matrss (u/matrss) - Readit News

matrss commented on Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User nemin.hu/guix.html... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

diarrhea · 9 days ago

I have been using nixos-rebuild with target host and it has been totally fine.

The only thing I have not solved is password-protected sudo on the target host. I deploy using a dedicated user, which has passwordless sudo set up to work. Seems like a necessary evil.

matrss · 8 days ago

> I deploy using a dedicated user, which has passwordless sudo set up to work.

IMO there is no point in doing that over just using root, maybe unless you have multiple administrators and do it for audit purposes.

Anyway, what you can do is have a dedicated deployment key that is only allowed to execute a subset of commands (via the command= option in authorized_keys). I've used it to only allow starting the nixos-upgrade.service (and some other not necessarily required things), which then pulls updates from a predefined location.

matrss commented on Apt-bundle: brew bundle for apt github.com/apt-bundle/apt... · Posted by u/sadeshmukh

curt15 · 11 days ago

Brew got one thing right that no Linux package manager seems to emulate: it doesn't require root for normal operations and even goes so far as to error out if running as root (https://docs.brew.sh/FAQ#why-does-homebrew-say-sudo-is-bad).

matrss · 11 days ago

Brew _is_ a linux package manager.

There is also conda/mamba/pixi/etc. (anything in the conda-forge ecosystem) that can be used without root. Then there are Guix and nix, which (mostly) require to be set up by someone with root privileges, but which then allow unprivileged users to install packages for themselves. I think I have even used emerge rootless-ly at some point a few years ago.

matrss commented on CD Projekt issue DMCA takedown notice against popular Cyberpunk VR mod patreon.com/posts/another... · Posted by u/wjdp

exegete · 21 days ago

AFAIK DMCA is such a strong law that you just have to circumvent any kind of access mechanism to violate it. I’m not a lawyer.

“No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

“to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;”

I’m not sure how modding works in the case but usually this is why companies can come after folks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention

matrss · 21 days ago

> “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

This wording always bothers me. If a person were to circumvent a technological measure that tries to control such access, then the circumvention itself proves that this measure was not effective at doing what it is supposed to be doing. Therefore the person is not circumventing something that _effectively_ controls anything. They just showed that it is ineffective, and therefore the law does not apply to them.

Of course, no one who actually has to interpret these laws shares my opinion.

matrss commented on Provenance Is the New Version Control aicoding.leaflet.pub/3mcb... · Posted by u/gpi

charcircuit · a month ago

A prompt is for the AI to follow. C is for the computer to follow. I don't want to play games with definitions anymore, so I am no longer going to reply if you continue to drill down and nitpick about exact definitions.

matrss · a month ago

If you don't want to argue about definitions, then I'd recommend you don't start arguments about definitions.

"AI" is not special-sauce. LLMs are transformations that map an input (a prompt) to some output (in this case the implementation of a specification used as a prompt). Likewise, a C compiler is a transformation that maps an input (C code) to some output (an executable program). Currently the big difference between the two is that LLMs are usually probabilistic and non-deterministic. Their output for the same prompt can change wildly in-between invocations. C compilers on the other hand usually have the property that their output is deterministic, or at least functionally equivalent for independent invocation with the same input. This might be the most important property that a compiler has to have, together with "the generated program does what the code told it to do".

Now, if multiple invocations of a LLM were to reliably produce functionally equivalent implementations of a specification as long as the specification doesn't change (and assuming that this generated implementation does actually implement the specification), then how does the LLM differ from a compiler? If it does not fundamentally differ from a compiler, then why should the specification not be called code?

matrss commented on Provenance Is the New Version Control aicoding.leaflet.pub/3mcb... · Posted by u/gpi

charcircuit · a month ago

Code is defined as:

>noun A system of symbols and rules used to represent instructions to a computer; a computer program.

In the other hand the prompt is for the AI. It's not meant for instructions to a computer.

matrss · a month ago

So, Prolog is not code then?

> Except you can't run english on your computer.

I can't run C on it either, without translating it to machine code first. Is C code?

matrss commented on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn theocharis.dev/blog/kidna... · Posted by u/JeremyTheo

ernst_klim · a month ago

That's ridiculous. DB is not even trying to become profitable, not is there any evidence that it's sole shareholder, aka the government, sets it as a target.

matrss · a month ago

Well apparently they have been somewhat profitable from 2016 to 2019, and they have been paying a dividend to the state more often than not. I don't think their goal is actively loosing money?

matrss commented on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn theocharis.dev/blog/kidna... · Posted by u/JeremyTheo

apexalpha · a month ago

>The DB AG has been specifically founded to be "market-oriented" and profit-making, so yes, it is true.

Again, if the shareholders decide this is the reason: yes.

But shareholders can just as easily set other targets or incentives.

>I guess it is also harder to market "let's subsidize this private company with tax payer money so they can continue to offer mediocre service" to voters,

The government owns DB AG, it is not a private company. It is a public company.

matrss · a month ago

> The government owns DB AG, it is not a private company. It is a public company.

It is a private company, as in it is a legal entity under private law. This is in contrast to a "öffentlich-rechtliches Unternehmen" (I don't know if this even has a proper translation or equivalent in other jurisdictions). There is more than two options here, it can be both privatized and public according to your definition.

matrss commented on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn theocharis.dev/blog/kidna... · Posted by u/JeremyTheo

thesimon · a month ago

> They are forced to (at least try to) make a profit for their shareholders [...]

Not true. Shareholder primacy is not as huge as in Delaware.

And in the end it's the government that owns all shares and thus can decide how much profit the company should make.

matrss · a month ago

Just because it is even more true elsewhere does not mean it is untrue here.

matrss commented on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn theocharis.dev/blog/kidna... · Posted by u/JeremyTheo

apexalpha · a month ago

> They are forced to (at least try to) make a profit for their shareholders,

This is not true at all.

The shareholders set the targets and since the shareholder is the government they can set any target they want: profitability, more trains, cheaper tickets etc..

If the shareholder wants to inject 10% every year in stead of taking a profit they are absolutely free to do so.

matrss · a month ago

The DB AG has been specifically founded to be "market-oriented" and profit-making, so yes, it is true.

I am sure the state could try to do _something_ about it, but I am also sure that a very strong car lobby here in Germany is working against that. BTW, the road network, which I would consider to conceptually be the same kind of infrastructure as the rail network, is to my understanding mostly built and maintained by state organizations, so it is possible to do it that way.

I guess it is also harder to market "let's subsidize this private company with tax payer money so they can continue to offer mediocre service" to voters, compared to "let's use tax payer money to build and maintain one-of-a-kind critical infrastructure from which everyone (with a car, which due to the less-than-great alternatives is a lot of people) can profit".

Again, having it organized as a private company adds indirection, diffuses power and responsibility, and adds a certain more or less implicit expectation of what private companies are supposed to do. That's my main issue with it. Private companies aren't supposed to run critical infrastructure as a monopoly for profit. It's the states job to provide and maintain critical infrastructure in the interest of all.

matrss commented on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn theocharis.dev/blog/kidna... · Posted by u/JeremyTheo

Zufriedenheit · a month ago

DB is not privatized. It is 100% owned by the state.

matrss · a month ago

DB has been reorganized as an AG in the 90s, i.e. a corporation under private law. They are forced to (at least try to) make a profit for their shareholders, which is a common trait of private organizations. They consistently do so via short-sighted (mis-)management, another common trait with many private organizations. This privatized corporation is indeed fully owned by the state as its only shareholder, but unfortunately that doesn't manifest in the DB being run as the critical infrastructure that it is. I suspect that the indirections in power over the corporation that the privatized structure imposes is a key reason for why it became such a disaster.