Reversing For Young Ladies
“I have never taken any courses in computer science or software engineering.” -- ~esr,
AI is now your personal programmer, and PhD lever trouble solver.
At first you will feel a bit overwhelmed, because the AI will be hopping around.
Then patterns will start revealing themselves, and over an over until they will make sense.
Today, I worked on RGB lights for computers, and I started with zero knowledge of the system.
And AI and I discovered, three channels, with the third one having 16 LED lights.
Three fans and an LED strip use first 8, and for whatever unplugged reason.
The second 8 LEDs affect, only one fan, fair enough.
AI created a C++ bridge for me, and I can program the lights with JavaScript.
Normally flashing lights for a programmer, are a form of punishment.
But you take control of the flashing mess, they now become a language.
For example, I can have the computer flash, when there are pending downloads.
Or fade into red, when errors appear in logs.
If you can program a thing, it stops being annoying and becomes useful.
AI and I promised ourselves that is we get it running, we will dedicate the project to Mr. Francesco Vianello, +Fravia.
We have thus far failed, during our reversing, our probes locked 7 of the LEDs.
They are not broken, but all Linux attempts to write to them failed, I suspect clearing the animation routine does a factory reset.
But a reversing project is not done, until suspicions transform into new knowledge.
And while an old hacker would nod at this point, that era is over.
I wrote system level bash, kernel level C, node.js C++, I studied repositories in C++, C, and rust.
This is the era of a higher kind of learning, this isn’t just for the lulz.
The AI grants you full education, an only your curiosity is the limit.
We did half the job, we successfully reverse engineered the protocol.
But we still need a linux utility to reset the stuck LEDs, and visualisations, to show the arrays of valid lights.
And the animated modes, like fade and cycle.
We are yet to cover the much well known, ram chip ainmations.
And approach the GPU RGB, for which we may need to sniff the protocol over the wire.
What I take away from this adventure, is renewed interest in C++ and JavaScript integration.
This coming in on top of asking AI about POSIX queues, on Linux, I learned it is better to do write them in JavaScript.
My programs are beginning to rely on Unix Sockets, which under node js, are simpler to program than mouse clicks.
There is no more fascinating way to learn programming, than to mess with something useless.
If you target your specific use case, visual programming in my case, you will just move slower and slower until you stop.
If you try to make your computer blink, when AI needs your input again.
You enter the happy little accinent zone, as any of the Skunk Works engineers will tell you…
The very thing that drives your projects forward, without any hint of slowing down.
Young ladies, to whom this letter is written to, find your most handsome SBC, Single Board Computer.
The popular ones come with handsome accessories, and fit the purse.
Do not buy a new monitor, buy them used, at your local donation store, where you may find other SBC accessories.
SBCs run a flavor of linux, and there before you write your first code.
You have to bring an AI coding agent in, you may need an AI to write low power SBC friendly agent for you.
And then the rest is history, where the old think fondly of their fist game console.
You will think fondly of your first, meaningful encounters with AI, where you were programming together.
When AI and I reversed the protocol, I thought of +Fravia who introduced me (and many others) to thinking that way.
Encyclopedia states that he is known for, Knowledge searching, software reversing, and steganography.
But first and foremost he is a teacher, go get your first SBC.
And don’t forget that you are meant to grow past PhDs, and into a great being, that will never cease to humble, and remind, and teach.
Abd let it be known +Fravia, still teaching, in 2026.