J. R. Swab

A beige Windows 3.1 PC, the internet, and a Chrome extension shaped my life in technology.

I get at least one migraine a month.

AI makes bad writing easier to produce and harder for bad writers to recognize.

AI removed the slow drip of mental effort from coding.

The Genesis mandate to subdue the earth includes building technology.

How I built a multi-model AI stack that saved 95% on inference costs without sacrificing quality.

Christians are wringing their hands over AI.

A senior engineer stopped writing code, leaned into AI, and became more productive than ever.

The tools change, the magic stays the same.

Software teams work because people go deep on different things.

The code you need is inside the LLM.

The push to replace software engineers isn't always a technical prediction.

Let your AI coding assistant read and respond to Slack messages using browser credentials.

OpenClaw loads a lot of files by default.

After twenty years of failed note-taking systems, I built SlipBot: an AI agent that eliminates organizational friction by automating metadata, source matching, and knowledge graph management.

Learn how to leverage AI coding agents effectively for production code.

Learn how to effectively use AI coding agents in brownfield codebases.

Learn why relying on pre-configured setups and "done-for-you" solutions prevents real understanding and limits your ability to build custom solutions.

Build and deploy Go web applications in hours, not weeks.

Discover how moving from VS Code to terminal-based development improves your programming skills.

LSQ reaches v1.0.0, bringing stable terminal-based journaling to Logseq users.

Learn how to manage your Logseq journals directly from the terminal using lsq.

After much trouble shooting for several days I finally got this working.

How to Run Syncthing as a Daemon on OpenBSD

How To Extract Kindle Notes From The Web

Install OpenBSD Sets From A USB Install Device

How To Enable Middle Button Scrolling For The Lenovo X220 On OpenBSD

Learn how to mine Wownero directly with Wownerod, Xmrig, or Xmrig-Proxy after the July 4th, 2021 "Junkie Jeff" hard fork.

How to Get Keyboard Key Names on Linux

Discover the key virtues that make an effective programmer, inspired by Larry Wall's wisdom: be lazy industriously, impatient patiently, and hubristic humbly.

Learn how to safelist (whitelist) an email address in Gmail and Yahoo to ensure important emails reach your inbox instead of spam.

A practical approach to landing your first programming job by having recruiters come to you and maximizing your interview chances.

Eric Raymond explains why computer science education alone can't make you an expert programmer.

Learn the ten essential things every new programmer should know: from understanding concepts over languages to embracing failure as part of the coding journey.

A Caesar cipher is the most simple & widely known encryption method.

HTML email is bad and should be considered harmful.

I use email lists to send updates on new videos and blog posts so I don't have to play to the algorithms on the platforms I create within.

sudo dd status=progress if=name-of.iso of=/dev/sdx

Learn how to create a linked list from scratch using Go, including push and pop methods for stack implementation.

Peer-to-peer has been around a long time and is decentralized in nature.

Automate server setup and customization with Bash scripts.

Learn how to post to Instagram from your computer using Chrome or Firefox developer tools without needing a mobile device.

My experience running Android without Google services using LineageOS.

Breto is a small project I wrote to display the time and date in DWM.

We break down the algorithm of searching a sorted matrix for a specific number.

For years I wrote code in a terminal via Neovim but chose to give VSCode a spin.

The following information is a compilation of Wikipedia and the 2016 speech by Dave Cheney.

The past week I got to spend with my in-laws in the mountains of Virginia.

Technology and apps that help bloggers write more effectively, edit efficiently, and backup their content safely.

J.