Hello World!

About Lawrence

A brief summary: I grew up in a remote, rural area of the United States. I still had dial-up as late as 2012, which is when I moved out and started college.

I studied Computer Science, ran a few clubs, and captained a collegiate blue/red team for a couple of years. During that time I landed my first development job as a Web Developer at a small company doing PHP with Laravel, then moved on to an internship as a Software Developer. In my third year I took a Systems Administrator role at the university; the benefits paid for the rest of my undergraduate and graduate degrees. After my partner and I finished our respective graduate degrees, they found work in the Chicago area and I followed. I worked at a financial institution as a Linux Systems Engineer for about a year, then switched teams to a Software Engineer position on network-capture software, now I am the Team Lead of the the Network Capture Services team. My primary development is in C++.

Outside of work I spend my time reading, building terrain scenes, doing useless development, spending money on a home lab, playing video games, community mentorship, and fostering.

The Reason Behind the Blog

The quick answer: a mentor recommended it as a way to document and sharpen my skills after leaving academia. The longer answer is more convoluted.

Documentation is the main reason, but not the whole picture. Keeping a record will help me remember what I have done, making it easier to return to projects later. When I reflect on past work it is rarely the current state I care about — it is the decisions that led there, and my current workflow does not capture much of that.

Keeping it public forces me to re-evaluate how I write things up, and invites the public shaming that comes with a blog full of large gaps. It may also help the next person who finds a forum post or Stack Overflow question answered only by some desperate, lonely soul. Obligatory XKCD.

Topics

I will cover technology with an emphasis on development, security, and whatever else catches my attention. I will do my best to cite sources and provide accurate information, because misinformation is non-trivial and anger-provoking.

Things I Want to Cover

When I say tech, I mean software libraries and tools, operating systems, security, and the theory underneath. Much of my focus is lower-level and I intend to keep pushing that way. So expect:

• Development projects — networking, HPC, distributed systems, OS development, simulations
• Cybersecurity — networking, binary analysis, malware
• Politics in technology — privacy, the digital divide, social exclusion, bots
• Code review — past personal projects and current ones
• My home infrastructure — what I have, why, and how to replicate it

Things I Do Not Want to Cover

To be honest, I detest frontend development. The UX-design side is impressive, but it holds no interest for me, and past work on web stacks dried up my wonder for it. I do not follow new consumer devices unless I am shopping for one, so do not expect hardware releases. I am also unlikely to touch much Windows — I mostly live on Unix and Unix like systems.

The Current Plan

A possible set of next topics to get me going:

• Introduce myself and cover what this blog is about.
• Posts on my home infrastructure
• CMake
• C++ and the baggage that comes with it
• An RF replay system for my awning
• Game Boy emulator code review and revamp
• DDoS amplification code review and revamp
• Terrain generation code review and revamp
• Determining (and programmatically determining) community manipulation/propaganda
• A few ML reviews
• An FAQ for any emails/questions I get

What Language(s) and Tool(s) to Expect

Expect C++, Rust, Python, C, ASM, and Bash. I use Unix-like systems for ~99% of my work — currently an Apple MacBook (M2) and/or some Ubuntu LTS.

Final Note

As of writing (2026-06-27) I have no plans to add ads or monetise this. That is not the purpose of the site, nor do I approve of tracking or selling people's information.