sxan

sxan , 2 days ago

I went from desktop to 100% laptop over several years; now I'm back on a desktop - using one of those Ryzen 7 mini-PCs - and a 36-key GMK Cherry MX split keyboard that, stacked, is barely larger than the computer. I'm seriously considering getting a small Thunderbolt dock and just carrying that with me between work and wherever. The only annoying bit is the computer I have isn't powered over the USB-C port, which means also carrying a power brick, and that's the straw that keeps me synching data between my computer and laptop.

I could move everything to a bootable USB device, but even over USB-C that'd be orders of magnitude slower than NVMe or SATA.

The laptop is only two years older than the desktop (and maybe less than that since I didn't buy the most current model), cost nearly 3x the PC, and is utterly blown out of the water by the specs on the micro(? 12.5 x 12.5 x 4 cm) PC. Yeah, the laptop has keyboard, pointer, battery, and monitor; that impacts size and cost, but still. I could almost use my PC in a coffee shop, if it weren't for the power brick and the need to do something about a monitor.

I have a foldable phone. Maybe by the time that display technology gets scaled up (and onto the market) there'll be a micro PC that's powered over USB-C and I can put together a small, laptop-sized case with everything I need.

The Frameworks are looking good, though, now that they're selling AMD models. I'll have to check in, in a year or so.

sxan , 2 days ago

Is it? I haven't tried, but there's a pretty big gulf between an NVMe interface max bandwidth and TB4's. I mean, TB4 is pretty amazing (40Gbps), but NVMe m.2 is 128Gbps; Sabrent makes an m.2 SSD with 104kGbps read speeds; heck, Crucial has a $114 2TB m.2 SSD they claim gets 40k/33.6k R/W. And this assumes that whatever computer you get access to has a TB4 port, and not just USBC 3.0, which tops out at 5Gbps.

But this all reminds me that I need to get a bigger NVMe stick and move everything off the SCSI SSD.

sxan , 2 days ago

It's not, really: 10x5x2.5 cm, plus the wall plug; but it's still there, and it's irritating because they could easily have powered this thing over USBC. Hell, most of my flashlights have USBC charging ports. It's an additional thing to carry, and another thing to have to plug in. Plus, not being USBC makes it far harder to run off a battery pack.

You're right about the rest of it, though.

sxan , 1 day ago

This is... fair. But, while I don't often move large amounts of data, consider: this thread started with me speculating about using a bootable USB drive instead of hauling computer equipment around. So we have to consider that (a) booting will be frequent - more frequent than a desktop or even laptop, maybe twice daily if I'm moving between work and home. That's going to be relatively slow. Then starting up whatever programs: the desktop, apps - god forbid I need to use Eclipse or another monster programs.

I guess I might be able to set it up for hibernate, but since that stores machine state including devices and network state which are going to vary between computers, I'm guessing that's not going to work reliably if at all.

USB 3.x and TB4 put this more in the range of possibility, but it still sounds slow.

sxan , 1 day ago

Don't get me wrong: the idea is super appealing, and the technology has gotten good enough it's practical - i absolutely agree about that. I was only saying that there'd be a noticeable difference in performance of you're used to M.2 NVMe.

I think a bigger concern is trusting other people's hardware. It's getting increasingly fraught, with key loggers and such; I'm not sure how much I'd trust my (digital) life to a random computer - and then there's the issue of secure boot, and needing computers that have either unprotected BIOS menus or which are already configured to boot first from USB (which is IME an increasingly rare default configuration).

sxan , 6 days ago

You can't install FireDragon on any other Linux distribution?

sxan , 8 days ago

:shrug:

It's trivial to host yourself, and super light on resources. Personally, I don't use it; for blogging I write markdown and rsync it over to the server where Hugo picks it up and turns it into a blog. Now that I think about it, I should probably go shut my WriteFreely down. I have a few pages on it, but I hate web app interfaces, so I didn't put much content in it.

sxan , 7 days ago

It depends on how you want to write. If you want to use a web interface, WriteFreely is decent. If you like your text editor, Hugo is fantastic.

sxan , 7 days ago

Hugo isn't a server, per se. It's basically just a template engine. It was originally focused on turning markdown into web pages, with some extra functionality around generating indexes and cross-references that are really what set it apart from just a simple rendering engine. And by now, much of its value is in the huge number of site templates built for Hugo. But what Hugo does is takes some metadata, whatever markdown content you have, and it generates a static web site. You still need a web server pointed at the generated content. You run Hugo on demand to regenerate the site whenever there's new content (although, there is a "watch" mode, where it'll watch for changes and regenerate the site in response). It's a little fancier than that; it doesn't regenerate content that hasn't changed. You can have it create whatever output format you want - mine generates both HTML and gmi (Gemini) sites from the same markdown. But that's it: at its core, it's a static site template rendering engine.

It is absolutely suitable for creating a portfolio site. Many of the templates are indeed such. And it's not hard to make your own templates, if you know the front-end technologies.

sxan , 17 days ago

Sourcehut is for-profit. You pay them to host your data, to provide public access, to run mailng lists, to run CI build servers... you're paying for the services. But the source code is OSS; you can download and run your own services, all or just a few. The "paying them to host the software for you" isn't the issue, right? It's not that someone is charging for hosting and maintenance (and, ultimately, salaries for the people working on the software), but whether or not the software is free, and whether you can self-host.

I like your point about finding repos. I think it'd behoove all of the bit players to band together to provide one big searchable repo list. Heck, even I, who hates github with a smoldering passion, have enough sense to go there first to search for software; that's just the nature of a hegemony. The stumbling of the attempt to create a common VCS hosting API (ForgeFed) is lamentable, but getting adoption would have been a uphill battle even without the rumored in-fighting and drama.

sxan , 17 days ago

Can't tell if it's misspelled "Cock" or misspelled "Glock," or something I've never heard of called "Glock."

sxan , 17 days ago

Oh. The more you know, I guess.

I think I'm on the wrong channel.

sxan , 18 days ago

Block the poster, or the whole magazine?

sxan , 19 days ago

You've never had surf & turf at a restaurant? And if you're vega(taria)?n, you've almost certainly had coconut & honey in some proceeded drink - honey is a common substitute sweetener for sugar, and processed sugar is considered bad in a subset of that community.

But what I wonder is where these things come from, and how common they are?

sxan , 18 days ago

I can't tell if you're being funny; I don't think they meant eating the shells.

sxan , 18 days ago

Surf & turf was me. And I am spectacularly ignorant of the vast variety of Indian cuisine, but I would be surprised if literal shells is a common staple. It doesn't say "calcium," it says "shells." And it shows a picture of what looks like a cluster of mussels, although it could be clams.

Nobody in the US eats shells like that, except for Blueshell crab almost exclusively in the mid-Atlantic region. There are some recipes where you cook crab whole until the shell dissolves into the soup, but in neither case is the point to eat the shells - they're just along for the ride to get to the meat. And if it's a source of the calcium that's sometimes added to some food, it'll say "calcium," it won't say where it came from.

So: you're claiming that it's common in India for people to, what... source and grind up shells and eat them? I suppose if folks are doing it to Rhino horns, that's not the weirdest thing I've heard. I think it's just more likely it's referring to shellfish.

sxan , 24 days ago

Yeeeeaah. His instructions are: indoctrinate yourself with standard brainwashing techniques. Read it, even though you don't like it, and keep reading it, until you do.

Well-written essay, though.

sxan , 29 days ago

I open source all of my projects. Most people I encounter are reasonably polite, but of course even my most popular is used by a tiny fraction of the number of Gnome users. In any case, I long ago stopped caring about being beholden to users. Often they're doing me favors and finding issues I haven't, and some even provide useful analysis that saves me work. A few provide contributions. But at the end of the day, I do what I do for me, and anyone else who benefits from it provides a small dose of dopamine from being useful.

I regularly fork projects and implement changes I want; I also file PRs, but in the case the upstream author has different opinions about it, requiring work I don't think it's necessary, I just let it go and maintain my own fork.

This is not Ideal Open Software Development, with many people contributing to a common goal. It's fractured and selfish. But the other way, it becomes work, and nobody's paying me for this, and so I give no fucks.

My mental health improved drastically once I stopped emotionally caring about the opinions of my users. I still care about the technicalities, but only insofar as they affect me or I deem them to be a superior solution. Key to this is not engaging emotionally; if I'm not interested in working on it, I just say so: I have other priorities, but an happy to review and maybe accept PRs.

sxan , 28 days ago

Yeah, that's fair. It's your work; you have no moral obligation to share it. Despite what the commies might say.

https://static1.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fallout-walton-gogins.jpeg?q=49&fit=contain&w=480&h=300&dpr=2

sxan , 1 month ago

And? It works on iOS.

I'm missing the point. Was it that systems like Briar can't work in iOS because they aren't mesh net? If so, why not choose one that does, like Session?

sxan , 1 month ago

The part about negotiation is a bit off-track.

On one end, in the kernel, there's a big array of pixels that is a picture that gets drawn on your monitor (or monitors). On the other end are a bunch of programs that want to draw stuff, like pictures of your friends and web pages. In between is software that decides how the stuff the softwares want to draw get put into the pixel array. This is Wayland; it was written to replace Xorg, which is what did that job for decades prior to Wayland.

If you understand the concepts of Xorg and window managers, Wayland + a compositor = Xorg + a window manager. Wayland abdicated a lot of work to the compositors, making it simpler and easier to maintain (and compositors more complex and harder). But together, they all do basically the same job. If one of the compositors implemented a network protocol, then you could declare equivalency.

sxan , 1 month ago

Grain scares me. Especially silos. It's like quicksand, and you can't escape if it's moving.

sxan , 1 month ago

Either they adorn seashells when they come on land, which would be an odd modesty considering they don no other clothing for their lower parts; or... their boobs are seashells!

I have a new headcanon.

sxan , 1 month ago

I can't explain why, but this rule feels so.... reddit.

sxan , 1 month ago

I'm using herbstluftwm and am happiest with it, but spent years on i3, almost a year in bspwm, and a hot minute on sway. All after years of mostly KDE, some Gnome, and a few years (concurrently w/ Linux) on Macs from work.

Any tiling WM over any DE. I'd go back to i3 before choosing either Gnome or KDE. The one exception would be a fully feature-complete NeXTSTEP clone. I'd switch to that in a heartbeat. Not OpenSTEP, not Windowmaker; NS was beautiful, functional, fully integrated in all aspects - like MacOS, but without the dumbed-down idiocracy.

sxan , 1 month ago

I don't trust it. It looks shifty. Don't lend it money.

sxan , 1 month ago

I'm also a not-so-young dude - forgotten generation - and honestly I don't remember guys being like this. At least, not to women's faces. Being rejected sucks and is a hit to your self-image, so there was the occasional after-the-fact, booze-fueled name-calling while among the guys, but to must of us, being rejected was something we were embarrassed about and didn't advertise by sharing.

Our generations - boomers, gen-x - are selfish, greedy, and short sighted. OTOH, from survey of N=1 (my wife) getting this sort of response from men wasn't a concern.

sxan , 1 month ago

Rape is another matter. Rape has been prevelant and underreported since, well, forever; and I doubt the rates of rape have gone down. In fact, since the definition of rape has been increasingly broadened, sexual violence crime rates have almost certainly been increasing.

The meme, and myself, were not talking about rape, or inequality, or being not being able to vote. I was only talking about women today being increasingly afraid to turn down men.

sxan , 1 month ago

sigh

If you look back, I mentioned my highly scientific survey, which consisted my of asking my wife. Whence comes my observation.

My point has been that I'm betting that the age group of the women you ask is significant. It'd be an interesting study.

sxan , 1 month ago

This has a lot of the energy of: "have you tried just not being depressed?"

sxan , 1 month ago

I would never defend or say that behavior is justified by hurt feelings. I am saying that just saying "just don't take rejection personally" is in no way a helpful response. To misquote Schoppenhauer, a person can choose how they react, but they can't choose how they feel -- especially when hormones are involved.

sxan , 1 month ago

Fair enough. Point.

sxan , 1 month ago

Last time they tried this (that was Munich IIRC) it was just too early. All they really had access to was OpenOffice, which - and I appreciate all the work that went into it by all the selfless contributors! - was kind of shit. Now there are a least three office suites with decent MS compatibility, which is critical for being a functioning part of a larger organization, not to mention Office365 web if worst comes to worst. At least they wouldn't have to roll back everything if they encounter problems, like Munich did.

This is great news.

sxan , 1 month ago

Got stuck on "never be as exiting."

sxan , 1 month ago

raises hand

I live in Linux; what I do not know is Windows. Don't have any, and haven't had to touch it in over a decade. Should I know WSL if I expect to never have to use Windows for the rest of my life?

sxan , 1 month ago

Ah. So equally irrelevant for Mac folks?

15 years ago, it was hard to be a developer and avoid some contact with Windows (unless you were senior enough to have some pull), especially in the East Coast, where all high tech lags by about 5 years. Now days, the assumption that everyone must have to have some Windows interaction is more of an ass-U-me.

There's exactly one Windows machine in my life right now, and it's my wife's work computer. I only have to touch it when it's fucking something basic up, like audio, and I couldn't install something like WSL on it in any case.

sxan , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

5, 7, 9 (blue, pink, black)

This is an excellent one, BTW, because I think "obviously," and then read other people's and think "wtf? Really??"

sxan , 2 months ago

Do you have cats? Had have you ever had cats?

There have been times I've wanted 8, but only because I wish I could explain to them why, or tell them how much I love them. But I'm also convinced that, like a 4 y/o, you could explain why without them either caring or really understanding, and I'm also pretty sure now I know how to let them know I love them in ways they already understand. And I think I already understand most of what they're saying. So I feel as if 8 would be a waste.

sxan , 2 months ago

Same, but I'd swap pink for brown, because dieting would be easier and I can already talk to my cats.

sxan , 2 months ago

🤝

sxan , 2 months ago

And that's cool; they're your pills, and we could even trade services. The occasional communication would be interesting. I just (personally) already get enough of the "I'm hungry" yowl, and don't really need to be hearing it in English all the time.

sxan , 2 months ago

If you're taking nudes for yourself and not to share... I think you're in an extreme minority. People take nudes to share. And:

1. People suck. That person you're in love with now might UN's to being the person who burns your clothes when you break up with them.
2. Information wants to be free. This is what a lot of your points touch on, but the fact is, several companies have access to your data, and making digital copies is so trivial it's often automatic.
3. Digital information is forever. Because of (2), once you take a nude, it's harder to get rid of it than preserve it.
4. If you share it once, it's not utterly out of your control. It might be out of the control of the person you share it with; at the very least, if you text it, some techs at your service provider are going to make copies. For gods sake, use E2E chat, people. Another point you raised about digital hygiene.

Yeah, the first panel is entirely justified. It's like whining about how you shouldn't have to lock your car doors when you park downtown.

sxan , 2 months ago

Yeah, autocorrect, and I have no idea what it thought it was correcting to. Probably "end up." The autocorrect on this keyboard is sort of context aware, so if it got "turn" wrong, then it is also likely to correct "up" to "to". I've gotten some weird sentences out of it by not paying attention. Remember the fad when you'd create a sentence by just picking the next suggested word? I get that sometimes - it's exacerbated by my use of swipe.

The keyboard is HeliBoard, and it's probably the best one I've used since I quit using the default keyboards, but it does some strange stuff sometimes.

Now we've had this conversation, I'm going to have to leave the weird construction.

sxan , 2 months ago

VR gaming on Linux isn't ready, huh? Is it the drivers for the hardware, or game availability?

sxan , 2 months ago

Ah, OK.

Yeah, I went full in on PlayStation VR before I realized I would never get over the sea sickness - although, mine was mild, it was still enough that I found myself avoiding those games.

But, what I did love was using the set to watch filmed-in-3D movies. Much as I once owned an XBox just so I could play Halo (and only Halo), my PS VR set is now only ever used to re-watch Dredd in 3D. Not enough movies are filmed in 3D, and the conversions aren't with it, so I've mostly given up on 3D, myself.

sxan , 2 months ago

Which parts are you unsure about? I think one of the first things I install on a new Arch is yay - it makes package management so much nicer.

sxan , 2 months ago

Different species. They're not in the Linuxite clade.

The Linuxite taxa have far higher diversity due to faster mutation rates; the BSD genus has far fewer species, and can't cross-breed with Linuxites.

sxan , 2 months ago

I discovered that EndeavourOS satisfied that for me, without me having to give up Arch. And snapper+btrfs-grub has eliminated any interest in messing about with the new line of immutable systems. The only tempting distro I might spend time in is Chimera Linux (link, b/c of an unfortunate naming conflict) which (a little hilariously) is an attempt to make a Linux distro that's purely Gnu-free. Chimera also runs dinit instead of systemd, and that's interesting.

Anyway, there are a couple of options that let a user stay in Arch but make things less... fussy.