A motley collection of ideas
Code, networks, data, and the odd mystery of how machines talk.
Scanning a double-sided document on a simplex scanner leaves you with two PDFs: the fronts in order, the backs in reverse. Interleaving them is one pdftk command with a backwards page range, and that part has never been the difficult bit. This piece works through the page-index arithmetic, a ten-minute test that proves the merge … Read more
Generative AI—like Gemini—has become an essential daily tool for researchers, engineers, and academics. However, its use comes with a recurring professional pain point: handling mathematical and technical formulas. If you ask the AI to derive a calculation or specify a physical range, the output will almost certainly arrive in raw LaTeX format (for example: $550 … Read more
Total Commander’s button bar can launch programs, run scripts, open folders, and automate repetitive file‑management tasks with a single click. You can also pass the currently selected file(s) as parameters, which makes custom buttons ideal for conversion tools, batch renaming helpers, backup scripts, and “open in …” workflows. Where buttons live Custom buttons are stored … Read more
I came across this interesting device in a Facebook post. The person who shared it didn’t explain what it actually is, and the comments, as usual, were rather uninformative. So I looked it up in Russian sources to find out what it is. The Soviet space program used completely different controls and instruments from American … Read more
Hungary’s tallest tower since 1933 has been the Lakihegy transmitter tower. This iconic structure has become a symbol of Hungarian radio broadcasting over the past century. Located on the outskirts of Szigetszentmiklós, the octahedron-shaped tower, made up of eight triangles, reaches a maximum height of 307 meters — taller than the Eiffel Tower was. The … Read more
The history of wired telecommunications in Hungary spans more than 150 years, reflecting the evolution of global communication technology from the mid-19th century to the digital era. This chronology traces the key milestones from the first telegraph lines to the complete digitalization of Hungary’s wired network in 2005, highlighting technological, organizational, and regulatory changes that … Read more
This is a very old piece I wrote, even before the release of OpenOffice 2.4. I’m bringing it back because people often ask me for quick text editing tricks. I’ll show you how to do it using RegEx. The OpenOffice RegEx engine is quite usable. Microsoft Word can do similar things too, but it handles … Read more