Programmer in California

I’m also on https://leminal.space/u/hallettj

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: May 7th, 2023

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  • Well ok, they both use symlinks but in different ways. I think what I was trying to say is that in NixOS it’s symlinks all the way down.

    IIUC on Fedora Atomic you have an ostree image, and some directories in the image are actually symlinks to the mutable filesystem on /var. Files that are not symlinks to /var (and that are not inside those symlinked directories), are hard links to files in the ostree object store. (Basically like checked-out files in a git repository?)

    On NixOS this is what happens if examine what’s in my path:

    $ which curl
    /run/current-system/sw/bin/curl
    
    $ ls -l /run | grep current-system
    /run/current-system -> /nix/store/p92xzjwwykjj1ak0q6lcq7pr9psjzf6w-nixos-system-yu-23.11.20231231.32f6357
    
    $ ls -l /run/current-system/sw/bin/curl
    /run/current-system/sw/bin/curl -> /nix/store/r304lglsa9i2jy5hpbdz48z3j3x2n4a6-curl-8.4.0-bin/bin/curl
    

    If I select a previous configuration when I boot I would get a different symlink target for /run/current-system. And what makes updates atomic is the last step is to switch the /run/current-system symlink which switches over all installed packages at once.

    I can temporarily load up the version of curl from NixOS Unstable in a shell and see a different result,

    $ nix shell nixpkgs-unstable#curl  # this works because I added nixpkgs-unstable to my flake registry
    $ which curl
    /nix/store/0mjq6w6cx1k9907vxm0k5pk7pm1ifib3-curl-8.4.0-bin/bin/curl  # note the hash is different
    

    I could have a different version curl installed in my user profile than the one installed system-wide. In that case I’d see this:

    $ which curl
    /home/jesse/.nix-profile/bin/curl
    
    $ ls -la /home/jesse | grep .nix-profile
    .nix-profile -> /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/jesse/profile
    
    $ ls -l /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/jesse
    profile -> profile-133-link
    profile-130-link -> /nix/store/ylysfs90018zc9k0p0dg7x6wvzqcq68j-user-environment
    profile-131-link -> /nix/store/9hjiznbaii7a8aa36i8zah4c0xcd8w6d-user-environment
    profile-132-link -> /nix/store/h4kkw1m5q6zdhr6mlwr26n638vdbbm2c-user-environment
    profile-133-link -> /nix/store/jgxhrhqiagvhd6g42d17h4jhfpgxsk3n-user-environment
    

    Basically symlinks upon symlinks everywhere you look. (And environment variables.)

    So I guess at the end everything is symlinks on NixOS, and everything is hard links plus a set of mount paths on Fedora Atomic.











  • I’ve been reading about increasing unionization and strike activity, leading to better deals for large groups of workers. The industry-level negotiations we’re already seeing are helpful in isolation; but that’s also the kind of energy that can lead to economic reforms that have a real impact on quality of life. Workers seem like the little guys, until a lot of them are pulling in the same direction, and then suddenly their demands become existentially important.

    About a century-ish ago Americans were worse off than they are now. That led to desire for change, which led to decades of trust-busting, unionization, and regulation. We got things like weekends off, and a livable minimum wage. And not entirely unrelated, we also got national parks, the EPA, and endangered species preservation. We’ve back-slid a lot since those advances. But we can get them back, and push the needle even further next time. We did it before, we can do it again.





  • This points to an interesting feature that appears in English: phrasal verbs. This is where a verb is made up of a verb word used in combination with one or more prepositions or “particles”. For example in the phrase “put cheese on the pizza” the verb word “put” combines with the preposition “on”. (There is no particle in this example.) Even though the words “put” and “on” are not consecutive, and even though “on” has its own function as a preposition, “put on” together form a verb that is lexically distinct (has different meaning and rules) from “put” used with a different preposition or particle.

    IIUC you even get a different meaning if you use the same words with a different function. With “on” as a preposition you get, “put cheese on the pizza”. But with the particle form of “on” you get a different verb with a different meaning: “put on a coat”.

    The use you posted, “put cheese”, looks like a transitive form of “put” which would be distinct from both of the phrasal verbs I described. My guess is that this is dialect-specific: maybe some English speakers perceive transitive “put” as valid, while others only use “put” as part of a phrasal verb.

    Language is messy, and there is no authoritative set of rules for English so you’ll find lots of cases where people disagree about correct grammar. One of the classics is whether “where” substitutes for a prepositional or a noun phrase. Lots of people feel it is correct to say, “Where is that at?” while others think that sounds wrong, like saying, “It’s at by the corner.” (I think this might be the basis for the made-up rule, “don’t end sentences with a preposition”.)




  • hallettj@beehaw.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    8 months ago

    There are a few history channels I enjoy:

    • History Buffs
    • History Matters
    • Extra History

    For the rise and fall of modern empires: AntsCanada

    If you’re interested in history, but specifically in relation to painted works of art, I very much enjoy: Art Deco

    For in-depth social justice analysis: ContraPoints

    For gamers: TierZoo