kps (u/kps) - Readit News

kps commented on Start all of your commands with a comma (2009) rhodesmill.org/brandon/20... · Posted by u/theblazehen

lupire · 2 days ago

What's the difference between opt and local?

I thought was for mixin externally provided systems like Homebrew, local is for machine or org-level customizations, and ~ is for user-level customizations.

kps · 2 days ago

/opt showed up as a place for packaged software, where each package (directory) has its own bin/, lib/, man/, and so on, to keep it self-contained rather than installing its files in the main hierarchy. ~/opt is just a per-user equivalent, analogous to /usr/local vs ~/.local.

The advantage of /opt is that multi-file software stays together. The disadvantage is that PATHs get long.

kps commented on Start all of your commands with a comma (2009) rhodesmill.org/brandon/20... · Posted by u/theblazehen

impoppy · 2 days ago

Why so many people use ~/bin/? What’s wrong with ~/.local/bin?

kps · 2 days ago

Personally I use ~/opt//bin where ~/opt is a ‘one stop shop’ containing various things, including a symlink to ~/local and directories or symlinks for things that don't play well with others (e.g. cargo, go), and an ~/opt/prefer/bin that goes at the start of PATH containing symlinks to resolve naming conflicts.
(Anything that modifies standard behaviour is not in PATH, but instead a shell function present only in interactive shells, so as not to break scripts.)
Unix lore: Early unix had two-letter names for most common names to make them easy to type on crappy terminals, but no
one* letter command names because the easier were reserved for personal use.

kps commented on Exploring Different Keyboard Sensing Technologies lttlabs.com/articles/2026... · Posted by u/viraptor

eggoa · 5 days ago

This guy sells new beam-spring keyboards with optional solenoids. https://www.modelfkeyboards.com

I have never seen one in person.

kps · 5 days ago

Those are buckling spring. Beam springs are older and different.

kps commented on New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers blog.adafruit.com/2026/02... · Posted by u/ptorrone

ReptileMan · 5 days ago

Since when peroxiacetone requires NAOH?

kps · 5 days ago

The other kind of drain opener.

kps commented on X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok bbc.com/news/articles/ce3... · Posted by u/vikaveri

niemandhier · 5 days ago

Gather evidence against employees, use that evidence to put them under pressure to testify against their employer or grant access to evidence.

Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care.

That was legal. Guess what, similar things would be legal in France.

We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Western liberal democracies just rarely use it.

The same way the president of the USA can order a Drone strike on a Taliban war lord, the president of France could order Musks plane to be escorted to Paris by 3 Fighter jets.

kps · 5 days ago

> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power.

Elon has ICBMs, but France has warheads.

kps commented on New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers blog.adafruit.com/2026/02... · Posted by u/ptorrone

harrisi · 6 days ago

Should flour, yeast, water, and ovens be banned, and only commercial bakeries be allowed to make bread?

I know guns are different. There are also an enormous amount of ways to cause harm. I personally think that, ideally, nobody should have guns. That's not the world we live in, though. A political government body should not infringe on privacy of individuals because some small percentage may cause harm.

I can make a sword, grow poisonous plants, isolate toxins, or stab someone with a pencil. I do not. I shouldn't be punished for the idea that other people may.

kps · 6 days ago

You can buy a thing for your fingernails, a thing for your hair, and a thing for your drains, and put them together to hurt a lot of people (though likely and ideally only yourself), but those things are not banned.

kps commented on Best Gas Masks theverge.com/policy/86857... · Posted by u/cdrnsf

numpad0 · 7 days ago

Put aside politics and anti-tear gas use cases: everyone should just have a full face gas mask for all hacker-ish activities, like painting. Skip half-face, go for full face. Half face models don't just leave eyes exposed but hurts the back of the neck. Maybe I'm wearing it wrong, but the headstrap for full face is much more comfortable. They also seal a lot better.

More random tidbits: You'd semi-obviously want a sacrificial wrap over the mask if you're painting, as well as few spare cartridges. There are particulate filters that are just regular paper masks, organic vapor cans for painting, and couple of acid cans for toxic gases. DYOR and use the right one for the task. Particulate filters go on top of gas cans on the iconic 3M 6000 series masks; it's not integrated to the can. The cans also technically only last few hours after opening the package, so technically you should be replacing twice daily. They also can't protect against large amounts of toxic substances like videogame thick green vapors of alien weapons, only what's somewhat casually filtered. In e.g. inside an active volcano, go for full scuba or something that don't rely on filtering. The reason why some masks use pair of cans as opposed to one can, is just for easier breathing. The performance on paper is the same; you can seal off one port with something if you want. The improvement is maybe not negligible, but you get used to breathing through masks quickly anyway. The mini mask that covers mouth and nose inside a full face mask exists to help clear condensation by forcing you to breathe in fresh air around its front surface and force exhalation through the exhaust valve. Removing it will steam up the shield. The air drawn in is filtered, but exhaust is not; if the wearer is infected with something, the mask won't help stop the spread.

TL;DR: gas masks is its own mini rabbit hole.

kps · 7 days ago

> everyone should just have a full face gas mask for all hacker-ish activities, like painting

Not everyone who wears eyeglasses, unless you're prepared to add another several hundred dollars for the lens holder and set of prescription lenses.

I do have the 3M 6800 full face respirator but almost never use it. The silicone 7xxx series is much more comfortable than the rubber 6xxx series, and the 750x silicone half mask is reasonably priced. Augment with comfortable googles as necessary (vented ones work for me since I'm painting, not rioting).

kps commented on Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign theregister.com/2026/01/3... · Posted by u/breve

bigbadfeline · 8 days ago

These drones have cameras, it's a matter of time before they "share" footage... basically becoming robo-cops, traffic edition - this might be of interest to your coworker.

kps · 8 days ago

I want to work on artificial road rage. It'd be fun. Don't forget, if you cut off one Waymo, you've cut off every Waymo.

kps commented on How to choose colors for your CLI applications (2023) blog.xoria.org/terminal-c... · Posted by u/kruuuder

skydhash · 11 days ago

I dislike when devs only try to detect if it’s a tty, then enable all their gimmicks without even providing a flag. Not everything is xterm-256color.

kps · 10 days ago

And not everything that calls itself xterm-256color is actually xterm compatible *cough* GNOME *cough*.

kps commented on How to choose colors for your CLI applications (2023) blog.xoria.org/terminal-c... · Posted by u/kruuuder

jph · 11 days ago

If you want a quick easy way to add some colors to your own shell scripts:

    export STDOUT_COLOR_START='[34m'
    export STDOUT_COLOR_STOP='[0m'
    export STDERR_COLOR_START='[31m'
    export STDERR_COLOR_STOP='[0m'

In your shell script:

    print_stdout() {
        printf %s%s%s\\n "${STDOUT_COLOR_START:-}" "$*" "${STDOUT_COLOR_STOP:-}"
    }

    print_stderr() {
        >&2 printf %s%s%s\\n "${STDERR_COLOR_START:-}" "$*" "${STDERR_COLOR_STOP:-}"
    }

Source: https://github.com/sixarm/unix-shell-script-kit

The source also has functions for nocolor, and detecting a dumb terminal setup that doesn't use colors, etc.

kps · 10 days ago

1. That script's color check doesn't check that the output is a terminal. Also test

    tty -s

2. Don't hardcode escape sequences. Use (e.g.)

    export STDOUT_COLOR_START="`tput setaf 4`".