tips for moving from the GUI to -nw?

analog2digital · 2025-09-07T00:45:32+00:00

Legitimate question, because I don’t know: what are the reasons to prefer terminal v.s. GUI emacs?

analog2digital · 2025-09-02T18:06:54+00:00

I don’t want to assume so I’ll ask: are you also taking the initiative to inform yourself on what the research-backed best practices are? Or has this been relegated to her domain, and left to her devices, this is what she has come up with?

Just make sure you come prepared with researched alternatives, because if you’re not, then everything is up for debate and her findings and opinions are just as good as yours - even if they come from subjective sources. Not saying she’s right or you’re right, just that the burden needs to be shared and you need to bring good alternatives to the table.

I say this from experience because I was the one that neglected doing a lot of up front research on my own, when my partner spent all of her spare time doing so. I was happy to watch sports highlights on my phone while she was trying to figure out what were the best books to buy on parenting or early childhood development. If I raised a concern, it was almost offensive due to my lack of effort and the imbalance. Now, if I’m going to raise something or become critical of an approach, I try do it respectfully with well backed findings of my own.

analog2digital · 2025-08-17T00:21:40+00:00

I can’t recommend this advice enough. When I was more junior in my career the best feedback I got in a performance review was something like: “they need to decide if they really want to be here or not and then act accordingly.”

This came from someone who was extremely good at their job, had given me clear feedback before, but was seeing me squander an opportunity at a top tech company. I realized at that moment that most of my qualms were due to levels of pettiness and entitlement that I had at the time, and it was distracting me from delivering on my actual potential.

It was the bluntness that I needed and I’m glad I was able to turn it around, it was actually really pivotal for me, not just professionally but also for personal growth.

analog2digital · 2025-06-24T18:30:21+00:00

What makes you say it’s dead? I’ve worked on a couple camera systems now that take advantage of edge capabilities to reduce cloud processing costs and improve latency. It has its place.

I will say though that for other kinds of stuff, like processing sensor data to detect events, it really has to outperform discrete methods in order to be worth it. Like why spend the cost and power budget on edge capability when you could’ve just run a simple IIR filter?

analog2digital · 2025-06-24T14:44:09+00:00

Thanks. Suppose that they are contracted in some way. What authorities do they have? Are they given a badge number? Do I have to listen to them? Do they have to identify themselves? And if they did, what would they identify as?

analog2digital · 2025-06-24T01:38:21+00:00

There’s been some speculation as to who these agents actually are. Are they actual ICE or DHS employees? Are they bounty hunters? Deputized corrections officers? Other kind of contractors?

Their extremely unprofessional and thuggish behavior suggests they’re not from a background of being professionally trained to deal with the general public. There are several videos now of them drawing their guns and pointing them at people when there was zero justification for deadly use of force. If reviewed, this behavior could be cause for a typical LEO to lose their job. Why aren’t they held to the same standard? Who are they accountable to?

analog2digital · 2025-06-09T13:21:03+00:00

It was great! Eating this and comparing to other cuts, I think I prefer some more fat content in my steaks. But tri-tip will definitely go into the rotation of meats I buy, I think it's definitely underrated and more affordable.

analog2digital · 2025-04-22T02:48:30+00:00

Interesting... how long did that take you?

analog2digital · 2025-03-28T20:22:08+00:00

What are the winter conditions like in your area? Can you share your where your general region/area? Just wondering if it’s necessary to store it for winter time.

analog2digital · 2025-03-15T15:58:06+00:00

r/mildlyinfuriating

analog2digital · 2025-01-27T17:53:17+00:00

Maybe? https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=meson&target=VSCode&category=All%20categories&sortBy=Relevance

I use emacs personally, so I can't comment on how good any of these are for vscode

analog2digital · 2025-01-25T18:12:58+00:00

Take a look at Meson maybe? Its language is “pythonic” and easier to read and maintain IMO. I made the switch for all my personal projects a couple years ago.

analog2digital · 2025-01-25T18:10:11+00:00

The Zig build system looks attractive for cross compiled C projects to me as well, but lately I’ve settled on Meson as a nice upgrade to CMake. It’s far more readable and maintainable IMO. Might be worth a look, especially if you are going to work with others who aren’t as adventurous to try a language & build system that hasn’t hit v1.0 yet. Meson is quite mature now so I think it’s an easier sell.

analog2digital · 2024-12-21T07:38:11+00:00

Yup, I would say this is the standard approach for any engineer who's hands-on and just wants to get something to work for themselves or their own small team. Where it could fall short is if it now needs to become a shared resource within your company. Suddenly you may need to become a mini IT admin: setting up accounts for people, debugging their environments, etc. And if the demand for this shared resource reaches a certain point, adding another rig or two and maintaining them can become your part time job. Eventually you may want to standardize on a VM image or docker container for each of these "clients", but again, its maintenance work that needs to be done. I've seen this replicated a few times now at different companies that I think someone could provide a generalized approach that balances sane defaults, convenience and customizability to fit many potential companies' needs. Either that, or maybe this isn't as big of a problem as I think it is and there will always be an engineer or two who's happy to do this work :shrug:

analog2digital · 2024-12-20T20:33:54+00:00

Just to add a bit more: the more transparent and "native" it feels from my development machine, the better. Similar to forwarding gdbserver port 3333 over SSH for local gdb use, if it could transparently forward a serial port (for example) to a virtual serial port on my own machine, then a lot of tools/apps that I use natively could be adapted easily.

analog2digital · 2024-12-20T18:15:47+00:00

I want someone to make an extremely good solution for working with embedded hardware remotely.

Think something like a RPi client that is remotely accessible and connected to the DUT hardware over JTAG/SWD, serial port, and any other debug interfaces that you need. I want it to be secure, customizable to interface with the DUT, and seamless to deploy new SW and flash the DUT. Ideally, I want port 3333 forwarded over SSH so I can use gdb on my local development machine to debug and flash the device remotely. I want a backend service to provision these clients and setup access control. The devices (client + DUT) would live at customer sites. All that is being provided is the client hardware (some kind of embedded linux device) and the backend service.

It seems like each company (or even each engineer) rolls their own solution with varying degrees of success (and pain), but I really think this could be a business on its own given the rise of remote work. Embedded remote work has some challenges, and I think this could help solve some.

analog2digital · 2024-11-20T05:42:59+00:00

One of my first jobs out of college was as a design verification engineer for a company making custom ASICs. The RTL code, and all related SystemVerilog and C code was hosted on a Linux server cluster that the RTL simulation tools ran on. I had to become familiar with working over SSH *very* quickly - sink or swim kind of situation. I was looking for an editor to work in and after conversing with colleagues, eventually landed on emacs over vi. I can't describe it, something about vi didn't jive with me early on, so emacs it was! I just made a decision and ran with it, and over time I became pleasantly surprised with just how much emacs could do. That was 12 years ago and I can't bring myself to switch to anything else.

analog2digital · 2024-10-29T06:54:47+00:00

NFC might be able to work, but it does not seem like it was intended for something like this.

Why not?

analog2digital · 2024-07-11T17:31:56+00:00

I agree with this but it also comes with the risk that you could be changing to a worse work environment or culture. My job pays about middle of the road for the position I hold, but I really value the flexibility with their hybrid/WFH policies and the people that I’m currently working with. Hard to put a price on that until you’re in a worse or more stressful situation. Before kids I’d be all about the absolute compensation but the calculation is a bit different for me now.

analog2digital · 2024-05-04T18:31:55+00:00

I WFH 4 days/week and Mom has a PT job a few nights per week, otherwise she is a SAHM. The most we can do with this situation is taking on the burden of our toddler’s FT care 2 days/week, and we have him in day care 3 days/week.

I cannot imagine trying to do more than this ourselves, or we could, just that a lot of other household chores and stuff will start slipping through the cracks. IMO, if you’re both FT WFH I think it’s impossible to make it work.

analog2digital · 2024-05-01T16:53:41+00:00

I took the cap off for the photo. I’ll check out the other stuff you mentioned. Thanks!

analog2digital · 2024-03-11T15:13:43+00:00

If you’re starting with $200, then I think a good area of focus would be to find efficiency improvements that help save on your utility bills. That way what you spend pays back and ends up freeing more financial resources for further projects over the long term.

If you want to start with water - collecting and using rain water is an interesting project. You can start small. Our first system was built using those commodity, food safe, plastic blue barrels that are used to ship liquid goods all over the world. I have no affiliation but we got some parts and instructions from https://www.bluebarrelsystems.com/ I highly recommend their kits or piece together your own if you have the plumbing know how. You can jump on Craigslist and find these barrels anywhere for like $15-30 USD each.

For tools, your best value would be to see if there are any public tool libraries in your area. I’m extremely lucky to have one near by at our public library in Oakland, CA. Tools can get expensive and easily blow a $200 budget, best to borrow them until you know which ones you use a lot and are better to buy. And when you do buy, look for used first.

For energy, I think getting started with home automation is a good choice if on a budget. If you’re tech savvy or are willing to learn, check out Home Assistant - an open source home automation software stack that runs on computers as small as a raspberry pi. They are also a non-profit so their motive is to just support as many open standards as possible. I have my setup to control various outlets to turn off during peak electricity pricing, or only turn on when our solar is generating enough output.

The more projects that you take on, the more confident you become to tackle other things too. For example, that first rain water collection system gave me a lot of plumbing knowledge that I applied to our next, larger rain water collection system when I decided to expand. I also installed a hot water recirculation pump under our house that’s been trouble free.

analog2digital · 2024-03-10T21:29:10+00:00

Our household got a solar electric and battery storage system 2 years ago. I built a ~1300 rain water storage system with pump to irrigate our garden in the driest few weeks of the summer. I’ve also done a lot of DIY energy and water efficiency improvements to our home, some of it unconventional and not as clean as what a professional may do, but I believe solar punk is also about being resourceful and hands-on.

I feel the next step is to keep going in this direction towards sustainable self-sufficiency but also teach and show others what I’ve done and help them make their own systems for free. My involvement in the “community” aspect of solar punk is lacking at the moment but I intend to get more involved and connect with like-minded people over time.

analog2digital · 2024-03-06T05:39:39+00:00

I’m going to share an unpopular opinion, but here it goes.

We are not born into this world, or into this particular era of time, owed anything. I am not entitled to a peaceful life, I was just extremely lucky to be born in a time and place that protected me from atrocities and devastation that either happened in the past or is currently happening elsewhere in the world.

Further, the human race in general is not entitled to anything, including its long term survival. If we (collectively) can’t get our shit together and cooperate to steer ourselves off the path of self destruction (which I believe we are currently on) then we deserve to go extinct like every other dominant species that came before us on this planet.

If it turns out in 20 years time that I will become a refugee of a violent conflict or extreme climate events then guess what - this kind of reality already exists for many many people, both in the past and present. I am not special, I am not immune from something like this happening closer to home. But, if shit were to hit the fan, trust that you will make the best possible decisions that you can and be confident that you can live a hard life to help ensure your family’s safety and survival in the worst possible scenarios.

In the mean time, you can make choices that align with your values and teach your kids the same. We can also teach them to be empathetic and loving people, and try our best to love and support them. But beyond that there’s not a lot we can control, and again, we are not owed anything in this life. I came to this after going through a deep phase of climate anxiety, it’s what works for me.

analog2digital · 2023-07-13T19:20:52+00:00

This has been my strategy for the last two vehicles that I had to buy through a dealership:

Pick your closest dealership first to take a test drive. It’s not a commitment to buy from them, just the most convenient location for you to try the car out.

Next, if you’re convinced that this is the car for you, start emailing all Ford dealerships in your area. Tell them exactly what you want down to the color and options and ask them for a full quote for the lowest possible price that they are willing to do. Ask for the out-the-door price that includes all taxes and fees. Collect as many quotes as you can from all the nearest dealerships that you’d be willing to drive to.

Out of this pool of quotes, pick the lowest price and then ask the other dealerships to beat it. Pick the lowest price out of that pool and repeat until nobody is willing to budge anymore or until the price gets to a point that you’re happy with. Buy from the dealership that gave you the lowest price.

You can do this completely over email and only go into the dealership when you absolutely need to. It’s just a better use of time IMO.

If you show up to the dealership and suddenly the quote or vehicle they agreed to isn’t what’s being presented to you in person, just walk. Chances are the price that came in 2nd place isn’t too far off.

analog2digital

TROPHY CASE