Month: November 2020
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Dovecot not working after upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04.1 (dh key too small)
I upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04.1 and chose to keep my existing config files, and my mail server stopped working. In the log I saw: Nov 25 09:07:57 machine dovecot: imap-login: Error: Failed to initialize SSL server context: Can’t load DH parameters: error:…
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Letter to my MP on the overseas aid budget.
Letter I sent to my MP today on the overseas aid budget. Let’s not be foolish. Dear Ben Spencer, Please use your influence to persuade the government to maintain our overseas aid budget commitment at 0.7% of national income. I believe that changing th…
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Profile a Java unit test (very quickly, with no external tools)
I have a unit test that is running slowly, and I want a quick view of what is happening. I can get a nice overview of where the code spends its time by adding this to the JVM arguments: -agentlib:hprof=cpu=samples,lineno=y,depth=3,file=hprof.samples.tx…
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Planning is Inevitable
Like most programmers I’ve generally tried to steer well clear of getting involved in management duties. The trouble is that as you get older I think this becomes harder and harder to avoid. Once you get the mechanics of programming under control you m…
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Planning is Inevitable
Like most programmers I’ve generally tried to steer well clear of getting involved in management duties. The trouble is that as you get older I think this becomes harder and harder to avoid. Once you get the mechanics of programming under control you m…
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Reality is not what is seems
is an excellent book by Carlo Rovelli (isbn 978-0-141-98321-9) As usual I’m going to quote from a few pages. It doesn’t describe where there is a particle but how the particle shows itself to others. It isn’t things that enter into relations…
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Reality is not what is seems
is an excellent book by Carlo Rovelli (isbn 978-0-141-98321-9) As usual I’m going to quote from a few pages. It doesn’t describe where there is a particle but how the particle shows itself to others. It isn’t things that enter into relations…
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Pair Programming Interviews
Let’s be honest, hiring people is hard and there are no perfect approaches. However it feels somewhat logical that if you’re hiring someone who will spend a significant amount of their time solving problems by writing software, then you should probably…
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Pair Programming Interviews
Let’s be honest, hiring people is hard and there are no perfect approaches. However it feels somewhat logical that if you’re hiring someone who will spend a significant amount of their time solving problems by writing software, then you should probably…
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Why a Free Software web games site?
Recently I’ve been having a lot of fun working on Smolpxl, which is a web site featuring some little retro web games that are all Free and Open Source Software. Here’s a sneak preview of the game I am working on: Why do this? Apart from the fact that …
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Letter to Anneliese Dodds MP: Support for the Labour Left
Dear Anneliese Dodds MP, I have voted for you in the last two elections, as a proxy for my support for Jeremy Corbyn, though your attendance and performance at the hustings arranged by the Stop the War Coalition was a reason for my suppor…