i_v

Slax brings back fond memories! I used to boot school computers into it to have access to OpenOffice, Firefox, ahem Ophcrack…

I never ran Slackware Linux beyond that but the simplicity of being able to build a custom live USB through their web interface was amazing. I don’t think I’d have gotten as much of a head start with Linux had it not existed.

FortNine made a really great video about the Motocompacto last year! https://youtu.be/WQAe7EtVi-4

He opens with an entertaining sketch then digs into some of the history around these portable vehicle concepts.

You just need an LLM agent that moves files around pointlessly, renames methods every so often without changing logic, bumps the year in your license. /s

On a more serious note, you can't force anyone to spend more than a minute looking at a repo. If they're just scanning around for a tool or framework, they're likely to narrow their decisions down to the ones that look like there's activity. In most cases, it's just higher signal that the maintainer's still around unless you're shipping some Linux utility that's been in use by distro maintainers since the 90s.

I think a GitHub-flavor markdown alert would help. Just a, "Hey, this is feature complete and still maintained. (today's date)"

I'm also curious, what's the project (if you don't mind sharing)? Happy to take a closer look.

I was obsessed with the idea of music production as an engine within a game a long time ago. It was just something I came across in passing when I read about how Elder Scrolls Online created a soundtrack in a similar manner. This resurfaced in my mind again when I started digging into Suno and other AI-generated music recently and it's kind of fun to wonder what'll be possible with storytelling in games and visual novels with the ability to limitlessly adapt and change based on player interactions.

What’s the best screen size for reading manga on an eInk display? I’ve always had issues with the entry level Kindles cutting things off or requiring scrolling to get the bottom section of a page. It’s been a long time since I tried this but I’ve always wanted to get my collection on a Kindle or other reader!

I think until we solve the knowledge supplementation problem (i.e., libraries providing extensive examples and LLMs being capable of ingesting, referencing, and incorporating it quickly) we’ll be headed for a tech monoculture—one framework or library for every solution. There’s been some talk about this already with some developers preferring to use older libraries or sticking within the confines of what their LLM of choice was trained on.

Actually, I had a hardware project where I found myself gravitating toward the microcontrollers and sensors ChatGPT was already familiar with. In this case, I cared more about my project working than about actually learning/mastering my understanding of the hardware. There’s still time for that but I’ve been able to get something working quickly rather than letting my notebook of ideas fill with even more pages of guilt and unfinished dreams…

I just don't think that's true. This seems like a really pessimistic take. Is it truly "globalist world domination" — implying that our corporate overlords want us to live like this? Or is it purely function and aesthetic? Capitalism puts power in the hands of consumers—sure, marketing has an influence—but also, we as consumers are the ultimate deciders. Cost, labor, and wealth. All are influences in the deciding of what we choose to buy. If what we have today is lifeless, I think it's of our own collective choosing.

To be fair though, these photos are breathtaking. Pre-industrial era Japan is a place I'd love to visit and the history of this transformation is steeped in fear, modernizing in response to Western powers (look up Matthew Perry—naval officer, not the actor lol).

Honey, I think we’re ready for the next step in our relationship. Let’s exchange (GPG) keys! I just need to see two forms of identification before I sign. ;)

I used to use qemu-user-static to run ARM Linux distros like Buildroot, Yocto, and Raspbian on x88_64. It worked surprisingly well! Outside of some minor bugs here and there, it was perfect for local development, emulating an embedded system I was working on.

NileRed has a humorous YouTube video where he bakes cookies using only NIST reference ingredients. It costs something like $2000 to bake a single cookie and has all the flavor of cardboard.

Yes! I’ve used Etymotic Research’s concert/motorcycle earplugs for a few years now but there are a few others on the market for mild noise reduction. It’s roughly a 10 dB reduction and makes a lot of loud sounds more tolerable (including toddler temper tantrums) while also still being able to have conversations. I keep a pair in every bag and find them pretty helpful in loud restaurants and bars. I keep my AirPods as a backup, sometimes with some brown and pink noise (slightly lower pitch than white noise).

I’m not familiar with these authors. Could you elaborate more for the folks who aren’t as deep in this space?

Sorbet[1] is currently the most robust tooling available. It has a few rough edges and limitations but it otherwise works great for 90% of use cases.

[1] https://sorbet.org

I did the same and learned a ton about their runtime! In my case, I did similar and also had a go (pun intended) at shipping a single-binary Docker image (using the scratch base image). Best of luck!

The best solution I've found for local testing is the Lambda Runtime Interface Emulator (RIE)[1]. It's basically a little Go wrapper[2] that runs your handler and makes it callable through an HTTP API. I considered writing a test harness around this for convenient integration testing but in my recent evaluation, I ended up avoiding Lambda (it's been really nice for small one-off tasks but was too expensive for the most recent and somewhat fringe use-case I considered using it for).

[1] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/images-test.htm... [2]: https://github.com/aws/aws-lambda-runtime-interface-emulator

I definitely wish this install method had a good guide. Having figured it out myself and installed Sid in the past, it really makes for a nice rolling-release distribution experience when combined with apt-listbugs. It's definitely not for the faint of heart!

I think it's more up to a person's accepted risk and the nature of their business concept. One thing mentioned in the linked article is the advice that you use an existing entity if you've previously formed one for consulting or some other business. I'm 100% in favor of that since the early stages of a startup are often full of non-starts.

I've found my past cofounders at hackathons like Startup Weekend and in general, around tech events and meetups focused around startups and entrepreneurship. From there, we worked on fun side projects together and eventually started companies with each other.

It isn't the worst thing ever to be a solo founder. In fact, I'd recommend you reframe your goal as, "I need to find someone with domain expertise in X, Y, or Z," instead of "I need a confounder." You're very likely to find someone who can help you with a few hurdles who might not necessarily be interested in having the weight of a company on their back. It's also less of a burden for you too since you can take your time vetting and won't be jumping into a "marriage" as it's often related to. ;)

Out of curiosity, what stage are you in? What skillset do you have? What areas could you use some extra hands in?

Meetups! They're great and everyone is super welcoming. Depending on your city, there should be a few tech events happening. Use that as a launching pad to branch into areas outside of your craft. In September, I challenged myself to attend a meetup a day and I found myself going to movies, dinners, bars, parks, and so on meeting and talking to people I'd have never met otherwise. Now, I wouldn't recommend everyone do what I did but in my case, I needed something to force me out of my typical routine of spending all of my time in front of a computer.

You're fortunate in that you do spend time talking with strangers on IRC. I actually spend very little time talking to people except in person and I routinely find myself isolated if I'm not constantly pushing myself to reach out to my friends.

From the sound of it, small talk could be a challenge for you. It's definitely a skill and I'd recommend you take note of the points in conversations where you've had trouble and spend time coming up with responses you'll feel confident in using. This is a strategy I've used since my early 20s for everything from casual conversations to interviewing to sales/investor pitches. It takes time and at the end of the day you'll have to accept that we all have our fair share of blunders.

I'd recommend writing out your challenges and trying to break them down as much as possible. It makes it easier to then focus on one area at a time: - Overcoming any shyness or social awkwardness you might feel when approaching someone you don't know. - Becoming a better conversationalist to be able to keep the flow of a conversation going. - Meeting new people who you share some common ground with. - Building friendships with those acquaintances. - And finally, over a longer period of time, deepening those relationships.

Some of these or all of these could be things you want to focus on. From there, switch into problem solving mode and Google your way to success. For me, this has been a lifelong challenge of mine. I love meeting and talking to new people but being a remote worker as well as a homebody can make for a lonely lifestyle if I'm not paying close attention.

I wish you the best of luck out there!

All I want to know is who is the target audience for this?

I imagine these pages are intended for someone who's interested in Go but wants to know more. I know plenty of people who base their decision entirely on what companies have had the most success when picking a programming language to learn. I think these pages satisfy the questions of "Who uses Go? What do they use it for? What did their success look like afterward?"

The package explorer does add some confusion for me though. The site otherwise seems entirely geared toward people who are curious about Go.

There's also Buildroot which has a bit of a learning curve (it's still easier than Yocto/Angstrom IMO) but is capable of producing highly customized, tiny embedded Linux images. At this time, there are board configs for pretty much every Rasperry Pi variant out there.

The functional equivalent of a Debian base install, including kernel, bootloader, and systemd init (approx. 350 MiB) is about 20 MiB (compressed) when built with Buildroot.

GitHub also supports a special <username>@users.noreply.github.com address if you wanted her to retain semi-anonymous authorship as a GitHub user.

I've once designed "The Fantastically Modular and Configurable Ball of Mud." Scratch that. I've definitely succeeded many times even if that wasn't the goal. I now take the approach of writing single-purpose throwaway tools until I've gotten a firm grasp on exactly the use-cases I'm not targeting. Few open source projects list anti-features, but when they do, I'm extremely appreciative.

That's an interesting take on it. I'm curious what gave you the impression that the example projects were written by anti-OOP developers. I feel like it could go either way. Even as I was reading the article, I was actually thinking to myself how I first observed discipline in data-first thinking from my functional-programming friends.

You're right! That sort of negates the opening statement though:

This tracking method works without needing to use: [...] Your IP address or user agent string

The author even notes in the source, "Normally you would derive this from randomness." I wonder what the reasoning was for this strategy?

I see this tool places a filetype signature in the first four bytes of each encrypted file. Doesn't this hurt plausible deniability?

I was surprised to see that this tracking works across both regular and private browsing in Firefox (67.0.4 on macOS). I can see the number of visits increment and whatever message I've saved on either side is displayed to both.

Not to mention losses due to counterfeiting and outright destruction.