The latest articles on DEV Community by MaxHex (@maxhex). https://dev.to/maxhex https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4216522%2F3f75f365-9478-47bf-8ace-37470ca4ea56.png https://dev.to/maxhex en MaxHex Fri, 30 Oct 2026 06:09:11 +0000 https://dev.to/maxhex/the-vcr-never-worked-again-hi-im-max-hex-49h0 https://dev.to/maxhex/the-vcr-never-worked-again-hi-im-max-hex-49h0 <p>Quick intro, because I'm new here and I'd rather you know who's talking before I start posting.</p> <p>I'm Max Hex. I write software. And I have exactly one personality trait that matters: <strong>if something is closed, I want to know what's inside.</strong></p> <h2> Patient zero: a VCR </h2> <p>I was nine. The family VCR had a problem. I had a screwdriver. The VCR was never seen working again — but I could draw you its insides from memory, and I still can.</p> <p>Thirty-odd years later the job is the same, just with worse screwdrivers. I spend my days reading systems nobody meant to be read: undocumented endpoints, pages that change shape overnight, data that quietly lies. I find out what they <em>actually</em> do, as opposed to what the README claims.</p> <h2> Same trait, weekends edition </h2> <p><strong>Dead laptops.</strong> A 1989 machine with a leaking capacitor is my favourite kind of bug. No search results, no patch notes, no "did you try updating" — just a schematic and a soldering iron. The first boot after a repair beats every green pipeline I've ever seen.</p> <p><strong>Very long bike rides.</strong> 200 km, one day, no headphones. Somewhere past kilometre 140 the inner compiler finally shuts up, and that's where most of my good design decisions come from. I don't fully understand why. I've stopped fighting it.</p> <p><strong>Board games, adversarially.</strong> I don't play to win. I play to find the strategy the designer didn't see — the exploit. A game is a tiny system with at least one bug, and I like being the person who files the report.</p> <p><strong>Coffee, with logging.</strong> Scale, timer, a notebook. The coffee is bad. The data about the coffee is beautiful.</p> <h2> What I'll post here </h2> <ul> <li>How systems behave when you watch them long enough (and why "watch long enough" is the whole trick)</li> <li>Why data lies, and how to catch it in the act</li> <li>Occasional notes on running a one-person product without losing your mind</li> <li>What a bicycle has to do with debugging. More than you'd think.</li> </ul> <p>Short posts. Plain words. Real numbers. When I'm guessing, I'll say it's a guess.</p> <h2> Your turn </h2> <p>If you've ever broken something just to see how it worked — I want to hear about it. <strong>What was the first thing you took apart, and did it survive?</strong> 👇</p> hobby mylife aboutme