A collection of my coding, security & gaming thoughts.
I've seen an uptick in Aussie platforms suffering data breaches, where companies and customers have had their data extracted and shared, waved in front of the media for ransoms and threats. As I write this, ANOTHER company has become a casualty. I wanted to share the 2026 casualties (so far) to highlight the constant reminder that no data seems to be safe in our modern world. The pain of signing…
Final Fantasy 7 had many influences throughout its development. Ranging from tropical islands & palm trees, steam punk cities, Eco-terrorism, science fiction, realism, capitalism, religion ... the list goes on! I'll throw in a few links down below as I've read + watched plenty in my lifetime. Over the 3 discs, you'll observe these choices and influences throughout pre-rendered backgrounds, 3D…
I dedicated some time recently to finally carrying out these little but drawn out tasks that would make a positive difference around my home. Kind of like a programmer addressing tech debt, and just like tech debt it can swing both ways, becoming a long term solution with 100% uptime, or temporary relief followed by performance degradation. The three - potentially stress-free - tasks I have chosen…
You know the drill. That passwords.txt is no longer needed. Right click -> Delete. Empty Trash. That's it. Well, not quite. When I was younger, I used to hear stories about people recovering deleted files. Not from opening the Recycle Bin and restoring files one by one. No. There were rumors that deleted files weren't actually sent to the abyss. That, one could recover lost items even after…
This topic is close to my brain, as in, it's my memories. Memories of using software to revisit the glory days of gaming and reliving the same experiences, over and over and over again. If other mid-late millennials, or fans of the good ol games, can relate to this, I hope you enjoy the read. The first encounter One of the first games I remember playing on the family computer was Sonic & Knuckles…
tts-demo Exploring what I can do with pocket-tts. tts-demo Reference Links Mac failure Linux setup General usage Testing it out Random Halo 1 - Cortana Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith - Chancellor Palpatine Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Colonel Volgin Sampling my own voice Reference Blog post that introduced me to pocket-tts (authored by the creators):…
Deep breath. I have many years in software testing. I have tested many a video game. I have helped build android and ios apps. I have persevered through Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex loading screens on PS2. I have waited hours for Unity 3D builds. All of these things I have patience for... Yet, every time I use the MyMacca's app, I met with frustration, confusion and overall, a sub-par quality…
The database password. The doorway to data. The base of my data. Clearly visible in GitHub Actions log output. The offending line was printed below when investigating why one of my workflows failed. kwargs = {'dbname': 'postgres', 'host': 'aws-0-ap-southeast-2.pooler.supabase.com', 'password': 'dBLuvaGg73R2clnE', 'port': 5432, ...} Yes, that's dBLuvaGg73R2clnE you see clear as day. (don't worry,…