Rachel Barker
rachelplusplus.me.uk
Rachel Barker
@rachelplusplus.me.uk
Computing environmentalist, amateur musician, general-purpose nerd.
Previously worked on AV1+AV2 @ Google, now consulting @ Monocot. She/her.

Blogs at https://www.rachelplusplus.me.uk/
Pinned
A while back I wrote a couple of articles evaluating various image compression programs. My original methodology had some issues, so I took the time to dot all my 'i's and cross all my 't's. And now, at long last, the improved versions of those posts are up!

www.rachelplusplus.me.uk/blog/2025/06...
Evaluating Image Compression Tools - Rachel++
When I wrote the last part of my AVIF encoder series, I only did a very minimal comparison between tinyavif and other, more widely used, image and video encoders. Today we'll revisit that and explore ...
www.rachelplusplus.me.uk
Reposted by Rachel Barker
December 3, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Oh boy, you can bet we are cooking the coolest profiler for Python 3.15 👨‍🍳🔥
December 2, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
The vaccine is pretty astonishing. Just look at that green line.
November 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Australia just recorded zero cervical cancer cases in women under 25 for the first time since records began in 1982. The amazing result of HPV vaccination.
November 28, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Jebus, in just 2 or 3 years Pakistan has imported enough solar panels that, in some times in the coming year, panels will cover *all* the country's demand.
www.reuters.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
We did something different with the credits for Demonschool. We used this format: name, title, lengthy description of what they did. Often you see credits in games where you don't know what the credited developer was actually responsible for. We wanted to give people proper, actual credit.
November 24, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Python is such a cursed and beautiful language.
November 24, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
i don't know if i'd say that i "like" lua, exactly. but i respect the hell out of it and we have a truce that's held for some years now
November 24, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
GARAMA!

pattern by Ami_amour (Instagram)
November 24, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
What I listened to today: "JPEG" / "CODE", Nadaj

Jungle will never die, Jungle is eternal. From 2020 some splintered D&B in the classic mode, smooth then rough. These tracks are unrelated except for that they flow well together

notnedaj.bandcamp.com/track/jpeg
notnedaj.bandcamp.com/track/code
JPEG, by Nedaj
from the album ERA9
notnedaj.bandcamp.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
i fed my pitch sequence into a saw mod instead of into the oscillator frequency
November 22, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Happy secondary compressor failure day to all who celebrate

youtu.be/XrlrbfGZo2k?...
37C3 - Breaking "DRM" in Polish trains
YouTube video by media.ccc.de
youtu.be
November 21, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Those were beautiful #aurorae in the past days. A solar storm brought a lot of protons to Earth. Not only to Earth but also to #ESAEuclid – but does #Euclid notice? Oh yes.

www.euclid-ec.org/here-comes-t...

#ESA #Sun #SpaceWeather #space
November 15, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
Remember that lovely aurora last week?

Well...um...this is what Euclid saw... 😱

🧵
November 19, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Been feeling under the weather the last few days, and it's looking increasingly like some kind of stomach bug. Which is deeply inconvenient, but hopefully means it'll clear up by itself in a few more days.
November 19, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
use of "moving slightly" should be prohibited under international law

it's one of the deadliest WMDs across Pharloom, second only to "tiny creature tossing a small bell"
asgsgfhf ;-;;;
November 16, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
math is probably my favorite metroidvania
November 15, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
No, surf rock is black metal without disto

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwGg...
Black Metal Without Distortion Is Just Surf Rock
YouTube video by Kevin Balke
www.youtube.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
I made a joke in my main Discord server about DOOM E1M1 being in a major key and @abigbagofkeys.sickonedude.com actually made it. Jesus fucking Christ listen to this hahahaha
November 14, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Genuinely my favourite cooking skill I've learnt recently is to make caramelized onions, freeze them, then use them as an ingredient. The flavour is *amazing* (it's practically onion jam!), and it concentrates all the faff of chopping onions into one day every few months. 20/10, would recommend!
November 11, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
This is seriously cool! A 1500-year old mass reindeer trapping facility found in the Norwegian ice.
www.vestlandfylke.no/nyheitsarkiv...
Sensasjonelt og unikt arkeologisk funn: Massefangstanlegg i tre fram frå isen
Eit 1500 år gamalt fangstanlegg smeltar fram 1400 meter over havet på Aurlandsfjellet i Sogn.
www.vestlandfylke.no
November 11, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
oh there we go
November 11, 2025 at 5:09 AM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
i like when i add stuff to my NAS and i can hear the HDD plates spinning from across the room it's like im hearing the computer eat chips. crunch crunch crunch gimme that yummy music data
November 6, 2025 at 11:52 PM
A while back I wrote a couple of articles evaluating various image compression programs. My original methodology had some issues, so I took the time to dot all my 'i's and cross all my 't's. And now, at long last, the improved versions of those posts are up!

www.rachelplusplus.me.uk/blog/2025/06...
Evaluating Image Compression Tools - Rachel++
When I wrote the last part of my AVIF encoder series, I only did a very minimal comparison between tinyavif and other, more widely used, image and video encoders. Today we'll revisit that and explore ...
www.rachelplusplus.me.uk
November 6, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Rachel Barker
I spoke with @juliobbv.bsky.social at VideoLAN Dev Days in London!

Here are our slides, discussing SVT-AV1-PSY: giannirosato.com/files/svt-av...

I'll find access to the video & post it soon!
giannirosato.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:13 PM