Not a lot of updates on the CMS project. Some progress but nothing major to report on. Lost some time due to retooling my work setup, as we'll get into.

Livestream & last archived video

I will be streaming live today on my YouTube at 15.00 CET today. I haven't entirely decided the topic, considering PETAL but that might need more prep, will it out before lunch. So the reason I'm going to try streaming via YouTube instead is that they will allow me to stream in 1080p, they will transcode which is more convenient for the recipient and I believe they will do it all with less latency. With the new machine (again, more on that further down) I'll be recording to a local file while streaming so a full 1080p will be on my site afterwards regardless. In the end I'd like to set up live streaming without them in the middle, but all in due time.

Previous livestream where we built a stream overlay for the stream where we track lines-of-code diffs as I code is up on the site and YouTube. Probably the best video so far with quality settings and such.

Announcement!

Oh right! I launched a new podcast! It is called Regular Programming and found at regprog.com.
So me and my good friend Andreas who is also a developer and probably the person that helped my transition from PHP to Python the most many years ago have put together a podcast where we talk widely and generally about programming. The first one is About Javascript and if you've followed my stuff you know that's a nuanced topic for me. We go at it, and talk, lots.

Please give it a shot in your favorite podcast client, let me know if you like it. We will likely launch another episode next week and then do every two weeks, we have a few episodes buffered, all timeless topics. Then depending on how much time we can unlock for my editor/wife we'll see what the going rate is going to be. I'd like to land at bi-weekly but we might have to do monthly while the little one is still wild.

And one more thing

Also on the blog and the YouTube channel. A new series was started. Teaching Elixir starts at this video covering the very basics. So the goal here is to take an enthusiastic programmer friend (same Andreas as the above podcast) who doesn't know Elixir and then I teach him Elixir by us going through Elixir School in Livebook. The first episode is almost insultingly simple due to only covering some numbers, atoms and strings. Hopefully it's enjoyable anyway. The plan is to do these as brief, sweet and weekly episodes using the Elixir School curriculum.

So I mentioned the Mac was losing me

(On Linux) It's a great big mess for elitist, nerdy shmucks.
- Every OS Sucks by TDTiaB

I love Linux. I've used it for long periods of time as my main desktop, my main work environment and in other ways. Also plenty of servers.

The day I got my Mid-2009 MacBook Pro though, that was something. That was a heck of a machine that served well for at least 7 years and the OS experience generally beat anything I'd manage to stitch together on Linux. So when I wrote that the Mac is losing me it isn't without frustration. I'll likely remain a Mac user for laptop use. But I've followed through on getting a monstrous machine together for desktop purposes and I'm glad to revisit daily desktop Linux for the first time in a while now.

Desktop Linux is ages better than what it was when I did Slackware in my teens. But for mixed advanced usage I think the Mac strikes an easier balance. If you do multimedia, some streaming, some recording, the Audio/Video situation on Mac is much more reliable. If I wasn't doing somewhat advanced power-user stuff I don't think I'd have had a single issue except for installing a working Zoom. I think the official PPA failed but the Pop_OS! Flatpak is working.

Ironically the applications that are the most trouble are the big name bullshit apps I'm not even happy about needing to use or the way they work. Zoom, Slack, Discord and all. Haven't even looked for Teams. Hope that sucker works in the browser. Thankfully that one is minimal use for me (one client, occasionally).

So what machine did I get? I was trying to hold out for a Zen 3 Threadripper but with my new streaming habit I didn't want to wait and hope on the August 2021 rumor, especially with all the shortages. So when I heard a new batch of Ryzen 5950X was in I went for that. Everything was on recommendation from my cousin who follows hardware. I'm a filthy casual and just watch Linus Tech Tips sometimes for fun. I don't want to dwell on motherboard IO performance or listen to the deep parts of a Gamers Nexus review.

64 Gigs RAM, a spicy NVMe, M.2 drive at 1 Terabyte for OS and storage. An intermediate 2 Tb SSD for stuff and an 8 Tb spinning metal disk for cold storage. Stole a GPU from our home theatre PC because you can't get those anymore (wtf).

The only thing that could come close to this raw performance and storage in the Mac lineup is the Mac Pro. And it is absurdly expensive, before you put components in. I will say, Apple has been doing good stuff with the Mac recently, I'm glad to see it. I won't be holding my breath for this type of machine though.

What am I running on it? So I hinted at Pop_OS! by System76 already. Yeah, that one. So they built on Ubuntu and have essentially dialed back all the places I feel Canonical tends to overreach (Snap and pushing services) and they seem to have their values in line with my desires. I tried the default DE (desktop environment) for a bit, it was fine. A bit too much GNOME 3 for me. So now I'm giving Regolith a shake and liking it. So that's i3 tiling window manager and GNOME tooling as buddies. I'm happy to be on an Ubuntu derivative, I'm an old Debian user and feel comfortable with that. If I was going to stretch myself more I'd try Nix probably or the friendlier variant of Arch that I don't remember the name of.

I've compiled a few Erlangs already (got 23 and a 24 RC using asdf) and I feel like it is roughly 10x the speed of my touchbar MBP and it doesn't get loud about it. Looking forward to running more Dialyzer with it :)

I try not to be a fanboy of my technologies. I'm way into Elixir, clearly, I'm enthusiastic but hopefully not entirely without nuance. And as far as OS:es go..

I enjoy a lot of the Apple stuff but I don't particularly like the company and don't trust them to do the things I want. But if you want to see a company that makes opinionated calls and knows how to market things, keep an eye on them.

I like Linux but don't particularly trust that it will work flawlessly for me and wouldn't say it is great for everyone.

I use Windows primarily for gaming but have used it for dev work last year while it was the most practical option in the middle of a house renovation. But I thought it sucked in several ways and I find the ads and nags across the OS repulsive.

I try to be pragmatic and don't plan to be any kind of Linux zealot. My mix is wild. I have two Windows machines at home, an M1 Mac Mini, an Intel MBP and this new Linux monster machine in the office, a sprinkling of Raspberry Pis and an Android phone which I'm considering switching out. I use all of it a decent bit. Except the M1, so far.

But you know what, relearning key bindings aside, it also feels like coming home. I know what I can expect to work and what I can't. I know this terminal and how it works. I know how to fix things, mostly. I'm liking the experience so far and I really hope it will live up to being a really good daily driver for me.

If you have questions you can email lars@underjord.io or start a conversation on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading this. I appreciate your attention.

- Lars Wikman