~/Postroll

Brandon Rozek

Photo of Brandon Rozek

Computer Science PhD Candidate @ RPI, Writer of Tidbits, and Linux Enthusiast

Inspired by Jedda’s Postroll, here is an incomplete list of blog posts that I’ve read and enjoyed in the last 3 months. This list refreshes daily.

If you find any of these posts interesting, I suggest that you give them a follow!

Flight of Locks by Katy Decorah

Kayaking through the Erie canal locks is so cool! I used to love visiting lock E-2 which is right by Peebles Island State Park.

Added: June 27, 2026


How to actually handle database transactions (and why your ORM fails at it) by Karboosx

I don’t professionally work with databases, though it was interesting to read about how concurrency issues plague that world as well. The trick of always processing rows in the same order is neat!

Added: June 27, 2026


Engineers should start making art by Karboosx

I don’t make art often, but it’s cool that the tactic I use for getting something on the page goes by the name automatic drawing.

Added: June 20, 2026


Randomised Profile Pictures by Niq Bernadowitsch

Fun!

Added: June 18, 2026


I'm Frustrated about my Inability to Advise Homelab Newcomers by Michael

I can totally relate. I say that the frustration for me extends to tech in general. I haven’t used a Windows computer in a while, so I can’t easily help someone with issues there. Also, I spin up multiple servers to run this website when people can instead use Bear blog or GitHub pages.

Added: June 16, 2026


Pac-Man, but you're the ghost by Garrit Franke

This was a fun game, try it out!

Added: June 13, 2026


Brocards for vulnerability triage by William Woodruff

Even though brocard is a weird name for them, I enjoyed reading the principles that William uses to triage vulnerabilities.

Added: June 12, 2026


SSH certificates: the better SSH experience by Jan-Piet Mens

Using a certificate authority to sign a user’s public SSH key instead of storing them on the machine is pretty neat. I’ve worked on systems before where we had short-lived SSH keys and I imagine that the setup had to be similar to what’s presented here. If I scaled up and down infrastructure in my homelab more, then I can totally see myself implementing this.

Added: June 12, 2026


How to check out selected directories from Git repository by Milosz Galazka

Woah! I didn’t know that you can do sparse checkouts with git! That was one of my favorite features from subversion. This makes working with large mono-repos more bearable.

Added: June 9, 2026


Taxing Small Cars to Improve MPG by Jeff Kaufman

I also own a Honda Fit and am sad that they discontinued them in the US. Not only are smaller vehicles more fuel efficient, they’re also easier to parallel park!

I’m not sure when the government set these CAFE MPG targets, but they seem quite aspirational! Even though I would love a small car that drives 70 MPG, it’s rough that these regulations are incentivizing companies to focus on larger vehicles.

Added: June 9, 2026


The Archivist In Me Turned This Blog Into a Book by Wouter Groeneveld

What a crazy and fun project! I can imagine archiving a blog as a journal/periodical where you have volume numbers. For example, “Brandon Rozek’s Ramblings Volume 1”.

Added: June 9, 2026


A Year Of Eggs by Matt

Chickens are funny

Added: May 19, 2026


On Take-Home Coding Assignments by Kitty Giraudel

I recently went through several rounds of interviews and from my experience startups prefer take-home coding assignments while larger companies wanted me to give a talk.

Honestly, both those tasks require work. I get it though – it’s difficult for companies to assess the competency of their applicants. Kitty provides other alternate assessments in this post that employers should consider using.

Added: May 18, 2026


The Problem of Pedagogy in Advanced Mathematics by Susam Pal

I resonate with Susam about how “proofs” written in many textbooks aren’t complete proofs but more outlines. In addition to “the proof being obvious”, I would say that many of the details are left “as an exercise to the reader”. Sometimes I share such exercises on this blog.

Added: May 18, 2026