sort of refused to use AI for a few years my mind is still stuck in 2022. Especially...I've been using Cursor at work which has actually done a much better job than I expected. I think because I sort of refused to use AI for a few years my mind is still stuck in 2022. Especially after the Claude 4 release, I was shocked to see how well it was able to write code.
To the doubters, let me give you a scenario that Cursor has massively assisted me with:
I'm a newer member of the team and have had some work to do in larger legacy codebases with a framework I'm not super familiar with. Cursor saved me probably hours of reading documentation and writing boilerplate code to implement a new feature. Now, I still did a good chunk of the feature implementation, but Cursor helped me get there so much faster than if I did it myself. I made a joke in the Cloudflare outage thread the other day about writing unit tests, but I'm being serious now, Cursor again saved me hours of writing unit tests and it actually did a good job. Again, I have been very surprised by its performance.It felt like I was cruising through the code. "Cruise coding" if you will.
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Comment on Cloudflare is down causing multiple services to break in ~tech
jonah Link ParentWhat am I supposed to do, write my unit tests manually?What am I supposed to do, write my unit tests manually?
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Comment on Looking for home networking recommendations in ~tech
jonah Link ParentI run it alongside a bunch of other services and I havenāt noticed any difference at all. Itās a Java program underneath so I think you have to āallocateā a certain amount of memory to the JVM...I run it alongside a bunch of other services and I havenāt noticed any difference at all. Itās a Java program underneath so I think you have to āallocateā a certain amount of memory to the JVM that may just sit around being unused. CPU usage is negligible from what Iāve seen.
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Comment on Looking for home networking recommendations in ~tech
jonah Link ParentI suppose I wouldnāt know, I didnāt start buying networking equipment until five years ago. Since 2020 Iāve been happy with my TP-Link stuff! But YMMVI suppose I wouldnāt know, I didnāt start buying networking equipment until five years ago. Since 2020 Iāve been happy with my TP-Link stuff! But YMMV
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Comment on Looking for home networking recommendations in ~tech
jonah LinkI wanted to go with Ubiquiti, but due to some circumstances outside of my control, I had to make some networking changes in my house earlier than I wanted, so I went with TP-Link and their Omada...I wanted to go with Ubiquiti, but due to some circumstances outside of my control, I had to make some networking changes in my house earlier than I wanted, so I went with TP-Link and their Omada ecosystem. For about $400 USD:
- ER605 Omada Router
- TL-SG1218MP 16 Port Gigabit PoE Switch
- EAP610 Omada PoE wireless access points (x2)
The router and switch are both overkill for my current setup, but leave plenty of room for expansion at a killer price point. I wired up my access points on both levels of my home. I was surprised by the range as I expected the edges of my home to be super slow, but they're pretty decent.
Now, the one caveat I will mention (that wasn't a problem for me because I have a lot of computing power lying around): In order to use Omada's managed network solution, you need a hardware controller. I believe you can buy one from TP-Link, but you can also put it on a regular old computer too. There's a docker image for it too, so I was able to containerize it. Omada made it super easy to set up the access points. I didn't have to do anything I don't think. Once the AP was plugged into the network Omada automatically configured it and it just worked.
I've been really happy with my TP-Link hardware for the price. If you have a computer sitting around that you could have on all the time to run the Omada software, I'd highly recommend it.
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Comment on You can now officially run Arch Linux inside Windows in ~comp
jonah Link ParentFor me it would just be because Iām used to Arch. The reason I picked Arch years ago and stuck with it is because of the vast amount of control and configuration options it gave me right out of...For me it would just be because Iām used to Arch.
The reason I picked Arch years ago and stuck with it is because of the vast amount of control and configuration options it gave me right out of the box. I was able to create an installation with exactly what I wanted on it. Itās crazy fast, zero bloat, and exactly what I want. For WSL, maybe you could get a similar experience in terms of a thin installation. But in my opinion, if you wanted to use Arch on WSL you probably already use Arch on bare metal. Iād love to hear some other perspectives though!
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Comment on Are you tech-savvy enough? in ~tech
jonah Link ParentYeah I've been there before. It can certainly be stressful. Over the last six or so years I've accumulated enough hardware and done enough configuration to never really be that down a creek...Yeah I've been there before. It can certainly be stressful. Over the last six or so years I've accumulated enough hardware and done enough configuration to never really be that down a creek anymore. I understand that's a privilege!
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Comment on Are you tech-savvy enough? in ~tech
jonah LinkI get this perspective, but for me, this is part of the fun. Funny, ever since I started using Arch from scratch this problem went away entirely for me. I don't know if it was something about...I used to be a hardcore Linux guy until I realized I was spending more time perfecting things than using them.
I get this perspective, but for me, this is part of the fun.
Updates on Linux were always like Russian Roulette. I would restart and pray to every deity in human history for nothing to break. Mind you I didnāt use Arch, that was my experience on Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE.
Funny, ever since I started using Arch from scratch this problem went away entirely for me. I don't know if it was something about Manjaro, but it used to crash randomly every once and a while. If I was extra lucky, it would crash during a system update. I started to get used to booting into a live USB and chroot-ing into my install so I could fix it. Once I switched to Arch, it's been surprisingly smooth sailing. I'm curious about anyone else's Linux experience that mirrors the article, because in general it hasn't been mine.
All Iām saying is that not everyone wants to know how a car functions to drive one. We need to get from A to B, but also sometimes from C back to A, and it feels like on Linux or really any open platform, I need to plan ahead for major fuckups by the system that would be my problem to solve.
I think this is a super fair critique of open platforms but that's also kind of what you're signing up for. I'm a technically minded person. I actually feel genuinely held back by macOS and Windows for most of what I spend my free time doing. I love the velocity that is granted to me by the particular flavor of Linux I've configured. And that's why it works for me.
I could also just be really lucky and have finally found a setup that I enjoy and doesn't need much tinkering with. After all those years!
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Comment on Trapping misbehaving bots in an AI Labyrinth in ~tech
jonah Link ParentYou would have to go out of your way to find the hidden links in the web page that actually take you to the LLM garbage. Crawlers donāt see web pages like people do, they parse the HTML for hrefs....You would have to go out of your way to find the hidden links in the web page that actually take you to the LLM garbage. Crawlers donāt see web pages like people do, they parse the HTML for hrefs. Cloudflare is inserting hidden hrefs for crawlers to find that would probably be impossible for a regular actor to encounter by chance.
This pre-generated content is seamlessly integrated as hidden links on existing pages via our custom HTML transformation process, without disrupting the original structure or content of the page. Each generated page includes appropriate meta directives to protect SEO by preventing search engine indexing. We also ensured that these links remain invisible to human visitors through carefully implemented attributes and styling.
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Comment on What are your goto cocktails? in ~food
jonah LinkMy wife when not pregnant really enjoys an amaretto sour every now and again. She doesnāt like it with the egg, but I do! Because the egg (for me) is mostly for the foam, you can do fine without it.My wife when not pregnant really enjoys an amaretto sour every now and again. She doesnāt like it with the egg, but I do! Because the egg (for me) is mostly for the foam, you can do fine without it.
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Comment on How hard would it be to learn to code a Discord bot? in ~comp
jonah Link ParentThis is what I used for the few Discord bots I wrote for me and my friends. OP, if you're interested, this codebase is a few years old, but you can check out this code repository as an example....This is what I used for the few Discord bots I wrote for me and my friends. OP, if you're interested, this codebase is a few years old, but you can check out this code repository as an example.
For context, we were playing a lot of Rocket League as we were in college and some virus was going around at the time so we couldn't be around each other. We wanted a way to all check our "session" stats and I didn't feel like building out a front end, so I threw together a Discord bot. Fair warning, there's probably a lot of not-so-great patterns and practices here, but for getting something started, this may be useful.
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Comment on How do you feel about your PTO? in ~life
jonah LinkUS employee, salaried 25 PTO days 5 personal days 10 sick days 16 weeks parental leave (both birthing and non-birthing parents). I think compared to other companies Iāve worked at, the health...US employee, salaried
25 PTO days
5 personal days
10 sick days
16 weeks parental leave (both birthing and non-birthing parents).I think compared to other companies Iāve worked at, the health benefits could be better but I really shouldnāt complain. My job only offers high deductible plans for premiums I would expect to pay forā¦ not high deductible plans. We have incredible coverage though, so like I said: I shouldnāt complain.
Also, they match every dollar I contribute to my 401k (up to 6% of my salary) with $1.67.
Truly wild benefits for living in the Midwest (in my limited experience).
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
jonah Link ParentI pay for premium so I donāt have to deal with ads anymore (especially on iOS and TVs), but man I miss Sponsor Block. How does that integrate with yt-dlp? Is it native, or do you do something...I pay for premium so I donāt have to deal with ads anymore (especially on iOS and TVs), but man I miss Sponsor Block. How does that integrate with yt-dlp? Is it native, or do you do something else? Iām interested in finding ways to integrate something like that with my home video consumption.
I'm a Chiefs fan. My wife's family are all Chiefs people, and due to my location it seemed like a good team to be a fan of when I started paying attention to the NFL a few years ago. Some may call me a bandwagon fan which is okay because I know I'm not, it's more of a timing issue.
I say all that because I'd like for you to have the context before I say: I love my team, but I would be absolutely thrilled to see either of those two teams make it to the Super Bowl this year. Both of those teams absolutely deserve an appearance at least, but I'd love to see them win it all too.