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math is hard
  • I know, but to me this meme doesn't make sense to me unless I assume the person reading the math Expression is interpreting its real world application.

    25 / 5 = 5 and nobodies head exploded. That's just evaluating a math Expression. .25 / .5 = .5 is the same. It's not a "my brain can't comprehend how to evaluate expressions" as the meme suggests.

    However, if someone who doesnt do much algebra thought to themselves "I need half of a quarter", then I could understand why their brain might "hurt" as the meme suggests, for a similar reason why adding 20 degree Celsius water to 20 degree Celsius water doesn't make 40 degree Celsius wate

    I'm probably reading into it too much, but the meme just doesn't feel like a "mind fuck that keeps me up at night". I'm looking for reasons to try and explain it, but it's just a math expression at the end of the day

  • math is hard
  • The math looks perfectly fine. But when people phrase "half of a quarter" I think they have (1/2)*(1/4) in mind, instead of 0.25/0.5

  • The Patriarchy
  • I want to see this post that got removed now

  • Addiction is a scary thing
  • There are plenty of natural particles colliders, such as black holes or very dense stars, that are way more powerful than our engineered particle colliders, which (observationally) don't create black holes around them

  • Think of the CHILDREN!
  • It's a common tactic of narcissists to elicit empathy

  • Arch and Gentoo users reading about NixOS
  • Software engineering is usually distinct from programming in that it isn't about the logic behind programming, but about the project management that all software projects typically have in common.

    Besides agile methodology, a lot of software engineering involves creating reproducible environments. While NixOS doesn't provide anything that much different from tools like Ansible,

    NixOS follows a functional/declarative design paradigm, functional/declarative design paradigms communicate similar logic for solving the same problem. It's a restrictive paradigm. Consider how javascript is not restrictive, as in, you can code with any design paradigm in javascript, and how it's ugly for that.

    I also think functional paradigms mirror the natural language closer than imperative paradigms. That's subjective, but I would still argue Math is a logical language that is a subset of the natural language, and since functions in programming represent a process of doing something, functions make for natural verbs. Meaning, understanding the naming convention for the functions, is a natural naming convention for when I communicate with other software engineers, even when I'm not asking about making configurable/reproducible systems in NixOS

    Or when I look at how to config things like firewall, ssh, vpn servers, user group permissions... it's a minimalist description that I could communicate to other people configuring even on a debian server

    So, it's hard because it's restrictive, but if you're willing to put up with a learning curve, you get a language agnostic framework for describing computing environments, more or less. Then there's more advanced stuff with nix flakes, which still doesn't make sense to me functionally/linguistically, but I'm starting to see the value in parallel package management and the precision in reproducibility they provide by requiring sha256 git commits

  • Getting started with NixOS - looking for tutorials
  • Yea it's definitely a jungle haha, it also seems they're changing things up a bit with where the most recent docs might be hosted

    https://search.nixos.org/

    so, if you searched for vscode in that link, then click the "NixOS Configuration" button, you can see

      environment.systemPackages = [
        pkgs.vscode
      ];
    

    or if you're using the with convention to factor out the pkgs object/contextual keyword(not sure if that's the right name)

      environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
        vscode
      ];
    

    for zsh, just having this in your configuration.nix should work https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Command_Shell

    programs.zsh.enable = true;
    users.defaultUserShell = pkgs.zsh;
    

    Again, these values should be inserted after the function definition of your configuration.nix

    { config, pkgs, ...}:
    {
       # Things get inserted here typically
       imports = [ ./hardware-configuration.nix];
       environment.systemPackages = [pkgs.vscode];
    }
    

    for example.

    Something I've noticed from developing on nix, When the headaches of nix appear, the solution might be harder, but I usually end up with a better solution than what I was going for before. Some examples:

    • My resume is compiled in Latex. I tried the pdflatex package in nix but it gave rendering issues. Then the nix community recommended tectonic and i'm getting better compilation times, logging, clean up...

    • PIP is a garbage package manager, and it's garbageness sometimes makes native python development a headache in nixos. However, using poetry2nix, not only could I define development environments, it was also ready for packaging on PIP

    Sometimes you might want to separate some parts of your configuration away from your global system config at /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. That's nix-shell, nix-develop, nix-build, and flakes are for. I'm not a pro at flakes yet, but I think I got the gist, here's an example of when I wish I could have used a flake:

    I use discord but discord itself is garbage. Vesktop is a better 3rd party client for discord. Unfortunately, I had to remove it from my configuration.nix the last few weeks because one of its dependencies wasn't packaged right, causing my entire system to not build. If I had used a flake, I could have isolated that dependency from the rest of my build, while still tracking its integration with my system. I believe this could have allowed me to update the rest of my system, while still defining the errenous app as part of my system. Flakes are supposed to be more reproducible as well, since they require sha256 git commits, whereas other package managers only ask for a subjective version number

    There's a lot to learn with nix but even if I don't stick with it long term I feel like It's making me a smarter software engineer since a declarative/functional paradigm tends to match the natural language more. It also is the most restrictive design paradigm, which means it's brief but so simple it can be hard to understand as a consequence. Since it's so restrictive, it's also a subset of all other paradigms. You declare what you want, ideally, you don't have to set anything up. I never had an easier time getting cuda drivers for ML Training setup than on NixOS because of this

    Something I enjoyed doing, was setting up my user profile to let me ssh in only with whitelisted ssh keys, as well as setting up a systemd script to handle some start up routines on my OS. I think that can be a gentle introduction to how you can configure other parts of your operating system. I'm going to try and set up a CI/CD/CT pipeline with it next I believe

    Edit: The next thing I need to do as well, is consolidate my user configs with the home manager functionality. I use a KVantum Theme engine on top of plasma, and while those apps are installed in my system, the configuration of which theme to automatically load should be integrated with the text config aspects of nixos. Currently, I "Imperatively" configured those by "Opening the app and clicking", which will get erased/not be reproducible if I ever rebuild my nixos on a new computer

    Another funny thing with functional programming... sometimes the fix is as simple as

    sound.enable = true;
    

    Even though I had pipewire enabled as a service and everything, that one line needed to be there haha

  • Are there any things in Linux that need to be started over from scratch?
  • I've been using Wayland on plasma 5 for a year or so now, and it looks like the recent Nvidia driver has merged, so it should be getting even better any minute now.

    I've used it for streaming on Linux with pipewire, overall no complaints.

  • Getting started with NixOS - looking for tutorials
  • I'm using NixOS partly as a dev machine, but mostly for consumer OS stuff like gaming, YouTube, social media...

    What are you trying to use it for? From the consumer perspective, I feel like modifying configuration.nix would be the majority of what I need. It's like ninite if you've used that to setup a Windows machine, but it can be preloaded on your OS and you can configure everything, not just which programs are installed

    If you're trying to setup dev environments, I think what gets weird is how many ways there are to do similar things, like nix develop, nix build, nix shell...

  • unsure why we are surprised lol
  • Thank you 🥹

  • unsure why we are surprised lol
  • I block individuals. I think it can be good to expose myself to the eastern narrative a little since I'm only experiencing a western narrative. As well as eastern shitpost's since I subscribe to 4chan

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • Do you have any link supporting your assertion that BlackRock is only interested in Bitcoin because of stable coins. I genuinely would like to read the source

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • Is that for the spot ETFs, or their tokenized fund? Do you have a link for how spot ETFs are covered by stable coins?

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • How is it insecure? Schnorr signatures and the txID system literally make it quantum resistant. Even if you cracked a transaction's key, you'd only have access to already spent funds. Like a receipt instead of a debit card, with no certainty who has the money until they spend it.

    Oh, and in terms of computational waste, the fiat backed inflation based currency system we have now, has incentivized a world of endless growth which isn't sustainable. Switching to an asset with finite supply like Bitcoin would remove those incentives. There's other costs to using deflationary assets, but if you actually value the environment, switching to Bitcoin would economically inventivize a world where people are encouraged to save more instead of spend more

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • The recent crash was less volatile than previous crashes, and lasted half as long. There were also more factors than just the stable coin crash, there was also the FTX scandal, and silicon valley bank collapse which had ripple effects in the economy.

    Still though, the resulting crash was half as long and not as severe as previous crashes.

    I'm not saying you're wrong about stable coins, but saying the entire crypto economy depends on that, while BlackRock has pushed the SEC to allow for Spot ETFs, is an exaggeration.

    I'm not even going to say this is a morally good thing. I hate BlackRock because they are the mainstream/institution. But that level of support shouldnt be taken lightly

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • This is an emotionally charged post, yet everyone you disagree with is secretly trying to influence everyone else? How the fuck are you going to compare people who like a type of software to literal Nazis? Anyone who relies on emotional arguments like that is clearly not a rationalist.

    How do you achieve communism without authoritarianism? This sub says they like decentralization, but if you decentralize based on computers, how do you stop adversaries from performing a Sybil attack? How do we establish command and control for a decentralized network, without letting authoritarians seize that command and control? How do you establish a decentralized identity system, without also establishing a decentralized system for data management and governance?

    Now, should a Blockchain be that? Maybe not, I'm not trying sell whatever to you. I get being annoyed by all the advertisers, but to go an extra step to say that the principles of cypherpunk is something to compare to Nazis, is just proof you care more about emotional arguments and setting narrative.

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • That is a gross exaggeration. I don't like tether either for the same reasons listed above but this is such a non nuanced response. We've seen price crashes from other stable coins eventual collapse, and other coins have still recovered to a market cap greater than the previous all time high. Your statement is literally, historically verified to be false

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • Ask anyone who talks shit about crypto for anything besides a meme, and you'll still get a meme. That's how their perception of it was established. They probably don't know the difference between the internet and their web browser, let alone decentralized vs centralized, or all the many reasons why the economy has gone to shit the last few decades.

    But they do know memes! The same two memes that have been told since Bitcoin was priced under $10k

  • Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.
  • Bitcoin has a market cap comparable to apple. It's not going away anytime soon. You should do your own research and not let the mainstream media establish your perception. It's not like the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on crime, or the opioid/Xanax crisis were complete blunders by the media, right? But now, they're opinions on a crypto asset that fundamentally threatens their status quo is not full of shit?

  • Linux Users, what was your Steam "Year in Review" like

    I'm curious because as I'm about to switch to Linux gaming exclusively, I thought about how disgusting my time and money spent in different games were for both "Years in Review". I wouldn't be surprised if the average Linux gamer was a whale, which is why I'm asking

    !Somehow I pulled this off working 1.5 jobs

    0
    how to / best practices for setting up and tracking a Python project with nix flakes

    I want to start a new project, and I want to try to handle all the reproducibility / "containerization" in nix instead of dockerfiles. I see some examples online but I think they're including more uncommon procedures and/or don't do things the "nix" way.

    What's the right way to manage a simple python project? Should I just make a derivation.nix for use in nix-shell -p and have the ephemeral shell be my container? Can/should I do it with nix flakes instead? What would a simple nix flake look like that:

    pulls an initial python repo from github

    possibly executes whatever build instructions might be included

    extends other system packages or other versions of the same python package,

    has local area network access,

    and GPU access

    2
    Can you setup garbage collection to delete every other generation or every other N generations after a certain limit has been reached?

    I see you can delete everything older than some period of time, but what if I want some older than a year? Or should it be interpreted that: whatever build configuration was used, it is tested thoroughly at that point, and it would be better to rebuild from a nix configuration stored on git?

    0
    First Time NixOS setup help installing basic apps, dependencies, and themes

    Edit: my issues came from copying source .nix configurations for the pig manager, not configurations that I would include on my computer. Finding how to include what where was much easier with search.nixos.org

    Hi, I've finally cleansed my system of windows and switched fully into nix. I want to learn this OS the right way, but have ran into some noob troubles. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ideally, these changes are things I would include in my configuration.nix

    • How to install electrum wallet on nixos? I found this default.nix for electrum and thought it would be as easy as nix-build default.nix but was mistaken. It says " cannot evaluate a function that has an argument without a value ('fetchurl') Nix attempted to evaluate a function as a top level expression" but on a later line that value is inputted to the function (if I understand right)

    > src = fetchurl { url = "https://download.electrum.org/${version}/Electrum-${version}.tar.gz"; sha256 = "sha256-BxxC1xVKToUjgBo4mEeK9Tdhbd/+doHcTTJsXDtaELg="; };

    • How to install KVantum Theme Manager? I was following this guide and tried to add gcc/g++ and the x11 package dependencies but I get undefined variables for the x11 libraries. Some recommend using stdenv.mkDerivations but I haven't used that much nix before so I'm not certain if I should be going down that rabbit hole
    9
    is there a roadmap?

    Seems like all the scaling upgrades mentioned in the previous roadmap are about done (segwit, lightning network, taproot, schnorr signatures...)

    I guess drivechain would be nice to see, but I haven't heard of any updates on that project in a while. Are there any other plans to look forward to?

    0
    I'm more excited for the people sync for Lemmy will bring than the app itself

    And all the other former reddit interfaces that port over here.

    Reddit might keep 90% of the users, but Lemmy will gain 10% of the more tech literate

    17
    ComradeKhoumrag ComradeKhoumrag @infosec.pub
    Posts 7
    Comments 329