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Insights, tutorials, and documentation of my journey through technology and systems.

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How Rockstar Hacked the PS2 to Build GTA: San Andreas

A systems-level teardown of the RenderWare customizations, hand-written VU microcode, and CLUT memory tricks Rockstar North used to stream three cities and a full state off a console with 32MB of RAM.

LLuka Piplica

August 3, 202620 min read

game-engineeringplaystation-2systems-programmingrenderwarereverse-engineeringgame-history

Curriculum Vitae & Technical Portfolio

A comprehensive overview of my professional experience, core technical competencies, engineering projects, and specialized certifications.

LLuka Piplica

May 19, 20267 min read

cvportfoliofull-stacksysadmincybersecurityai-engineering

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How Spotify's Recommendation Algorithm Actually Knows Your Soul

A technical teardown of the machine learning architecture behind Spotify: Matrix Factorization, LinUCB Contextual Bandits, and High-Dimensional Vector Search.

LLuka Piplica

July 7, 202618 min read

algorithmsmachine-learningdata-scienceaudio-analysisai

The Math Behind Shazam: How Your Phone Recognizes Any Song in Seconds

A deep technical dive into the audio fingerprinting algorithm that powers Shazam — from the Fourier Transform and spectrograms to constellation maps, combinatorial hashing, and probabilistic matching.

LLuka Piplica

June 5, 202613 min read

audioalgorithmsmathematicssignal-processingshazam

VPS Hardening: A Practical Guide to Securing a Linux Server

An industry-standard security blueprint for securing clean Linux installations, configuring public-key cryptography, deploying UFW firewalls, and establishing proactive threat mitigation.

LLuka Piplica

October 9, 20228 min read

linuxsecuritysysadmindevopshardening

Launching a Custom SPL Token on Solana: A CLI Walkthrough

A complete step-by-step developer's guide to compiling Rust-based blockchain dependencies, creating an SPL token on the Solana network, and understanding decentralized metadata structures.

LLuka Piplica

January 22, 20228 min read

cryptocurrencysolanablockchainrustlinux

GNOME goes Nord: Transforming Ubuntu into a Keyboard-Driven Workstation

A comprehensive developer guide to custom-building a high-productivity tiling desktop environment on Ubuntu GNOME, featuring Pop Shell window tiling, Nordic GTK aesthetics, and advanced CLI workflows.

LLuka Piplica

October 19, 20219 min read

linuxgnomeubuntudotfilescustomization

Analyzing the Pegasus Spyware: Digital Forensics with MVT

An in-depth technical analysis of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, its zero-click propagation mechanics, and a step-by-step guide to mobile device forensics using the Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT).

LLuka Piplica

July 21, 20219 min read

cybersecurityprivacyforensicsmalware-analysislinux

Crafting a Sleek Nordic Desktop: BSPWM Customization on Pop!_OS

A comprehensive guide to building a minimal, high-performance tiling window manager environment using BSPWM, Polybar, Picom, and ZSH on Pop!_OS, themed around the elegant Nordic palette.

LLuka Piplica

July 19, 202111 min read

linuxbspwmdotfilescustomizationnord

Cracking the Mr. Robot CTF: An End-to-End Walkthrough

A comprehensive technical guide to solving the medium-difficulty Mr. Robot room on TryHackMe, covering web enumeration, reverse shells, and SUID privilege escalation.

LLuka Piplica

May 23, 202116 min read

linuxcybersecuritytryhackmectfwalkthrough

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