2026-11-04 05:05:24
I like lists and keep many of them on my homepage. I don’t trust much external services and don’t want to have half a dozen accounts to track
I regret not starting tracking all these things earlier.
And the reason I write it now is that I updated my books page with tons of book covers and fancy stacks. You should have your own favorite lists too!
2026-11-03 01:22:14
I rant about Daylight Saving Time in April this year already. All the points from that post are still valid. And there’s another one, surfaced in the latest Apple Watch update, when the watch may start showing the wrong time after the change. My wife experienced this bug herself, bad that I didn’t record the bug on video.
Well, there is also some good news about time. Leap seconds are now obsolete. Unlike with DST, people were able to talk to each other and agreed on the plan. Probably, because these leap seconds were only noticeable for distributed technical systems. But my hope that one day we’ll get rid of DST is reinvigorated.
2026-10-28 02:50:35
It is becoming a new recurring topic on my blog, a short video recommendation. Short in a sense of less than 10 minutes or so, not a few seconds long reel (god save).
Today I’d like to recommend not your usual YouTube video, but a piece of art.
Anton, designer living in Tokyo, collects memories of his life in various forms, from journal to an incredible complex graphic intensive hand crafted videos.
I enjoy visual arts a lot, and follow him for some time already. And if you liked this video, you may want to learn how he creates music or motion graphics for his channel.
2026-10-22 02:00:33
I’ve briefly seen the news regarding compromised intermediate certificates from some unknown CA (eMudrah) yesterday, but quickly dismissed them. I was like, shit happens, something leaked, certificates were already revoked, I was not affected, all good.
Well, it appears the problem was much bigger.
After a security researcher posted private keys for all certificates on GitHub (note the repository name), it has become clear that they weren’t private at all. Instead of 384 bits long random numbers, astonishingly, they were literally 4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237.
And while you’re trying to comprehend this, an obligatory reminder of this timeless XKCD comic.
© XKCD
How could this even be possible? The most plausible explanation is that these keys originated from some test environment, which was accidentally pushed to production. Anyway, I’d call it the biggest security issue ever.
Internet and computers in general run on trust. You as a user trust developers of the operating system and browser you use, the internet provider, and so-called Certificate Authorities, who issue certificates protecting HTTPS sites. The chain of trust is as strong as its weakest point. And yesterday it appeared to be very weak.
I personally am going to review all online security measures I take. And I already have many in place, it’s just you always need to be a step ahead.
2026-10-21 03:54:45
Derek Sivers brilliantly explains in under five minutes what it takes to be a leader. Not all TED talks deserve your attention, but this one definitely does.
And Derek Sivers himself too. After his successful musician and entrepreneur careers, he wrote several books. If I am to recommend one, that would be Your Music and People, where Derek reflects on those periods of his life. He also tells an unbelievable story about his conflict with Apple and Steve Jobs in this book.
Besides that Derek started Now pages and maintains a collection of Now pages. And you should have Now page too.
2026-10-20 01:56:13
My former colleague Hadi Hariri has recommended this book to me a long time ago. He left JetBrains last month, so I decided it is a good time to finally write a review.
The book has been on my table for a past year or two and I tried to consult with it every time I had a difficult situation on the job. Critics say that the author too often remembers cool places she worked at, as if she were bragging. Well, maybe. But she also provides a lot of great examples of how to set up the environment and culture in the team to achieve the best results together.
Overall the main concept of the Radical Candor approach is about two things.
Managers are working with people, and everyone is different. People on your team have different motivations and personal goals, find themselves on a different stages of their careers, and different life situations.
It’s not your job to solve all of this, but you must acknowledge it and find your own personal approach to all your direct reports.
Caring doesn’t mean protect ing from the outside world. To grow as a person and as a professional, people need to be challenged. It is better to be open and clear about it. Help them find where they can apply their skills and experience in the best possible way for them and for the business.
But also be clear, when they are taking a wrong turn and why.
The things written here and in the book might seem obvious, but I’ve seen so many examples, and experienced myself, when managers do not care and ignore their employees, so it is still worth repeating.
★★★★★ Must read for all (wannabe) managers of all levels
