iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 03/09/2026

"The spherical cow approximation is widely used in the literature, but is rarely justified. Here, I propose several schemes for extending the spherical cow approximation to a full multipole expansion, in which the spherical cow is simply the first term." arxiv.org/abs/2504.00506

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 27/08/2026

Making some progress with the next iteration of my site

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 17/08/2026

I know that this is an oddly specific thing to become concerned about, but what in digital typesetting is this? How does it even happen? Is an MS Word thing? Do we blame Adobe PDF Maker? Chrome's PDF renderer? (Original link www.regulation.govt.nz/assets/Publi...)

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 26/06/2026

Today in cursed code: a computer program that plays pong by modifying its own source code. (Each frame is a new compilation). See github.com/uellenberg/I...

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 02/06/2026

A picture to feed the algorithm. By returning impl Trait, you're free to change what's happening underneath. This is especially useful when you want to compose iterators.

$A code snippet. // Start with something that you can use right now pub fn evens(max: u32) -> impl Iterator<Item = u32> { (0..max).filter(|n| n % 2 == 0) } // ..later on, you can swap this out for something more efficient pub fn evens(max: u32) -> impl Iterator<Item = u32> { (0..max).step_by(2) }$

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 08/12/2025

Prediction: the next wave of programming languages will just be AI prompts. Someone's just released ai_bindgen (github.com/germangb/ai...) into the Rust ecosystem, which allows annotation to create functionality with natural language:

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 02/12/2025

Apparently the message here is that I should be uploading more ragebait.

YouTube channel analytics showing a line of this video's performance rising steeply above typical baseline. Statistics highlighted: 1.2k views, 66 watch hours, +3 subscribers.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 02/12/2025

Code review: do you know why this code triggers undefined behavior? play.rust-lang.org/?version=st...

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/11/2025

This doesn't feel particularly "timClicks" (I've tried very hard to steer away from engagement bait).. but I also sort of feel the need to respond to the idea that Fil-C is a better Rust. Should I make the video? If so, use this thumbnail or something less antagonistic?

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 25/11/2025

I've decided to call it the flying saucer operator

Compiler Explorer (godbolt.org) editor showing Rust source for a Pizza struct with an impl containing an eat_slice method that uses -=- to modify the number of slices.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 25/11/2025

Everyone knows that the PDF spec is powerful enough to allow a full Linux kernel to boot, right? linux.doompdf.dev/

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 24/11/2025

A workflow for working with AI agents to develop high-quality software quickly (A downloadable PDF and further info available to subscribers free or paid timclicks.dev/ai-workflow)

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 23/11/2025

Earning its rightful place on the HN front page in record time

Screenshot of Hacker News front page, showing this thread at top position after 9 minutes of its submission.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 23/11/2025

Good news everyone! The future is now. The Algol 68 front end to gcc is finally approved for inclusion. The tyranny of C-based languages may soon be over.

Mailing list email thread titled "Algol 68 Front End" from David Edelson.

Message body reads "The GCC Steering Committee has agreed to include the Algol 68 Front End in
trunk designated as experimental with stipulations:

1. Algol 68 is not part of all languages built by default.
2. Algol 68 is not part of the GCC release criteria.
3. All GCC developers who are not responsible for the Algol 68 Front End
may decline to work on issues related to the Algol 68 Front End.
4. If the Algol 68 Front End bit rots or is not maintained, it will be
removed.

To permit Algol 68 development to continue, Jose E. Marchesi is appointed
as Algol 68 front end maintainer.

If maintaining a Front End outside of trunk is difficult, the Algol 68
developers are invited to propose concrete changes to make it easier to
maintain front ends in a branch of the GCC repository outside of trunk.

Happy Hacking!
David"

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 19/11/2025

A cheat sheet of Cargo plugins to improve your day as a #rustlang developer. More detailed notes and a PDF version is available through the link in the QR code.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 19/11/2025

Cloudflare generated many millions of HTTP 5XX responses today. They were triggered because code in a core proxy called .unwrap() on a Result for an operation that was expected to never fail.

Cloudflare blog excerpt showing code snippet in Rust with a highlighted .unwrap() call causing a panic. Preceding explanatory text describes why the .unwrap() code path was entered.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 16/11/2025

Productivity tip for people using #rustlang: The rustup command can generate shell completions for your shell:

Terminal snippet showing shell commands to add shell completions for Rust using the bash shell. Provides commands and a help note for other shells.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 14/11/2025

What happens when you execute code with undefined behavior? Nothing good. In my testing, the compiler generated code that provoked the CPU to fault due to an illegal instruction.

Screenshot of the Rust Playground showing Rust code that includes MaybeUninit and assume_init, along with the execution pane reporting "Exited with signal 4 (SIGILL): illegal instruction." on the errors section.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 14/11/2025

Code quiz time. Why are we not allowed to create `ub` this way?

Rust code quiz about MaybeUninit; snippet initializes MaybeUninit<&i32>, calls assume_init on the resulting value, then prints the resulting dangling reference.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 11/11/2025

It looks as though Apple is adding WSL to macOS. Perhaps 2026 is the year of the Linux desktop? apple.github.io/containeriz...

Developer documentation webpage on GitHub showing an Apple "Containerization" framework API with entries like LinuxContainer, LinuxPod, LinuxProcess and related classes.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 09/11/2025

Rust has a few known code patterns that cause undefined behavior in Rust which have their lint level set to warning, rather than error. (Links to references at the end of the thread)

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 07/11/2025

Raw pointers have a "guaranteed_eq" method that's even more guaranteed than the Eq trait.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 04/11/2025

Why do computer scientists use the word "atomic" in phrases such as "atomic operation" and "atomic type"?

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 04/11/2025

To understand what that that means, take a look at this code: if 1 > -7 { println!("🍎"); } else { println!("🍐"); } The compiler can deduce that one is greater negative seven, so it doesn't need to compile the "else" side. The whole conditional can be eliminated.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 04/11/2025

Let's start with some code. For slightly esoteric reasons about how computers are built, the may_overflow function is only allowed to be called with numbers between -2,147,483,648 (approx. -2.1 billion) and 0 inclusive.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

Today, I've been spending too much time wondering about what the safety comment in this example should be. play.rust-lang.org/?version=st...

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

In case you were curious, the situation was resolved by discretely adding support to the upstream package: a

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

So, why are they re-implementing a mature software package anyway? The main reason is portability. It's almost easier to build Rust programs for multiple operating systems than to port a large C codebase that's platform-specific.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

If you visit the uutils/coreutils-tracking project on Github, you'll actually discover that they automatically test conformance over time and publish results automatically. It's improving, but far from perfect.

Graph titled "Rust/Coreutils running GNU's testsuite" showing that test pass rates have increased since 2021, but failures remain.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

Importantly - uutils makes no claims that it's ready to be used at this scale (yet) The test coverage page in the documentation linked to from the README makes it clear that there are gaps in the test compatibility.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 30/10/2025

Did you hear that Rust broke Ubuntu updates? That's right, or at least that's what it seems like at first look. A component added to Ubuntu that's written in Rust was broken, and that prevented automatic updates.

Screenshot from the Ubuntu Discourse instance highlighting "Due to a now-resolved bug in the date command, some Ubuntu 25.10 systems have been unable to automatically check for available software updates. Affected machines include cloud deployments, container images, Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server installs."

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 28/10/2025

Woah Windows. You really have changed.

A screenshot of a Windows PowerShell session with winget /? at the prompt. The response shows "Unrecognized command: '/?'" indicating a lack of support for the historic convention of Windows and DOS utilities to use /? to bring up help information.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 03/10/2025

Why must I be like this?

Screenshot from text editor with the following text: soundness implies safety, but safety does not imply soundness. `Sound ⊂ Safe`. `Sound → Safe`, i.e. being sound implies being safe but, `¬(Safe → Sound)`, i.e. being safe does not imply being sound; equivalently `∃x: Safe(x) ∧ ¬Sound(x)`

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 09/09/2025

When a bot with 100k followers drops into your mentions, I suppose it's only fair to respond politely,,

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 01/09/2025

There are so many people who need to be thanked repeatedly, but these two women are really what lifted us from very good to excellent. Thank you Tash and Amber - incredible.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 01/09/2025

But wait .. there's more (It's also nice to see that our night tour was mentioned - WHERE WE SAW LIVE KIWI)

Screenshot from Bluesky. Antoine Büsch: "RustForge 2025 is a wrap and it was a blast! Really enjoyed the workshops, talks, and all the people I've met and chatted with. Massive props to @timclicks.dev for pulling this off, and 🤞🏻 for another edition next year! It was also great to get a first taste of New Zealand. That night walk in Zealandia, under a perfect starry sky, was an amazing experience. Really hope to come back soon and see more."

Voided warranty "All of the #RustForge talks are so inspiring and I’m so happy that @timClicks has managed to pull this conference off!"

Simon Stiefel: "Flying back home after some awesome few days at #rustforgeconf in #wellington. So many great workshops, talks and people. It really showed how amazing this community is. Thanks @timClicks and team for organising! Hope to see you all again next time! #rustlang"

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 01/09/2025

Here's Mikey (the creator of the glowing LED cube)

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 01/09/2025

People are saying so many nice things. It's really quite hard to take in.

Elias de Oliveira: "Rust Forge Conference 2025 was by far one of the best confs I have been to, and I dare to say the best Rust conf. The Kiwi community is amazing; they are super kind and working on all types of Cool projects. From creative ..."

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 12/08/2025

I created some new banner art for Rust Forge this morning. What do you think?

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 11/08/2025

Rust Forge is a tech conference for stable, secure and energy efficient computing (& I'm totally down for it)

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 07/08/2025

Maybe the Rust compiler could incorporate a teaching mode that would allow emoji identifiers like 🫠:

$Rust source code [ use std::mem::MaybeUninit; fn main() { let x = MaybeUninit::<Vec<u32>>::uninit(); let 🫠 = unsafe { x.assume_init() }; println!("{🫠:?}") } ]$

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 21/07/2025

So, Trump's added a USD 250 "visa integrity fee" for visitor visas among others.. ...you know, you don't need to go to the USA to go to an amazing Rust conference this year. You've got options.

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 21/07/2025

4. BE ACTIVE IN THE DISCORD SERVER Make it easier for people to remember you by participating in discussions online. There are hundreds of people already there. It's pretty easy to find. Open up the Rust Forge website and there's a button right there. Look for the word "Discord".

Screenshot of the Rust Forge homepage marked up to show Discord server button

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 21/07/2025

Conferences are not expensive. They should pay for themselves. Here's how:

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 18/07/2025

Make connections with Rustaceans from all around the world at Rust Forge Conf next month

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 16/07/2025

Not to alarm you, but if you were interested in attending the Application Security Workshop at Rust Forge Conf next month, there's only 1 space left (link to register is in the image's alt text)

Screenshot from LilRegie's event admin backend. Text reads "Application Security Workshop ... 23 tickets sold, 1 ticket remaining, ..." [link: https://rustforgeconf.com/register ]

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 13/07/2025

What are those workshops? We have 4! Security, game dev (Bevy), web dev (leptos), TUI apps (ratatui).

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 13/07/2025

Find yourself a community that talks about you the way the Rust Forge community talks about you

$Discord thread: [1:49 am] jamesgresql : Can I just say, I’ve never seen a conference which is this well curated and run. I can’t make any of the workshops or events - but they look SO GOOD [10:40 am] timClicks : Let's just hope that some people can make it. Starting a conference series during an extended recession locally and lots of uncertainty globally might not be my wisest financial move 😅 \ I'm so so grateful for everyone that is supporting me to create this. \ Everyone is taking a bet. I want that bet to pay off many times over.$

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Tim McNamara @timclicks.dev · 12/07/2025

Let's get 50 registrations sold in 25 days! Who do you know who knows Rust, or has always wanted to ever since they first heard about it?

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