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Comment · 1 year ago
Seconded. I have been using nixos for a few years. I don't use it for everything, but I like it for dev. It was weird at first, and there were one or two early blocking problems I had to solve before I could do work. Like how do I set gpg pin-entry, but I forget stuff like that and have to search for it on any platform. At least on nixos is all written down somewhere even if I'm too lazy to take notes.

The installer is super easy to use; full disk encryption is baked in if you want it, the default desktop is fine, and the overwhelming majority of my config is just the apps I want installed by default.

I love this because it makes my desktop or laptop totally commodified: if I break my laptop I can get another one out of the closet and:

-- install nixos in 10 minutes

-- copy a couple of stanzas out of my nix config file into the new system one

-- untar a backup /home/user

-- `nix rebuild switch`

-- drink a beer

No installing a bunch of dev environment stuff. No greping internet for 'gpg pin-entry' or 'how to install docker' because I had to write that into a config in the first place. Basically I like nixos because I'm a lazy fucker and it makes me front end load the work so I only have to do it once.

Also, these days if I have trouble writing a nix thing I can usually just vibecode my way out of the problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comment · 1 year ago
Oddly, literally everything you just described is true about my pure remote software engineering position, except I had to get bachelors in computer science first.
Comment · 1 year ago
Many years ago someone's caramel Ho-Ho's ended up in a bag of my groceries forgotten by a previous customer at the check out isle, I suspect. I didn't notice until I was home so I put them in the cupboard over the stove and more or less forgot about them. Some time later, when I'd had rather too much to drink, I found them and tried to eat one. It could not be done. They were somehow super-stimulating and totally vile at the same time.

I really think stuff like this is ambiguously between drugs and food, and I feel lucky to have been born without much of a sweet tooth.

I don't think I could get high enough to eat a Twinkie. This isn't meant to be morally superior in any way. I have plenty of other vices, and I think I just lucked out on that one.

Comment · 1 year ago
>> You find yourself in a dark house. You search your person and find nothing but a debit card and a luminescent tablet. Staring into the ceaseless abyss, suddenly you remember: you have parts to acquire for your new computer.

This is obviously the cheap simulation that the Muskian overlords will put me in when I have outlived my usefulness... or perhaps they already have? (-᷅_-᷄)

Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
Nothing except I didn't know about it. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
Comment · 1 year ago
I need to learn rust for work. Since beej doesn't seem to have a guide for rust, what's the next best thing? :)
Comment · 1 year ago
I actually thought the same thing. Maybe the misunderstanding here has to do with what kind of manager. An engineering manager making 250k would be making less than many senior software engineers, but if this also includes many managers of people putting shit in boxes, or the average of the two categories, it would make more sense?
Comment · 1 year ago
I don't know about that region, or whether they were trying to create a breakfast that would sound classy but credible to a Westerner.

However, I can say from first hand experience that home cooked Russian breakfasts in Vladivostok were mind bending. As an American, when I eat breakfast but it's a small and simple affair. A cup of oatmeal and some coffee, maybe eggs if I feel ambitious.

The Russians I stayed with made hela breakfast every morning. Like a huge potluck dinner made from recognizable ingredients in very unexpected combinations. While I'm sure they were spoiling me a little because I was a guest, it was always the biggest meal of the day. One memorable example was buttered noodles and meatballs, bread, butter, cheese, cucumber slices, coffee and tea with condensed sweetened milk, and even a little dark chocolate for desert. I'm probably forgetting more stuff.

Also the kids (10 and 8) drank coffee! I think they were mostly in it for the sweetened condensed milk though.

That was an awesome breakfast for sure.

Comment · 1 year ago
I'm helping an enthusiastic young adult family member write an indie game in a similar space. I'm a professional software engineer in the full stack/security space but I don't have much experience in graphics or games. We would be thrilled just to get it implemented, and we're close, on steam, and get a couple real players. Currently it's running in the browser and on android.

I think he has very good taste in games, and is learning to code very quickly, so I'm acting in a supporting technical role.

-- What are the crucial skills, technical or otherwise, that I should learn to be effective in this space?

-- We're currently using the Godot environment, which feels a bit limiting to me (easy to start but: IDE is just ok, config feels GUI dependent/doesn't facilitate committing atomic deployment or other project changes...) Is there a different stack, or other complimentary tools I could learn that might be a better fit for a more professional dev workflow?

Thank you for the inspiration. :)

Comment · 1 year ago
I think this is about as reasonable as conflating all hippies with Manson, or all Christians with the Waco people.

I have met a few "rationalist" types, and I went to a "rationalist" meetup in San Francisco, although they called it something else and didn't care for that label, but couldn't really get other people to stop calling them that.

The overall vibe was like a tech meetup crossed with a church picnic. There were a lot of programmers and grad students there to do a little professional networking, talk about books they like, whether they should be donating to charity a little, which charities worked best, and how to avoid throwing away the leftover cookies.

The subject of AI millennialism was not broached in my presence, all though I did meet some people who were working on AI. If there were any psychos or cult leaders there (or trans people for that matter), I didn't notice, and no one tried to recruit me to anything. It was a totally normal and pleasant experience.

Comment · 1 year ago
Laws are being broken to make the omelet. Will the executive constrain itself to breaking only the laws you don't like, and stop when you want it to? Will the legislative branch cede it's authority and responsibilities only temporarily?

It might hard to unscramble that omelet if we want the rule of law back later.

Comment · 2 years ago
There's a picture of Janis Joplin standing on the sidewalk in SF in which the city looks exactly the same, as though frozen in amber for 50 years.
Comment · 2 years ago
>> stagflation is dead ahead

Why?

Comment · 2 years ago
This is fine as a high level economic discussion, but I think it misses the point of the complaints from actually US consumers: when I consume healthcare as an individual I am paying with a blank check, and I am therefore likely to be tricked into consuming more health care than I would otherwise choose to afford, perhaps to a ruinous degree.

I think ordinary consumers care much less about whether their country spends a nominal share of GDP on the heath sector, than about whether they will be unexpectedly bankrupt by consuming health services, and this is why people are actually mad.

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