Programmer in California

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

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: May 7th, 2023

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  • 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.





  • I think NixOS is awesome, but it certainly doesn’t offer “access to (basically) all Linux-capable software, no matter from what repo.” - at least not natively.

    I don’t quite agree with this. In NixOS you can write custom expressions that fetch software from any source, and stitch them into your configuration as first-class packages. So you do get access to all Linux-capable software natively, but not necessarily easily. (There is a learning curve to packaging stuff yourself.)

    I use this process to bring nightly releases of neovim and nushell into my reproducible config. Ok, I do use flakes that other people published for building those projects, which is a bit like installing from a community PPA. But when I wanted to install Niri, a very new window manager I wrote the package and NixOS module expressions all by myself!


  • 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”.)




  • 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


  • I think the takeaway from that episode is that many carbon offsets are scams, not necessarily all. So don’t take corporate claims that they offset their emissions at face value, and consider carefully before you buy offsets.

    Take a look at my other comment about Wren and Wendover Productions. (This John Oliver episode happens to include an excerpt from the Wendover piece I mentioned.)