Stuff Yaron Finds Interesting

I recently decided to buy the X-keys L-Trac Red Trackball because I just like track balls and this was one of the best reviewed trackballs I could find. Over all I’m happy with my purchase but ...

https://www.goland.org/x-mouse-button-control-web-navigation-tilt-wheel-and-remote-desktop/

The short answer is that we don’t know. And before someone says ”what about the 529 prepaid plans?!?!” (which I discuss here) please keep in mind that those plans only track instate tuition...

https://www.goland.org/collegecost/

Yaron Y. Goland www.goland.org yaron AT goland DOT org OBJECTIVE: Be part of an outstanding team building massively scalable software infrastructures where I can contribute my skills as a softwar...

https://www.goland.org/aboutme/

In this article I argue that depending on how one programs one’s client, one can build a Consistent and Partition Tolerant or Available and Partition Tolerant system on top of Bitcoin or really...

https://www.goland.org/blockchain_and_cap/

Block chains can be strongly consistent but not in the normal deterministic sense we are used to from consensus protocols like Paxos. Instead the strong consistency is probabilistic. That is, if ...

https://www.goland.org/why_block_chains_are_strongly_consistent/

It turns out that building a distributed database with ACID behavior (aka a block chain) isn’t easy, it requires a lot of code and a lot of processing. As a result block chains like Bitcoin can...

https://www.goland.org/off_chain_storage_and_the_enterprise/

My day job has required me to look into issues related to using the block chain in the enterprise. This lead me to a simple question - why would an enterprise be interested in the block chain for...

https://www.goland.org/blockchain_in_the_enterprise/

Previously I waxed poetic about the amazing powers of Serval to create mesh based Internet infrastructure for developing and less developed countries (LDCs). The thesis being that if we had meshe...

https://www.goland.org/makingthaliflyforeveryone/

Smart phones are showing up in the poorest of countries. Even the Internet is showing up but it’s still quite expensive. But for a reasonable price we can deploy Wifi based local mesh infrastru...

https://www.goland.org/phoneapparchitectureforthe99percent/

I needed to figure out how many Wifi endpoints which had a range of around 300 feet would be needed to form a mesh that covers a square mile. I do a bunch of 1/2 baked math below to estimate that...

https://www.goland.org/howmanywifiendpoints/