Software
OpenComal
My portable implementation of the Comal programming language, with documentation, articles, screenshots, and a browser playground.
Open the playground
What this is
This is a curated homepage for an existing archive. I have left the older pages intact; this landing page simply makes the good parts easier to find.
What you can expect
You can expect UNIX-era pragmatism, side projects that kept going, essays with opinions, and documents that survived multiple generations of tooling.
Start here
If you only open a few things, I suggest starting with OpenComal, Wednesday Wisdom, and the public library.
Selected work
Projects and technical pages
Networking
proxytunnel
Software I wrote for tunnelling SSH sessions through HTTPS proxies, plus the original notes and release material.
Read the articleSecurity
sslsmurf
A proxy I built for inspecting HTTPS traffic in clear text by terminating SSL locally, documented in detail on its original project page.
View project pageSystems
HP-UX random
My Linux-compatible /dev/random device module for HP-UX 11.00, complete with article, downloads, and caveats.
Utilities
64-bit unzip for HP-UX
A rebuilt unzip binary I made for HP-UX so it could handle extraction jobs producing files larger than 2 GB.
Download the archiveInfrastructure
Cluster cron
My adaptation of Vixie cron for HA failover clusters, with package-specific cron state that follows the service.
Read the READMEAuthentication
WU-FTPD with LDAP authentication
My LDAP-enabled extension of WU-FTPD for authenticating users against directory services instead of local password files.
Read the READMEApplications
Interactive tools I wrote for the browser
Single-page app
Chordcraft Console
A browser-based piano and chord exploration tool I wrote as a single-page web application, with an interactive keyboard and harmony controls.
Open the applicationFake utility
RamDoubler
A deliberately funny fake application that pretends to double your memory, presented as a retro browser-based system utility.
Open the applicationWriting
Current publications
Featured publication
Wednesday Wisdom
This is where I publish ongoing essays and observations on Substack. If you want my most current writing, start here.
Featured publication
Rare jongens, die Amerikanen
A Dutch-language Substack series with my observations about living in the United States, written for readers who want the cultural details from the inside.
Library
The longer archive of essays, papers, and notes
The public library is where I keep the longer-lived material: technical essays, Dutch-language columns, Dr. Unix pieces, scanned documents, dynamically rendered Markdown versions of text articles, and PPL checkride and FCC Technician license cheat sheets generated with ChatGPT.
Photos
Image galleries and visual experiments
Gallery
A2
The Boston skyline, shown through both source photographs and a small set of visual treatments such as mosaic, stripes, tiles, and pixelation.
Open the galleryExperiment
A3
A photo experiment in which I tried to turn our office into a huge camera, documented as a gallery of setup shots, results, and supporting images.
Open the galleryPortrait
Merel
A stylized picture of my daughter, preserved as a text-mode visual experiment rather than a conventional photo page.
Open the portraitResume
Professional background and current profile
I keep my current resume as a maintained Google document rather than a static page on the site. If you want the concise professional version of this corner of the web, start there.
Contact