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Thomas H. Ptacek
@tqbf
Don't look at me sideways. Don't even look me straight on. bsky:@sockpuppet.org
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sockpuppet.org/me
Joined October 2007
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  • Pinned
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    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    May 7, 2016
    DOWNVOTES IMPRISONING ME ALL THAT I SEE ABSOLUTE HORROR I CANNOT LIVE I CANNOT DIE TRAPPED IN THIS THREAD COMMENTS MY HOLDING CELL
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Dec 2, 2022
    I’m sorry, I simply cannot be cynical about a technology that can accomplish this.
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Nov 3, 2025
    I love 3Blue1Brown. I will rewatch any of those videos infinity times. I don't think I've ever learned/retained anything from one though, and I'm suspicious of people who point to it as a superior learning resource. (Not a knock on 3B1B; truly an amazing achievement).
    759K
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Jun 3, 2019
    The all-new Mac Pro, in its maxed-out configuration, will run as many as 12 concurrent Slack sessions. This workflow has never been possible before.
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Dec 2, 2022
    Replying to @itspetemorgan and @rockdon
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Apr 20, 2022
    Welp. It’s the crypto bug of the year. Mark it down for April. Java 15-18 ECDSA doesn’t sanity check that the random x coordinate and signature proof are nonzero; a (0,0) signature validates any message. Breaks JWT, SAML, &c.
    CVE-2022-21449: Psychic Signatures in Java
    From neilmadden.blog
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Sep 12, 2021
    I know I’m a huge dork for saying this but this Wikipedia deletionist is now one of my heroes.
    wired.com
    One Woman’s Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia
    Ksenia Coffman’s fellow editors have called her a vandal and a McCarthyist. She just wants them to stop glorifying fascists—and start citing better sources.
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Jun 10, 2021
    Not all heroes wear capes.
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Jan 10, 2018
    This is an important fact about Telegram that not a lot of people seem to understand:
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    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Sep 17, 2024
    This is the most Mickensian thing that has ever happened.
    82K
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Dec 15, 2021
    Current status:
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Oct 23, 2025
    Reading the AWS postmortem, and the HN reaction to it, and: I will never stop evangelizing this, the most brain-altering piece of writing I've encountered. howcomplexsystems.fail
    71K
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Dec 2, 2022
    Replying to @tqbf
    Come for the bible verses, stay for the Internet policy positions!
  • user avatar
    Thomas H. Ptacek
    @tqbf
    Jun 21, 2022
    The implications of this for bash scripting are terrifying.
    user avatar
    Simon Willison
    @simonw
    Jun 21, 2022
    TIL you can run SQL queries directly against CSV files as a one-liner using the default sqlite3 command line utility til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/one-lin…
    sqlite3 :memory: -cmd '.mode csv' -cmd '.import taxi.csv taxi' -cmd '.mode column' \ 'SELECT passenger_count, COUNT(*), AVG(total_amount) FROM taxi GROUP BY passenger_count' Output is an ASCII-art table of results