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Stephen Checkoway

@stevecheckoway.bsky.social
478 followers 454 following 842 posts

Associate Professor of Computer Science at Oberlin College. No kings, no nazis, no war.

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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 3h
If you live in Ohio, you can check your registration and register to vote here www.ohiosos.gov/elections/re...
ohiosos.gov
Register to Vote in Ohio
Learn the different ways you can register to vote in Ohio as well as the deadlines to do so for each election.
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Democrats @democrats.org · 5h
If you live in the following states, TODAY is the last day to register to vote before the midterm elections: Arizona Arkansas Florida Georgia Indiana Kentucky Mississippi Ohio Tennessee Texas Go to IWillVote.com for more info.
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Anna Lind-Guzik @alindguzik.bsky.social · 15h
Hard to think of anything less abstract and more materially consequential than being pregnant
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Some people really do just fail to understand that games are supposed to be fun.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The other day, someone accused me of not deeply engaging with a game’s mechanics because I didn’t want to either (a) massively scale up my factory; or (b) wait 30 hours for it to finish the post-game research. This after completing a 500 hour game. All I could do was laugh.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Subskeet
Photo of Bluesky’s post interaction settings. Replies are turned off. Quote posts are turned off.

Control your own experience.
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
You can read Jamal’s work here. It was the honor of my life to have been his editor at the Washington Post. Rest in peace, Jamal. And I’m sorry the Washington Post opinions page ended up betraying what we both stood for. www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post
Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist who Turkish officials say was killed in Istanbul after walking into the consulate of Saudi Arabia, had been writing a column for The Post since last year.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I like that.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If I'm recalling correctly, Picard gets called away in the middle of the performance and Data gets all sad (in that way he totally definitely does not do as he doesn't have emotions no sir).
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I was at the vet in my rural Ohio town with my wife a few months back talking softly about ICE. A woman seating in the waiting area next to us overheard and said, “Fuck ICE!” It is encouraging.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
If you ask it to explain its answer it refuses to believe it gave any answer at all and refuses to play Minecraft. Very bizarre and gaslighty.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Alright, never mind. Starting a new session with only “play Minecraft” gets the same text everyone else is getting.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It refused chess, Minecraft, and role play (I wanted it to role play a chess player telling me about federal benefits) for me.
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Hunter Walker @hunterw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There was no “109 Row 1” at the Atlanta Hawks game Senator Eric Schmitt was fixated on today talkingpointsmemo.com/news/eric-sc...
talkingpointsmemo.com
New Evidence Shows Just How Badly One Republican Senator Beclowned Himself in the Jack Smith Hearing
TPM has found fairly definitive evidence proving Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) misread...
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
So like Cynthia, I had to take this training. Here's my take. checkoway.net/musings/bad-...
checkoway.net
Bad password training
I received an email on behalf of my school’s IT department that I needed to take mandatory password training. I took it. It’s bad and wrong.
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Cynthia Taylor @pinkhairedcyn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Doing a password safety webinar and so far it is giving advice so bad I feel like it might be some sort of long con?
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Oops. Alt text on the previous photo was wrong. I promoted two queens and delivered ladder mate with that. Amazing how I forgot what piece was what 1 minute after the game concluded.
Same picture but using normal pieces. White has queens on f1, h2; a knight on c5, pawns on a4 and g4, and a king on d4. Black has pawns on a5 and c6 and a king on b1.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Neat! @chess.com added a checkers piece set and a set of bots you can play with varying levels of pieces replaced by checkers (or even "blindfolded"). My only gripe is I wish it supported more bots. (Nelson plays garbage openings, the next bot is 2000 Elo which is too strong for me.)
Final position of a chess game against the Nelson bot where all pieces (but not pawns) have been replaced with checker pieces. White has rooks delivering a ladder mate on f1 and h2. The black king is on b1.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I’d get my laptop or go upstairs to my office but this is happening.
A white and orange cat is sleeping on my lap while I lie on the couch. He’s facing away from me. Perspective makes him appear nearly as long as my legs. 

I can’t move. I’m not a monster after all.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I just received a funny extortion spam email and I’m discovering there’s still no way to view the raw email text in iOS Mail. There are decade-old questions on stack exchange, Reddit, and Apple forums asking how to do this.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I’m thinking: make eye contact with the dean (or whomever) and just slowly turn it down the longer they talk.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I like my colleagues and they’d probably get the wrong impression, but I really want one of these for faculty meetings.
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mcc @dryad.technology · 29/09/2026
Note: It's not actually clear to me if the DOEd can unilaterally do the thing they claim they just did, but it doesn't entirely matter; if the goal is to produce instances of anti-LGBT discrimination, you just have to create an air of uncertainty, and someone will get excited and do a discrimination
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
www.lawdork.com/p/doj-scotus... Well this is bad.
While the case is over trans people in federal prisons, let there be no doubt: The Trump administration is seeking to use the presumptive unpopularity of this group — and lack of coverage that such cases garner — to advance extreme gender-restrictive policies that could apply to all trans people and, ultimately, to everyone.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
So small!
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 27/09/2026
Google finally updated some of its satellite images of Gaza and my god, it's horrific. The entirety of Rafah has been demolished. The majority of Khan Younis is in ruins. Entire towns completely leveled and erased of the map.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Best I can do. And it was from 2016 in Argentina.
Mario dressed as Hunter S Thompson with a cigarette in holder holding a briefcase of mushrooms and stars painted on the side of a van. It seems to be marketing for the van rental company whose url appears at the top of the van.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Me: I played great in that endgame! I used my king to prevent promotion. I turned a passed pawn into a game-winning queen. Stockfish: You got lucky.
chess.com analysis graph of who had the advantage over the course of the game. There are very clear dips in the graph where I screwed up and turned an equal endgame into a losing endgame before eventually exploiting my opponent's mistake and winning.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026
Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Altered Beast. Or Golden Axe.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I’m really enjoying your series on internal combustion engines. I was focused on the electronics while car hacking and never really dug into how the engine itself works or is specifically controlled. So thank you for making these videos!
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
@techconnectify.bsky.social regarding shipping completed software, when I was hacking cars circa 2010, you could actually put the Engine Control Module (and other ECUs) in reflash mode _while driving_ via the CAN bus . Doing it with the ECM caused the engine to shut off as you might expect.
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spooky Deirdre Connolly¹ ² at a distance @durumcrustulum.com · 25/09/2026
nfs using rsa-1024 raw (unpadded) signing oracle
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I had a plan to buy a VT100 (or maybe one of the slightly newer and more advanced) models and hook it up. I never got around to any of it other than the build though.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
obsolescence.dev/pdp11.html
obsolescence.dev
PDP-11 Replica Kit - Build your own DEC PDP-11/70 Computer
Build or buy an authentic PDP-11/70 replica. Run original Unix, RSX-11M, and classic software. Kit $270, assembled $395. Ships worldwide with Raspberry Pi included.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
No no! It’s a PiDP11. A fun kit powered by a Raspberry Pi. I meant to write a blog post about building it in late Feb. 2020 but, uh, you know. Something came up.
The PiDP11 circuit board. Some discrete components (diodes—light emitting and otherwise), and some resistors have been soldered on.A more complete view of the board. Switched are on. More LEDs are on. The rotary switches (without hats) have been soldered on.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I played it again last year. It is very good! Poor Rusty.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Good timing for my timeline.
Hunter’s post in my timeline just above a Darth repost of “A tale of two pugs” with a picture of said pugs. One pug is looking big-eyed at the camera.
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Evan Urquhart @evanurquhart.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Everyone was so sure if they kept their heads down and avoided saying anything in support of trans people they'd be safe. The country was completely remade in the early months of 2025 and we're only just now noticing.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Oh, that and "AI is an absolute disaster in the field of education, just a giant screaming comet descending from the heavens making all educational contexts less efficient and more time and labor intensive for a given amount of learning."
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My collection of editions of Sipser’s “Introduction to the theory of computation” is now complete! The first edition is in my home office. The (newly acquired) second edition–the best edition imo—and third edition are in my school office.
Second and third edition of Sipser on a shelf next to a PiDP11.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Also, lest there be people who follow me who saw the very weird Advocate attack on the Blade doing pool duty Monday, that was a bad story. The Blade is a part of the print pool — not the TV pool — and the print pool coverage has continued this week. Here's the Blade's response to The Advocate:
washingtonblade.com
Washington Blade responds to concerns over White House pool duties
Inaccurate media reports create confusion but we stand with our colleagues
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
For my non-Apple devices, I use restic.net which is great! It's super fast. It'll backup to my _ancient_ NAS with spinning HDs more quickly than my M1 MacBook will to a USB3-attached SSD.
restic.net
restic · Backups done right!
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I really don't get why Apple's Time Machine backups are so incredibly slow. It'll spend hours just computing which files need to be backed up and then hours more backing up. Partial backups aren't supported. Interrupting a backup _may_ lead to backups being corrupted. Terrible UX.
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Stephen Young @atomicwonk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Henry Kissinger & Dick Garwin were debating missile defense. Garwin argued deploying a system was ineffective (it won't work) & dangerous (as adversaries will respond). Kissinger said it's impossible for it to be both. Garwin said "imagine you buy a squirt gun and charge a policy officer."
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I read and appreciated your essay. You didn't explicitly discuss it, but I do hope there's a path back for people who crash out due to *gestures broadly*.
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Julia Evans @b0rk.jvns.ca · 22/09/2026
periodic reminder that Wizard Zines has an educational use policy if you want to use them in your university courses! wizardzines.com/education/
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Miro Haller @mirohaller.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
We finally finished the universal signature forgery for 1024-bit RSA! 2^32 oracle queries, 1200 core years precomputation, 180 core years for an individual forgery, and 3 years of human labor (no AI involved) by Laura, Adam, Nadia, Emmanuel and me to pull of this computation against real HSMs.
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Stephen Checkoway @stevecheckoway.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I updated my "package Ghidra as a double-clickable macOS application" script. It packages up Ghidra 12.1.3 and OpenJDK 25 (and for arm64, it builds Ghidra's "native components" that Ghidra doesn't supply pre-built). It can create either an arm64 x86-64 version of Ghidra. github.com/stevecheckow...
github.com
GitHub - stevecheckoway/ghidra_app: Build a working Ghidra application for macOS
Build a working Ghidra application for macOS. Contribute to stevecheckoway/ghidra_app development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Micah Lee @micahflee.com · 16/09/2026
HaJ3FgupAm8RrDJW3MHgT9X7Ft27eVaD What is that? That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers. Like, anyone on the internet can probably do this right now.
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