nthcdr

@nthcdr@emacs.ch

Long time Emacs user who tries to battle 21th century complexity with the help of parenthesis.

I'm also passionate about: archery, art and spicy food among other things.

In the future I will: live in a remote tiny house. I day dream about leading a simpler life.

I remain an optimistic nihilist.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

louis, to Dubai
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Greetings from .

nthcdr,

@louis This image has me looking for flying taxi cabs :) Enjoy your stay!

louis, to scheme
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

"Scheme and Common Lisp differ mostly in the communities they cater to. Scheme programmers like to talk about how great it is to have a short specification; Common Lisp programmers like to write programs."

  • Let Over Lambda, Doug Hoyte

nthcdr,

@louis Smalltalk syntax fits on a postcard they happily say. The distinction of what is core language, what is standard library and what is auxiliary is just fighting over the position of an invisible slider.

To get stuff done you are either reinventing everything or reusing something regardless of the length of your specification. In fact if your specification is short you just failed to document your standard library, no?

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

In our public primary school every pupil gets an iPad starting 3rd grade, with a +Microsoft 365 account+ so they can "get used to the applications that are prevalent in business". Good job, getting 8 years old kids hooked on Office products, paid by the public.

All iPads are replaced every 3 years because "they degrade in performance" to make sure "pupils have always a device with peak performance". Good job, getting 8 year old kids used to "e-waste is nothing we need to care about".

I can only shake my head in disbelief, to say the least.

nthcdr,

@louis I wish my kids weren't hooked on social media, but this is what happens when "everybody else has app XYZ" to stay connected and it also includes the cancer that is short video clips.

It feels like most everything is skewed against sound parenting. Your example being just another datapoint to me.

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Almost every technological "innovation" available for civil use has its roots either in military, drugs or pornography.

That is true for computing in general, cryptography, the internet itself, mobile networks, social media and now AI.

Seeing that "the only democracy in the middle-east" is fully relying on a huge AI complex to surveil and "fight against enemies", while the outcome is an almost completely decimated country with tens of tousands of civilian deaths, should give us a small peek into what is to come.

The price we have to pay for accepting general AI into society is unimaginably huge and will greatly outweigh its benefits (and destroy climate as a side effect). And we'll be part of it when we dismiss basic human values, like trust, transparency, democracy, justice, hard work and freedom, and face to face confrontations in exchange for technology - for just a little bit of convenience.

Sadly, that's my not so happy conclusion for the week.

nthcdr,

@louis Yikes, that's bleak! Feels like there are plenty of human specimens that are all too happy to dismiss basic human values even without any assistance from AI. While I share some of your concerns, for now I'm going to stay hopeful that it will keep training on its own output and turn even shittier than presently for us all to point and laugh at. God knows we need to laugh more :)

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Call me old school (or just old) but I hate to see that more and more corporations switch to the informal German "Du" ("thou") and dismiss the more respectful "Sie".

I know in English "thou" is no longer common, but in German the distinction between Du and Sie is pretty much alive and we use it all the time between adults that don't know each other, especially in a business relationship. Usually the older or higher-ranked person is in the position to offer switching to "Du".

In Switzerland it is a bit more relaxed (within most companies all are using "Du" no matter which rank), but the rules still apply to people unknown to each other.

How is that working in your country?

nthcdr, (edited )

@louis My wife tells me there are three reasons she moved to Sweden from Switzerland. One of them being Sweden having done away with this distinction :)

As my swiss german is quite poor I remember her having fun at me for greeting a lady with a dog with:

Grüezi mitenand.

I have since learned not to greet dogs only their owners.

nthcdr, to random

My daughter insists that nori sea weed goes great with chocolate ice cream. Her enthusiasm is wonderful but I do wonder what is going on with her taste buds 😂

nthcdr, to microsoft

Haven't even had my first coffee for the day and already hating on tech. Thank you #microsoft #teams

I don't usually threaten violence but whoever thought that disabling paste for a password field was a good idea needs a spanking.

nthcdr,

Why would ask this without me trying to initiate a call, just out of the blue on its own.

nthcdr,

@louis Yikes, that sure sounds awful. Happily for me anyone really needing something from me still calls or e-mails probably because I rarely check teams. It truely is an awful experience. Like so many things it got mandated by the parent company so it will probably bite me sooner or later for real.

I remember years ago when skype was the name of the game and they introduced video calls. I was on a conference call with some developers in thailand and half way through the call we told them it was nice being to put a face to the name, having never seen them in the flesh. They were totally startled having had no idea we were watching them. Good thing they didn't pick their nose :)

kfekete, to emacs

People are always complaining about startup time, especially on macOS.
I might be just lucky, but this is what I have with my fairly vanilla config:

nthcdr,

@kfekete My current emacs uptime is 21 days and 4 hours, I don't get people complaining about emacs startup time at all.

nthcdr,

@holgerschurig @kfekete To each their own but if someone "simply like efficiency" why be launching and exciting emacs over and over again, that's the opposite of being efficient.

Either way, you do you.

nthcdr,

@holgerschurig @kfekete At every turn you've chosen the least generous interpretation of my intent and character. Allow me to present another interpretation.

I see kfekete happily stating he might have just been lucky with his startup time even though a common complaint is that Emacs is slow to start.

I add on a positive note that Emacs is so stable and dependable that I can leave it running for long periods of time thus not needing to obsess over my startup time.

In an alternate universe we could have now been celebrating that apparently Emacs is both fast and stable but...

You join in telling me I'm a killjoy that is not environmentally conscious, rather condescending and that I hate and/or don't understand people that want fast startup times.

Let me be clear.

Anyone tweaking their startup time is FINE with me.

Anyone turning off their computer at night is FINE with me.

Anyone taking shots at me for something they thought I said is FINE with me.

I hope that you and anyone else reading this have a wonderful day regardless of if you're tweaking your startup time or not.

louis, to emacs
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Migrated 99% of init.el to declarative use-package - and Emacs startup time is fast again. Is there any reason not to use it to a full extent?

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/use-package.html

nthcdr,

@louis None that I'm aware of. Seem like there are some trends that come and go like keeping your configuration in org or some such.

Most approaches will have their proponents and opponents. I enjoyed orgmode for this for a time, but prefer just keeping an init.el with use-package stanzas.

Still feels like there is some more overarching bit missing like a configuration layer approach, but nothing you can't roll on your own I guess.

Used to keep my work and personal emacs config one and the same, but it became more of a chore than porting universally useful things back and forth. Perhaps with the right abstraction though...hmmm.

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Starting work tomorrow with external monitor removed, single Laptop screen only. Trying to increase focus time.

Did anyone have success with that approach?

nthcdr,

@louis I prefer two screens so that I get lots of real estate for emacs and then most other things can stay on the other screen.

Two is the sweet spot for me. Tried three and didn't like it.

Used to work with just one especially when I was still going into the office, but those days are behind me now. It works ok but feels a little bit cramped from time to time.

I'm doubtful limiting yourself to one screen will actually help you focus. I believe focus comes from within. Sure you can get distracted by other apps and notifications, but turning them off makes sense and when I'm really focused I usually miss the notifications anyway.

nthcdr, to emacs

As a hobby project to play with I created a page comparing the words of news stories month to month making a word cloud for each month. I like how it came out but its also a bit depressing.

So each month corpus is compared with its preceeding month dito and word clouds are scaled based on the whole year.

Most of all I developed a new respect for which I now think is awesome.

https://normal-monday.neocities.org/

nthcdr, to random

Image a pen that wont let you draw whatever you want. You just imagined current day AI image generators. When you think about it, it's totally nuts.

nthcdr,

@holgerschurig I'll note that you brought up freedom of speech fully on your own whereas I highlighted the artificial and rather arbitrary limitation of a modern day tool.

If the ability to create unlawful imagery was such a serious concern surely we would have forbidden these unrestricted ordinary pens by now, given your logic.

louis, to webdev
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Web dev reality:

Me: $ deploy my-js-app

Server: "Oh, since your deploy last month, some things changed:

  • notice: New major version of npm available! 9.6.7 -> 22.2.155
  • notice: 384 outdated packages, please upgrade!
  • notice: 79 package have security vulnerabilities, please run npm audit fix!
  • notice: 66 packages are looking for new maintainers!
  • notice: 384 packages are looking for donations, please run npm donate!
  • special notice: you dumbass, why can't you keep up with these simples changes?! I tell you, next time you deploy, I will not do anything.

Me: "sigh, let me just move on with my life."

Disclaimer: any similarities to the NPM package manager are purely fictional, yet based on real-life experiences.

nthcdr,

@louis I believe this is the reason everyone and their grandma has written a framework of their own so that they can evolve it on their own terms and schedule.

sachac, to random
@sachac@emacs.ch avatar

Four things I'm focusing on learning more about this month:

  • Enjoying winter with the kiddo: mostly a matter of going out there and doing it, filling in any gaps along the way. Most of her friends have shifted inside, so it's up to me to figure out how to make the outside fun. Might be nice to keep track of time outside and successful reasons to get out: playgrounds, skating, treats, and the occasional playdate. Time analysis can also help me keep the big picture in mind so I don't stress about how long it sometimes takes to get out of the house. Gotta keep things pleasant!
  • Braindumping: I've been recording more stuff using a lapel mic and my phone to take advantage of solo time (usually waiting or doing chores). Looking forward to experimenting with speech recognition and LLM options, making up my own command language, and tinkering with workflows to turn braindumps into posts and maybe even videos.
  • Helping the kiddo develop Grade 2 reading and writing skills: Could be fun doing things that don't scale, like modeling how to make connections by reading together and adding stuff to commonplace journals / Zettelkasten; helping her with writing by mindmapping and using follow-up questions; and modeling taking notes and working with mindmaps to help with summaries.
  • Being together: This is the time to get even better at appreciating who A+ is as a person and this opportunity to be with her and W-. It's also a good time to get better at creative play and at helping out around the house. Journal entries will help me see progress, I think.

There's time for the important stuff. Other things will fit around these.

nthcdr,

@sachac hey there, don't give me parenting anxiety by outparenting me 😄

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Holy shit, I just TRUNCATE'ed a table on a production server with 12 million rows ... PANIC MODE ON

nthcdr,

@louis Must have been sweaty! Remeber kids even Batman has his backup!

louis, to emacs
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

Unfortunately, I could not attend the EmacsConf 2023 in real time, but I now enjoy the recordings of all these great talks. They have been published super fast:

https://emacsconf.org/2023/talks/

Thanks to @sachac for all your work on this! 🚀​

nthcdr,

@louis @sachac I too have been enjoying the emacsconf videos on my own schedule. Weekends are holy around here.

nthcdr, to linux

Today I bid farewell to , I tried to enjoy their offering but there were just to many things that just wasn't there for the time being. Linux support for drive being a major issue, and mail bridge feeling like a cludge are two things that annoyed me. And for some reason various sites would just block VPN access so I would have to disable the VPN as well. Not worth the hassle. Maybe in the future there will be proper support and I will return a customer.

louis, to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

#GraphQL is the worst fuck I had to deal with, and I dealt with hundreds of shitty APIs but this is just another hyped Meta product forced on devs that is over engineered to a point where all its conceptual advantages are obliterated by complexity.

nthcdr,

@louis Haha, this experience mirror my worst fears. I've actually turned down job offers because I felt the ideas behind GraphQL seemed super sketchy and it made me doubt they knew what they were doing.

nthcdr, to random

Made a miniature penobscot bow from a twig during my lunch hour today. Tonight shooting skewers at a cardboard box at the other end of the room, some 8 meters away. Incredibly satisfying.

Now I want to somehow make a miniature of one of those nifty african tribes bow. They look deceivingly simple. Which probably means it requires much more skill and patience than I have.

What can I say, I love my sticks!

nthcdr,

@louis haha, not a fan of those two particular languages I take it. I've worked with both and ruby is providing for me currently. I much prefer it to python to be honest.

nthcdr,

@louis dependencies, can't live with them can't upgrade without them. I feel your pain...

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