@sudorandom@infosec.exchange

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Aug 05, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-08-05]: How do you handle the transition period or 'imposter syndrome' in the first few weeks of a new gig? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-08-05/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

kmcd.dev

How do you handle the transition period or

Depth-first search into networking, programming, web development and random tech topics by a bored software engineer.

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

🪧 The CPU Cost of Protobuf Varints in Go: Do fixed-size integers serialize faster than varints? We benchmark the CPU overhead of continuation-bit parsing using Go, vtprotobuf, and hyperpb. https://kmcd.dev/posts/protobuf-varint-vs-fixed/ #Protobuf #Go #Performance #Software-architecture

kmcd.dev

The CPU Cost of Protobuf Varints in Go

Do fixed-size integers serialize faster than varints? We benchmark the CPU overhead of continuation-bit parsing using Go, vtprotobuf, and hyperpb.

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-08-04]: What's a memorable story from your very first job? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-08-04/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Aug 03, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-08-03]: What's your preferred stack or technology when starting a new side project? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-08-03/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Aug 02, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-08-02]: What is the first thing you prioritize doing when settling into a new job or role? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-08-02/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

kmcd.dev

What is the first thing you prioritize doing when settling into a new job or role?

Depth-first search into networking, programming, web development and random tech topics by a bored software engineer.

0

1

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 31, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-31]: As July ends, what has been the highlight of your summer so far?

https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-31/
#Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 30, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-30]: What is a simple habit that has had a disproportionately positive impact on your life? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-30/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 29, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-29]: If you could learn any new summer sport or skill instantly, what would it be?

https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-29/
#Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 28, 2026

Hot take: REST is cope. I'd take a well-documented RPC-based API over REST any day. It's only "useful" for things that are dead simple anyway and it's not even good at the U part of CRUD! And when you want to do anything other than basic CRUD actions on a resource you're either making weird sub-resources or straying away from REST anyway. It's annoyingly difficult to find where routes live, too many places use fancy language features to hide where an HTTP path is actually mounted and it just wastes so much time (or tokens).

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 28, 2026

🪧 It's Time for ConnectRPC to Adopt HTTP QUERY: https://kmcd.dev/posts/connectrpc-http-query/ #Connectrpc #Http #Networking #Api #Protobuf #Golang

kmcd.dev

It

HTTP QUERY is now standardized in RFC 10008. For backend engineers working with schema-first APIs, this is a much bigger deal than it might seem at first glance. It finally provides a clean solution f

3

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 28, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-28]: If you had to live in a different country for one year, where would you choose? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-28/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

kmcd.dev

If you had to live in a different country for one year, where would you choose?

Depth-first search into networking, programming, web development and random tech topics by a bored software engineer.

0

1

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 27, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-27]: What is your favorite way to enjoy nature during the summer? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-27/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 26, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-26]: How do you find quiet, peaceful moments in a busy summer season?

https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-26/
#Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 25, 2026

Replying to @sudorandom@infosec.exchange

This looks messier but this view is more honest about what this will look like. The seas around Europe look especially messy. I don't worry too much about my home office cable management after working with this data

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 25, 2026

Replying to @sudorandom@infosec.exchange

Here's Japan now. It's not perfect, but you can see just how many cables connect different parts of Japan. A lot of those cables were pretty compressed/overlapping with a more naive implementation

0

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 25, 2026

I've updated https://map.kmcd.dev/ with some interesting changes. I've created an algorithm to map the cables routes (since precise maps are either secret or TOO detailed). The algorithm had to balance several things:

Curve, so it looks halfway decent.
Avoid land mass (as much as reasonable)
Avoid overlapping similar routes on top of each other.

The end result looks fairly good now. I'm still tweaking some details, but I've avoided having to be TOO hands-on with mapping out routes. This initially began with me MANUALLY plotting paths. Halfway through a single cable I figured that a computer should be able to do this infinitely better and faster.

I've also improved the performance of the map and added a few quality of life improvements; like giving users a selection of cables if they click on cables that are too close to each other.

3

2

5

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 25, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-25]: What is the most interesting museum or exhibition you have ever visited? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-25/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 24, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-24]: If you could design the perfect summer cottage, what is one feature it must have?

https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-24/
#Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

1

0

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 23, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-23]: What is your favorite keyboard layout or form factor, and why? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-23/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 22, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-22]: How do you handle the urge to 'do nothing' during your free time? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-22/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 21, 2026

🪧 Beating Go's encoding/json with Schema-Guided ProtoJSON: How protojsonx compares to standard protojson, JSON, and vtproto.
https://kmcd.dev/posts/benchmarking-protojsonx/
#Protobuf #Go #Performance #Json #Protojsonx

0

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 21, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-21]: What's the best piece of travel advice you've ever received? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-21/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 20, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-20]: What is a movie, show, or book that you think is criminally underrated? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-20/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

2

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 20, 2026

I'm in a very weird mood. I am in a transitionary period, so part of my motivation has stalled but I'm still extremely excited about some new stuff that I've been working on: some I can't discuss yet and some that are scheduled to be published (which you can go and find already since my blog source is on github). But anyway, I find it strange that I cannot control my own motivations as much as I would think. There's an interesting cycle that I suspect is healthy to follow and respect. I'm guessing that if I break through this will forcibly I will just end up burning myself out.

0

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 18, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-18]: How do you set boundaries to protect your personal time during vacation season? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-18/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 16, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-16]: Do you prefer a relaxing beach trip, an active mountain hike, or exploring a new city? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-16/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 15, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-15]: What is your favorite local spot to visit during the summer? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-15/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 14, 2026

🪧 gRPC-Web Should Have Fixed gRPC: gRPC-Web should have been the pressure that made gRPC simpler, more inspectable, and better suited for the web. https://kmcd.dev/posts/grpc-web-should-have-fixed-grpc/ #Grpc #Grpc-web #Protobuf #Connectrpc

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 13, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-13]: What's the best playlist, album, or genre of music for a summer road trip? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-13/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 12, 2026

Sometimes my blog articles will sit my draft for a year before I have the energy to re-approach the topic. They stall for one reason or another but it's almost always easier to jump back in after almost forgetting about it. I'm actually very excited about a recent resurrected draft. I've gotten much further... and am working on a part 2, even... although, for reasons, I will have to wait for that one.

1

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 12, 2026

"Something's sad about these ghostless bots. Especially the types that bleed red like a human."

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 12, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-12]: Are you a fan of camping, or do you prefer the comfort of a hotel or cabin? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-12/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 10, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-10]: If you had an entire week of completely free time with no obligations, how would you spend it? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-10/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 08, 2026

📆 Daily Prompt [2026-07-08]: Do you prefer physically taking notes on paper, or do you do everything digitally? https://kmcd.dev/prompts/2026-07-08/ #Dailyprompt #writing #softwareengineering

0

4

0

Kevin McDonald @sudorandom@infosec.exchange · Jul 07, 2026

🪧 Making Dynamic Protobuf Fast in Go: Using Buf’s hyperpb to speed up FauxRPC’s runtime-loaded Protobuf request path. https://kmcd.dev/posts/dynamic-protobuf-in-go/ #Protobuf #Go #Performance #Software-architecture

0