Max Clinton

mini-sentry - Building a Userspace Kernel in Go

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of understanding that only comes from building a thing yourself — not reading about it, not studying the source, but sitting down with an empty file and discovering, one segfault at a time, why the original was built the way it was. I had been circling gVisor for months, admiring its architecture from a safe distance, the way one might admire a cathedral without quite grasping the engineering of the flying buttresses. And so I did what seemed like the only honest thing: I built a small one of my own.

The Signal and the Silence

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I set down this account not because I expect to be believed, but because the alternative — to carry it alone — has become a weight I can no longer bear. The man I shall call the Engineer would have understood. He always said that the hardest part of any discovery was not the finding but the telling, and that the telling was harder still when the discovery concerned the nature of time itself.

Vermillion

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Red of Titian, red of blood and throne
mercury sulfide crushed from cinnabar stone
prisoners in Almadén, digging their own grave
so that a Cardinal’s robe on canvas could be saved
toxic dust in lungs, a quarter never returned
beauty for the church, while the miners burned
Rubens mixed it thick, Shinto gates ablaze
Chinese seal paste pressed in ancient days
and now centuries later it darkens toward black
a slow photochemical rot, no turning back

ironbox - Building a Container Runtime from Scratch in Rust

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I built a container runtime. Not a wrapper around runc, not a shim that delegates to someone else’s code — an actual OCI runtime that uses fork, unshare, pivot_root, and mount directly. It’s called ironbox, and it’s on crates.io.

Back to Work

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abyss open, fallen angel cast away
chained, pixelated daydreams display
sulfric inferno, platonic heat burning
fresh clean air now just a yearning
squashy gaming chair, a tower of London rack
river styx float the Jira corpses water black
gun revolving, each bullet, message of slack
monday a dreary hell, to Red Hat i am back

Opus Explorer - A CLI for Discovering Classical Music

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted a simple way to browse classical music from the terminal. The OpenOpus API is free, doesn’t require a key, and has solid metadata on composers and works. So I built a small Rust CLI called Opus Explorer to search composers, list their works, get random suggestions, and keep a local listening log.

Midnight Jacket

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The void, the infimisimatly small and large nothingness.
perhaps a paradise for Mephistopheles.
I descended further and further.
No Virgil by my side,
the darkness was a pyramid, my eyes the pharoh.
In this vast silence I contemplated my life.
What had been and what never was.
a flatulation broke the silence,
followed by a squeaky “Sorry”
from a voice that was not my own…

death

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

light blue, pink colours sun waves goodbye
on a life lived, deep truths mixed with lie
rope hanging, well knotted the circle noose
feet dangling, breath fled, soul towards Zeus

field of flowers, warm smiles and butterflies
now corpse upon ground, ravens eating thy eyes
reaper shorn true, giving a cold eternal embrace
River Styx carried by Charon to thee shadowy place

The Aeneid

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By: Virgil
Translated by Cecil Day Lewis

A unenjoyable and distasteful piece. I disliked Dante Alighieri’s work it is no suprise that I do not like The Aeneid.
I found the dispersions against the Greeks to be quite infuriating.
As a Greek, Homer still portays the Trojans in postive and admirable ways with Hector, Paris and other.
Virgil in The Aeneid introduces many snide remarks against them that I hated. I dislike Virgil’s claims of the Trojan treatment of Sinon. Dante also puts Sinon in Hell in his book Inferno.
To me Sinon is a true hero. He may not be a great Warrior like Achilles or even Menelaus (lol as if) but
Sinon has loyalty and guile that are stuff of legends.\

Building A CDN on Cloudflare Workers

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been building SmartCDN built entirely on Cloudflare Workers. It is an interesting project to learn edge computing and turned into something not useful. Here’s what it does, what I learned, and the issues I ran into.

Ackchyually

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ackchyually… that is not a Vizagapatam piece, note the deeply carved floral ebony patterns that give it away as a Ceylonese piece…
Ahh foooool, that linear grain and absence of Schreger lines give the piece an Ivory immitation pale and noncreamy to the real thing…
Οἰνοβαρές, κυνὸς ὄμματ’ ἔχων, κραδίην δ’ ἐλάφοιο….. the brown and amber mottling is too high contrast for real tortoiseshell, it must have a more fluid, chaotic blend of colors.

Posthomerica: The Fall of Troy

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By: Quintus Smyrnaeus
Translated by Arthur S. Way

It is tough being the following act to Homer. Posthomerica was an enjoyable read but the quality between Homer and Quintus is quite large.
One would think with the amount of events between the Iliad and the Odyssey, Posthomerica would be an excellent piece.
Generally it was quite enjoyable but I think that there are times where the buildup is more interesting than the climax.
Perhaps this is the same. Homer discusses interesting topics: center around the back and forth battle between the Acheans and Sons of Priam.
Then Homer tells stories of a journey to return Home and the challenges at Home.
Perhaps he understood that these challenges are more interesting than Victory or Defeat, the Fall of Troy.

The Odyssey

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By: Homer
Translated by W. H. D. Rouse

A legendary work about histories most cunning hero. It is a great piece with the most cathartic ending I have ever experience.
I do think there is a novelty factor in this book moreso than the Iliad though. I had less joy re-reading it than my first time.
I found the beginning with Telemachus to be a bit dull. The buildup to conflict in Ithaca was generally good but also a bit drawn out as well.

2026 Goals

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A post about delicable delicous desires to be done in 2026.

The Iliad

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By: Homer
Translated by W. H. D. Rouse

The most excellent piece of literature I have ever consumed.
The Iliad has everything: Heroism, bravery, hilarity, taunts, duels, love, friendship, and so much more.

Click below to show spoilers:
Agamemnon's murder of the Prisoner of Menelaus was brutal and same with Odysseus murder of the scout. The duel of Hector and Ajax was great. I found it very interesting that Menelaus got the "courage of a fly" when fighting Hector. The battle by the ships was great and Patroclus entering the battle was cool. I found Agenor attacking Achilles and running away to be hilarious. The River of Blood and murder of so many sons of Priam by Achilles was insane too. The insult "heros of the dance floor" by King Priam is so hilarious to me as well.

2025

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photos from 2025, displayed in chronological order.

Eternal Resistance

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

fire and frost, irritate the skin
pain and sorrow our lifelong friend
breath short, exhale watch the mist
fog over the eyes, death’s sweet kiss

depression, despair, forlorn thoughts
woe is me, give in, all work for nought
iron blood the taste in mouth, dry tongue
knees on the ground, pain just begun

Learning to Sew Part 4: Bowling

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wax floor glistening, ball rolling forward
Us pins, standing rigid looking on in horror.
There is no way out, we are forever cornered
Death is upon us, knocking at the front door.
Heavy ball coming at us giving us a wink
into the gutter we pray it may sink
Bang! we are hit and we all start to fall
sneering faces at our despair through the hall.

PumpGuard - A Monitoring Tool I Built and Then Abandoned

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 23:44:14 -0500

I recently spent some time building this thing called PumpGuard. The idea was simple - monitor pump.fun in real-time to detect new token launches, catch rug pulls before they happen, and track whale movements. Basically a monitoring suite for that whole ecosystem.

Building a Minimal BitTorrent Client in Python

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been curious about how BitTorrent works under the hood. I download files from other peers, but how does that handshake happen? How do you verify you got the right pieces? How does it coordinate with trackers?

Learning to Sew Part 3: Polar

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A new post, a journey, a glorious new day
But upon our path a Sphinx blocking our way
To pass thou must answer this riddle from me
Penguin, Polar Bear, Parrot,which belongs nought in the three
Right hand confident with title says, “Parrot” with zeal
Flash go the talons, blood spurting like a cut from steel
Left Hand trembling and shaking, speaking softly, “Polar Bear”
Crack! bones, tendons breaking, pain under Sphinx glare
Head, all that was left, groaned “Penguin” with great care
Neck severed, the head was moaning, what was our err?
Upon the pieces Sphinx gazed, frightful sight for the ladies
“Twas your fate not the answer” for I am no Sphinx, but Hades!

Squeaky Fan

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

forlorn, adrift am i acursed
blood boiling heart ready to burst
in the halll the fan doth squeak
downcast my mind, moood bleak
for every step i strode
wishing it to be fixed, truth told
yet the sun doth rise day after day
and discomfort never fadeth away
why must i deal with such obstinance
nails on chalkboard Consonance
i yearn for a deep reprieve
yet thee fan must cleave
my soul from thy body
its quality so shoddy
my life now cast adrift
by this devils little gift
digging my grave with a shovel
is thy fate living in a hovel

Why I will never use AI for art

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been listening to a reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy recently and in it I think that Dante mets a poet in Hell or Purgatory that comments how he and all poets steal others work. When I search online for the passage or character I cannot find reference to this but perhaps it was a dream or I made it up.

A place that could have been, but never was

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

a place that could have been but never was
is it dark, is it light, silence or a buzz
in this place, hope does permate the air
scatter around, many a soul it does ensnare
“I could have been” teeth clench and break
mind fantasizing, body refusing, unable to wake
but for a faustian spirit only heart will ache
walking thou lonely path, a truly broken road
sand carassesing feet, a forlorn river flowed
indominable spirit with promethian fire glowed
a place of promises of El Dorado gold
yet touched, inspected show only mold
go forth brave spirit past this place’s gates
show thy sentinels what true Fate awaits!

Greek Myth Data: Timing CTEs vs Plain SQL

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on a personal sql project like a monk scribbling on a scroll: 120k deities, 150k heroes, 1.5M quests, 2M omens, plus hundreds of thousands of battle logs. Everything ships in a Docker image so you can spin up mythic-cte, run the bundled benchmark_queries.sql, and immediately compare Common Table Expressions against equivalent “plain” SQL.

Learning to Sew Part 2: Burlap

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Steam rising, up, up, my eyes watch it dissipate as I turn to my mug to take another sip. I recently moved to a new area in my city that I am unfamiliar with. Naturally, I have been having a grand time exploring the unknown. Like Bilbo says, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to”, but to take the first step you need a first sip. That’s why I have been checking out all the interesting coffee shops in the area. They say to truly appreciate a good coffee you have to understand the phrase “bean to brew”. I am not a sophisticated guy, but if I cannot understand that maybe I can do something else. Maybe, just maybe, I can become the bean, or failing that, at least become a coffee bag. That’s how we come to Learning to Sew Part 2: Burlap Edition

Setting Up a Postgres, Go Gin, and React project on Kubernetes

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I spent past few days setting up a Kubernetes project Finance Dashboard and this post is the curtain fall of a useful side project. The core code lives inside a single file: finance-dashboard.yaml. Much of the documenation on how to set it up is provided in the README of Finance Dashboard. Instead I’ll briefly mention some issues I encountered.

Learning to Sew Part 1

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After the sudden and tragic death of Paul Vincent this summer and my brother making his own suit for a 1920s-inspired lawn party I have been inspired to learn sewing to make my own clothes. After much delay, I have finally started this journey and this is the first in what is planned to be a long series of posts documenting my foray into the art.

Updating a Rust Project to Latest Dependencies

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I recently updated an older Rust project (termdex, a terminal-based Pokédex) to use the latest package versions. Here’s what I ran into and how I fixed it.

The Starting Point

The project was using older versions of most dependencies:

Building a simple python epoll server

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

How can you make your python server fast? One method is through using the Linux system call epoll. Epoll is an I/O event notification system that monitors file descriptors of I/O events.

In your first foray into writing python http servers you will likely encounter or write a simple program as seen below:

About

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

I like to make things and occasionally write about what I have built.

Look at my stuff on GitHub.