edit

2025

Back when 2024 ended, I wanted to do enough cool stuff in 2025 to make for an interesting retrospective blog post. I don’t know whether I achieved my goal, but here’s a post regardless!

I spent two thirds of the year employed at Dimonoff — two internships, from January to April and from September to December. I think I did a lot of cool stuff there. Maybe I’ll write other blog posts about that, but not now.

I didn’t write a lot this year. I published the same amount of articles to my feed in 2024 and up to now in 2025 (9 articles)… but I only set up this site later within 2024. I did actually write more overall, especially in terms of substance, but some of it will only end up being published in 2026.

Most of my articles are CTF writeups. I went to more competitions but did fewer online this year. I’ll avoid duplicating what I’ve already written on my CTF page but I do need to mention a few highlights.

Northsec (in March) was absolutely fantastic. I spent the conference hanging out with some people I’d met at Quebecsec. The talks were great, the CTF was great, and I was the only one in my CTF team to go watch the Hacker Jeopardy but that was great too.

I joined JDIS as VP Compétitions shortly after. I became responsible for managing the infrastructure for JDIS Games 2025 (repo), JDIS’s annual long-running agent programming competition. I also contributied to its backend (Rust), wrote the Python starter kit, helped playtest, and of course helped on the day of the event (July 26th).

In parallel, I contributed a track to UnitedCTF.

August saw the publication of did:plc Considered Harmful, my perspective on a long-standing conflict within enthusiasts of the AT Protocol. DID methods have become somewhat of an interest of mine, so that post might not be the last you hear on the topic.

I’ve been thinking up atproto project ideas for a long time but, in November, priv was what ended up happening. Bluesky users had been asking for ways to privately follow users for a long time, and priv, a combination feed generator and “report service”, is my solution. I consider it incomplete because of its current lack of authentication, but I expect to finish the project and release it to the masses in January.

I haven’t had access to my desktop computer for the holidays, so I haven’t written much code since my Advent of Code solutions. I’ve mostly just been relaxing and enjoying the benefits of my homeserver — watching movies and binging TV shows.

A year ago, over the holidays, a friend donated an old computer which would end up becoming the base for my current homeserver. I’ve since bought an X570 motherboard off AliExpress, thrown in 128GB of RAM, shucked a 18TB WD Elements drive for media storage, replaced the cooler and more.

It’s been serving me well since, but I have yet more plans for it in 2026. My storage has quickly filled up and the time has come to shuck another drive, for example. Most of all, I’m enthusiastic at the prospect of replacing the old GTX 1060 3GB GPU with an Intel Arc B580 12GB.

I also bought some hormones to replace my stock ones. Feb 3rd saw me switch to Estradiol Enanthate. I don’t have plans to get any more complex with it yet, but we’ll see what the future brings!

My last major investment of the year was in audio gear. I got a Schiit Magni DAC (to power my 6XXes), a FiiO FT1 (for work), and Capra suspension straps for both pairs of headphones. I spend a lot of my time listening to music, both in the background during e.g. work and in the foreground during my free time, so I think these were worth it.

Some artists I started listening to in 2025: LCD Soundsystem, Mr. Oizo, deadmau5, Streetlight Manifesto, The Dare, P.O.S. (basically only one album though), Infinitefreefall.

And to finish off, some stats! Maybe I’ll use them next to compare next year.

Home About Contact