TechnoPorg

Elegance is a Weird Metric

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 22:00:16 -0400

I can’t deny that the twenty-first century is pretty cool. From the standpoint of available technology, the world is doing better than ever before. We have near-instant communication across the globe, machines building other machines that can fly, automatic toilets, LinkedIn, and autonomous drones armed with lethal force. These are all exceptional feats of engineering, and we should be proud of the millennia of innovation that have gotten humanity to this enlightened age. Everyone else clearly agrees, because the well-oiled engine of technological progress shows no signs of slowing down.

Must-Reads

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:37:51 -0500

The Fifth Season

N.K. Jemisin

The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss

The Three-Body Problem

Cixin Liu

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Douglas Hofstadter

Think Again

Adam Grant

Portfolio

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:48:49 -0500

Projects

Operese

A Windows-to-Linux “translation” tool for the 200M+ Windows 10 computers not eligible to upgrade to Windows 11, Operese transfers files, settings, and programs from Windows to a brand-new Kubuntu installation and even leaves it with nice disk geometry!

Source: https://codeberg.org/Operese/operese

Stratospheric Balloon

Software lead and electrical subteam member of a small (5 person) student design team building a stratospheric balloon with a flight ceiling of 35 kilometers. The team is targeting an August 2026 launch in Northern Ontario.

About

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:48:26 -0500

Hi! I’m Maya, a 🇨🇦/🇩🇪 mechatronics engineering student at the University of Waterloo.

I’m currently:

Developing the firmware for a custom STM32 board as part of a larger stratospheric balloon project
A co-producer and a member of the orchestra for a student musical in 2027
Playing through Hollow Knight: Silksong

Some technical interests of mine include operating systems, programming language design, PCB design, 3D graphics, and quantum computing, but I’ve also dabbled in web development and basic machine learning systems. My biggest claim to fame is being the creator of Operese, a Windows-to-Linux migration tool—check out the demo here!

Errata

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

If any incorrect statements make it into my content, an acknowledgment and correction will be listed here. I sincerely regret any harm caused by such incidents, and I strive to learn from them to ensure they do not happen again.

Videos

Introducing Operese (a Windows-to-Linux migration tool made by a nerd)

Introducing Operese (a Windows-to-Linux migration tool made by a nerd)

3:40
- This is not true, and advertising Linux as secure by design, or malware-free, is a dangerous myth. Much of the “security” comes from it being less widely used than Windows or MacOS, and therefore a less attractive target for desktop malware.
- There exists Linux-targeting malware, such as that found in the AUR in July 2025 very shortly after this video was published.
- See this article from an actual security researcher to get a taste of some of the underlying issues.
- It would have been more accurate to say that software can be installed from a trusted package manager, and that some programs can be run in a sandboxed/containerized environment like Flatpak or Snap.