David Schuetz

Information security, Scouting, making, cryptography puzzles, python, public infrastructure nerd. Also: http://keybase.io/DarthNull.

Website: https://darthnull.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschuetz/
Signal: (Upon request)

Last Notes

2026-07-31 19:51:22 UTC

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Whenever you have reason to visit there, you should just ominously post “been summoned to The Hague” and go toot-silent for the afternoon.

2026-07-16 03:13:36 UTC

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One of my favorite sed stories was when I got called in at 2 am because our mail spool had filled up. Someone had mailed a large attachment (at the time, this probably meant a couple meg) to an organization-wide distro and now we had 500+ copies of it filling up the my building’s mailserver.
About 20 min into it, I got a call from the contract PM, checking in on folks working the problem at all our customer’s locations. Most were slowly…well, I don’t know what they were doing. Clearly they were taking the long way.
I told him I had a short script (hell, might’ve been one line) and was excising the attachment from everyone’s spool files. He got nervous and suggested maybe I should take a more cautious approach. Then I told him it was mostly done and all looked good.
I think he was a bit surprised. :)

2026-07-14 04:05:50 UTC

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And !$, to repeat the argument from the last command.
There’s a ton of great shell tricks out there.

2026-04-16 04:12:09 UTC

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That sounds intriguing…

2026-03-13 17:30:42 UTC

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I used to love writing short blog posts for my company. Nothing earth shattering, but just interesting enough that it kept our name circulating and maybe, just maybe, helped out a few people interested in the same problems.
Then we got bought, and the blog was all shaped by marketing from then on. (same at the company after, as great as it was in other ways). Community engagement became just plain engagement.
Find me another small company of nerds who just want to help out others, and share bits of what they've learned for the community, and I'll be happy.

2026-01-02 15:37:36 UTC

A great piece on the value and importance of blogs, and a call to begin blogging (or in my case, resolving to post regularly again).
No matter how silly or inconsequential a topic may seem, if it’s interesting enough that you spend days doing it, it’s probably worth blogging about.
Share your work. Out of billions of people, there’s *always* gonna be someone who appreciates what you’ve done.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-blogging-in-the-ruins/

2025-11-25 13:47:30 UTC

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Thanks for the confirmation. Like I said, I’m not an economist. :)
I’m just surprised at the level of growth. Or maybe just continuing to be disappointed in how little seems to trickle down….

2025-11-25 13:16:06 UTC

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Yeah. The chart definitely implies a 132% increase, but it’s not made clear in the article.
I only have trouble believing the graph on its face because 12% *average* annual growth, especially including COVID years, feels high.
But I’m not an economist, and maybe that’s reasonable for these index companies.

2025-11-25 04:23:23 UTC

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I think 12%? But still not bad.
Unless 132% was meant to say “100% of 2019, plus 32% growth,” in which case it’s only 4% annually, which feels a lot more reasonable.

2025-09-04 18:55:23 UTC

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Thanks! I didn't even see that one. (actually, searching just on that name, it's not coming up. Might be gone from the store....)
Anyway, I loved this game and haven't played it in ages, so I'm definitely gonna try a few of these out. :)

2025-09-04 18:52:11 UTC

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Oooh. Is that Apple or Android? (I see a bunch of Set apps in the iPhone App Store, and it's always tough to judge which will be the most annoying with ads or purchases or unnecessary bells & whistles...)

2025-08-22 11:26:30 UTC

I’ve seen a whole bunch of jokes and memes about the demon core in the last few weeks. This makes at least the fifth.
Is this something I should be worried about?
https://techhub.social/@rogeliop/115057615027874675

2025-02-04 01:48:40 UTC

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Like the time I have an “Intro to Crypto” talk at work. I never heard directly but I think some were disappointed I wasn’t talking about coins.

2025-01-28 23:14:24 UTC

Today in “That Actually Went Pretty Well," I bring you migrating from an old and busted Synology to a new(ish) model.
Because sometimes it feels like "that was easy" happens way too rarely in tech….
https://darthnull.org/synology-upgrade/

2025-01-01 04:26:23 UTC

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Can We Break Shit?!??

2024-12-11 01:22:22 UTC

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<waits for chording keyboard nerds to appear>
(I always loved the idea, but just never seriously investigated it…)