🧠 Signals & Noise - # 8
things that I've read, watched, listened to, and created lately.
💭 Something to Think About
A quote, reflection, or question for you to ponder this week.
In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. - Anonymous
Takeaways of this issue:
📖 Deep Dives & Quick Reads
Articles worth reading — insights, essays, and web gems.
- CoverDrop White Paper - link
Privacy is a serious topic to think about. However, it's even more crucial in the context of journalism. Recently, I came across CoverDrop, a system developed by The Guardian to bury the messages or leaks from sources within the ordinary traffic of their mobile apps, which is a fantastic idea. It's also valuable to read from a system design perspective.
I want to quote their threat model here to give you a better picture:
- A powerful adversary that wants to learn whether a given person is likely to have been in contact with a journalist.
- The adversary can monitor all public internet traffic to and from.
- The adversary can confiscate the mobile device of a suspected person.
- The adversary can confiscate the on-prem hardware in a powered-off state, but not physically access it while powered on.
- The news organization is trusted by the source, and the news organization does not betray this trust by trying to deanonymize sources without their consent.
GitHub - guardian/coverdrop: Blowing the whistle through a news app
Blowing the whistle through a news app. Contribute to guardian/coverdrop development by creating an account on GitHub.
guardian
- Sweat Room of Leiden University - link
Even though I don't like all of them, I believe traditions are useful agents to create a sense of belonging. We are social animals. We feel more empowered when we have a sense of connection with the pack. Here a nice example from the Leiden University.
You may not be able to visit it in person however, you can enjoy the virtual tour. Check the article for the link ;)
Sweat Room of Leiden University
Once upon a random social media post, I came across something about ‘sweat room’ of Leiden University. It sounded … 🤔 According to history, Academia Lugduno Batava or Leiden University …
Name *
- StarDict sends X11 clipboard to remote servers - link
When was the last time you read the package description of the package you downloaded? That's a nice example of why you should do it and why it's really important.
StarDict is a cross-platform dictionary application. But weirdly enough, it sends a user's text selections over unencrypted HTTP to two remote servers. I agree with the author on the following statement:
Features with privacy concerns should never be enabled by default (unless the feature is the only purpose of the package, and such a package would never be installed automatically — and even in such a case, there should be a big warning first).
StarDict sends X11 clipboard to remote servers
StarDict is a GPLv3-licensed cross-platform dictionary application. It includes dictionaries f [...]
Daroc AldenAugust 11, 2025
🖥️ The Watchlist
Films and TV series that stuck with me recently.
- The Matrix
Such a classic, there is a high chance that you already watched it but I think this is a good time to give it an another chance in the dawn of AI domination.
The Matrix streaming: where to watch movie online?
Find out how and where to watch “The Matrix” online on Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ today – including 4K and free options.
🎥 Frames of Thought
Compelling videos I stumbled upon — essays, interviews, talks, or short docs.
- How To Make FPV Head Tracking. Circuits, Codes and Mechanical - link
I love DIY projects. Here is a very good example of those which combines ready to use cards with some custom PCB boards. If you are interested in such project I'd definitely suggest you to check it can give you some ideas for your own projects.
- How Open Source Changed My Life with Max Stoiber - link
I'm a big believer of Open Source. Even though I'm guilty of choosing comfort rather than Open Source on my personal computer setup, I try to use them as much as possible. I think Open Source is an inseparable part of free and secure web.
Despite my huge admiration of Open Source, I'm not exactly a contributor. Shame on me :( However, this is a nice interview that shows what I'm missing by not doing that. Of course, not all Open Source contributors are as popular as Max, but all the advantages he mentioned are still valid. It might just be on a different magnitude.
- Skiff: OCI image analysis utility, Danish Prakash, SUSE - link
I created a shortlist of videos that caught my attention from Container Plumbing Days 2025 recordings. This video was one of them, which turns out to be a really cool tool. If you are dealing with container images and wonder what makes your images fatter you can use this tool to have a better understanding on that. For how, watch the video. It's neat, sort and to the point. Although, I struggled to find the repo so I'm adding here to prevent you to search for it. https://github.com/dcermak/skiff
🖋️ My Creative Corner
Stuff I’ve made recently: code, writing, visuals, videos, or experiments.
- The Biggest Vintage Clothing Market in Europe is coming to Amsterdam this weekend. If you are into vintage clothing you may want to be there. Check this out: https://www.fairpricedvintage.com/
