Stephen Ball
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sdball.dev
Stephen Ball
@sdball.dev
250 followers 260 following 320 posts
Software engineer. Can be found trying too hard at Rocket League. I write Elixir when I have the choice. I also release music as sdb-79 on whatever music streaming service you use.
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sdball.dev
If you see this, post something monochromatic
A photo of a tree top with every little branch covered in a transparent sheath of thin ice hanging upside down over a paved path.
August 29, 2025 at 2:20 AM
sdball.dev
C'mon Netflix I know you have the data.
A screenshot of a Netflix search with the query "What's a good action movie I haven't watched yet?" The search results are "Oh darn. We don't have that." and the suggestion to search for another movie, show, actor, director, or genre.
August 8, 2025 at 3:12 PM
sdball.dev
Happy to support!
A screenshot of a donation receipt to Kat Abughazaleh via ActBlue
May 25, 2025 at 7:34 PM
sdball.dev
On the good news front I am quite happy that @sebastianlague.bsky.social released version 2 of his digital logic sim and now we can have display components on chips like in the videos!
A screenshot of a digital logic sim showing an 8-bit input going through some chips leading to a three digit display. There are inputs for "ripple blanking" and "two's complement" and a major chip is labeled "double dabble". The three digit displays show "1" "8" and "3" in red. The "two's complement" input is not enabled. The "ripple blanking" input is enabled. A screenshot of a digital logic sim showing an 8-bit input going through some chips leading to a three digit display. There are inputs for "ripple blanking" and "two's complement" and a major chip is labeled "double dabble". The three digit displays show blank, "7" and "3" in blue. The "two's complement" input and "ripple blanking" input are enabled.
April 16, 2025 at 12:31 AM
sdball.dev
Durham NC!
A crowd of people protesting Trump in 2025 A dog wearing a cardboard sign “Dogs against DOGE”
April 5, 2025 at 7:54 PM
sdball.dev
I’d missed that Apple Maps finally caved too. But Carrot is proving once again it’s the best.
Screenshot of Carrot Weather generally explaining the Gulf of Mexico and closing with: “It recently got a stupid new name and the mapping data providers caves and started using the stupid new name, but screw that: it will always be the Gulf of Mexico in my book.”
March 16, 2025 at 1:58 PM
sdball.dev
It is absolutely the job of government and public universities to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity!

ncnewsline.com/2024/04/11/u...

April 2024
Screenshot of article text with one section highlighted: Quote Kotis said he appreciates the stated goal of DEI efforts to be sure everyone has an equal opportunity. He does not believe it’s the job of government or public universities to achieve that goal through quotas or promote a certain political view of diversity, he said. End quote. The surrounding text from the article explains and justifies the then impending dismantling of DEI at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April 2024
February 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM
sdball.dev
Current status morbotron.com/img/S02E17/2...
Cartoon character Dr Zoidberg has a pained and bewildered expression and clutches the back of his head with both hands.
February 5, 2025 at 1:38 AM
sdball.dev
It’s crazy out in the world but also yay I hit a flip reset shot. In training but still! #SkyTok
January 22, 2025 at 12:39 AM
sdball.dev
🍄📷 Posting some mushrooms because.
Mushrooms growing from a mossy tree. Flat mushrooms growing from a tree trunk.
January 18, 2025 at 4:27 PM
sdball.dev
That's awesome! I've fixed that for my search results with a custom Kagi redirect rule
A screenshot of kagi.com configuration showing that web search result links to hexdocs.pm and docs.rs will be custom redirected to the same result in the most recent version.
January 10, 2025 at 6:10 PM
sdball.dev
I've completed "Guard Gallivant" - Day 6 - Advent of Code 2024
#AdventOfCode
adventofcode.com/2024/day/6

I got distracted on this one making fun visualizations in Livebook. #ElixirLang
A screenshot of an Elixir Livebook programming session. There are two code cells: one creates a button labeled "step" and one handles clicks of that button by animating updates to the map. Below the code cells is an emoji rendering of a grid map. There are many empty tiles, some obstacle tiles, and a guard emoji that is trailed by arrows showing the path they have taken so far.
December 9, 2024 at 1:29 AM
sdball.dev
I've renamed "ex_duck_smart_cell" to "kino_duckduckgo" and updated it to use the latest version of kino. Functionally it's still the same speedy interface to DuckDuckGo instant answers that it's always been.

hex.pm/packages/kin...
A screenshot of formatted results from the DuckDuckGo smart cell in Elixir Livebook. The results show an answer for the query "Zork I" which starts with a screenshot of the game box art followed by a description of the game with a source and then by a table of information such as release dates, genres, and modes.
November 24, 2024 at 6:04 PM
sdball.dev
Academically I knew that computers are built up from logic gates. But somehow I never internalized that correspondingly everything is built out of truth tables. The fact that this chip is the "dabble" part of the double dabble algorithm seems like cheating.
A screenshot of a system of logic gates. There are four inputs (8, 4, 2, 1) and four outputs (8, 4, 2, 1). The inputs 4, 2, and 1 are lit and we see their wires illuminated through the logic gates ultimately leading to the outputs. The outputs 8 and 2 are lit. There are nine logic gates in the chip of four types: XOR, NOR, OR, AND.
November 3, 2024 at 9:26 PM
sdball.dev
This is starting to turn into a real working thing, woo! (Minesweeper + LiveView)
A game of minesweeper rendered using emoji
August 17, 2024 at 12:12 AM
sdball.dev
This is art
A screenshot of a medium article about the pervasive nature of online advertising. The text describes how advertising became integral to the experience of the web. The article text fades out from top to bottom ultimately to be replaced by a call to create a medium account in order to be able to read the story.
July 16, 2024 at 3:10 PM
sdball.dev
I cultivate a sophisticated humor.
A sticker depicting Lowly the worm from Richard Scarry books driving his classic apple car with the words “fear is the mind killer” printed on its side.
April 28, 2024 at 1:13 AM
sdball.dev
This was the situation under our Japanese maple in 2017. Really cool!
Many dozens of overlapping crescent light shadows splayed across the ground.
April 8, 2024 at 1:27 AM
sdball.dev
We take a lotta fungi pictures.
Many flat mushrooms growing out of a tree trunk. A wide curling mass of mushroom growing from the base of a tree trunk. Spreading wide plates of mushroom growing out of a tree trunk. A bunch of curling brown mushrooms viewed from beneath.
February 13, 2024 at 10:44 PM
sdball.dev
Happy Chinese new year! We’re entering the year of the dragon! Building this Lego set with the kids is a fun way to celebrate.
A photo of a partially completed dragon Lego set in front of its box art depicts a flowing white and blue dragon.
February 10, 2024 at 3:56 PM