I am thinking to make the following tool, but wanted to get opinions before I embark on this journey.

The tool builds container images.

The images are optionally distroless: meaning, they do not include an entire distro. They only include the application(s) you specify and its dependencies.

What else does the tool give you?

• the build tool uses a package manager to do dependency resolution, so you don't have to manually resolve them like many docker files do. (NOTE: The package manager is not installed on the container image. It is only used by the build tool)
• uses gentoo's portage to build the software from source (if not previously cached). This is helpful when you're using versions of software that aren't built against each other in the repos you download from
• allows specifying compile flag customizations per package.
• makes use of gentoo's existing library of package build or install recipes, so that you only have to write them for uncommon apps rather than in every docker file.

I find it crazy that so many dockerfiles are doing their own dependency resolution when we already have package managers.

What do you think? Is this tool useful or am I missing a reason why it wouldn't be?

This instance performs spectacularly. Admin is always on top of everything. No drama, and I have high confidence that this instance won't disappear without notice.

Our admin does not get enough appreciation, so big shoutout and thanks for your hard work ❤

I understand that nvidia support for wayland is lacking, but I know it's possible.

For context, I was using sway 1.8 for a while (no official support for nvidia). It was working almost perfectly, only minor issues. After the update to 1.9, I get constant flickering.

I can downgrade to 1.8, but the fact that 1.8 was working tells me that it is possible for a window manager to work well for nvidia. The problem is the sway team does not want that headache (understandably so).

Are there any alternatives that work well with nvidia?

Bspwm has many appeals, and I do not want to focus on those. I want to focus on binary-tree separation of windows and its benefits vs alternatives. What's the appeal?

For comparison, Sway and i3 allow for the v-split and h-split layout, so you can have 2 or more windows split side by side. You can nest them, so it is sort of an n-ary tree. It feels a lot more powerful.

So why the binary tree? The others seem richer and more capable. Bspwm is marketed as more powerful than i3 but it seems the other way around?

I am looking to program something similar to a simulation game, but free-form in its customization and scripting to the point where no strategy game will get me close enough.

I initially thought to start from scratch, simulating all the basics. Simulating money, people, resources, maps, etc. Obviously this is very ambitious.

Are there any libraries or frameworks that could help me with this? I don't want something opinionated that decides the model for how to simulate, for example, money or a person. I want to preserve the ability to simulate those with the models and math of my choosing. But maybe a library that has the foundations of simulation in general, so that I don't have to build everything completely from scratch?

I understand what I said sounds very vague. This will be something I will discover as I do more of it, so forgive the vagueness.

I am building an application that is using JSON / XML files to persist data. This is why I indicated "outside of SQL" in the title.

I understand one benefit of join tables is it makes querying easier with SQL syntax. Since I am using JSON as my storage, I do not have that benefit.

But are there any other benefits when using a separate join table when expressing a many-to-many relationship? The exact expression I want to express is one entity's dependency on another. I could do this by just having a "dependencies" field, which would be an array of the IDs of the dependencies.

This approach seems simpler to me than a separate table / entity to track the relation. Am I missing something?

Feel free to ask for more context.

I like tasks.org but unfortunately it doesn't look like this will come any time soon.

Plus points:

• if the task can be assigned to multiple sub-lists (or projects, buckets, etc).

I want a to-do list app that syncs from a json file (or other human-readable data format), so that I can view and modify the file (via a CLI like jq) from my computer too, and it would still reflect on my phone when it syncs.

Does this exist? Preferably it uses a format simple enough that makes it possible / easy to modify it via jq.

In the desktop world, we have the option to use the command line: a uniform interface for a multitude of apps that would otherwise be very different when implemented as GUIs.

Using the same interface, I can move or edit files, cross out tasks on my to-do list, retrieve my password for my email account (using Bitwarden or pass), etc. All in the command line. The GUI for each of those are wildly different.

The other benefit is it is very easy to create a new command line app, as opposed to a GUI.

Is anything like this possible for the smartphone world (even if it doesn't or will never exist)? What would it look like?

Since smartphone typing is much slower, we can't simply reuse the command line. We'd need something different. An interface that can still support a various spectrum of different operations, yet ergonomic for a smartphone. What are your thoughts?

While reading Sipser's book on theory of computation, it relies heavily on the concept of formal language, and machines that merely accept or reject an input.

But most useful programs we deal with do more than merely verify an input. They compute something. We may compute a solution for an equation instead of merely verify it. We may sum a list of numbers, or calculate some function on it.

Maybe "most" is an exaggeration since I can't prove it. But still, it begs the question. Why not deal with machines than do more than merely verify?

Apologies if the title is confusing, but I couldn't think of better phrasing in short text.

Whenever we define / specify a certain automaton (such as a finite state machine or a turing machine) by defining all of its States, transition function, etc., this feels awfully similar to defining an algorithm. For example, I can define a machine that can tell if a number is divisible by 3. It is very similar to writing an algorithm and the steps to solving the problem.

Now I understand that the two aren't exactly equivalent. But would it be incorrect to say that the specification of a machine is a type of algorithm, since we're defining the steps it takes to solve a problem (how to respond to a specific state or input to solve a specific problem)?

I've been looking at best buy. Are there any other sites to look on?

Budget: targeting $900, can go up to $1000 Specs:

• 3060 or 4060 and up
• decent build and ergonomics
• good battery
• 16 GB RAM
• 6 core / 12 thread CPU
• good screen

I want to self host a suite of services and make them public.

What kind of services? Well, all kinds. Matrix, lemmy, bookwyrm, and I may think of others in the future.

The problem? I don't even know where to begin from a legal stand point. Not only that, I am a barely legal immigrant (vulnerable to deportation) from a country that is not very liked by the gov. I am afraid to put myself in a vulnerable position and get more trouble than the typical US citizen.

Is there a reasonable way to be able to self host public services without legal trouble? Is there a resource I can follow for best practices to avoid issues?

I am interested in trying out matrix, but my first impression seems to reveal that by default, there may be some privacy or anonymity pitfalls if I use matrix.

Examples:

• using an instance I don't host means the host is trusted with my data
• self hosting might reveal a lot of information about me. Most likely, it is registered to a domain that has my info and could potentially be traced back to me.
• When self-hosting, being one of few users, basic analysis of my activity could reveal a lot about me, since all that activity could be easily identified as belonging to a single person

Now I understand not all threats could be mitigated, but my worry is that both self hosting or not have significant gaps. What's the most privacy and anonymity conscious way to use Matrix?

An alternative to reviewing games on steam

Preferably the platform would be community driven rather than profit driven (which may make the data less trust worthy for me)

While learning Automata and computation theory independently, I made a realization I want to confirm.

Regular languages can all be created by taking elementary languages (languages made up of a single member of its alphabet) and performing closed operations in them, such as union, concat, and kleene star. This was clear to me from regular expressions.

Is this true? Is there any significance to this fact?

What about Context-free languages and other formal languages? Are there operations that can be performed on elementary languages to create all of them? Or is this a special property of regular languages only?

I want something that is:

• SSG (static site output)
• looks nice
• is a template I can use out of the box by just dropping in my content and configurations, rather than designing or building myself
• is not feature-poor. I want it to have features like footnotes, jump-to-section links, citations, on-hover pop-ups for citations or footnotes, syntax highlighting for code blocks, etc.
• nice to have: ability to draw basic graphs or diagrams (helps in technical explanations)
• is not too difficult to customize by editing the code directly, Customizing the looks, structure, or adding functionality if I needed

Programming language doesn't matter much. I can use whatever. I do have a preference for functional languages.

Eleventy seems like a great framework to do this, but as I said I want a template that's ready out of the box not just a framework. The blogging template I found for eleventy does not look as nice as I hope.

Suppose we have a large to-do task manager app with many features. Say we have an entity, which is the task, and it has certain fields like: title, description, deadline, sub-tasks, dependencies, etc. This entity is used in many parts of our codebase.

Suppose we decided to modify this entity, either by modifying, removing, or adding a field. We may have to change most if not all of the code that deals with this entity. How can we do this in a way that protects us from errors and makes maintenance easy?

Bear in mind, this is just an example. The entity may be something more low-key, such as a logged user event in analytics, or a backend API endpoint being used in the frontend, etc.

Potential Solutions

Searching

One way people do this already is by just searching the entity across the codebase. This is not scalable, and not always accurate. You may get a lot of false positives, and some parts of the code may use the entity without using it by name directly.

Importing

Defining the entity in one central place, and importing it everywhere it is used. This will create an error if a deleted field remains in use, but it will not help us when, say, adding a new field and making sure it is used properly everywhere the entity is being used

so what can be done to solve this? plus points if the approach is compatible with Functional Programming

Automated Tests and CICD

Tests can discover these types of issues with high accuracy and precision. The downside is... Well tests have to be written. This requires developers to be proactive, and writing and maintaining tests is non-trivial and needs expensive developer time. It is also quite easy and common to write bad tests that give false positives.

Hello friends,

Just about every guide that comes up on my Google search for "How to create certificate authority with OpenSSL" seems to be out-of-date. Particularly, they all guide me towards creating a certificate that gets rejected by the browser due to the "Common Name" field deprecation, and the requirement of "Subject Alternative Name" field.

Does someone know a tool that creates a Certificate Authority and signs certificates with that CA? A tool that follows modern standards, gets accepted by browsers and other common web tools. Preferably something based on OpenSSL.

If you know a guide that does this using OpenSSL, even better! But I have low hopes for this after going through dozens of guides all having the same issue I mentioned above.

Replies to Some Questions you Might Ask Me

Why not just correct those two fields you mention?

I want to make sure I am doing this right. I don't want to keep running into errors in the future. For example, I actually did try that, and npm CLI rejected my certs without a good explanation (through browser accepts it).

Why not Let's Encrypt?

This is for private services that are only accessible on a private network or VPN

If this is for LAN and VPN only services, why do you need TLS?

TLS still has benefits. Any device on the same network could still compromise the security of the communication without TLS. Examples: random webcam or accessory at your house, a Meta Quest VR headset, or even a compromised smartphone or computer.

Use small step CA (or other ACME tools)

I am not sure I want the added complexity of this. I only have 2 services requiring TLS now, and I don't believe I will need to scale that much. I will have setup a way to consume the ACME server. I am happier with just a tool that spits out the certificates and I manage them that way, instead of a whole service for managing certs.

If I am over estimating the difficulty for this, please correct me.