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good stories about decent computers

13 July, 2025

What people said about an OpenZFS bug

A few days ago I wrote about a OpenZFS bug I found and why it went unnoticed. It generated a surprising amount of chatter (at least for me!) which I found quite interesting, and did actually help clarify my thinking on a few things.

Other stories

2025

10 July An (almost) catastrophic OpenZFS bug and the humans that made it (and Rust is here too)
13 March fsync() after open() is an elaborate no-op
12 March We should improve libzfs somewhat

2024

27 October OpenZFS deduplication is good now and you shouldn't use it
5 October A few nice things in OpenZFS 2.3
19 May I'm speaking at BSDCan 2024
11 March I'm speaking at AsiaBSDCon 2024
4 March quiz: a tool for rapid OpenZFS development

2023

25 December A data corruption bug in OpenZFS?

2022

2021

16 June io_uring is not an event system
10 April GOOD COMPUTER: a modern 80's-style computer

2020

17 August GOOD COMPUTER: mk2
27 July GOOD COMPUTER: XIAO bricked
24 July GOOD COMPUTER: XIAO
12 July GOOD COMPUTER: Broken SD module
7 July GOOD COMPUTER: Public Service Announcement
6 July GOOD COMPUTER: LCD graphics
5 July GOOD COMPUTER: LED counter
2 July GOOD COMPUTER: LCD
22 June GOOD COMPUTER: Z-machine
2 June GOOD COMPUTER: BASIC
28 April GOOD COMPUTER
29 February End times
11 January Tile windows

2019

7 December Switching to elementary OS

2018

14 August A talk about Consul

2017

17 January U 2 can U2F (linux.conf.au 2017)

2016

19 October CompCon 2016 in review
2 October A br1ef h1st0ry of P@sswords (CompCon 2016)
22 June U 2 can U2F (YAPC::NA 2016)

2015

20 June Secret level
17 June New release of salada, my JMAP server
14 June I was happy with this one
12 June An evening of programming puzzles...
27 May Fastmail is a SSRF target
24 May OAuth+SASL needs a username
23 May OAuth for libsasl2
12 May First release of salada, my JMAP server
19 April A JMAP library for Rust
22 February Pebble cricket: updates
12 February Everybody root
11 February Pebble cricket: name shortener
16 January Adding XMPP support to nginx
6 January Dummy renderer

2014

21 November Broken wire protocol
5 October NBN: test box
5 October NBN: inside the box
3 October NBN: the box
22 September Why I bought a Pebble
12 September Hexdump
9 August Anonymous objects
28 July Pebble cricket: draw
27 July Pebble cricket: SixFour
27 July Pebble cricket: long names
26 July Pebble cricket: innings change
25 July Pebble cricket: MVP
25 July Pebble cricket
21 July Introducing hopscotch, a tiny image proxy
15 July Dockerising a Perl application
14 July Deploying towncrier with Carton
11 July SSRF protection in Perl
26 June The new Gmail API
18 June Perl and etcd? I can help!
5 June OAuth2 protected resource errors
28 May A notifier app for Fastmail
20 May DJabberd mandatory TLS
15 April A status dashboard
23 March Wrap any Lua function with a sigc++ slot
17 March Experimenting with easing functions
2 March When good glyph atlases go bad
8 January Replacing Graphics::Magick with Imager
2 January That will do for tonight
1 January Particle systems are fun

2013

31 December A particle system
21 November The problem with cricket commentary in IRC
10 November Start of the new ship market
27 October Translation answers
25 October Translation question
25 October Google sending weird XMPP stuff
19 October Code::Blocks for Pioneer
16 October Building Pioneer's UI: Part 1: History
15 October Upgrading the office servers
12 October Multi-line text layout
11 October Start of the new bulletin board & chat form
3 October GCC's 'maybe unitialized' warning
29 September The secret truth of cross-platform development
18 September Thrust
30 August Building Pioneer's UI: Part 0: Introduction
10 July Randomly choosing complementary colours
15 May I bisected a kernel problem!
12 April My first Rust: Hello OpenGL
10 April My first Rust: SDL bindings
22 March the google drive api doesn't know about paths, and that's bad
28 February Its looking pretty nice!
21 February A Lua puzzle
16 February Steam Linux
30 January On jousting
25 January Pioneer is looking real nice these days
15 January Regression
9 January hacking shenanigans, episode 17
3 January Sunrise over New Hope

2012

28 December Cameras can be tricky little suckers...
25 December Space doesn't care that its Christmas
20 December APT policy facts
16 December It begins. Again.
14 December Computer has been getting slower and slower...
10 December A little toy for a tired evening...
16 November Pretty sliders
16 November I just noticed that our new ship is engaged in fruit transport
12 November Bounce
9 November Cricket bot
6 November Pioneer, Elite: Dangerous, and the questions nobody asked
5 November You, c.3200
27 October We've got some pretty crazy collaboration going on...
22 October ZFS on Linux pretty much just works
22 October People are getting excited about new UI toys
15 October New info view is coming along nicely
13 October Starting to integrate the new UI
9 October New UI in pull request
9 October main menu, alpha 9, 18 months ago
17 September I don't always get things completely wrong...
18 August So you think you have nothing to offer
15 August Perl and OpenGL?
12 August More refactoring today
30 July A little experiment I did tonight
29 July just got new gas giant rings and they look amazing
4 June don't you die on me!
21 May Finally got back into some UI work today
20 May A code generation bug
18 May To determine if its doing a cross-compile...
30 April Responding to a sigc++ signal by firing another signal
29 April The simplest things...
6 February gui brainstorm

2011

18 May using stb_truetype with sdl
20 February ooh aah oolua
5 February what jelly dreams are made of

2010

13 November make something
6 November Net::OpenID for Perl: its alive!
6 August low tide
12 June delicious ripple cake!
14 May this one time, at band camp...
28 April its like a swipe card for aliens
4 March every good thing
9 February location location location
4 February board games
29 January catch a ride
28 January confessions of a shopaholic
17 January new year's high resolution

2009

2008

17 July some assembly required
19 June lately
4 June tied at both ends
9 March the centre for kids who can't write good
2 March while stocks last
25 February lay it out for me
18 February cow launched!
17 February needs more pirate
11 February back from egypt
1 February i don't want your money, i just want your love
29 January i can write forever
22 January with a bullet
18 January note to self
16 January a rock opera in three parts
14 January year in review
9 January i'm going to egypt; i'll bring you back something nice
7 January a global problem
1 January year of something

2007

19 December zooooooon!
18 December virtual insanity
13 December rivendell is kinda crap actually
12 December visiting the elves
10 December this is not the symbol you're looking for
9 December snag
8 December not implemented
1 December bitchin' threads
25 November its fontastic!
21 November types, not as we know them
20 November build, build, as fast as you can
18 November a curly one
16 November a fine old port
15 November one for the road
14 November opinion noted
11 November tastes like chicken
10 November the big week
3 November twisty passages, all aligned
31 October odd jobs
28 October aros and the gpl
25 October a plan for a filesystem
16 October brb fighting monsterz
11 October how do i linked code?
7 October cout << 'hello' << endl
4 October flushed away
2 October almost there
26 September its alive!
26 September i'm doing it wrong
23 September i can see forever
22 September dreaming in colour
21 September can't make the scene if you ain't got the green
19 September at least its something
17 September insanity in three parts
12 September i'll be your host this evening
10 September when good libraries go bad
7 September a tale of two compilers
1 September standing on the shoulders of minnows
30 August don't you know its rude to point?
21 August blah, or something like it
11 August many unrelated things
22 July chasing parked c(h)ars
17 July how slow can you go?
15 July lda #$00
6 July going old school
2 July writeback
28 June tunnelling for two
26 June busybot
23 June early tests
22 June when i was 17...
22 June pipe the what?
18 June can't get enough
17 June the mundane details
16 June too many tangents
13 June its all pipes
12 June open for business
10 June merge left
7 June the special ones
7 June i've got something to report
4 June another nail in the coffin
1 June consolation prize
31 May follow me into the caves!
23 May lock it in
21 May supersize me
17 May opinion noted
9 May the locksmith
5 May not to scale
3 May phew
29 April later that day
28 April now with files!
24 April in your face
20 April and like that, its gone
19 April how may i direct your call?
17 April a word tells a thousand pictures
15 April write on, commander
4 April everything old is new again
29 March slow and steady
25 March once more with feeling
21 March i was smart once
19 March my brain hurts
13 March i'm the boss, need the info
12 March it gets late early these days
9 March some mail
7 March now comes the tricky bit
5 March first drop
28 February its the browser, stupid
28 February cold fusion explosion
27 February boring stuff
23 February milestone
20 February mounting excitement
14 February start me up
12 February insert clever title here
11 February damn technicalities
8 February global pandemic
8 February exercises for the reader
6 February front end loader
4 February you are confused; but this is your normal state
2 February all packeted up (with somewhere to go)
29 January where everybody knows your name
25 January the nurses are stealing my money
25 January drowning in a sea of unfamiliar code
24 January in soviet russia, system files you
23 January quiet time
22 January my hat is awesome!
20 January optimise for fun
20 January let's all get drunk and play ping-pong
19 January spinning around
18 January i can hear you mummy!
16 January the avid reader
13 January for extra strength bitrot, use aspro clear
12 January ouroboros

2006

20 October tile me purple
15 September getting testy
1 September vimming for fun and profit
27 August constant classes
20 August a 'complete' success
19 August closures in c

2003

2 June A crash course in SASL and DIGEST-MD5 for XMPP

0001

1 January