DEV Community: europeanplaice

Let AI Explain traceroute with the Laws of Physics

europeanplaice — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:34:09 +0000

I built and open-sourced PacketVoyage—an Agent Skill & MCP server that turns boring traceroute outputs into fascinating stories about physics, geography, and undersea cables.

europeanplaice / packetvoyage

MCP server & Agent Skill for educational network traceroute analysis, fiber-optic physics verification, and packet voyage storytelling

🚢 PacketVoyage

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server & Agent Skill for educational network traceroute analysis, fiber-optic physics verification, and packet voyage storytelling. Zero external commercial APIs, zero bundled copyright data — pure physical laws and detective insight.

🏛️ Architecture: The Two Pillars

PacketVoyage is built around two complementary layers designed specifically for AI-native workflows:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   AI Agent (LLM)                       │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┬──────────────┘
               │                          │
               ▼                          ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│       🧠 Agent Skill         │ │        🛠️ MCP Server         │
│     (Knowledge / Playbook)   │ │    (Capabilities / Execution)│
├──────────────────────────────┤ ├──────────────────────────────┤
│ • Speed of Light in Fiber    │ │ • analyze_voyage_text        │
│   (~0.67c, ~10ms / 1,000km)  │ │ • voyage_investigate         │
│ • Control vs Data Plane math │ │ • run_protocol_experiment    │
│ • Disproving GeoIP illusions │ │ • research_host              │
│ • Decision Flow & Heuristics │ │ • list_known_iata_airports   │
└──────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────┘

🛠️ MCP Server (Capabilities &…

View on GitHub

Ever wondered what’s actually happening behind a trace like this?

     1  gateway (192.168.1.1)                 0.8 ms
     2  * * *
     3  ae-1.tokyo-hnd.bb.net (203.0.113.1)    2.1 ms
     4  xe-0-0.sjc-core.bb.net (198.51.100.25) 88.5 ms
     5  one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1)             88.7 ms

Behind these lines lies real-world physics:

• The * * * at Hop 2 isn't packet loss: Normal traffic runs at line rate in hardware ASICs (Data Plane), while diagnostic ICMP responses are rate limited by router CPUs (Control Plane).
• The +86ms jump: Light travels in silica glass fiber at ~200,000 km/s (~10 ms RTT per 1,000 km). Tokyo to Silicon Valley is ~8,300 km, so ~83 ms is the theoretical speed-of-light limit across the Pacific ocean floor.
• Hidden IATA codes: Hostnames like tokyo-hnd (Haneda) and sjc-core (San Jose) reveal the subsea cable route (e.g., JUNO / PC-1).

For students and general engineers, understanding what happens inside traceroute can be difficult. Let’s have AI explain it instead.

  ### 🚢 Example AI Output

  Feed that trace to Claude or any MCP-enabled AI agent by packetvoyage skill

  │ 📍 Route: Tokyo (HND) 🌊 [JUNO Submarine Cable] ➔ San Jose (SJC) (~8,335 km)
  │ 🌊 Physics Check: Latency spiked from 2.1 ms ➔ 88.5 ms (+86.4 ms), perfectly matching the speed of light in transpacific optical fiber. Hop 2
  │ asterisks are standard CPU control-plane rate limiting.
  ──────

🚀 Quickstart

Add it to Claude Code with one command:

claude mcp add packetvoyage -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/europeanplaice/packetvoyage.git packetvoyage

For Claude Desktop / Cursor / Antigravity, add this to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "packetvoyage": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/europeanplaice/packetvoyage.git", "packetvoyage"]
    }
  }
}

Check out the repo and give your next traceroute a physical voyage!
👉 GitHub: europeanplaice/packetvoyage https://github.com/europeanplaice/packetvoyage

Stop Paying for Overpriced PDM: A 100% Free, Open-Source Drawing Management System

europeanplaice — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:39:45 +0000

The Problem: The "Enterprise Tax" on Drawing Management

If you've ever looked for a professional way to manage engineering drawings (PDFs) and their revisions, you've likely hit a wall: The Price Tag.

Enterprise PDM (Product Data Management) and PLM systems are notoriously expensive. They charge heavy per-seat license fees, require complex maintenance,
and are often overkill for small to medium-sized teams.

On the other hand, using simple shared folders or Google Drive is a recipe for disaster—"Version Hell," overwritten files, and zero metadata search.

I believe that managing your design documents shouldn't cost a fortune. So I built Open Blueprint Vault—a completely free, open-source alternative.

Introducing Open Blueprint Vault: $0 License Fees, Forever.

Open Blueprint Vault is a self-hosted drawing management system that gives you the core features of professional PDM software without the enterprise
price tag.

GitHub: https://github.com/europeanplaice/open-blueprint-vault

Why Choose Open Blueprint Vault?

100% Free & Open-Source: No hidden costs, no "Pro" tiers, and no per-user pricing.
Self-Hosted Control: You own your data. Use MinIO or AWS S3 for storage.
Professional Revision Control: Track drawing history safely without losing previous versions.
Powerful Metadata Search: Find what you need in seconds by part number, name, or custom attributes.
Modern, Fast UI: A snappy interface built with Next.js 16 (includes Dark Mode!).
One-Command Deployment: Launch the entire stack in seconds with Docker Compose.

Try it for Free in 2 Minutes

If you have Docker installed, you can spin up your own private vault right now:

1 git clone https://github.com/europeanplaice/open-blueprint-vault.git
2 cd open-blueprint-vault
3 cp .env.example .env
4 npm run up

Access your new dashboard at http://localhost:3000.

It costs $0 to start, and $0 to scale.

Since this is an open-source project, I rely on feedback from the community to make it better. Whether you are a hardware startup, a hobbyist with a 3D
printer, or a manufacturing professional, I’d love to hear how you use it.

Introducing VSCode News Headline

europeanplaice — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 14:14:46 +0000

Have you ever found yourself wanting to stay informed about the latest world events while writing code in a programming editor like Visual Studio Code? Here's a plugin that displays news headlines on the status bar of VS Code.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TomohiroEndo.newsheadlines

Although it can only accept RSS 2.0, you have the flexibility to add any news sources in the settings.

"newsheadlines.newsSource": [
    "https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=inurl:www.reuters.com&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en",
    "https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=inurl:www.cnn.com&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en",
]

Here is the default setting. By adding or editing URLs, you can receive news updates on the status bar.

My colleague has used it and mentioned that this tool is great for taking a break when he becomes slightly fatigued from coding.

I hope it brings you some enjoyment.

Model business logic in Prolog

europeanplaice — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 14:42:06 +0000

Prolog is a logic programming language that offers a concise approach to modeling systems with minimal lines of code. This has benefits that extend beyond engineers. Non-engineering professionals, such as sales teams, can leverage Prolog's modeling capabilities to understand and navigate complex systems.

Assume that you are going to design customers' discount rules. You first come up with a customer should possess a member's card to be eligible for discounts and your boss has specified that each customer should receive the discount only once.

You model the rules in Prolog.

have_discount(X) :- have_members_card(X, yes), discount_received(X, no).

If your first customer, Tom, has member's card and hasn't received discounts ever, you can express it in Prolog,

have_discount(X) :- have_members_card(X, yes), discount_received(X, no).

have_members_card(tom, yes).
discount_received(tom, no).

Try to run it in your console.

swipl business_logic.pl
?- have_discount(tom).
true.

You finished the first rule implementation in Prolog.

If you need the rule to be expressed as natural sentences, ChatGPT helps you much.

You

have_discount(X) :- have_members_card(X, yes), discount_received(X, no).

Please translate the rule into English sentences.

ChatGPT

The rule "have_discount(X) :- have_members_card(X, yes), discount_received(X, no)" can be translated into English as follows:

"If a person (represented by 'X') has a membership card and has not yet received a discount, then they have a discount."

Hope you have a great time working with the Prolog programming language!

Start Prolog with Docker

europeanplaice — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:12:39 +0000

Prolog is a programming language that was born in 1972 and known as a logic programming language.

To run Prolog programs on your computer, using docker is the easiest way. It helps you set up and manage the environment.

Assuming that you already have docker installed, pull the SWI-Prolog Docker image by running the following command:

docker pull swipl

and run a container

docker run --name swipl -it swipl /bin/bash

After that in a docker container you started, create a Prolog code. For example:

likes(sam, lisa).
likes(sam, james).
likes(jiro, james).

and save it as main.pl

And then load your Prolog code by running

swipl main.pl

In the terminal, you will see a prompt like below

root@4d1dad014ee6:~# swipl main.pl
Welcome to SWI-Prolog (threaded, 64 bits, version 9.1.10)
SWI-Prolog comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software.
Please run ?- license. for legal details.

For online help and background, visit https://www.swi-prolog.org
For built-in help, use ?- help(Topic). or ?- apropos(Word).

?-

You can now type Prolog queries at the prompt and receive answers. For example, try:

?- likes(X, lisa).

The Prolog interpreter will provide the answer:

X = sam.

Enjoy exploring Prolog!