BEN EBSWORTH
INFRA | SOFTWARE | HARDWARE
Latest writing
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A* Search, Visually: the Heuristic Is the Whole Game
A* is not a clever algorithm so much as Dijkstra plus a bet about the future. The same code becomes Dijkstra, greedy best-first, or A* depending on one term in the priority key — and admissibility is the single property that buys optimality.
Electrical Eng
AM, FM, QAM: A Tour of the Modulation Zoo
Every modulation scheme is the same act — painting information onto a carrier — and they differ only in which property of the carrier you paint on. Plotted as a constellation, AM is a line, FM is a circle, and QAM is a grid.
Software
B-Trees vs LSM-Trees: The Two Religions of On-Disk Data
Every database you use bets on one of two storage engines: B-trees (read-optimised, update-in-place) or LSM-trees (write-optimised, append-and-compact). The choice isn't about speed but about which kind of amplification you're willing to pay.
From the lab
All 30+ effects →Small, working simulations — drag the controls on the full pages, or just watch the previews cycle here. The selection rotates daily.