codekobold's microblog

Hello, I'm user codekobold :)

I like software that sparks joy, tabletop role-playing games and learning new things.
I also like the idea of a little community that shares a Linux server!

My home on the web is codekobold.io. This place here is where I ramble about small things.
This is also an exercise in minimalism. A single hand-written file, including the CSS.

If you have comments or suggestions or just want to chat I hang out at #ctrl-c on ctrl-c.tilde.chat. Or feel free to send me an email at codekobold@ctrl-c.club.

2023-11-04 — quickly playing youtube music and videos from the terminal

I found out about ytfzf a few days ago and I immediately threw out my old bash script that was trying to do something similar.

Here is how I put on music while I code now:

		ytfzf -m -a lofi hip hop radio beats
	

Similarly, for chill fantasy ambience when I prepare a D&D session:

		ytfzf -m -r lotr lofi
	

2023-10-19 — celebrating 30 days of Botany!

botany is a chill multiplayer gardening game in the terminal. Several people on ^C play it.

My "uncommon violet flowering ficus" just turned 30 today, so here it is in all its glory:

         	 &*&\/& *&&
                  &\|,/  |/& *&
                   *&/   /  /_&& &&
                     \  {  |_____/_*
                     {* / /   &  &   *&&
                     `, \{___________/_*&
                      } }{  *\____&
                      }{{     `&\*&
                     {}{         &&
          .  , , -=-~{ .-^- _ _ .
		

2023-10-18 — venturing out of my comfort zone

I started a new job. Still scientific software engineering, but in a different research field. And with a private start-up rather than a more academic research organization.

The work is familiar enough that I could be productive from the first week, but it's just enough outside of my comfort zone that I am picking up so, so many new things! It's been a breath of fresh air.

Some of the new software engineering ideas and tools I picked up so far:

• stacked pull requests via Graphite as a setup that makes life simpler for reviewers
• Bazel rather than CMake as a build system
• Abseil as a useful complement to the C++ standard library
• Protobuf for data serialization
• I got to play with clang-tidy much more than before
• I got to use Linux perf in new contexts, so I learned a few new tricks
• last but not least, Firefox containers to juggle different email and GitHub accounts

2023-10-16 — ytfzf opens youtube videos from your terminal

2023-10-13 — Things people should not code without

These are not small things, rather tools that made my life a lot simpler, that actually made me happier. Bit of an opinionated list, based on the type of coding I do, but I still hope it can be useful, or an interesting discussion starter:

• a code editor that gives you at least: go-to-definition, go-to-symbol, semantic autocompletion and a file switcher with fuzzy search
• a linter setup (e.g. clangd for C++ or ruff for Python) that checks code as you type; you can get this set up on a terminal editor like vim too, it's not an IDE exclusive; e.g. these days my daily driver is helix
• a git prompt for your terminal that tells you the state of the git repository you are working on at a glance (or if you work in an IDE, the equivalent for you IDE status bar); you want to know what branch you are on, whether you have unstaged/uncommitted/stashed changes at a glance
• a good way to look at git logs, for example my git lao alias runs log --color --abbrev-commit --graph --decorate --oneline --all (try it out!)
• a working debugging setup (for C++ and Python), ideally not the barebones gdb and pdb but something like gdb-dashboard and ipdb, with nice, syntax-highlighted code listing, pretty printing of variables, etc.
• if you live in the terminal like me: smart command autocompletion, fuzzy search of past commands, infinite scrollback; my shell of choice is fish but you can do the same with a well-modded zsh or even bash
• also for the terminal: autojump to fly around instead of walking the file system

2023-10-08 — Wizard Zines

https://wizardzines.com was recently brought to my attention. I think it's a great learning resource for Linux novices as well as veterans that want to fill some knowledge gaps.

2023-09-28 — C++ pet peeve #83

auto y = std::move(x) can silently copy x instead of moving it into y (for example if x is const). I understand the technical reason, but it's a bad reason.

2023-09-27 — Starting a Python project in 2023

Wow, Python project management changed a lot since the last time I set up a repository from scratch, 4 or 5 years ago.

• setup.py is finally dead and pyproject.toml is the blessed main configuration file
• linting, formatting and sanity checks of any sort are taken care of by pre-commit, which typically calls into other tools like ruff (a fast and feature-complete Python linter written in Rust), black (the de-facto standard opinionated code formatting tool) and mypy (for type checking)
• dependency management, versioning, packaging and publishing to PyPi are nicely taken care of by tools like hatch that make it a breeze to set up a new project
• working in virtual environments was the best practice already a few years ago, but now they are nicely integrated in the workflow, e.g. hatch shell starts a new terminal shell in an environment that Hatch makes sure has all project dependencies installed

2023-09-25 — New tetris-bsd high score

At the time of writing, I own the server's record at tetris-bsd. Your move, Ctrl-C!

2023-09-24 — Playing tetris-bsd

I have been playing tetris-bsd on the server to relieve stress -- I'm getting there, protodrew! :)
I only played two or three sessions of around one hour each, but I came up with simple strategies. I'm not sure they are optimal, I would love to hear yours.

I like filling the sides first, making sure I don't leave tall gaps there that could only be filled with a straight piece. Then there is a lot of managing the general structure of the floor: you want it to be just a bit uneven, so most pieces will have a position in which they fit. Lastly, to get the highest score possible you want to pick the right level: too high, and you lose too soon, too low and it takes too long to score enough points. My current record is with level 3 but I'll probably try 4 next.

2023-09-22 — Be more bloggy

• Delved more into JAX. It's really nicely designed, and so good at what it does.
• Functionally procrastinated writing a motivational letter for a job application.

2023-09-21 — Kagi, a search engine that loves the small web

• Cleaned up the CSS for this page. Looks much nicer :)
• Signed up for Kagi's free trial. Liking it so far. I appreciate their attention to the small web.
• Check out kagi.com/smallweb for recent posts from random, curated personal blogs.

2023-09-20

• Learned a bunch of stuff about automatic differentiation. It's ok once it clicks.
• Had a three-hour CMake debugging session. CMake is a dumpster fire.

2023-09-19

• I finally figured out how to water Asara's plants at https://ctrl-c.club/~Asara!
• I also managed to connect to tilde.chat. irssi did not work for some reason, weechat does.

2023-09-16

Eco-anxiety is a thing. Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries | science.org.

2023-09-15 — Pentesting is fun

Started looking a bit into pentesting and reverse engineering, it's a fun world.
For now I'm using hackthebox.com to learn, but I'm open to suggestions!

2023-09-04

Back from vacation. I can feel the stress already getting back to uncomfortable levels, but that's just the first impact. I will get used to the routine again.

2023-08-22

Started this micro-blog.

2023-08-22

Finally enjoying a little bit of vacation. Escaped from crowded, scalding hot beaches to our little b&b up the hill, where there is silence and a gentle breeze.

ctrl-c.club