it is possible to rigorously say that 1/0 = ∞. this is commonly occurs in complex analysis when you look at things as being defined on the Riemann sphere instead of the complex plane. thinking of things as taking place on a sphere also helps to avoid the “positive”/“negative” problem: as |x| shrinks, 1 / |x| increases, so you eventually reach the top of the sphere, which is the point at infinity.

what’s the appeal of haskell? (this is a genuine question.) i’ve been a bit curious about it for a while but haven’t really found the motivation to take a closer look at it.

i would like to give it another try at some point because it seems like it will probably feel really nice to use once i get the hang of it. but the lack of documentation is pretty rough.

i also think that for nixos, a lack of documentation is a much more difficult thing to overcome. other distros can piggyback off the arch documentation for most things, but that doesn’t work as well for nixos.

i think i would’ve probably had to package the specific kind of vim that i needed, because i wanted neovim and a gui too or something. this was also like 3-4 years ago so its possible the documentation for this kind of stuff has considerably improved since i tried, or that there are now packages that make this sort of thing easier. and it’s definitely possible everything existed at the time and i just couldn’t figure it out.

but i ended up with a similar feeling to the one you described: stuff is easy when you do it their way, using their tools; but things are very hard to do if you deviate from the path.

i know this is just sort of an inevitable part of the design paradigm they use, and that everything probably works very nicely if you learn their language and the various ins and outs of the operating system, but i just wasn’t willing to commit that much to it.

not to mention how many things they want to go through their system. getting vim set up “their way” while also trying to install python3 support, vimtex, and plug-vim was almost impossible. not to mention finding a way to store the vim configs separately from the rest of nixos. (i use vim on multiple operating systems so switching everything to the nixos wasn’t a viable option.)

maybe there was a better way to do it that i didn’t know about, but boy did i try to find it.

back in my day we only had one language. it was called ASSEMBLY. wanted to make the computer do something? you had to ask it yourself. and that worked JUST FINE

if you’re trying to be malicious, wouldn’t it be better to multiply by Rand() instead of divide by Rand()?

assuming there are a decent number of recorded sales, you’d end up seeing many of the calls to Rand() returning values very close to 0. so, if you’re dividing by those values, you’d end see lots of sales records reporting values in the thousands, millions, or even billions of dollars. i feel like that screams “software bug” more than anything. on the other hand, seeing lots of values multiplied by values close to 0 would certainly look weird, but it wouldn’t be as immediately suspicious.

(of course a better thing would just be to use Rand() on a range other than [0,1])

you could also bring a regular keyboard and try to plug it in when the cashier isn’t looking. i’m sure that will go over well

it seems like you’re blaming all of societies problems on technology. surely there must be more to it than that, right? the lack of fitness for example may be due to increasing grocery costs, the rise of fast food, the cost of living crises, and/or many other economical/sociological factors.

i just really don’t understand your argument here. you’re conflating the concept of “privacy” (the original topic of the conversation) with “all of our gadgets” and the effects of those gadgets. i don’t see anything in your comment that’s related to privacy.

and do you honestly think you’ll find more meaning by living in the woods? if so, why haven’t you done it?

what do you mean by free? if total privacy means i can’t have a phone or talk to most people then does that really make me more free?

i agree that privacy is important, but i think this is fundamentally a legislative problem. there’s only so much that can be done at the individual level without making massive sacrifices and dedicating a serious amount of time to it. i have a vpn, i use content blockers, etc. but i think its too simplistic to say more privacy = more free.

one of the other commenters mentioned the thing about having someone looking in while you’re watching tv. but if the only solution is to go live in the woods, is it really worth it?

this was very comforting to read

But it is, of course, possible to write a (much more readable) version that will work in Fish.

the gentleman hacker

they have a history of Thinking Differently about backwards compatibility. it’s just like the headphone jack all over again

god forbid you ever want to run any 32 bit programs. you can’t even play the orange box games anymore

that’s why sleep(500)/linux uses bad sleep

adjunction space moment

i’m partial to the more relaxing sleep(500)/linux os, but to each their own