Jackie's Blog

Non Sum Qualis ERAM theory - Deltarune

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Deltarune fans are asking, what’s the deal with this character called ERAM?

Art by @unusualartistic.bsky.social

Chapter 3: Supplemental

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Chapter 4 (but actually like 6 or something)

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

Chapter 2: Snow Duplication Glitch

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Read on AO3

Archivist

“You wanted to see me boss?”, Tim said, entering Jon’s office.

“I need the statement of David Ramao”, Jon said.

“Who?”

“David Ramao, husband of Andre Ramao” Jon insisted.

“Oh, The homophobic vase?”, Tim said.

Jon’s sharp exhale is carried on the stuffy air of his unventilated office.

“Yes Tim, the ‘homophobic vase’, now if I recall correctly his husband had a run-in with the same artifact, where is his statement?”

The Nothing: Chapter 1

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Minimum required reading: The Magnus Archives Episode 38: Lost and Found Audio Transcript

Read on AO3

Nihilio, The Pale, The Endless Snowstorm, The Nothing

The following is a fanfiction of the Magnus Archives, while both this and it’s source are clearly fictional, the reader is advised to say “This Is Not Real” out loud before reading any further.

This

Not

Real

ARCHIVIST:

[THE TAPE RECORDER IS ALREADY RUNNING]

For how much longer will my witch of a predecessor vex me! Nevermind the sorry state of the archives, I can guarantee that that this is the first statement left completely redacted. After recovering the text with some paint remover, all I found were citations that go nowhere, like this one, Patricia Pendleton doesn’t exist!

The LAPD Lied about Crime during the LA Fires

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

During the Palisades and Eaton fires, any Angeleno who turned on the news would be given something else to worry about: crime. We were bombarded with a 24/7 propaganda campaign about roving criminal gangs looting houses in the evacuation zone, a narrative that totally justifies the LAPD’s ballooning budget as the fire department’s dwindling budget is cut yet again.

Eaton Fire

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

Chapter 4: Halley's Comet

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

Solving House of Leaves Part 1

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Update 2025-10-18: the in-line footnotes were not working on mobile so I have added a footnotes section at the bottom

spoilers ahead

0003

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Open IRC Log

<violetFate> hi!

<Scott> oh thank God

<Scott> I thought I was the only nerd who thought to hop on IRC before going to school

<Scott> but of course it's also you :p

<violetFate> wat's that supposed to mean dorkus :p

<Scott> whoa whoa whoa, careful who you're calling dorkus, dorkus

<Scott> unlike you, I'm starting school with some popularity

<violetFate> it's the first day of school how can have friends already

<Scott> coz I went to summer school dingus! I already formed a club and everything!!

<violetFate> a club?! wtf a club for wat?

<Scott> housetrapped!

<violetFate> wats that

<Scott> just the best webcomic ever written, you gotta read it

<violetFate> okie :3 if I read it can I join your club?

<Scott> sure, first meeting is after school

Trapped in the Zine: Chapter 3

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

Setups better than Signal

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Update 2026-02-02: See my latest privacy guide

Terminology

What is a threat model

For any given piece of information the threat model is who or what you are protecting it from. For example for your social security number, the threat model is identity thieves, it is not however the government, who already know it. Threat modeling is important because trying to use privacy models without it can lead you to paranoia or to getting burned out and giving up as it is impossible to hide everything from everyone

How to backup your weechat logs and config

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For when you don’t already have a kubernetes cluster

Level 1: Just Back It Up

Install syncthing for your distro and add another device
1. This tutorial won’t go into that, see the official syncthing tutorial here
Move the weechat folders to ~/Sync (the default syncthing directory) and symlink them back

# Create Syncthing directory for WeeChat
mkdir -p ~/Sync/weechat

# Move WeeChat data to Syncthing directory
mv ~/.local/share/weechat/ ~/Sync/weechat/logs
mv ~/.config/weechat/ ~/Sync/weechat/config

# Create symlinks back to original locations
ln -s ~/Sync/weechat/config ~/.config/weechat
ln -s ~/Sync/weechat/logs ~/.local/share/weechat

Done! your weechat config and logs will now sync between devices

Level 2: Nix Declarative Config and Versioning

Create a syncthing.nix:

0002

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Robin inspects her ID

It appears she has already received an SSH key, this can be used to access the school’s internet relay chat server.

Open laptop and launch IRC

0001

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A young woman stands in her room, it just so happens that today is her first day of high school. Despite not having stepped foot in it yet, she has already received her student ID in the mail.

Pick up ID

Km6 and Des

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

TRAPPED_IN_THE_ZINE.EXE

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Click to open

How to set up a burner phone

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Update 2026-02-02: See my latest privacy guide

What and Why

This guide explains how to make a burner phone with a threat model. There are many reasons to use one such as:

keeping your main phone setup convenient instead of having to lock it down
not having to worry about apps on your main phone leaking information

Hardware and OS

Get any unlocked android phone, this tutorial will use android because it can be setup without a google account and will work with all the apps I will mention, however if you want to try alternative mobile operating systems, there’s a list of them here
Get a prepaid SIM card, while you still can, I was warned at the store that they will soon require in-store activation, which will deanonymize you
Factory reset the phone and setup without a google account and without biometrics
Add a pin to the SIM card so if stolen it cannot access your texts

Micah Lee has written a more in-depth guide on setting up the phone that I recommend with some caveats:

My Pi Zero Setup

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Pi Alert

Pi Alert continually scans your network and can alert you for new devices joining and devices going offline. This information is made available in a web interface and it’s light enough to run on the Pi Zero.

Unfortunately Pi Alert has no authentication whatsoever, presumably because it is only intended to be used on the same network, but we can fix that!

Tailscale

Tailscale lets me access my pi and services running on it from anywhere, it also lets me lock down those services so they can only be accessed with authentication.

Flux n Rux

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I operate on a mental calendar loosely based on CGP Grey’s Theme System. It centers around two seasons.

Flux (in the winter) - a time of introspection and looking within
Rux (in the summer) - a time of growth and new beginnings

It’s not tied to any specific month and sort of just goes by vibes. It’s been 80+ degrees where I live and I hung out with some friends from high school which is a summer-y activity so now it’s rux.

The Saga of IPFS

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

or, why Cloudflare is hosting a mirror of everything on libgen

If you’ve been on libgen recently you’ve probably seen this:

huh!?? cloudflare is hosting libgen pdfs?

What is IPFS

IPFS, or, interplanetary filesystem is a project that was started in 2015, it’s essentially torrent except:

A Brief Privacy Guide

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Update 2026-02-02: See my latest privacy guide

web browser

casual: firefox
secret: tor
avoid: brave

brave is a browser with its own cryptocurrency, if you love the indie web, and want to keep it free, say no to web3

operating system

casual: nixos, any linux distro
secret: tails

see also: paranoid nixos, remote LUKS unlocking for nixos over ssh and Tor and keep an eye out for Spectrum OS, an OS that will combine qubes-like virtualization with nixos’ ability to generate minimal VMs

Resources to find cool indie sites

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Neocities

neocities is free hosting in the style of the original geocities
a lot of very interesting looking sites, many made with html by hand
plus, a lot of them are inspired by serial experiments lain

Yesterweb Links

tagline: Remember when the internet felt exciting and mysterious?
Update: Yesterweb’s webring has been discontinued
Here is an archive

Wiby.me

a search engine for text-based sites

under 1 megabyte club

a list of sites all under 1 megabyte
my site actually almost makes the cut but the tags pages push me over

and of course, the Fediring

you can comment on this post on mastodon

dudo: secure passwordless sudo replacement

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

(this is satire)

inspired by bottom

dudo is a secure passwordless privilege escalation utility to replace sudo

Features

No vulnerabilities
Obscurity
No bloat
AI-powered execution
AI-powered command caching

No Bloat

dudo is only 33 lines of code, sudo is like, a lot more, this is scientifically proven to make it more secure

AI-powered execution

dudo uses AI to only execute the command you meant to type and not the ones you did not

Nix home-manager as a Backup Tool

Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is basically the config from home.file

Setup

Install home-manager
Create a directory called ~/backups to store the symlinks to backups

(the actual data will be stored in /nix/store)

Backing up a file

Add this to your ~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix:

home.file = {
  example = {
    source = "/path/to/file";
    target = "backups/example";
  };
};

run home-manager switch

Result

$ cat example
> hello world

$ cat backups/example
> hello world

$ ls -l backups/example
> backups/example -> /nix/store/...home-manager-files/backups/example

Backing up a directory

home.file = {
  exampleDir = {
    source = "/path/to/example-directory";
    target = "backups/example-directory";
    recursive = true;
  };
};

Result

$ ls example-directory/
> example  example2

$ ls backups/example-directory/
> example@  example2@

$ ls -l backups/example-directory/
> example -> /nix/store/..home-manager-files/backups/example-directory/example
> example2 -> /nix/store/..home-manager-files/backups/example-directory/example2

Adding a Script

home.file = {
  exampleScript = {
    source = "/path/to/script";
    target = "backups/script";
    executable = true;
  };
};

Running commands on file change

This will always run if recursive is set to true

home.file = {
  exampleDir = {
    source = "/path/to/example-directory";
    target = "backups/example-directory";
    recursive = true;
    onChange = "echo $(date) >> /tmp/modified"
  };
};

Result:

$ cat /tmp/modified
> Sat Feb 26 21:57:40 PST 2022

Restoring from backups

$ rm example # Whoops!

$ cat backups/example > example

$ cat example
> hello world

Deleting Backups

$ vim ~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix # remove the entry from home.nix

$ home-manager switch

# the symlink in `~/backups` is gone but the data is still in /nix/

# store to remove it run:

$ nix-collect-garbage -d

Deduplication

$ cd example-directory

$ diff example example2

# huh, these files have the same content, why store it twice? run:

$ nix-store --optimise

Does the FSF Care About User Agency?

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This post is my take on GNU Doesn't Care About Your Agency - Xe

Update from 2023-04-11 see also: The Free Software Foundation is dying - Drew Devault’s blog

The Free Software Foundation, who developed the GNU system, is surprisingly critical of most GNU/Linux distributions, even Debian which is fully free. This is because Debian does not meet the Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG). Specifically, Debian has tutorials on how to install some proprietary software on their wiki, it also has a "contrib" repository, which contains free software that could potentially be used to load proprietary software.

Python For Loops Are Cool

Fri, 26 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Let's look at a for loop in Javascript

for (i = 0; i < 3; i++){
  console.log(i);
}
> 0
> 1
> 2

Now let's write that same loop in python

for i in range(0, 3, 1):
    print(i)
> 0
> 1
> 2

The range command is flexible

for i in range(4, -4, -2):
    print(i)
> 4
> 2
> 0
> -2

If it isn't flexible enough, you can run for on lists

for i in [1, -2, 14, 24]:
    print(i)
> 1
> -2
> 14
> 24

Lists can have more than integers

Firejail Basics

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Firejail - Linux namespaces sandbox program

Installing

$ apt install firejail

NixOS

programs.firejail.enable = true;

Profiles

$ firejail firefox             # Run firefox with the default profile

$ firejail --noprofile firefox # Run firefox without a profile

$ firejail --profile=firefox.profile firefox
                               # Run firefox with profile firefox.profile

Hint: there are default profiles for a lot of programs in /etc/firejail

Jails

$ mkdir -p ~/jails/firefox1                       # Create a jail

$ firejail --private=$HOME/jails/firefox1 firefox # Run firefox in a jail

firefox will now run as if ~/jails/firefox1 is the home folder and it will not be able to access your actual home folder

All Content

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

jackie (at) technologists (dot) cloud

Julia Serano quote

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This quote made me cry so bad I just had to share it somewhere, so here it is, from Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

I replied that it is almost always [trans womens’] eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.

Jackie's Blog

Non Sum Qualis ERAM theory - Deltarune

Chapter 3: Supplemental

Chapter 4 (but actually like 6 or something)

Chapter 2: Snow Duplication Glitch

Archivist

The Nothing: Chapter 1

Nihilio, The Pale, The Endless Snowstorm, The Nothing

ARCHIVIST:

The LAPD Lied about Crime during the LA Fires

Eaton Fire

Chapter 4: Halley's Comet

Solving House of Leaves Part 1

0003

Trapped in the Zine: Chapter 3

Setups better than Signal

Terminology

What is a threat model

How to backup your weechat logs and config

Level 1: Just Back It Up

Level 2: Nix Declarative Config and Versioning

0002

0001

Km6 and Des

TRAPPED_IN_THE_ZINE.EXE

How to set up a burner phone

What and Why

Hardware and OS

My Pi Zero Setup

Flux n Rux

The Saga of IPFS

or, why Cloudflare is hosting a mirror of everything on libgen

What is IPFS

A Brief Privacy Guide

categories

web browser

operating system

Resources to find cool indie sites

and of course, the Fediring

dudo: secure passwordless sudo replacement

Features

No Bloat

AI-powered execution

Nix home-manager as a Backup Tool

Setup

Backing up a file

Result

Backing up a directory

Result

Adding a Script

Running commands on file change

Restoring from backups

Deleting Backups

Deduplication

Does the FSF Care About User Agency?

Python For Loops Are Cool

Firejail Basics

Installing

NixOS

Profiles

Jails

All Content

Contact

Julia Serano quote

My Zines

Signal Boost