Are AI Models the New Firearms?
"Last week" (https://mgamble.ca/p/sovereign-ai-is-the-new-space-race-canada-just-brought-a-sparkler) I argued that sovereign AI was the new space race and that Canada was bringing a sparkler to the...
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technology
Building an LED Sports Scoreboard: Power Bugs, Permission Traps, and Other Joys
A few months into life as an "executive" in my day job, I have noticed something. The further up the org chart you climb, the less actual building you get to do. Meetings get longer. Decks get...
Give Me Hard Mode
You never know what you are going to find in a comment section. Most days, the answer is nothing useful. Every once in a while you stumble into a thread that sends you down a different path...
It's Just DNS With Extra Steps
Lou over at louwrentius.com "recently published a thoughtful piece" (https://louwrentius.com/dns-is-for-people-not-for-it-infrastructure.html) arguing that DNS, while useful for public-facing...
I Spent a Decade Running the M6. Then I Met It Again.
Google Drive sent me one of those notifications a couple of weeks ago. Storage full. Time to clean up. So I started poking through the corners of my drive looking for things to delete, and that is how...
Won't Someone Please Think of the Children, Microwave Edition
I was visiting a friend recently who had just bought a new microwave. I went to open it to reheat a coffee, and I could not. I pulled the handle. Nothing. I pulled harder, in case the thing was just...
It's Not an AI Problem, It's an Access Problem
«"NEVER F**KING GUESS, and that's exactly what I did. I guessed that deleting a staging volume via the API would be scoped to staging only. I didn't verify. I didn't check if the volume ID was shared...
Did I Just Talk to a Person?
Over the weekend I had to call a plumbing service. Tenant had a broken toilet, bad timing, the usual Saturday night special. Like most after-hours services, I didn't get connected to a plumber. I got...
The AI Divide: A New Fault Line Opening Before We Finished Closing the Old One
Earlier this week I had the privilege of moderating a panel at Digital Access Day, the Canadian Internet Society's annual gathering of thoughtleaders working on the issues shaping our networks and our...
California's 3D Printing Bill Won't Stop Gun Violence, But It Will Create a New Class of Criminals
Earlier this year I wrote about "New York's attempt to mandate filtering software on 3D printers" (https://mgamble.ca/p/new-yorks-3d-printer-bill-wont-stop-ghost-guns-but-it-will-stop-you-from-fixing)...
Spain Just Proved Why ISPs Can't Be the Internet's Content Police
Earlier this year, I wrote about "Bill S-209" (https://mgamble.ca/p/bill-s-209-protecting-kids-at-the-cost-of-the-internet) and its deeply flawed premise: that we can protect kids from pornography by...
I Lost My Receiver Remote, So I Built a Smart IR Blaster with an ESP32
I lost the remote for my Yamaha RX-V385 receiver. Not temporarily misplaced it, not left it between couch cushions. Gone. Vanished into whatever dimension claims TV remotes, single socks, and 10mm...
Controlling My Office Light with Natural Language (A Weekend Tinkering Story)
Wtih today being a holiday (Good Friday) and a chance to finally start to tackle my "todo" list around the house I installed a new smart light in my office, an Artika Skyshade I picked up from Costco...
California's New Age Verification Law: Making Kids Less Safe While Breaking Open Source
Earlier this month, "PC Gamer reported" (https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-a...
Defence in Debt: When Security Spending Doesn't Buy Security
There's a special kind of technical debt that doesn't show up in Jira. It doesn't sit in a backlog. It doesn't have a product owner. It doesn't even admit it exists. It lives in PowerPoint. I call it...
They Used a Lost Puppy to Sell You a Surveillance Network
I was watching the American feed of the Super Bowl last night when Ring's latest ad came on. A family loses their dog. They upload a photo. Ring's network of neighbourhood cameras springs into action,...
New York's 3D Printer Bill Won't Stop Ghost Guns, But It Will Stop You From Fixing Your Blender
New York is considering a budget bill (S.9005/A.10005) that would require all 3D printers sold in the state to include "blocking technology" that scans every print file through a "firearms blueprint...
When Critical Isn't Critical
Last week I was reviewing a vulnerability scan report for a client when something caught my eye. Buried in a list of "critical" findings was a Log4j vulnerability - you know, the one that broke the...
Beyond Titles and Tiers: Rethinking Compensation in the Modern Workplace
Recently, a colleague of mine transitioned to a "Director" position within an organization, intriguingly without any direct reports. The rationale? The organization's only method to offer the deserved compensation was by elevating them to such a level, highlighting a lack of high pay bands for non-m
Automating Mikrotik provisioning, or how I learned to love IPv6 link-local addressing
In the realm of network management, automating device provisioning stands as a critical and often challenging task. Recently a customer asked me to help them in automating the provisioning of Mikrotik devices. For those not familiar, Mikrotik produces a wide range of network hardware - routers, swi