The Dark Assassins Podcast

The famous saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies to more than just civilizations, it also applies to your personal projects and your homelab. In this episode, we take a look at why you should focus on the small wins and how you can stay motivated even when it may seem like there is so much more to do or implement. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Pod...

Game development is basically the Swiss Army knife when it comes to all things technology, but specifically computer science and software development. In this episode, we’ll be breaking down all the various aspects of computer science, software development, and technology in general that developing your own video game will teach you. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark...

How fast is “Scary Fast”? In this episode, we are discussing Apple’s latest announcement of their new chips and the devices they’re in. We also take a moment to look back at some of the great Intel Macs and how these former titans compare to the latest and greatest from Apple. Finally, we look at a perfect marriage between software development and homelabbing. We are covering all of this and more...

As more and more things become controlled by software and electronics, when that software or those electronics stop working, it can cause major problems in your day-to-day routines and even put you at risk. In this episode, we’ll be covering why we need more analog devices as well as what state machines are and how they work. Of course, finally, long live the Xserve! Even though Apple discontinued...

According to industry data, developers have the highest turnover ratio out of all professions and change jobs, on average, twice as often as other non-developers. Why is this? Are developers just not loyal to companies? In this episode, we’ll be looking into the reasons why developers elect to leave companies so frequently and what both the developers and management can do to alleviate these issue...

One of the worst ways you can be hacked is when you weren’t even hacked yet got your personal information stolen anyway from someone you know getting hacked. In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at the recent 23andMe hack and what it means. Also in this episode, we look at some shenanigans hardware vendors pull when it comes to the compatibility of SFP+ transceivers. We are covering all of this...

VLANs are a staple in any corporate or enterprise networking solution, and even some homelabs. However, VLANs can be hard to grasp and implement for those who aren’t all that familiar with them. In this episode, we’ll be looking at not just how VLANs work but also how they are implemented. All while not changing how your code interfaces with the rest of the software. We are covering all of this an...

Writing optimized code in terms of memory footprint performance should be goals of every software developer. In this episode, we’re taking a look at how properly aligning your data and even packing multiple variables into a single variable with bit-packing can save you a lot of memory you would otherwise be wasting. All while not changing how your code interfaces with the rest of the software. We...

“My homelab is finally complete"—the infamous words of a homelabber before they inevitably upgrade something else. Homelabs are a constantly growing and evolving thing, and in this episode, we were going over tons of hardware and other infrastructure changes, as well as some software changes as well. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you en...

Apple just held their September "Wonderlust" event, where they unveiled the new Series 9 and Ultra 2 Apple Watches, as well as the new iPhone 15 and iPhone Pro lines. In this episode, we’ll be covering what’s new, if it's worth upgrading, and what these updates mean for the future of other Apple products. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podc...

Apple was all in the news this week for exploits, security patches, and their announcement of their September event, Wonderlust. Also, we’ll discuss how becoming a contributor to an open-source project might not seem as farfetched as it sounds and how it is totally within the reach of all developers. Lastly, we are taking a look at a cool tool for your homelab that will allow you to get real-time...

Loops play an integral role when it comes to software development. However, if you aren’t careful, they can cause your program to run forever or outright crash from a stack overflow (yes, that’s a real thing, not just a website). In this episode, we’re looking at the various kinds of loops, how they're used, and why you may or may not want to use one over the other given your use case. We are...

When it comes to sourcing your next server, or even your first server, a common debate arises: do you buy a pre-built server, or do you custom build one? In this episode, we are breaking down the pros and cons of each to help you decide which is right for you. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a rating, r...

Ready Player One offers an online utopia built in virtual reality where you can do anything and be anything you want, but how realistic is that future in our world? What are the data and privacy implications of such a world? Also in this episode, we go over a number of software updates and also discuss what a web scraper is and why Python is so darn good at it. We are covering all of this and more...

Whether you are working in a company, on a school project, on an open source project, or on any project where the codebase is not entirely your own, you will inevitably run into a scenario where you have to patch someone else’s code. In this episode, we are looking at an instance of patching someone else’s code to improve the number of systems it supports, as well as patching code to prevent it fr...

File compression is all around us, from the photos we take to the shows and movies we watch to the music and podcasts we listen to to the backup archive of our old files from school. But how does it work? In this episode, we’ll be looking at real-world examples of compression and diving into the differences between lossless and lossy compression, as well as why you would want to use compression. W...

Personal projects are a staple for any software developer worth their salt. However, are the personal projects we make that we never release and never release the source code for closed-source? What makes a project open-source vs. closed-source? In this episode, we’ll tackle that very debate about whether or not personal projects that you don’t release publicly are closed-source. We are covering a...

We done goofed and posted last weeks episode as this weeks, whoops. Here's the right one. The idea of logging has been tarnished over the years by Governments, Social Media companies, and many other companies that provide software, hardware, and services to spy on, surveil, and sell the data they harvest from their users to the highest bidder. At the same time, logging plays a pivotal role in...

Failure is inevitable in life, especially in software development and in having a homelab. In this episode, we look at ways you can overcome failures and use them as learning experiences to make you a better software developer and maintainer of your homelab. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a rating, rev...

In this episode, we’re covering the huge win for newbie developers trying to learn to code with the new updates coming to the Java SDK. Speaking of code, what is dead code, and why is it something you want to remove from your projects? Lastly, what do Red Hat’s changes mean for what Linux distros you run in your homelab, workstations, dev- and production environments, etc., and for the open source...

If anyone tells you software development is a great field for anyone who doesn’t like math or physics, they are severely mistaken. In this episode, we’ll dive into how intertwined software development and physics are and how sometimes software development is, in fact, rocket science. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, pl...

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are crucial for not only developers to make better apps and their lives easier, but in doing so, they also make the end experience for the user that much better. In this episode, we’re looking at how APIs work, the pivotal role they play in developers writing the best apps they can, and how this relates to Reddit's decision to charge for their API and...

WWDC is here! Apple unveiled tons of new software updates, as well as new hardware updates and even a brand new product category. We have coverage of all the updates as well as analysis on this week's episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a rating, review, and subscribe if you haven’t already. Also, share it with a friend or family member who you th...

This week we are focusing on developers and sharing a message about how to deal with working in a code base, framework, language, etc. you’ve never used before, as well as the best ways to tackle refactoring your code. Lastly, Nintendo is back in the news for its controversy over the Dolphin emulator. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of The Dark Assassins Podcast. If you enjoye...

Torrenting is widely known for its use in internet piracy and downloading copyrighted material illegally, but it also has many legitimate and very valid use cases as well. In this episode, we’ll discuss some of the legitimate use cases for torrenting as well as the ethics of piracy and whether or not all pirates are just no-good scoundrels. We are covering all of this and more on this episode of T...