Project Specific Tooling in Emacs with Nix Flakes and Direnv
One use-case for nix is to describe the tools/dependencies used on a per-project basis. – This is similar to VSCode’s Remote Containers, but without the containers. We can achieve this in Emacs by leveraging direnv, nix-direnv, and emacs-direnv. direnv provides a neat way of specifying environment variables in a per-directory basis. Since direnv runs arbitrary bash code in the .envrc [...]
Using Home Manager to Manage Symlinks to Dotfiles
dotbot is a popular way of managing symlinks to dotfiles, and I used it for some time. I’ve gradually been becoming more comfortable with Nix. Nix remains relatively niche, so: Nix allows programmatic management of packages installed to a computer. Nix refers to the expression language that describes these packages, the tool which evaluates these expressions. It’s also pretty closely [...]
Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand is Wonderful
I finally finished reading through Deborah Tannen’s “You Just Don’t Understand”. It’s interesting to see that it was published in 1990. I’d put it alongside Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” as a book which provides a no-fault explaination for behaviour which seems illogical. The core of the book is that some of the conflict which arises between men and women [...]
It's Difficult to Explain Technical Difficulties Encountered
If you’re using a computer, and something doesn’t work, sometimes the best you can come up with when asking for help is: “it doesn’t work”. Maybe you can be a bit more specific and say “I’ve plugged in my headphones, and they don’t work”. But no one is ever going to say “I’ve got a headset, and I plugged the [...]
Netflix's Narcos Mexico Season 3 is a Let Down
Netflix’s “Narcos”, and its companion “Narcos: Mexico” are very exciting shows to watch. I, uh, am under the impression these shows play quite fast and loose with history in order to make a compelling drama. It does make for good entertainment. I was excited to see “Narcos: Mexico”’s Season 3 recently released, and sat down to binge my way through [...]
Example of Using Nix to Run Software Using Different Build Flags
I recently wanted to use FreeCAD to export a glTF file from a STEP file. Unfortunately, I found that FreeCad needed to be built with OCC built with rapidjson. The suggested solution isn’t hard, as such; but it is more tedious than just installing a package: Building from OCC from scratch: 1. get the source code from (https://gitlab.com/blobfish/occt ) –> [...]
Using Nix-Shell for Project-Specific Tools for Emacs
UPDATE: “Project Specific Tooling in Emacs with Nix Flakes and Direnv” discusses an approach with works with the devShell of flake.nix by making use of direnv.
One feature VSCode has is its “Remote - Containers” extension which allows for developing inside a container. I found this strange when I first heard it; since every time I’ve
docker exec [...]
Posted at October 26, 2021 |
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Static Site Generators are Well Suited to Hobbyist Programming
Static site generators are definitely a “for developers” tool. Or that’s the impression I get from seeing that staticsitegenerators.net has hundreds of projects listed, ranging from a few GitHub stars all the way up to tens of thousands of GitHub stars. I’m reminded of a comment I saw on Hacker News talking about Factorio. Factorio is a game with gameplay [...]
Follow-up Review of the BM40 Ortholinear Keyboard
EDIT: 2025-04: KPRepublic’s Violations of the QMK License EDIT: 2025-04: I’ve noticed that kprepublic (which sells the BM40) has been put on QMK’s list of vendors violating the QMK’s license. QMK’s code is licensed with GPL. GPL is a copyleft license. Basically, it’s a pro-social “I’m sharing this, but you have to share if you use it”. Or as it [...]
Dreamy Eyes is Very Sweet
I watched “Dreamy Eyes” on Netflix.
I recommend it. It’s (at times) intensely romantically sweet. Although it doesn’t have a happy ending.
(Well, without a happy ending I suppose “angsty” is more apt than “sweet”). It’s a drama set in Vietnam during the 1960s - 1970s. The main character has an unrequited love for his childhood friend. In [...]