Protecting Children Without Turning the Internet into an Identity Checkpoint
32 mins
The debate surrounding age verification often presents a false choice: either leave children exposed to the unrestricted internet or require everyone to prove who they are before accessing online information. This article argues that the first concern is entirely legitimate - children do need protection - but that mandatory identity or age-verification systems are the wrong pseudo-solution. Instead, it explores how child safety can be improved through better platform design, parental support and targeted regulation without creating a universal checkpoint between people and information. Drawing on academic research, court decisions and historical examples, the article examines the technical, legal and societal implications of identity-based access systems. It discusses privacy-preserving cryptography, smartphone-based credentials, function creep, surveillance risks and freedom of information, ultimately arguing that protecting minors should never come at the cost of making lawful access to knowledge conditional on government-approved credentials
Installing n8n on a RaspberryPi 3B+
13 mins
A practical guide for installing n8n via npm on a RaspberryPi 3B+ with only 1 GB of RAM. This article explains why the usual advice to just use Docker is not always helpful, how to work around the memory bottleneck with temporary swap, and how to run n8n reliably enough for small experimental workflows on low-power hardware.
Physical Review Research: Ghost imaging with free electron-photon pairs
1 min
Published in Physical Review Research: Coincidence imaging, also known as ghost imaging, is a technique that exploits correlations between two particles to reconstruct information about a specimen. The particle that relays the spatial information about the object remains completely noninteracting, while the particle used to probe the object is not spatially resolved. While ghost imaging has been primarily implemented on photonic platforms, applying it to particles with fundamentally different properties opens up scientific directions. Mixing massive, charged electrons with massless, neutral photons introduces a hybrid architecture that unites two fundamental microscopic platforms, each serving as a cornerstone of highly advanced imaging systems. In this work, we investigate coincidence imaging using electron–cathodoluminescence photon pairs generated within a transmission electron microscope. Utilizing a custom-built free-space cathodoluminescence setup, we demonstrate two-dimensional ghost imaging of complex patterns. We are able to obtain a spatial resolution down to 2um, paving the way for adaptation of quantum-enhanced imaging techniques from photonic quantum optics to electron microscopy.
Stability Is Key: How Lasting Systems Create Real Progress
66 mins
Technology is often described as a race where success belongs to those who move the fastest. New frameworks, new interfaces and constant reinvention are frequently celebrated as progress in themselves. But is that really how civilization advances? Or is the true foundation of innovation something far less glamorous: the ability to preserve yesterdays achievements so tomorrows work can build upon them? In this article we take a journey through software engineering, science, industry and history to argue that stability - not perpetual disruption - is the real engine of progress. From POSIX and TCP/IP to container shipping, the SI system and modern research, we explore why the most valuable technologies are often the ones that quietly keep working for decades while the world around them evolves. Stable foundations do not slow progress - they allow it to compound.
Optimizing GLM for dual processor Westmere Xeon E5620: 200% gain (3x faster) till now
30 mins
In this article I am summarizing a bunch of optimizations I performed on the colibri runtime for GLM-5.2 specifically for an Westmere Xeon E5620 dual-socket Xeon machine. It is a summary of the ideas, what worked and what did not - and it shows why some seemingly cleaver ideas were simply not worth keeping.
Colibri: Running a 744 Billion Parameter LLM with 20 GB of RAM on FreeBSD
23 mins
Modern frontier scale large language models (LLMs) are normally associated with clusters of very expensive GPUs and hundreds of gigabytes of memory. Yet recent advances in Mixture-of-Experts architectures and intelligent inference runtimes challenge this assumption. In this short article we explore how the 744 billion parameter GLM-5.2 model can be executed on an old dual-Xeon FreeBSD workstation equipped with just 20 GB of RAM by streaming expert weights directly from NVMe storage. Beyond documenting the necessary FreeBSD port of the Colibrì runtime, the article explains the underlying memory hierarchy, Mixture-of-Experts routing, activation vector steering and practical performance characteristics of such an unconventional setup. While the resulting system is certainly no replacement for modern GPU servers, it demonstrates that frontier scale language models are becoming accessible on surprisingly modest hardware, provided one is willing to trade latency for capability.
GPL or BSD? A Personal View on Licensing Hobby and Academic Software
19 mins
One of the oldest debates in open-source software asks a deceptively simple question: should code remain free forever through copyleft or should recipients be free to use it however they wish? The GNU GPL and the BSD licenses embody two different answers, each protecting a different notion of freedom. This article explores both philosophies, illustrating where each approach excels and where practical trade-offs emerge. Using well-known examples such as the Linksys WRT54G and the ZFS licensing situation, the short article examines how licensing choices affect hobby projects, academic research and generic software engineering. Rather than arguing that one license is universally superior, it explains the goals each was designed to achieve and why for many hobby and research projects a permissive BSD license may be the authors preferred choice
Using Codex with a custom API gateway
10 mins
Modern coding agents such as Codex are designed around OpenAIs Responses API and most of the time around a specific large language model, making it difficult to use them with self-hosted models or alternative inference backends. Fortunately, this limitation is mostly architectural rather than fundamental. By introducing a lightweight API gateway that translates between the Responses API and more widely supported interfaces such as Chat Completions or Ollamas API, Codex can be connected to a wide range of local and institutional LLM deployments. This short article demonstrates how to configure Codex for a custom OpenAI compatible gateway, explains the required profile and model metadata files, and discusses the motivation behind introducing a compatibility layer. Whether you are running local models with llama.cpp, Ollama, Colibri, or a shared university inference service, the same approach allows existing applications to remain vendor-independent while presenting a stable interface to rapidly evolving AI backends.
Running Codex (or other applications) in lightweight FreeBSD jails
18 mins
Modern AI agents and automation tools are increasingly capable of writing code, executing commands and interacting with local services. While this opens exciting possibilities, it also raises an important question: how can we let such applications work autonomously without granting unrestricted access to our entire workstation? This article demonstrates how FreeBSDs lightweight service jails provide an elegant answer, isolating autonomous applications while keeping them fast and convenient to use. Using OpenAIs Codex as a practical example, we build a minimal service jail that shares only the resources an agent actually requires. Along the way we explore nullfs, custom user databases, runtime linker initialization, resource control, security considerations and the limitations of operating-system level virtualization. Although the example focuses on Codex, the same architecture is equally applicable to CI workers, automation services and many other long-running applications that benefit from lightweight isolation.
A short story of using QWen3.6:35b-a3b with codex
19 mins
Running powerful coding agents no longer requires a data center. Modern open-weight language models can already perform surprisingly useful software development tasks on ordinary consumer hardware, making self-hosted AI an attractive alternative for developers who value privacy, offline operation or simply want to avoid constantly burning API credits. This article follows the practical journey of connecting Qwen3.6:35B-A3B to Codex through Ollama, from model tuning and configuration to the inevitable bugs, quirks and unexpected failure modes. Along the way it explains the most important sampling parameters, shows complete working configurations and offers an assessment of what todays local coding models can - and cannot - do.
Anycubic Kobra X - First Impressions
39 mins
The Anycubic Kobra X impresses with surprisingly solid hardware, excellent mechanical design and a straightforward assembly process. Printing quality is convincing right from the first test and features such as multi-color printing and automatic filament handling make the machine attractive for hobbyists and makers alike. At first glance it feels like a carefully engineered product that offers a lot of hardware for its price. Looking beyond the initial experience, however, reveals a rather different picture on the software side. This article examines the printer from the perspective of a technically inclined user, exploring its networking capabilities, software ecosystem and the limitations imposed by undocumented protocols and vendor lock-in. Along the way we reverse engineer parts of the local communication interface, analyze the MQTT-based control protocol and discuss what is required to integrate the printer into an open, self-managed workflow.
The Hum That Never Sleeps - A Vision
61 mins
From the Borg and Stargates Replicators to RepRap printers, orbital shipyards, biohybrid robots and autonomous AI agents, the dream of machines that can build more machines has fascinated engineers and science-fiction writers alike. This article explores self-replication as an engineering problem rather than merely a fictional concept, comparing how different systems acquire materials, manufacture successors, share knowledge, overcome bottlenecks and ultimately sustain themselves. Along the way we revisit John von Neumanns visionary concept of the universal constructor, examine real-world projects that are already taking their first steps toward recursive manufacturing and discuss the often-overlooked foundations that make self-replication possible: feedstock, metrology, documentation, governance, and careful engineering. The result is a journey through one of technologys most ambitious ideas - from today's workshops and AI runtimes to the autonomous factories that may one day build the next generation of machines.
