My "production stuff":
- https://github.com/festivus-es/festivus - public holidays calendars for Spanish cities
- https://github.com/remote-es/remotes - companies hiring in Spain for remote positions
Usable WIPs:
- https://alexpdp7.github.io/selfhostwatch/ - track self-hosting package updates (such as YunoHost)
- https://github.com/alexpdp7/ubpkg/ - package manager for "upstream binaries"
- https://github.com/alexpdp7/termflux - Miniflux terminal client
Experimental HTML support in Typst is exciting. I haven't actually even used Typst once, but I am looking at it closely.
We need a solid lightweight markup language, and there's nothing yet that ticks all my boxes.
Typst 0.13 releases today! This update is all about listening to feedback. Read on to find out which of the most highly anticipated changes we made.
Django is not only one of my favorite ways to write web apps; I think it's so good in some places that it literally can change how you develop applications. It also has some unequalled significant productivity boosts that have big impact. But it's not perfect, I have started drafting a document explaining its virtues and defects at:
https://github.com/alexpdp7/alexpdp7/blob/master/programming/python/about_django.md
One of the advantages of the downfall of the United States will be eradicating the mm/dd/yyyy date format
I have to constantly remind myself that social media can be a bunch of friends talking to each other, but one where if you complain about how shitty something is, the people that work on it *can overhear it*. Imagine if you were in a coffee shop and said "this croissant is too dry" the baker was *right there* next to you. Every single time. I only realized this once I became "the baker", but since then I make a huge effort not to put negative energy out there, however big or small my "audience" might be.
Playing with Zulip. It's Django. The installer is Puppet, and mentions Nagios.
Did I write this accidentally in my sleep?
https://lobste.rs/s/ymszmx/i_blog_with_raw_txt#c_uwkda3
The author of the fx tool highlighting a curious trick on lobste.rs; serving a plain text version of your site to curl and other non-browser HTTP clients, while you serve HTML to browsers.
https://github.com/alexpdp7/aelevenymonkey
This is more of a proof of concept than anything practical. This is a Violentmonkey script that adds transcripts to *some* Penny Arcade strips. If it doesn't have one, it lets you add a transcript by using GitHub.
I consider it an experiment to see if this approach can be practical.
:sickos_yes:
"OpenLDK is a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler and runtime environment for Java, implemented entirely in Common Lisp. It bridges the gap between Java and Common Lisp by incrementally translating Java bytecode into Lisp, which is then compiled into native machine code for execution. This unique approach allows Java classes to be seamlessly mapped to Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) classes, enabling effortless integration between Java and Common Lisp codebases."
https://explaining.software/archive/the-sudoku-affair/
incredible writeup of one of the best running jokes in programming
I wish regular people thought of hand-written software as being something within their reach.
And that there would be enough of such work in the average town that the local developer could be like a blacksmith and live in a book-lined cottage at the outskirts of town, next to a stream. Living off of quality work for local people, with maybe the occasional big software job for a hotshot rascal that swoops in occasionally with a big idea to take back to the city once things cool down a bit.
Surface-Stable Fractal Dithering https://youtube.com/watch?v=HPqGaIMVuLs&si=0Wz4ntiTRG25TaA6
The Juggler's Curse https://buttondown.com/hillelwayne/archive/the-jugglers-curse/
I'm really mad at Jujutsu VCS.
They called their equivalent of `git blame` `jj file annotate`.
`jj accuse` was RIGHT THERE.
Cool how many companies now 'solve' user support by making people go through a maze of pre-written answers to issues they aren't having, allowing them to eventually reach a language model bot if they are lucky—which will do everything in its power to avoid escalating to an actual human being.
Hot take: "HTML is a programming language" is gatekeeping in effect, if not in intent.
That is, something need not be a programming language to be a the subject of highly useful and important technical skills — viewing all of computing through the lens of programming languages is inherently limiting.
Tech folk complaining that kids don't understand computers after spending decades building completely opaque silos for big tech is just a stunning lack of self awareness.
"Legacy code" is often code that you want to replace because you don't understand it. The problem is, before you can replace it, you need to understand it, and, once you understand it, replacing it is rarely the cheapest option any more.
Documented how to use a RPI Zero as a "programmable" USB device that can act as an installer for multiple operating systems.
(And now, playing with ChromeOS Flex.)
One of the most important things I consider when choosing a social media platform is whether people can read what I post without being nagged or forced to create an account. For many of my friends who don’t really care about #Mastodon, https://gultsch.social is just a website they can drop by occasionally to see what I’m up to.
Experiment with OpenNIC + Yggdrasil + YunoHost was successful in some sense. Managed to exchange emails between two YunoHost instances without any public IPv4 address, nor a traditional DNS domain.
However, the OpenNIC ACME server of course cannot contact a web server running on Yggdrasil, so no easy way of having TLS certificates.
Full writeup here: https://github.com/alexpdp7/alexpdp7/blob/master/linux/using_yggdrasil_opennic_yunohost.md
I didn't know about Debian https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/extrepo, but it's quite handy if you do infrastructure as code.
Random tidbit: when trying out Google Workspaces, Google sets up example.com.test-google-a.com. You can use this domain for testdriving GMail without switching MX records.
(Of course, my recommendation is to try to avoid strengthening the Google/Microsoft email duopoly. But you can't always get what you want.)
Despite all, the Google Testing blog is still a gem:
https://testing.googleblog.com/2024/10/smurf-beyond-test-pyramid.html
I think many of us are a bit corrupted due to working on websites with a heavyweight database as a backend, and browsers making things harder. There, the testing pyramid fits somewhat.
But the "SMURF" perspective is IMHO something better than the testing pyramid in every way, and we would do well in adopting it or something similar.