quag (u/quag) - Readit News

quag commented on Self-hosting my photos with Immich michael.stapelberg.ch/pos... · Posted by u/birdculture

kalaksi · 9 days ago

I'm running NixOS on some of my hosts, but I still don't fully commit to configuring everything with nix, just the base system, and I prefer docker-compose for the actual services. I do it similarly with Debian hosts using cloud-init (nix is a lot better, though).

The reason is that I want to keep the services in a portable/distro-agnostic format and decoupled from the base system, so I'm not tied too much to a single distro and can manage them separately.

quag · 9 days ago

How do you update the software in the containers when new versions come out or vulnerabilities are actively being exploited?

My understanding is that when using containers updating is an ordeal and you avoid the need my never exposing the services to the internet.

quag commented on Celtic Code: Drawing knots with Python 2earth.github.io/website/... · Posted by u/HansardExpert

velcrovan · a month ago

The linked article references George Bain’s book on Celtic knotwork construction methods, but his son Ian Bain actually found a much, much better method, and argues convincingly that this, not his father’s, was the method used by medieval Celtic illustrators. Ian’s method more easily produces consistent rope widths (when done by hand), and addresses the issue of how to soften these angular turns which ruin the rope effect and produce a robotic grid.

The book is out of print now but it looks like you can borrow it on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/celticknotwork0000bain/mode/2up

quag · a month ago

Thank you! I’ll have to take a look.

quag commented on Statistical Physics with R: Ising Model with Monte Carlo github.com/msuzen/isingLe... · Posted by u/northlondoner

DrNosferatu · 3 months ago

Anyone can recommend a good and straightforward to understand -- general -- tutorial or book in Monte Carlo methods, for beginners?

quag · 3 months ago

I recommend starting here: https://youtu.be/nKCT-Cdk0xY

Once you understand and use this approach, you can figure out most other approaches you need to use.

quag commented on Bi-directional accountability: A leadership shift most organizations avoid alnewkirk.com/bidirection... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

alnewkirkcom · 4 months ago

"Collaborate by Contract" (CBC) is my framework; it's new, and I'm publishing it piece by piece. It's not an "industry standard" yet, but it's more than theory: it's how I've learned to get execution discipline in teams where vague goals and shifting priorities are the default. It doesn't need to be practiced by the entire org; as with any other type of agreement, you just need two willing participants.

At the simplest level:

A CBC agreement is a short written contract between leaders and reports. Ideally, person to person, but leader and team is fine too. It defines the objective, deliverables, dependencies, expectations, and outcomes (i.e., success criteria). Work doesn't start until all parties agree.

A journal of contracts is just the running log of those agreements. Think of it as the team/dept/org's public ledger, what was agreed, by whom, when, and why, and ideally the artifact captures the negotiations and tradeoffs made to arrive at the final agreement. Patterns show up quickly (who delivers, who misses, where scope creep hides). This makes performance reviews objective and enables meritocracy.

Okay, things change, and sometimes new info emerges: agreements aren't stone tablets. So, agreements might include predefined checkpoints or "if/then" clauses. Instead of pretending we never change, CBC forces us to renegotiate in daylight, with both sides explicit about the cost of changing.

What leaders commit to: clarity, timely decisions, and removing dependencies. If a leader misses their side, say they don't secure the promised resource or they blow their own deadline, that's a contract miss just like an IC failing to deliver code. Also, by signing the agreement, the leader is sayin,g "I agree with this plan/strategy." In CBC, credibility runs both ways.

It's early, and I'm still publishing examples and tooling. But the premise is simple: if you can't write it down, negotiate it, and sign it, it's not really a commitment, it's just vibes.

Also, no, it's not Waterfall, because it's more about documenting "expectations" and "outcomes" than about specifying particular work activities.

cc quag

quag · 3 months ago

Thank you for the description of CBC.

I'm curious about it and your thinking on how to track things over time and see what has surprised us since we got started. It is useful to note down every time you (or your team) sets an expectation with someone (or another team) and then make sure you don't forget about that. It's also useful to be deliberate when setting expectations.

Having a public journal could well work for noting down when expectations are set and whenever there is a meeting of minds. I've found when tracking things like this that the amount of data can quickly grow to the point where you can no longer quickly and easily reason about it. The success seems to live and die on the data visualization or UI/UX.

quag commented on Bi-directional accountability: A leadership shift most organizations avoid alnewkirk.com/bidirection... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

nobodyandproud · 3 months ago

What don’t you understand?

quag · 3 months ago

Ok, I'll bite. From the article I can't really figure out what collaborating by contract (CBC) is, how it works in practice or how to introduce it to an organization.

A search in Google for "Collaborate by contract" gives three results, all from the same person, all in the last few weeks. Including this new article it's 1776 words in total on CBC. It doesn't seem to be real or something that has been tried out in an organization. It appears to be Al Newkirk's idea for a system that could work, but has not been tried.

Specifically, I'd like to see an example of a contract and who agrees to it; what the journal of contracts looks like; what happens when after an agreement everyone learns something that they didn't know when the agreements were made; what are the leaders committing to and what happens when they fail to deliver that?

Links found on CBC: https://www.alnewkirk.com/bidirectional-accountability/ https://www.alnewkirk.com/understanding-collaborate-by-contr... https://www.alnewkirk.com/maybe-its-time-to-change-the-way-w... https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/1n04s5z/comme...

quag commented on Ask HN: What to learn for math for modeling? · Posted by u/shivajikobardan

quag · 4 months ago

It sounds like you've got something specific in mind when you say, "modeling". The term modeling is used in a lot of different situations to mean different things. For example, it could mean to make a 3d model in Blender, it could mean to pose for someone to paint you or to take a photo, with databases it's used to mean modeling the data, with statistics it's used to mean finding a way to simply represent and reason about the data (create a model of it).

The things you've listed out make me guess you want to write 2d or 3d image rendering software. Is that right?

If that's the case, there's no substitute for trying to recreate certain algorithms or curves using a language or tool that you're comfortable with. It'll help you build an intuition about how the mathematical object behaves and what problems it solves (and doesn't). All of these approaches were created to solve problems, understanding the theory of it doesn't quite get you there. If you don't have a good place to try out functions, I recommend https://thebookofshaders.com/05/ , https://www.desmos.com/calculator , or https://www.geogebra.org/calculator .

A good place to start is linear interpolation (lerp). It seems dead simple, but it's used extensively to blend two things together (say positions or colors) and the other things you listed are mostly fancier things built on top of linear interpolation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_interpolation

For bezier curves and surfaces here are some links I've collected over the years: https://ciechanow.ski/curves-and-surfaces/https://pomax.github.io/bezierinfo/https://blog.pkh.me/p/33-deconstructing-be%CC%81zier-curves....http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=730 https://kynd.github.io/p5sketches/drawings.html https://raphlinus.github.io/graphics/curves/2019/12/23/flatt...

A final note: a lot of graphics math involves algebra. Algebra can be fun, but it also can be frustrating and tedious, particularly when you're working through something large and make a silly mistake and the result doesn't work. I suggest using sympy to rearrange equations or do substitutions and so on. It can seem like overkill but as soon as you save a few hours debugging it's worth it. It also does differentiation and integration for you along with simplifying equations.

https://docs.sympy.org/latest/tutorials/intro-tutorial/intro...

quag commented on Airbrush art of the 80s (2015) coolandcollected.com/airb... · Posted by u/Michelangelo11

kevin_thibedeau · 4 months ago

Also worth seeing the chrome video effects from the Scanimate analog computer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WYf2RxUJE

quag · 4 months ago

Thanks for that! Here is a longer video about the scanimate, including demos of a currently working machine and an interview with an operator and an engineer.

https://youtu.be/i1aT_CqhyQs

quag commented on H-1B program grew 81 percent from 2011 to 2022 twitter.com/USTechWorkers... · Posted by u/DonnyV

laretluval · 5 months ago

While I disagree with GP’s premise, there’s no sense in which H1B visa holders are American. It’s a nonimmigrant visa. They are required to specifically disavow any intention of becoming Americans or else the visa can be revoked.

quag · 5 months ago

Yes and no. The H-1B visa is "dual intent" [1] and you are allowed to apply for and receive a green card (permanent resident card) while on an H-1B. After 5 years with permanent residence you can apply for citizenship. It is a common path, and the intention for the majority of people on an H-1B visa.

[1]: https://isss.temple.edu/faculty-staff-and-researchers/intern...

quag commented on Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account theverge.com/news/638967/... · Posted by u/nickthegreek

hippich · 9 months ago

Can you fully use MacBook (install apps, updates) without online account?

quag · 9 months ago

Yes. Most MacBooks used in businesses don’t have an iCloud account associated with them. The store doesn’t work, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Downloading and installing applications by dragging them from the installer to the Applications folder works fine.

quag commented on Recommendations for designing magic numbers of binary file formats hackers.town/@zwol/114155... · Posted by u/_Microft

RustyRussell · 9 months ago

These days I generally advise that you interpret the version number as odd and even bits: odd means it's compatible with readers, even means it isn't.

quag · 9 months ago

That sounds interesting. Can you say a little more about how this works?