Blogs
Random long thoughts I had over the years...
Topics range from programming, math, to my views of school
MATH1152 - Introductory Algebra 1
January 1, 2022
TLDR:
Intimidating at first when learning about fields
Easier than MATH1052
Remember Non-singularity Theorem
MATH1052 - Calculus and Introductory Analysis 1
January 1, 2022
TLDR:
Intimidating at first when learning about fields
More difficult than MATH1152
Know your delta-epsilon proofs and other definitions to prove whether a sequence or function converge
Dev Blog - Symink Attack - Do not trust config files
December 26, 2021
Now that classes are over for the semester, I decided to resume work on a project I’ve been putting off for a while.
ProxyAuth is a passwordless authentication module that allows lazy people like me to access their machine without inputting their passwords.
It authenticates the user if their hardware authenticator (i.e. a smartphone) is close to the machine via Bluetooth connection.
Currently, the implementation is not convenient and there are a lot of areas that need to be worked on such as the security of the product.
A Reflection of My Internship as a Software Build Intern
December 9, 2021
This is a copy of my reflection report I submitted for Professional Experience Year (PEY), a 16 month internship
at a company. The contents of this post does not enclosed any confidential information (verified by a manager) and
all names will be redacted since this is the internet. Please note that some
of the information are outdated and my experience may not reflect what others experience. I did my internship
in 2018-2019 before the pandemic when work was not remote.
The Value of An Uninitialized Global Variable
November 6, 2021
Recently I started to read C & C++ Under the Hood. As the name implies, the book explores deeper in what goes on in the assembly level using LCC machine language (a simple machine language for educational purposes). One of the fact the author points out is that global variables are initialized to 0. While this should have been common knowledge, I was shocked because I always thought the behavior of an uninitialized variable is garbage (i.e. behavior is undefined and hence can be anything). To my defense, I actively avoid writing code that involves a global variable for various...
Using Fedora GNOME VPN Feature
July 30, 2021
I recently decided it is about time to start using a VPN for personal use. Although there are many reasons for one to use a VPN such as
masking your IP address and location, I only want to get a VPN to encrypt my traffic on Public Wifi. VPN can be great to bypass region locking,
but I rarely ever have any issues with this. The VPN provider I chose is NordVPN for no particular reason other than there was a summer deal and
is a strong choice for Linux users.
Questions to Ask In An Interview
July 24, 2021
I have been pondering lately on how to respond when the interviewer asks if you have any questions for them. After much pondering, I have compiled a small list of questions to ask for my next interview.
Possible Linker Options to Use to Replicate xlC bloadmap Option on ld
July 15, 2021
Edit: This has not been tested and is merely a suggestion to myself (i.e. I use my blog as my notes). Take my words as a grain of salt)
What is Name Mangling
July 12, 2021
Today I want to explore what name mangling is in C++ and what does extern "C"
means.
C Programming - Variable Length Array (VLA)
June 29, 2021
I always thought it was not possible to create a “dynamic” array in C without the use of malloc till
recently where I was introduced to variable length arrays (VLA). Although the use of “dynamic” is
a poor choice, the ability to allocate an array at runtime based on a variable whose value is not known
till runtime came as a shock to me.