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Xeorg:time-regex-testing
Xeorg:miau-oneshot
Xeorg:api
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Xeorg:v1.3.0
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compare: Xeorg:gopher-server
Branches Tags
Xeorg:main
Xeorg:tokio-1
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Xeorg:updates-01-10
Xeorg:borgbackup-nixos-post
Xeorg:Xe-patch-1
Xeorg:time-regex-testing
Xeorg:miau-oneshot
Xeorg:api
Xeorg:gopher-server
Xeorg:blog/parsing-toki-pona
Xeorg:blog/templeos/time
Xeorg:ln-post
Xeorg:i18n-2
Xeorg:i18n
Xeorg:v2.1.0
Xeorg:v1.5.0
Xeorg:v1.4.0
Xeorg:v1.3.1
Xeorg:v1.3.0
Xeorg:v1.2.0
Xeorg:1.1
Xeorg:1.0

1 Commits
main ... gopher-ser

Author SHA1 Message Date
Cadey Ratio f6d4cdfb9d start gopher support 2020-01-25 14:43:32 -05:00
221 changed files with 2560 additions and 22315 deletions
Show Stats Expand all files Collapse all files

1
.envrc
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eval "$(lorri direnv)"

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.gitattributes vendored
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nix/sources.nix linguist-vendored

19
.github/workflows/go.yml vendored Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
name: Go
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Set up Go 1.12
uses: actions/setup-go@v1
with:
go-version: 1.12
id: go
- name: Check out code into the Go module directory
uses: actions/checkout@v1
- name: Test
run: go test -v ./...
env:
GO111MODULE: on
GOPROXY: https://cache.greedo.xeserv.us

80
.github/workflows/kubernetes-cd.yml vendored Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
name: "CI/CD"
on:
push:
branches:
- master
jobs:
deploy:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v1
- name: Build container image
run: |
docker build -t xena/christinewebsite:$(echo $GITHUB_SHA | head -c7) .
echo $DOCKER_PASSWORD | docker login -u $DOCKER_USERNAME --password-stdin
docker push xena/christinewebsite
env:
DOCKER_USERNAME: "xena"
DOCKER_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.DOCKER_PASSWORD }}
- name: Download secrets/Install/Configure/Use Dyson
run: |
mkdir ~/.ssh
echo $FILE_DATA | base64 -d > ~/.ssh/id_rsa
md5sum ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
git clone git@ssh.tulpa.dev:cadey/within-terraform-secret
curl https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/dyson-linux-amd64-0.1.0.tgz | tar xz
cp ./dyson-linux-amd64-0.1.1/dyson .
rm -rf dyson-linux-amd64-0.1.1
mkdir -p ~/.config/dyson
echo '[DigitalOcean]
Token = ""
[Cloudflare]
Email = ""
Token = ""
[Secrets]
GitCheckout = "./within-terraform-secret"' > ~/.config/dyson/dyson.ini
./dyson manifest \
--name=christinewebsite \
--domain=christine.website \
--dockerImage=xena/christinewebsite:$(echo $GITHUB_SHA | head -c7) \
--containerPort=5000 \
--replicas=1 \
--useProdLE=true > $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/deploy.yml
env:
FILE_DATA: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
GIT_SSH_COMMAND: "ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no"
- name: Save DigitalOcean kubeconfig
uses: digitalocean/action-doctl@master
env:
DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN }}
with:
args: kubernetes cluster kubeconfig show kubermemes > $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.kubeconfig
- name: Deploy to DigitalOcean Kubernetes
uses: docker://lachlanevenson/k8s-kubectl
with:
args: --kubeconfig=/github/workspace/.kubeconfig apply -n apps -f /github/workspace/deploy.yml
- name: Verify deployment
uses: docker://lachlanevenson/k8s-kubectl
with:
args: --kubeconfig=/github/workspace/.kubeconfig rollout status -n apps deployment/christinewebsite
- name: Ping Google
uses: docker://lachlanevenson/k8s-kubectl
with:
args: --kubeconfig=/github/workspace/.kubeconfig apply -f /github/workspace/k8s/job.yml
- name: Sleep
run: |
sleep 5
- name: Don't Ping Google
uses: docker://lachlanevenson/k8s-kubectl
with:
args: --kubeconfig=/github/workspace/.kubeconfig delete -f /github/workspace/k8s/job.yml
- name: POSSE
env:
MI_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.MI_TOKEN }}
run: |
curl -H "Authorization: $MI_TOKEN" --data "https://christine.website/blog.json" https://mi.within.website/blog/refresh

18
.github/workflows/nix.yml vendored
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name: "Nix"
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
branches:
- main
jobs:
docker-build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v1
- uses: cachix/install-nix-action@v12
- uses: cachix/cachix-action@v7
with:
name: xe
- run: nix build --no-link

4
.gitignore vendored
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cw.tar
.env
.DS_Store
/result-*
/result
.#*
/target

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CHANGELOG.md
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# Changelog
New site features will be documented here.
## 2.1.0
- Blogpost bodies are now present in the RSS feed
## 2.0.1
Custom render RSS/Atom feeds
## 2.0.0
Complete site rewrite in Rust

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59
Cargo.toml
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[package]
name = "xesite"
version = "2.2.0"
authors = ["Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>"]
edition = "2018"
build = "src/build.rs"
repository = "https://github.com/Xe/site"
# See more keys and their definitions at https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/manifest.html
[dependencies]
color-eyre = "0.5"
chrono = "0.4"
comrak = "0.9"
envy = "0.4"
glob = "0.3"
hyper = "0.14"
kankyo = "0.3"
lazy_static = "1.4"
log = "0.4"
mime = "0.3.0"
prometheus = { version = "0.11", default-features = false, features = ["process"] }
rand = "0"
reqwest = { version = "0.11", features = ["json"] }
sdnotify = { version = "0.1", default-features = false }
serde_dhall = "0.9.0"
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
serde_yaml = "0.8"
sitemap = "0.4"
thiserror = "1"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
tracing = "0.1"
tracing-futures = "0.2"
tracing-subscriber = { version = "0.2", features = ["fmt"] }
warp = "0.3"
xml-rs = "0.8"
url = "2"
uuid = { version = "0.8", features = ["serde", "v4"] }
# workspace dependencies
cfcache = { path = "./lib/cfcache" }
go_vanity = { path = "./lib/go_vanity" }
jsonfeed = { path = "./lib/jsonfeed" }
mi = { path = "./lib/mi" }
patreon = { path = "./lib/patreon" }
[build-dependencies]
ructe = { version = "0.13", features = ["warp02"] }
[dev-dependencies]
pfacts = "0"
serde_json = "1"
eyre = "0.6"
pretty_env_logger = "0"
[workspace]
members = [
"./lib/*",
]

19
Dockerfile Normal file
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FROM xena/go:1.13.6 AS build
ENV GOPROXY https://cache.greedo.xeserv.us
COPY . /site
WORKDIR /site
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 go test -v ./...
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 GOBIN=/root go install -v ./cmd/site
FROM xena/alpine
EXPOSE 5000
WORKDIR /site
COPY --from=build /root/site .
COPY ./static /site/static
COPY ./templates /site/templates
COPY ./blog /site/blog
COPY ./talks /site/talks
COPY ./gallery /site/gallery
COPY ./css /site/css
HEALTHCHECK CMD wget --spider http://127.0.0.1:5000/.within/health || exit 1
CMD ./site

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LICENSE
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@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
Copyright (c) 2017-2021 Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>
Copyright (c) 2017 Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
@ -16,4 +16,4 @@ freely, subject to the following restrictions:
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

7
README.md
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@ -1,8 +1,5 @@
# site
[![built with
nix](https://builtwithnix.org/badge.svg)](https://builtwithnix.org)
![Nix](https://github.com/Xe/site/workflows/Nix/badge.svg)
![Rust](https://github.com/Xe/site/workflows/Rust/badge.svg)
My personal/portfolio website.
![](https://puu.sh/vWnJx/57cda175d8.png)

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VERSION
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2.1.0

177
blog/7e-2020-12-20.markdown
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---
title: The 7th Edition
date: 2020-12-19
tags:
- ttrpg
---
# The 7th Edition
You know what, fuck rules. Fuck systems. Fuck limitations. Let's dial the
tabletop RPG system down to its roots. Let's throw out every stat but one:
Awesomeness. When you try to do something that could fail, roll for Awesomeness.
If your roll is more than your awesomeness stat, you win. If not, you lose. If
you are or have something that would benefit you in that situation, roll for
awesomeness twice and take the higher value.
No stats.<br />
No counts.<br />
No limits.<br />
No gods.<br />
No masters.<br />
Just you and me and nature in the battlefield.
* Want to shoot an arrow? Roll for awesomeness. You failed? You're out of ammo.
* Want to, defeat a goblin but you have a goblin-slaying-broadsword? Roll twice
for awesomeness and take the higher value. You got a 20? That goblin was
obliterated. Good job.
* Want to pick up an item into your inventory? Roll for awesomeness. You got it?
It's in your inventory.
Etc. Don't think too hard. Let a roll of the dice decide if you are unsure.
## Base Awesomeness Stats
Here are some probably balanced awesomeness base stats depending on what kind of
dice you are using:
* 6-sided: 4 or 5
* 8-sided: 5 or 6
* 10-sided: 6 or 7
* 12-sided: 7 or 8
* 20-sided: anywhere from 11-13
## Character Sheet Template
Here's an example character sheet:
```
Name:
Awesomeness:
Race:
Class:
Inventory:
*
```
That's it. You don't even need the race or class if you don't want to have it.
You can add more if you feel it is relevant for your character. If your
character is a street brat that has experience with haggling, then fuck it be
the most street brattiest haggler you can. Try to not overload your sheet with
information, this game is supposed to be simple. A sentence or two at most is
good.
## One Player is The World
The World is a character that other systems would call the Narrator, the
Pathfinder, Dungeon Master or similar. Let's strip this down to the core of the
matter. One player doesn't just dictate the world, they _are_ the world.
The World also controls the monsters and non-player characters. In general, if
you are in doubt as to who should roll for an event, The World does that roll.
## Mixins/Mods
These are things you can do to make the base game even more tailored to your
group. Whether you should do this is highly variable to the needs and whims of
your group in particular.
### Mixin: Adjustable Awesomeness
So, one problem that could come up with this is that bad luck could make this
not as fun. As a result, add these two rules in:
* Every time you roll above your awesomeness, add 1 to your awesomeness stat
* Every time you roll below your awesomeness, remove 1 from your awesomeness
stat
This should add up so that luck would even out over time. Players that have less
luck than usual will eventually get their awesomeness evened out so that luck
will be in their favor.
### Mixin: No Awesomeness
In this mod, rip out Awesomeness altogether. When two parties are at odds, they
both roll dice. The one that rolls higher gets what they want. If they tie, both
people get a little part of what they want. For extra fun do this with six-sided
dice.
* Monster wants to attack a player? The World and that player roll. If the
player wins, they can choose to counterattack. If the monster wins, they do a
wound or something.
* One player wants to steal from another? Have them both roll to see what
happens.
Use your imagination! Ask others if you are unsure!
## Other Advice
This is not essential but it may help.
### Monster Building
Okay so basically monsters fall into two categories: peons and bosses. Peons
should be easy to defeat, usually requiring one action. Bosses may require more
and might require more than pure damage to defeat. Get clever. Maybe require the
players to drop a chandelier on the boss. Use the environment.
In general, peons should have a very high base awesomeness in order to do things
they want. Bosses can vary based on your mood.
Adjustable awesomeness should affect monsters too.
### Worldbuilding
Take a setting from somewhere and roll with it. You want to do a cyberpunk jaunt
in Night City with a sword-wielding warlock, a succubus space marine, a bard
netrunner and a shapeshifting monk? Do the hell out of that. That sounds
awesome.
Don't worry about accuracy or the like. You are setting out to have fun.
## Special Thanks
Special thanks goes to Jared, who sent out this [tweet][1] that inspired this
document. In case the tweet gets deleted, here's what it said:
[1]: https://twitter.com/infinite_mao/status/1340402360259137541
> heres a d&d for you
> you have one stat, its a saving throw. if you need to roll dice, you roll your
> save.
> you have a class and some equipment and junk. if the thing you need to roll
> dice for is relevant to your class or equipment or whatever, roll your save
> with advantage.
> oh your Save is 5 or something. if you do something awesome, raise your save
> by 1.
> no hp, save vs death. no damage, save vs goblin. no tracking arrows, save vs
> running out of ammo.
> thanks to @Axes_N_Orcs for this
> What's So Cool About Save vs Death?
> can you carry all that treasure and equipment? save vs gains
I replied:
> Can you get more minimal than this?
He replied:
> when two or more parties are at odds, all roll dice. highest result gets what
> they want.
> hows that?
This document is really just this twitter exchange in more words so that people
less familiar with tabletop games can understand it more easily. You know you
have finished when there is nothing left to remove, not when you can add
something to "fix" it.
I might put this on my [itch.io page](https://withinstudios.itch.io/).

0
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blog/TLDR-rust-2020-09-19.markdown
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---
title: "TL;DR Rust"
date: 2020-09-19
series: rust
tags:
- go
- golang
---
# TL;DR Rust
Recently I've been starting to use Rust more and more for larger and larger
projects. As things have come up, I realized that I am missing a good reference
for common things in Rust as compared to Go. This post contains a quick
high-level overview of patterns in Rust and how they compare to patterns
in Go. This will focus on code samples. This is no replacement for the [Rust
book](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/), but should help you get spun up on the
various patterns used in Rust code.
Also I'm happy to introduce Mara to the blog!
[Hey, happy to be here! I'm Mara, a shark hacker from Christine's imagination.
I'll interject with side information, challenge assertions and more! Thanks for
inviting me!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Let's start somewhere simple: functions.
## Making Functions
Functions are defined using `fn` instead of `func`:
```go
func foo() {}
```
```rust
fn foo() {}
```
### Arguments
Arguments can be passed by separating the name from the type with a colon:
```go
func foo(bar int) {}
```
```rust
fn foo(bar: i32) {}
```
### Returns
Values can be returned by adding `-> Type` to the function declaration:
```go
func foo() int {
return 2
}
```
```rust
fn foo() -> i32 {
return 2;
}
```
In Rust values can also be returned on the last statement without the `return`
keyword or a terminating semicolon:
```rust
fn foo() -> i32 {
2
}
```
[Hmm, what if I try to do something like this. Will this
work?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
```rust
fn foo() -> i32 {
if some_cond {
2
}
4
}
```
Let's find out! The compiler spits back an error:
```
error[E0308]: mismatched types
--> src/lib.rs:3:9
|
2 | / if some_cond {
3 | | 2
| | ^ expected `()`, found integer
4 | | }
| | -- help: consider using a semicolon here
| |_____|
| expected this to be `()`
```
This happens because most basic statements in Rust can return values. The best
way to fix this would be to move the `4` return into an `else` block:
```rust
fn foo() -> i32 {
if some_cond {
2
} else {
4
}
}
```
Otherwise, the compiler will think you are trying to use that `if` as a
statement, such as like this:
```rust
let val = if some_cond { 2 } else { 4 };
```
### Functions that can fail
The [Result](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/result/) type represents things that
can fail with specific errors. The [eyre Result
type](https://docs.rs/eyre) represents things that can fail
with any error. For readability, this post will use the eyre Result type.
[The angle brackets in the `Result` type are arguments to the type, this allows
the Result type to work across any type you could imagine.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```go
import "errors"
func divide(x, y int) (int, err) {
if y == 0 {
return 0, errors.New("cannot divide by zero")
}
return x / y, nil
}
```
```rust
use eyre::{eyre, Result};
fn divide(x: i32, y: i32) -> Result<i32> {
match y {
0 => Err(eyre!("cannot divide by zero")),
_ => Ok(x / y),
}
}
```
[Huh? I thought Rust had the <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/error/trait.Error.html">Error trait</a>,
shouldn't you be able to use that instead of a third party package like
eyre?](conversation://Mara/wat)
Let's try that, however we will need to make our own error type because the
[`eyre!`](https://docs.rs/eyre/0.6.0/eyre/macro.eyre.html) macro creates its own
transient error type on the fly.
First we need to make our own simple error type for a DivideByZero error:
```rust
use std::error::Error;
use std::fmt;
#[derive(Debug)]
struct DivideByZero;
impl fmt::Display for DivideByZero {
fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
write!(f, "cannot divide by zero")
}
}
impl Error for DivideByZero {}
```
So now let's use it:
```rust
fn divide(x: i32, y: i32) -> Result<i32, DivideByZero> {
match y {
0 => Err(DivideByZero{}),
_ => Ok(x / y),
}
}
```
However there is still one thing left: the function returns a DivideByZero
error, not _any_ error like the [error interface in
Go](https://godoc.org/builtin#error). In order to represent that we need to
return something that implements the Error trait:
```rust
fn divide(x: i32, y: i32) -> Result<i32, impl Error> {
// ...
}
```
And for the simple case, this will work. However as things get more complicated
this simple facade will not work due to reality and its complexities. This is
why I am shipping as much as I can out to other packages like eyre or
[anyhow](https://docs.rs/anyhow). Check out this code in the [Rust
Playground](https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=946057d8eb02f388cb3f03bae226d10d)
to mess with this code interactively.
[Pro tip: eyre (via <a href="https://docs.rs/color-eyre">color-eyre</a>) also
has support for adding <a href="https://docs.rs/color-eyre/0.5.4/color_eyre/#custom-sections-for-error-reports-via-help-trait">custom
sections and context</a> to errors similar to Go's <a href="https://godoc.org/fmt#Errorf">`fmt.Errorf` `%w`
format argument</a>, which will help in real world
applications. When you do need to actually make your own errors, you may want to look into
crates like <a href="https://docs.rs/thiserror">thiserror</a> to help with
automatically generating your error implementation.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
### The `?` Operator
In Rust, the `?` operator checks for an error in a function call and if there is
one, it automatically returns the error and gives you the result of the function
if there was no error. This only works in functions that return either an Option
or a Result.
[The <a href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/index.html">Option</a> type
isn't shown in very much detail here, but it acts like a "this thing might not exist and it's your
responsibility to check" container for any value. The closest analogue in Go is
making a pointer to a value or possibly putting a value in an `interface{}`
(which can be annoying to deal with in practice).](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```go
func doThing() (int, error) {
result, err := divide(3, 4)
if err != nil {
return 0, err
}
return result, nil
}
```
```rust
use eyre::Result;
fn do_thing() -> Result<i32> {
let result = divide(3, 4)?;
Ok(result)
}
```
If the second argument of divide is changed to `0`, then `do_thing` will return
an error.
[And how does that work with eyre?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
It works with eyre because eyre has its own error wrapper type called
[`Report`](https://docs.rs/eyre/0.6.0/eyre/struct.Report.html), which can
represent anything that implements the Error trait.
## Macros
Rust macros are function calls with `!` after their name:
```rust
println!("hello, world");
```
## Variables
Variables are created using `let`:
```go
var foo int
var foo = 3
foo := 3
```
```rust
let foo: i32;
let foo = 3;
```
### Mutability
In Rust, every variable is immutable (unchangeable) by default. If we try to
change those variables above we get a compiler error:
```rust
fn main() {
let foo: i32;
let foo = 3;
foo = 4;
}
```
This makes the compiler return this error:
```
error[E0384]: cannot assign twice to immutable variable `foo`
--> src/main.rs:4:5
|
3 | let foo = 3;
| ---
| |
| first assignment to `foo`
| help: make this binding mutable: `mut foo`
4 | foo = 4;
| ^^^^^^^ cannot assign twice to immutable variable
```
As the compiler suggests, you can create a mutable variable by adding the `mut`
keyword after the `let` keyword. There is no analog to this in Go.
```rust
let mut foo: i32 = 0;
foo = 4;
```
[This is slightly a lie. There's more advanced cases involving interior
mutability and other fun stuff like that, however this is a more advanced topic
that isn't covered here.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
### Lifetimes
Rust does garbage collection at compile time. It also passes ownership of memory
to functions as soon as possible. Lifetimes are how Rust calculates how "long" a
given bit of data should exist in the program. Rust will then tell the compiled
code to destroy the data from memory as soon as possible.
[This is slightly inaccurate in order to make this simpler to explain and
understand. It's probably more accurate to say that Rust calculates _when_ to
collect garbage at compile time, but the difference doesn't really matter for
most cases](conversation://Mara/hacker)
For example, this code will fail to compile because `quo` was moved into the
second divide call:
```rust
let quo = divide(4, 8)?;
let other_quo = divide(quo, 5)?;
// Fails compile because ownership of quo was given to divide to create other_quo
let yet_another_quo = divide(quo, 4)?;
```
To work around this you can pass a reference to the divide function:
```rust
let other_quo = divide(&quo, 5);
let yet_another_quo = divide(&quo, 4)?;
```
Or even create a clone of it:
```rust
let other_quo = divide(quo.clone(), 5);
let yet_another_quo = divide(quo, 4)?;
```
[You can also get more fancy with <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/scope/lifetime/explicit.html">explicit
lifetime annotations</a>, however as of Rust's 2018 edition they aren't usually
required unless you are doing something weird. This is something that is also
covered in more detail in <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/ch04-00-understanding-ownership.html">The
Rust Book</a>.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
### Passing Mutability
Sometimes functions need mutable variables. To pass a mutable reference, add
`&mut` before the name of the variable:
```rust
let something = do_something_to_quo(&mut quo)?;
```
## Project Setup
### Imports
External dependencies are declared using the [Cargo.toml
file](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-dependencies.html):
```toml
# Cargo.toml
[dependencies]
eyre = "0.6"
```
This depends on the crate [eyre](https://crates.io/crates/eyre) at version
0.6.x.
[You can do much more with version requirements with cargo, see more <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-dependencies.html">here</a>.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Dependencies can also have optional features:
```toml
# Cargo.toml
[dependencies]
reqwest = { version = "0.10", features = ["json"] }
```
This depends on the crate [reqwest](https://crates.io/reqwest) at version 0.10.x
with the `json` feature enabled (in this case it enables reqwest being able to
automagically convert things to/from json using Serde).
External dependencies can be used with the `use` statement:
```go
// go
import "github.com/foo/bar"
```
```rust
use foo; // -> foo now has the members of crate foo behind the :: operator
use foo::Bar; // -> Bar is now exposed as a type in this file
use eyre::{eyre, Result}; // exposes the eyre! and Result members of eyre
```
[This doesn't cover how the <a
href="http://www.sheshbabu.com/posts/rust-module-system/">module system</a>
works, however the post I linked there covers this better than I
can.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Async/Await
Async functions may be interrupted to let other things execute as needed. This
program uses [tokio](https://tokio.rs/) to handle async tasks. To run an async
task and wait for its result, do this:
```
let printer_fact = reqwest::get("https://printerfacts.cetacean.club/fact")
.await?
.text()
.await?;
println!("your printer fact is: {}", printer_fact);
```
This will populate `response` with an amusing fact about everyone's favorite
household pet, the [printer](https://printerfacts.cetacean.club).
To make an async function, add the `async` keyword before the `fn` keyword:
```rust
async fn get_text(url: String) -> Result<String> {
reqwest::get(&url)
.await?
.text()
.await?
}
```
This can then be called like this:
```rust
let printer_fact = get_text("https://printerfacts.cetacean.club/fact").await?;
```
## Public/Private Types and Functions
Rust has three privacy levels for functions:
- Only visible to the current file (no keyword, lowercase in Go)
- Visible to anything in the current crate (`pub(crate)`, internal packages in
go)
- Visible to everyone (`pub`, upper case in Go)
[You can't get a perfect analog to `pub(crate)` in Go, but <a
href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e8kOo3r51b2BWtTs_1uADIA5djfXhPT36s6eHVRIvaU/edit">internal
packages</a> can get close to this behavior. Additionally you can have a lot
more control over access levels than this, see <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/reference/visibility-and-privacy.html">here</a>
for more information.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Structures
Rust structures are created using the `struct` keyword:
```go
type Client struct {
Token string
}
```
```rust
pub struct Client {
pub token: String,
}
```
If the `pub` keyword is not specified before a member name, it will not be
usable outside the Rust source code file it is defined in:
```go
type Client struct {
token string
}
```
```rust
pub(crate) struct Client {
token: String,
}
```
### Encoding structs to JSON
[serde](https://serde.rs) is used to convert structures to json. The Rust
compiler's
[derive](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/rust-by-example/trait/derive.html)
feature is used to automatically implement the conversion logic.
```go
type Response struct {
Name string `json:"name"`
Description *string `json:"description,omitempty"`
}
```
```rust
use serde::{Serialize, Deserialize};
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Debug)]
pub(crate) struct Response {
pub name: String,
pub description: Option<String>,
}
```
## Strings
Rust has a few string types that do different things. You can read more about
this [here](https://fasterthanli.me/blog/2020/working-with-strings-in-rust/),
but at a high level most projects only uses a few of them:
- `&str`, a slice reference to a String owned by someone else
- String, an owned UTF-8 string
- PathBuf, a filepath string (encoded in whatever encoding the OS running this
code uses for filesystems)
The strings are different types for safety reasons. See the linked blogpost for
more detail about this.
## Enumerations / Tagged Unions
Enumerations, also known as tagged unions, are a way to specify a superposition
of one of a few different kinds of values in one type. A neat way to show them
off (along with some other fancy features like the derivation system) is with the
[structopt](https://docs.rs/structopt/0.3.14/structopt/) crate. There is no easy
analog for this in Go.
[We've actually been dealing with enumerations ever since we touched the Result
type earlier. <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/result/enum.Result.html">Result</a> and <a
href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/enum.Option.html">Option</a> are
implemented with enumerations.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```rust
#[derive(StructOpt, Debug)]
#[structopt(about = "A simple release management tool")]
pub(crate) enum Cmd {
/// Creates a new release for a git repo
Cut {
#[structopt(flatten)]
common: Common,
/// Changelog location
#[structopt(long, short, default_value="./CHANGELOG.md")]
changelog: PathBuf,
},
/// Runs releases as triggered by GitHub Actions
GitHubAction {
#[structopt(flatten)]
gha: GitHubAction,
},
}
```
Enum variants can be matched using the `match` keyword:
```rust
match cmd {
Cmd::Cut { common, changelog } => {
cmd::cut::run(common, changelog).await
}
Cmd::GitHubAction { gha } => {
cmd::github_action::run(gha).await
}
}
```
All variants of an enum must be matched in order for the code to compile.
[This code was borrowed from <a
href="https://github.com/lightspeed/palisade">palisade</a> in order to
demonstrate this better. If you want to see these patterns in action, check this
repository out!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Testing
Test functions need to be marked with the `#[test]` annotation, then they will
be run alongside `cargo test`:
```rust
mod tests { // not required but it is good practice
#[test]
fn math_works() {
assert_eq!(2 + 2, 4);
}
#[tokio::test] // needs tokio as a dependency
async fn http_works() {
let _ = get_html("https://within.website").await.unwrap();
}
}
```
Avoid the use of `unwrap()` outside of tests. In the wrong cases, using
`unwrap()` in production code can cause the server to crash and can incur data
loss.
[Alternatively, you can also use the <a href="https://learning-rust.github.io/docs/e4.unwrap_and_expect.html#expect">`.expect()`</a> method instead
of `.unwrap()`. This lets you attach a message that will be shown when the
result isn't Ok.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
---
This is by no means comprehensive, see the rust book or [Learn X in Y Minutes
Where X = Rust](https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/rust/) for more information.
This code is written to be as boring and obvious as possible. If things don't
make sense, please reach out and don't be afraid to ask questions.

4
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@ -23,13 +23,13 @@ This is a surprisingly hard question to answer. Most of the time though, I know
Art doesn't have to follow conventional ideas of what most people think "art" is. Art can be just about anything that you can classify as art. As a conventional example, consider something like the Mona Lisa:
![The Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/monalisa_small.jpg)
<center> ![The Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/monalisa_small.jpg) </center>
People will accept this as art without much argument. It's a painting, it obviously took a lot of skill and time to create. It is said that Leonardo Da Vinci (the artist of the painting) created it partially [as a contribution to the state of the art of oil painting][monalisawhy].
So that painting is art, and a lot of people would consider it art; so what *would* a lot of people *not* consider art? Here's an example:
![Untitled (Perfect Lovers) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/perfect-lovers.jpg)
<center> ![Untitled (Perfect Lovers) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/perfect-lovers.jpg) </center>
This is *Untitled (Perfect Lovers)* by Felix Gonzalez. If you just take a look at it without context, it's just two battery-operated clocks on a wall. Where is the expertise and the like that goes into this? This is just the result of someone buying two clocks from the store and putting them somewhere, right?

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@ -1,229 +0,0 @@
---
title: "</kubernetes>"
date: 2021-01-03
---
# &lt;/kubernetes&gt;
Well, since I posted [that last post](/blog/k8s-pondering-2020-12-31) I have had
an adventure. A good friend pointed out a server host that I had missed when I
was looking for other places to use, and now I have migrated my blog to this new
server. As of yesterday, I now run my website on a dedicated server in Finland.
Here is the story of my journey to migrate 6 years of cruft and technical debt
to this new server.
Let's talk about this goliath of a server. This server is an AX41 from Hetzner.
It has 64 GB of ram, a 512 GB nvme drive, 3 2 TB drives, and a Ryzen 3600. For
all practical concerns, this beast is beyond overkill and rivals my workstation
tower in everything but the GPU power. I have named it `lufta`, which is the
word for feather in [L'ewa](https://lewa.within.website/dictionary.html).
## Assimilation
For my server setup process, the first step it to assimilate it. In this step I
get a base NixOS install on it somehow. Since I was using Hetzner, I was able to
boot into a NixOS install image using the process documented
[here](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Install_NixOS_on_Hetzner_Online). Then I decided
that it would also be cool to have this server use
[zfs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS) as its filesystem to take advantage of
its legendary subvolume and snapshotting features.
So I wrote up a bootstrap system definition like the Hetzner tutorial said and
ended up with `hosts/lufta/bootstrap.nix`:
```nix
{ pkgs, ... }:
{
services.openssh.enable = true;
users.users.root.openssh.authorizedKeys.keys = [
"ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIPg9gYKVglnO2HQodSJt4z4mNrUSUiyJQ7b+J798bwD9 cadey@shachi"
];
networking.usePredictableInterfaceNames = false;
systemd.network = {
enable = true;
networks."eth0".extraConfig = ''
[Match]
Name = eth0
[Network]
# Add your own assigned ipv6 subnet here here!
Address = 2a01:4f9:3a:1a1c::/64
Gateway = fe80::1
# optionally you can do the same for ipv4 and disable DHCP (networking.dhcpcd.enable = false;)
Address = 135.181.162.99/26
Gateway = 135.181.162.65
'';
};
boot.supportedFilesystems = [ "zfs" ];
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ wget vim zfs ];
}
```
Then I fired up the kexec tarball and waited for the server to boot into a NixOS
live environment. A few minutes later I was in. I started formatting the drives
according to the [NixOS install
guide](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-installation) with
one major difference: I added a `/boot` ext4 partition on the SSD. This allows
me to have the system root device on zfs. I added the disks to a `raidz1` pool
and created a few volumes. I also added the SSD as a log device so I get SSD
caching.
From there I installed NixOS as normal and rebooted the server. It booted
normally. I had a shiny new NixOS server in the cloud! I noticed that the server
had booted into NixOS unstable as opposed to NixOS 20.09 like my other nodes. I
thought "ah, well, that probably isn't a problem" and continued to the
configuration step.
[That's ominous...](conversation://Mara/hmm)
## Configuration
Now that the server was assimilated and I could SSH into it, the next step was
to configure it to run my services. While I was waiting for Hetzner to provision
my server I ported a bunch of my services over to Nixops services [a-la this
post](/blog/nixops-services-2020-11-09) in [this
folder](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/common/services) of my
configs repo.
Now that I had them, it was time to add this server to my Nixops setup. So I
opened the [nixops definition
folder](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/nixops/hexagone) and
added the metadata for `lufta`. Then I added it to my Nixops deployment with
this command:
```console
$ nixops modify -d hexagone -n hexagone *.nix
```
Then I copied over the autogenerated config from `lufta`'s `/etc/nixos/` folder
into
[`hosts/lufta`](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/hosts/lufta) and
ran a `nixops deploy` to add some other base configuration.
## Migration
Once that was done, I started enabling my services and pushing configs to test
them. After I got to a point where I thought things would work I opened up the
Kubernetes console and started deleting deployments on my kubernetes cluster as
I felt "safe" to migrate them over. Then I saw the deployments come back. I
deleted them again and they came back again.
Oh, right. I enabled that one Kubernetes service that made it intentionally hard
to delete deployments. One clever set of scale-downs and kills later and I was
able to kill things with wild abandon.
I copied over the gitea data with `rsync` running in the kubernetes deployment.
Then I killed the gitea deployment, updated DNS and reran a whole bunch of gitea
jobs to resanify the environment. I did a test clone on a few of my repos and
then I deleted the gitea volume from DigitalOcean.
Moving over the other deployments from Kubernetes into NixOS services was
somewhat easy, however I did need to repackage a bunch of my programs and static
sites for NixOS. I made the
[`pkgs`](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/pkgs) tree a bit more
fleshed out to compensate.
[Okay, packaging static sites in NixOS is beyond overkill, however a lot of them
need some annoyingly complicated build steps and throwing it all into Nix means
that we can make them reproducible and use one build system to rule them
all. Not to mention that when I need to upgrade the system, everything will
rebuild with new system libraries to avoid the <a
href="https://blog.tidelift.com/bit-rot-the-silent-killer">Docker bitrot
problem</a>.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Reboot Test
After a significant portion of the services were moved over, I decided it was
time to do the reboot test. I ran the `reboot` command and then...nothing.
My continuous ping test was timing out. My phone was blowing up with downtime
messages from NodePing. Yep, I messed something up.
I was able to boot the server back into a NixOS recovery environment using the
kexec trick, and from there I was able to prove the following:
- The zfs setup is healthy
- I can read some of the data I migrated over
- I can unmount and remount the ZFS volumes repeatedly
I was confused. This shouldn't be happening. After half an hour of
troubleshooting, I gave in and ordered an IPKVM to be installed in my server.
Once that was set up (and I managed to trick MacOS into letting me boot a .jnlp
web start file), I rebooted the server so I could see what error I was getting
on boot. I missed it the first time around, but on the second time I was able to
capture this screenshot:
![The error I was looking
for](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screen+Shot+2021-01-03+at+1.13.05+AM.png)
Then it hit me. I did the install on NixOS unstable. My other servers use NixOS
20.09. I had downgraded zfs and the older version of zfs couldn't mount the
volume created by the newer version of zfs in read/write mode. One more trip to
the recovery environment later to install NixOS unstable in a new generation.
Then I switched my tower's default NixOS channel to the unstable channel and ran
`nixops deploy` to reactivate my services. After the NodePing uptime
notifications came in, I ran the reboot test again while looking at the console
output to be sure.
It booted. It worked. I had a stable setup. Then I reconnected to IRC and passed
out.
## Services Migrated
Here is a list of all of the services I have migrated over from my old dedicated
server, my kubernetes cluster and my dokku server:
- aerial -> discord chatbot
- goproxy -> go modules proxy
- lewa -> https://lewa.within.website
- hlang -> https://h.christine.website
- mi -> https://mi.within.website
- printerfacts -> https://printerfacts.cetacean.club
- xesite -> https://christine.website
- graphviz -> https://graphviz.christine.website
- idp -> https://idp.christine.website
- oragono -> ircs://irc.within.website:6697/
- tron -> discord bot
- withinbot -> discord bot
- withinwebsite -> https://within.website
- gitea -> https://tulpa.dev
- other static sites
Doing this migration is a bit of an archaeology project as well. I was
continuously discovering services that I had littered over my machines with very
poorly documented requirements and configuration. I hope that this move will let
the next time I do this kind of migration be a lot easier by comparison.
I still have a few other services to move over, however the ones that are left
are much more annoying to set up properly. I'm going to get to deprovision 5
servers in this migration and as a result get this stupidly powerful goliath of
a server to do whatever I want with and I also get to cut my monthly server
costs by over half.
I am very close to being able to turn off the Kubernetes cluster and use NixOS
for everything. A few services that are still on the Kubernetes cluster are
resistant to being nixified, so I may have to use the Docker containers for
that. I was hoping to be able to cut out Docker entirely, however we don't seem
to be that lucky yet.
Sure, there is some added latency with the server being in Europe instead of
Montreal, however if this ever becomes a practical issue I can always launch a
cheap DigitalOcean VPS in Toronto to act as a DNS server for my WireGuard setup.
Either way, I am now off Kubernetes for my highest traffic services. If services
of mine need to use the disk, they can now just use the disk. If I really care
about the data, I can add the service folders to the list of paths to back up to
`rsync.net` (I have a post about how this backup process works in the drafting
stage) via [borgbackup](https://www.borgbackup.org/).
Let's hope it stays online!
---
Many thanks to [Graham Christensen](https://twitter.com/grhmc), [Dave
Anderson](https://twitter.com/dave_universetf) and everyone else who has been
helping me along this journey. I would be lost without them.

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@ -1,178 +0,0 @@
---
title: "How to Set Up Borg Backup on NixOS"
date: 2021-01-09
series: howto
tags:
- nixos
- borgbackup
---
# How to Set Up Borg Backup on NixOS
[Borg Backup](https://www.borgbackup.org/) is a encrypted, compressed,
deduplicated backup program for multiple platforms including Linux. This
combined with the [NixOS options for configuring
Borg Backup](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&show=services.borgbackup.jobs.%3Cname%3E.paths&from=0&size=30&sort=relevance&query=services.borgbackup.jobs)
allows you to backup on a schedule and restore from those backups when you need
to.
Borg Backup works with local files, remote servers and there are even [cloud
hosts](https://www.borgbackup.org/support/commercial.html) that specialize in
hosting your backups. In this post we will cover how to set up a backup job on a
server using [BorgBase](https://www.borgbase.com/)'s free tier to host the
backup files.
## Setup
You will need a few things:
- A free BorgBase account
- A server running NixOS
- A list of folders to back up
- A list of folders to NOT back up
First, we will need to create a SSH key for root to use when connecting to
BorgBase. Open a shell as root on the server and make a `borgbackup` folder in
root's home directory:
```shell
mkdir borgbackup
cd borgbackup
```
Then create a SSH key that will be used to connect to BorgBase:
```shell
ssh-keygen -f ssh_key -t ed25519 -C "Borg Backup"
```
Ignore the SSH key password because at this time the automated Borg Backup job
doesn't allow the use of password-protected SSH keys.
Now we need to create an encryption passphrase for the backup repository. Run
this command to generate one using [xkcdpass](https://pypi.org/project/xkcdpass/):
```shell
nix-shell -p python39Packages.xkcdpass --run 'xkcdpass -n 12' > passphrase
```
[You can do whatever you want to generate a suitable passphrase, however
xkcdpass is proven to be <a href="https://xkcd.com/936/">more random</a> than
most other password generators.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## BorgBase Setup
Now that we have the basic requirements out of the way, let's configure BorgBase
to use that SSH key. In the BorgBase UI click on the Account tab in the upper
right and open the SSH key management window. Click on Add Key and paste in the
contents of `./ssh_key.pub`. Name it after the hostname of the server you are
working on. Click Add Key and then go back to the Repositories tab in the upper
right.
Click New Repo and name it after the hostname of the server you are working on.
Select the key you just created to have full access. Choose the region of the
backup volume and then click Add Repository.
On the main page copy the repository path with the copy icon next to your
repository in the list. You will need this below. Attempt to SSH into the backup
repo in order to have ssh recognize the server's host key:
```shell
ssh -i ./ssh_key o6h6zl22@o6h6zl22.repo.borgbase.com
```
Then accept the host key and press control-c to terminate the SSH connection.
## NixOS Configuration
In your `configuration.nix` file, add the following block:
```nix
services.borgbackup.jobs."borgbase" = {
paths = [
"/var/lib"
"/srv"
"/home"
];
exclude = [
# very large paths
"/var/lib/docker"
"/var/lib/systemd"
"/var/lib/libvirt"
# temporary files created by cargo and `go build`
"**/target"
"/home/*/go/bin"
"/home/*/go/pkg"
];
repo = "o6h6zl22@o6h6zl22.repo.borgbase.com:repo";
encryption = {
mode = "repokey-blake2";
passCommand = "cat /root/borgbackup/passphrase";
};
environment.BORG_RSH = "ssh -i /root/borgbackup/ssh_key";
compression = "auto,lzma";
startAt = "daily";
};
```
Customize the paths and exclude lists to your needs. Once you are satisfied,
rebuild your NixOS system using `nixos-rebuild`:
```shell
nixos-rebuild switch
```
And then you can fire off an initial backup job with this command:
```shell
systemctl start borgbackup-job-borgbase.service
```
Monitor the job with this command:
```shell
journalctl -fu borgbackup-job-borgbase.service
```
The first backup job will always take the longest to run. Every incremental
backup after that will get smaller and smaller. By default, the system will
create new backup snapshots every night at midnight local time.
## Restoring Files
To restore files, first figure out when you want to restore the files from.
NixOS includes a wrapper script for each Borg job you define. you can mount your
backup archive using this command:
```
mkdir mount
borg-job-borgbase mount o6h6zl22@o6h6zl22.repo.borgbase.com:repo ./mount
```
Then you can explore the backup (and with it each incremental snapshot) to
your heart's content and copy files out manually. You can look through each
folder and copy out what you need.
When you are done you can unmount it with this command:
```
borg-job-borgbase umount /root/borgbase/mount
```
---
And that's it! You can get more fancy with nixops using a setup [like
this](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/services/backup.nix).
In general though, you can get away with this setup. It may be a good idea to
copy down the encryption passphrase onto paper and put it in a safe space like a
safety deposit box.
For more information about Borg Backup on NixOS, see [the relevant chapter of
the NixOS
manual](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#module-borgbase) or
[the list of borgbackup
options](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&query=services.borgbackup.jobs)
that you can pick from.
I hope this is able to help.

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@ -1,73 +0,0 @@
---
title: Chicken Stir Fry
date: 2020-04-13
series: recipes
tags:
- instant-pot
- pan
- rice
- garlic
---
# Chicken Stir Fry
This recipe was made up by me and my fiancé. We just sorta winged it every time
we made it until we found something that was easy to cook and tasty. We make
this every week or so.
## Recipe
### Ingredients
- Pack of 4 chicken breasts
- A fair amount of Montreal seasoning (garlic, onion, salt, oregano)
- 3 cups basmati rice
- 3.75 cups water
- 1/4th bag of frozen stir fry vegetables
- Avocado/coconut oil
- Standard frying pan
- Standard chef's knife
- Standard 11x14 cutting board
- Two metal bowls
- Instant Pot
- Spatula
### Seasoning
Put the seasoning in one of the bowls and unwrap the plastic around the chicken
breasts. Take each chicken breast out of the package (you may need to cut them
free of eachother, use a sharp knife for that) and rub all sides of it around in
the seasoning.
Put these into the other metal bowl and when you've done all four, cover with
plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 5-6 hours.
Doing this helps to have the chicken soak up the flavor of the seasoning so it
tastes better when you cook it.
### Cooking
Slice two chicken breasts up kinda like
[this](https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/knife-skills-how-to-slice-chicken-breast-for-stir-fries.html)
and then transfer to the heated pan with oil in it. Cook those and flip them
every few minutes until you've cooked everything all the way through (random
sampling by cutting a bit of chicken in half with the spatula and seeing if it's
overly juicy or not is a good way to tell, or if you have a food thermometer to
165 degrees fahrenheit or 75 degrees celsius). Put this chicken into a plastic
container for use in other meals (it goes really good on sandwiches).
Then repeat the slicing and cooking for the last two chicken breasts. However,
this time put _half_ of the chicken into the plastic container you used before
(about one chicken breast worth in total, it doesn't have to be exact). At the
same time as the second round of chicken is cooking, put about 3 cups of rice
and 3.75 cups of water into the instant pot; then seal it and set it to manual
for 4 minutes.
Dump frozen vegetables on top of the remainder of the chicken and stir until the
vegetables are warm.
### Serving
Serve the stir fry hot on a bed of rice.
![image of the food](/static/blog/chicken-stir-fry.jpg)

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@ -1,88 +0,0 @@
---
title: Colemak Layout - First Week
date: 2020-08-22
series: colemak
---
# Colemak Layout - First Week
A week ago I posted the last post in this series where I announced I was going
all colemak all the time. I have not been measuring words per minute (to avoid
psyching myself out), but so far my typing speed has gone from intolerably slow
to manageably slow. I have been only dipping back into qwerty for two main
things:
1. Passwords, specifically the ones I have in muscle memory
2. Coding at work that needs to be done fast
Other than that, everything else has been in colemak. I have written DnD-style
game notes, hacked at my own "Linux distro", started a few QMK keymaps and more
all via colemak.
Here are some of the lessons I've learned:
## Let Your Coworkers Know You Are Going to Be Slow
This kind of thing is a long tirm investment. In the short term, your
productivity is going to crash through the floor. This will feel frustrating. It
took me an entire workday to implement and test a HTTP handler/client for it in
Go. You will be making weird typos. Let your coworkers know so they don't jump
to the wrong conclusions too quickly.
Also, this goes without saying, but don't do this kind of change during crunch
time. That's a bit of a dick move.
## Print Out the Layout
I have the layout printed and taped to my monitor and iPad stand. This helps a
lot. Instead of looking at the keyboard, I look at the layout image and let my
fingers drift into position.
I also have a blank keyboard at my desk, this helps because I can't look at the
keycaps and become confused (however this has backfired with typing numbers,
lol). This keyboard has cherry MX blues though, which means it can be loud when
I get to typing up a storm.
## Have Friends Ask You What Layout You Are Using
Something that works for me is to have friends ask me what keyboard layout I am
using, so I can be mindful of the change. I have a few people asking me that on
the regular, so I can be accountable to them and myself.
## macOS and iPadOS have Colemak Out of the Box
The settings app lets you configure colemak input without having to jailbreak or
install a custom keyboard layout. Take advantage of this.
Someone has also created a colemak windows package for windows that includes an
IA-64 (Itanium) binary. It was last updated in 2004, and still works without
hassle on windows 10. It was the irst time I've ever seen an IA-64 windows
binary in the wild!
## Relearn How To Type Your Passwords
I type passwords from muscle memory. I have had to rediscover what they actually
are so I can relearn how to type them.
---
The colemak experiment continues. I also have a [ZSA
Moonlander](https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) and the kit for a
[GergoPlex](https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergoplex) coming in the mail. Both
of these run [QMK](https://qmk.fm), which allows me to fully program them with a
rich macro engine. Here are a few of the macros I plan to use:
```c
// Programming
SUBS(ifErr, "if err != nil {\n\t\n}", KC_E, KC_I)
SUBS(goTest, "go test ./...\n", KC_G, KC_T)
SUBS(cargoTest, "cargo test\n", KC_C, KC_T)
```
This will autotype a few common things when I press the keys "ei", "gt", or "ct"
at the same time. I plan to add a few more as things turn up so I can more
quickly type common idioms or commands to save me time. The `if err != nil`
combination started as a joke, but I bet it will end up being incredibly
valuable.
Be well, take care of your hands.

27
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@ -1,27 +0,0 @@
---
title: Colemak Layout - Beginning
date: 2020-08-15
series: colemak
---
# Colemak Layout - Beginning
I write a lot. On average I write a few kilobytes of text per day. This has been
adding up and is taking a huge toll on my hands, especially considering the
Covid situation. Something needs to change. I've been working on learning a new
keyboard layout: [Colemak](https://colemak.com).
This post will be shorter than most of my posts because I'm writing it with
Colemak enabled on my iPad. Writing this is painfully slow at the moment. My
sentences are short and choppy because those are easier to type.
I also have a [ZSA Moonlander](https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) on the way, it
should be here in October or November. I will also be sure to write about that
once I get it in the mail.
So far, I have about 30 words per minute on the homerow, but once I go off the
homerow the speed tanks to less than about five.
However, I am making progress!
Be well all, don't stress your hands out.

2
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@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Death is a very misunderstood card in Tarot, but not for the reasons you'd think
Tarot does not see death in this way. Death, the skeleton knight wearing armor, does not see color, race or creed, thus he is depicted as a skeleton. He is riding towards a child and another younger person. The sun is rising in the distance, but even it cannot stop Death. Nor can royalty, as shown by the king under him, dead.
![](/static/img/tarot_death.jpg)
<center>![](/static/img/tarot_death.jpg)</center>
Death, however, does not actually refer to the act of a physical body physically dying. Death is a change that cannot be reverted. The consequences of this change can and will affect what comes next, however.

2
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@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ the real thing that advances is the skill of the player. You make the
deliveries. You go the distance. You do your job as the post-apocalyptic UPS man
that America needs.
![UPS Simulator 2019](/static/img/ups-simulator-2019.jpg)
<center>![UPS Simulator 2019](/static/img/ups-simulator-2019.jpg)</center>
By [mmmintdesign](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign) [source](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign/status/1192856164331114497)

435
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@ -1,435 +0,0 @@
---
title: Dhall for Kubernetes
date: 2020-01-25
tags:
- dhall
- kubernetes
- witchcraft
---
# Dhall for Kubernetes
Kubernetes is a surprisingly complicated software package. Arguably, it has to
be that complicated as a result of the problems it solves being complicated; but
managing yaml configuration files for Kubernetes is a complicated task. [YAML][yaml]
doesn't have support for variables or type metadata. This means that the
validity (or sensibility) of a given Kubernetes configuration file (or files)
isn't easy to figure out without using a Kubernetes server.
[yaml]: https://yaml.org
In my [last post][cultk8s] about Kubernetes, I mentioned I had developed a tool
named [dyson][dyson] in order to help me manage Terraform as well as create
Kubernetes manifests from [a template][template]. This works for the majority of
my apps, but it is difficult to extend at this point for a few reasons:
[cultk8s]: https://christine.website/blog/the-cult-of-kubernetes-2019-09-07
[dyson]: https://github.com/Xe/within-terraform/tree/master/dyson
[template]: https://github.com/Xe/within-terraform/blob/master/dyson/src/dysonPkg/deployment_with_ingress.yaml
- It assumes that everything passed to it are already valid yaml terms
- It doesn't assert the type of any values passed to it
- It is difficult to add another container to a given deployment
- Environment variables implicitly depend on the presence of a private git repo
- It depends on the template being correct more than the output being correct
So, this won't scale. People in the community have created other solutions for
this like [Helm][helm], but a lot of them have some of the same basic problems.
Helm also assumes that your template is correct. [Kustomize][kustomize] does
help with a lot of the type-safe variable replacements, but it doesn't have the
ability to ensure your manifest is valid.
[helm]: https://helm.sh
[kustomize]: https://kustomize.io
I looked around for alternate solutions for a while and eventually found
[Dhall][dhall] thanks to a friend. Dhall is a _statically typed_ configuration
language. This means that you can ensure that inputs are _always_ the correct
type or the configuration file won't load. There's also a built-in
[dhall-to-yaml][dhallyaml] tool that can be used with the [Kubernetes
package][dhallk8s] in order to declare Kubernetes manifests in a type-safe way.
[dhall]: https://dhall-lang.org
[dhallyaml]: https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-haskell/tree/master/dhall-yaml#dhall-yaml
[dhallk8s]: https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-kubernetes
Here's a small example of Dhall and the yaml it generates:
```dhall
-- Mastodon usernames
[ { name = "Cadey", mastodon = "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me" }
, { name = "Nicole", mastodon = "@sharkgirl@mst3k.interlinked.me" }
]
```
Which produces:
```yaml
- mastodon: "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me"
name: Cadey
- mastodon: "@sharkgirl@mst3k.interlinked.me"
name: Nicole
```
Which is fine, but we still have the type-safety problem that you would have in
normal yaml. Dhall lets us define [record types][dhallrecord] for this data like
this:
[dhallrecord]: http://www.haskellforall.com/2020/01/dhall-year-in-review-2019-2020.html
```dhall
let User =
{ Type = { name : Text, mastodon : Optional Text }
, default = { name = "", mastodon = None }
}
let users =
[ User::{ name = "Cadey", mastodon = Some "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me" }
, User::{
, name = "Nicole"
, mastodon = Some "@sharkgirl@mst3k.interlinked.me"
}
]
in users
```
Which produces:
```yaml
- mastodon: "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me"
name: Cadey
- mastodon: "@sharkgirl@mst3k.interlinked.me"
name: Nicole
```
This is type-safe because you cannot add arbitrary fields to User instances
without the compiler rejecting it. Let's add an invalid "preferred_language"
field to Cadey's instance:
```
-- ...
let users =
[ User::{
, name = "Cadey"
, mastodon = Some "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me"
, preferred_language = "en-US"
}
-- ...
]
```
Which gives us:
```
$ dhall-to-yaml --file example.dhall
Error: Expression doesn't match annotation
{ + preferred_language : …
, …
}
4│ User::{ name = "Cadey", mastodon = Some "@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me",
5│ preferred_language = "en-US" }
example.dhall:4:9
```
Or [this more detailed explanation][explanation] if you add the `--explain` flag
to the `dhall-to-yaml` call.
[explanation]: https://clbin.com/JtVWT
We tried to do something that violated the contract that the type specified.
This means that it's an invalid configuration and is therefore rejected and no
yaml file is created.
The Dhall Kubernetes package specifies record types for _every_ object available
by default in Kubernetes. This does mean that the package is incredibly large,
but it also makes sure that _everything_ you could possibly want to do in
Kubernetes matches what it expects. In the [package
documentation][k8sdhalldocs], they give an example where a
[Deployment][k8sdeployment] is created.
[k8sdhalldocs]: https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-kubernetes/tree/master/1.15#quickstart---a-simple-deployment
[k8sdeployment]: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/
``` dhall
-- examples/deploymentSimple.dhall
-- Importing other files is done by specifying the HTTPS URL/disk location of
-- the file. Attaching a sha256 hash (obtained with `dhall freeze`) allows
-- the Dhall compiler to cache these files and speed up configuration loads
-- drastically.
let kubernetes =
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dhall-lang/dhall-kubernetes/1.15/master/package.dhall
sha256:4bd5939adb0a5fc83d76e0d69aa3c5a30bc1a5af8f9df515f44b6fc59a0a4815
let deployment =
kubernetes.Deployment::{
, metadata = kubernetes.ObjectMeta::{ name = "nginx" }
, spec =
Some
kubernetes.DeploymentSpec::{
, replicas = Some 2
, template =
kubernetes.PodTemplateSpec::{
, metadata = kubernetes.ObjectMeta::{ name = "nginx" }
, spec =
Some
kubernetes.PodSpec::{
, containers =
[ kubernetes.Container::{
, name = "nginx"
, image = Some "nginx:1.15.3"
, ports =
[ kubernetes.ContainerPort::{
, containerPort = 80
}
]
}
]
}
}
}
}
in deployment
```
Which creates the following yaml:
```
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nginx
spec:
replicas: 2
template:
metadata:
name: nginx
spec:
containers:
- image: nginx:1.15.3
name: nginx
ports:
- containerPort: 80
```
Dhall's lambda functions can help you break this into manageable chunks. For
example, here's a Dhall function that helps create a docker image reference:
```
let formatImage
: Text -> Text -> Text
= \(repository : Text) -> \(tag : Text) ->
"${repository}:${tag}"
in formatImage "xena/christinewebsite" "latest"
```
Which outputs `xena/christinewebsite:latest` when passed to `dhall text`.
All of this adds up into a powerful toolset that lets you express Kubernetes
configuration in a way that does what you want without as many headaches.
Most of my apps on Kubernetes need only a few generic bits of configuration:
- Their name
- What port should be exposed
- The domain that this service should be exposed on
- How many replicas of the service are needed
- Which Let's Encrypt Issuer to use (currently only `"prod"` or `"staging"`)
- The [configuration variables of the service][12factorconfig]
- Any other containers that may be needed for the service
[12factorconfig]: https://12factor.net/config
From here, I defined all of the [bits and pieces][kubermemeshttp] for the
Kubernetes manifests that Dyson produces and then created a `Config` type that
helps to template them out. Here's my [`Config` type
definition][configdefinition]:
[kubermemeshttp]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/kubermemes/src/branch/master/k8s/http
[configdefinition]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/kubermemes/src/branch/master/k8s/app/config.dhall
```dhall
let kubernetes = ../kubernetes.dhall
in { Type =
{ name : Text
, appPort : Natural
, image : Text
, domain : Text
, replicas : Natural
, leIssuer : Text
, envVars : List kubernetes.EnvVar.Type
, otherContainers : List kubernetes.Container.Type
}
, default =
{ name = ""
, appPort = 5000
, image = ""
, domain = ""
, replicas = 1
, leIssuer = "staging"
, envVars = [] : List kubernetes.EnvVar.Type
, otherContainers = [] : List kubernetes.Container.Type
}
}
```
Then I defined a `makeApp` function that creates everything I need to deploy my
stuff on Kubernetes:
```dhall
let Prelude = ../Prelude.dhall
let kubernetes = ../kubernetes.dhall
let typesUnion = ../typesUnion.dhall
let deployment = ../http/deployment.dhall
let ingress = ../http/ingress.dhall
let service = ../http/service.dhall
let Config = ../app/config.dhall
let K8sList = ../app/list.dhall
let buildService =
\(config : Config.Type)
-> let myService = service config
let myDeployment = deployment config
let myIngress = ingress config
in K8sList::{
, items =
[ typesUnion.Service myService
, typesUnion.Deployment myDeployment
, typesUnion.Ingress myIngress
]
}
in buildService
```
And used it to deploy the [h language website][hlang]:
[hlang]: https://h.christine.website
```dhall
let makeApp = ../app/make.dhall
let Config = ../app/config.dhall
let cfg =
Config::{
, name = "hlang"
, appPort = 5000
, image = "xena/hlang:latest"
, domain = "h.christine.website"
, leIssuer = "prod"
}
in makeApp cfg
```
Which produces the following Kubernetes config:
```yaml
apiVersion: v1
items:
- apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
annotations:
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/cloudflare-proxied: "false"
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/hostname: h.christine.website
external-dns.alpha.kubernetes.io/ttl: "120"
labels:
app: hlang
name: hlang
namespace: apps
spec:
ports:
- port: 5000
targetPort: 5000
selector:
app: hlang
type: ClusterIP
- apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: hlang
namespace: apps
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: hlang
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: hlang
name: hlang
spec:
containers:
- image: xena/hlang:latest
imagePullPolicy: Always
name: web
ports:
- containerPort: 5000
imagePullSecrets:
- name: regcred
- apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
annotations:
certmanager.k8s.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-prod
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
labels:
app: hlang
name: hlang
namespace: apps
spec:
rules:
- host: h.christine.website
http:
paths:
- backend:
serviceName: hlang
servicePort: 5000
tls:
- hosts:
- h.christine.website
secretName: prod-certs-hlang
kind: List
```
And when I applied it on my Kubernetes cluster, it worked the first time and had
absolutely no effect on the existing configuration.
In the future, I hope to expand this to allow for multiple deployments (IE: a
chatbot running in a separate deployment than a web API the chatbot depends on
or non-web projects in general) as well as supporting multiple Kubernetes
namespaces.
Dhall is probably the most viable replacement to Helm or other Kubernetes
templating tools I have found in recent memory. I hope that it will be used by
more people to help with configuration management, but I can understand that
that may not happen. At least it works for me.
If you want to learn more about Dhall, I suggest checking out the following
links:
- [The Dhall Language homepage](https://dhall-lang.org)
- [Learn Dhall in Y Minutes](https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/dhall/)
- [The Dhall Language GitHub Organization](https://github.com/dhall-lang)
I hope this was helpful and interesting. Be well.

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---
title: Continuous Deployment to Kubernetes with Gitea and Drone
date: 2020-07-10
series: howto
tags:
- nix
- kubernetes
- drone
- gitea
---
# Continuous Deployment to Kubernetes with Gitea and Drone
Recently I put a complete rewrite of [the printerfacts
server](https://printerfacts.cetacean.club) into service based on
[warp](https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp). I have it set up to automatically
be deployed to my Kubernetes cluster on every commit to [its source
repo](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts). I'm going to explain how this works
and how I set it up.
## Nix
One of the first elements in this is [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix). I use Nix to
build reproducible docker images of the printerfacts server, as well as managing
my own developer tooling locally. I also pull in the following packages from
GitHub:
- [naersk](https://github.com/nmattia/naersk) - an automagic builder for Rust
crates that is friendly to the nix store
- [gruvbox-css](https://github.com/Xe/gruvbox-css) - the CSS file that the
printerfacts service uses
- [nixpkgs](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs) - contains definitions for the
base packages of the system
These are tracked using [niv](https://github.com/nmattia/niv), which allows me
to store these dependencies in the global nix store for free. This lets them be
reused and deduplicated as they need to be.
Next, I made a build script for the printerfacts service that builds on top of
these in `printerfacts.nix`:
```nix
{ sources ? import ./nix/sources.nix, pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
let
srcNoTarget = dir:
builtins.filterSource
(path: type: type != "directory" || builtins.baseNameOf path != "target")
dir;
src = srcNoTarget ./.;
naersk = pkgs.callPackage sources.naersk { };
gruvbox-css = pkgs.callPackage sources.gruvbox-css { };
pfacts = naersk.buildPackage {
inherit src;
remapPathPrefix = true;
};
in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
inherit (pfacts) name;
inherit src;
phases = "installPhase";
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/static
cp -rf $src/templates $out/templates
cp -rf ${pfacts}/bin $out/bin
cp -rf ${gruvbox-css}/gruvbox.css $out/static/gruvbox.css
'';
}
```
And finally a simple docker image builder in `default.nix`:
```nix
{ system ? builtins.currentSystem }:
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
printerfacts = pkgs.callPackage ./printerfacts.nix { };
name = "xena/printerfacts";
tag = "latest";
in pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
inherit name tag;
contents = [ printerfacts ];
config = {
Cmd = [ "${printerfacts}/bin/printerfacts" ];
Env = [ "RUST_LOG=info" ];
WorkingDir = "/";
};
}
```
This creates a docker image with only the printerfacts service in it and any
dependencies that are absolutely required for the service to function. Each
dependency is also split into its own docker layer so that it is much more
efficient on docker caches, which translates into faster start times on existing
servers. Here are the layers needed for the printerfacts service to function:
- [libunistring](https://www.gnu.org/software/libunistring/) - Unicode-safe
string manipulation library
- [libidn2](https://www.gnu.org/software/libidn/) - An internationalized domain
name decoder
- [glibc](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/) - A core library for C programs
to interface with the Linux kernel
- The printerfacts binary/templates
That's it. It packs all of this into an image that is 13 megabytes when
compressed.
## Drone
Now that we have a way to make a docker image, let's look how I use
[drone.io](https://drone.io) to build and push this image to the [Docker
Hub](https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/xena/printerfacts/tags).
I have a drone manifest that looks like
[this](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts/src/branch/master/.drone.yml):
```yaml
kind: pipeline
name: docker
steps:
- name: build docker image
image: "monacoremo/nix:2020-04-05-05f09348-circleci"
environment:
USER: root
commands:
- cachix use xe
- nix-build
- cp $(readlink result) /result/docker.tgz
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
- name: push docker image
image: docker:dind
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
- name: dockersock
path: /var/run/docker.sock
commands:
- docker load -i /result/docker.tgz
- docker tag xena/printerfacts:latest xena/printerfacts:$DRONE_COMMIT_SHA
- echo $DOCKER_PASSWORD | docker login -u $DOCKER_USERNAME --password-stdin
- docker push xena/printerfacts:$DRONE_COMMIT_SHA
environment:
DOCKER_USERNAME: xena
DOCKER_PASSWORD:
from_secret: DOCKER_PASSWORD
- name: kubenetes release
image: "monacoremo/nix:2020-04-05-05f09348-circleci"
environment:
USER: root
DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN:
from_secret: DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN
commands:
- nix-env -i -f ./nix/dhall.nix
- ./scripts/release.sh
volumes:
- name: image
temp: {}
- name: dockersock
host:
path: /var/run/docker.sock
```
This is a lot, so let's break it up into the individual parts.
### Configuration
Drone steps normally don't have access to a docker daemon, privileged mode or
host-mounted paths. I configured the
[cadey/printerfacts](https://drone.tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts) job with the
following settings:
- I enabled Trusted mode so that the build could use the host docker daemon to
build docker images
- I added the `DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN` and `DOCKER_PASSWORD` secrets
containing a [Digital Ocean](https://www.digitalocean.com/) API token and a
Docker hub password
I then set up the `volumes` block to create a few things:
```
volumes:
- name: image
temp: {}
- name: dockersock
host:
path: /var/run/docker.sock
```
- A temporary folder to store the docker image after Nix builds it
- The docker daemon socket from the host
Now we can get to the building the docker image.
### Docker Image Build
I use [this docker image](https://hub.docker.com/r/monacoremo/nix) to build with
Nix on my Drone setup. As of the time of writing this post, the most recent tag
of this image is `monacoremo/nix:2020-04-05-05f09348-circleci`. This image has a
core setup of Nix and a few userspace tools so that it works in CI tooling. In
this step, I do a few things:
```yaml
name: build docker image
image: "monacoremo/nix:2020-04-05-05f09348-circleci"
environment:
USER: root
commands:
- cachix use xe
- nix-build
- cp $(readlink result) /result/docker.tgz
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
```
I first activate my [cachix](https://xe.cachix.org) cache so that any pre-built
parts of this setup can be fetched from the cache instead of rebuilt from source
or fetched from [crates.io](https://crates.io). This makes the builds slightly
faster in my limited testing.
Then I build the docker image with `nix-build` (`nix-build` defaults to
`default.nix` when a filename is not specified, which is where the docker build
is defined in this case) and copy the resulting tarball to that shared temporary
folder I mentioned earlier. This lets me build the docker image _without needing
a docker daemon_ or any other special permissions on the host.
### Pushing
The next step pushes this newly created docker image to the Docker Hub:
```
name: push docker image
image: docker:dind
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
- name: dockersock
path: /var/run/docker.sock
commands:
- docker load -i /result/docker.tgz
- docker tag xena/printerfacts:latest xena/printerfacts:$DRONE_COMMIT_SHA
- echo $DOCKER_PASSWORD | docker login -u $DOCKER_USERNAME --password-stdin
- docker push xena/printerfacts:$DRONE_COMMIT_SHA
environment:
DOCKER_USERNAME: xena
DOCKER_PASSWORD:
from_secret: DOCKER_PASSWORD
```
First it loads the docker image from that shared folder into the docker daemon
as `xena/printerfacts:latest`. This image is then tagged with the relevant git
commit using the magic
[`$DRONE_COMMIT_SHA`](https://docs.drone.io/pipeline/environment/reference/drone-commit-sha/)
variable that Drone defines for you.
In order to push docker images, you need to log into the Docker Hub. I log in
using this method in order to avoid the chance that the docker password will be
leaked to the build logs.
```
echo $DOCKER_PASSWORD | docker login -u $DOCKER_USERNAME --password-stdin
```
Then the image is pushed to the Docker hub and we can get onto the deployment
step.
### Deploying to Kubernetes
The deploy step does two small things. First, it installs
[dhall-yaml](https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-haskell/tree/master/dhall-yaml)
for generating the Kubernetes manifest (see
[here](https://christine.website/blog/dhall-kubernetes-2020-01-25)) and then
runs
[`scripts/release.sh`](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts/src/branch/master/scripts/release.sh):
```
#!/usr/bin/env nix-shell
#! nix-shell -p doctl -p kubectl -i bash
doctl kubernetes cluster kubeconfig save kubermemes
dhall-to-yaml-ng < ./printerfacts.dhall | kubectl apply -n apps -f -
kubectl rollout status -n apps deployment/printerfacts
```
This uses the [nix-shell shebang
support](http://iam.travishartwell.net/2015/06/17/nix-shell-shebang/) to
automatically set up the following tools:
- [doctl](https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl) to log into kubernetes
- [kubectl](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/overview/) to actually
deploy the site
Then it logs into kubernetes (my cluster is real-life unironically named
kubermemes), applies the generated manifest (which looks something like
[this](http://sprunge.us/zsO4os)) and makes sure the deployment rolls out
successfully.
This will have the kubernetes cluster automatically roll out new versions of the
service and maintain at least two active replicas of the service. This will make
sure that you users can always have access to high-quality printer facts, even
if one or more of the kubernetes nodes go down.
---
And that is how I continuously deploy things on my Gitea server to Kubernetes
using Drone, Dhall and Nix.
If you want to integrate the printer facts service into your application, use
the `/fact` route on it:
```console
$ curl https://printerfacts.cetacean.club/fact
A printer has a total of 24 whiskers, 4 rows of whiskers on each side. The upper
two rows can move independently of the bottom two rows.
```
There is currently no rate limit to this API. Please do not make me have to
create one.

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---
title: RSS/Atom Feeds Fixed and Announcing my Flight Journal
date: 2020-07-26
tags:
- gemini
---
# RSS/Atom Feeds Fixed and Announcing my Flight Journal
I have released version 2.0.1 of this site's code. With it I have fixed the RSS
and Atom feed generation. For now I have had to sacrifice the post content being
in the feed, but I will bring it back as soon as possible.
Victory badges:
[![Valid Atom Feed](https://validator.w3.org/feed/images/valid-atom.png)](/blog.atom)
[![Valid RSS Feed](https://validator.w3.org/feed/images/valid-rss-rogers.png)](/blog.rss)
Thanks to [W3Schools](https://www.w3schools.com/XML/xml_rss.asp) for having a
minimal example of an RSS feed and [this Flickr
image](https://www.flickr.com/photos/sepblog/3652359502/) for expanding it so I
can have the post dates be included too.
## Flight Journal
I have created a [Gemini](https://gemini.circumlunar.space) protocol server at
[gemini://cetacean.club](gemini://cetacean.club). Gemini is an exploration of
the space between [Gopher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29)
and HTTP. Right now my site doesn't have much on it, but I have added its feed
to [my feeds page](/feeds).
Please note that the content on this Gemini site is going to be of a much more
personal nature compared to the more professional kind of content I put on this
blog. Please keep this in mind before casting judgement or making any kind of
conclusions about me.
If you don't have a Gemini client installed, you can view the site content
[here](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/cetacean.club/). I plan to make a HTTP
frontend to this site once I get [Maj](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/maj) up and
functional.
## Maj
I have created a Gemini client and server framework for Rust programs called
[Maj](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/maj). Right now it includes the following
features:
- Synchronous client
- Asynchronous server framework
- Gemini response parser
- `text/gemini` parser
Additionally, I have a few projects in progress for the Maj ecosystem:
- [majc](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/cetacean.club/maj/majc.gmi) - an
interactive curses client for Gemini
- majd - An advanced reverse proxy and Lua handler daemon for people running
Gemini servers
- majsite - A simple example of the maj server framework in action
I will write more about this in the future when I have more than just this
little preview of what is to come implemented. However, here's a screenshot of
majc rendering my flight journal:
![majc preview image rendering cetacean.club](/static/img/majc_preview.png)

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---
title: "Gamebridge: Fitting Square Pegs into Round Holes since 2020"
date: 2020-05-09
series: howto
tags:
- witchcraft
- sm64
- twitch
---
# Gamebridge: Fitting Square Pegs into Round Holes since 2020
Recently I did a stream called [Twitch Plays Super Mario 64][tpsm64]. During
that stream I both demonstrated and hacked on a tool I'm calling
[gamebridge][gamebridge]. Gamebridge is a tool that lets you allow games to
interoperate with programs they really shouldn't be able to interoperate with.
[tpsm64]: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615780185
[gamebridge]: https://github.com/Xe/gamebridge
Gamebridge works by aggressively hooking into a game's input logic (through a
custom controller driver) and uses a pair of [Unix fifos][ufifo] to communicate
between it and the game it is controlling. Overall the flow of data between the
two programs looks like this:
[ufifo]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/fifo.7.html
![A diagram explaining how control/state/data flows between components of the
gamebridge stack](/static/blog/gamebridge.png)
You can view the [source code of this diagram in GraphViz dot format
here](/static/blog/gamebridge.dot).
The main magic that keeps this glued together is the use of _blocking_ I/O.
This means that the bridge input thread will be blocked _at the kernel level_
for the vblank signal to be written, and the game will also be blocked at the
kernel level for the bridge input thread to write the desired input. This
effectively uses the Linux kernel to pass around a scheduling quantum like you
would in the L4 microkernel. This design consideration also means that
gamebridge has to perform _as fast as possible as much as possible_, because it
realistically only has a few hundred microseconds at best to respond with the
input data to avoid humans noticing any stutter. As such, gamebridge is written
in Rust.
## Implementation
When implementing gamebridge, I had a few goals in mind:
- Use blocking I/O to have the kernel help with this
- Use threads to their fullest potential
- Unix fifos are great, let's use them
- Understand linear interpolation better
- Create a surreal demo on Twitch
- Only have one binary to start, the game itself
As a first step of implementing this, I went through the source code of the
Mario 64 PC port (but in theory this could also work for other emulators or even
Nintendo 64 emulators with enough work) and began to look for anything that
might be useful to understand how parts of the game work. I stumbled across
`src/pc/controller` and then found two gems that really stood out. I found the
interface for adding new input methods to the game and an example input method
that read from tool-assisted speedrun recordings. The controller input interface
itself is a thing of beauty, I've included a copy of it below:
```c
// controller_api.h
#ifndef CONTROLLER_API
#define CONTROLLER_API
#include <ultra64.h>
struct ControllerAPI {
void (*init)(void);
void (*read)(OSContPad *pad);
};
#endif
```
All you need to implement your own input method is an init function and a read
function. The init function is used to set things up and the read function is
called every frame to get inputs. The tool-assisted speedrunning input method
seemed to conform to the [Mupen64 demo file spec as described on
tasvideos.org][mupendemo], and I ended up using this to help test and verify
ideas.
[mupendemo]: http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Mupen/M64.html
The thing that struck me was how _simple_ the format was. Every frame of input
uses its own four-byte sequence. The constants in the demo file spec also helped
greatly as I figured out ways to bridge into the game from Rust. I ended up
creating two [bitflag][bitflag] structs to help with the button data, which
ended up almost being a 1:1 copy of the Mupen64 demo file spec:
[bitflag]: https://docs.rs/bitflags/1.2.1/bitflags/
```rust
bitflags! {
// 0x0100 Digital Pad Right
// 0x0200 Digital Pad Left
// 0x0400 Digital Pad Down
// 0x0800 Digital Pad Up
// 0x1000 Start
// 0x2000 Z
// 0x4000 B
// 0x8000 A
pub(crate) struct HiButtons: u8 {
const NONE = 0x00;
const DPAD_RIGHT = 0x01;
const DPAD_LEFT = 0x02;
const DPAD_DOWN = 0x04;
const DPAD_UP = 0x08;
const START = 0x10;
const Z_BUTTON = 0x20;
const B_BUTTON = 0x40;
const A_BUTTON = 0x80;
}
}
```
### Input
This is where things get interesting. One of the more interesting side effects
of getting inputs over chat for a game like Mario 64 is that you need to [hold
buttons or even the analog stick][apress] in order to do things like jumping
into paintings or on ledges. When you get inputs over chat, you only have them
for one frame. Therefore you need some kind of analog input (or an emulation of
that) that decays over time. One approach you can use for this is [linear
interpolation][lerp] (or lerp).
[apress]: https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?list=PLmBeAOWc3Gf7IHDihv-QSzS8Y_361b_YO&t=13
[lerp]: https://www.gamedev.net/tutorials/programming/general-and-gameplay-programming/a-brief-introduction-to-lerp-r4954/
I implemented support for both button and analog stick lerping using a struct I
call a [Lerper][lerper] (the file it is in is named `au.rs` because [.au.][au] is
the lojban emotion-particle for "to desire", the name was inspired from it
seeming to fake what the desired inputs were).
[lerper]: https://github.com/Xe/gamebridge/blob/b2e7ba21aa14b556e34d7a99dd02e22f9a1365aa/src/au.rs
[au]: http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/dict/au
At its core, a Lerper stores a few basic things:
- the current scalar of where the analog input is resting
- the frame number when the analog input was set to the max (or
above)
- the maximum number of frames that the lerp should run for
- the goal (or where the end of the linear interpolation is, for most cases in
this codebase the goal is 0, or neutral)
- the maximum possible output to return on `apply()`
- the minimum possible output to return on `apply()`
Every frame, the lerpers for every single input to the game will get applied
down closer to zero. Mario 64 uses two signed bytes to represent the controller
input. The maximum/minimum clamps make sure that the lerped result stays in that
range.
### Twitch Integration
This is one of the first times I have ever used asynchronous Rust in conjunction
with synchronous rust. I was shocked at how easy it was to just spin up another
thread and have that thread take care of the Tokio runtime, leaving the main
thread to focus on input. This is the block of code that handles [running the
asynchronous twitch bot in parallel to the main thread][twitchrs]:
[twitchrs]: https://github.com/Xe/gamebridge/blob/b2e7ba21aa14b556e34d7a99dd02e22f9a1365aa/src/twitch.rs#L12
```rust
pub(crate) fn run(st: MTState) {
use tokio::runtime::Runtime;
Runtime::new()
.expect("Failed to create Tokio runtime")
.block_on(handle(st));
}
```
Then the rest of the Twitch integration is boilerplate until we get to the
command parser. At its core, it just splits each chat line up into words and
looks for keywords:
```rust
let chatline = msg.data.to_string();
let chatline = chatline.to_ascii_lowercase();
let mut data = st.write().unwrap();
const BUTTON_ADD_AMT: i64 = 64;
for cmd in chatline.to_string().split(" ").collect::<Vec<&str>>().iter() {
match *cmd {
"a" => data.a_button.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"b" => data.b_button.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"z" => data.z_button.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"r" => data.r_button.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"cup" => data.c_up.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"cdown" => data.c_down.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"cleft" => data.c_left.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"cright" => data.c_right.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"start" => data.start.add(BUTTON_ADD_AMT),
"up" => data.sticky.add(127),
"down" => data.sticky.add(-128),
"left" => data.stickx.add(-128),
"right" => data.stickx.add(127),
"stop" => {data.stickx.update(0); data.sticky.update(0);},
_ => {},
}
}
```
This implements the following commands:
| Command | Meaning |
|----------|----------------------------------|
| `a` | Press the A button |
| `b` | Press the B button |
| `z` | Press the Z button |
| `r` | Press the R button |
| `cup` | Press the C-up button |
| `cdown` | Press the C-down button |
| `cleft` | Press the C-left button |
| `cright` | Press the C-right button |
| `start` | Press the start button |
| `up` | Press up on the analog stick |
| `down` | Press down on the analog stick |
| `left` | Press left on the analog stick |
| `stop` | Reset the analog stick to center |
Currently analog stick inputs will stick for about 270 frames and button inputs
will stick for about 20 frames before drifting back to neutral. The start button
is special, inputs to the start button will stick for 5 frames at most.
### Debugging
Debugging two programs running together is surprisingly hard. I had to resort to
the tried-and-true method of using `gdb` for the main game code and excessive
amounts of printf debugging in Rust. The [pretty\_env\_logger][pel] crate (which
internally uses the [env_logger][el] crate, and its environment variable
configures pretty\_env\_logger) helped a lot. One of the biggest problems I
encountered in developing it was fixed by this patch, which I will paste inline:
[pel]: https://docs.rs/pretty_env_logger/0.4.0/pretty_env_logger/
[el]: https://docs.rs/env_logger/0.7.1/env_logger/
```diff
diff --git a/gamebridge/src/main.rs b/gamebridge/src/main.rs
index 426cd3e..6bc3f59 100644
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ fn main() -> Result<()> {
},
};
- sticky = match stickx {
+ sticky = match sticky {
0 => sticky,
127 => {
ymax_frame = data.frame;
```
Somehow I had been trying to adjust the y axis position of the stick by
comparing the x axis position of the stick. Finding and fixing this bug is what
made me write the Lerper type.
---
Altogether, this has been a very fun project. I've learned a lot about 3d game
design, historical source code analysis and inter-process communication. I also
learned a lot about asynchronous Rust and how it can work together with
synchronous Rust. I also got to make a fairly surreal demo for Twitch. I hope
this can be useful to others, even if it just serves as an example of how to
integrate things into strange other things from unixy first principles.
You can find out slightly more about [gamebridge][gamebridge] on its GitHub
page. Its repo also includes patches for the Mario 64 PC port source code,
including one that disables the ability for Mario to lose lives. This could
prove useful for Twitch plays attempts, the 5 life cap by default became rather
limiting in testing.
Be well.

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---
title: The Fear Of Missing Out
date: 2020-08-02
tags:
- culture
- web
---
# The Fear Of Missing Out
Humans have evolved over thousands of years with communities that are small,
tight-knit and where it is easy to feel like you know everyone in them. The
Internet changes this completely. With the Internet, it's easy to send messages,
write articles and even publish books that untold thousands of people can read
and interact with. This has lead to an instinctive fear in humanity I'm going to
call the Fear of Missing Out [1].
[[1]: The Fear of Missing Out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out)
The Internet in its current form capitalizes and makes billions off of this.
Infinite scrolling and live updating pages that make it feel like there's always
something new to read. Uncountable hours of engineering and psychological
testing spent making sure people click and scroll and click and consume all day
until that little hit of dopamine becomes its own addiction. We have taken a
system for displaying documents and accidentally turned it into a hulking
abomination that consumes the souls of all who get trapped in it, crystallizing
them in an endless cycle of checking notifications, looking for new posts on
your newsfeed, scrolling down to find just that something you think you're
looking for.
When I was in high school, I bagged groceries for a store. I also had the
opportunity to help customers out to their cars and was able to talk with them.
Obviously, I was minimum wage and had a whole bunch of other things to do;
however there were a few times that I could really get to talk with regular
customers and feel like I got to know them. What comes to mind however is a
story where that is not the case. One day I was helping this older woman to her
car, and she eventually said something like "All of these people just keep
going, going, going nonstop. It drives me mad. How can't they see where they are
is good enough already?" I thought for a moment and I wasn't able to come up
with a decent reply.
The infinite scrollbars and newsfeeds of the web just keep going, going, going,
going, going, going, going and going until the user gives up to do something
elses. There's no consideration of _how_ the content is discovered, and _why_
the content is discovered, it's just an endless feed of noise. One subtle change
in your worldview after another, just from the headlines alone. Not to mention
the endless torrent of advertising.
However, I think there may be a way out, a kind of detox from the infinite
scrolling, newsfeeds, notifications and the like for the internet, and I think a
good step towards that is the Gemini [2] protocol.
[[2]: Gemini Protocol](https://gemini.circumlunar.space/)
Gemini is a protocol that is somewhere between HTTP and Gopher. A user sends a
request to a Gemini server and the user gets a response back. This response
could be anything, but a little header tells the client what kind of data it is.
There's also a little markup format that's a very lightweight take on
markdown [3], but overall the entire goal of the project is to be minimal and
just serve documents.
[[3]: Gemtext markup](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/gemtext.gmi)
I've noticed something as I browse through the known constellation of Gemini
capsules though. I keep refreshing the CAPCOM feed of posts. I keep refreshing
the mailing list archives. I keep refreshing my email client, looking for new
content and feel frustrated when it doesn't show up like I expect it to. I'm
addicted to the newsfeeds. I'm caught in the trap that autoplay put me in. I'm a
victim to infinite scrolling and that constant little hit of dopamine that
modern social media has put on us all. Realizing this feels like I am realizing
an addiction to a drug (but I'd argue that it somewhat is a drug, by design,
what better way to get people to be exposed to ads than to make the service that
serves the ads addictive!).
I'm not sure how to best combat this. It feels kind of scary. I'm starting to
attempt to detox though. I'm writing a lot more on my Gemini capsule [4] [5]. I'm
starting to really consider the Fear of Missing Out when I design and implement
things in the future. So many things update instantly on the modern internet, it
may be a good idea to attempt to make something that updates weekly or even
monthly.
[[4]: My Gemini capsule](gemini://cetacean.club)
[[5]: [experimental] My Gemini capsule over HTTP](http://cetacean.club)
I'm still going to attempt a few ideas that I have regarding long term archival
of the Gemini constellation, but I'm definitely going to make sure that I take
the time to actually consider the consequences of my actions and what kind of
world it creates. I want to create the kind of world that enables people to
better themselves.
Let's work together to detox from the harmful effects of what we all have
created. I'm considering opening up a Gemini server that other people can have
accounts on and write about things that interest them.
If you want to get started with Gemini, I suggest taking a look at the main site
through the Gemini to HTTP proxy [6]. There are some clients listed in the pages
there, including a _very good_ iOS client that is currently in TestFlight.
Please do keep in mind that Gemini is very much a back-button navigation kind of
experience. The web has made people expect navigation links to be everywhere,
which can make it a weird/jarring experience at first, but you get used to it.
You can see evidence of this in my site with all the "Go back" links on each
page. I'll remove those at some point, but for now I'm going to keep them.
[[6]: Project Gemini](https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/)
Don't be afraid of missing out. It's inevitable. Things happen. It's okay for
them to happen without you having to see them. They will still be there when you
look again.

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---
title: "gitea-release Tool Announcement"
date: "2020-05-31"
tags:
- gitea
- rust
- release
---
# gitea-release Tool Announcement
I'm a big fan of automating things that can possibly be automated. One of the
biggest pains that I've consistently had is creating/tagging releases of
software. This has been a very manual process for me. I have to write up
changelogs, bump versions and then replicate the changelog/versions in the web
UI of whatever git forge the project in question is using. This works great at
smaller scales, but can quickly become a huge pain in the butt when this needs
to be done more often. Today I've written a small tool to help me automate this
going forward, it is named
[`gitea-release`](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/gitea-release). This is one of my
largest Rust projects to date and something I am incredibly happy with. I will
be using it going forward for all of my repos on my gitea instance
[tulpa.dev](https://tulpa.dev).
`gitea-release` is a spiritual clone of the tool [`github-release`][ghrelease],
but optimized for my workflow. The biggest changes are that it works on
[gitea][gitea] repos instead of github repos, is written in Rust instead of Go
and it automatically scrapes release notes from `CHANGELOG.md` as well as
reading the version of the software from `VERSION`.
[ghrelease]: https://github.com/github-release/github-release
[gitea]: https://gitea.io
## CHANGELOG.md and VERSION files
The `CHANGELOG.md` file is based on the [Keep a Changelog][kacl] format, but
modified slightly to make it easier for this tool. Here is an example changelog
that this tool accepts:
[kacl]: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
```markdown
# Changelog
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
## 0.1.0
### FIXED
- Refrobnicate the spurious rilkefs
## 0.0.1
First release, proof of concept.
```
When a release is created for version 0.1.0, this tool will make the description
of the release about as follows:
```
### FIXED
- Refrobnicate the spurious rilkefs
```
This allows the changelog file to be the ultimate source of truth for release
notes with this tool.
The `VERSION` file plays into this as well. The `VERSION` file MUST be a single
line containing a [semantic version][semver] string. This allows the `VERSION`
file to be the ultimate source of truth for software version data with this
tool.
[semver]: https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html
## Release Process
When this tool is run with the `release` subcommand, the following actions take place:
- The `VERSION` file is read and loaded as the desired tag for the repo
- The `CHANGELOG.md` file is read and the changes for the `VERSION` are
cherry-picked out of the file
- The git repo is checked to see if that tag already exists
- If the tag exists, the tool exits and does nothing
- If the tag does not exist, it is created (with the changelog fragment as the
body of the tag) and pushed to the gitea server using the supplied gitea token
- A gitea release is created using the changelog fragment and the release name
is generated from the `VERSION` string
## Automation of the Automation
This tool works perfectly well locally, but this doesn't make it fully
automated from the gitea repo. I use [drone][drone] as a CI/CD tool for my gitea
repos. Drone has a very convenient and simple to use [plugin
system][droneplugin] that was easy to integrate with [structopt][structopt].
[drone]: https://drone.io
[droneplugin]: https://docs.drone.io/plugins/overview/
[structopt]: https://crates.io/crates/structopt
I created a drone plugin at `xena/gitea-release` that can be configured as a
pipeline step in your `.drone.yml` like this:
```yaml
kind: pipeline
name: ci/release
steps:
- name: whatever unit testing step
# ...
- name: auto-release
image: xena/gitea-release:0.2.5
settings:
auth_username: cadey
changelog_path: ./CHANGELOG.md
gitea_server: https://tulpa.dev
gitea_token:
from_secret: GITEA_TOKEN
when:
event:
- push
branch:
- master
```
This allows me to bump the `VERSION` and `CHANGELOG.md`, then push that commit
to git and a new release will automatically be created. You can see an example
of this in action with [the drone build history of the gitea-release
repo](https://drone.tulpa.dev/cadey/gitea-release). You can also how the
`CHANGELOG.md` file grows with the [CHANGELOG of
gitea-release](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/gitea-release/src/branch/master/CHANGELOG.md).
Once the release is pushed to gitea, you can then use drone to trigger
deployment commands. For example here is the deployment pipeline used to
automatically update the docker image for the gitea-release tool:
```yaml
kind: pipeline
name: docker
steps:
- name: build docker image
image: "monacoremo/nix:2020-04-05-05f09348-circleci"
environment:
USER: root
commands:
- cachix use xe
- nix-build docker.nix
- cp $(readlink result) /result/docker.tgz
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
when:
event:
- tag
- name: push docker image
image: docker:dind
volumes:
- name: image
path: /result
- name: dockersock
path: /var/run/docker.sock
commands:
- docker load -i /result/docker.tgz
- echo $DOCKER_PASSWORD | docker login -u $DOCKER_USERNAME --password-stdin
- docker push xena/gitea-release
environment:
DOCKER_USERNAME:
from_secret: DOCKER_USERNAME
DOCKER_PASSWORD:
from_secret: DOCKER_PASSWORD
when:
event:
- tag
volumes:
- name: image
temp: {}
- name: dockersock
host:
path: /var/run/docker.sock
```
This pipeline will use [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix) to build the docker image,
load it into a Docker daemon and then log into the Docker Hub and push it. This
can then be used to do whatever you want. It may also be a good idea to push a
docker image for every commit and then re-label the tagged commits, but this
wasn't implemented in this repo.
---
I hope this tool will be useful. I will accept feedback over [any contact
method](/contact). If you want to contribute directly to the project, please
feel free to create [issues](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/gitea-release/issues) or
[pull requests](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/gitea-release/pulls). If you don't want
to create an account on my git server, get me the issue details or code diffs
somehow and I will do everything I can to fix issues and integrate code. I just
want to make this tool better however I can.
Be well.

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@ -1,78 +0,0 @@
---
title: hlang in 30 Seconds
date: 2021-01-04
series: h
tags:
- satire
---
# hlang in 30 Seconds
hlang (the h language) is a revolutionary new use of WebAssembly that enables
single-paridigm programming without any pesky state or memory accessing. The
simplest program you can use in hlang is the h world program:
```
h
```
When run in [the hlang playground](https://h.christine.website/play), you can
see its output:
```
h
```
To get more output, separate multiple h's by spaces:
```
h h h h
```
This returns:
```
h
h
h
h
```
## Internationalization
For internationalization concerns, hlang also supports the Lojbanic h `'`. You can
mix h and `'` to your heart's content:
```
' h '
```
This returns:
```
'
h
'
```
Finally an easy solution to your pesky Lojban internationalization problems!
## Errors
For maximum understandability, compiler errors are provided in Lojban. For
example this error tells you that you have an invalid character at the first
character of the string:
```
h: gentoldra fi'o zvati fe li no
```
Here is an interlinear gloss of that error:
```
h: gentoldra fi'o zvati fe li no
grammar-wrong existing-at second-place use-number 0
```
And now you are fully fluent in hlang, the most exciting programming language
since sliced bread.

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@ -1,164 +0,0 @@
---
title: How HTTP Requests Work
date: 2020-05-19
tags:
- http
- ohgod
- philosophy
---
# How HTTP Requests Work
Reading this webpage is possible because of millions of hours of effort with
tens of thousands of actors across thousands of companies. At some level it's a
minor miracle that this all works at all. Here's a preview into the madness that
goes into hitting enter on christine.website and this website being loaded.
## Beginnings
The user types in `https://christine.website` into the address bar and hits
enter on the keyboard. This sends a signal over USB to the computer and the
kernel polls the USB controller for a new message. It's recognized as from the
keyboard. The input is then sent to the browser through an input driver talking
to a windowing server talking to the browser program.
The browser selects the memory region normally reserved for the address bar. The
browser then parses this string as an [RFC 3986][rfc3986] URI and scrapes out
the protocol (https), hostname (christine.website) and path (/). The browser
then uses this information to create an abstract HTTP request object with the
Host header set to christine.website, HTTP method (GET), and path set to the
path. This request object then passes through various layers of credential
storage and middleware to add the appropriate cookies and other headers in order
to tell my website what language it should localize the response to, what
compression methods the browser understands, and what browser is being used to
make the request.
[rfc3986]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
## Connections
The browser then checks if it has a connection to christine.website open
already. If it does not, then it creates a new one. It creates a new connection
by figuring out what the IP address of christine.website is using [DNS][dns]. A
DNS request is made over [UDP][udp] on port 53 to the DNS server configured in
the operating system (such as 8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.1 or 75.75.75.75). The UDP
connection is created using operating system-dependent system calls and a DNS
request is sent.
[udp]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Datagram_Protocol
[dns]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
The packet that was created then is destined for the DNS server and added to the
operating system's output queue. The operating system then looks in its routing
table to see where the packet should go. If the packet matches a route, it is
queued for output to the relevant network card. The network card layer then
checks the ARP table to see what [mac address][macaddress] the
[ethernet][ethernet] frame should be sent to. If the ARP table doesn't have a
match, then an arp probe is broadcasted to every node on the local network. Then
the driver waits for an arp response to be sent to it with the correct IP -> MAC
address mapping. The driver then uses this information to send out the ethernet
frame to the node that matches the IP address in the routing table. From there
the packet is validated on the router it was sent to. It then unwraps the packet
to the IP layer to figure out the destination network interface to use. If this
router also does NAT termination, it creates an entry in the NAT table for
future use for a site-configured amount of time (for UDP at least). It then
passes the packet on to the correct node and this process is repeated until it
gets to the remote DNS server.
[macaddress]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
[ethernet]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet
The DNS server then unwraps the ethernet frame into an IP packet and then as a
UDP packet and a DNS request. It checks its database for a match and if one is
not found, it attempts to discover the correct name server to contact by using a
NS record query to its upstreams or the authoritative name server for the
WEBSITE namespace. This then creates another process of ethernet frames and UDP
packets until it reaches the upstream DNS server which hopefully should reply
with the correct address. Once the DNS server gets the information that is
needed, it sends this back the results to the client as a wire-format DNS
response.
UDP is unreliable by design, so this packet may or may not survive the entire
round trip. It may take one or more retries for the DNS information to get to
the remote server and back, but it usually works the first time. The response to
this request is cached based on the time-to-live specified in the DNS response.
The response also contains the IP address of christine.website.
## Security
The protocol used in the URL determines which TCP port the browser connects to.
If it is http, it uses port 80. If it is https, it uses port 443. The user
specified HTTPS, so port 443 on whatever IP address DNS returned is dialed using
the operating system's network stack system calls. The [TCP][tcp] three-way
handshake is started with that target IP address and port. The client sends a
SYN packet, the server replies with a SYN ACK packet and the client replies with
an ACK packet. This indicates that the entire TCP session is active and data can
be transferred and read through it.
[tcp]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol
However, this data is UNENCRYPTED by default. [Transport Layer Security][tls] is
used to encrypt this data so prying eyes can't look into it. TLS has its own
handshake too. The session is established by sending a TLS ClientHello packet
with the domain name (christine.website), the list of ciphers the client
supports, any application layer protocols the client supports (like HTTP/2) and
the list of TLS versions that the client supports. This information is sent over
the wire to the remote server using that entire long and complicated process
that I spelled out for how DNS works, except a TCP session requires the other
side to acknowledge when data is successfully received. The server on the other
end replies with a ClientHelloResponse that contains a HTTPS certificate and the
list of protocols and ciphers the server supports. Then they do an [encryption
session setup rain dance][tlsraindance] that I don't completely understand and
the resulting channel is encrypted with cipher (or encrypted) text written and
read from the wire and a session layer translates that cipher text to clear text
for the other parts of the browser stack.
[tls]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
[tlsraindance]: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-happens-in-a-tls-handshake/
The browser then uses the information in the ClientHelloResponse to decide how
to proceed from here.
## HTTP
If the browser notices the server supports HTTP/2 it sets up a HTTP/2 session
(with a handshake that involves a few roundtrips like what I described for DNS)
and creates a new stream for this request. The browser then formats the request
as HTTP/2 wire format bytes (binary format) and writes it to the HTTP/2 stream,
which writes it to the HTTP/2 framing layer, which writes it to the encryption
layer, which writes it to the network socket and sends it over the internet.
If the browser notices the server DOES NOT support HTTP/2, it formats the
request as HTTP/1.1 wire formatted bytes and writes it to the encryption layer,
which writes it to the network socket and sends it over the internet using that
complicated process I spelled out for DNS.
This then hits the remote load balancer which parses the client HTTP request and
uses site-local configuration to select the best application server to handle
the response. It then forwards the client's HTTP request to the correct server
by creating a TCP session to that backend, writing the HTTP request and waiting
for a response over that TCP session. Depending on site-local configuration
there may be layers of encryption involved.
## Application Server
Now, the request finally gets to the application server. This TCP session is
accepted by the application server and the headers are read into memory. The
path is read by the application server and the correct handler is chosen. The
HTML for the front page of christine.website is rendered and written to the TCP
session and travels to the load balancer, gets encrypted with TLS, the encrypted
HTML gets sent back over the internet to your browser and then your browser
decrypts it and starts to parse and display the website. The browser will run
into places where it needs more resources (such as stylesheets or images), so it will
make additional HTTP requests to the load balancer to grab those too.
---
The end result is that the user sees the website in all its glory. Given all
these moving parts it's astounding that this works as reliably as it does. Each
of the TCP, ARP and DNS requests also happen at each level of the stack. There
are layers upon layers upon layers of interacting protocols and implementations.
This is why it is hard to reliably put a website on the internet. If there is a
god, they are surely the one holding all these potentially unreliable systems
together to make everything appear like it is working.

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@ -1,574 +0,0 @@
---
title: "How I Start: Nix"
date: 2020-03-08
series: howto
tags:
- nix
- rust
---
# How I Start: Nix
[Nix][nix] is a tool that helps people create reproducible builds. This means that
given a known input, you can get the same output on other machines. Let's build
and deploy a small Rust service with Nix. This will not require the Rust compiler
to be installed with [rustup][rustup] or similar.
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
[rustup]: https://rustup.rs
- Setting up your environment
- A new project
- Setting up the Rust compiler
- Serving HTTP
- A simple package build
- Shipping it in a docker image
## Setting up your environment
The first step is to install Nix. If you are using a Linux machine, run this
script:
```console
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
```
This will prompt you for more information as it goes on, so be sure to follow
the instructions carefully. Once it is done, close and re-open your shell. After
you have done this, `nix-env` should exist in your shell. Try to run it:
```console
$ nix-env
error: no operation specified
Try 'nix-env --help' for more information.
```
Let's install a few other tools to help us with development. First, let's
install [lorri][lorri] to help us manage our development shell:
[lorri]: https://github.com/target/lorri
```
$ nix-env --install --file https://github.com/target/lorri/archive/master.tar.gz
```
This will automatically download and build lorri for your system based on the
latest possible version. Once that is done, open another shell window (the lorri
docs include ways to do this more persistently, but this will work for now) and run:
```console
$ lorri daemon
```
Now go back to your main shell window and install [direnv][direnv]:
[direnv]: https://direnv.net
```console
$ nix-env --install direnv
```
Next, follow the [shell setup][direnvsetup] needed for your shell. I personally
use `fish` with [oh my fish][omf], so I would run this:
[direnvsetup]: https://direnv.net/docs/hook.html
[omf]: https://github.com/oh-my-fish/oh-my-fish
```console
$ omf install direnv
```
Finally, let's install [niv][niv] to help us handle dependencies for the
project. This will allow us to make sure that our builds pin _everything_ to a
specific set of versions, including operating system packages.
[niv]: https://github.com/nmattia/niv
```console
$ nix-env --install niv
```
Now that we have all of the tools we will need installed, let's create the
project.
# A new project
Go to your favorite place to put code and make a new folder. I personally prefer
`~/code`, so I will be using that here:
```console
$ cd ~/code
$ mkdir helloworld
$ cd helloworld
```
Let's set up the basic skeleton of the project. First, initialize niv:
```console
$ niv init
```
This will add the latest versions of `niv` itself and the packages used for the
system to `nix/sources.json`. This will allow us to pin exact versions so the
environment is as predictable as possible. Sometimes the versions of software in
the pinned nixpkgs are too old. If this happens, you can update to the
"unstable" branch of nixpkgs with this command:
```console
$ niv update nixpkgs -b nixpkgs-unstable
```
Next, set up lorri using `lorri init`:
```console
$ lorri init
```
This will create `shell.nix` and `.envrc`. `shell.nix` will be where we define
the development environment for this service. `.envrc` is used to tell direnv
what it needs to do. Let's try and activate the `.envrc`:
```console
$ cd .
direnv: error /home/cadey/code/helloworld/.envrc is blocked. Run `direnv allow`
to approve its content
```
Let's review its content:
```console
$ cat .envrc
eval "$(lorri direnv)"
```
This seems reasonable, so approve it with `direnv allow` like the error message
suggests:
```console
$ direnv allow
```
Now let's customize the `shell.nix` file to use our pinned version of nixpkgs.
Currently, it looks something like this:
```nix
# shell.nix
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
in
pkgs.mkShell {
buildInputs = [
pkgs.hello
];
}
```
This currently imports nixpkgs from the system-level version of it. This means
that different systems could have different versions of nixpkgs on it, and that
could make the `shell.nix` file hard to reproduce between machines. Let's import
the pinned version of nixpkgs that niv created:
```nix
# shell.nix
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
pkgs = import sources.nixpkgs {};
in
pkgs.mkShell {
buildInputs = [
pkgs.hello
];
}
```
And then let's test it with `lorri shell`:
```console
$ lorri shell
lorri: building environment........ done
(lorri) $
```
And let's see if `hello` is available inside the shell:
```console
(lorri) $ hello
Hello, world!
```
You can set environment variables inside the `shell.nix` file. Do so like this:
```nix
# shell.nix
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
pkgs = import sources.nixpkgs {};
in
pkgs.mkShell {
buildInputs = [
pkgs.hello
];
# Environment variables
HELLO="world";
}
```
Wait a moment for lorri to finish rebuilding the development environment and
then let's see if the environment variable shows up:
```console
$ cd .
direnv: loading ~/code/helloworld/.envrc
<output snipped>
$ echo $HELLO
world
```
Now that we have the basics of the environment set up, lets install the Rust
compiler.
# Setting up the Rust compiler
First, add [nixpkgs-mozilla][nixpkgsmoz] to niv:
[nixpkgsmoz]: https://github.com/mozilla/nixpkgs-mozilla
```console
$ niv add mozilla/nixpkgs-mozilla
```
Then create `nix/rust.nix` in your repo:
```nix
# nix/rust.nix
{ sources ? import ./sources.nix }:
let
pkgs =
import sources.nixpkgs { overlays = [ (import sources.nixpkgs-mozilla) ]; };
channel = "nightly";
date = "2020-03-08";
targets = [ ];
chan = pkgs.rustChannelOfTargets channel date targets;
in chan
```
This creates a nix function that takes in the pre-imported list of sources,
creates a copy of nixpkgs with Rust at the nightly version `2020-03-08` overlaid
into it, and exposes the rust package out of it. Let's add this to `shell.nix`:
```nix
# shell.nix
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
rust = import ./nix/rust.nix { inherit sources; };
pkgs = import sources.nixpkgs { };
in
pkgs.mkShell {
buildInputs = [
rust
];
}
```
Then ask lorri to recreate the development environment. This may take a bit to
run because it's setting up everything the Rust compiler requires to run.
```console
$ lorri shell
(lorri) $
```
Let's see what version of Rust is installed:
```console
(lorri) $ rustc --version
rustc 1.43.0-nightly (823ff8cf1 2020-03-07)
```
This is exactly what we expect. Rust nightly versions get released with the
date of the previous day in them. To be extra sure, let's see what the shell
thinks `rustc` resolves to:
```console
(lorri) $ which rustc
/nix/store/w6zk1zijfwrnjm6xyfmrgbxb6dvvn6di-rust-1.43.0-nightly-2020-03-07-823ff8cf1/bin/rustc
```
And now exit that shell and reload direnv:
```console
(lorri) $ exit
$ cd .
direnv: loading ~/code/helloworld/.envrc
$ which rustc
/nix/store/w6zk1zijfwrnjm6xyfmrgbxb6dvvn6di-rust-1.43.0-nightly-2020-03-07-823ff8cf1/bin/rustc
```
And now we have Rust installed at an arbitrary nightly version for _that project
only_. This will work on other machines too. Now that we have our development
environment set up, let's serve HTTP.
## Serving HTTP
[Rocket][rocket] is a popular web framework for Rust programs. Let's use that to
create a small "hello, world" server. We will need to do the following:
[rocket]: https://rocket.rs
- Create the new Rust project
- Add Rocket as a dependency
- Write our "hello world" route
- Test a build of the service with `cargo build`
### Create the new Rust project
Create the new Rust project with `cargo init`:
```console
$ cargo init --vcs git .
Created binary (application) package
```
This will create the directory `src` and a file named `Cargo.toml`. Rust code
goes in `src` and the `Cargo.toml` file configures dependencies. Adding the
`--vcs git` flag also has cargo create a [gitignore][gitignore] file so that the
target folder isn't tracked by git.
[gitignore]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore
### Add Rocket as a dependency
Open `Cargo.toml` and add the following to it:
```toml
[dependencies]
rocket = "0.4.3"
```
Then download/build Rocket with `cargo build`:
```console
$ cargo build
```
This will download all of the dependencies you need and precompile Rocket, and it
will help speed up later builds.
### Write our "hello world" route
Now put the following in `src/main.rs`:
```rust
#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)] // language features needed by Rocket
// Import the rocket macros
#[macro_use]
extern crate rocket;
// Create route / that returns "Hello, world!"
#[get("/")]
fn index() -> &'static str {
"Hello, world!"
}
fn main() {
rocket::ignite().mount("/", routes![index]).launch();
}
```
### Test a build
Rerun `cargo build`:
```console
$ cargo build
```
This will create the binary at `target/debug/helloworld`. Let's run it locally
and see if it works:
```console
$ ./target/debug/helloworld &
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:8000
Hello, world!
$ fg
<press control-c>
```
The HTTP service works. We have a binary that is created with the Rust compiler
Nix installed.
## A simple package build
Now that we have the HTTP service working, let's put it inside a nix package. We
will need to use [naersk][naersk] to do this. Add naersk to your project with
niv:
[naersk]: https://github.com/nmattia/naersk
```console
$ niv add nmattia/naersk
```
Now let's create `helloworld.nix`:
```
# import niv sources and the pinned nixpkgs
{ sources ? import ./nix/sources.nix, pkgs ? import sources.nixpkgs { }}:
let
# import rust compiler
rust = import ./nix/rust.nix { inherit sources; };
# configure naersk to use our pinned rust compiler
naersk = pkgs.callPackage sources.naersk {
rustc = rust;
cargo = rust;
};
# tell nix-build to ignore the `target` directory
src = builtins.filterSource
(path: type: type != "directory" || builtins.baseNameOf path != "target")
./.;
in naersk.buildPackage {
inherit src;
remapPathPrefix =
true; # remove nix store references for a smaller output package
}
```
And then build it with `nix-build`:
```console
$ nix-build helloworld.nix
```
This can take a bit to run, but it will do the following things:
- Download naersk
- Download every Rust crate your HTTP service depends on into the Nix store
- Run your program's tests
- Build your dependencies into a Nix package
- Build your program with those dependencies
- Place a link to the result at `./result`
Once it is done, let's take a look at the result:
```console
$ du -hs ./result/bin/helloworld
2.1M ./result/bin/helloworld
$ ldd ./result/bin/helloworld
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fffae080000)
libdl.so.2 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/libdl.so.2 (0x0
0007f3a01666000)
librt.so.1 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/librt.so.1 (0x0
0007f3a0165c000)
libpthread.so.0 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/libpthread
.so.0 (0x00007f3a0163b000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/libgcc_s.so.
1 (0x00007f3a013f5000)
libc.so.6 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/libc.so.6 (0x000
07f3a0123f000)
/nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /lib6
4/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f3a0160b000)
libm.so.6 => /nix/store/wx1vk75bpdr65g6xwxbj4rw0pk04v5j3-glibc-2.27/lib/libm.so.6 (0x000
07f3a010a9000)
```
This means that the Nix build created a 2.1 megabyte binary that only depends on
[glibc][glibc], the implementation of the C language standard library that Nix
prefers.
[glibc]: https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/
For repo cleanliness, add the `result` link to the [gitignore][gitignore]:
```console
$ echo 'result*' >> .gitignore
```
## Shipping it in a Docker image
Now that we have a package built, let's ship it in a docker image. nixpkgs
provides [dockerTools][dockertools] which helps us create docker images out of
Nix packages. Let's create `default.nix` with the following contents:
[dockertools]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#sec-pkgs-dockerTools
```nix
{ system ? builtins.currentSystem }:
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
pkgs = import sources.nixpkgs { };
helloworld = import ./helloworld.nix { inherit sources pkgs; };
name = "xena/helloworld";
tag = "latest";
in pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
inherit name tag;
contents = [ helloworld ];
config = {
Cmd = [ "/bin/helloworld" ];
Env = [ "ROCKET_PORT=5000" ];
WorkingDir = "/";
};
}
```
And then build it with `nix-build`:
```console
$ nix-build default.nix
```
This will create a tarball containing the docker image information as the result
of the Nix build. Load it into docker using `docker load`:
```console
$ docker load -i result
```
And then run it using `docker run`:
```console
$ docker run --rm -itp 52340:5000 xena/helloworld
```
Now test it using curl:
```console
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:52340
Hello, world!
```
And now you have a docker image you can run wherever you want. The
`buildLayeredImage` function used in `default.nix` also makes Nix put each
dependency of the package into its own docker layer. This makes new versions of
your program very efficient to upgrade on your clusters, realistically this
reduces the amount of data needed for new versions of the program down to what
changed. If nothing but some resources in their own package were changed, only
those packages get downloaded.
This is how I start a new project with Nix. I put all of the code described in
this post in [this GitHub repo][helloworldrepo] in case it helps. Have fun and
be well.
[helloworldrepo]: https://github.com/Xe/helloworld
---
For some "extra credit" tasks, try and see if you can do the following:
- Use the version of [niv][niv] that niv pinned
- Customize the environment of the container by following the [Rocket
configuration documentation](https://rocket.rs/v0.4/guide/configuration/)
- Add some more routes to the program
- Read the [Nix
documentation](https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#chap-writing-nix-expressions) and
learn more about writing Nix expressions
- Configure your editor/IDE to use the `direnv` path

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---
title: "How I Start: Rust"
date: 2020-03-15
series: howto
tags:
- rust
- how-i-start
- nix
---
# How I Start: Rust
[Rust][rustlang] is an exciting new programming language that makes it easy to
make understandable and reliable software. It is made by Mozilla and is used by
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and many other large companies.
[rustlang]: https://www.rust-lang.org/
Rust has a reputation of being difficult because it makes no effort to hide what
is going on. I'd like to show you how I start with Rust projects. Let's make a
small HTTP service using [Rocket][rocket].
[rocket]: https://rocket.rs
- Setting up your environment
- A new project
- Testing
- Adding functionality
- OpenAPI specifications
- Error responses
- Shipping it in a docker image
## Setting up your environment
The first step is to install the Rust compiler. You can use any method you like,
but since we are requiring the nightly version of Rust for this project, I
suggest using [rustup][rustup]:
[rustup]: https://rustup.rs/
```console
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- --default-toolchain nightly
```
If you are using [NixOS][nixos] or another Linux distribution with [Nix][nix]
installed, see [this post][howistartnix] for some information on how to set up
the Rust compiler.
[nixos]: https://nixos.org/nixos/
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
[howistartnix]: https://christine.website/blog/how-i-start-nix-2020-03-08
## A new project
[Rocket][rocket] is a popular web framework for Rust programs. Let's use that to
create a small "hello, world" server. We will need to do the following:
[rocket]: https://rocket.rs/
- Create the new Rust project
- Add Rocket as a dependency
- Write the hello world route
- Test a build of the service with `cargo build`
- Run it and see what happens
### Create the new Rust project
Create the new Rust project with `cargo init`:
```console
$ cargo init --vcs git .
Created binary (application) package
```
This will create the directory `src` and a file named `Cargo.toml`. Rust code
goes in `src` and the `Cargo.toml` file configures dependencies. Adding the
`--vcs git` flag also has cargo create a [gitignore][gitignore] file so that the
target folder isn't tracked by git.
[gitignore]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore
### Add Rocket as a dependency
Open `Cargo.toml` and add the following to it:
```toml
[dependencies]
rocket = "0.4.4"
```
Then download/build [Rocket][rocket] with `cargo build`:
```console
$ cargo build
```
This will download all of the dependencies you need and precompile Rocket, and it
will help speed up later builds.
### Write our "hello world" route
Now put the following in `src/main.rs`:
```rust
#![feature(proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)] // Nightly-only language features needed by Rocket
// Import the rocket macros
#[macro_use]
extern crate rocket;
/// Create route / that returns "Hello, world!"
#[get("/")]
fn index() -> &'static str {
"Hello, world!"
}
fn main() {
rocket::ignite().mount("/", routes![index]).launch();
}
```
### Test a build
Rerun `cargo build`:
```console
$ cargo build
```
This will create the binary at `target/debug/helloworld`. Let's run it locally
and see if it works:
```console
$ ./target/debug/helloworld
```
And in another terminal window:
```console
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:8000
Hello, world!
$ fg
<press control-c>
```
The HTTP service works. We have a binary that is created with the Rust compiler.
This binary will be available at `./target/debug/helloworld`. However, it could
use some tests.
## Testing
Rocket has support for [unit testing][rockettest] built in. Let's create a tests
module and verify this route in testing.
[rockettest]: https://rocket.rs/v0.4/guide/testing/
### Create a tests module
Rust allows you to nest modules within files using the `mod` keyword. Create a
`tests` module that will only build when testing is requested:
[rustmod]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/mod/visibility.html
```rust
#[cfg(test)] // Only compile this when unit testing is requested
mod tests {
use super::*; // Modules are their own scope, so you
// need to explictly use the stuff in
// the parent module.
use rocket::http::Status;
use rocket::local::*;
#[test]
fn test_index() {
// create the rocket instance to test
let rkt = rocket::ignite().mount("/", routes![index]);
// create a HTTP client bound to this rocket instance
let client = Client::new(rkt).expect("valid rocket");
// get a HTTP response
let mut response = client.get("/").dispatch();
// Ensure it returns HTTP 200
assert_eq!(response.status(), Status::Ok);
// Ensure the body is what we expect it to be
assert_eq!(response.body_string(), Some("Hello, world!".into()));
}
}
```
### Run tests
`cargo test` is used to run tests in Rust. Let's run it:
```console
$ cargo test
Compiling helloworld v0.1.0 (/home/cadey/code/helloworld)
Finished test [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 1.80s
Running target/debug/deps/helloworld-49d1bd4d4f816617
running 1 test
test tests::test_index ... ok
```
## Adding functionality
Most HTTP services return [JSON][json] or JavaScript Object Notation as a way to
pass objects between computer programs. Let's use Rocket's [JSON
support][rocketjson] to add a `/hostinfo` route to this app that returns some
simple information:
[json]: https://www.json.org/json-en.html
[rocketjson]: https://api.rocket.rs/v0.4/rocket_contrib/json/index.html
- the hostname of the computer serving the response
- the process ID of the HTTP service
- the uptime of the system in seconds
### Encoding things to JSON
For encoding things to JSON, we will be using [serde][serde]. We will need to
add serde as a dependency. Open `Cargo.toml` and put the following lines in it:
[serde]: https://serde.rs/
```toml
[dependencies]
serde_json = "1.0"
serde = { version = "1.0", features = ["derive"] }
```
This lets us use `#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]` on our Rust structs, which
will allow us to automate away the JSON generation code _at compile time_. For
more information about derivation in Rust, see [here][rustderive].
[rustderive]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/trait/derive.html
Let's define the data we will send back to the client using a [struct][ruststruct].
[ruststruct]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/custom_types/structs.html
```rust
use serde::*;
/// Host information structure returned at /hostinfo
#[derive(Serialize, Debug)]
struct HostInfo {
hostname: String,
pid: u32,
uptime: u64,
}
```
To implement this call, we will need another few dependencies in the `Cargo.toml`
file. We will use [gethostname][gethostname] to get the hostname of the machine
and [psutil][psutil] to get the uptime of the machine. Put the following below
the `serde` dependency line:
[gethostname]: https://crates.io/crates/gethostname
[psutil]: https://crates.io/crates/psutil
```toml
gethostname = "0.2.1"
psutil = "3.0.1"
```
Finally, we will need to enable Rocket's JSON support. Put the following at the
end of your `Cargo.toml` file:
```toml
[dependencies.rocket_contrib]
version = "0.4.4"
default-features = false
features = ["json"]
```
Now we can implement the `/hostinfo` route:
```rust
/// Create route /hostinfo that returns information about the host serving this
/// page.
#[get("/hostinfo")]
fn hostinfo() -> Json<HostInfo> {
// gets the current machine hostname or "unknown" if the hostname doesn't
// parse into UTF-8 (very unlikely)
let hostname = gethostname::gethostname()
.into_string()
.or(|_| "unknown".to_string())
.unwrap();
Json(HostInfo{
hostname: hostname,
pid: std::process::id(),
uptime: psutil::host::uptime()
.unwrap() // normally this is a bad idea, but this code is
// very unlikely to fail.
.as_secs(),
})
}
```
And then register it in the main function:
```rust
fn main() {
rocket::ignite()
.mount("/", routes![index, hostinfo])
.launch();
}
```
Now rebuild the project and run the server:
```console
$ cargo build
$ ./target/debug/helloworld
```
And in another terminal test it with `curl`:
```console
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:8000
{"hostname":"shachi","pid":4291,"uptime":13641}
```
You can use a similar process for any kind of other route.
## OpenAPI specifications
[OpenAPI][openapi] is a common specification format for describing API routes.
This allows users of the API to automatically generate valid clients for them.
Writing these by hand can be tedious, so let's pass that work off to the
compiler using [okapi][okapi].
[openapi]: https://swagger.io/docs/specification/about/
[okapi]: https://github.com/GREsau/okapi
Add the following line to your `Cargo.toml` file in the `[dependencies]` block:
```toml
rocket_okapi = "0.3.6"
schemars = "0.6"
okapi = { version = "0.3", features = ["derive_json_schema"] }
```
This will allow us to generate OpenAPI specifications from Rocket routes and the
types in them. Let's import the rocket_okapi macros and use them:
```rust
// Import OpenAPI macros
#[macro_use]
extern crate rocket_okapi;
use rocket_okapi::JsonSchema;
```
We need to add JSON schema generation abilities to `HostInfo`. Change:
```rust
#[derive(Serialize, Debug)]
```
to
```rust
#[derive(Serialize, JsonSchema, Debug)]
```
to generate the OpenAPI code for our type.
Next we can add the `/hostinfo` route to the OpenAPI schema:
```rust
/// Create route /hostinfo that returns information about the host serving this
/// page.
#[openapi]
#[get("/hostinfo")]
fn hostinfo() -> Json<HostInfo> {
// ...
```
Also add the index route to the OpenAPI schema:
```rust
/// Create route / that returns "Hello, world!"
#[openapi]
#[get("/")]
fn index() -> &'static str {
"Hello, world!"
}
```
And finally update the main function to use openapi:
```rust
fn main() {
rocket::ignite()
.mount("/", routes_with_openapi![index, hostinfo])
.launch();
}
```
Then rebuild it and run the server:
```console
$ cargo build
$ ./target/debug/helloworld
```
And then in another terminal:
```console
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/openapi.json
```
This should return a large JSON object that describes all of the HTTP routes and
the data they return. To see this visually, change main to this:
```rust
use rocket_okapi::swagger_ui::{make_swagger_ui, SwaggerUIConfig};
fn main() {
rocket::ignite()
.mount("/", routes_with_openapi![index, hostinfo])
.mount(
"/swagger-ui/",
make_swagger_ui(&SwaggerUIConfig {
url: Some("../openapi.json".to_owned()),
urls: None,
}),
)
.launch();
}
```
Then rebuild and run the service:
```console
$ cargo build
$ ./target/debug/helloworld
```
And [open the swagger UI](http://127.0.0.1:8000/swagger-ui/) in your favorite
browser. This will show you a graphical display of all of the routes and the
data types in your service. For an example, see
[here](https://printerfacts.cetacean.club/swagger-ui/index.html).
## Error responses
Earlier in the /hostinfo route we glossed over error handling. Let's correct
this using the [okapi error type][okapierror]. Let's use the
[OpenAPIError][okapierror] type in the helloworld function:
[okapierror]: https://docs.rs/rocket_okapi/0.3.6/rocket_okapi/struct.OpenApiError.html
```rust
/// Create route /hostinfo that returns information about the host serving
/// this page.
#[openapi]
#[get("/hostinfo")]
fn hostinfo() -> Result<Json<HostInfo>> {
match gethostname::gethostname().into_string() {
Ok(hostname) => Ok(Json(HostInfo {
hostname: hostname,
pid: std::process::id(),
uptime: psutil::host::uptime().unwrap().as_secs(),
})),
Err(_) => Err(OpenApiError::new(format!(
"hostname does not parse as UTF-8"
))),
}
}
```
When the `into_string` operation fails (because the hostname is somehow invalid
UTF-8), this will result in a non-200 response with the `"hostname does not parse
as UTF-8"` message.
## Shipping it in a docker image
Many deployment systems use [Docker][docker] to describe a program's environment
and dependencies. Create a `Dockerfile` with the following contents:
```Dockerfile
# Use the minimal image
FROM rustlang/rust:nightly-slim AS build
# Where we will build the program
WORKDIR /src/helloworld
# Copy source code into the container
COPY . .
# Build the program in release mode
RUN cargo build --release
# Create the runtime image
FROM ubuntu:18.04
# Copy the compiled service binary
COPY --from=build /src/helloworld/target/release/helloworld /usr/local/bin/helloworld
# Start the helloworld service on container boot
CMD ["usr/local/bin/helloworld"]
```
And then build it:
```console
$ docker build -t xena/helloworld .
```
And then run it:
```console
$ docker run --rm -itp 8000:8000 xena/helloworld
```
And in another terminal:
```console
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:8000
Hello, world!
```
From here you can do whatever you want with this service. You can deploy it to
Kubernetes with a manifest that would look something like [this][k8shack].
[k8shack]: https://clbin.com/zSPDs
---
This is how I start a new Rust project. I put all of the code described in this
post in [this GitHub repo][helloworldrepo] in case it helps. Have fun and be
well.
[helloworldrepo]: https://github.com/Xe/helloworld
---
For some "extra credit" tasks, try and see if you can do the following:
- Customize the environment of the container by following the [Rocket
configuration documentation](https://rocket.rs/v0.4/guide/configuration/) and
docker [environment variables][dockerenvvars]
- Use Rocket's [templates][rockettemplate] to make the host information show up
in HTML
- Add tests for the `/hostinfo` route
- Make a route that always returns errors, what does it look like?
[dockerenvvars]: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#env
[rockettemplate]: https://api.rocket.rs/v0.4/rocket_contrib/templates/index.html
Many thanks to [Coleman McFarland](https://coleman.codes/) for proofreading this
post.

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@ -1,193 +0,0 @@
---
title: "How Mara Works"
date: 2020-09-30
tags:
- avif
- webp
- markdown
---
# How Mara Works
Recently I introduced Mara to this blog and I didn't explain much of the theory
and implementation behind them in order to proceed with the rest of the post.
There was actually a significant amount of engineering that went into
implementing Mara and I'd like to go into detail about this as well as explain
how I implemented them into this blog.
## Mara's Background
Mara is an anthropomorphic shark. They are nonbinary and go by they/she
pronouns. Mara enjoys hacking, swimming and is a Chaotic Good Rogue in the
tabletop games I've played her in. Mara was originally made to help test my
upcoming tabletop game The Source, and I have used them in a few solitaire
tabletop sessions (click
[here](http://cetacean.club/journal/mara-castle-charon.gmi) to read the results
of one of these).
[I use a hand-soldered <a href="https://www.ergodox.io/">Ergodox</a> with the <a
href="https://www.artofchording.com/">stenographer</a> layout so I can dab on
the haters at 200 words per minute!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## The Theory
My blogposts have a habit of getting long, wordy and sometimes pretty damn dry.
I notice that there are usually a few common threads in how this becomes the
case, so I want to do these three things to help keep things engaging.
1. I go into detail. A lot of detail. This can make paragraphs long and wordy
because there is legitimately a lot to cover. [fasterthanlime's Cool Bear's
Hot Tip](https://fasterthanli.me/articles/image-decay-as-a-service) is a good
way to help Amos focus on the core and let another character bring up the
finer details that may go off the core of the message.
2. I have been looking into how to integrate concepts from [The Socratic
method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method) into my posts. The
Socratic method focuses on dialogue/questions and answers between
interlocutors as a way to explore a topic that can be dry or vague.
3. [Soatok's
blog](https://soatok.blog/2020/09/12/edutech-spyware-is-still-spyware-proctorio-edition/)
was an inspiration to this. Soatok dives into deep technical topics that can
feel like a slog, and inserts some stickers between paragraphs to help keep
things upbeat and lively.
I wanted to make a unique way to help break up walls of text using the concepts
of Cool Bear's Hot Tip and the Socratic method with some furry art sprinkled in
and I eventually arrived at Mara.
[Fun fact! My name was originally derived from a <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(demon)">Buddhist conceptual demon of
forces antagonistic to enlightenment</a> which is deliciously ironic given that
my role is to help people understand things now.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## How Mara is Implemented
I write my blogposts in
[Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/), specifically a
dialect that has some niceties from [GitHub flavored
markdown](https://guides.github.com/features/mastering-markdown/#GitHub-flavored-markdown)
as parsed by [comrak](https://docs.rs/comrak). Mara's interjections are actually
specially formed links, such as this:
[Hi! I am saying something!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```markdown
[Hi! I am saying something!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```
Notice how the destination URL doesn't actually exist. It's actually intercepted
in my [markdown parsing
function](https://github.com/Xe/site/blob/b540631792493169bd41f489c18b7369159d12a9/src/app/markdown.rs#L8)
and then a [HTML
template](https://github.com/Xe/site/blob/b540631792493169bd41f489c18b7369159d12a9/templates/mara.rs.html#L1)
is used to create the divs that make up the image and conversation bits. I have
intentionally left this open so I can add more characters in the future. I may
end up making some stickers for myself so I can reply to Mara a-la [this
blogpost by
fasterthanlime](https://fasterthanli.me/articles/so-you-want-to-live-reload-rust)
(search for "What's with the @@GLIBC_2.2.5 suffixes?"). The syntax of the URL is
as follows:
```
conversation://<character>/<mood>[?reply]
```
This will then fetch the images off of my CDN hosted by CloudFlare. However if
you are using Tor to view my site, this may result in not being able to see the
images. I am working on ways to solve this. Please bear with me, this stuff is
hard.
You may have noticed that Mara sometimes has links inside her dialogue.
Understandably, this is something that vanilla markdown does not support.
However, I enabled putting raw HTML in my markdown which lets this work anyways!
Consider this:
[My art was drawn by <a
href="https://selic.re">Selicre</a>!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
In the markdown source, that actually looks like this:
```markdown
[My art was drawn by <a href="https://selic.re">Selicre</a>!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```
This is honestly one of my favorite parts of how this is implemented, though
others I have shown this to say it's kind of terrifying.
### The `<picture>` Element and Image Formats
Something you might notice about the HTML template is that I use the
[`<picture>`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/picture)
element like this:
```html
<picture>
<source srcset="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/stickers/@character.to_lowercase()/@(mood).avif" type="image/avif">
<source srcset="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/stickers/@character.to_lowercase()/@(mood).webp" type="image/webp">
<img src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/stickers/@character.to_lowercase()/@(mood).png" alt="@character is @mood">
</picture>
```
The `<picture>` element allows me to specify multiple versions of the stickers
and have your browser pick the image format that it supports. It is also fully
backwards compatible with browsers that do not support `<picture>` and in those
cases you will see the fallback image in .png format. I went into a lot of
detail about this in [a twitter
thread](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1310358201842401281?s=21),
but in short here are how each of the formats looks next to its filesize
information:
![](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/mara_png.png)
![](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/mara_webp.png)
![](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/mara_avif.png)
The
[avif](https://reachlightspeed.com/blog/using-the-new-high-performance-avif-image-format-on-the-web-today/)
version does have the ugliest quality when blown up, however consider how small
these stickers will appear on the webpages:
[This is how big the stickers will appear, or is it?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
At these sizes most people will not notice any lingering artifacts unless they
look closely. However at about 5-6 kilobytes per image I think the smaller
filesize greatly wins out. This helps keep page loads fast, which is something I
want to optimize for as it makes people think my website loads quickly.
I go into a lot more detail on the twitter thread, but the commands I use to get
the webp and avif versions of the stickers are as follows:
```shell
#!/bin/sh
cwebp \
$1.png \
-o $1.webp
avifenc \
$1.png \
-o $1.avif \
-s 0 \
-d 8 \
--min 48 \
--max 48 \
--minalpha 48 \
--maxalpha 48
```
I plan to automate this further in the future, but for the scale I am at this
works fine. These stickers are then uploaded to my cloud storage bucket and
CloudFlare provides a CDN for them so they can load very quickly.
---
Anyways, this is how Mara is implemented and some of the challenges that went
into developing them as a feature (while leaving the door open for other
characters in the future). Mara is here to stay and I have gotten a lot of
positive feedback about her.
As a side note, for those of you that are not amused that I am choosing to have
Mara (and consequentially furry art in general) as a site feature, I can only
hope that you can learn to respect that as an independent blogger I am free to
implement my blog (and the content that I am choosing to provide _FOR FREE_ even
though I've gotten requests to make it paid content) as I see fit. Further
complaints will only increase the amount of furry art in future posts.
Be well all.

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---
title: I was Wrong about Nix
date: 2020-02-10
tags:
- nix
- witchcraft
---
# I was Wrong about Nix
From time to time, I am outright wrong on my blog. This is one of those times.
In my [last post about Nix][nixpost], I didn't see the light yet. I think I do
now, and I'm going to attempt to clarify below.
[nixpost]: https://christine.website/blog/thoughts-on-nix-2020-01-28
Let's talk about a more simple scenario: writing a service in Go. This service
will depend on at least the following:
- A Go compiler to build the code into a binary
- An appropriate runtime to ensure the code will run successfully
- Any data files needed at runtime
A popular way to model this is with a Dockerfile. Here's the Dockerfile I use
for my website (the one you are reading right now):
```
FROM xena/go:1.13.6 AS build
ENV GOPROXY https://cache.greedo.xeserv.us
COPY . /site
WORKDIR /site
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 go test -v ./...
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 GOBIN=/root go install -v ./cmd/site
FROM xena/alpine
EXPOSE 5000
WORKDIR /site
COPY --from=build /root/site .
COPY ./static /site/static
COPY ./templates /site/templates
COPY ./blog /site/blog
COPY ./talks /site/talks
COPY ./gallery /site/gallery
COPY ./css /site/css
HEALTHCHECK CMD wget --spider http://127.0.0.1:5000/.within/health || exit 1
CMD ./site
```
This fetches the Go compiler from [an image I made][godockerfile], copies the
source code to the image, builds it (in a way that makes the resulting binary a
[static executable][staticbin]), and creates the runtime environment for it.
[godockerfile]: https://github.com/Xe/dockerfiles/blob/master/lang/go/Dockerfile
[staticbin]: https://oddcode.daveamit.com/2018/08/16/statically-compile-golang-binary/
Let's let it build and see how big the result is:
```
$ docker build -t xena/christinewebsite:example1 .
<output omitted>
$ docker images | grep xena
xena/christinewebsite example1 4b8ee64969e8 24 seconds ago 111MB
```
Investigating this image with [dive][dive], we see the following:
[dive]: https://github.com/wagoodman/dive
- The package manager is included in the image
- The package manager's database is included in the image
- An entire copy of the C library is included in the image (even though the
binary was _statically linked_ to specifically avoid this)
- Most of the files in the docker image are unrelated to my website's
functionality and are involved with the normal functioning of Linux systems
Granted, [Alpine Linux][alpine] does a good job at keeping this chaff to a
minimum, but it is still there, still needs to be updated (causing all of my
docker images to be rebuilt and applications to be redeployed) and still takes
up space in transfer quotas and on the disk.
[alpine]: https://alpinelinux.org
Let's compare this to the same build process but done with Nix. My Nix setup is
done in a few phases. First I use [niv][niv] to manage some dependencies a-la
git submodules that don't hate you:
[niv]: https://github.com/nmattia/niv
```
$ nix-shell -p niv
[nix-shel]$ niv init
<writes nix/*>
```
Now I add the tool [vgo2nix][vgo2nix] in niv:
[vgo2nix]: https://github.com/adisbladis/vgo2nix
```
[nix-shell]$ niv add adisbladis/vgo2nix
```
And I can use it in my shell.nix:
```nix
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
vgo2nix = (import sources.vgo2nix { });
in pkgs.mkShell { buildInputs = [ pkgs.go pkgs.niv vgo2nix ]; }
```
And then relaunch nix-shell with vgo2nix installed and convert my [go modules][gomod]
dependencies to a Nix expression:
[gomod]: https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Modules
```
$ nix-shell
<some work is done to compile things, etc>
[nix-shell]$ vgo2nix
<writes deps.nix>
```
Now that I have this, I can follow the [buildGoPackage
instructions][buildgopackage] from the upstream nixpkgs documentation and create
`site.nix`:
[buildgopackage]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#ssec-go-legacy
```
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
with pkgs;
assert lib.versionAtLeast go.version "1.13";
buildGoPackage rec {
name = "christinewebsite-HEAD";
version = "latest";
goPackagePath = "christine.website";
src = ./.;
goDeps = ./deps.nix;
allowGoReference = false;
preBuild = ''
export CGO_ENABLED=0
buildFlagsArray+=(-pkgdir "$TMPDIR")
'';
postInstall = ''
cp -rf $src/blog $bin/blog
cp -rf $src/css $bin/css
cp -rf $src/gallery $bin/gallery
cp -rf $src/static $bin/static
cp -rf $src/talks $bin/talks
cp -rf $src/templates $bin/templates
'';
}
```
And this will do the following:
- Download all of the needed dependencies and place them in the system-level Nix
store so that they are not downloaded again
- Set the `CGO_ENABLED` environment variable to `0` so the Go compiler emits a
static binary
- Copy all of the needed files to the right places so that the blog, gallery and
talks features can load all of their data
- Depend on nothing other than a working system at runtime
This Nix build manifest doesn't just work on Linux. It works on my mac too. The
dockerfile approach works great for Linux boxes, but (unlike what the me of a
decade ago would have hoped) the whole world just doesn't run Linux on their
desktops. The real world has multiple OSes and Nix allows me to compensate.
So, now that we have a working _cross-platform_ build, let's see how big it
comes out as:
```
$ readlink ./result-bin
/nix/store/ayvafpvn763wwdzwjzvix3mizayyblx5-christinewebsite-HEAD-bin
$ du -hs result-bin/
89M ./result-bin/
$ du -hs result-bin/
11M ./result-bin/bin
888K ./result-bin/blog
40K ./result-bin/css
44K ./result-bin/gallery
77M ./result-bin/static
28K ./result-bin/talks
64K ./result-bin/templates
```
As expected, most of the build results are static assets. I have a lot of larger
static assets including an entire copy of TempleOS, so this isn't too
surprising. Let's compare this to on the mac:
```
$ du -hs result-bin/
91M result-bin/
$ du -hs result-bin/*
14M result-bin/bin
872K result-bin/blog
36K result-bin/css
40K result-bin/gallery
77M result-bin/static
24K result-bin/talks
60K result-bin/templates
```
Which is damn-near identical save some macOS specific crud that Go has to deal
with.
I mentioned this is used for Docker builds, so let's make `docker.nix`:
```nix
{ system ? builtins.currentSystem }:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { inherit system; };
callPackage = pkgs.lib.callPackageWith pkgs;
site = callPackage ./site.nix { };
dockerImage = pkg:
pkgs.dockerTools.buildImage {
name = "xena/christinewebsite";
tag = pkg.version;
contents = [ pkg ];
config = {
Cmd = [ "/bin/site" ];
WorkingDir = "/";
};
};
in dockerImage site
```
And then build it:
```
$ nix-build docker.nix
<output omitted>
$ docker load -i result
c6b1d6ce7549: Loading layer [==================================================>] 95.81MB/95.81MB
$ docker images | grep xena
xena/christinewebsite latest 0d1ccd676af8 50 years ago 94.6MB
```
And the output is 16 megabytes smaller.
The image age might look weird at first, but it's part of the reproducibility
Nix offers. The date an image was built is something that can change with time
and is actually a part of the resulting file. This means that an image built one
second after another has a different cryptographic hash. It helpfully pins all
images to Unix timestamp 0, which just happens to be about 50 years ago.
Looking into the image with `dive`, the only packages installed into this image
are:
- The website and all of its static content goodness
- IANA portmaps that Go depends on as part of the [`net`][gonet] package
- The standard list of [MIME types][mimetypes] that the [`net/http`][gonethttp]
package needs
- Time zone data that the [`time`][gotime] package needs
[gonet]: https://godoc.org/net
[gonethttp]: https://godoc.org/net/http
[gotime]: https://godoc.org/time
And that's it. This is _fantastic_. Nearly all of the disk usage has been
eliminated. If someone manages to trick my website into executing code, that
attacker cannot do anything but run more copies of my website (that will
immediately fail and die because the port is already allocated).
This strategy pans out to more complicated projects too. Consider a case where a
frontend and backend need to be built and deployed as a unit. Let's create a new
setup using niv:
```
$ niv init
```
Since we are using [Elm][elm] for this complicated project, let's add the
[elm2nix][elm2nix] tool so that our Elm dependencies have repeatable builds, and
[gruvbox-css][gcss] for some nice simple CSS:
[elm]: https://elm-lang.org
[elm2nix]: https://github.com/cachix/elm2nix
[gcss]: https://github.com/Xe/gruvbox-css
```
$ niv add cachix/elm2nix
$ niv add Xe/gruvbox-css
```
And then add it to our `shell.nix`:
```
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
elm2nix = (import sources.elm2nix { });
in
pkgs.mkShell {
buildInputs = [
pkgs.elmPackages.elm
pkgs.elmPackages.elm-format
elm2nix
];
}
```
And then enter `nix-shell` to create the Elm boilerplate:
```
$ nix-shell
[nix-shell]$ cd frontend
[nix-shell:frontend]$ elm2nix init > default.nix
[nix-shell:frontend]$ elm2nix convert > elm-srcs.nix
[nix-shell:frontend]$ elm2nix snapshot
```
And then we can edit the generated Nix expression:
```
let
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
gcss = (import sources.gruvbox-css { });
# ...
buildInputs = [ elmPackages.elm gcss ]
++ lib.optional outputJavaScript nodePackages_10_x.uglify-js;
# ...
cp -rf ${gcss}/gruvbox.css $out/public
cp -rf $src/public/* $out/public/
# ...
outputJavaScript = true;
```
And then test it with `nix-build`:
```
$ nix-build
<output omitted>
```
And now create a `name.nix` for your Go service like I did above. The real
magic comes from the `docker.nix` file:
```
{ system ? builtins.currentSystem }:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { inherit system; };
sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
backend = import ./backend.nix { };
frontend = import ./frontend/default.nix { };
in
pkgs.dockerTools.buildImage {
name = "xena/complicatedservice";
tag = "latest";
contents = [ backend frontend ];
config = {
Cmd = [ "/bin/backend" ];
WorkingDir = "/public";
};
};
```
Now both your backend and frontend services are built with the dependencies in
the Nix store and shipped as a repeatable Docker image.
Sometimes it might be useful to ship the dependencies to a service like
[Cachix][cachix] to help speed up builds.
[cachix]: https://cachix.org
You can install the cachix tool like this:
```
$ nix-env -iA cachix -f https://cachix.org/api/v1/install
```
And then follow the steps at [cachix.org][cachix] to create a new binary cache.
Let's assume you made a cache named `teddybear`. When you've created a new
cache, logged in with an API token and created a signing key, you can pipe
nix-build to the Cachix client like so:
```
$ nix-build | cachix push teddybear
```
And other people using that cache will benefit from your premade dependency and
binary downloads.
To use the cache somewhere, install the Cachix client and then run the
following:
```
$ cachix use teddybear
```
I've been able to use my Go, Elm, Rust and Haskell dependencies on other
machines using this. It's saved so much extra download time.
## tl;dr
I was wrong about Nix. It's actually quite good once you get past the
documentation being baroque and hard to read as a beginner. I'm going to try and
do what I can to get the documentation improved.
As far as getting started with Nix, I suggest following these posts:
- Nix Pills: https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/
- Nix Shorts: https://github.com/justinwoo/nix-shorts
- NixOS: For Developers: https://myme.no/posts/2020-01-26-nixos-for-development.html
Also, I really suggest trying stuff as a vehicle to understand how things work.
I got really far by experimenting with getting [this Discord bot I am writing in
Rust][withinbot] working in Nix and have been very pleased with how it's turned
out. I don't need to use `rustup` anymore to manage my Rust compiler or the
language server. With a combination of [direnv][direnv] and [lorri][lorri], I
can avoid needing to set up language servers or the like _at all_. I can define
them as part of the _project environment_ and then trust the tools I build on
top of to take care of that for me.
[withinbot]: https://github.com/Xe/withinbot
[direnv]: https://direnv.net
[lorri]: https://github.com/target/lorri
Give Nix a try. It's worth at least that much in my opinion.

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@ -1,93 +0,0 @@
---
title: Instant Pot Spaghetti
date: 2020-02-03
series: recipes
tags:
- instant-pot
---
# Instant Pot Spaghetti
This is based on [this recipe][source], but made only with things you can find
in Costco. My fiancé and I have made this at least weekly for the last 8 months
and we love how it turns out.
[source]: https://kristineskitchenblog.com/instant-pot-spaghetti/
## Recipe
### Ingredients
- 1/2 kg ground beef (pre-cooked, or see section on browning it)
- 3 1/4 cups water
- 2 teaspoons salt
- a small amount of pepper
- 4 heaping teaspoons of garlic
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 kg spaghetti noodles
- 1 jar of pasta sauce (about 870ml)
If you want it to be more spicy, add more pepper. Too much can make it hard to
eat. Only experiment with the pepper amount after you've made this and decided
there's not enough pepper.
### Preparation
Put the ground beef in the instant pot. Put the water in the instant pot. Put
the salt in the instant pot. Put the pepper in the instant pot. Put the garlic
in the instant pot. Put the butter in the instant pot.
Stir for about 30 seconds, or until the garlic looks like it's distributed about
evenly in the pot.
Take the spaghetti noodles and break them in half. Place about a third of one
half one direction, the second third another, and the last yet another. Repeat
this for the other half of the pasta. This helps to not clump it together when
it's cooking.
Look at the package of spaghetti noodles. It should say something like "Ready in
X minutes" with a large number. Take that number and subtract two from it. If
you have a pasta that says it's cooked for 7 minutes, you will cook it for 5
minutes. If you have a pasta that says it's cooked for 9 minutes, you will cook
it for 7 minutes.
Put the lid on the instant pot, seal it and ensure the pressure release valve is
set to "sealing". Hit the "manual" button and select the number you figured out
above.
Leave the instant pot alone for 10 minutes after it is done. This lets the
pressure release naturally.
Use your serving utensil to open the pressure release valve. Stir and wait 3-5
minutes to serve. This makes 5 servings, but could be extended to more if you
carefully ration it.
Serve hot with salt or parmesan cheese.
## Browning Ground Beef
Browing ground beef is the act of cooking it all the way through so it is safe
to eat. It's called "browing" it because the ground beef will turn a grayish
brown when it is fully cooked.
### Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- The ground beef you want to brown
### Preparation
Take the lid off of the instant pot. Cover the bottom of the pan in olive oil.
Sprinkle the salt over the olive oil. Place the ground beef in the instant pot
on top of the olive oil and salt.
Press the "sauté" button on your instant pot and use a spatula to break the
ground beef into smaller chunks while it warms up. Mix the ground beef while it
cooks. The goal is to make sure that all of the red parts turn grayish brown.
This will take anywhere from 5-10 minutes.
If you are using this ground beef for the above spaghetti recipe, you don't need
to remove it from the instant pot. You can store extra ground beef in the fridge
for use later.

4
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@ -20,7 +20,9 @@ img {
}
</style>
<center>
![](/static/img/ios_profiles.png)
</center>
- Go up a level to General
- Select About
@ -28,7 +30,9 @@ img {
- Each root that has been installed via a profile will be listed below the heading Enable Full Trust For Root Certificates
- Users can toggle on/off trust for each root:
<center>
![](/static/img/ios_cert_trust.png)
</center>
Please understand that by doing this, users will potentially be vulnerable to a
[HTTPS man in the middle attack a-la Superfish](https://slate.com/technology/2015/02/lenovo-superfish-scandal-why-its-one-of-the-worst-consumer-computing-screw-ups-ever.html). Please ensure that you have appropriate measures in place to keep the signing key for the CA safe.

160
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---
title: Kubernetes Pondering
date: 2020-12-31
tags:
- k8s
- kubernetes
- soyoustart
- kimsufi
- digitalocean
- vultr
---
# Kubernetes Pondering
Right now I am using a freight train to mail a letter when it comes to hosting
my web applications. If you are reading this post on the day it comes out, then
you are connected to one of a few replicas of my site code running across at
least 3 machines in my Kubernetes cluster. This certainly _works_, however it is
not very ergonomic and ends up being quite expensive.
I think I made a mistake when I decided to put my cards into Kubernetes for my
personal setup. It made sense at the time (I was trying to learn Kubernetes and
I am cursed into learning by doing), however I don't think it is really the best
choice available for my needs. I am not a large company. I am a single person
making things that are really targeted for myself. I would like to replace this
setup with something more at my scale. Here are a few options I have been
exploring combined with their pros and cons.
Here are the services I currently host on my Kubernetes cluster:
- [this site](/)
- [my git server](https://tulpa.dev)
- [hlang](https://h.christine.website)
- A few personal services that I've been meaning to consolidate
- The [olin demo](https://olin.within.website/)
- The venerable [printer facts server](https://printerfacts.cetacean.club)
- A few static websites
- An IRC server (`irc.within.website`)
My goal in evaluating other options is to reduce cost and complexity. Kubernetes
is a very complicated system and requires a lot of hand-holding and rejiggering
to make it do what you want. NixOS, on the other hand, is a lot simpler overall
and I would like to use it for running my services where I can.
Cost is a huge factor in this. My Kubernetes setup is a money pit. I want to
prioritize cost reduction as much as possible.
## Option 1: Do Nothing
I could do nothing about this and eat the complexity as a cost of having this
website and those other services online. However over the year or so I've been
using Kubernetes I've had to do a lot of hacking at it to get it to do what I
want.
I set up the cluster using Terraform and Helm 2. Helm 3 is the current
(backwards-incompatible) release, and all of the things that are managed by Helm
2 have resisted being upgraded to Helm 3.
I'm going to say something slightly controversial here, but YAML is a HORRIBLE
format for configuration. I can't trust myself to write unambiguous YAML. I have
to reference the spec constantly to make sure I don't have an accidental
Norway/Ontario bug. I have a Dhall package that takes away most of the pain,
however it's not flexible enough to describe the entire scope of what my
services need to do (IE: pinging Google/Bing to update their indexes on each
deploy), and I don't feel like putting in the time to make it that flexible.
[This is the regex for determining what is a valid boolean value in YAML:
`y|Y|yes|Yes|YES|n|N|no|No|NO|true|True|TRUE|false|False|FALSE|on|On|ON|off|Off|OFF`.
This can bite you eventually. See the <a
href="https://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/why/implicit-typing-removed/">Norway
Problem</a> for more information.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
I have a tor hidden service endpoint for a few of my services. I have to use an
[unmaintained tool](https://github.com/kragniz/tor-controller) to manage these
on Kubernetes. It works _today_, but the Kubernetes operator API could change at
any time (or the API this uses could be deprecated and removed without much
warning) and leave me in the dust.
I could live with all of this, however I don't really think it's the best idea
going forward. There's a bunch of services that I added on top of Kubernetes
that are dangerous to upgrade and very difficult (if not impossible) to
downgrade when something goes wrong during the upgrade.
One of the big things that I have with this setup that I would have to rebuild
in NixOS is the continuous deployment setup. However I've done that before and
it wouldn't really be that much of an issue to do it again.
NixOS fixes all the jank I mentioned above by making my specifications not have
to include the version numbers of everything the system already provides. You
can _actually trust the package repos to have up to date packages_. I don't
have to go around and bump the versions of shims and pray they work, because
with NixOS I don't need them anymore.
## Option 2: NixOS on top of SoYouStart or Kimsufi
This is a doable option. The main problem here would be doing the provision
step. SoYouStart and Kimsufi (both are offshoot/discount brands of OVH) have
very little in terms of customization of machine config. They work best when you
are using "normal" distributions like Ubuntu or CentOS and leave them be. I
would want to run NixOS on it and would have to do several trial and error runs
with a tool such as [nixos-infect](https://github.com/elitak/nixos-infect) to
assimilate the server into running NixOS.
With this option I would get the most storage out of any other option by far. 4
TB is a _lot_ of space. However, SoYouStart and Kimsufi run decade-old hardware
at best. I would end up paying a lot for very little in the CPU department. For
most things I am sure this would be fine, however some of my services can have
CPU needs that might exceed what second-generation Xeons can provide.
SoYouStart and Kimsufi have weird kernel versions though. The last SoYouStart
dedi I used ran Fedora and was gimped with a grsec kernel by default. I had to
end up writing [this gem of a systemd service on
boot](https://github.com/Xe/dotfiles/blob/master/ansible/roles/soyoustart/files/conditional-kexec.sh)
which did a [`kexec`](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec) to boot into a
non-gimped kernel on boot. It was a huge hack and somehow worked every time. I
was still afraid to reboot the machine though.
Sure is a lot of ram for the cost though.
## Option 3: NixOS on top of Digital Ocean
This shares most of the problems as the SoYouStart or Kimsufi nodes. However,
nixos-infect is known to have a higher success rate on Digital Ocean droplets.
It would be really nice if Digital Ocean let you upload arbitrary ISO files and
go from there, but that is apparently not the world we live in.
8 GB of ram would be _way more than enough_ for what I am doing with these
services.
## Option 4: NixOS on top of Vultr
Vultr is probably my top pick for this. You can upload an arbitrary ISO file,
kick off your VPS from it and install it like normal. I have a little shell
server shared between some friends built on top of such a Vultr node. It works
beautifully.
The fact that it has the same cost as the Digital Ocean droplet just adds to the
perfection of this option.
## Costs
Here is the cost table I've drawn up while comparing these options:
| Option | Ram | Disk | Cost per month | Hacks |
| :--------- | :----------------- | :------------------------------------ | :-------------- | :----------- |
| Do nothing | 6 GB (4 GB usable) | Not really usable, volumes cost extra | $60/month | Very Yes |
| SoYouStart | 32 GB | 2x2TB SAS | $40/month | Yes |
| Kimsufi | 32 GB | 2x2TB SAS | $35/month | Yes |
| Digital Ocean | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | $40/month | On provision |
| Vultr | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | $40/month | No |
I think I am going to go with the Vultr option. I will need to modernize some of
my services to support being deployed in NixOS in order to do this, however I
think that I will end up creating a more robust setup in the process. At least I
will create a setup that allows me to more easily maintain my own backups rather
than just relying on DigitalOcean snapshots and praying like I do with the
Kubernetes setup.
Thanks farcaller, Marbles, John Rinehart and others for reviewing this post
prior to it being published.

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---
title: kalama pali pi kulupu Kala
date: 2020-10-12
tags:
- 100DaysToOffload
---
# kalama pali pi kulupu Kala
I've wanted to write a novel for a while, and I think I've finally got a solid
idea for it. I want to write about the good guys winning against an oppressive
system. I've been letting the ideas and thoughts marinate in my heart for a long
time; these short stories are how I am exploring the world and other related
concepts. I want to use language as a tool in this world. So here is my take on
a creation myth for the main species of this world, the Kala (the title of this
post roughly translates to "creation story of the Kala").
This is day 2 of my 100 days to offload.
---
In the beginning, the gods roamed the skies. Pali, Sona and Soweli talked and
talked about their plans.
tenpo wan la sewi li lon e sewi. sewi Pali en sewi Sona en sewi Soweli li toki.
Soweli went down to the world Pali had created. Animals of all kinds followed
them as Soweli moved about the earth.
sewi Soweli li tawa e sike. soweli li kama e sike.
Sona followed and went towards the whales. Sona took a liking to how graceful
they were in the water, and decided to have them be the arbiters of knowledge.
Sona also reshaped them to look like the gods did. The Kala people resulted.
sewi Sona li tawa e soweli sike. sewi Sona li tawa e kala suli. sewi Sona li
lukin li pona e kala suli. sewi Sona li pana e sona e kon tawa kala suli. sewi
Sona li pali e jan kama kala suli. kulupu Kala li lon.
Pali had created the entire world, so Pali fell into a deep slumber in the
ocean.
tenpo pini la sewi Pali li pali e sike. sewi Pali li lape lon telo suli.
Soweli had created all of the animals on the whole world, so Soweli fell asleep
in Soweli mountain.
tenpo pini la sewi Soweli li pali e soweli ale. sewi Soweli li lape e nena Soweli.
Sona lifted themselves into the skies to watch the Kala from above. Sona keeps
an eye on us to make sure we are using their gift responsibly.
sewi Sona li tawa e sewi. sewi Sona li lukin e kulupu Kala. kulupu Kala li jo
sona li jo toki. kulupu Kala li pona e sewi Sona.

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@ -1,100 +0,0 @@
---
title: "ln - The Natural Log Function"
date: 2020-10-17
tags:
- golang
- go
---
# ln - The Natural Log Function
One of the most essential things in software is a good interface for logging
data to places. Logging is a surprisingly hard problem and there are many
approaches to doing it. This time, we're going to talk about my favorite logging
library in Go that uses my favorite function I've ever written in Go.
Today we're talking about [ln](https://github.com/Xe/ln), the natural log
function. ln works with key value pairs and logs them to somewhere. By default
it logs things to standard out. Here is how you use it:
```go
package main
import (
"context"
"within.website/ln"
)
func main() {
ctx := context.Background()
ln.Log(ctx, ln.Fmt("hello %s", "world"), ln.F{"demo": "usage"})
}
```
ln works with key value pairs called [F](https://godoc.org/within.website/ln#F).
This type allows you to log just about _anything_ you want, including custom
data types with an [Fer](https://godoc.org/within.website/ln#Fer). This will let
you annotate your data types so that you can automatically extract the important
information into your logs while automatically filtering out passwords or other
secret data. Here's an example:
```go
type User struct {
ID int
Username string
Password []byte
}
func (u User) F() ln.F {
return ln.F{
"user_id": u.ID,
"user_name": u.Username,
}
}
```
Then if you create that user somehow, you can log the ID and username without
logging the password on accident:
```go
var theDude User = abides()
ln.Log(ctx, ln.Info("created new user"), theDude)
```
This will create a log line that looks something like this:
```
level=info msg="created new user" user_name="The Dude" user_id=1337
```
[You can also put values in contexts! See <a
href="https://github.com/Xe/ln/blob/master/ex/http.go#L21">here</a> for more
detail on how this works.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
The way this is all glued together is that F itself is an Fer, meaning that the
Log/Error functions take a variadic set of Fers. This is where my favorite Go
function comes into play, it is the implementation of the Fer interface for F.
Here is that function verbatim:
```go
// F makes F an Fer
func (f F) F() F {
return f
}
```
I love how this function looks like some kind of abstract art. This function
holds this library together.
If you end up using ln for your projects in the future, please let me know what
your experience is like. I would love to make this library the best it can
possibly be. It is not a nanosecond scale zero allocation library (I think those
kind of things are a bit of a waste of time, because most of the time your
logging library is NOT going to be your bottleneck), but it is designed to have
very usable defaults and solve the problem good enough that you shouldn't need
to care. There are a few useful tools in the
[ex](https://godoc.org/within.website/ln/ex) package nested in ln. The biggest
thing is the HTTP middleware, which has saved me a lot of effort when writing
web services in Go.

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@ -1,51 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Mara: Sh0rk of Justice: Version 1.0.0 Released"
date: 2020-12-28
tags:
- gameboy
- gbstudio
- indiedev
---
# Mara: Sh0rk of Justice: Version 1.0.0 Released
Over the long weekend I found out about a program called [GB Studio](https://www.gbstudio.dev).
It's a simple drag-and-drop interface that you can use to make homebrew games for the
[Nintendo Game Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy). I was intrigued and I had
some time, so I set out to make a little top-down adventure game. After a few days of
tinkering I came up with an idea and created Mara: Sh0rk of Justice.
[You made a game about me? :D](conversation://Mara/hacker)
> Guide Mara through the spooky dungeon in order to find all of its secrets. Seek out
> the secrets of the spooks! Defeat the evil mage! Solve the puzzles! Find the items
> of power! It's up you to save us all, Mara!
You can play it in an `<iframe>` on itch.io!
<iframe frameborder="0" src="https://itch.io/embed/866982?dark=true" width="552" height="167"><a href="https://withinstudios.itch.io/mara-sh0rk-justice">Mara: Sh0rk of Justice by Within</a></iframe>
## Things I Learned
Game development is hard. Even with tools that help you do it, there's a limit to how
much you can get done at once. Everything links together. You really need to test
things both in isolation and as a cohesive whole.
I cannot compose music to save my life. I used free-to-use music assets from the
[GB Studio Community Assets](https://github.com/DeerTears/GB-Studio-Community-Assets)
pack to make this game. I think I managed to get everything acceptable.
GB Studio is rather inflexible. It feels like it's there to really help you get
started from a template. Even though you can make the whole game from inside GB
Studio, I probably should have ejected the engine to source code so I could
customize some things like the jump button being weird in platforming sections.
Pixel art is an art of its own. I used a lot of free to use assets from itch.io for
the tileset and a few NPC's. The rest was created myself using
[Aseprite](https://www.aseprite.org). Getting Mara's walking animation to a point
that I thought was acceptable was a chore. I found a nice compromise though.
---
Overall I'm happy with the result as a whole. Try it out, see how you like it and
please do let me know what I can improve on for the future.

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@ -1,167 +0,0 @@
---
title: "maybedoer: the Maybe Monoid for Go"
date: 2020-05-23
tags:
- go
- golang
- monoid
---
# maybedoer: the Maybe Monoid for Go
I recently posted (a variant of) this image of some Go source code to Twitter
and it spawned some interesting conversations about what it does, how it works
and why it needs to exist in the first place:
![the source code of package maybedoer](/static/blog/maybedoer.png)
This file is used to sequence functions that could fail together, allowing you
to avoid doing an `if err != nil` check on every single fallible function call.
There are two major usage patterns for it.
The first one is the imperative pattern, where you call it like this:
```go
md := new(maybedoer.Impl)
var data []byte
md.Maybe(func(context.Context) error {
var err error
data, err = ioutil.ReadFile("/proc/cpuinfo")
return err
})
// add a few more maybe calls?
if err := md.Error(); err != nil {
ln.Error(ctx, err, ln.Fmt("cannot munge data in /proc/cpuinfo"))
}
```
The second one is the iterative pattern, where you call it like this:
```go
func gitPush(repoPath, branch, to string) maybedoer.Doer {
return func(ctx context.Context) error {
// the repoPath, branch and to variables are available here
return nil
}
}
func repush(ctx context.Context) error {
repoPath, err := ioutil.TempDir("", "")
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("error making checkout: %v", err)
}
md := maybedoer.Impl{
Doers: []maybedoer.Doer{
gitConfig, // assume this is implemented
gitClone(repoPath, os.Getenv("HEROKU_APP_GIT_REPO")), // and this too
gitPush(repoPath, "master", os.Getenv("HEROKU_GIT_REMOTE")),
},
}
err = md.Do(ctx)
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("error repushing Heroku app: %v", err)
}
return nil
}
```
Both of these ways allow you to sequence fallible actions without having to
write `if err != nil` after each of them, making this easily scale out to
arbitrary numbers of steps. The design of this is inspired by a package used at
a previous job where we used it to handle a lot of fiddly fallible actions that
need to happen one after the other.
However, this version differs because of the `Doers` element of
`maybedoer.Impl`. This allows you to specify an entire process of steps as long
as those steps don't return any values. This is very similar to how Haskell's
[`Data.Monoid.First`](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.14.0.0/docs/Data-Monoid.html#t:First)
type works, except in Go this is locked to the `error` type (due to the language
not letting you describe things as precisely as you would need to get an analog
to `Data.Monoid.First`). This is also similar to Rust's `and_then` combinator.
If we could return values from these functions, this would make `maybedoer`
closer to being a monad in the Haskell sense. However we can't so we are locked
to one specific instance of a monoid. I would love to use this for a pointer (or
pointer-like) reference to any particular bit of data, but `interface{}` doesn't
allow this because `interface{}` matches _literally everything_:
```go
var foo = []interface{
1,
3.4,
"hi there",
context.Background(),
errors.New("this works too!"),
}
```
This could mean that if we changed the type of a Doer to be:
```go
type Doer func(context.Context) interface{}
```
Then it would be difficult to know how to handle returns from the function.
Arguably we could write some mechanism to check if it is an error:
```go
result := do(ctx)
if result != nil {
switch result.(type) {
case error:
return result // result is of type error magically
default:
md.return = result
}
}
```
But then it would be difficult to know how to pipe the result into the next
function, unless we change Doer's type to be:
```go
type Doer func(context.Context, interface{}) interface{}
```
Which would require code that looks like this:
```go
func getNumber(ctx context.Context, _ interface{}) interface{} {
return 2
}
func double(ctx context.Context, num interface{}) interface{} {
switch num.(type) {
case int:
return 2+2
default:
return fmt.Errorf("wanted num to be an int, got: %T", num)
}
return nil
}
```
But this kind of repetition would be required for _every function_. I don't
really know what the best way to solve this in a generic way would be, but I'm
fairly sure that these fundamental limitations in Go prevent this package from
being genericized to handle function outputs and inputs beyond what you can do
with currying (and maybe clever pointer usage).
I would love to be proven wrong though. If anyone can take this [source code
under the MIT license](/static/blog/maybedoer.go) and prove me wrong, I will
stand corrected and update this blogpost with the solution.
This kind of thing is more easy to solve in Rust with its
[Result](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/result/) type; and arguably this entire
problem solved in the Go package is irrelevant in Rust because this solution is
in the standard library of Rust.

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@ -1,397 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Minicompiler: Lexing"
date: 2020-10-29
series: rust
tags:
- rust
- templeos
- compiler
---
# Minicompiler: Lexing
I've always wanted to make my own compiler. Compilers are an integral part of
my day to day job and I use the fruits of them constantly. A while ago while I
was browsing through the TempleOS source code I found
[MiniCompiler.HC][minicompiler] in the `::/Demos/Lectures` folder and I was a
bit blown away. It implements a two phase compiler from simple math expressions
to AMD64 bytecode (complete with bit-banging it to an array that the code later
jumps to) and has a lot to teach about how compilers work. For those of you that
don't have a TempleOS VM handy, here is a video of MiniCompiler.HC in action:
[minicompiler]: https://github.com/Xe/TempleOS/blob/master/Demo/Lectures/MiniCompiler.HC
<video controls width="100%">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/minicompiler/tmp.YDcgaHSb3z.webm"
type="video/webm">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/minicompiler/tmp.YDcgaHSb3z.mp4"
type="video/mp4">
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos.
</video>
You put in a math expression, the compiler builds it and then spits out a bunch
of assembly and runs it to return the result. In this series we are going to be
creating an implementation of this compiler that targets [WebAssembly][wasm].
This compiler will be written in Rust and will use only the standard library for
everything but the final bytecode compilation and execution phase. There is a
lot going on here, so I expect this to be at least a three part series. The
source code will be in [Xe/minicompiler][Xemincompiler] in case you want to read
it in detail. Follow along and let's learn some Rust on the way!
[wasm]: https://webassembly.org/
[Xemincompiler]: https://github.com/Xe/minicompiler
[Compilers for languages like C are built on top of the fundamentals here, but
they are _much_ more complicated.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Description of the Language
This language uses normal infix math expressions on whole numbers. Here are a
few examples:
- `2 + 2`
- `420 * 69`
- `(34 + 23) / 38 - 42`
- `(((34 + 21) / 5) - 12) * 348`
Ideally we should be able to nest the parentheses as deep as we want without any
issues.
Looking at these values we can notice a few patterns that will make parsing this
a lot easier:
- There seems to be only 4 major parts to this language:
- numbers
- math operators
- open parentheses
- close parentheses
- All of the math operators act identically and take two arguments
- Each program is one line long and ends at the end of the line
Let's turn this description into Rust code:
## Bringing in Rust
Make a new project called `minicompiler` with a command that looks something
like this:
```console
$ cargo new minicompiler
```
This will create a folder called `minicompiler` and a file called `src/main.rs`.
Open that file in your editor and copy the following into it:
```rust
// src/main.rs
/// Mathematical operations that our compiler can do.
#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq)]
enum Op {
Mul,
Div,
Add,
Sub,
}
/// All of the possible tokens for the compiler, this limits the compiler
/// to simple math expressions.
#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq)]
enum Token {
EOF,
Number(i32),
Operation(Op),
LeftParen,
RightParen,
}
```
[In compilers, "tokens" refer to the individual parts of the language you are
working with. In this case every token represents every possible part of a
program.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
And then let's start a function that can turn a program string into a bunch of
tokens:
```rust
// src/main.rs
fn lex(input: &str) -> Vec<Token> {
todo!("implement this");
}
```
[Wait, what do you do about bad input such as things that are not math expressions?
Shouldn't this function be able to fail?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
You're right! Let's make a little error type that represents bad input. For
creativity's sake let's call it `BadInput`:
```rust
// src/main.rs
use std::error::Error;
use std::fmt;
/// The error that gets returned on bad input. This only tells the user that it's
/// wrong because debug information is out of scope here. Sorry.
#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq)]
struct BadInput;
// Errors need to be displayable.
impl fmt::Display for BadInput {
fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter) -> fmt::Result {
write!(f, "something in your input is bad, good luck")
}
}
// The default Error implementation will do here.
impl Error for BadInput {}
```
And then let's adjust the type of `lex()` to compensate for this:
```rust
// src/main.rs
fn lex(input: &str) -> Result<Vec<Token>, BadInput> {
todo!("implement this");
}
```
So now that we have the function type we want, let's start implementing `lex()`
by setting up the result and a loop over the characters in the input string:
```rust
// src/main.rs
fn lex(input: &str) -> Result<Vec<Token>, BadInput> {
let mut result: Vec<Token> = Vec::new();
for character in input.chars() {
todo!("implement this");
}
Ok(result)
}
```
Looking at the examples from earlier we can start writing some boilerplate to
turn characters into tokens:
```rust
// src/main.rs
// ...
for character in input.chars() {
match character {
// Skip whitespace
' ' => continue,
// Ending characters
';' | '\n' => {
result.push(Token::EOF);
break;
}
// Math operations
'*' => result.push(Token::Operation(Op::Mul)),
'/' => result.push(Token::Operation(Op::Div)),
'+' => result.push(Token::Operation(Op::Add)),
'-' => result.push(Token::Operation(Op::Sub)),
// Parentheses
'(' => result.push(Token::LeftParen),
')' => result.push(Token::RightParen),
// Numbers
'0' | '1' | '2' | '3' | '4' | '5' | '6' | '7' | '8' | '9' => {
todo!("implement number parsing")
}
// Everything else is bad input
_ => return Err(BadInput),
}
}
// ...
```
[Ugh, you're writing `Token::` and `Op::` a lot. Is there a way to simplify
that?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
Yes! enum variants can be shortened to their names with a `use` statement like
this:
```rust
// src/main.rs
// ...
use Op::*;
use Token::*;
match character {
// ...
// Math operations
'*' => result.push(Operation(Mul)),
'/' => result.push(Operation(Div)),
'+' => result.push(Operation(Add)),
'-' => result.push(Operation(Sub)),
// Parentheses
'(' => result.push(LeftParen),
')' => result.push(RightParen),
// ...
}
// ...
```
Which looks a _lot_ better.
[You can use the `use` statement just about anywhere in your program. However to
keep things flowing nicer, the `use` statement is right next to where it is
needed in these examples.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Now we can get into the fun that is parsing numbers. When he wrote MiniCompiler,
Terry Davis used an approach that is something like this (spacing added for readability):
```c
case '0'...'9':
i = 0;
do {
i = i * 10 + *src - '0';
src++;
} while ('0' <= *src <= '9');
*num=i;
```
This sets an intermediate variable `i` to 0 and then consumes characters from
the input string as long as they are between `'0'` and `'9'`. As a neat side
effect of the numbers being input in base 10, you can conceptualize `40` as `(4 *
10) + 2`. So it multiplies the old digit by 10 and then adds the new digit to
the resulting number. Our setup doesn't let us get that fancy as easily, however
we can emulate it with a bit of stack manipulation according to these rules:
- If `result` is empty, push this number to result and continue lexing the
program
- Pop the last item in `result` and save it as `last`
- If `last` is a number, multiply that number by 10 and add the current number
to it
- Otherwise push the node back into `result` and push the current number to
`result` as well
Translating these rules to Rust, we get this:
```rust
// src/main.rs
// ...
// Numbers
'0' | '1' | '2' | '3' | '4' | '5' | '6' | '7' | '8' | '9' => {
let num: i32 = (character as u8 - '0' as u8) as i32;
if result.len() == 0 {
result.push(Number(num));
continue;
}
let last = result.pop().unwrap();
match last {
Number(i) => {
result.push(Number((i * 10) + num));
}
_ => {
result.push(last);
result.push(Number(num));
}
}
}
// ...
```
[This is not the most robust number parsing code in the world, however it will
suffice for now. Extra credit if you can identify the edge
cases!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
This should cover the tokens for the language. Let's write some tests to be sure
everything is working the way we think it is!
## Testing
Rust has a [robust testing
framework](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch11-00-testing.html) built into the
standard library. We can use it here to make sure we are generating tokens
correctly. Let's add the following to the bottom of `main.rs`:
```rust
#[cfg(test)] // tells the compiler to only build this code when tests are being run
mod tests {
use super::{Op::*, Token::*, *};
// registers the following function as a test function
#[test]
fn basic_lexing() {
assert!(lex("420 + 69").is_ok());
assert!(lex("tacos are tasty").is_err());
assert_eq!(
lex("420 + 69"),
Ok(vec![Number(420), Operation(Add), Number(69)])
);
assert_eq!(
lex("(30 + 560) / 4"),
Ok(vec![
LeftParen,
Number(30),
Operation(Add),
Number(560),
RightParen,
Operation(Div),
Number(4)
])
);
}
}
```
This test can and probably should be expanded on, but when we run `cargo test`:
```console
$ cargo test
Compiling minicompiler v0.1.0 (/home/cadey/code/Xe/minicompiler)
Finished test [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.22s
Running target/debug/deps/minicompiler-03cad314858b0419
running 1 test
test tests::basic_lexing ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out
```
And hey presto! We verified that all of the parsing is working correctly. Those
test cases should be sufficient to cover all of the functionality of the
language.
---
This is it for part 1. We covered a lot today. Next time we are going to run a
validation pass on the program, convert the infix expressions to reverse polish
notation and then also get started on compiling that to WebAssembly. This has
been fun so far and I hope you were able to learn from it.
Special thanks to the following people for reviewing this post:
- Steven Weeks
- sirpros
- Leonora Tindall
- Chetan Conikee
- Pablo
- boopstrap
- ash2x3

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@ -1,92 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Book Release: Musings from Within"
date: 2020-07-28
tags:
- release
- book
- musingsfromwithin
---
# Book Release: Musings from Within
I am happy to announce that I have successfully created an eBook compilation of
the best of the posts on this blog plus a bunch of writing I have never before
made public, and the result is now available for purchase on
[itch.io](https://withinstudios.itch.io/musings-from-within) and the Kindle
Store (TODO(Xe): add kindle link here when it gets approved) for USD$5. This
book is the product of 5 years of effort writing, getting better at writing,
failing at writing and everything inbetween.
I have collected the following essays, poems, recipes and stories:
- Against Label Permanence
- A Letter to Those Who Bullied Me
- All There is is Now
- Alone
- Barrier
- Bricks
- Chaos Magick Debugging
- Chicken Stir Fry
- Creator’s Mission
- Death
- Died to Save Me
- Don't Look Into the Light
- Every Koan Ever
- Final Chapter
- Gratitude
- h
- How HTTP Requests Work
- Humanity
- I Love
- Instant Pot Quinoa Taco Bowls
- Instant Pot Spaghetti
- I Put Words on this Webpage so You Have to Listen to Me Now
- I Remember
- It Is Free
- Listen to Your Rubber Duck
- MrBeast is Postmodern Gold
- My Experience Cursing Out God
- Narrative of Sickness
- One Day
- Plurality-Driven Development
- Practical Kasmakfa
- Questions
- Second Go Around
- Self
- Sorting Time
- Tarot for Hackers
- The Gears and The Gods
- The Origin of h
- The Service is Already Down
- The Story of Hol
- The Sumerian Creation Myth
- Toast Sandwich Recipe
- Untitled Cyberpunk Furry Story
- We Exist
- What It’s Like to Be Me
- When Then Zen
- When Then Zen: Anapana
- When Then Zen: Wonderland Immersion
- You Are Fine
Most of these are available on this site, but a good portion of them are not
available anywhere else. There's poetry about shamanism, stories about
reincarnation, koans and more.
I am also uploading eBook files to my [Patreon](https://patreon.com/cadey) page,
anyone who supports me for $1 or more has [immediate
access](https://www.patreon.com/posts/39825969)
to the DRM-free ePub, MOBIPocket and PDF files of this book.
If you are facing financial difficulties, want to read my book and just simply
cannot afford it, please [contact me](/contact) and I will send you my book free
of charge.
Feedback and reviews of this book are more than welcome. If you decide to tweet
or toot about it, please use the hashtag `#musingsfromwithin` so I can collect
them into future updates to the description of the store pages, as well as
assemble them below.
Enjoy the book! My hope is that you get as much from it as I've gotten from
writing these things for the last 5 or so years. Here's to five more. I'll
likely create another anthology/collection of them at that point.

31
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@ -5,9 +5,7 @@ date: 2019-03-14
# My Career So Far in Dates/Titles/Salaries
Let this be inspiration to whoever is afraid of trying, failing and being fired.
Every single one of these jobs has taught me lessons I've used daily in my
career.
Let this be inspiration to whoever is afraid of trying, failing and being fired. Every single one of these jobs has taught me lessons I've used daily in my career.
## First Jobs
@ -19,14 +17,11 @@ I don't have exact dates on these, but my first jobs were:
I ended up walking out on the delivery job, but that's a story for another day.
Most of what I learned from these jobs were the value of labor and when to just
shut up and give people exactly what they are asking for. Even if it's what they
might not want.
Most of what I learned from these jobs were the value of labor and when to just shut up and give people exactly what they are asking for. Even if it's what they might not want.
## Salaried Jobs
The following table is a history of my software career by title, date and salary
(company names are omitted).
The following table is a history of my software career by title, date and salary (company names are omitted).
| Title | Start Date | End Date | Days Worked | Days Between Jobs | Salary | How I Left |
|:----- |:---------- |:-------- |:----------- |:----------------- |:------ |:---------- |
@ -40,19 +35,11 @@ The following table is a history of my software career by title, date and salary
| Software Engineer | August 24, 2016 | November 22, 2016 | 90 days | 21 days | $105,000/year | Terminated |
| Consultant | Feburary 13, 2017 | November 13, 2017 | 273 days | 83 days | don't remember | Hired |
| Senior Software Engineer | November 13, 2017 | March 8, 2019 | 480 days | 0 days | $150,000/year | Voulntary quit |
| Senior Site Reliability Expert | May 6, 2019 | October 27, 2020 | 540 days | 48 days | CAD$115,000/year (about USD$ 80k and change) | Voluntary quit |
| Software Designer | December 14, 2020 | *current* | n/a | n/a | CAD$135,000/year (about USD$ 105k and change) | n/a |
| Senior Site Reliability Expert | May 6, 2019 | (will be current) | n/a | n/a | CAD$105,000/year (about USD$ 80k and change) | n/a |
Even though I've been fired three times, I don't regret my career as it's been
thus far. I've been able to work on experimental technology integrating into
phone systems. I've worked in a mixed PHP/Haskell/Erlang/Go/Perl production
environment. I've literally rebuilt most of the tool that was catalytic to my
career a few times over. It's been the ride of a lifetime.
Even though I've been fired three times, I don't regret my career as it's been thus far. I've been able to work on experimental technology integrating into phone systems. I've worked in a mixed PHP/Haskell/Erlang/Go/Perl production environment. I've literally rebuilt most of the tool that was catalytic to my career a few times over. It's been the ride of a lifetime.
Even though I was fired, each of these failures in this chain of jobs enabled me
to succeed the way I have. I can't wait to see what's next out of it. I only
wonder how I can be transformed even more. I really wonder what it's gonna be
like with the company that hired me over the border.
Even though I was fired, each of these failures in this chain of jobs enabled me to succeed the way I have. I can't wait to see what's next out of it. I only wonder how I can be transformed even more. I really wonder what it's gonna be like with the company that hired me over the border.
![](/static/img/my-career.jpeg)
@ -74,8 +61,4 @@ Be well.
.i ko do gleki
```
If you can, please make a blogpost similar to this. Don't include company names.
Include start date, end date, time spent there, time spent job hunting, salary
(if you remember it) and how you left it. Let's [end salary
secrecy](https://thegirlpowercode.com/2018/09/12/is-salary-secrecy-coming-to-an-end/)
one step at a time.
If you can, please make a blogpost similar to this. Don't include company names. Include start date, end date, time spent there, time spent job hunting, salary (if you remember it) and how you left it. Let's [end salary secrecy](https://thegirlpowercode.com/2018/09/12/is-salary-secrecy-coming-to-an-end/) one step at a time.

81
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@ -1,81 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Life Update: New Adventures"
date: 2020-10-24
tags:
- personal
---
# Life Update: New Adventures
Today was my last day at my job, and as of the time that I have published this
post, I am now inbetween jobs. I have had an adventure at Lightspeed, but all
things must come to an end and my adventure has come to an end there. I have a
new job lined up and I will be heading to it soon, but for the meantime I plan
to relax and decompress.
I want to finish that tabletop RPG book I have prototyped out. When I have
something closer to a cohesive book I will post something on my
[patreon](https://www.patreon.com/cadey) so that you all can take a look. Any
and all feedback would be very appreciated. I hope to have it published on my
[Itch page](https://withinstudios.itch.io/) by the end of this year. My target
is on or about $5 for the game manual and supplemental material.
Thanks for reading; no, seriously, thank you. Without people like you that
read and share articles on this blog I would never have gotten to the level of
success that I have now. Additionally, I would like to emphasize that I am fine
as far as new jobs go. I have primary and fallback plans in place, but if they
all somehow fall through I will be sure to put up a note here. Please be sure to
check out [/signalboost](/signalboost) for people to consider when making hiring
decisions.
## May Our Paths Cross Again: My Farewell Letter to Lightspeed
Hey all,
Today is my last day at Lightspeed. Working at Lightspeed has been catalytic to
my career. I have been exposed to so many people from so many backgrounds and
you all have irreparably changed me for the better and given me the space to
thrive. There is passion here, and it is being tapped in order to create
fantastic solutions for our customers to enable them to succeed. I originally
came to Montréal to live with my fiancé and if Covid had struck a week later he
would be my husband.
However, I feel that I have done as much as I can at Lightspeed and our paths
thusly need to divide. I have gotten a fantastic opportunity and I will be
working on technology that will become a foundational part of personal and
professional IP networking over WireGuard for many companies and people. I'm
sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone, I don't mean to cause anyone grief
with this move.
I have been attaching a little poem in Lojban to the signature of my emails,
here is it and its translation:
```
la budza pu cusku lu
<<.i ko do snura .i ko do kanro
.i ko do panpi .i ko do gleki>> li'u
```
> May you be safe. May you be healthy.
> May you be at peace. May you be happy.
- Buddha
I will be reachable on the internet. See https://christine.website/contact to
see contact information that will help you reach out to me. If you can, please
direct replies to me@christine.website, that way I can read them after this
account gets disabled.
I hope I was able to brighten your path.
From my world to yours,
--
Christine Dodrill
https://christine.website
```
la budza pu cusku lu
<<.i ko do snura .i ko do kanro
.i ko do panpi .i ko do gleki>> li'u
```

38
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@ -1,38 +0,0 @@
---
title: New PGP Key Fingerprint
date: 2021-01-15
---
# New PGP Key Fingerprint
This morning I got an encrypted email, and in the process of trying to decrypt
it I discovered that I had _lost_ my PGP key. I have no idea how I lost it. As
such, I have created a new PGP key and replaced the one on my website with it.
I did the replacement in [this
commit](https://github.com/Xe/site/commit/66233bcd40155cf71e221edf08851db39dbd421c),
which you can see is verified with a subkey of my new key.
My new PGP key ID is `803C 935A E118 A224`. The key with the ID `799F 9134 8118
1111` should not be used anymore. Here are all the subkey fingerprints:
```
Signature key ....: 378E BFC6 3D79 B49D 8C36 448C 803C 935A E118 A224
created ....: 2021-01-15 13:04:28
Encryption key....: 8C61 7F30 F331 D21B 5517 6478 8C5C 9BC7 0FC2 511E
created ....: 2021-01-15 13:04:28
Authentication key: 7BF7 E531 ABA3 7F77 FD17 8F72 CE17 781B F55D E945
created ....: 2021-01-15 13:06:20
General key info..: pub rsa2048/803C935AE118A224 2021-01-15 Christine Dodrill (Yubikey) <me@christine.website>
sec> rsa2048/803C935AE118A224 created: 2021-01-15 expires: 2031-01-13
card-no: 0006 03646872
ssb> rsa2048/8C5C9BC70FC2511E created: 2021-01-15 expires: 2031-01-13
card-no: 0006 03646872
ssb> rsa2048/CE17781BF55DE945 created: 2021-01-15 expires: 2031-01-13
card-no: 0006 03646872
```
I don't really know what the proper way is to go about revoking an old PGP key.
It probably doesn't help that I don't use PGP very often. I think this is the
first encrypted email I've gotten in a year.
Let's hope that I don't lose this key as easily!

317
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@ -1,317 +0,0 @@
---
title: Nixops Services on Your Home Network
date: 2020-11-09
series: howto
tags:
- nixos
- systemd
---
# Nixops Services on Your Home Network
My homelab has a few NixOS machines. Right now they mostly run services inside
Docker, because that has been what I have done for years. This works fine, but
persistent state gets annoying*. NixOS has a tool called
[Nixops](https://releases.nixos.org/nixops/nixops-1.7/manual/manual.html) that
allows you to push configurations to remote machines. I use this for managing my
fleet of machines, and today I'm going to show you how to create service
deployments with Nixops and push them to your servers.
[Pedantically, Docker offers <a
href="https://releases.nixos.org/nixops/nixops-1.7/manual/manual.html">volumes</a>
to simplify this, but it is very easy to accidentally delete Docker volumes.
Plain disk files like we are going to use today are a bit simpler than docker
volumes, and thusly a bit harder to mess up.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Parts of a Service
For this example, let's deploy a chatbot. To make things easier, let's assume
the following about this chatbot:
- The chatbot has a git repo somewhere
- The chatbot's git repo has a `default.nix` that builds the service and
includes any supporting files it might need
- The chatbot reads its configuration from environment variables which may
contain secret values (API keys, etc.)
- The chatbot stores any temporary files in its current working directory
- The chatbot is "well-behaved" (for some definition of "well-behaved")
I will also need to assume that you have a git repo (or at least a folder) with
all of your configuration similar to [mine](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs).
For this example I'm going to use [withinbot](https://github.com/Xe/withinbot)
as the service we will deploy via Nixops. withinbot is a chatbot that I use on
my own Discord guild that does a number of vital functions including supplying
amusing facts about printers:
```
<Cadey~> ~printerfact
<Within[BOT]> @Cadey~ Printers, especially older printers, do get cancer. Many
times this disease can be treated successfully
```
[To get your own amusing facts about printers, see <a
href="https://printerfacts.cetacean.club">here</a> or for using its API, call <a
href="https://printerfacts.cetacean.club/fact">`/fact`</a>. This API has no
practical rate limits, but please don't test that.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Service Definition
We will need to do a few major things for defining this service:
1. Add the bot code as a package
1. Create a "services" folder for the service modules
1. Create a user account for the service
1. Set up a systemd unit for the service
1. Configure the secrets using [Nixops
keys](https://releases.nixos.org/nixops/nixops-1.7/manual/manual.html#idm140737322342384)
### Add the Code as a Package
In order for the program to be installed to the remote system, you need to tell
the system how to import it. There's many ways to do this, but the cheezy way is
to add the packages to
[`nixpkgs.config.packageOverrides`](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-customising-packages)
like this:
```nix
nixpkgs.config = {
packageOverrides = pkgs: {
within = {
withinbot = import (builtins.fetchTarball
"https://github.com/Xe/withinbot/archive/main.tar.gz") { };
};
};
};
```
And now we can access it as `pkgs.within.withinbot` in the rest of our config.
[In production circumstances you should probably use <a
href="https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#chap-pkgs-fetchers">a fetcher
that locks to a specific version</a> using unique URLs and hashing, but this
will work enough to get us off the ground in this
example.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
### Create a "services" Folder
In your configuration folder, create a folder that you will use for these
service definitions. I made mine in `common/services`. In that folder, create a
`default.nix` with the following contents:
```nix
{ config, lib, ... }:
{
imports = [ ./withinbot.nix ];
users.groups.within = {};
}
```
The group listed here is optional, but I find that having a group like that can
help you better share resources and files between services.
Now we need a folder for storing secrets. Let's create that under the services
folder:
```console
$ mkdir secrets
```
And let's also add a gitignore file so that we don't accidentally commit these
secrets to the repo:
```gitignore
# common/services/secrets/.gitignore
*
```
Now we can put any secrets we want in the secrets folder without the risk of
committing them to the git repo.
### Service Manifest
Let's create `withinbot.nix` and set it up:
```nix
{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:
with lib; {
options.within.services.withinbot.enable =
mkEnableOption "Activates Withinbot (the furryhole chatbot)";
config = mkIf config.within.services.withinbot.enable {
};
}
```
This sets up an option called `within.services.withinbot.enable` which will only
add the service configuration if that option is set to `true`. This will allow
us to define a lot of services that are available, but none of their config will
be active unless they are explicitly enabled.
Now, let's create a user account for the service:
```nix
# ...
config = ... {
users.users.withinbot = {
createHome = true;
description = "github.com/Xe/withinbot";
isSystemUser = true;
group = "within";
home = "/srv/within/withinbot";
extraGroups = [ "keys" ];
};
};
# ...
```
This will create a user named `withinbot` with the home directory
`/srv/within/withinbot`, the group `within` and also in the group `keys` so the
withinbot user can read deployment secrets.
Now let's add the deployment secrets to the configuration:
```nix
# ...
config = ... {
users.users.withinbot = { ... };
deployment.keys.withinbot = {
text = builtins.readFile ./secrets/withinbot.env;
user = "withinbot";
group = "within";
permissions = "0640";
};
};
# ...
```
Assuming you have the configuration at `./secrets/withinbot.env`, this will
register the secrets into `/run/keys/withinbot` and also create a systemd
oneshot service named `withinbot-key`. This allows you to add the secret's
existence as a condition for withinbot to run. However, Nixops puts these keys
in `/run`, which by default is mounted using a temporary memory-only filesystem,
meaning these keys will need to be re-added to machines when they are rebooted.
Fortunately, `nixops reboot` will automatically add the keys back after the
reboot succeeds.
Now that we have everything else we need, let's add the service configuration:
```nix
# ...
config = ... {
users.users.withinbot = { ... };
deployment.keys.withinbot = { ... };
systemd.services.withinbot = {
wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
after = [ "withinbot-key.service" ];
wants = [ "withinbot-key.service" ];
serviceConfig = {
User = "withinbot";
Group = "within";
Restart = "on-failure"; # automatically restart the bot when it dies
WorkingDirectory = "/srv/within/withinbot";
RestartSec = "30s";
};
script = let withinbot = pkgs.within.withinbot;
in ''
# load the environment variables from /run/keys/withinbot
export $(grep -v '^#' /run/keys/withinbot | xargs)
# service-specific configuration
export CAMPAIGN_FOLDER=${withinbot}/campaigns
# kick off the chatbot
exec ${withinbot}/bin/withinbot
'';
};
};
# ...
```
This will create the systemd configuration for the service so that it starts on
boot, waits to start until the secrets have been loaded into it, runs withinbot
as its own user and in the `within` group, and throttles the service restart so
that it doesn't incur Discord rate limits as easily. This will also put all
withinbot logs in journald, meaning that you can manage and monitor this service
like you would any other systemd service.
## Deploying the Service
In your target server's `configuration.nix` file, add an import of your services
directory:
```nix
{
# ...
imports = [
# ...
/home/cadey/code/nixos-configs/common/services
];
# ...
}
```
And then enable the withinbot service:
```nix
{
# ...
within.services = {
withinbot.enable = true;
};
# ...
}
```
[Make that a block so you can enable multiple services at once like <a
href="https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/e111413e8b895f5a117dea534b17fc9d0b38d268/hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix#L93-L96">this</a>!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Now you are free to deploy it to your network with `nixops deploy`:
```console
$ nixops deploy -d hexagone
```
<video controls width="100%">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/nixops/tmp.Tr7HTFFd2c.webm"
type="video/webm">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/nixops/tmp.Tr7HTFFd2c.mp4"
type="video/mp4">
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos.
</video>
And then you can verify the service is up with `systemctl status`:
```console
$ nixops ssh -d hexagone chrysalis -- systemctl status withinbot
● withinbot.service
Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/7ab7jzycpcci4f5wjwhjx3al7xy85ka7-unit-withinbot.service/withinbot.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-11-09 09:51:51 EST; 2h 29min ago
Main PID: 12295 (withinbot)
IP: 0B in, 0B out
Tasks: 13 (limit: 4915)
Memory: 7.9M
CPU: 4.456s
CGroup: /system.slice/withinbot.service
└─12295 /nix/store/qpq281hcb1grh4k5fm6ksky6w0981arp-withinbot-0.1.0/bin/withinbot
Nov 09 09:51:51 chrysalis systemd[1]: Started withinbot.service.
```
---
This basic template is enough to expand out to anything you would need and is
what I am using for my own network. This should be generic enough for most of
your needs. Check out the [NixOS manual](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/)
for more examples and things you can do with this. The [Nixops
manual](https://releases.nixos.org/nixops/nixops-1.7/manual/manual.html) is also
a good read. It can also set up deployments with VirtualBox, libvirtd, AWS,
Digital Ocean, and even Google Cloud.
The cloud is the limit! Be well.

533
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@ -1,533 +0,0 @@
---
title: "My NixOS Desktop Flow"
date: 2020-04-25
series: howto
---
# My NixOS Desktop Flow
Before I built my current desktop, I had been using a [2013 Mac Pro][macpro2013]
for at least 7 years. This machine has seen me through living in a few cities
(Bellevue, Mountain View and Montreal), but it was starting to show its age. Its
12 core Xeon is really no slouch (scoring about 5 minutes in my "compile the
linux kernel" test), but with Intel security patches it was starting to get
slower and slower as time went on.
[macpro2013]: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro-2013/specs/
So in March (just before the situation started) I ordered the parts for my new
tower and built my current desktop machine. From the start, I wanted it to run
Linux and have 64 GB of ram, mostly so I could write and test programs without
having to worry about ram exhaustion.
When the parts were almost in, I had decided to really start digging into
[NixOS][nixos]. Friends on IRC and Discord had been trying to get me to use it
for years, and I was really impressed with a simple setup that I had in a
virtual machine. So I decided to jump head-first down that rabbit hole, and I'm
honestly really glad I did.
[nixos]: https://nixos.org
NixOS is built on a more functional approach to package management called
[Nix][nix]. Parts of the configuration can be easily broken off into modules
that can be reused across machines in a deployment. If [Ansible][ansible] or
other tools like it let you customize an existing Linux distribution to meet
your needs, NixOS allows you to craft your own Linux distribution around your
needs.
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
[ansible]: https://www.ansible.com/
Unfortunately, the Nix and NixOS documentation is a bit more dense than most
other Linux programs/distributions are, and it's a bit easy to get lost in it.
I'm going to attempt to explain a lot of the guiding principles behind Nix and
NixOS and how they fit into how I use NixOS on my desktop.
## What is a Package?
Earlier, I mentioned that Nix is a _functional_ package manager. This means that
Nix views packages as a combination of inputs to get an output:
![A nix package is the metadata, the source code, the build instructions and
some patches as input to a derivation to create a
package](/static/blog/nix-package.png)
This is how most package managers work (even things like Windows installer
files), but Nix goes a step further by disallowing package builds to access the
internet. This allows Nix packages to be a lot more reproducible; meaning if you
have the same inputs (source code, build script and patches) you should _always_
get the same output byte-for-byte every time you build the same package at the
same version.
### A Simple Package
Let's consider a simple example, my [gruvbox-inspired CSS file][gruvboxcss]'s
[`default.nix`][gcssdefaultnix] file':
[gruvboxcss]: https://github.com/Xe/gruvbox-css
[gcssdefaultnix]: https://github.com/Xe/gruvbox-css/blob/master/default.nix
```nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
pname = "gruvbox-css";
version = "latest";
src = ./.;
phases = "installPhase";
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out
cp -rf $src/gruvbox.css $out/gruvbox.css
'';
}
```
This creates a package named `gruvbox-css` with the version `latest`. Let's
break this down its `default.nix` line by line:
```nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
```
This creates a function that either takes in the `pkgs` object or tells Nix to
import the standard package library [nixpkgs][nixpkgs] as `pkgs`. nixpkgs
includes a lot of utilities like a standard packaging environment, special
builders for things like snaps and Docker images as well as one of the largest
package sets out there.
[nixpkgs]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/
```nix
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
# ...
}
```
This runs the [`stdenv.mkDerivation`][mkderiv] function with some arguments in an
object. The "standard environment" comes with tools like GCC, bash, coreutils,
find, sed, grep, awk, tar, make, patch and all of the major compression tools.
This means that our package builds can build C/C++ programs, copy files to the
output, and extract downloaded source files by default. You can add other inputs
to this environment if you need to, but for now it works as-is.
[mkderiv]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#sec-using-stdenv
Let's specify the name and version of this package:
```nix
pname = "gruvbox-css";
version = "latest";
```
`pname` stands for "package name". It is combined with the version to create the
resulting package name. In this case it would be `gruvbox-css-latest`.
Let's tell Nix how to build this package:
```nix
src = ./.;
phases = "installPhase";
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out
cp -rf $src/gruvbox.css $out/gruvbox.css
'';
```
The `src` attribute tells Nix where the source code of the package is stored.
Sometimes this can be a URL to a compressed archive on the internet, sometimes
it can be a git repo, but for now it's the current working directory `./.`.
This is a CSS file, it doesn't make sense to have to build these, so we skip the
build phase and tell Nix to directly install the package to its output folder:
```shell
mkdir -p $out
cp -rf $src/gruvbox.css $out/gruvbox.css
```
This two-liner shell script creates the output directory (usually exposed as
`$out`) and then copies `gruvbox.css` into it. When we run this through Nix
with`nix-build`, we get output that looks something like this:
```console
$ nix-build ./default.nix
these derivations will be built:
/nix/store/c99n4ixraigf4jb0jfjxbkzicd79scpj-gruvbox-css.drv
building '/nix/store/c99n4ixraigf4jb0jfjxbkzicd79scpj-gruvbox-css.drv'...
installing
/nix/store/ng5qnhwyrk9zaidjv00arhx787r0412s-gruvbox-css
```
And `/nix/store/ng5qnhwyrk9zaidjv00arhx787r0412s-gruvbox-css` is the output
package. Looking at its contents with `ls`, we see this:
```console
$ ls /nix/store/ng5qnhwyrk9zaidjv00arhx787r0412s-gruvbox-css
gruvbox.css
```
### A More Complicated Package
For a more complicated package, let's look at the [build directions of the
website you are reading right now][sitedefaultnix]:
[sitedefaultnix]: https://github.com/Xe/site/blob/master/site.nix
```nix
{ pkgs ? import (import ./nix/sources.nix).nixpkgs }:
with pkgs;
assert lib.versionAtLeast go.version "1.13";
buildGoPackage rec {
pname = "christinewebsite";
version = "latest";
goPackagePath = "christine.website";
src = ./.;
goDeps = ./nix/deps.nix;
allowGoReference = false;
preBuild = ''
export CGO_ENABLED=0
buildFlagsArray+=(-pkgdir "$TMPDIR")
'';
postInstall = ''
cp -rf $src/blog $bin/blog
cp -rf $src/css $bin/css
cp -rf $src/gallery $bin/gallery
cp -rf $src/signalboost.dhall $bin/signalboost.dhall
cp -rf $src/static $bin/static
cp -rf $src/talks $bin/talks
cp -rf $src/templates $bin/templates
'';
}
```
Breaking it down, we see some similarities to the gruvbox-css package from
above, but there's a few more interesting lines I want to point out:
```nix
{ pkgs ? import (import ./nix/sources.nix).nixpkgs }:
```
My website uses a pinned or fixed version of nixpkgs. This allows my website's
deployment to be stable even if nixpkgs changes something that could cause it to
break.
```nix
with pkgs;
```
[With expressions][nixwith] are one of the more interesting parts of Nix.
Essentially, they let you say "everything in this object should be put into
scope". So if you have an expression that does this:
[nixwith]: https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#idm140737321975440
```nix
let
foo = {
ponies = "awesome";
};
in with foo; "ponies are ${ponies}!"
```
You get the result `"ponies are awesome!"`. I use `with pkgs` here to use things
directly from nixpkgs without having to say `pkgs.` in front of a lot of things.
```nix
assert lib.versionAtLeast go.version "1.13";
```
This line will make the build fail if Nix is using any Go version less than
1.13. I'm pretty sure my website's code could function on older versions of Go,
but the runtime improvements are important to it, so let's fail loudly just in
case.
```nix
buildGoPackage {
# ...
}
```
[`buildGoPackage`](https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#ssec-go-legacy) builds a Go
package into a Nix package. It takes in the [Go package path][gopkgpath], list
of dependencies and if the resulting package is allowed to depend on the Go
compiler or not.
[gopkgpath]: https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/GOPATH#directory-layout
It will then compile the Go program (and all of its dependencies) into a binary
and put that in the resulting package. This website is more than just the source
code, it's also got assets like CSS files and the image earlier in the post.
Those files are copied in the `postInstall` phase:
```nix
postInstall = ''
cp -rf $src/blog $bin/blog
cp -rf $src/css $bin/css
cp -rf $src/gallery $bin/gallery
cp -rf $src/signalboost.dhall $bin/signalboost.dhall
cp -rf $src/static $bin/static
cp -rf $src/talks $bin/talks
cp -rf $src/templates $bin/templates
'';
```
This results in all of the files that my website needs to run existing in the
right places.
### Other Packages
For more kinds of packages that you can build, see the [Languages and
Frameworks][nixpkgslangsframeworks] chapter of the nixpkgs documentation.
[nixpkgslangsframeworks]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#chap-language-support
If your favorite language isn't shown there, you can make your own build script
and do it more manually. See [here][nixpillscustombuilder] for more information
on how to do that.
[nixpillscustombuilder]: https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/working-derivation.html#idm140737320334640
## `nix-env` And Friends
Building your own packages is nice and all, but what about using packages
defined in nixpkgs? Nix includes a few tools that help you find, install,
upgrade and remove packages as well as `nix-build` to build new ones.
### `nix search`
When looking for a package to install, use `$ nix search name` to see if it's
already packaged. For example, let's look for [graphviz][graphviz], a popular
diagramming software:
[graphviz]: https://graphviz.org/
```console
$ nix search graphviz
* nixos.graphviz (graphviz)
Graph visualization tools
* nixos.graphviz-nox (graphviz)
Graph visualization tools
* nixos.graphviz_2_32 (graphviz)
Graph visualization tools
```
There are several results here! These are different because sometimes you may
want some features of graphviz, but not all of them. For example, a server
installation of graphviz wouldn't need X windows support.
The first line of the output is the attribute. This is the attribute that the
package is imported to inside nixpkgs. This allows multiple packages in
different contexts to exist in nixpkgs at the same time, for example with python
2 and python 3 versions of a library.
The second line is a description of the package from its metadata section.
The `nix` tool allows you to do a lot more than just this, but for now this is
the most important thing.
### `nix-env -i`
`nix-env` is a rather big tool that does a lot of things (similar to pacman in
Arch Linux), so I'm going to break things down into separate sections.
Let's pick an instance graphviz from before and install it using `nix-env`:
```console
$ nix-env -iA nixos.graphviz
installing 'graphviz-2.42.2'
these paths will be fetched (5.00 MiB download, 13.74 MiB unpacked):
/nix/store/980jk7qbcfrlnx8jsmdx92q96wsai8mx-gts-0.7.6
/nix/store/fij1p8f0yjpv35n342ii9pwfahj8rlbb-graphviz-2.42.2
/nix/store/jy35xihlnb3az0vdksyg9rd2f38q2c01-libdevil-1.7.8
/nix/store/s895dnwlprwpfp75pzq70qzfdn8mwfzc-lcms-1.19
copying path '/nix/store/980jk7qbcfrlnx8jsmdx92q96wsai8mx-gts-0.7.6' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
copying path '/nix/store/s895dnwlprwpfp75pzq70qzfdn8mwfzc-lcms-1.19' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
copying path '/nix/store/jy35xihlnb3az0vdksyg9rd2f38q2c01-libdevil-1.7.8' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
copying path '/nix/store/fij1p8f0yjpv35n342ii9pwfahj8rlbb-graphviz-2.42.2' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
building '/nix/store/r4fqdwpicqjpa97biis1jlxzb4ywi92b-user-environment.drv'...
created 664 symlinks in user environment
```
And now let's see where the `dot` tool from graphviz is installed to:
```console
$ which dot
/home/cadey/.nix-profile/bin/dot
$ readlink /home/cadey/.nix-profile/bin/dot
/nix/store/fij1p8f0yjpv35n342ii9pwfahj8rlbb-graphviz-2.42.2/bin/dot
```
This lets you install tools into the system-level Nix store without affecting
other user's environments, even if they depend on a different version of
graphviz.
### `nix-env -e`
`nix-env -e` lets you uninstall packages installed with `nix-env -i`. Let's
uninstall graphviz:
```console
$ nix-env -e graphviz
```
Now the `dot` tool will be gone from your shell:
```console
$ which dot
which: no dot in (/run/wrappers/bin:/home/cadey/.nix-profile/bin:/etc/profiles/per-user/cadey/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/run/current-system/sw/bin)
```
And it's like graphviz was never installed.
Notice that these package management commands are done at the _user_ level
because they are only affecting the currently logged-in user. This allows users
to install their own editors or other tools without having to get admins
involved.
## Adding up to NixOS
NixOS builds on top of Nix and its command line tools to make an entire Linux
distribution that can be perfectly crafted to your needs. NixOS machines are
configured using a [configuration.nix][confignix] file that contains the
following kinds of settings:
[confignix]: https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/index.html#ch-configuration
- packages installed to the system
- user accounts on the system
- allowed SSH public keys for users on the system
- services activated on the system
- configuration for services on the system
- magic unix flags like the number of allowed file descriptors per process
- what drives to mount where
- network configuration
- ACME certificates
[and so much more](https://nixos.org/nixos/options.html#)
At a high level, machines are configured by setting options like this:
```
# basic-lxc-image.nix
{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
networking.hostName = "example-for-blog";
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ wget vim ];
}
```
This would specify a simple NixOS machine with the hostname `example-for-blog`
and with wget and vim installed. This is nowhere near enough to boot an entire
system, but is good enough for describing the base layout of a basic [LXC][lxc]
image.
[lxc]: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/introduction/
For a more complete example of NixOS configurations, see
[here](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/hosts) or repositories on
[this handy NixOS wiki page](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Configuration_Collection).
The main configuration.nix file (usually at `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix`) can also
import other NixOS modules using the `imports` attribute:
```nix
# better-vm.nix
{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
imports = [
./basic-lxc-image.nix
];
networking.hostName = "better-vm";
services.nginx.enable = true;
}
```
And the `better-vm.nix` file would describe a machine with the hostname
`better-vm` that has wget and vim installed, but is also running nginx with its
default configuration.
Internally, every one of these options will be fed into auto-generated Nix
packages that will describe the system configuration bit by bit.
### `nixos-rebuild`
One of the handy features about Nix is that every package exists in its own part
of the Nix store. This allows you to leave the older versions of a package
laying around so you can roll back to them if you need to. `nixos-rebuild` is
the tool that helps you commit configuration changes to the system as well as
roll them back.
If you want to upgrade your entire system:
```console
$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
```
This tells nixos-rebuild to upgrade the package channels, use those to create a
new base system description, switch the running system to it and start/restart/stop
any services that were added/upgraded/removed during the upgrade. Every time you
rebuild the configuration, you create a new "generation" of configuration that
you can roll back to just as easily:
```console
$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --rollback
```
### Garbage Collection
As upgrades happen and old generations pile up, this may end up taking up a lot
of unwanted disk (and boot menu) space. To free up this space, you can use
`nix-collect-garbage`:
```console
$ sudo nix-collect-garbage
< cleans up packages not referenced by anything >
$ sudo nix-collect-garbage -d
< deletes old generations and then cleans up packages not referenced by anything >
```
The latter is a fairly powerful command and can wipe out older system states.
Only run this if you are sure you don't want to go back to an older setup.
## How I Use It
Each of these things builds on top of eachother to make the base platform that I
built my desktop environment on. I have the configuration for [my
shell][xefish], [emacs][xemacs], [my window manager][xedwm] and just about [every
program I use on a regular basis][xecommon] defined in their own NixOS modules so I can
pick and choose things for new machines.
[xefish]: https://github.com/Xe/xepkgs/tree/master/modules/fish
[xemacs]: https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/common/users/cadey/spacemacs
[xedwm]: https://github.com/Xe/xepkgs/tree/master/modules/dwm
[xecommon]: https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/common
When I want to change part of my config, I edit the files responsible for that
part of the config and then rebuild the system to test it. If things work
properly, I commit those changes and then continue using the system like normal.
This is a little bit more work in the short term, but as a result I get a setup
that is easier to recreate on more machines in the future. It took me a half
hour or so to get the configuration for [zathura][zathura] right, but now I have
[a zathura
module](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/tree/master/common/users/cadey/zathura)
that lets me get exactly the setup I want every time.
[zathura]: https://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/
## TL;DR
Nix and NixOS ruined me. It's hard to go back.

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@ -1,146 +0,0 @@
---
title: Discord Webhooks via NixOS and Systemd Timers
date: 2020-11-30
series: howto
tags:
- nixos
- discord
- systemd
---
# Discord Webhooks via NixOS and Systemd Timers
Recently I needed to set up a Discord message on a cronjob as a part of
moderating a guild I've been in for years. I've done this before using
[cronjobs](/blog/howto-automate-discord-webhook-cron-2018-03-29), however this
time we will be using [NixOS](https://nixos.org/) and [systemd
timers](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd/Timers). Here's what you
will need to follow along:
- A machine running NixOS
- A [Discord](https://discord.com/) account
- A
[webhook](https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/228383668-Intro-to-Webhooks)
configured for a channel
- A message you want to send to Discord
[If you don't have moderation permissions in any guilds, make your own for
testing! You will need the "Manage Webhooks" permission to create a
webhook.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Setting Up Timers
systemd timers are like cronjobs, except they trigger systemd services instead
of shell commands. For this example, let's create a daily webhook reminder to
check on your Animal Crossing island at 9 am.
Let's create the systemd service at the end of the machine's
`configuration.nix`:
```nix
systemd.services.acnh-island-check-reminder = {
serviceConfig.Type = "oneshot";
script = ''
MESSAGE="It's time to check on your island! Check those stonks!"
WEBHOOK="${builtins.readFile /home/cadey/prefix/secrets/acnh-webhook-secret}"
USERNAME="Domo"
${pkgs.curl}/bin/curl \
-X POST \
-F "content=$MESSAGE" \
-F "username=$USERNAME" \
"$WEBHOOK"
'';
};
```
[This service is a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/39050387">oneshot</a>
unit, meaning systemd will launch this once and not expect it to always stay
running.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Now let's create a timer for this service. We need to do the following:
- Associate the timer with that service
- Assign a schedule to the timer
Add this to the end of your `configuration.nix`:
```nix
systemd.timers.acnh-island-check-reminder = {
wantedBy = [ "timers.target" ];
partOf = [ "acnh-island-check-reminder.service" ];
timerConfig.OnCalendar = "TODO(Xe): this";
};
```
Before we mentioned that we want to trigger this reminder every morning at 9 am.
systemd timers specify their calendar config in the following format:
```
DayOfWeek Year-Month-Day Hour:Minute:Second
```
So for something that triggers every day at 9 AM, it would look like this:
```
*-*-* 8:00:00
```
[You can ignore the day of the week if it's not
relevant!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
So our final timer definition would look like this:
```nix
systemd.timers.acnh-island-check-reminder = {
wantedBy = [ "timers.target" ];
partOf = [ "acnh-island-check-reminder.service" ];
timerConfig.OnCalendar = "*-*-* 8:00:00";
};
```
## Deployment and Testing
Now we can deploy this with `nixos-rebuild`:
```console
$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch
```
You should see a line that says something like this in the `nixos-rebuild`
output:
```
starting the following units: acnh-island-check-reminder.timer
```
Let's test the service out using `systemctl`:
```console
$ sudo systemctl start acnh-island-check-reminder.service
```
And you should then see a message on Discord. If you don't see a message, check
the logs using `journalctl`:
```console
$ journalctl -u acnh-island-check-reminder.service
```
If you see an error that looks like this:
```
curl: (26) Failed to open/read local data from file/application
```
This usually means that you tried to do a role or user mention at the beginning
of the message and curl tried to interpret that as a file input. Add a word like
"hey" at the beginning of the line to disable this behavior. See
[here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6408904/send-request-to-curl-with-post-data-sourced-from-a-file)
for more information.
---
Also happy December! My site has the [snow
CSS](https://christine.website/blog/let-it-snow-2018-12-17) loaded for the
month. Enjoy!

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---
title: Encrypted Secrets with NixOS
date: 2021-01-20
series: nixos
tags:
- age
- ed25519
---
# Encrypted Secrets with NixOS
One of the best things about NixOS is the fact that it's so easy to do
configuration management using it. The Nix store (where all your packages live)
has a huge flaw for secret management though: everything in the Nix store is
globally readable. This means that anyone logged into or running code on the
system could read any secret in the Nix store without any limits. This is
sub-optimal if your goal is to keep secret values secret. There have been a few
approaches to this over the years, but I want to describe how I'm doing it.
Here are my goals and implementation for this setup and how a few other secret
management strategies don't quite pan out.
At a high level I have these goals:
* It should be trivial to declare new secrets
* Secrets should never be globally readable in any useful form
* If I restart the machine, I should not need to take manual human action to
ensure all of the services come back online
* GPG should be avoided at all costs
As a side goal being able to roll back secret changes would also be nice.
The two biggest tools that offer a way to help with secret management on NixOS
that come to mind are NixOps and Morph.
[NixOps](https://github.com/NixOS/nixops) is a tool that helps administrators
operate NixOS across multiple servers at once. I use NixOps extensively in my
own setup. It calls deployment secrets "keys" and they are documented
[here](https://hydra.nixos.org/build/115931128/download/1/manual/manual.html#idm140737322649152).
At a high level they are declared like this:
```nix
deployment.keys.example = {
text = "this is a super sekrit value :)";
user = "example";
group = "keys";
permissions = "0400";
};
```
This will create a new secret in `/run/keys` that will contain our super secret
value.
[Wait, isn't `/run` an ephemeral filesystem? What happens when the system
reboots?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
Let's make an example system and find out! So let's say we have that `example`
secret from earlier and want to use it in a job. The job definition could look
something like this:
```nix
# create a service-specific user
users.users.example.isSystemUser = true;
# without this group the secret can't be read
users.users.example.extraGroups = [ "keys" ];
systemd.services.example = {
wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
after = [ "example-key.service" ];
wants = [ "example-key.service" ];
serviceConfig.User = "example";
serviceConfig.Type = "oneshot";
script = ''
stat /run/keys/example
'';
};
```
This creates a user called `example` and gives it permission to read deployment
keys. It also creates a systemd service called `example.service` and runs
[`stat(1)`](https://linux.die.net/man/1/stat) to show the permissions of the
service and the key file. It also runs as our `example` user. To avoid systemd
thinking our service failed, we're also going to mark it as a
[oneshot](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-systemd-units-and-unit-files#the-service-section).
Altogether it could look something like
[this](https://gist.github.com/Xe/4a71d7741e508d9002be91b62248144a). Let's see
what `systemctl` has to report:
```console
$ nixops ssh -d blog-example pa -- systemctl status example
● example.service
Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/j4a8f6mnaw3v4sz7dqlnz95psh72xglw-unit-example.service/example.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2021-01-20 20:53:54 UTC; 37s ago
Process: 2230 ExecStart=/nix/store/1yg89z4dsdp1axacqk07iq5jqv58q169-unit-script-example-start/bin/example-start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 2230 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
IP: 0B in, 0B out
CPU: 3ms
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: File: /run/keys/example
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Size: 31 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Device: 18h/24d Inode: 37428 Links: 1
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Access: (0400/-r--------) Uid: ( 998/ example) Gid: ( 96/ keys)
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Access: 2021-01-20 20:53:54.010554201 +0000
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Modify: 2021-01-20 20:53:54.010554201 +0000
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Change: 2021-01-20 20:53:54.398103181 +0000
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa example-start[2235]: Birth: -
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa systemd[1]: example.service: Succeeded.
Jan 20 20:53:54 pa systemd[1]: Finished example.service.
```
So what happens when we reboot? I'll force a reboot in my hypervisor and we'll
find out:
```console
$ nixops ssh -d blog-example pa -- systemctl status example
● example.service
Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/j4a8f6mnaw3v4sz7dqlnz95psh72xglw-unit-example.service/example.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead)
```
The service is inactive. Let's see what the status of `example-key.service` is:
```console
$ nixops ssh -d blog-example pa -- systemctl status example-key
● example-key.service
Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/ikqn64cjq8pspkf3ma1jmx8qzpyrckpb-unit-example-key.service/example-key.service; linked; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: activating (start-pre) since Wed 2021-01-20 20:56:05 UTC; 3min 1s ago
Cntrl PID: 610 (example-key-pre)
IP: 0B in, 0B out
IO: 116.0K read, 0B written
Tasks: 4 (limit: 2374)
Memory: 1.6M
CPU: 3ms
CGroup: /system.slice/example-key.service
├─610 /nix/store/kl6lr3czkbnr6m5crcy8ffwfzbj8a22i-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash -e /nix/store/awx1zrics3cal8kd9c5d05xzp5ikazlk-unit-script-example-key-pre-start/bin/example-key-pre-start
├─619 /nix/store/kl6lr3czkbnr6m5crcy8ffwfzbj8a22i-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash -e /nix/store/awx1zrics3cal8kd9c5d05xzp5ikazlk-unit-script-example-key-pre-start/bin/example-key-pre-start
├─620 /nix/store/kl6lr3czkbnr6m5crcy8ffwfzbj8a22i-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash -e /nix/store/awx1zrics3cal8kd9c5d05xzp5ikazlk-unit-script-example-key-pre-start/bin/example-key-pre-start
└─621 inotifywait -qm --format %f -e create,move /run/keys
Jan 20 20:56:05 pa systemd[1]: Starting example-key.service...
```
The service is blocked waiting for the keys to exist. We have to populate the
keys with `nixops send-keys`:
```console
$ nixops send-keys -d blog-example
pa> uploading key ‘example’...
```
Now when we check on `example.service`, we get the following:
```console
$ nixops ssh -d blog-example pa -- systemctl status example
● example.service
Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/j4a8f6mnaw3v4sz7dqlnz95psh72xglw-unit-example.service/example.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2021-01-20 21:00:24 UTC; 32s ago
Process: 954 ExecStart=/nix/store/1yg89z4dsdp1axacqk07iq5jqv58q169-unit-script-example-start/bin/example-start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 954 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
IP: 0B in, 0B out
CPU: 3ms
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: File: /run/keys/example
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Size: 31 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Device: 18h/24d Inode: 27774 Links: 1
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Access: (0400/-r--------) Uid: ( 998/ example) Gid: ( 96/ keys)
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Access: 2021-01-20 21:00:24.588494730 +0000
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Modify: 2021-01-20 21:00:24.588494730 +0000
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Change: 2021-01-20 21:00:24.606495751 +0000
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa example-start[957]: Birth: -
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa systemd[1]: example.service: Succeeded.
Jan 20 21:00:24 pa systemd[1]: Finished example.service.
```
This means that NixOps secrets require _manual human intervention_ in order to
repopulate them on server boot. If your server went offline overnight due to an
unexpected issue, your services using those keys could be stuck offline until
morning. This is undesirable for a number of reasons. This plus the requirement
for the `keys` group (which at time of writing was undocumented) to be added to
service user accounts means that while they do work, they are not very
ergonomic.
[You can read secrets from files using something like
`deployment.keys.example.text = "${builtins.readFile ./secrets/example.env}"`,
but it is kind of a pain to have to do that. It would be better to just
reference the secrets by filesystem paths in the first
place.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
On the other hand [Morph](https://github.com/DBCDK/morph) gets this a bit
better. It is sadly even less documented than NixOps is, but it offers a similar
experience via [deployment
secrets](https://github.com/DBCDK/morph/blob/master/examples/secrets.nix). The
main differences that Morph brings to the table are taking paths to secrets and
allowing you to run an arbitrary command on the secret being uploaded. Secrets
are also able to be put anywhere on the disk, meaning that when a host reboots it
will come back up with the most recent secrets uploaded to it.
However, like NixOps, Morph secrets don't have the ability to be rolled back.
This means that if you mess up a secret value you better hope you have the old
information somewhere. This violates what you'd expect from a NixOS machine.
So given these examples, I thought it would be interesting to explore what the
middle path could look like. I chose to use
[age](https://github.com/FiloSottile/age) for encrypting secrets in the Nix
store as well as using SSH host keys to ensure that every secret is decryptable
at runtime by _that machine only_. If you get your hands on the secret
cyphertext, it should be unusable to you.
One of the harder things here will be keeping a list of all of the server host
keys. Recently I added a
[hosts.toml](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/ops/metadata/hosts.toml)
file to my config repo for autoconfiguring my WireGuard overlay network. It was
easy enough to add all the SSH host keys for each machine using a command like
this to get them:
[We will cover how this WireGuard overlay works in a future post.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```console
$ nixops ssh-for-each -d hexagone -- cat /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub
firgu....> ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIB8+mCR+MEsv0XYi7ohvdKLbDecBtb3uKGQOPfIhdj3C root@nixos
chrysalis> ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIGDA5iXvkKyvAiMEd/5IruwKwoymC8WxH4tLcLWOSYJ1 root@chrysalis
lufta....> ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIMADhGV0hKt3ZY+uBjgOXX08txBS6MmHZcSL61KAd3df root@lufta
keanu....> ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIGDZUmuhfjEIROo2hog2c8J53taRuPJLNOtdaT8Nt69W root@nixos
```
age lets you use SSH keys for decryption, so I added these keys to my
`hosts.toml` and ended up with something like
[this](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/commit/14726e982001e794cd72afa1ece209eed58d3f38#diff-61d1d8dddd71be624c0d718be22072c950ec31c72fded8a25094ea53d94c8185).
Now we can encrypt secrets on the host machine and safely put them in the Nix
store because they will be readable to each target machine with a command like
this:
```shell
age -d -i /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key -o $dest $src
```
From here it's easy to make a function that we can use for generating new
encrypted secrets in the Nix store. First we need to import the host metadata
from the toml file:
```nix
let
cfg = config.within.secrets;
metadata = lib.importTOML ../../ops/metadata/hosts.toml;
mkSecretOnDisk = name:
{ source, ... }:
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "${name}-secret";
phases = "installPhase";
buildInputs = [ pkgs.age ];
installPhase =
let key = metadata.hosts."${config.networking.hostName}".ssh_pubkey;
in ''
age -a -r "${key}" -o $out ${source}
'';
};
```
And then we can generate systemd oneshot jobs with something like this:
```nix
mkService = name:
{ source, dest, owner, group, permissions, ... }: {
description = "decrypt secret for ${name}";
wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
serviceConfig.Type = "oneshot";
script = with pkgs; ''
rm -rf ${dest}
${age}/bin/age -d -i /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key -o ${dest} ${
mkSecretOnDisk name { inherit source; }
}
chown ${owner}:${group} ${dest}
chmod ${permissions} ${dest}
'';
};
```
And from there we just need some [boring
boilerplate](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/crypto/default.nix#L8-L38)
to define a secret type. Then we declare the secret type and its invocation:
```nix
in {
options.within.secrets = mkOption {
type = types.attrsOf secret;
description = "secret configuration";
default = { };
};
config.systemd.services = let
units = mapAttrs' (name: info: {
name = "${name}-key";
value = (mkService name info);
}) cfg;
in units;
}
```
And we have ourself a NixOS module that allows us to:
* Trivially declare new secrets
* Make secrets in the Nix store useless without the key
* Make every secret be transparently decrypted on startup
* Avoid the use of GPG
* Roll back secrets like any other configuration change
Declaring new secrets works like this (as stolen from [the service definition
for the website you are reading right now](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/services/xesite.nix#L35-L41)):
```nix
within.secrets.example = {
source = ./secrets/example.env;
dest = "/var/lib/example/.env";
owner = "example";
group = "nogroup";
permissions = "0400";
};
```
Barring some kind of cryptographic attack against age, this should allow the
secrets to be stored securely. I am working on a way to make this more generic.
This overall approach was inspired by [agenix](https://github.com/ryantm/agenix)
but made more specific for my needs. I hope this approach will make it easy for
me to manage these secrets in the future.

12
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@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Tailscale on NixOS: A New Minecraft Server in Ten Minutes"
date: 2021-01-19
tags:
- link
redirect_to: https://tailscale.com/blog/nixos-minecraft/
---
# Tailscale on NixOS: A New Minecraft Server in Ten Minutes
Check out this post [on the Tailscale
blog](https://tailscale.com/blog/nixos-minecraft/)!

4
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View File

@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ right code runs as a response. I then have to make sure these things get put
in the right places and then that the right versions of things are running for
each of the relevant services. This doesn't scale very well, not to mention is
hard to secure. This leads to a lot of duplicate infrastructure over time and
as things grow. Not to mention adding in tracing, metrics and log aggregation.
as things grow. Not to mention adding in tracing, metrics and log aggreation.
I would like to change this.
@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ need to be maintained in parallel, so it might be good to get used to that early
on.
You should not have to write ANY code but the bare minimum needed in order to
perform your business logic. You don't need to care about distributed tracing.
perform your buisiness logic. You don't need to care about distributed tracing.
You don't need to care about logging.
I want this project to last decades. I want the binary modules any user of Olin

129
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@ -1,129 +0,0 @@
---
title: My Org Mode Flow
date: 2020-09-08
tags:
- emacs
---
# My Org Mode Flow
At almost every job I've worked at, at least one of my coworkers has noticed
that I use Emacs as my main text editor. People have pointed me at IntelliJ, VS
Code, Atom and more, but I keep sticking to Emacs because it has one huge ace up
its sleeve that other editors simply cannot match. Emacs has a package that
helps me organize my workflow, focus my note-taking and even keep a timeclock
for how long I spend working on tasks. This package is called Org mode, and this
is my flow for using it.
[Org mode](https://orgmode.org/) is a TODO list manager, document authoring
platform and more for [GNU Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/). It uses
specially formatted plain text that can be managed using version control
systems. I have used it daily for about five years for keeping track of what I
need to do for work. Please note that my usage of it _barely scratches the
surface_ of what Org mode can do, because this is all I have needed.
## `~/org`
My org flow starts with a single folder: `~/org`. The main file I use is
`todo.org` and it looks something like this:
```org
#+TITLE: TODO
* Doing
** TODO WAT-42069 Unfrobnicate the rilkef for flopnax-ropjar push...
* In Review
** TODO WAT-42042 New Relic Dashboards...
* Reviews
** DONE HAX-1337 Security architecture of wasmcloud
* Interrupt
* Generic todo
* Overhead
** 09/08/2020
*** DONE workday start...
*** DONE standup...
```
Each level of stars creates a new heading level, and these headings can be
treated like a tree. You can use the tab key to open and close the heading
levels and hide those parts of the tree if they are not relevant. Let's open up
the standup subtree with tab:
```org
*** DONE standup
CLOSED: [2020-09-08 Tue 10:12]
:LOGBOOK:
CLOCK: [2020-09-08 Tue 10:00]--[2020-09-08 Tue 10:12] => 0:12
:END:
```
Org mode automatically entered in nearly all of the information in this subtree
for me. I clocked in (alt-x org-clock-in with that TODO item highighted) when
the standup started and I clocked out by marking the task as done (alt-x
org-todo with that TODO item highlighted). If I am working on a task that takes
longer than one session, I can clock out of it (alt-x org-clock-out) and then
the time I spent (about 20 minutes) will be recorded in the file for me. Then I
can manually enter the time spent into tools like Jira.
When I am ready to move a task from In Progress to In Review, I close the
subtree with tab and then highlight the collapsed subtree, cut it and paste it
under the In Review header. This will keep the time tracking information
associated with that header entry.
I will tend to let tasks build up over the week and then on Monday morning I
will move all of the done tasks to `done.org`, which is where I store things
that are done. As I move things over, I double check with Jira to make sure the
time tracking has been accurately updated. This can take a while, but doing this
has caught cases where I have misreported time and then had the opportunity to
correct it.
## Clocktables
Org mode is also able to generate tables based on information in org files. One
of the most useful ones is the [clock
table](https://orgmode.org/manual/The-clock-table.html#). You can use these
clock tables to make reports about how much time was spent in each task. I use
these to help me know what I have done in the day so I can report about it in
the next day's standup meeting. To add a clock table, add an empty block for it
and press control-c c on the `BEGIN` line. Here's an example:
```org
#+BEGIN: clocktable :block today
#+END:
```
This will show you all of the things you have recorded for that day. This may
end up being a bit much if you nest things deep enough. My preferred clock table
is a daily view only showing the second level and lower for the current file:
```org
#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :block today :scope file
#+CAPTION: Clock summary at [2020-09-08 Tue 15:47], for Tuesday, September 08, 2020.
| Headline | Time | |
|-----------------------------|--------|------|
| *Total time* | *6:14* | |
|-----------------------------|--------|------|
| In Progress | 2:09 | |
| \_ WAT-42069 Unfrobnica... | | 2:09 |
| Overhead | 4:05 | |
| \_ 09/08/2020 | | 4:05 |
#+END:
```
This allows me to see that I've been working today for about 6.25 hours for the
day, so I can use that information when deciding what to do next.
## Other Things You Can Do
In the past I used to use org mode for a lot of things. In one of my older files
I have a comprehensive list of all of the times I smoked weed down to the amount
smoked and what I felt about it at the time. In another I have a script that I
used for applying ansible files across a cluster. The sky really is the limit.
However, I have really decided to keep things simple for the most part. I leave
org mode for work stuff and mostly use iCloud services for personal stuff. There
are mobile apps for using org-mode on the go, but they haven't aged well at all
and I have been focusing my time into actually doing things instead of
configuring WEBDAV servers or the like.
This is how I keep track of things at work.

2
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@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ make this data anonymous, simplistic and (reasonably) public.
Here is how it works:
![A diagram on how this works](/static/img/pageview_flowchart.png)
<center>![A diagram on how this works](/static/img/pageview_flowchart.png)</center>
When the page is loaded, a [javascript file records the start time](/static/js/pageview_timer.js).
This then sets a [pagehide handler](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/pagehide_event)

345
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@ -1,345 +0,0 @@
---
title: "pa'i Benchmarks"
date: 2020-03-26
series: olin
tags:
- wasm
- rust
- golang
- pahi
---
# pa'i Benchmarks
In my [last post][pahihelloworld] I mentioned that pa'i was faster than Olin's
cwa binary written in go without giving any benchmarks. I've been working on new
ways to gather and visualize these benchmarks, and here they are.
[pahihelloworld]: https://christine.website/blog/pahi-hello-world-2020-02-22
Benchmarking WebAssembly implementations is slightly hard. A lot of existing
benchmark tools simply do not run in WebAssembly as is, not to mention inside
the Olin ABI. However, I have created a few tasks that I feel represent common
tasks that pa'i (and later wasmcloud) will run:
- compressing data with [Snappy][snappy]
- parsing JSON
- parsing yaml
- recursive fibbonacci number calculation
- blake-2 hashing
As always, if you don't trust my numbers, you don't have to. Commands will be
given to run these benchmarks on your own hardware. This may not be the most
scientifically accurate benchmarks possible, but it should help to give a
reasonable idea of the speed gains from using Rust instead of Go.
You can run these benchmarks in the docker image `xena/pahi`. You may need to
replace `./result/` with `/` for running this inside Docker.
```console
$ docker run --rm -it xena/pahi bash -l
```
[snappy]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snappy_(compression)
## Compressing Data with Snappy
This is implemented as [`cpustrain.wasm`][cpustrain]. Here is the source code
used in the benchmark:
[cpustrain]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/main.rs
```rust
#![no_main]
#![feature(start)]
extern crate olin;
use olin::{entrypoint, Resource};
use std::io::Write;
entrypoint!();
fn main() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
let fout = Resource::open("null://").expect("opening /dev/null");
let data = include_bytes!("/proc/cpuinfo");
let mut writer = snap::write::FrameEncoder::new(fout);
for _ in 0..256 {
// compressed data
writer.write(data)?;
}
Ok(())
}
```
This compresses my machine's copy of [/proc/cpuinfo][proccpuinfo] 256 times.
This number was chosen arbitrarily.
[proccpuinfo]: https://clbin.com/rxAOg
Here are the results I got from the following command:
```console
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 --prepare './result/bin/pahi result/wasm/cpustrain.wasm' \
'./result/bin/cwa result/wasm/cpustrain.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi --no-cache result/wasm/cpustrain.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi result/wasm/cpustrain.wasm'
```
| CPU | cwa | pahi --no-cache | pahi | multiplier |
| :----------------- | :------------ | :---------------- | :---------------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 2.392 seconds | 38.6 milliseconds | 17.7 milliseconds | pahi is 135 times faster than cwa |
| Intel Xeon E5-1650 | 7.652 seconds | 99.3 milliseconds | 53.7 milliseconds | pahi is 142 times faster than cwa |
## Parsing JSON
This is implemented as [`bigjson.wasm`][bigjson]. Here is the source code of the
benchmark:
[bigjson]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/bigjson.rs
```rust
#![no_main]
#![feature(start)]
extern crate olin;
use olin::entrypoint;
use serde_json::{from_slice, to_string, Value};
entrypoint!();
fn main() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
let input = include_bytes!("./bigjson.json");
if let Ok(val) = from_slice(input) {
let v: Value = val;
if let Err(_why) = to_string(&v) {
return Err(std::io::Error::new(
std::io::ErrorKind::Other,
"oh no json encoding failed!",
));
}
} else {
return Err(std::io::Error::new(
std::io::ErrorKind::Other,
"oh no json parsing failed!",
));
}
Ok(())
}
```
This decodes and encodes this [rather large json file][bigjsonjson]. This is a
very large file (over 64k of json) and should represent over 65536 times times
the average json payload size.
[bigjsonjson]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/bigjson.json
Here are the results I got from the following command:
```console
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 --prepare './result/bin/pahi result/wasm/bigjson.wasm' \
'./result/bin/cwa result/wasm/bigjson.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi --no-cache result/wasm/bigjson.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi result/wasm/bigjson.wasm'
```
| CPU | cwa | pahi --no-cache | pahi | multiplier |
| :----------------- | :------------ | :---------------- | :---------------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 257 milliseconds | 49.4 milliseconds | 20.4 milliseconds | pahi is 12.62 times faster than cwa |
| Intel Xeon E5-1650 | 935.5 milliseconds | 135.4 milliseconds | 101.4 milliseconds | pahi is 9.22 times faster than cwa |
## Parsing yaml
This is implemented as [`k8sparse.wasm`][k8sparse]. Here is the source code of
the benchmark:
[k8sparse]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/k8sparse.rs
```rust
#![no_main]
#![feature(start)]
extern crate olin;
use olin::entrypoint;
use serde_yaml::{from_slice, to_string, Value};
entrypoint!();
fn main() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
let input = include_bytes!("./k8sparse.yaml");
if let Ok(val) = from_slice(input) {
let v: Value = val;
if let Err(_why) = to_string(&v) {
return Err(std::io::Error::new(
std::io::ErrorKind::Other,
"oh no yaml encoding failed!",
));
} else {
return Err(std::io::Error::new(
std::io::ErrorKind::Other,
"oh no yaml parsing failed!",
));
}
}
Ok(())
}
```
This decodes and encodes this [kubernetes manifest set from my
cluster][k8sparseyaml]. This is a set of a few normal kubernetes deployments and
isn't as much of a worse-case scenario as it could be with the other tests.
[k8sparseyaml]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/k8sparse.yaml#L1
Here are the results I got from running the following command:
```console
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 --prepare './result/bin/pahi result/wasm/k8sparse.wasm' \
'./result/bin/cwa result/wasm/k8sparse.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi --no-cache result/wasm/k8sparse.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi result/wasm/k8sparse.wasm'
```
| CPU | cwa | pahi --no-cache | pahi | multiplier |
| :----------------- | :------------ | :---------------- | :---------------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 211.7 milliseconds | 125.3 milliseconds | 8.5 milliseconds | pahi is 25.04 times faster than cwa |
| Intel Xeon E5-1650 | 674.1 milliseconds | 342.7 milliseconds | 30.8 milliseconds | pahi is 21.85 times faster than cwa |
## Recursive Fibbonacci Number Calculation
This is implemented as [`fibber.wasm`][fibber]. Here is the source code used in
the benchmark:
[fibber]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/fibber.rs
```rust
#![no_main]
#![feature(start)]
extern crate olin;
use olin::{entrypoint, log};
entrypoint!();
fn fib(n: u64) -> u64 {
if n <= 1 {
return 1;
}
fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
}
fn main() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
log::info("starting");
fib(30);
log::info("done");
Ok(())
}
```
Fibbonacci number calculation done recursively is an incredibly time-complicated
ordeal. This is the worst possible case for this kind of calculation, as it
doesn't cache results from the `fib` function.
Here are the results I got from running the following command:
```console
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 --prepare './result/bin/pahi result/wasm/fibber.wasm' \
'./result/bin/cwa result/wasm/fibber.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi --no-cache result/wasm/fibber.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi result/wasm/fibber.wasm'
```
| CPU | cwa | pahi --no-cache | pahi | multiplier |
| :----------------- | :------------ | :---------------- | :---------------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 13.6 milliseconds | 13.7 milliseconds | 2.7 milliseconds | pahi is 5.13 times faster than cwa |
| Intel Xeon E5-1650 | 41.0 milliseconds | 27.3 milliseconds | 7.2 milliseconds | pahi is 5.70 times faster than cwa |
## Blake-2 Hashing
This is implemented as [`blake2stress.wasm`][blake2stress]. Here's the source
code for this benchmark:
[blake2stress]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/96f051d16df35cbceb8bf802e7dd7482b41b7d8a/wasm/cpustrain/src/bin/blake2stress.rs
```rust
#![no_main]
#![feature(start)]
extern crate olin;
use blake2::{Blake2b, Digest};
use olin::{entrypoint, log};
entrypoint!();
fn main() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
let json: &'static [u8] = include_bytes!("./bigjson.json");
let yaml: &'static [u8] = include_bytes!("./k8sparse.yaml");
for _ in 0..8 {
let mut hasher = Blake2b::new();
hasher.input(json);
hasher.input(yaml);
hasher.result();
}
Ok(())
}
```
This runs the [blake2b hashing algorithm][blake2b] on the JSON and yaml files
used earlier eight times. This is supposed to represent a few hundred thousand
invocations of production code.
[blake2b]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAKE_(hash_function)#BLAKE2b_algorithm
Here are the results I got from running the following command:
```console
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 --prepare './result/bin/pahi result/wasm/blake2stress.wasm' \
'./result/bin/cwa result/wasm/blake2stress.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi --no-cache result/wasm/blake2stress.wasm' \
'./result/bin/pahi result/wasm/blake2stress.wasm'
```
| CPU | cwa | pahi --no-cache | pahi | multiplier |
| :----------------- | :------------ | :---------------- | :---------------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 358.7 milliseconds | 17.4 milliseconds | 5.0 milliseconds | pahi is 71.76 times faster than cwa |
| Intel Xeon E5-1650 | 1.351 seconds | 35.5 milliseconds | 11.7 milliseconds | pahi is 115.04 times faster than cwa |
## Conclusions
From these tests, we can roughly conclude that pa'i is about 54 times faster
than Olin's cwa tool. A lot of this speed gain is arguably the result of pa'i
using an ahead of time compiler (namely cranelift as wrapped by wasmer). The
compilation time also became a somewhat notable factor for comparing performance
too, however the compilation cost only has to be eaten once.
Another conclusion I've made is very unsurprising. My old 2013 mac pro with an
Intel Xeon E5-1650 is _significantly_ slower in real-world computing tasks than
the new Ryzen 5 3600. Both of these machines were using the same nix closure for
running the binaries and they are running NixOS 20.03.
As always, if you have any feedback for what other kinds of benchmarks to run
and how these benchmarks were collected, I welcome it. Please comment wherever
this article is posted or [contact me](/contact).
Here are the /proc/cpuinfo files for each machine being tested:
- shachi (Ryzen 5 3600) [/proc/cpuinfo](https://clbin.com/Nilnm)
- chrysalis (Intel Xeon E5-1650) [/proc/cpuinfo](https://clbin.com/24HM1)
If you run these benchmarks on your own hardware and get different data, please
let me know and I will be more than happy to add your results to these tables. I
will need the CPU model name and the output of hyperfine for each of the above
commands.

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@ -1,169 +0,0 @@
---
title: "pa'i: hello world!"
date: 2020-02-22
series: olin
tags:
- rust
- wasm
- dhall
---
# pa'i: hello world!
It's been a while since I gave an update on the Olin ecosystem (which now
exists, apparently). Not much has really gone on with it for the last few
months. However, recently I've decided to tackle one of the core problems of
Olin's implementation in Go: execution speed.
Originally I was going to try and handle this with
["hyperjit"](https://innative.dev), but support for linking C++ programs into Go
is always questionable at best. All of the WebAssembly compiling and
running tooling has been written in Rust, and as far as I know I was the only
holdout still using Go. This left me kinda stranded and on my own, seeing as the
libraries that I was using were starting to die.
I have been following the [wasmer][wasmer] project for a while and thanks to
their recent [custom ABI sample][wasmercustomabisample], I was able to start
re-implementing the Olin API in it. Wasmer uses a JIT for handling WebAssembly,
so I'm able to completely destroy the original Go implementation in terms of
performance. I call this newer, faster runtime pa'i (/pa.hi/, paw-hee), which
is a [Lojban][lojban] [rafsi][rafsi] for the word prami which means love.
[wasmer]: https://wasmer.io
[wasmercustomabisample]: https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer-rust-customabi-example
[lojban]: https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban
[rafsi]: http://lojban.org/publications/cll/cll_v1.1_xhtml-section-chunks/section-rafsi.html
[pa'i][pahi] is written in [Rust][rust]. It is built with [Nix][nix]. It
requires a nightly version of Rust because the WebAssembly code it compiles
requires it. However, because it is built with Nix, this quickly becomes a
non-issue. You can build pa'i by doing the following:
[pahi]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi
[rust]: https://www.rust-lang.org
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
```console
$ git clone git@github.com:Xe/pahi
$ cd pahi
$ nix-build
```
and then `nix-build` will take care of:
- downloading the pinned nightly version of the rust compiler
- building the reference Olin interpreter
- building the pa'i runtime
- building a small suite of sample programs
- building the documentation from [dhall][dhall] files
- building a small test runner
[dhall]: https://dhall-lang.org
If you want to try this out in a more predictable environment, you can also
`nix-build docker.nix`. This will create a Docker image as the result of the Nix
build. This docker image includes [the pa'i composite package][pahidefaultnix],
bash, coreutils and `dhall-to-json` (which is required by the test runner).
[pahidefaultnix]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/master/default.nix
I'm actually really proud of how the documentation generation works. The
[cwa-spec folder in Olin][cwaspecolin] was done very ad-hoc and was only
consistent because there was a template. This time functions, types, errors,
namespaces and the underlying WebAssembly types they boil down to are all
implemented as Dhall records. For example, here's the definition of a
[namespace][cwans] [in Dhall][nsdhall]:
[cwaspecolin]: https://github.com/Xe/olin/tree/master/docs/cwa-spec
[cwans]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/tree/master/olin-spec#namespaces
[nsdhall]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/5ea1184c09df4e657524f9d5e77941cda5560d9a/olin-spec/types/ns.dhall
```
let func = ./func.dhall
in { Type = { name : Text, desc : Text, funcs : List func.Type }
, default =
{ name = "unknown"
, desc = "please fill in the desc field"
, funcs = [] : List func.Type
}
}
```
which gets rendered to [Markdown][markdown] using
[`renderNSToMD.dhall`][shownsasmd]:
[markdown]: https://github.github.com/gfm/
[shownsasmd]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/5ea1184c09df4e657524f9d5e77941cda5560d9a/olin-spec/types/renderNSToMD.dhall
```
let ns = ./ns.dhall
let func = ./func.dhall
let type = ./type.dhall
let showFunc = ./renderFuncToMD.dhall
let Prelude = ../Prelude.dhall
let toList = Prelude.Text.concatMapSep "\n" func.Type showFunc
let show
: ns.Type → Text
= λ(namespace : ns.Type)
→ ''
# ${namespace.name}
${namespace.desc}
${toList namespace.funcs}
''
in show
```
This would render [the logging namespace][logns] as [this markdown][lognsmd].
[logns]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/5ea1184c09df4e657524f9d5e77941cda5560d9a/olin-spec/ns/log.dhall
[lognsmd]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/blob/5ea1184c09df4e657524f9d5e77941cda5560d9a/olin-spec/ns/log.md
It seems like overkill to document things like this (and at some level it is),
but I plan to take advantage of this later when I need to do things like
generate C/Rust/Go/TinyGo bindings for the entire specification at once. I also
have always wanted to document something so precisely like this, and now I get
the chance.
pa'i is just over a week old at this point, and as such it is NOT
[feature-complete with the reference Olin interpreter][compattodo]. I'm working
on it though. I'm kinda burnt out from work, and even though working on this
project helps me relax (don't ask me how, I don't understand either) I have
limits and will take this slowly and carefully to ensure that it stays
compatible with all of the code I have already written in Olin's repo. Thanks to
[go-flag][goflags], I might actually be able to get it mostly flag-compatible.
We'll see though.
[compattodo]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi/issues/1
[goflags]: https://crates.io/crates/go-flag
I have also designed a placeholder logo for pa'i. Here it is:
![the logo for pa'i](/static/blog/pahi-logo.png)
It might be changed in the future, but this is what I am going with for now. The
circuit traces all spell out messages of love (inspired from the Senzar runes of
the [WingMakers][wingmakers]). The text on top of the microprocessor reads pa'i
in [zbalermorna][zbalermorna], a constructed writing script for Lojban. The text
on the side probably needs to be revised, but it says something along the lines
of "a future after programs".
[wingmakers]: https://www.wingmakers.us/wingmakersorig/wingmakers/ancient_arrow_project.shtml
[zbalermorna]: https://mw.lojban.org/images/b/b3/ZLM4_Writeup_v2.pdf
pa'i is chugging along. When I have closed the [compatibility todo
list][compattodo] for all of the Olin API calls, I'll write more. For now, pa'i
is a very complicated tool that lets you print "Hello, world" in new and
exciting ways (this will change once I get resource calls into it), but it's
getting there.
I hope this was interesting. Be well.

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---
title: "New Site Feature: Patron Thanks Page"
date: 2020-02-29
---
# New Site Feature: Patron Thanks Page
I've added a [patron thanks page](/patrons) to my site. I've been getting a
significant amount of money per month from my patrons and I feel this is a good
way to acknowledge them and thank them for their patronage. I wanted to have it
be _as simple as possible_, so I made it fetch a list of dollar amounts.
Here are some things I learned while writing this:
- If you are going to interact with the patreon API in go, use
[`github.com/mxpv/patreon-go`][patreongo], not `gopkg.in/mxpv/patreon-go.v1`
or `gopkg.in/mxpv/patreon-go.v2`. The packages on gopkg.in are NOT compatible
with Go modules in very bizarre ways.
- When using refresh tokens in OAuth2, do not set the expiry date to be
_negative_ like the patreon-go examples show. This will brick your token and
make you have to reprovision it.
- Patreon clients can either be for API version 1 or API version 2. There is no
way to have a Patreon token that works for both API versions.
- The patreon-go package only supports API version 1 and doesn't document this
anywhere.
- Patreon's error messages are vague and not helpful when trying to figure out
that you broke your token with a negative expiry date.
- I may need to set the Patreon information every month for the rest of the time
I maintain this site code. This could get odd. I made a guide for myself in
the [docs folder of the site repo][docsfolder].
- The Patreon API doesn't let you submit new posts. I wanted to add Patreon to
my syndication server, but apparently that's impossible. My [RSS
feed](/blog.rss), [Atom feed](/blog.atom) and [JSON feed](/blog.json) should
let you keep up to date in the meantime.
Let me know how you like this. I went back and forth on displaying monetary
amounts on that page, but ultimately decided not to show them there for
confidentiality reasons. If this is a bad idea, please let me know and I can put
the money amounts back.
I'm working on a more detailed post about [pa'i][pahi] that includes benchmarks
for some artificial and realistic workloads. I'm also working on integrating it
into the [wamscloud][wasmcloud] prototype, but it's fairly slow going at the
moment.
Be well.
[patreongo]: https://github.com/mxpv/patreon-go
[docsfolder]: https://github.com/Xe/site/tree/master/docs
[pahi]: https://github.com/Xe/pahi
[wasmcloud]: https://tulpa.dev/within/wasmcloud

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---
title: How to Setup Prometheus, Grafana and Loki on NixOS
date: 2020-11-20
tags:
- nixos
- prometheus
- grafana
- loki
- promtail
---
# How to Setup Prometheus, Grafana and Loki on NixOS
When setting up services on your home network, sometimes you have questions
along the lines of "how do I know that things are working?". In this blogpost we
will go over a few tools that you can use to monitor and visualize your machine
state so you can answer that. Specifically we are going to use the following
tools to do this:
- [Grafana](https://grafana.com/) for creating pretty graphs and managing
alerts
- [Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/) for storing metrics and as a common
metrics format
- [Prometheus node_exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter) for
deriving metrics from system state
- [Loki](https://grafana.com/oss/loki/) as a central log storage point
- [promtail](https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/clients/promtail/) to push
logs to Loki
Let's get going!
[Something to note: in here you might see domains using the `.pele` top-level
domain. This domain will likely not be available on your home network. See <a
href="/blog/series/site-to-site-wireguard">this series</a> on how to set up
something similar for your home network. If you don't have such a setup, replace
anything that ends in `.pele` with whatever you normally use for
this.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Grafana
Grafana is a service that handles graphing and alerting. It also has some nice
tools to create dashboards. Here we will be using it for a few main purposes:
- Exploring what metrics are available
- Reading system logs
- Making graphs and dashboards
- Creating alerts over metrics or lack of metrics
Let's configure Grafana on a machine. Open that machine's `configuration.nix` in
an editor and add the following to it:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
# grafana configuration
services.grafana = {
enable = true;
domain = "grafana.pele";
port = 2342;
addr = "127.0.0.1";
};
# nginx reverse proxy
services.nginx.virtualHosts.${config.services.grafana.domain} = {
locations."/" = {
proxyPass = "http://127.0.0.1:${toString config.services.grafana.port}";
proxyWebsockets = true;
};
};
}
```
[If you have a <a href="/blog/site-to-site-wireguard-part-3-2019-04-11">custom
TLS Certificate Authority</a>, you can set up HTTPS for this deployment. See <a
href="https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/sites/grafana.akua.nix">here</a>
for an example of doing this. If this server is exposed to the internet, you can
use a certificate from <a
href="https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nginx#TLS_reverse_proxy">Let's Encrypt</a> instead
of your own Certificate Authority.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Then you will need to deploy it to your cluster with `nixops deploy`:
```console
$ nixops deploy -d home
```
Now open the Grafana server in your browser at http://grafana.pele and login
with the super secure default credentials of admin/admin. Grafana will ask you
to change your password. Please change it to something other than admin.
This is all of the setup we will do with Grafana for now. We will come back to
it later.
## Prometheus
> Prometheus was punished by the gods by giving the gift of knowledge to man. He
> was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds.
Oracle Turret, Portal 2
Prometheus is a service that reads metrics from other services, stores them and
allows you to search and aggregate them. Let's add it to our `configuration.nix`
file:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
services.prometheus = {
enable = true;
port = 9001;
};
```
Now let's deploy this config to the cluster with `nixops deploy`:
```console
$ nixops deploy -d home
```
And let's configure Grafana to read from Prometheus. Open Grafana and click on
the gear to the left side of the page. The `Data Sources` tab should be active.
If it is not active, click on `Data Sources`. Then click "add data source" and
choose Prometheus. Set the URL to `http://127.0.0.1:9001` (or with whatever port
you configured above) and leave everything set to the default values. Click
"Save & Test". If there is an error, be sure to check the port number.
![The Grafana UI for adding a data
source](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_145819.png)
Now let's start getting some data into Prometheus with the node exporter.
### Node Exporter Setup
The Prometheus node exporter exposes a lot of information about systems ranging
from memory, disk usage and even systemd service information. There are also
some [other
collectors](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&query=prometheus.exporters+enable)
you can set up based on your individual setup, however we are going to enable
only the node collector here.
In your `configuration.nix`, add an exporters block and configure the node
exporter under `services.prometheus`:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
services.prometheus = {
exporters = {
node = {
enable = true;
enabledCollectors = [ "systemd" ];
port = 9002;
};
};
}
```
Now we need to configure Prometheus to read metrics from this exporter. In your
`configuration.nix`, add a `scrapeConfigs` block under `services.prometheus`
that points to the node exporter we configured just now:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
services.prometheus = {
# ...
scrapeConfigs = [
{
job_name = "chrysalis";
static_configs = [{
targets = [ "127.0.0.1:${toString config.services.prometheus.exporters.node.port}" ];
}];
}
];
# ...
}
# ...
```
[The complicated expression in the target above allows you to change the port of
the node exporter and ensure that Prometheus will always be pointing at the
right port!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Now we can deploy this to your cluster with nixops:
```console
$ nixops deploy -d home
```
Open the Explore tab in Grafana and type in the following expression:
```
node_memory_MemFree_bytes
```
and hit shift-enter (or click the "Run Query" button in the upper left side of
the screen). You should see a graph showing you the amount of ram that is free
on the host, something like this:
![A graph of the amount of system memory that is available on the host
chrysalis](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_150328.png)
If you want to query other fields, you can type in `node_` into the searchbox
and autocomplete will show what is available. For a full list of what is
available, open the node exporter metrics route in your browser and look through
it.
## Grafana Dashboards
Now that we have all of this information about our machine, let's create a
little dashboard for it and set up a few alerts.
Click on the plus icon on the left side of the Grafana UI to create a new
dashboard. It will look something like this:
![An empty dashboard in
Grafana](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_151205.png)
In Grafana terminology, everything you see in a dashboard is inside a panel.
Let's create a new panel to keep track of memory usage for our server. Click
"Add New Panel" and you will get a screen that looks like this:
![A Grafana panel configuration
screen](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_151609.png)
Let's make this keep track of free memory. Write "Memory Free" in the panel
title field on the right. Write the following query in the textbox next to the
dropdown labeled "Metrics":
```
node_memory_MemFree_bytes
```
and set the legend to `{{job}}`. You should get a graph that looks something
like this:
![A populated
graph](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_152126.png)
This will show you how much memory is free on each machine you are monitoring
with Prometheus' node exporter. Now let's configure an alert for the amount of
free memory being low (where "low" means less than 64 megabytes of ram free).
Hit save in the upper right corner of the Grafana UI and give your dashboard a
name, such as "Home Cluster Status". Now open the "Memory Free" panel for
editing (click on the name and then click "Edit"), click the "Alert" tab, and
click the "Create Alert" button. Let's configure it to do the following:
- Check if free memory gets below 64 megabytes (64000000 bytes)
- Send the message "Running out of memory!" when the alert fires
You can do that with a configuration like this:
![The above configuration input to the Grafana
UI](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_153419.png)
Save the changes to apply this config.
[Wait a minute. Where will this alert go to?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
It will only show up on the alerts page:
![The alerts page with memory free alerts
configured](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_154027.png)
But we can add a notification channel to customize this. Click on the
Notification Channels tab and then click "New Channel". It should look something
like this:
![Notification Channel
configuration](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_154317.png)
You can send notifications to many services, but let's send one to Discord this
time. Acquire a Discord webhook link from somewhere and paste it in the Webhook
URL field. Name it something like "Discord". It may also be a good idea to make
this the default notification channel using the "Default" checkbox under the
Notification Settings, so that our existing alert will show up in Discord when
the system runs out of memory.
You can configure other alerts like this so you can monitor any other node
metrics you want.
[You can also monitor for the _lack_ of data on particular metrics. If something
that should always be reported suddenly isn't reported, it may be a good
indicator that a server went down. You can also add other services to your
`scrapeConfigs` settings so you can monitor things that expose metrics to
Prometheus at `/metrics`.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Now that we have metrics configured, let's enable Loki for logging.
## Loki
Loki is a log aggregator created by the people behind Grafana. Here we will use
it as a target for all system logs. Unfortunately, the Loki NixOS module is very
basic at the moment, so we will need to configure it with our own custom yaml
file. Create a file in your `configuration.nix` folder called `loki.yaml` and
copy in the config from [this
gist](https://gist.github.com/Xe/c3c786b41ec2820725ee77a7af551225):
Then enable Loki with your config in your `configuration.nix` file:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
services.loki = {
enable = true;
configFile = ./loki-local-config.yaml;
};
```
Promtail is a tool made by the Loki team that sends logs into Loki. Create a
file called `promtail.yaml` in the same folder as `configuration.nix` with the
following contents:
```yaml
server:
http_listen_port: 28183
grpc_listen_port: 0
positions:
filename: /tmp/positions.yaml
clients:
- url: http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push
scrape_configs:
- job_name: journal
journal:
max_age: 12h
labels:
job: systemd-journal
host: chrysalis
relabel_configs:
- source_labels: ['__journal__systemd_unit']
target_label: 'unit'
```
Now we can add promtail to your `configuration.nix` by creating a systemd
service to run it with this snippet:
```nix
# hosts/chrysalis/configuration.nix
systemd.services.promtail = {
description = "Promtail service for Loki";
wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
serviceConfig = {
ExecStart = ''
${pkgs.grafana-loki}/bin/promtail --config.file ${./promtail.yaml}
'';
};
};
```
Now that you have this all set up, you can push this to your cluster with
nixops:
```console
$ nixops deploy -d home
```
Once that finishes, open up Grafana and configure a new Loki data source with
the URL `http://127.0.0.1:3100`:
![Loki Data Source
configuration](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_161610.png)
Now that you have Loki set up, let's query it! Open the Explore view in Grafana
again, choose Loki as the source, and enter in the query `{job="systemd-journal"}`:
![Loki
search](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201120_162043.png)
[You can also add Loki queries like this to dashboards! Loki also lets you query by
systemd unit with the `unit` field. If you wanted to search for logs from
`foo.service`, you would need a query that looks something like
`{job="systemd-journal", unit="foo.service"}` You can do many more complicated
things with Loki. Look <a
href="https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/loki/#search-expression">here
</a> for more information on what you can query. As of the time of writing this
blogpost, you are currently unable to make Grafana alerts based on Loki queries
as far as I am aware.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
---
This barely scrapes the surface of what you can accomplish with a setup like
this. Using more fancy setups you can alert on the rate of metrics changing. I
plan to make NixOS modules to make this setup easier in the future. There is
also a set of options in
[services.grafana.provision](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&from=0&size=30&sort=relevance&query=grafana.provision)
that can make it easier to automagically set up Grafana with per-host
dashboards, alerts and all of the data sources that are outlined in this post.
The setup in this post is quite meager, but it should be enough to get you
started with whatever you need to monitor. Adding Prometheus metrics to your
services will go a long way in terms of being able to better monitor things in
production, do not be afraid to experiment!

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 1: Name, Context, History"
date: 2020-05-05
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 1: Name, Context, History
I've been curious about how language works for a very long time. This curiosity
has lead me down many fascinating rabbit holes, but for a long time I have
either been cribbing off of other people's work or studying natural languages
that don't have a cohesive plan or core to them. [Constructed
Languages][conlangs] (or conlangs as I will probably be calling them from here
on out) are a simpler model of this. You might be familiar with
[Klingon][tlhnganhol] from the Star Trek series, the [various forms of
Elvish][elvish] as described by J. R. R. Tolkien or [Dothraki][dothraki] from
Game of Thrones. This series will show an example of how one of those kinds of
languages are created.
[conlangs]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language
[tlhnganhol]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language
[elvish]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvish_languages
[dothraki]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dothraki_language
Recently a challenge came up on [/r/conlangs][rconlangs] called
[ReConLangMo][reconlangmo] and I've decided to take a stab at this and flesh
this out into a [personal language][perslang].
[rconlangs]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/
[reconlangmo]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gbgvu0/reconlangmo_2020/
[perslang]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_language#Personal_languages
This post will be the first in a series (with articles to be listed below) and
is following the prompt made [here][reconlangmo1prompt].
[reconlangmo1prompt]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gd8z18/reconlangmo_1_name_context_and_history/
## L'ewa Overview
The language I am going to create will be called L'ewa (⁄l.ʔɛ.wa⁄, also
romanized lewa for filesystems). This word is identical in English and in L'ewa.
It means "is a language". The name came to me in a shower a while ago and I'm
not entirely sure where it came from.
This language is being designed as a personal language to help me keep a diary
(more on that later) and to act as a testbed for writing a computational
knowledge engine, much like IBM's Watson. I do not expect anyone else to use
this language. I may pull this language into fiction (if that ever gets off the
ground) or into other projects as it makes sense.
Some of the high level things I want to try in this language are ways to make me
think differently. I'm following the weak form of the [Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis][sapirwhorf] by this logic. I want to see what would happen if I give
myself a tool that I can use to help myself think in different ways. Other
features I plan to include are:
[sapirwhorf]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- A [seximal][seximal] number system
- A predicate-argument system similar to [Lojban][lojban]
- Nounlessness (only having verbs for content words) like [Salishan][salishan]
languages
- An [a-priori][apriori] (or made up) vocabulary
- Grammatical markers for the identity of the thinker of a sentence/phrase/word
- Make each grammatical feature and word logical, or working in one way only
- Typeable with standard QWERTY en-US keyboards
- A decorative script that I'll turn into a font
[seximal]: https://www.seximal.net
[lojban]: https://lojban.pw/cll/uncll-1.2.6/xhtml_section_chunks/chapter-tour.html#section-bridi
[salishan]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salishan_languages
[apriori]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language#A_priori_and_a_posteriori_languages
## L'wea as A Diary Language
When I was younger, I used to keep a diary/journal file on my computers off and
on. I was detailed about what I was feeling and what I was considering and going
through. This all ended abruptly after my parents were snooping through my
computer in middle school and discovered that I was questioning fundamental
aspects of myself like my gender. I have never really felt comfortable keeping a
diary file since then. I have made a few attempts at this (including by using a
dedicated diary machine, air-gapped TempleOS machines and the like), but they
all feel too vulnerable and open for anyone to read them.
This is my logic for using a language that I create for myself. If people really
want to go through and take the time to learn the ins and outs of a tool I
created for myself to archive my personal thoughts, they probably deserve to be
able to read them. Otherwise, this would allow me to write my diary from pretty
much anywhere, even in plain sight out in public. People can't shoulder-surf and
read what they literally cannot understand.
---
I plan to continue going through this series as the prompts come out and will
put my responses on my blog along with explanations, analysis and sample code
(where relevant). I will probably also reformat these posts (and relevant
dictionary files) to an eBook and later into a reference grammar book.
Like I said though, this project is for myself. I do not expect this language to
change the world for anyone but me. Let's see where this rabbit hole goes.

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 2: Phonology & Writing"
date: 2020-05-08
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 2: Phonology & Writing
Continuing from [the last post][rclm1], one of the next steps in this process is
to outline the phonology and basic phonotactics of L'ewa. A language's phonology
is the set of sounds that are allowed to be in words. The phonotactics of a
language help people understand where the boundaries between syllables are. I
will then describe my plans for the L'ewa orthography and how L'ewa is
romanized. This is a response to the prompt made [here][rclm2prompt].
[rclm1]: https://christine.website/blog/reconlangmo-1-name-ctx-history-2020-05-05
[rclm2prompt]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gfp3hw/reconlangmo_2_phonology_writing/
## Phonology
I am taking inspiration from Lojban, Esperanto, Mandarin Chinese and English to
design the phonology of L'ewa. All of the phonology will be defined using the
[International Phonetic Alphabet][ipa]. If you want to figure out how to
pronounce these sounds, a lazy trick is to google them. Wikipedia will have a
perfectly good example to use as a reference. There are two kinds of sounds in
L'ewa, consonants and vowels.
[ipa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
### Consonants
*Consonant inventory*: /d f g h j k l m n p q s t w ʃ ʒ ʔ ʙ̥/
| Manner/Place | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Uvular | Glottal |
|---------------------|----------|----------|-----------------|---------|-------|-------------|--------|---------|
| Nasal | m | n | | | | | | |
| Stop | p | t d | | | k g | | q | ʔ |
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ ʒ | | | | | h |
| Approximant | | | | j | | w | | |
| Trill | ʙ̥ | r | | | | | | |
| Lateral approximant | | l | | | | | | |
The weirdest consonant is /ʙ̥/, which is a voiceless bilabial trill, or blowing
air through your lips without making sound. This is intended to imitate a noise
an orca would make.
### Vowels
*Vowel inventory*: /a ɛ i o u/
*Diphthongs*: au, oi, ua, ue, uo, ai, ɛi
| | Front | Back |
|----------|-------|------|
| High | i | u |
| High-mid | | o |
| Low-mid | ɛ | |
| Low | a | |
## Phonotactics
I plan to have two main kinds of words in L'ewa. I plan to have content and
particle words. The content words will refer to things, properties, or actions
(such as `tool`, `red`, `run`) and the particle words will change how the
grammar of a sentence works (such as `the` or prepositions).
The main kind of content word is a root word, and they will be in the following
forms:
- CVCCV (/ʒa.sko/)
- CCVCV (/lʔ.ɛwa/)
Particles will mostly fall into the following forms:
- V (/a/)
- VV (/ai/)
- CV (/ba/)
- CVV (/bai/)
- CV'V (/baʔ.i)
Proper names _should_ end with consonants, but there is no hard requirement.
L'ewa is a stressed language, with stress on the second-to-last (penultimate)
syllable. For example, the word "[z]asko" would be pronounced "[Z]Asko".
Syllables end on stop consonants if one is present in a consonant cluster. Two
stop consonants cannot follow eachother in a row.
## Writing
I haven't completely fleshed this part out yet, but I want the writing system of
L'ewa to be an [abugida][abugida]. This is a kind of written script that has the
consonants make the larger shapes but the vowels are small diacritics over the
consonants. If the word creation process is done right, you can actually omit
the vowels entirely if they are not relevant.
[abugida]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida
I plan to have this script be written by hand with pencils/pen and typed into
computers, just like English. This script will also be a left-to-right script
like English.
## Romanisation
L'ewa's romanization is intentionally simple. Most of the IPA letters keep their
letters, but the ones that do not match to Latin letters are listed below:
| Pronunciation | Spelling |
|---------------|----------|
| /j/ | *y* |
| /ɛ/ | *e* |
| /ʃ/ | *x* |
| /ʒ/ | *z* |
| /ʔ/ | *'* |
| /ʙ̥/ | *b* |
This is designed to make every letter typeable on a standard US keyboard, as
well as mapping as many letters as possible on the home row of a QWERTY
keyboard.
---
I am still working on the tooling for word creation and the like. I plan to use
the [Swaedish lists][swaedish] (this site is having certificate issues at the
time of writing this post) to help guide the creation of a base vocabulary. I
will go into more detail in the future.
[swaedish]: https://cals.info/word/list/

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 3: Morphosyntactic Typology"
date: 2020-05-11
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 3: Morphosyntactic Typology
In the last post of [this series][reconlangmoseries], we covered the sounds and
word patterns of L'ewa. This time we are covering morphosyntactic typology, or
how words and sentences are formed out of root words, details about sentences,
word order and those kinds of patterns. I'll split each of these into their own
headings so it's a bit easier to grok. This is a response to [this
prompt][rclm3].
[reconlangmoseries]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
[rclm3]: thttps://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/ghvo48/reconlangmo_3_morphosyntactic_typology/
## Word Order
L'ewa is normally a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language like English. However,
the word order of a sentence can be changed if it is important to specify some
part of the sentence in particular.
I haven't completely finalized the particles for this, but I'd like to use `ka` to
denote the subject, `ke` to denote the verb and `ku` to denote the object. For
example if the input sentence is something like:
```
/mi/ /mad.sa/ /lo/ /spa.lo/
mi madsa lo spalo
I eat an apple
```
You could emphasize the eating with:
```
/kɛ/ /mad.sa/ /ka/ /mi/ /lo/ /spa.lo/
[ke] madsa ka mi lo spalo
V eat S I an apple
```
(the `ke` is in square brackets here because it is technically not required, but
it can make more sense to be explicit in some cases)
or the apple with:
```
/ku/ /lo/ /spalo/ /kɛ/ /mad.sa/ /mi
ku lo spalo ke madsa mi
O an apple V eat I
```
L'ewa doesn't really have adjectives or adverbs in the normal indo-european
sense, but it does have a way to analytically combine meanings together. For
example if `qa'te` is the word for `is fast/quick/rapid in rate`, then saying
you are quickly eating (or wolfing food down) would be something like:
```
/qaʔ.tɛ/ /mad.sa/
qa'te madsa
is fast [kind of] eat
```
These are assumed to be metaphorical by default. It's not always clear what
someone would mean by a fast kind of language (would they be referencing
[Speedtalk][speedtalk]?)
[speedtalk]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedtalk
L'ewa doesn't always require a subject or object if it can be figured out from
context. You can just say "rain" instead of "it's raining". By default, the
first word in a sentence without an article is the verb. The ka/ke/ku series
needs to be used if the word order deviates from Subject-Verb-Object (it
functions a lot like the selma'o FA from Lojban).
## Morphological Typology
L'ewa is a analytic language. Every single word has only one form and particles
are used to modify the meaning or significance of words. There are only two word
classes: content and particles.
### Alignment
L'ewa is a nominative-accusative language. Other particles may be introduced in
the future to help denote the relations that exist in other alignments, but I
don't need them yet.
### Word Classes
As said before, L'ewa only has two word classes, content (or verbs) and
particles to modify the significance or relations between content. There is also
a hard limit of two arguments per verb, which should help avoid the problems
that Lojban has with its inconsistent usage of the x3, x4 and x5 places.
As the content words are all technically verbs, there is no real need for a
copula. The ka/ke/ku series can also help to break out of other things that
modify "noun-phrases" (when those things exist). There are also no nouns,
adjectives or adverbs, because analytically combining words completely replaces
the need for them.
Nouns and verbs do not inflect for numbers. If numbers are needed they can be
provided, otherwise the default is to assume "one or more".
## Conscript
I am still working on the finer details of the conscript for L'ewa, but here is
a sneak preview of the letter forms I am playing with (this image below might
not render properly in light mode):
![The letters in the L'ewa
conscript](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXwr2rIWAAE95co?format=png&name=4096x4096)
My inspirations for this script were [zbalermorna][zbalermorna], Hangul, Hanzi,
Katakana, Greek, international computer symbols, traditional Japanese art and
the [International Phonetic Alphabet][ipa].
[zbalermorna]: https://mw.lojban.org/images/b/b3/ZLM4_Writeup_v2.pdf
[ipa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
This script is very decorative, and is primarily intended to be used in
spellcraft and other artistic uses. It will probably show up in my art from time
to time, and will definitely show up in any experimental video production that I
work on in the future. I will go into more detail about this in the future, but
here is my prototype. Please do let me know what you think about it.
---
As a side note, the words `madsa`, `spalo` and `qa'te` are now official L'ewa
words, I guess. The entire vocabulary of the language can now be listed below:
**Content Words**
| L'ewa word | IPA | English |
| ---------- | --- | ------- |
| `l'ewa` | `/lʔ.ɛwa/` | is a language |
| `madsa` | `/mad.sa/` | eats/is eating |
| `qa'te` | `/qaʔ.tɛ/` | is fast/quick/rapid in rate |
| `zasko` | `/ʒa.sko/` | is a plant/is vegetation |
| `spalo` | `/spa.lo/` | is an apple |
**Particles**
| L'ewa word | IPA | English |
| ---------- | --- | ------- |
| lo | /lo/ | a, an, indefinite article |
| le | /lɛ/ | the, definite article |
| ka | /ka/ | subject marker |
| ke | /kɛ/ | verb marker |
| ku | /ku/ | object marker |
| mi | /mi/ | the current speaker |

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 4: Noun and Verb Morphology"
date: 2020-05-15
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 4: Noun and Verb Morphology
Last time on [ReConLangMo][reconlangmoseries] I covered word order and some of
the finer points about how sentences work. This time we are covering how nouns
and verbs get modified (some languages call this conjugation or declension).
This is a response to [this prompt][rclm4].
[reconlangmoseries]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
[rclm4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gjvczy/reconlangmo_4_noun_and_verb_morphology/
## Other Noun Things
At a high level, noun-phrases can be marked for direct ownership or number. The
general pattern is like this:
```
<article> [pronoun] [negation] [number] <verb>
```
## Pronouns
Here's some of the pronouns:
| English | L'ewa |
| --------------------- | ----- |
| me, I | mi |
| My system and I | mi'a |
| you | ro |
| we (all-inclusive) | mi'o |
| your system and you | ro'a |
| This (near me) | ti |
| That (near you) | ta |
| That (far away) | tu |
## Numbers
Numbers are in [base six][seximal]. Here are a few numerals:
[seximal]: https://www.seximal.net/
| Decimal | Seximal | L'ewa |
| ------- | ------- | ----- |
| 0 | 0 | zo |
| 1 | 1 | ja |
| 2 | 2 | he |
| 3 | 3 | xu |
| 4 | 4 | ho |
| 5 | 5 | qi |
| 6 | 10 | jazo |
| 36 | 100 | gau |
Here are few non-numerals-but-technically-still-numbers-I-guess:
| English | L'ewa |
| --------------- | ----- |
| all | to |
| some | ra'o |
| number-question | so |
## Negation
As L'ewa is more of a logical language, it has several forms of negation. Here
are a few:
| English | L'ewa |
| --------------------- | ----- |
| contradiction | na |
| total scalar negation | na'o |
| particle negation | nai |
na can be placed before the sentence's verb too:
```
ti na spalo
This is something other than an apple
```
## Verb Forms
Verbs have one form in L'ewa. Aspects like tense or the perfective aspect are
marked with particles. Here's a table of the common ones:
| English | L'ewa |
| ---------- | ----- |
| past tense | qu |
| present tense | qa |
| future tense | qo |
| perfective aspect | qe |
## Modality
Modality is going to be expressed with emotion words. These words have not been
assigned yet, but their grammar will be a lot looser than the normal L'ewa
particle grammar. They will allow any two vowels in any combination that might
otherwise make them not "legal" for particles.
- VV (ii)
- V'V (i'i)
## Explicitly Ending Noun Phrases
In case it is otherwise confusing, ko can be used to end noun phrases grammatically.
---
I will probably be fleshing this out some more, but for now this is how all of
this works.

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 5: Sentence Structure"
date: 2020-05-18
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 5: Sentence Structure
The last post in [this series][reconlangmo] was more of a grammar dump with few
concrete examples or much details about things (mostly because of a lack of
vocabulary to make examples with). I'll fix this in the future, but for now
let's continue on with sentence structure goodness. This is a response to [this
prompt][rclm5].
[reconlangmo]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
[rclm5]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gmbwb5/reconlangmo_5_sentence_structure/
## Independent Clause Structure
Most of the time L'ewa sentences have only one clause. This can be anything from
a single verb to a subject, verb and object. However, sometimes more information
is needed. Consider this sentence:
```
The dog which is blue is large.
```
This kind of a relative clause would be denoted using `hoi`, which would make
the sentence roughly the following in L'ewa:
```
le wufra hoi blanu xi brado.
```
The particle `xi` is needed here in order to make it explicit that the subject
noun-phrase has ended.
Similarly, an incidental relative clause is done with with `joi`:
```
le wufra joi blanu ke brado
the dog, which by the way is blue, is big.
```
## Questions
There are a few ways to ask questions in L'ewa. They correlate to the different
kinds of things that the speaker could want to know.
### `ma`
`ma` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown noun phrase. Consider
these sentences:
```
ma blanu?
what is blue?
```
```
ro qa madsa ma?
you are eating what?
```
### `no`
`no` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown verb. Consider these
sentences:
```
ro no?
How are you doing?
```
```
le wufra xi no?
The dog did what?
```
### `so`
`so` is the particle used to ask questions about numbers, similar to the "how
many" construct in English.
```
ro madsa so spalo?
You ate how many apples?
```
```
le so zasko xi qa'te glowa
How many plants grow quickly?
```
## Color Words
L'ewa uses a RGB color system like computers. The basic colors are red, green
and blue, with some other basic ones for convenience:
| English | L'ewa |
| ------- | ------ |
| blue | blanu |
| red | delja |
| green | qalno |
| yellow | yeplo |
| teal | te'ra |
| pink | hetlo |
| black | xekri |
| white | pu'ro |
| 50% gray | flego |
Colors will be mixed by creating compound words between base colors. Compound
words still need to be fleshed out, but generally all CVCCV words will have
wordparts made out of the first, second and fifth letter, unless the vowel pair
is illegal and all CCVCV words are the first, second and fifth letter unless
this otherwise violates the morphology rules. Like I said though, this really
needs to be fleshed out and this is only a preview for now.
For example a light green would be `puoqa'o` (`pu'lo qalno`, white-green).
---
I hit a snag while hacking at the tooling for making word creation and the like
easier. I am still working on it, but most of my word creation is manual and
requires me to keep a phonology information document up on my monitor while I
sound things out. As part of writing this article I had to add the letters `f`
and `r` to L'ewa for the word `wufra`.
I am documenting my work for this language [here](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa).
This repo will build the grammar book PDF, website and eBook. This will also be
the home of the word generation, similarity calculation, dictionary and
(eventually) automatic translation tools. I am also documenting each of the
words in the language in their own files that will feed into the grammar book
generation. More on this when I have more of a coherent product!

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 6: Lexicon"
date: 2020-05-22
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 6: Lexicon
Previously in [this series][reconlangmo], we've covered a lot of details about
how sentences work, tenses get marked and how words work in general; however
this doesn't really make L'ewa a _language_. Most of the difficulty in making a
language like this is the vocabulary. In this post I'll be describing how I am
making the vocabulary for L'ewa and I'll include an entire table of the
dictionary words. This answers [this
prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gojncp/reconlangmo_6_lexicon/).
[reconlangmo]: https://christine.website/blog/series/reconlangmo
## Word Distinctions
L'ewa is intended to be a logical language. One of the side effects of L'ewa
being a logical language is that each word should have as minimal and exact of a
meaning/function as possible. English has lots of words that cover large
semantic spaces (like go, set, run, take, get, turn, good, etc.) without much of a
pattern to it. I don't want this in L'ewa.
Let's take the word "good" as an example. Off the top of my head, good can mean
any of the following things:
- beneficial
- aesthetically pleasing
- favorful taste
- saintly (coincidentally this is the source of the idiom "God is good")
- healthy
I'm fairly sure there are more "senses" of the word good, but let's break these
into their own words:
| L'ewa | Definition |
|-------|------------------------------------|
| firgu | is beneficial/nice to |
| n'ixu | is aesthetically pleasing to |
| flawo | is tasty/has a pleasant flavor to |
| spiro | is saintly/holy/morally good to |
| qanro | is healthy/fit/well/in good health |
Each of these words has a very distinct and fine-grained meaning, even though
the range is a bit larger than it would be in English. These words also differ
from a lot of the other words in the L'ewa dictionary so far because they can
take an object. Most of the words so far are adjective-like because it doesn't
make sense for there to be an object attached to the color blue.
By default, if a word that can take an object doesn't have one, it's assumed to
be obvious from context. For example, consider the following set of sentences:
```
mi qa madsa lo spalo. ti flawo!
I am eating an apple. It's delicious!
```
I am working at creating more words using a [Swaedish list][swaedish207].
[swaedish207]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa/src/branch/master/words/swaedish207.csv
## Family Words
Family words are a huge part of a language because it encodes a lot about the
culture behind that language. L'ewa isn't really intended to have much of a
culture behind it, but the one place I want to take a cultural stance is here.
The major kinship word is kirta, or "is an infinite slice of an even greater
infinite". This is one of the few literal words in L'ewa that is defined using a
metaphor, as there is really no good analog for this in English.
There are also words for other major family terms in English:
| L'ewa | Definition |
|-------|-------------------------|
| brota | is the/a brother of |
| sistu | is the/a sister of |
| mamta | is the/a mother of |
| patfu | is the/a father of |
| grafa | is the/a grandfather of |
| grama | is the/a grandmother of |
| wanto | is the/a aunt of |
| tunke | is the/a uncle of |
Cousins are all called brother/sister. None of these words are inherently
gendered and `brota` can refer to a female or nonbinary person. The words are
separate because I feel it flows better, for now at least.
## Idioms
L'ewa strives to have as few idioms as possible. If something is meant
non-literally (or as a [conceptual metaphor][cmet]), the particle ke'a can be used:
[cmet]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor
```
ti firgu
This is beneificial
ti ke'a firgu
This is metaphorically/non-literally beneficial
```
---
I have been documenting L'ewa and all of its words/grammar in a [git
repo][lewarepo]. The layout of this repo is as follows:
| Folder | Purpose |
|----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `book` | The source files and build scripts for the L'ewa book (this book may end up being published) |
| `nix` | [Nix][nix] crud, custom packages for the eBook render and development tools |
| `script` | Where experiments for the written form of L'ewa live |
| `tools` | Tools for hacking at L'ewa in Rust/Typescript (none published yet, this is where the dictionary server code will live) |
| `words` | Where the definitions of each word are defined in [Dhall][dhall], this will be fed into the dictionary server code |
I also have the entire process of building and testing everything (from the
eBook to the unit tests of the tools) automated with [Drone][droneci]. You can
see the past builds [here](https://drone.tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa). After I merge
the information from the latest blogpost into this repo, I will put a rendered
version of it [here](http://lewa-book-devel.kahless.cetacean.club:43001/). This
will allow you to browse through the chapters of the eBook while it is being
written. Eventually this will be automatically deployed to my Kubernetes cluster
and the book will be a subpath/subdomain of `lewa.christine.website`.
I have created a system of defining words that allows you to focus on each word
at once, but then fit it back into the greater whole of the language. For
example here is `kirta.dhall`:
```dhall
-- kirta.dhall
let ContentWord = ../types/ContentWord.dhall
in ContentWord::{
, word = "kirta"
, gloss = "Creator"
, definition =
"is an infinite slice of an even greater infinite/our Creator/a Creator"
}
```
This is put in `words/roots` because it is a root (or uncombined) word. Then it
is added to the `dictionary.dhall`:
```dhall
-- dictionary.dhall
let ContentWord = ./types/ContentWord.dhall
let ParticleWord = ./types/ParticleWord.dhall
in { rootWords =
[ -- ...
./roots/kirta.dhall
-- ...
]
, particles [ -- ...
]
```
And then the build process will automatically generate the new dictionary from
all of these definitions. Downside of this is that each new kind of word needs
subtle adjustments to the build process of the dictionary and that
removals/changes to lots of words requires a larger-scale refactor of the
language, but I feel the tradeoff is worth the effort. I will undoubtedly end up
creating a few tools to help with this.
I will keep working on additional vocabulary on my own, but [here][vocab] is the
list of vocabulary that has been written up so far.
[vocab]: https://git.io/JfaeF
Be well.
[lewarepo]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
[dhall]: https://dhall-lang.org/
[droneci]: https://drone.io

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 7: Discourse"
date: 2020-05-25
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 7: Discourse
Previously on [ReConLangMo][reconlangmo], we covered a lot of new words for the
lexicon of L'ewa. This helps to flesh out a lot of what can be said, but
conversations themselves can be entirely different from formal sentences.
Conversations flow and ebb based on the needs/wants of the interlocutors. This
post will start to cover a lot of the softer skills behind L'ewa as well as
cover some other changes I'm making under the hood. This is a response to [this
prompt][rclm7].
[reconlangmo]: https://christine.website/blog/series/reconlangmo
[rclm7]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gqo8jn/reconlangmo_7_discourse/
## Information Structure
L'ewa doesn't have any particular structure for marking previously known
information, as normal sentences should suffice in most cases. Consider this
paragraph:
```
I saw you eat an apple. Was it tasty?
```
Since `an apple` was the last thing mentioned in the paragraph, the vague "it"
pronoun in the second sentence can be interpreted as "the apple".
L'ewa doesn't have a way to mark the topic of a sentence, that should be obvious
from context (additional clauses to describe things will help here). In most
cases the subject should be equivalent to the topic of a sentence.
L'ewa doesn't directly offer ways to emphasize parts of sentences with phonemic
stress like English does (eg: "I THOUGHT you ate an apple" vs "I thought you ATE
an apple"), but emotion words can be used to help indicate feelings about
things, which should suffice as far as emphasis goes.
## Discourse Structure
Conversationally, a lot of things in L'ewa grammar get dropped unless it's
ambiguous. The I/yous that get tacked on in English are completely unneeded. A
completely valid conversation could look something like this:
```
<Mai> xoi
<Cadey> xoi
<Mai> xoi madsa?
<Cadey> lo spalo
```
And it would roughly equate to:
```
<Mai> Hi
<Cadey> Hi, you doing okay?
<Mai> Yes, have you eaten?
<Cadey> Yes, I ate an apple
```
People know when they can speak after a sufficient pause between utterances.
Interrupting is not common but not a social faux-pas, and can be used to stop a
false assumption from being said.
## Utterances
An utterance in L'ewa is anything from a single content word all the way up to
an entire paragraph of sentences. An emotion particle can be a complete
utterance. A question particle can be a complete utterance, anything can be an
utterance. A speaker may want to choose more succinct options when the other
detail is already contextually known or simply not relevant to the listener.
L'ewa has a few discourse particles, here are a few of the more significant
ones:
| L'ewa | Function |
|-------|------------------------------------------------------|
| xi | signals that the verb of the sentence is coming next |
| ko | ends a noun phrase |
| ka | marks something as the subject of the sentence |
| ke | marks something as the verb of the sentence |
| ku | marks something as the object of the sentence |
## Formality
The informal dialect of L'ewa drops everything it can. The formal dialect
retains everything it can, to the point where it includes noun phrase endings,
the verb signaler, ka/ke/ku and every single optional particle in the language.
The formal dialect will end up sounding rather wordy compared to informal slangy
speech. Consider the differences between informal and formal versions of "I eat
an apple":
```
mi madsa lo spalo.
```
```
ka mi ko xi ke madsa ku lo spalo ko.
```
Nearly all of those particles are not required in informal speech (you could
even get away with `madsa lo spalo` depending on context), but are required in
formal speech to ensure there is as little contextual confusion as possible.
Things like laws or legal rulings would be written out in the formal register.
## Greetings and Farewell
"Hello" in L'ewa is said using `xoi`. It can also be used as a reply to hello
similar to «ça va» in French. It is possible to have an entire conversation with
just `xoi`:
```
<Mai> xoi
<Cadey> xoi
<Mai> xoi
```
The other implications of `xoi` are "how are you?" "I am good, you?", "I am
good", etc. If more detail is needed beyond this, then it can be supplied
instead of replying with `xoi`.
"Goodbye" is said using `xei`. Like `xoi` it can be used as a reply to another
goodbye and can form a mini-conversation:
```
<Cadey> xei
<Mai> xei
<Cadey> xei
```
## Emotion Words
Feelings in L'ewa are marked with a family of particles called "UI". These can
also be modified with other particles. Here are the emotional markers:
| L'ewa | English |
|-------|----------------|
| `a'a` | attentive |
| `a'e` | alertness |
| `ai` | intent |
| `a'i` | effort |
| `a'o` | hope |
| `au` | desire |
| `a'u` | interest |
| `e'a` | permission |
| `e'e` | competence |
| `ei` | obligation |
| `e'i` | constraint |
| `e'o` | request |
| `e'u` | suggestion |
| `ia` | belief |
| `i'a` | acceptance |
| `ie` | agreement |
| `i'e` | approval |
| `ii` | fear |
| `i'i` | togetherness |
| `io` | respect |
| `i'o` | appreciation |
| `iu` | love |
| `i'u` | familiarity |
| `o'a` | pride |
| `o'e` | closeness |
| `oi` | complaint/pain |
| `o'i` | caution |
| `o'o` | patience |
| `o'u` | relaxation |
| `ua` | discovery |
| `u'a` | gain |
| `ue` | surprise |
| `u'e` | wonder |
| `ui` | happiness |
| `u'i` | amusement |
| `uo` | completion |
| `u'o` | courage |
| `uu` | pity |
| `u'u` | repentant |
If an emotion is unknown in a conversation, you can ask with `kei`:
```
<Mai> xoi, so kei?
hi, what-verb what-feeling?
<Cadey> madsa ui
eating :D
```
This system is wholesale stolen from [Lojban](https://lojban.github.io/cll/13/1/).
## Connectives
Connectives exist to link noun phrases and verbs together into larger
noun phrases and verbs. They can also be used to link together sentences. There
are four simple connectives: `fa` (OR), `fe` (AND), `fi` (connective question),
`fo` (if-and-only-if) and `fu` (whether-or-not).
### OR
```
ro au madsa lo spalo fa lo hafto?
Do you want to eat an apple or an egg?
```
### AND
```
ro au madsa lo spalo fe lo hafto?
Do you want to eat an apple and an egg?
```
### If and Only If
```
ro 'amwo mi fo mi madsa hafto?
Do you love me if I eat eggs?
```
### Whether or Not
```
mi 'amwo ro. fu ro madsa hafto.
I love you, whether or not you eat eggs.
```
### Connective Question
```
ro au madsa lo spalo fi lo hafto?
Do you want to eat apples and/or eggs?
```
## Changes Being Made to L'ewa
Early on, I mentioned that family terms were gendered. This also ended up with
me making some gendered terms for people. I have since refactored out all of the
gendered terms in favor of more universal terms. Here is a table of some of the
terms that have been replaced:
| English | L'ewa term | L'ewa word |
|-------------------------|-------------|------------|
| brother/sister | sibling | xinga |
| mother/father | parent | pa'ma |
| grandfather/grandmother | grandparent | gra'u |
| aunt/uncle | parent | pa'ma |
| cousin | sibling | xinga |
| man/woman | Creator | kirta |
| man/woman | human | renma |
In some senses, gender exists. In other senses, gender does not. With L'ewa I
want to explore what is possible with language. It would be interesting to
create a language where gender can be discussed as it is, not as the categories
that it has historically fit into. Consider colors. There are millions of
colors, all sightly different but many follow general patterns. No one or two
colors can be thought of as the "default" color, yet we can have long and
meaningful conversations about what color is and what separates colors from
eachother.
I aim to have the same kind of granularity in L'ewa. As a goal of the language,
I should be able to point to any content word in the dictionary and be able to
say "that's my gender" in the same way I can describe color or music with that
tree. These will implicitly be metaphors (which does detract a bit from the
logical stance L'ewa normally takes) because gender is almost always a metaphor
in practice. L'ewa will not have binary gender.
Issue [number two](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa/issues/2) on the L'ewa repo will
help track the creation and implementation of a truly non-binary "gender" system
for L'ewa.
---
I've been chugging through the Swaedish list more and more to build up more of
L'ewa's vocabulary in preparation for starting to translate sentences more
complicated than simple "I eat an apple" or "Do you like eating plants?". One of
the first things I want to translate is the classic [tower of babel
story][babel].
[babel]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
Be well.

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---
title: "ReConLangMo 8: Storytelling"
date: 2020-05-29
series: reconlangmo
tags:
- conlang
- lewa
---
# ReConLangMo 8: Storytelling
In the [last episode][rclm7] of [ReConLangMo][reconlangmo], we covered
conversational discourse as well as formality and other grammatical moods. I
also covered my goals for the gender system of L'ewa. Here I will cover the
closest thing L'ewa has to culture, the storytelling and poetry norms. L'ewa is
also a language designed for [spellcraft][spellcraft] and [sigil
magick][sigils], so those norms will be covered too. This is a response to [this
prompt][rclm8].
[rclm7]: /blog/reconlangmo-7-discourse-2020-05-25
[rclm8]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gszhy9/reconlangmo_7_storytelling_and_poetry/
[reconlangmo]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
[spellcraft]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incantation
[sigils]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil
## Stories
Stories are told as statements that happened in the past. Stories are structured
in the same way that you would structure them in English. There is a scenario, a
call to action, a refusal of the call, then the story goes on in the standard
way. Casual retelling of events is done without a narrative, and the events are
just relayed using casual sentences.
The particle `qu` can be repeated at the beginning of a story to enable the
"story time" flag. Story time sentences can be figurative. Each sentence in the
story progressively builds up the narrative to explain the themes and lessons
that are trying to be conveyed.
Stories are told using the narrative present tense. Speakers also relay
secondhand information directly.
## Poetry
One of the morphological side effect of L'ewa root words is that only the first
four letters of each word are unique. As a side effect of this, you can make any
word rhyme with any other word if you want it to. L'ewa can become l'ewi, l'ewo,
le'we or l'ewu if the poetry demands it. Poetry can be done in any meter or
rhythm depending on the mood of the speaker. Poetry can also be formatted using
fixed-width text. Here are a few examples:
```
le l'ewa de kirta
xi firga to renma
The language of Creators
is beneficial to all people
```
```
a'o ro zimpu ti
e'o so vorto
I hope you understand this
How many words?
```
I don't think I have enough vocabulary to make any more yet.
## Spellcraft
These poems are worked into sigils by interlocking the words together into a
larger figure. Here is an example based on the first poem:
![](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/707952638813143051/716075404405768202/dotgrid-20K10-824701.png)
Ideally this would would include the letters spiraling around things, but my
current tools are limited in what they can do. Sigils don't need to follow
normal grammar rules. They can bend and break them as much as they want or need
in order to flow nicer. If they need to, they can also make up words that don't
normally exist in the dictionary. These words should be documented in the
dictionary at some point, but there is no big rush.
## Gender and Third Person Pronouns
Previously, I haven't gone into details about the third person pronouns in
L'ewa. This was done very, very intentionally. One of the goals of L'ewa's
handling of gender is to abolish the gender binary as much as possible. This
means that any content word can end up being used as a pronoun. In order to
avoid ambiguity, only part of the content word is used to form something
matching the particle rules I was vaguely gesturing about in the post that had
details about colors. To recap:
> Compound words still need to be fleshed out, but generally all CVCCV words
> will have wordparts made out of the first, second and fifth letter, unless the
> vowel pair is illegal and all CCVCV words are the first, third and fifth
> letter unless this otherwise violates the morphology rules.
Let's say that your gender is the word for "is meat", or `dextu`. This would
mean the third person pronoun form would be `de'u` (`eu` isn't a valid vowel
pair so the glottal stop is used to break it).
```
de'u qu tulpa lo l'ewa
They (de'u) built a language.
mao qu madsa lo spalo
They (mao) ate an apple.
```
If you want to declare your gender, you can declare it with the word `zedra`:
```
lo spalo xi zedra
An apple is (my) gender.
```
This would then make their pronoun `sao`.
You can ask someone what their gender is with the gender question particle
`zei`:
```
<Mai> xoi
<Cadey> xoi ro zei
<Mai> lo mlato xi zedra
<Mai> zei
<Cadey> lo 'orka xi zedra
```
From then Mai would be referred to using the pronoun `mao` and Cadey would be
referred to using the pronoun `'ka`.
If you need a generic third person pronoun, use `ke'o`.
---
This seems to be the end of the ReConLangMo series in /r/conlangs, but I will
definitely continue to develop this on my own and post about it as I make larger
accomplishments. This has been a fun series and I hope it gave people a high
level overview of what is needed to make a speakable language from nothing.
Be well.

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---
title: Rust Crates that do What the Go Standard library Does
date: 2020-09-27
series: rust
---
# Rust Crates that do What the Go Standard library Does
One of Go's greatest strengths is how batteries-included the standard library
is. You can do most of what you need to do with only the standard library. On
the other hand, Rust's standard library is severely lacking by comparison.
However, the community has capitalized on this and been working on a bunch of
batteries that you can include in your rust projects. I'm going to cover a bunch
of them in this post in a few sections.
[A lot of these are actually used to help make this blog site
work!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Logging
Go has logging out of the box with package [`log`](https://godoc.org/log).
Package `log` is a very uncontroversial logger. It does what it says it does and
with little fuss. However it does not include a lot of niceties like logging
levels and context-aware values.
In Rust, we have the [`log`](https://docs.rs/log/) crate which is a very simple
interface. It uses the `error!`, `warn!`, `info!`, `debug!` and `trace!` macros
which correlate to the highest and lowest levels. If you want to use `log` in a
Rust crate, you can add it to your `Cargo.toml` file like this:
```toml
[dependencies]
log = "0.4"
```
Then you can use it in your Rust code like this:
```rust
use log::{error, warn, info, debug, trace};
fn main() {
trace!("starting main");
debug!("debug message");
info!("this is some information");
warn!("oh no something bad is about to happen");
error!("oh no it's an error");
}
```
[Wait, where does that log to? I ran that example locally but I didn't see any
of the messages anywhere.](conversation://Mara/wat)
This is because the `log` crate doesn't directly log anything anywhere, it is a
facade that other packages build off of.
[`pretty_env_logger`](https://docs.rs/pretty_env_logger) is a commonly used
crate with the `log` facade. Let's add it to the program and work from there:
```toml
[dependencies]
log = "0.4"
pretty_env_logger = "0.4"
```
Then let's enable it in our code:
```rust
use log::{error, warn, info, debug, trace};
fn main() {
pretty_env_logger::init();
trace!("starting main");
debug!("debug message");
info!("this is some information");
warn!("oh no something bad is about to happen");
error!("oh no it's an error");
}
```
And now let's run it with `RUST_LOG=trace`:
```console
$ env RUST_LOG=trace cargo run --example logger_test
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.07s
Running `/home/cadey/code/christine.website/target/debug/logger_test`
TRACE logger_test > starting main
DEBUG logger_test > debug message
INFO logger_test > this is some information
WARN logger_test > oh no something bad is about to happen
ERROR logger_test > oh no it's an error
```
There are [many
other](https://docs.rs/log/0.4.11/log/#available-logging-implementations)
consumers of the log crate and implementing a consumer is easy should you want
to do more than `pretty_env_logger` can do on its own. However, I have found
that `pretty_env_logger` does just enough on its own. See its documentation for
more information.
## Flags
Go's standard library has the [`flag`](https://godoc.org/flag) package out of
the box. This package is incredibly basic, but is surprisingly capable in terms
of what you can actually do with it. A common thing to do is use flags for
configuration or other options, such as
[here](https://github.com/Xe/hlang/blob/44bb74efa6f124ca05483a527c0e735ce0fca143/main.go#L15-L22):
```go
package main
import "flag"
var (
program = flag.String("p", "", "h program to compile/run")
outFname = flag.String("o", "", "if specified, write the webassembly binary created by -p here")
watFname = flag.String("o-wat", "", "if specified, write the uncompiled webassembly created by -p here")
port = flag.String("port", "", "HTTP port to listen on")
writeTao = flag.Bool("koan", false, "if true, print the h koan and then exit")
writeVersion = flag.Bool("v", false, "if true, print the version of h and then exit")
)
```
This will make a few package-global variables that will contain the values of
the command-line arguments.
In Rust, a commonly used command line parsing package is
[`structopt`](https://docs.rs/structopt). It works in a bit of a different way
than Go's `flag` package does though. `structopt` focuses on loading options into
a structure rather than into globally mutable variables.
[Something you may notice in Rust-land is that globally mutable state is talked
about as if it is something to be avoided. It's not inherently bad, but it does
make things more likely to crash at runtime. In most cases, these global
variables with package `flag` are fine, but only if they are ever written to
before the program really starts to do what it needs to do. If they are ever
written to and read from dynamically at runtime, then you can get into a lot of
problems such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition">race
conditions</a>.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Here's a quick example copied from [pa'i](https://github.com/Xe/pahi):
```rust
#[derive(Debug, StructOpt)]
#[structopt(
name = "pa'i",
about = "A WebAssembly runtime in Rust meeting the Olin ABI."
)]
struct Opt {
/// Backend
#[structopt(short, long, default_value = "cranelift")]
backend: String,
/// Print syscalls on exit
#[structopt(short, long)]
function_log: bool,
/// Do not cache compiled code?
#[structopt(short, long)]
no_cache: bool,
/// Binary to run
#[structopt()]
fname: String,
/// Main function
#[structopt(short, long, default_value = "_start")]
entrypoint: String,
/// Arguments of the wasm child
#[structopt()]
args: Vec<String>,
}
```
This has the Rust compiler generate the needed argument parsing code for you, so
you can just use the values as normal:
```rust
fn main() {
let opt = Opt::from_args();
debug!("args: {:?}", opt.args);
}
```
You can even handle subcommands with this, such as in
[palisade](https://github.com/lightspeed/palisade/blob/master/src/main.rs). This
package should handle just about everything you'd do with the `flag` package,
but will also work for cases where `flag` falls apart.
## Errors
Go's standard library has the [`error`
interface](https://godoc.org/builtin#error) which lets you create a type that
describes why functions fail to do what they intend. Rust has the [`Error`
trait](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/error/trait.Error.html) which lets you also
create a type that describes why functions fail to do what they intend.
In [my last post](https://christine.website/blog/TLDR-rust-2020-09-19) I
described [`eyre`](https://docs.rs/eyre) and the Result type. However, this time
we're going to dive into [`thiserror`](https://docs.rs/thiserror) for making our
own error type. Let's add `thiserror` to our crate:
```toml
[dependencies]
thiserror = "1"
```
And then let's re-implement our `DivideByZero` error from the last post:
```rust
use std::fmt;
use thiserror::Error;
#[derive(Debug, Error)]
struct DivideByZero;
impl fmt::Display for DivideByZero {
fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
write!(f, "cannot divide by zero")
}
}
```
The compiler made our error instance for us! It can even do that for more
complicated error types like this one that wraps a lot of other error cases and
error types in [maj](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/maj):
```rust
#[derive(thiserror::Error, Debug)]
pub enum Error {
#[error("TLS error: {0:?}")]
TLS(#[from] TLSError),
#[error("URL error: {0:?}")]
URL(#[from] url::ParseError),
#[error("Invalid DNS name: {0:?}")]
InvalidDNSName(#[from] webpki::InvalidDNSNameError),
#[error("IO error: {0:?}")]
IO(#[from] std::io::Error),
#[error("Response parsing error: {0:?}")]
ResponseParse(#[from] crate::ResponseError),
#[error("Invalid URL scheme {0:?}")]
InvalidScheme(String),
}
```
[These `#[error("whatever")]` annotations will show up when the error message is
printed. See <a
href="https://docs.rs/thiserror/1.0.20/thiserror/#details">here</a> for more
information on what details you can include here.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Serialization / Deserialization
Go has JSON encoding/decoding in its standard library via package
[`encoding/json`](https://godoc.org/encoding/json). This allows you to define
types that can be read from and write to JSON easily. Let's take this simple
JSON object representing a comment from some imaginary API as an example:
```json
{
"id": 31337,
"author": {
"id": 420,
"name": "Cadey"
},
"body": "hahaha its is an laughter image",
"in_reply_to": 31335
}
```
In Go you could write this as:
```go
type Author struct {
ID int `json:"id"`
Name string `json:"name"`
}
type Comment struct {
ID int `json:"id"`
Author Author `json:"author"`
Body string `json:"body"`
InReplyTo int `json:"in_reply_to"`
}
```
Rust does not have this capability out of the box, however there is a fantastic
framework available known as [serde](https://serde.rs/) which works across JSON
and every other serialization method that you can think of. Let's add serde and
its JSON support to our crate:
```toml
[dependencies]
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
serde_json = "1"
```
[You might notice that the dependency line for serde is different here. Go's
JSON package works by using <a
href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-struct-tags-in-go">struct
tags</a> as metadata, but Rust doesn't have these. We need to use Rust's derive
feature instead.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
So, to use serde for our comment type, we would write Rust that looks like this:
```rust
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
#[derive(Clone, Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct Author {
pub id: i32,
pub name: String,
}
#[derive(Clone, Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct Comment {
pub id: i32,
pub author: Author,
pub body: String,
pub in_reply_to: i32,
}
```
And then we can load that from JSON using code like this:
```rust
fn main() {
let data = r#"
{
"id": 31337,
"author": {
"id": 420,
"name": "Cadey"
},
"body": "hahaha its is an laughter image",
"in_reply_to": 31335
}
"#;
let c: Comment = serde_json::from_str(data).expect("json to parse");
println!("comment: {:#?}", c);
}
```
And you can use it like this:
```console
$ cargo run --example json
Compiling xesite v2.0.1 (/home/cadey/code/christine.website)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.43s
Running `target/debug/examples/json`
comment: Comment {
id: 31337,
author: Author {
id: 420,
name: "Cadey",
},
body: "hahaha its is an laughter image",
in_reply_to: 31335,
}
```
## HTTP
Many APIs expose their data over HTTP. Go has the
[`net/http`](https://godoc.org/net/http) package that acts as a production-grade
(Google uses this in production) HTTP client and server. This allows you to get
going with new projects very easily. The Rust standard library doesn't have this
out of the box, but there are some very convenient crates that can fill in the
blanks.
### Client
For an HTTP client, we can use [`reqwest`](https://docs.rs/reqwest). It can also
seamlessly integrate with serde to allow you to parse JSON from HTTP without any
issues. Let's add reqwest to our crate as well as [`tokio`](https://tokio.rs) to
act as an asynchronous runtime:
```toml
[dependencies]
reqwest = { version = "0.10", features = ["json"] }
tokio = { version = "0.2", features = ["full"] }
```
[We need `tokio` because Rust doesn't ship with an asynchronous runtime by
default. Go does as a core part of the standard library (and arguably the
language), but `tokio` is about equivalent to most of the important things that
the Go runtime handles for you. This omission may seem annoying, but it makes it
easy for you to create a custom asynchronous runtime should you need
to.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
And then let's integrate with that imaginary comment api at
[https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/comment.json](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/comment.json):
```rust
use eyre::Result;
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
#[derive(Clone, Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct Author {
pub id: i32,
pub name: String,
}
#[derive(Clone, Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct Comment {
pub id: i32,
pub author: Author,
pub body: String,
pub in_reply_to: i32,
}
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<()> {
let c: Comment = reqwest::get("https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/comment.json")
.await?
.json()
.await?;
println!("comment: {:#?}", c);
Ok(())
}
```
And then let's run this:
```console
$ cargo run --example http
Compiling xesite v2.0.1 (/home/cadey/code/christine.website)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 2.20s
Running `target/debug/examples/http`
comment: Comment {
id: 31337,
author: Author {
id: 420,
name: "Cadey",
},
body: "hahaha its is an laughter image",
in_reply_to: 31335,
}
```
[But what if the response status is not 200?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
We can change the code to something like this:
```rust
let c: Comment = reqwest::get("https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/comment2.json")
.await?
.error_for_status()?
.json()
.await?;
```
And then when we run it we get an error back:
```console
$ cargo run --example http_fail
Compiling xesite v2.0.1 (/home/cadey/code/christine.website)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 1.84s
Running `/home/cadey/code/christine.website/target/debug/examples/http_fail`
Error: HTTP status client error (404 Not Found) for url (https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/comment2.json)
```
This combined with the other features in `reqwest` give you an very capable HTTP
client that does even more than Go's HTTP client does out of the box.
### Server
As for HTTP servers though, let's take a look at [`warp`](https://docs.rs/warp).
`warp` is a HTTP server framework that builds on top of Rust's type system.
You can add warp to your dependencies like this:
```toml
[dependencies]
warp = "0.2"
```
Let's take a look at its ["Hello, World" example](https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp/blob/master/examples/hello.rs):
```rust
use warp::Filter;
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
// GET /hello/warp => 200 OK with body "Hello, warp!"
let hello = warp::path!("hello" / String)
.map(|name| format!("Hello, {}!", name));
warp::serve(hello)
.run(([127, 0, 0, 1], 3030))
.await;
}
```
We can then build up multiple routes with its `or` pattern:
```
let hello = warp::path!("hello" / String)
.map(|name| format!("Hello, {}!", name));
let health = warp::path!(".within" / "health")
.map(|| "OK");
let routes = hello.or(health);
```
And even inject other datatypes into your handlers with filters such as in the
[printer facts API server](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts/src/branch/main/src/main.rs):
```
let fact = {
let facts = pfacts::make();
warp::any().map(move || facts.clone())
};
let fact_handler = warp::get()
.and(warp::path("fact"))
.and(fact.clone())
.and_then(give_fact);
```
`warp` is an extremely capable HTTP server and can work across everything you
need for production-grade web apps.
[The blog you are looking at right now is powered by
warp!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## Templating
Go's standard library also includes HTML and plain text templating with its
packages [`html/template`](https://godoc.org/html/template) and
[`text/template`](https://godoc.org/text/template). There are many solutions for
templating HTML in Rust, but the one I like the most is
[`ructe`](https://docs.rs/ructe). `ructe` uses Cargo's
[build.rs](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/build-scripts.html) feature
to generate Rust code for its templates at compile time. This allows your HTML
templates to be compiled into the resulting application binary, allowing them to
render at ludicrous speeds. To use it, you need to add it to your
`build-dependencies` section of your `Cargo.toml`:
```toml
[build-dependencies]
ructe = { version = "0.12", features = ["warp02"] }
```
You will also need to add the [`mime`](https://docs.rs/mime) crate to your
dependencies because the generated template code will require it at runtime.
```toml
[dependencies]
mime = "0.3.0"
```
Once you've done this, create a new folder named `templates` in your current
working directory. Create a file called `hello.rs.html` and put the following in
it:
```html
@(title: String, message: String)
<html>
<head>
<title>@title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>@title</h1>
<p>@message</p>
</body>
</html>
```
Now add the following to the bottom of your `main.rs` file:
```rust
include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/templates.rs"));
```
And then use the template like this:
```rust
use warp::{http::Response, Filter, Rejection, Reply};
async fn hello_html(message: String) -> Result<impl Reply, Rejection> {
Response::builder()
.html(|o| templates::index_html(o, "Hello".to_string(), message).unwrap().clone()))
}
```
And hook it up in your main function:
```rust
let hello_html_rt = warp::path!("hello" / "html" / String)
.and_then(hello_html);
let routes = hello_html_rt.or(health).or(hello);
```
For a more comprehensive example, check out the [printerfacts
server](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/printerfacts). It also shows how to handle 404
responses and other things like that.
---
Wow, this covered a lot. I've included most of the example code in the
[`examples`](https://github.com/Xe/site/tree/master/examples) folder of [this
site's GitHub repo](https://github.com/Xe/site). I hope it will help you on your
journey in Rust. This is documentation that I wish I had when I was learning
Rust.

351
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@ -1,351 +0,0 @@
---
title: Scavenger Hunt Solution
date: 2020-11-25
tags:
- ctf
- wasm
- steganography
- stenography
---
# Scavenger Hunt Solution
On November 22, I sent a
[tweet](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1330532765482311687) that
contained the following text:
```
#467662 #207768 #7A7A6C #6B2061 #6F6C20 #6D7079
#7A6120 #616C7A #612E20 #5A6C6C #206F61 #61773A
#2F2F6A #6C6168 #6A6C68 #752E6A #736269 #2F6462
#796675 #612E6E #747020 #6D7679 #207476 #796C20
#70756D #767974 #686170 #76752E
```
This was actually the first part of a scavenger hunt/mini CTF that I had set up
in order to see who went down the rabbit hole to solve it. I've had nearly a
dozen people report back to me telling that they solved all of the puzzles and
nearly all of them said they had a lot of fun. Here's how to solve each of the
layers of the solution and how I created them.
## Layer 1
The first layer was that encoded tweet. If you notice, everything in it is
formatted as HTML color codes. HTML color codes just so happen to be encoded in
hexadecimal. Looking at the codes you can see `20` come up a lot, which happens
to be the hex-encoded symbol for the spacebar. So, let's turn this into a
continuous hex string with `s/#//g` and `s/ //g`:
[If you've seen a `%20` in a URL before, that is the URL encoded form of the
spacebar!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
```
4676622077687A7A6C6B20616F6C206D7079
7A6120616C7A612E205A6C6C206F6161773A
2F2F6A6C61686A6C68752E6A7362692F6462
796675612E6E7470206D7679207476796C20
70756D76797468617076752E
```
And then turn it into an ASCII string:
> Fvb whzzlk aol mpyza alza. Zll oaaw://jlahjlhu.jsbi/dbyfua.ntp mvy tvyl pumvythapvu.
[Wait, what? this doesn't look like much of anything...wait, look at the
`oaaw://`. Could that be `http://`?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
Indeed it is my perceptive shark friend! Let's decode the rest of the string
using the [Caeser Cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher):
> You passed the first test. See http://cetacean.club/wurynt.gmi for more information.
Now we're onto something!
## Layer 2
Opening http://cetacean.club/wurynt.gmi we see the following:
> wurynt
>
> a father of modern computing, <br />
> rejected by his kin, <br />
> for an unintentional sin, <br />
> creator of a machine to break <br />
> the cipher that this message is encoded in
>
> bq cr di ej kw mt os px uz gh
>
> VI 1 1
> I 17 1
> III 12 1
>
> qghja xmbzc fmqsb vcpzc zosah tmmho whyph lvnjj mpdkf gbsjl tnxqf ktqia mwogp
> eidny awoxj ggjqz mbrcm tkmyd fogzt sqkga udmbw nmkhp jppqs xerqq gdsle zfxmq
> yfdfj kuauk nefdc jkwrs cirut wevji pumqt hrxjr sfioj nbcrc nvxny vrphc r
>
> Correction for the last bit
>
> gilmb egdcr sowab igtyq pbzgv gmlsq udftc mzhqz exbmx zaxth isghc hukhc zlrrk
> cixhb isokt vftwy rfdyl qenxa nljca kyoej wnbpf uprgc igywv qzuud hrxzw gnhuz
> kclku hefzk xtdpk tfjzu byfyi sqmel gweou acwsi ptpwv drhor ahcqd kpzde lguqt
> wutvk nqprx gmiad dfdcm dpiwb twegt hjzdf vbkwa qskmf osjtk tcxle mkbnv iqdbe
> oejsx lgqc
[Hmm, "a father of computing", "rejected by his kin", "an unintentional sin",
"creator of a machine to break a cipher" could that mean Alan Turing? He made
something to break the Enigma cipher and was rejected by the British government
for being gay right?](conversation://Mara/hmm)
Indeed. Let's punch these settings into an [online enigma
machine](https://cryptii.com/pipes/enigma-machine) and see what we get:
```
congr adula tions forfi gurin goutt hisen igmao famys teryy ouhav egott enfar
thert hanan yonee lseha sbefo rehel pmebr eakfr eefol lowth ewhit erabb ittom
araht tpyvz vgjiu ztkhf uhvjq roybx dswzz caiaq kgesk hutvx iplwa donio n
httpc olons lashs lashw hyvec torze dgamm ajayi ndigo ultra zedfi vetan gokil
ohalo fineu ltrah alove ctorj ayqui etrho omega yotta betax raysi xdonu tseve
nsupe rwhyz edzed canad aasia indig oasia twoqu ietki logam maeps ilons uperk
iloha loult rafou rtang ovect orsev ensix xrayi ndigo place limaw hyasi adelt
adoto nion
```
And here is where I messed up with this challenge. Enigma doesn't handle
numbers. It was designed to encode the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. If you
look at the last bit of the output you can see `onio n` and `o nion`. This
points you to a [Tor hidden
service](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tor-hidden-services), but because
I messed this up the two hints point you at slightly wrong onion addresses (tor
hidden service addresses usually have numbers in them). Once I realized this, I
made a correction that just gives away the solution so people could move on to
the next step.
Onwards to
http://yvzvgjiuz5tkhfuhvjqroybx6d7swzzcaia2qkgeskhu4tv76xiplwad.onion/!
## Layer 3
Open your [tor browser](https://www.torproject.org/download/) and punch in the
onion URL. You should get a page that looks like this:
![Mara's
Realm](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/Screenshot_20201125_101515.png)
This shows some confusing combinations of letters and some hexadecimal text.
We'll get back to the hexadecimal text in a moment, but let's take a closer look
at the letters. There is a hint here to search the plover dictionary.
[Plover](http://www.openstenoproject.org/) is a tool that allows hobbyists to
learn [stenography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype) to type at the rate
of human speech. My moonlander has a layer for typing out stenography strokes,
so let's enable it and type them out:
> Follow the white rabbit
>
> Go to/test. w a s m
Which we can reinterpret as:
> Follow the white rabbit
>
> Go to /test.wasm
[The joke here is that many people seem to get stenography and steganography
confused, so that's why there's stenography in this steganography
challenge!](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Going to /test.wasm we get a WebAssembly download. I've uploaded a copy to my
blog's CDN
[here](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/test.wasm).
## Layer 4
Going back to that hexadecimal text from above, we see that it says this:
> go get tulpa.dev/cadey/hlang
This points to the source repo of [hlang](https://h.christine.website), which is
a satirical "programming language" that can only print the letter `h` (or the
lojbanic h `'` for that sweet sweet internationalisation cred). Something odd
about hlang is that it uses [WebAssembly](https://webassembly.org/) to execute
all programs written in it (this helps it reach its "no sandboxing required" and
"zero* dependencies" goals).
Let's decompile this WebAssembly file with
[`wasm2wat`](https://webassembly.github.io/wabt/doc/wasm2wat.1.html)
```console
$ wasm2wat /data/test.wasm
<output too big, see https://git.io/Jkyli>
```
Looking at the decompilation we can see that it imports a host function `h.h` as
the hlang documentation suggests and then constantly calls it a bunch of times:
```lisp
(module
(type (;0;) (func (param i32)))
(type (;1;) (func))
(import "h" "h" (func (;0;) (type 0)))
(func (;1;) (type 1)
i32.const 121
call 0
i32.const 111
call 0
i32.const 117
call 0
; ...
```
There's a lot of `32` in the output. `32` is the base 10 version of `0x20`,
which is the space character in ASCII. Let's try to reformat the numbers to
ascii characters and see what we get:
> you made it, this is the end of the line however. writing all of this up takes
> a lot of time. if you made it this far, email me@christine.website to get your
> name entered into the hall of heroes. be well.
## How I Implemented This
Each layer was designed independently and then I started building them together
later.
One of the first steps was to create the website for Mara's Realm. I started by
writing out all of the prose into a file called `index.md` and then I ran
[sw](https://github.com/jroimartin/sw) using [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) for
markdown conversion.
Then I created the WebAssembly binary by locally hacking a copy of hlang to
allow arbitrary strings. I stuck it in the source directory for the website and
told `sw` to not try and render it as markdown.
Once I had the HTML source, I copied it to a machine on my network at
`/srv/http/marahunt` using this command:
```console
$ rsync \
-avz \
site.static/ \
root@192.168.0.127:/srv/http/marahunt
```
And then I created a tor hidden service using the
[services.tor.hiddenServices](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&from=0&size=30&sort=relevance&query=services.tor.hiddenServices)
options:
```nix
services.tor = {
enable = true;
hiddenServices = {
"hunt" = {
name = "hunt";
version = 3;
map = [{
port = 80;
toPort = 80;
}];
};
};
};
```
Once I pushed this config to that server, I grabbed the hostname from
`/var/lib/tor/onion/hunt/hostname` and set up an nginx virtualhost:
```nix
services.nginx = {
virtualHosts."yvzvgjiuz5tkhfuhvjqroybx6d7swzzcaia2qkgeskhu4tv76xiplwad.onion" =
{
root = "/srv/http/marahunt";
};
};
```
And then I pushed the config again and tested it with curl:
```console
$ curl -H "Host: yvzvgjiuz5tkhfuhvjqroybx6d7swzzcaia2qkgeskhu4tv76xiplwad.onion" http://127.0.0.1 | grep title
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 3043 100 3043 0 0 2971k 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 2971k
<title>Mara's Realm</title>
.headerSubtitle { font-size: 0.6em; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; }
<a href="index.html">Mara's Realm</a> <span class="headerSubtitle">sh0rk in the cloud</span>
```
Once I was satisfied with the HTML, I opened up an enigma encoder and started
writing out the message congradulating the user for figuring out "this enigma of
a mystery". I also included the onion URL (with the above mistake) in that
message.
Then I started writing the wurynt page on my
[gemini](https://gemini.circumlunar.space/) server. wurynt was coined by blindly
pressing 6 keys on my keyboard. I added a little poem about Alan Turing to give
a hint that this was an enigma cipher and then copied the Enigma settings on the
page just in case. It turned out that I was using the default settings for the
[Cryptee Enigma simulator](https://cryptii.com/pipes/enigma-machine), so this
was not needed; however it was probably better to include them regardless.
This is where I messed up as I mentioned earlier. Once I realized my mistake in
trying to encode the onion address twice, I decided it would be best to just
give away the answer on the page, so I added the correct onion URL to the end of
the enigma message so that it wouldn't break flow for people.
The final part was to write and encode the message that I would tweet out. I
opened a scratch buffer and wrote out the "You passed the first test" line and
then encoded it using the ceasar cipher and encoded the result of that into hex.
After a lot of rejiggering and rewriting to make it have a multiple of 3
characters of text, I reformatted it as HTML color codes and tweeted it without
context.
## Feedback I Got
Some of the emails and twitter DM's I got had some useful and amusing feedback.
Here's some of my favorites:
> my favourite part was the opportunity to go down different various rabbit
> holes (I got to learn about stenography and WASM, which I'd never looked
> into!)
> I want to sleep. It's 2 AM here, but a friend sent me the link an hour ago and
> I'm a cat, so the curiosity killed me.
> That was a fun little game. Thanks for putting it together.
> oh *noooo* this is going to nerd snipe me
> I'm amused that you left the online enigma emulator on default settings.
> I swear to god I'm gonna beach your orca ass
## Improvements For Next Time
Next time I'd like to try and branch out from just using ascii. I'd like to
throw other encodings into the game (maybe even have a stage written in EBCDIC
formatted Esperanto or something crazy like that). I was also considering having
some public/private key crypto in the mix to stretch people's skillsets.
Something I will definitely do next time is make sure that all of the layers are
solveable. I really messed up with the enigma step and I had to unblock people
by DMing them the answer. Always make sure your puzzles can be solved.
## Hall of Heroes
(in no particular order)
- Saphire Lattice
- Open Skies
- Tralomine
- AstroSnail
- Dominika
- pbardera
- Max Hollman
- Vojtěch
- [object Object]
- Bytewave
Thank you for solving this! I'm happy this turned out so successfully. More to
come in the future.
🙂

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@ -1,50 +0,0 @@
---
title: "New Site Feature: Signal Boosting"
date: 2020-03-20
tags:
- signalboost
---
# New Site Feature: Signal Boosting
In light of the [COVID-19][covid19] pandemic, people have been losing their
jobs. In normal times, this would be less of an issue, but in the middle of the
pandemic, HR departments have been reluctant to hire people as entire companies
suddenly switch to remote work. I feel utterly powerless during this outbreak. I
can only image what people who have lost their job feel.
[covid19]: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/coronavirus-disease-covid-19.html
I've decided to do what I can to help. I have created a page on my website to
signal boost people who are looking for work. You can find it at
[`/signalboost`](/signalboost). If you want to be added to it, please open a
[GitHub issue](https://github.com/Xe/site/issues/new), [contact me](/contact),
or open a pull request to `signalboost.dhall` in the root.
The schema of this is simple:
```dhall
Person::{ Name = "Nicole Brennan"
, Tags = [ "python", "go", "rust", "technical-writing" ]
, GitLink = "https://github.com/Twi"
, Twitter = "https://twitter.com/TwitterAccountNameHere"
}
```
This will create a grid entry on the site that looks like this:
<div class="grid">
<div class="cell -4of12 content"></div>
<div class="cell -4of12 content">
<big>Nicole Brennan</big>
<p>python go rust technical-writing</p>
<a href="https://github.com/Twi">GitHub</a> - <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterAccountNameHere">Twitter</a>
</div>
<div class="cell -4of12 content"></div>
</div>
I've also changed my footer to point to this page for the forseeable future
instead of linking to my Patreon. Thank you for reading this and please take a
look at the people on [`/signalboost`](/signalboost).
Be well.

189
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@ -1,189 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Site Update: Rewrite in Rust"
date: 2020-07-16
tags:
- rust
---
# Site Update: Rewrite in Rust
Hello there! You are reading this post thanks to a lot of effort, research and
consultation that has resulted in a complete from-scratch rewrite of this
website in [Rust](https://rust-lang.org). The original implementation in Go is
available [here](https://github.com/Xe/site/releases/tag/v1.5.0) should anyone
want to reference that for any reason.
If you find any issues with the [RSS feed](/blog.rss), [Atom feed](/blog.atom)
or [JSONFeed](/blog.json), please let me know as soon as possible so I can fix
them.
This website stands on the shoulder of giants. Here are just a few of those and
how they add up into this whole package.
## comrak
All of my posts are written in
[markdown](https://github.com/Xe/site/blob/master/blog/all-there-is-is-now-2019-05-25.markdown).
[comrak](https://github.com/kivikakk/comrak) is a markdown parser written by a
friend of mine that is as fast and as correct as possible. comrak does the job
of turning all of that markdown (over 150 files at the time of writing this
post) into the HTML that you are reading right now. It also supports a lot of
common markdown extensions, which I use heavily in my posts.
## warp
[warp](https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp) is the web framework I use for Rust.
It gives users a set of filters that add up into entire web applications. For an
example, see this example from its readme:
```rust
use warp::Filter;
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
// GET /hello/warp => 200 OK with body "Hello, warp!"
let hello = warp::path!("hello" / String)
.map(|name| format!("Hello, {}!", name));
warp::serve(hello)
.run(([127, 0, 0, 1], 3030))
.await;
}
```
This can then be built up into something like this:
```rust
let site = index
.or(contact.or(feeds).or(resume.or(signalboost)).or(patrons))
.or(blog_index.or(series.or(series_view).or(post_view)))
.or(gallery_index.or(gallery_post_view))
.or(talk_index.or(talk_post_view))
.or(jsonfeed.or(atom).or(rss.or(sitemap)))
.or(files.or(css).or(favicon).or(sw.or(robots)))
.or(healthcheck.or(metrics_endpoint).or(go_vanity_jsonfeed))
// ...
```
which is the actual routing setup for this website!
## ructe
In the previous version of this site, I used Go's
[html/template](https://godoc.org/html/template). Rust does not have an
equivalent of html/template in its standard library. After some research, I
settled on [ructe](https://github.com/kaj/ructe) for the HTML templates. ructe
works by preprocessing templates using a little domain-specific language that
compiles down to Rust source code. This makes the templates become optimized
with the rest of the program and enables my website to render most pages in less
than 100 microseconds. Here is an example template (the one for
[/patrons](/patrons)):
```html
@use patreon::Users;
@use super::{header_html, footer_html};
@(users: Users)
@:header_html(Some("Patrons"), None)
<h1>Patrons</h1>
<p>These awesome people donate to me on <a href="https://patreon.com/cadey">Patreon</a>.
If you would like to show up in this list, please donate to me on Patreon. This
is refreshed every time the site is deployed.</p>
<p>
<ul>
@for user in users {
<li>@user.attributes.full_name</li>
}
</ul>
</p>
@:footer_html()
```
The templates compile down to Rust, which lets me include other parts of the
program into the templates. Here I use that to take a list of users from the
incredibly hacky Patreon API client I wrote for this website and iterate over
it, making a list of every patron by name.
## Build Process
As a nice side effect of this rewrite, my website is now completely built using
[Nix](https://nixos.org/). This allows the website to be built reproducibly, as
well as a full development environment setup for free for anyone that checks out
the repo and runs `nix-shell`. Check out
[naersk](https://github.com/nmattia/naersk) for the secret sauce that enables my
docker image build. See [this blogpost](/blog/drone-kubernetes-cd-2020-07-10)
for more information about this build process (though my site uses GitHub
Actions instead of Drone).
## `jsonfeed` Go package
I used to have a [JSONFeed](https://www.jsonfeed.org/) package publicly visible
at the go import path `christine.website/jsonfeed`. As far as I know I'm the
only person who ended up using it; but in case there are any private repos that
I don't know about depending on it, I have made the jsonfeed package available
at its old location as well as its source code
[here](https://tulpa.dev/Xe/jsonfeed). You may have to update your `go.mod` file
to import `christine.website/jsonfeed` instead of `christine.website`. If
something ends up going wrong as a result of this, please [file a GitHub issue
here](https://github.com/Xe/site/issues/new) and I can attempt to assist
further.
## `go_vanity` crate
I have written a small go vanity import crate and exposed it in my Git repo. If
you want to use it, add it to your `Cargo.toml` like this:
```toml
[dependencies]
go_vanity = { git = "https://github.com/Xe/site", branch = "master" }
```
You can then use it from any warp application by calling `go_vanity::github` or
`go_vanity::gitea` like this:
```rust
let go_vanity_jsonfeed = warp::path("jsonfeed")
.and(warp::any().map(move || "christine.website/jsonfeed"))
.and(warp::any().map(move || "https://tulpa.dev/Xe/jsonfeed"))
.and_then(go_vanity::gitea);
```
I plan to add full documentation to this crate soon as well as release it
properly on crates.io.
## `patreon` crate
I have also written a small [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/) API client and
made it available in my Git repo. If you want to use it, add it to your
`Cargo.toml` like this:
```toml
[dependencies]
patreon = { git = "https://github.com/Xe/site", branch = "master" }
```
This client is _incredibly limited_ and only supports the minimum parts of the
Patreon API that are required for my website to function. Patreon has also
apparently started to phase out support for its API anyways, so I don't know how
long this will be useful.
But this is there should you need it!
## Dhall Kubernetes Manifest
I also took the time to port the kubernetes manifest to
[Dhall](https://dhall-lang.org/). This allows me to have a type-safe kubernetes
manifest that will correctly have all of the secrets injected for me from the
environment of the deploy script.
---
These are the biggest giants that my website now sits on. The code for this
rewrite is still a bit messy. I'm working on making it better, but my goal is to
have this website's code shine as an example of how to best write this kind of
website in Rust. Check out the code [here](https://github.com/Xe/site).

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@ -1,69 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Site Update: RSS Bandwidth Fixes"
date: 2021-01-14
tags:
- devops
- optimization
---
# Site Update: RSS Bandwidth Fixes
Well, so I think I found out where my Kubernetes cluster cost came from. For
context, this blog gets a lot of traffic. Since the last deploy, my blog has
served its RSS feed over 19,000 times. I have some pretty naiive code powering
the RSS feed. It basically looked something like this:
- Write RSS feed content-type and beginning of feed
- For every post I have ever made, include its metadata and content
- Write end of RSS feed
This code was _fantastically simple_ to develop, however it was very expensive
in terms of bandwidth. When you add all this up, my RSS feed used to be more
than a _one megabyte_ response. It was also only getting larger as I posted more
content.
This is unsustainable, so I have taken multiple actions to try and fix this from
several angles.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rationale: this is my
most commonly hit and largest endpoint. I want to try and cut down its size.
<br><br>current feed (everything): 1356706 bytes<br>20 posts: 177931 bytes<br>10
posts: 53004 bytes<br>5 posts: 29318 bytes <a
href="https://t.co/snjnn8RFh8">pic.twitter.com/snjnn8RFh8</a></p>&mdash; Cadey
A. Ratio (@theprincessxena) <a
href="https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1349892662871150594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
15, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async
src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
[Yes, that graph is showing in _gigabytes_. We're so lucky that bandwidth is
free on Hetzner.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
First I finally set up the site to run behind Cloudflare. The Cloudflare
settings are set very permissively, so your RSS feed reading bots or whatever
should NOT be affected by this change. If you run into any side effects as a
result of this change, [contact me](/contact) and I can fix it.
Second, I also now set cache control headers on every response. By default the
"static" pages are cached for a day and the "dynamic" pages are cached for 5
minutes. This should allow new posts to show up quickly as they have previously.
Thirdly, I set up
[ETags](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag) for the
feeds. Each of my feeds will send an ETag in a response header. Please use this
tag in future requests to ensure that you don't ask for content you already
have. From what I recall most RSS readers should already support this, however
I'll monitor the situation as reality demands.
Lastly, I adjusted the
[ttl](https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html#ltttlgtSubelementOfLtchannelgt) of
the RSS feed so that compliant feed readers should only check once per day. I've
seen some feed readers request the feed up to every 5 minutes, which is very
excessive. Hopefully this setting will gently nudge them into behaving.
As a nice side effect I should have slightly lower ram usage on the blog server
too! Right now it's sitting at about 58 and a half MB of ram, however with fewer
copies of my posts sitting in memory this should fall by a significant amount.
If you have any feedback about this, please [contact me](/contact) or mention me
on Twitter. I read my email frequently and am notified about Twitter mentions
very quickly.

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@ -1,380 +0,0 @@
---
title: Super Bootable 64
date: 2020-05-06
series: howto
tags:
- witchcraft
- supermario64
- nixos
---
# Super Bootable 64
[Super Mario 64][sm64] was the launch title of the [Nintendo 64][n64] in 1996.
This game revolutionized an entire generation and everything following it by
delivering fast, smooth and fun 3d platforming gameplay to gamers all over the
world. This game is still played today by speedrunners, who do everything from
beating it while collecting every star, the minimum amount of stars normally
required, 0 stars and [without pressing the A jump button][wfrrpannenkoek].
[sm64]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64
[n64]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64
[wfrrpannenkoek]: https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A
This game was the launch title of the Nintendo 64. As such, the SDK used to
develop it was pre-release and [had an optimization bug that forced the game to
be shipped without optimizations due to random crashiness issues][mvgo0] (watch
the linked video for more information on this than I can summarize here).
Remember that the Nintendo 64 shipped games on write-once ROM cartridges, so any
bug that could cause the game to crash randomly was fatal.
[mvgo0]: https://youtu.be/NKlbE2eROC0
When compiling something _without_ optimizations, the output binary is
effectively a 1:1 copy of the input source code. This means that exceptionally
clever people could theoretically go in, decompile your code and then create
identical source code that could be used to create a byte-for-byte identical
copy of your program's binary. But surely nobody would do that, that would be
crazy, wouldn't it?
![Noooo! You can't just port a Nintendo 64 game to LibGL! They're
completely different hardware! It wouldn't respect the wishes of the creators!
Hahaha porting machine go brrrrrrrr](/static/blog/portingmachinegobrrr.png)
Someone did. The fruits of this effort are available [here][sm64dc]. This was
mostly a proof of concept and is a masterpiece in its own right. However,
because it was decompiled, this means that the engine itself could theoretically
be ported to run on any other platform such as Windows, Linux, the Nintendo
Switch or even a [browser][sm64browser].
[sm64dc]: https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64
[sm64browser]: https://froggi.es/mario/
[Someone did this][sm64pcnews] and ended up posting it on 4chan. Thanks to a
friend, I got my hands on the Linux-compatible source code of this port and made
an archive of it [on my git server][sm66pcsauce]. My fork of it has only
minimal changes needed for it to build in NixOS.
[sm64pcnews]: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/a-full-mario-64-pc-port-has-been-released/
[sm66pcsauce]: https://tulpa.dev/saved/sm64pc
[nixos-generators][nixosgenerators] is a tool that lets you create custom NixOS
system definitions based on a NixOS module as input. So, let's create a bootable
ISO of Super Mario 64 running on Linux!
[nixosgenerators]: https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-generators
## Setup
You will need an amd64 Linux system. NixOS is preferable, but any Linux system
should _theoretically_ work. You will also need the following things:
- `sm64.us.z64` (the release rom of Super Mario 64 in the US version 1.0) with
an sha1 sum of `9bef1128717f958171a4afac3ed78ee2bb4e86ce`
- nixos-generators installed (`nix-env -f
https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-generators/archive/master.tar.gz -i`)
So, let's begin by creating a folder named `boot2sm64`:
```console
$ mkdir ~/code/boot2sm64
```
Then let's create a file called `configuration.nix` and put some standard
boilerplate into it:
```nix
# configuration.nix
{ pkgs, lib, ... }:
{
networking.hostName = "its-a-me";
}
```
And then let's add [dwm][dwm] as the window manager. This setup will be a little
bit more complicated because we are going to need to add a custom configuration
as well as a patch to the source code for auto-starting Super Mario 64. Create a
folder called `dwm` and run the following commands in it to download the config
we need and the autostart patch:
[dwm]: https://dwm.suckless.org/
```console
$ mkdir dwm
$ cd dwm
$ wget -O autostart.patch https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/autostart/dwm-autostart-20161205-bb3bd6f.diff
$ wget -O config.h https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Xe/f5fae8b7a0d996610707189d2133041f/raw/7043ca2ab5f8cf9d986aaa79c5c505841945766c/dwm_config.h
```
And then add the following before the opening curly brace:
```nix
{ pkgs, lib, ... }:
let
dwm = with pkgs;
let name = "dwm-6.2";
in stdenv.mkDerivation {
inherit name;
src = fetchurl {
url = "https://dl.suckless.org/dwm/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "03hirnj8saxnsfqiszwl2ds7p0avg20izv9vdqyambks00p2x44p";
};
buildInputs = with pkgs; [ xorg.libX11 xorg.libXinerama xorg.libXft ];
prePatch = ''sed -i "s@/usr/local@$out@" config.mk'';
postPatch = ''
cp ${./dwm/config.h} ./config.h
'';
patches = [ ./dwm/autostart.patch ];
buildPhase = " make ";
meta = {
homepage = "https://suckless.org/";
description = "Dynamic window manager for X";
license = stdenv.lib.licenses.mit;
maintainers = with stdenv.lib.maintainers; [ viric ];
platforms = with stdenv.lib.platforms; all;
};
};
in {
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ hack-font st dwm ];
networking.hostName = "its-a-me";
}
```
Now let's create the mario user:
```nix
{
# ...
users.users.mario = { isNormalUser = true; };
system.activationScripts = {
base-dirs = {
text = ''
mkdir -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/mario
'';
deps = [ ];
};
};
services.xserver.windowManager.session = lib.singleton {
name = "dwm";
start = ''
${dwm}/bin/dwm &
waitPID=$!
'';
};
services.xserver.enable = true;
services.xserver.displayManager.defaultSession = "none+dwm";
services.xserver.displayManager.lightdm.enable = true;
services.xserver.displayManager.lightdm.autoLogin.enable = true;
services.xserver.displayManager.lightdm.autoLogin.user = "mario";
}
```
The autostart file is going to be located in `/home/mario/.dwm/autostart.sh`. We
could try and place it manually on the filesystem with a NixOS module, or we
could use [home-manager][hm] to do this for us. Let's have home-manager do this
for us. First, install home-manager:
[hm]: https://rycee.gitlab.io/home-manager/
```console
$ nix-channel --add https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/archive/release-20.03.tar.gz home-manager
$ nix-channel --update
```
Then let's add home-manager to this config:
```nix
{
# ...
imports = [ <home-manager/nixos> ];
home-manager.users.mario = { config, pkgs, ... }: {
home.file = {
".dwm/autostart.sh" = {
executable = true;
text = ''
#!/bin/sh
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 # will be relevant later
'';
};
};
};
}
```
Now, for the creme de la creme of this project, let's build Super Mario 64. You
will need to get the base rom into your system's Nix store somehow. A half
decent way to do this is with [quickserv][quickserv]:
[quickserv]: https://tulpa.dev/Xe/quickserv
```console
$ nix-env -if https://tulpa.dev/Xe/quickserv/archive/master.tar.gz
$ cd /path/to/folder/with/baserom.us.z64
$ quickserv -dir . -port 9001 &
$ nix-prefetch-url http://127.0.0.1:9001/baserom.us.z64
```
This will pre-populate your Nix store with the rom and should return the
following hash:
```
148xna5lq2s93zm0mi2pmb98qb5n9ad6sv9dky63y4y68drhgkhp
```
If this hash is wrong, then you need to find the correct rom. I cannot help you
with this.
Now, let's create a simple derivation for the Super Mario 64 PC port. I have a
tweaked version that is optimized for NixOS, which we will use for this. Add the
following between the `dwm` package define and the `in` statement:
```nix
# ...
sm64pc = with pkgs;
let
baserom = fetchurl {
url = "http://127.0.0.1:9001/baserom.us.z64";
sha256 = "148xna5lq2s93zm0mi2pmb98qb5n9ad6sv9dky63y4y68drhgkhp";
};
in stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
pname = "sm64pc";
version = "latest";
buildInputs = [
gnumake
python3
audiofile
pkg-config
SDL2
libusb1
glfw3
libgcc
xorg.libX11
xorg.libXrandr
libpulseaudio
alsaLib
glfw
libGL
unixtools.hexdump
];
src = fetchgit {
url = "https://tulpa.dev/saved/sm64pc";
rev = "c69c75bf9beed9c7f7c8e9612e5e351855065120";
sha256 = "148pk9iqpcgzwnxlcciqz0ngy6vsvxiv5lp17qg0bs7ph8ly3k4l";
};
buildPhase = ''
chmod +x ./extract_assets.py
cp ${baserom} ./baserom.us.z64
make
'';
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/bin
cp ./build/us_pc/sm64.us.f3dex2e $out/bin/sm64pc
'';
meta = with stdenv.lib; {
description = "Super Mario 64 PC port, requires rom :)";
};
};
# ...
```
And then add `sm64pc` to the system packages:
```nix
{
# ...
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ st hack-font dwm sm64pc ];
# ...
}
```
As well as to the autostart script from before:
```nix
{
# ...
home-manager.users.mario = { config, pkgs, ... }: {
home.file = {
".dwm/autostart.sh" = {
executable = true;
text = ''
#!/bin/sh
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
${sm64pc}/bin/sm64pc
'';
};
};
};
}
```
Finally let's enable some hardware support so it's easier to play this bootable
game:
```nix
{
# ...
hardware.pulseaudio.enable = true;
virtualisation.virtualbox.guest.enable = true;
virtualisation.vmware.guest.enable = true;
}
```
Altogether you should have a `configuration.nix` that looks like
[this][confignix].
[confignix]: https://gist.github.com/Xe/935920193cfac70c718b657a088f3417#file-configuration-nix
So let's build the ISO!
```console
$ nixos-generate -f iso -c configuration.nix
```
Much output later, you will end up with a path that will look something like
this:
```
/nix/store/fzk3psrd3m6x437m6xh9pc7bnv2v44ax-nixos.iso/iso/nixos.iso
```
This is your bootable image of Super Mario 64. Copy it to a good temporary
folder (like your downloads folder):
```console
cp /nix/store/fzk3psrd3m6x437m6xh9pc7bnv2v44ax-nixos.iso/iso/nixos.iso ~/Downloads/mario64.iso
```
Now you are free to do whatever you want with this, including [booting it in a
virtual machine][bootinvmmp4].
[bootinvmmp4]: /static/blog/boot2mario.mp4
This is why I use NixOS. It enables me to do absolutely crazy things like
creating a bootable ISO of Super Mario 64 without having to understand how to
create ISO files by hand or how bootloaders on Linux work in ISO files.
It Just Works.

30
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@ -111,23 +111,33 @@ Make sure to remove the TempleOS live CD from your hardware or it will be booted
The [TempleOS Bootloader](https://github.com/Xe/TempleOS/blob/1dd8859b7803355f41d75222d01ed42d5dda057f/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHDIns.HC#L69) presents a helpful menu to let you choose if you want to boot from a copy of the old boot record (preserved at install time), drive C or drive D. Press 1:
<center>
![TempleOS boot, picking the partition](/static/img/tos/tos_boot_1.png)
</center>
The first boot requires the dictionary to be uncompressed as well as other housekeeping chores, so let it do its thing:
<center>
![TempleOS boot, chores](/static/img/tos/tos_boot_2.png)
</center>
Once it is done, you will see if the option to take the tour. I highly suggest going through this tour, but that is beyond the scope of this article, so we'll assume you pressed `n`:
<center>
![TempleOS boot, denying the tour](/static/img/tos/tos_boot_3.png)
</center>
### Using the Compiler
<center>
![TempleOS boot, HolyC prompt](/static/img/tos/tos_boot_4.png)
</center>
The "shell" is itself an interface to the HolyC (similar to C) compiler. There is no difference between a "shell" REPL and a HolyC repl. This is stupidly powerful:
<center>
![TempleOS hello world](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_1.png)
</center>
```
"Hello, world\n";
@ -137,25 +147,37 @@ Let's make this into a "program" and disassemble it. This is way easier than it
Open a new file with `Ed("HelloWorld.HC");` (the semicolon is important):
<center>
![TempleOS opening a file](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_2.png)
</center>
<center>
![TempleOS editor screen](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_3.png)
</center>
Now press Alt-Shift-a to kill autocomplete:
<center>
![TempleOS sans autocomplete](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_4.png)
</center>
Click the `X` in the upper right-hand corner to close the other shell window:
<center>
![TempleOS sans other window](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_5.png)
</center>
Finally press drag the right side of the window to maximize the editor pane:
<center>
![TempleOS full screen editor](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_6.png)
</center>
Let's put the hello word example into the program and press `F5` to run it:
<center>
![TempleOS hello world in a file](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_7.png)
</center>
Neat! Close that shell window that just popped up. Let's put this hello world code into a function:
@ -169,7 +191,9 @@ HelloWorld;
Now press `F5` again:
<center>
![TempleOS hello world from a function](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_8.png)
</center>
Let's disassemble it:
@ -181,7 +205,9 @@ U0 HelloWorld() {
Uf("HelloWorld");
```
<center>
![TempleOS hello world disassembled](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_9.png)
</center>
The `Uf` function also works with anything else, including things like the editor:
@ -189,11 +215,15 @@ The `Uf` function also works with anything else, including things like the edito
Uf("Ed");
```
<center>
![TempleOS editor disassembled](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_10.png)
</center>
All of the red underscored things that look like links actually are links to the source code of functions. While the HolyC compiler builds things, it internally keeps a sourcemap (much like webapp sourcemaps or how gcc relates errors at runtime to lines of code for the developer) of all of the functions it compiles. Let's look at the definition of `Free()`:
<center>
![TempleOS Free() function](/static/img/tos/tos_compiler_11.png)
</center>
And from here you can dig deeper into the kernel source code.

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@ -1,338 +0,0 @@
---
title: "The Dwarven Cavern - A Beginner 6E Adventure"
date: 2020-06-28
series: thesource
tags:
- 6e
---
# The Dwarven Cavern - A Beginner 6E Adventure
Recently itch.io had [one of the largest game bundles in history][itchbundle]
and one of the things in it was this humble game named [6E][6e]. Some friends
and I have started up a small group that meets on the weekends to spend a few
hours with an adventure. I've been writing a few adventures for them, and I
would like to start sharing their archetypes. These will all be included in a
small zine that describes the systems we have built on top of 6E that I'm
calling [The Source](https://www.patreon.com/posts/source-v0-1-38587786). This
PDF will be available publicly once it is closer to done (however if you really
want a copy early on to dig at it, let me know and we can surely work something
out).
[itchbundle]: https://itch.io/b/520/bundle-for-racial-justice-and-equality
[6e]: https://s-jared.itch.io/6e
Today, I would like to share the details that went into writing the most recent
adventure: The Dwarven Cavern. This was derived from One Page Dungeons by
[Geoffrey Cullop](https://twitter.com/cullopgeoffrey), specifically this is a
variant of Kobold Caverns on page 5. Please note that the experience, gold and
hitpoints of enemies are balanced for the group I play with, and will probably
need to be adjusted for other parties of adventurers. This should work for
players at level 1-3. By the end they should gain enough experience to level up
once. My group is also very stun-heavy, so that makes my job of attempting to
balance things really interesting.
Like most great adventures, this starts at a humble tavern, The Flying
Ombudsman.
## The Flying Ombudsman
The players start off in The Flying Ombudsman, a tavern in the town of
LAST\_TOWN\_YOUR\_PLAYERS\_WERE\_IN. There are a few people sitting at the bar
and drinking steamy mugs of grog. There is a salesperson sitting at one of the
tables fidgeting with a golden scepter head and looks like she has plenty of
items should people want them. There is someone rather sad sitting at another of
the tables, looking like he has suffered a great loss.
For extra immersion, have the NPC's speak with a slightly Irish accent. For
extra fun, throw in random words from scottish, english and australian accents.
Keeps the players thinking.
When players ask the bartender for a mug o' grog, he will sell them one for 5
gold (limit 4 each player). If players ask for the history behind the name,
explain to the players the information in The Story of Hol below.
The salesperson at the top sells the following:
| Name | Effect | Price |
| :---------------------- | :--------------------------------------------------------------- | :------- |
| 3x potion of cure poison | Cures poison and grants 2hp | 15g each |
| Golden Scepter head | Doesn't look like it does anything if it's not on top of a staff | 50g |
You may want to add a few more items to this list. I need to draw up a table
for items that salespeople like this can have.
The salesperson can also get you a room at the inn for 30g. It is big enough to
hold all of the party.
When players talk to the person at the bottom, they get a sad story about the
hoe-pocalypse that threatens the end of the village the person comes from.
Dwarves snuck up from underground and stole the hoe from him, making it
difficult to feed his hamlet. He asks the adventurers to go to the cavern the
dwarves live in and get them back. The players should eventually agree to do it,
and the NPC will progressively offer more and more gold as a reward. A charisma
check will get him to throw in some salted meat as a reward.
### The Story of Hol
The bartender previously ran a failing tavern, and was running out of hope and
money. One day, the bartender found a weird looking mug and found that it could
be used to talk with the gods. He eventually found a god named Hol. Hol offered
him the recipe for the strongest alcohol he could possibly make, for a price.
The bartender agreed without further thought and gained the ability to make
intensely strong alcohol, but lost his ability to negotiate permanently.
One day the local ombudsman got news of how strong the liquor was and decided to
enforce some obscure liquor control law to get the strength reduced. The bartender
refused to negotiate and it escalated into a situation where the bartender kicked
the ombudsman so hard that he flew into the wall. People started calling the
tavern "the place where the ombudsman flew" and that eventually evolved into the
name The Flying Ombudsman.
Business has been booming ever since.
## The Cave
The first part has 1 mechanical trap around the second corner, players will need
to work their way through it with low light or to grab a working torch off the
wall. The trap does 1d4 damage.
The tunnel opens into a guard station, the dwarf archers wait behind cover for
players to get in range of their shortbows. If they get within 10 feet of the
archers, they fall back to the room behind them to the left. The Archers have 6
hp and grant 100xp on defeat.
The room behind and to the left is a labratory that is very well-lit. Lots of
weird liquid in flasks, scientific equipment, etc. There is a Dwarf Grenadier
there and will attack you on sight. He throws alchemical grenades at range (1d6
damage, =6 -> random elemental effect), If the players get within melee range of
the Grenadier then he will use a poisoned dagger. If the guards retreated then
he will use them as meat shields. He has 25 hp. He drops 1d4 alchemical grenades
and also drops his poisoned dagger. He grants 300xp on defeat.
The bigger chamber is the dwarven living area. Plenty of beds to hide behind,
but there are 1d6 dwarves living in there. They attack on sight, but flee south
if their attack goes poorly. The dwarves each grant 100xp on defeat. There is a
chest in there that is actually a mimic. It drops an Amulet of Chest on defeat.
The room south is the home of Bubba the Bugbear, a hired goon of the dwarves.
Bubba and the remaining dwarves make their last stand here. Bubba grants 500xp
on defeat and has 30hp and 1d6+2 attack damage with his giant club.
The final room is the treasure room, which contains the stolen hoe, some other
farming equipment and 250 gold. After this the dungeon is cleared and players
gain experience from their journey, then go back to The Flying Ombudsman
victorious. The quest NPC will award them with however many gold they agreed to
and any items they also agreed to.
## Enemies
### Dwarf Archer
*Decent guard, horrible foresight*
- **Hit Points** 6
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| 0 | +1 | 0 | -2 | -2 | 0 |
- **Condition Immunities** drunk, groggy
- **Senses** Night-vision
- **Languages** Dwarf
- **Challenge** 2 (100xp)
***Keep-away.*** Will flee at the first sign of trouble.
#### Actions
***Crossbow.*** *Ranged Attack:* 1d4 damage
### Dwarf Grenadier
*Mad scientist, crazier inventions*
- **Hit Points** 25
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| 0 | +1 | -2 | +2 | 0 | +1 |
- **Condition Immunities** drunk, groggy
- **Senses** Night-vision
- **Languages** Dwarf
- **Challenge** 6 (300xp)
***Insane.*** Will do things that normal enemies would not.
#### Actions
***Alchemical Grenade.*** *Ranged Attack:* 1d6 damage plus elemental effect if
6 damage. See table for Alchemical Grenades.
***Poisoned Dagger.*** *Melee Attack:* 1d4 damage. On hit player must roll for
constitution. If the check fails they get _disadvantage_ for their throws the
next 1d3 turns.
### Dwarf
*Underground folk that love digging*
**Hit Points** 6
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| 0 | +1 | 0 | -2 | -2 | 0 |
- **Condition Immunities** drunk, groggy
- **Senses** Night-vision
- **Languages** Dwarf
- **Challenge** 2 (100xp)
***Short and Stout.*** Easily able to hit enemies below the belt.
#### Actions
***Dagger.*** *Melee Attack:* 1d4 damage
### Mimic
*Just an ordinary chest, don't question it*
- **Hit Points** 14
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | -1 |
- **Condition Immunities** burn, poison
- **Languages** None
- **Challenge** 5 (250xp)
***Unsuspicious.*** Come on, the chest wouldn't be alive, would it?
#### Actions
***Omnomnom*** *Melee Attack:* 1d6 piercing damage, gets advantage if the player
tries to open the chest.
### Bubba the Bugbear
*From Bubba with Love*
- **Hit Points** 30
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| +2 | +2 | +1 | -2 | 0 | -1 |
- **Condition Immunities** blinded
- **Languages** Dwarf
- **Challenge** 10 (500xp)
***Unreasonable.*** Does not respond well to trickery.
#### Actions
***Whomp.*** *Melee Attack:* 1d6+2 damage, piercing if the player fails a
constitution check.
## Items
These are the unique items specific to this quest.
### Mug of Grog
A wooden/iron mug full of the barkeep's grog. Consuming it gives you the
following stat boosts for 3 turns:
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| +0 | -1 | +0 | -1 | -1 | +3 |
This bonus does not stack. When you drink the grog, you keep the mug and can use
it to bludgeon people for normal attack damage. It can also be used as a tool to
check for traps.
Does not sell, purchasable for 5g.
### Golden Scepter Head
A golden scepter head that looks like The Grand Nagus from Star Trek. It has no
effect outside of when it's put on a staff. When it is on a staff it gives you
25% more gold when you collect gold from places. This has 5 charges and cannot
be refreshed.
Sells for 50g, purchases for 50g.
### Alchemical Grenades
Standard grenades that look like they are made out of wood, metal, insanity and
magic. They do d6 damage normally, but when you crit with one it also causes one
of the following status effects (roll a d4):
#### Alchemical Effects
| Roll | Effect |
| :----: | :------------- |
| 1 | Acid makes the entity take off their armor |
| 2 | The entity rolls a constitution check, if it fails they get poisoned and need to roll for constitution before every action, passing removes the poison, failing makes them not have any action. |
| 3 | The entity is burned for 1d4 damage every turn they fail a constitution check. |
| 4 | The entity is stunned for 1d3 turns. |
Sells for 25g each, unpurchaseable.
### Poisoned Dagger
A standard dagger that gives no distinct bonuses. However when you use it as a
normal dagger, you need to roll for constitution in addition to rolling for
strength. If you fail the constitution check (but pass the strength check), you
get poisoned from the poison streaking out of the dagger.
The poison has 5 charges.
Merchants do not want to take the risk buying it and will have you pay them for its
disposal. This cannot be purchased.
### Bubba's Clubba
A rather large mace that does +2 damage. It is a giant thing designed for a
9-foot tall centaur. It takes up three slots in your inventory. It looks
imposing and may require a lot of strength to use properly.
Sells for 25g.
### Amulet of Chest
This cursed amulet lets the holder transform into a harmless looking treasure
chest, but also grants them advantage if an enemy tries to open it. After 4
transformations, they need to roll a charisma check when they try to turn back.
If that fails, they stay a chest for an hour (with arms/legs/a mouth/etc). After
4 more transformations, they turn into a mimic permanently. The transformation
count stays persistent until someone becomes a mimic, then it resets to zero.
Merchants will pay 100 gold for it, but will only accept it after the player
rolls for charisma.
## Dungeon Map
![](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/6E/img/kja4u2A.png)
## Adventure Highlights
When I ran this yesterday, the following amazing things happened:
- The players used a crossbow from a previous adventure and a torch to hit the
grenades held by the grenadier, vaporizing it from 5 grenades exploding at once.
- The Artificer shield-bashed one of the dwarves so hard that it ricocheted into
the other dwarves like pool balls. That caused a lot of damage to all of the
enemies.
- The Monk critted a Ki art and shredded an archer with their claws, making the
other archer flee.
- The Thief straight up banished a dwarf to the shadow realm with a slingshot
hit.
I still wonder how they are going to use that Cursed Amulet of Chest though.
---
Thank you [@infinite_mao](https://twitter.com/infinite_mao) for making 6E. I can
only hope that my buying your stuff separately and making this content for 6E
can help give back to the community.
Feedback on the balance of this is very welcome. I openly welcome any and all
feedback about how this quest could be rebalanced to be a bit less lopsided in
favor of the players. I also wanted to err on the side of balancing towards the
players to avoid an unwanted party death.

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---
title: The Itch
date: 2020-10-11
tags:
- 100DaysToOffload
---
# The Itch
I write a lot. I code a lot. This leads to people asking me questions like "how
do you have the energy to do that?" or "why do you keep doing that day in and
day out?". I was reading [this
post](https://aarontag.dev/2020/06/14/the-urge.html) that I found linked in the
Forbidden Orange Site's comments and it really resonated with me.
At the core, I have this deep burning sensation to try things out to see what
they are like. It's like this itch deep in me that I can only scratch with
writing, coding or sometimes even just answering people's questions in
chatrooms. This itch is a catalyst to my productivity. It powers my daily work
and makes me able to do what I do in order to make things better for everyone.
However, sometimes the itch isn't there. Sometimes it makes me want to focus on
something else. Trying to do something else without the itch empowering me can
feel like swimming upstream with heavy chains wrapped around me. My greatest
boon is simultaneously my greatest vice.
I don't really know how to handle the days where it's not working. I try to save
up my sick and vacation days so that I can avoid burning myself out on the bad
days. Things like this are why I am a huge fan of unlimited vacation policies.
Unlimited vacation does mean that I get paid out less money when I leave a job;
however it means that I have the freedom to have bad days and let the good days
tank me through the bad days so that I come out above average.
Trying to explain this to people can feel stressful. Especially to a manager.
I've had some bad experiences with that in the past. Phrase this wrong, and some
people will hear "I don't want to do this work ever" instead of "I can't do this
work today". This especially sucks when deadlines roll in and that vital itch
goes away, leaving me at half capacity at the worst possible time.
This itch leads me to set increasing standards on myself too. It's had some
negative sides in that it makes me feel like I need to make everything better
than the last thing. Each post better than the previous ones. Each project
implementation better than the last. Onwards and onwards into a spiral that sets
the bar so high I stress myself out trying to approach it.
I haven't kept to my informal goal to have at least one post per week on this
blog because of that absurdly high standard I set for myself. I'm going to try
and change this. I'm going to start participating in [100 days to
offload](https://100daystooffload.com). Expect some shorter and more focused
posts for the immediate future. I am going to be working on the Rust series,
however each part of it will be in isolation from here on out instead of the
longer multifaceted posts.
This is day 1 of my 100 days to offload.
Also be sure to check out my post on
[Palisade](https://tech.lightspeedhq.com/palisade-version-bumping-at-scale-in-ci/),
a version bumping tool for GitHub repositories.

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---
title: The Source Version 1.0.0 Release
date: 2020-12-25
tags:
- ttrpg
---
# The Source Version 1.0.0 Release
After hours of work and adjustment, I have finally finished version 1 of my
tabletop roleplaying game The Source. It is available on
[itch.io](https://withinstudios.itch.io/q7rvfw33fw) with an added 50% discount
for readers of my blog. This discount will only last for the next two weeks.
<iframe src="https://itch.io/embed/866470?linkback=true" width="552"
height="167" frameborder="0"><a
href="https://withinstudios.itch.io/the-source">The Source by
Within</a></iframe>
Patrons (of any price tier) can claim a free copy
[here](https://withinstudios.itch.io/the-source/patreon-access). Your support
gives me so much.
Merry christmas all.

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---
title: Thoughts on Nix
date: 2020-01-28
tags:
- nix
- packaging
- dependencies
---
# Thoughts on Nix
EDIT(M02 20 2020): I've written a bit of a rebuttal to my own post
[here](https://christine.website/blog/i-was-wrong-about-nix-2020-02-10). I am
keeping this post up for posterity.
I don't really know how I feel about [Nix][nix]. It's a functional package
manager that's designed to help with dependency hell. It also lets you define
packages using [Nix][nixlang], which is an identically named yet separate thing.
Nix has _untyped_ expressions that help you build packages like this:
[nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
[nixlang]: https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#chap-writing-nix-expressions
```nix
{ stdenv, fetchurl, perl }:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "hello-2.1.1";
builder = ./builder.sh;
src = fetchurl {
url = ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/gnu/hello/hello-2.1.1.tar.gz;
sha256 = "1md7jsfd8pa45z73bz1kszpp01yw6x5ljkjk2hx7wl800any6465";
};
inherit perl;
}
```
In theory, this is great. It's obvious what needs to be done to the system in
order for the "hello, world" package and what it depends on (in this case it
depends on only the standard environment because there's no additional
dependencies specified), to the point that this approach lets you avoid all
major forms of [DLL hell][dllhell], while at the same time creating its own form
of hell: [nixpkgs][nixpkgs], or the main package source of Nix.
[dllhell]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_Hell
[nixpkgs]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/
Now, you may ask, how do you get that hash? Try and build the package with an
obviously false hash and use the correct one from the output of the build
command! That seems safe!
Let's say you have a modern app that has dependencies with npm, Go and Elm.
Let's focus on the Go side for now. How would we do that when using Go modules?
```nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
let
x = buildGoModule rec {
name = "Xe-x-${version}";
version = "1.2.3";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "Xe";
repo = "x";
rev = "v${version}";
sha256 = "0m2fzpqxk7hrbxsgqplkg7h2p7gv6s1miymv3gvw0cz039skag0s";
};
modSha256 = "1879j77k96684wi554rkjxydrj8g3hpp0kvxz03sd8dmwr3lh83j";
subPackages = [ "." ];
}
in {
x = x;
}
```
And this will fetch and build [the entirety of my `x` repo][Xex] into a single
massive package that includes _everything_. Let's say I want to break it up into
multiple packages so that I can install only one or two parts of it, such as my
[`license`][Xelicense] command:
[Xex]: https://github.com/Xe/x
[Xelicense]: https://github.com/Xe/x/blob/master/cmd/license/main.go
Let's make a function called `gomod.nix` that includes everything to build the
go modules:
```nix
# gomod.nix
pkgs: repo: modSha256: attrs:
with pkgs;
let defaultAttrs = {
src = repo;
modSha256 = modSha256;
};
in buildGoModule (defaultAttrs // attrs)
```
And then let's invoke this with a few of the commands in there:
```nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
let
stdenv = pkgs.stdenv;
version = "1.2.3";
repo = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "Xe";
repo = "x";
rev = "v${version}";
sha256 = "0m2fzpqxk7hrbxsgqplkg7h2p7gv6s1miymv3gvw0cz039skag0s";
};
modSha256 = "1879j77k96684wi554rkjxydrj8g3hpp0kvxz03sd8dmwr3lh83j";
mk = import ./gomod.nix pkgs repo modSha256;
appsluggr = mk {
name = "appsluggr";
version = version;
subPackages = [ "cmd/appsluggr" ];
};
johaus = mk {
name = "johaus";
version = version;
subPackages = [ "cmd/johaus" ];
};
license = mk {
name = "license";
version = version;
subPackages = [ "cmd/license" ];
};
prefix = mk {
name = "prefix";
version = version;
subPackages = [ "cmd/prefix" ];
};
in {
appsluggr = appsluggr;
johaus = johaus;
license = license;
prefix = prefix;
}
```
And when we build this, we notice that ALL of the dependencies for my `x` repo
(at least a hundred because it's got a lot of stuff in there) are downloaded
_FOUR TIMES_, even though they don't change between them. I could avoid this by
making each dependency its own Nix package, but that's not a productive use of
my time.
Add on having to do this for the Node dependencies, and the Elm dependencies and
this is at least 200 if not more packages needed for my relatively simple CRUD
app that has creative choices in technology.
Oh, even better, the build directory isn't writable. So when your third-tier
dependency has a generation step that assumes the build directory is writable,
you suddenly need to become an expert in how that tool works so you can shunt it
writing its files to another place. And then you need to make sure those files
don't end up places they shouldn't be, lest you fill your disk with unneeded
duplicate node\_modules folders that really shouldn't be there in the first
place (but are there because you gave up).
Then you need to make sure that works on another machine, because even though
Nix itself is "functionally pure" (save the heat generated by the CPU executing
your cloud-native, multitenant parallel adding service) this is a PACKAGE
MANAGER. You know, the things that handle STATE, like FILES on the DISK. That's
STATE. GLOBALLY MUTABLE STATE.
One of the main advantages of this approach is that the library dependencies of
every project are easy to reproduce on other machines. Consider the
[`ldd(1)`][ldd1] (which shows the dynamic libraries associated with a program)
output of `ls` on my Ubuntu system vs a package I installed from Nix:
[ldd1]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/ldd.1.html
```console
$ ldd $(which ls)
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd2a79f000)
libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007f00f0e16000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f00f0a25000)
libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007f00f07b3000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f00f05af000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f00f1260000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f00f0390000)
```
All of these dependencies are managed by [`apt(8)`][apt8] and are supposedly
reproducible on other Ubuntu systems. Compare this to the `ldd(1)` output of a
Nix program:
[apt8]: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/apt.8.html
```
$ ldd $(which dhall)
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff0516a000)
libm.so.6 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007fc20ed8d000)
libz.so.1 => /nix/store/a3q9zl42d0hmgwmgzwkxi5qd88055fh8-zlib-1.2.11/lib/libz.so.1 (0x00007fc20ed6e000)
libncursesw.so.6 => /nix/store/24xdpjcg2bkn2virdabnpncx6f98kgfw-ncurses-6.1-20190112/lib/libncursesw.so.6 (0x00007fc20ec8c000)
libpthread.so.0 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fc20ed4d000)
librt.so.1 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/librt.so.1 (0x00007fc20ed43000)
libutil.so.1 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/libutil.so.1 (0x00007fc20ed3c000)
libdl.so.2 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fc20ed37000)
libgmp.so.10 => /nix/store/4gmyxj5blhfbn6c7y3agxczrmsm2bhzv-gmp-6.1.2/lib/libgmp.so.10 (0x00007fc20ebf7000)
libffi.so.7 => /nix/store/qa8wyi9pckq1d3853sgmcc61gs53g0d3-libffi-3.3/lib/libffi.so.7 (0x00007fc20ed2a000)
libc.so.6 => /nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007fc20ea41000)
/nix/store/aag9d1y4wcddzzrpfmfp9lcmc7skd7jk-glibc-2.27/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fc20ecfe000)
```
Each dynamic library dependency has its package hash in the folder path. This
also means that the hash of its parent packages are present in there, which root
all the way back to where/when its ultimate parent package was built. This makes
Nix packages a kind of blockchain.
Nix also allows users to install their own packages into the _global_ nix store
at `/nix`. No, you can't change this, but you can symlink it to another place if
you (like me) have a partition setup with `/` having less disk space than
`/home`. You also need to set a special environment variable so Nix shuts up
about you doing this. This is _really fun_ on macOS Catalina where [the root
filesystem is read only][catalinareadonly]. There is a
[workaround][nixcatalinahack] (that I had to trawl into the depths of Google
page cache to get, because of course I did), but the [Nix team themselves seem
unaware of it][nixcatalinabug].
[catalinareadonly]: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT210650
[nixcatalinahack]: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lbaImO5JBJ4J:https://tutorials.technology/tutorials/using-nix-with-catalina.html+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
[nixcatalinabug]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2925
So, to recap: Nix is an attempt at a radically different approach to package
management. It assumes too much about the state of everything and puts odd
demands on people as a result. Language-specific package managers can and will
fight Nix unless they are explicitly designed to handle Nix's weirdness. As a
side effect of making its package management system usable by normal users, it
exposes the package manager database to corruption by any user mistake,
curl2bash or malicious program on the system. All that functional purity uwu and
statelessness can vanish into a puff of logic without warning.
[But everything's immutable so that means it's okay
right?](https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/RealWorldIsMutable)
---
[Based on this twitter
thread](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1221949146787209216?s=21) but
a LOT less sarcastic.

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---
title: Trisiel Update
date: 2020-12-04
series: olin
tags:
- trisiel
---
# Trisiel Update
The project I formerly called
[wasmcloud](/blog/wasmcloud-progress-domains-2020-10-31) has now been renamed to
Trisiel after the discovery of a name conflict. The main domain for Trisiel is
now https://trisiel.com to avoid any confusions between our two projects.
Planning for implementing and hosting Trisiel is still in progress. I will give
more updates as they are ready to be released. To get more up to the minute
information please follow the twitter account
[@trisielcloud](https://twitter.com/trisielcloud), I will be posting there as I
have more information.
> I am limitless. There is no cage or constraint that can corral me into one
> constant place. I am limitless. I can change, shift, overcome, transform,
> because I am not bound to a thing that serves me, and my body serves me.
Quantusum, James Mahu

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---
title: Plea to Twitter
date: 2020-12-14
---
**NOTE**: This is a very different kind of post compared to what I usually
write. If you or anyone you know works at Twitter, please link this to them. I
am in a unique situation and the normal account recovery means do not work. If
you work at Twitter and are reading this, my case number is [redacted].
**EDIT**(19:51 M12 14 2020): My account is back. Thank you anonymous Twitter
support people. For everyone else, please take this as an example of how
**NOT** to handle account issues. The fact that I had to complain loudly on
Twitter to get this weird edge case taken care of is ludicrous. I'd gladly pay
Twitter just to have a support mechanism that gets me an actual human without
having to complain on Twitter.
# Plea to Twitter
On Sunday, December 13, 2020, I noticed that I was locked out of my Twitter
account. If you go to [@theprincessxena](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena)
today, you will see that the account is locked out for "unusual activity". I
don't know what I did to cause this to happen (though I have a few theories) and
I hope to explain them in the headings below. I have gotten no emails or contact
from Twitter about this yet. I have a backup account at
[@CadeyRatio](https://twitter.com/CadeyRatio) as a stopgap. I am also on
mastodon as [@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me](https://mst3k.interlinked.me/@cadey).
In place of my tweeting about quarantine life, I am writing about my experiences
[here](http://cetacean.club/journal/).
## Why I Can't Unlock My Account
I can't unlock my account the normal way because I forgot to set up two factor
authentication and I also forgot to change the phone number registered with the
account to my Canadian one when I [moved to
Canada](/blog/life-update-2019-05-16). I remembered to do this change for all of
the other accounts I use regularly except for my Twitter account.
In order to stop having to pay T-Mobile $70 per month, I transferred my phone
number to [Twilio](https://www.twilio.com/). This combined with some clever code
allowed me to gracefully migrate to my new Canadian number. Unfortunately,
Twitter flat-out refuses to send authentication codes to Twilio numbers. It's
probably to prevent spam, but it would be nice if there was an option to get the
authentication code over a phone call.
## Theory 1: International Travel
Recently I needed to travel internationally in order to start my new job at
[Tailscale](https://tailscale.com/). Due to an unfortunate series of events over
two months, I needed to actually travel internationally to get a new visa. This
lead me to take a very boring trip to Minnesota for a week.
During that trip, I tweeted and fleeted about my travels. I took pictures and
was in my hotel room a lot.
[We can't dig up the link for obvious reasons, but one person said they were
always able to tell when we are traveling because it turns the twitter account
into a fast food blog.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
I think Twitter may have locked out my account because I was suddenly in
Minnesota after being in Canada for almost a year.
## Theory 2: Misbehaving API Client
I use [mi](https://github.com/Xe/mi) as part of my new blogpost announcement
pipeline. One of the things mi does is submits new blogposts and some metadata
about them to Twitter. I haven't been able to find any logs to confirm this, but
if something messed up in a place that was unlogged somehow, it could have
triggered some kind of anti-abuse pipeline.
## Theory 3: NixOS Screenshot Set Off Some Bad Thing
One of my recent tweets that I can't find anymore is a tweet about a NixOS
screenshot for my work machine. I think that some part of the algorithm
somewhere really hated it, and thus triggered the account lock. I don't really
understand how a screenshot of KDE 5 showing neofetch output could make my
account get locked, but with enough distributed machine learning anything can
happen.
## Theory 4: My Password Got Cracked
I used a random password generated with iCloud for my Twitter password.
Theoretically this could have been broken, but I doubt it.
---
Overall, I just want to be able to tweet again. Please spread this around for
reach. I don't like using my blog to reach out like this, but I've been unable
to find anyone that knows someone at Twitter so far and I feel this is the best
way to broadcast it. I'll update this post with the resolution to this problem
when I get one.
I think the International Travel theory is the most likely scenario. I just want
a human to see this situation and help fix it.

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@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
---
title: V is for Vaporware
date: 2019-06-23
series: v
tags:
- v
- rant
---

2
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@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
---
title: "V is for Vvork in Progress"
date: 2020-01-03
series: v
tags:
- v
- constructive-criticism
---

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@ -1,230 +0,0 @@
---
title: Various Updates
date: 2020-11-18
tags:
- personal
- consulting
- docker
- nixos
---
# Various Updates
Immigration purgatory is an experience. It's got a lot of waiting and there is a
lot of uncertainty that can make it feel stressful. Like I said
[before](/blog/new-adventures-2020-10-24), I'm not concerned; however I have a
lot of free time on my hands and I've been using it to make some plans for the
blog (and a new offering for companies that need help dealing with the new
[Docker Hub rate
limits](https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/download-rate-limit/)) in the future.
I'm gonna outline them below in their own sections. This blogpost was originally
about 4 separate blogposts that I started and abandoned because I had trouble
focusing on finishing them. Stress sucks lol.
## WebMention Support
I recently deployed [mi v1.0.0](https://github.com/Xe/mi) to my home cluster. mi
is a service that handles a lot of personal API tasks including the automatic
post notifications to Twitter and Mastodon. The old implementation was in Go and
stored its data in RethinkDB. I also have a snazzy frontend in Elm for mi. This
new version is rewritten from scratch to use Rust, [Rocket](https://rocket.rs/)
and SQLite. It is also fully
[nixified](https://github.com/Xe/mi/blob/mara/default.nix) and is deployed to my
home cluster via a [NixOS
module](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/services/mi.nix).
One of the major new features I have in this rewrite is
[WebMention](https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/) support. WebMentions allow
compatible websites to "mention" my articles or other pages on my main domains
by sending a specially formatted HTTP request to mi. I am still in the early
stages of integrating mi into my site code, but eventually I hope to have a list
of places that articles are mentioned in each post. The WebMention endpoint for
my site is `https://mi.within.website/api/webmention/accept`. I have added
WebMention metadata into the HTML source of the blog pages as well as in the
`Link` header as the W3 spec demands.
If you encounter any issues with this feature, please [let me know](/contact) so
I can get it fixed as soon as possible.
### Thoughts on Elm as Used in mi
[Elm](https://elm-lang.org/) is an interesting language for making single page
applications. The old version of mi was the first time I had really ever used
Elm for anything serious and after some research I settled on using
[elm-spa](https://www.elm-spa.dev/) as a framework to smooth over some of the
weirder parts of the language. elm-spa worked great at first. All of the pages
were separated out into their own components and the routing setup was really
intuitive (if a bit weird because of the magic involved). It's worked great for
a few years and has been very low maintenance.
However when I was starting to implement the backend of mi in Rust, I tried to
nixify the elm-spa frontend I made. This was a disaster. The magic that elm-spa
relied on fell apart and _at the time I attempted to do this_ it was very
difficult to do this.
As a result I ended up rewriting the frontend in very very boring Elm using
information from the [Elm Guide](https://guide.elm-lang.org/) and a lot of
blogposts and help from the Elm slack. Overall this was a successful experiment
and I can easily see this new frontend (which I have named sina as a compound
[toki pona](https://tokipona.org/) pun) becoming a powerful tool for
investigating and managing the data in mi.
[Special thanks to malinoff, wolfadex, chadtech and mfeineis on the Elm slack
for helping with the weird issues involved in getting a split model approach
working.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Feel free to check out the code [here](https://github.com/Xe/mi/tree/mara/sina).
I may try to make an Elm frontend to my site for people that use the Progressive
Web App support.
### elm2nix
[elm2nix](https://github.com/cachix/elm2nix) is a very nice tool that lets you
generate Nix definitions from Elm packages, however the
template it uses is a bit out of date. To fix it you need to do the following:
```console
$ elm2nix init > default.nix
$ elm2nix convert > elm-srcs.nix
$ elm2nix snapshot
```
Then open `default.nix` in your favorite text editor and change this:
```nix
buildInputs = [ elmPackages.elm ]
++ lib.optional outputJavaScript nodePackages_10_x.uglify-js;
```
to this:
```nix
buildInputs = [ elmPackages.elm ]
++ lib.optional outputJavaScript nodePackages.uglify-js;
```
and this:
```nix
uglifyjs $out/${module}.${extension} --compress 'pure_funcs="F2,F3,F4,F5,F6,F7,F8,F9,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9",pure_getters,keep_fargs=false,unsafe_comps,unsafe' \
| uglifyjs --mangle --output=$out/${module}.min.${extension}
```
to this:
```nix
uglifyjs $out/${module}.${extension} --compress 'pure_funcs="F2,F3,F4,F5,F6,F7,F8,F9,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9",pure_getters,keep_fargs=false,unsafe_comps,unsafe' \
| uglifyjs --mangle --output $out/${module}.min.${extension}
```
These issues should be fixed in the next release of elm2nix.
## New Character in the Blog Cutouts
As I mentioned [in the past](/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30), I am looking into
developing out other characters for my blog. I am still in the early stages of
designing this, but I think the next character in my blog is going to be an
anthro snow leopard named Alicia. I want Alicia to be a beginner that is very
new to computer programming and other topics, which would then make Mara into
more of a teacher type. I may also introduce my own OC Cadey (the orca looking
thing you can see [here](https://christine.website/static/img/avatar_large.png)
or in the favicon of my site) into the mix to reply to these questions in
something more close to the Socratic method.
Some people have joked that the introduction of Mara turned my blog into a shark
visual novel that teaches you things. This sounds hilarious to me, and I am
looking into what it would take to make an actual visual novel on a page on my
blog using Rust and WebAssembly. I am in very early planning stages for this, so
don't expect this to come out any time soon.
## Gergoplex Build
My [Gergoplex kit](https://www.gboards.ca/product/gergoplex) finally came in
yesterday, and I got to work soldering it up with some switches and applying the
keycaps.
![Me soldering the Gergoplex](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/gergoplex/EnEYNxvW4AEfWcH.jpg)
![A glory shot of the Gergoplex](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/gergoplex/Elm3dN8XUAAYHws.jpg)
I picked the Pro Red linear switches with a 35 gram spring in them (read: they
need 35 grams of force to actuate, which is lighter than most switches) and
typing on it is buttery smooth. The keycaps are a boring black, but they look
nice on it.
Overall this kit (with the partial board, switches and keycaps) cost me about
US$124 (not including shipping) with the costs looking something like this:
| Name | Count | Cost |
| :------------------------- | :----- | :---- |
| Gergoplex Partial Kit | 1 | $70 |
| Choc Pro Red 35g switches | 4 | $10 |
| Keycaps (15) | 3 | $30 |
| Braided interconnect cable | 1 | $7 |
| Mini-USB cable | 1 | $7 |
I'd say this was a worthwhile experience. I haven't really soldered anything
since I was in high school and it was fun to pick up the iron again and make
something useful. If you are looking for a beginner soldering project, I can't
recommend the Gergoplex enough.
I also picked up some extra switches and keycaps (prices not listed here) for a
future project involving an eInk display. More on that when it is time.
## Branch Conventions
You may have noticed that some of my projects have default branches named `main`
and others have default branches named `mara`. This difference is very
intentional. Repos with the default branch `main` generally contain code that is
"stable" and contains robust and reusable code. Repos with the default branch
`mara` are generally my experimental repos and the code in them may not be the
most reusable across other projects. mi is a repo with a `mara` default branch
because it is a very experimental thing. In the future I may promote it up to
having a `main` branch, however for now it's less effort to keep things the way
it is.
## Docker Consulting
The new [Docker Hub rate
limits](https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/download-rate-limit/) have thrown a
wrench into many CI/CD setups as well as uncertainty in how CI services will
handle this. Many build pipelines implictly trust the Docker Hub to be up and
that it will serve the appropriate image so that your build can work. Many
organizations use their own Docker registry (GHCR, AWS/Google Cloud image
registries, Artifactory, etc.), however most image build definitions I've seen
start out with something like this:
```Dockerfile
FROM golang:alpine
```
which will implicitly pull from the Docker Hub. This can lead to bad things.
If you would like to have a call with me for examining your process for building
Docker images in CI and get a list of actionable suggestions for how to work
around this, [contact me](/contact) so that we can discuss pricing and
scheduling.
I have been using Docker for my entire professional career (way back since
Docker required you to recompile your kernel to enable cgroup support in public
beta) and I can also discuss methods to make your Docker images as small as they
can possibly get. My record smallest Docker image is 5 MB.
If either of these prospects interest you, please contact me so we can work
something out.
---
Here's hoping that the immigration purgatory ends soon. I'm lucky enough to have
enough cash built up that I can weather this jobless month. I've been using this
time to work on personal projects (like mi and
[wasmcloud](https://wasmcloud.app)) and better myself. I've also done a little
writing that I plan to release in the future after I clean it up.
In retrospect I probably should have done [NaNoWriMo](https://nanowrimo.org/)
seeing that I basically will have the entire month of November jobless. I've had
an idea for a while about someone that goes down the rabbit hole of mysticism
and magick, but I may end up incorporating that into the visual novel project I
mentioned in the Elm section.
Be well and stay safe out there. Wear a mask, stay at home.

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@ -1,269 +0,0 @@
---
title: V Update - June 2020
date: 2020-06-17
series: v
---
EDIT(Xe): 2020 M12 22
Hi Hacker News. Please read the below notes. I am now also blocked by the V
team on Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/WIqX73GB5Z">pic.twitter.com/WIqX73GB5Z</a></p>&mdash; Cadey A. Ratio (@theprincessxena) <a href="https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1341525594715140098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
EDIT(Xe): 2020 M06 23
I do not plan to make any future update posts about the V programming language
in the future. The V community is something I would really rather not be
associated with. This is an edited-down version of the post that was released
last week (2020 M06 17).
As of the time of writing this note to the end of this post and as far as I am
aware, I am banned from being able to contribute to the V language in any form.
I am therefore forced to consider that the V project will respond to criticism
of their language with bans. This subjective view of reality may not be accurate
to what others see.
I would like to see this situation result in a net improvement for everyone
involved. V is an interesting take on a stagnant field of computer science, but
I cannot continue to comment on this language or give it any of the signal boost
I have given it with this series of posts.
Thank you for reading. I will continue with my normal posts in the next few
days.
Be well.
# V Update - June 2020
Every so often I like to check in on the [V Programming Language][vlang]. It's been
about six months since [my last post](https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-03),
so I thought I'd take another look at it and see what progress has been done in six
months.
[vlang]: https://vlang.io
Last time I checked, V 0.2 was slated for release in December 2019. It is currently
June 2020, and the latest release (at time of writing) is [0.1.27][vrelease0127].
## Feature Updates
Interestingly, the V author seems to have walked back one of their original
listed features of V and now has an [abstract syntax tree][ast] for representing the
grammar of the language. They still claim that functions are "pure" by default, but
allow functions to perform print statements while still being "pure". Printing data
to standard out is an impure side effect, but if you constrain the definition of
"side effects" to only include mutability of memory, this could be fine. There
seems to be an issue about this on [the github tracker][vpure], but it was
closed.
[vrelease0127]: https://github.com/vlang/v/releases/tag/0.1.27
[ast]: https://github.com/vlang/v/commit/093a025ebfe4f0957d5d69ad4ddcdc905a6d7b81#diff-5adb689a65970037f7f0ced3d4b9e800
[vpure]: https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/4930
The next stable release 0.2 seems to be planned for June 2020 (according to the readme);
and according to the todo list in the repo, memory management seems to be one of the
things that will be finished. V is also apparently in alpha, but will also apparently
jump from alpha directly to stable? Given the track record of constantly missed
release windows, I am not very confident that V 0.2 will be released on time.
Tools like this need to be ready when they are ready. Trying to rush things is a
very unproductive thing to do and can result in more net harm than good.
## Build
Testing V is a bit more difficult for me now as its build process is incompatible
with my Linux tower's [NixOS](https://nixos.org/nixos) install (I tend to try and
package all the programs I use for testing this stuff so it is easier to reproduce
my environment on other machines). The V scripts also do not work on my NixOS tower
because it doesn't have a `/usr/local/bin`. The correct way to make a shell script
cross-platform is to use the following header:
```sh
#!/usr/bin/env v
```
This makes the `env` program search for the V binary in your `$PATH`, and will
function correctly on all platforms (this may not work on environments like [Termux](https://termux.com/)
due to limitations of how Android works, but it will solve 99% of cases. I am unsure
how to make a shell script that will function properly across Android and non-Android
environments).
The Makefile in the V source tree seems to do
network calls, specifically a `git clone`. Remember that this is on the front page
of the website:
> V can be bootstrapped in under a second by compiling its code translated to C with a simple
>
> `cc v.c`
>
> No libraries or dependencies needed.
Git is a dependency, which means perl is a dependency, which means a shell is a
dependency, which means glibc is a dependency, which means that a lot of other
things (including posix threads) are also dependencies. Pedantically, you could even
go as far as saying that you could count the Linux kernel, the processor being used
and the like as dependencies, but that's a bit out of scope for this.
I claim that the V compiler has dependencies because it requires other libraries
or programs in order to function. For an example, see the output of `ldd` (a
program that lists the dynamically linked dependencies of other programs) on the
V compiler and a hello world program:
```
$ ldd ./v
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff2d044000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f2fb3e4c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f2fb3a5b000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f2fb4345000)
```
```
$ ldd ./hello
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffdfdff2000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fed25771000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fed25d88000)
```
If these binaries were really as dependency-free as the V website claims, the
output of `ldd` would look something like this:
```
$ ldd $HOME/bin/dhall
not a dynamic executable
```
The V compiler claims to have support for generating machine code directly, but
in my testing I was unable to figure out how to set the compiler into this mode.
## Memory Management
> V doesn't use garbage collection or reference counting. The compiler cleans
> everything up during compilation. If your V program compiles, it's guaranteed
> that it's going to be leak free.
Accordingly, the documentation still claims that memory management is both a work in
progress and has (or will have, it's not clear which is accurate from the
documentation alone) perfect accuracy for cleaning up things at compile time.
Every one of these posts I have run a benchmark against the V compiler, I like to
call it the "how much ram do you leak compiling hello world" test. Last it leaked
`4,600,383` bytes (or about 4.6 megabytes) and before that it leaked `3,861,785`
bytes (or about 3.9 megabytes). This time:
```
$ valgrind ./v hello.v
==5413== Memcheck, a memory error detector
==5413== Copyright (C) 2002-2017, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==5413== Using Valgrind-3.13.0 and LibVEX; rerun with -h for copyright info
==5413== Command: ./v hello.v
==5413==
==5413==
==5413== HEAP SUMMARY:
==5413== in use at exit: 7,232,779 bytes in 163,690 blocks
==5413== total heap usage: 182,696 allocs, 19,006 frees, 11,309,504 bytes allocated
==5413==
==5413== LEAK SUMMARY:
==5413== definitely lost: 2,673,351 bytes in 85,739 blocks
==5413== indirectly lost: 4,265,809 bytes in 77,711 blocks
==5413== possibly lost: 256,000 bytes in 1 blocks
==5413== still reachable: 37,619 bytes in 239 blocks
==5413== suppressed: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==5413== Rerun with --leak-check=full to see details of leaked memory
==5413==
==5413== For counts of detected and suppressed errors, rerun with: -v
==5413== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0)
```
It seems that the memory managment really is a work in progress. This increase in
leakage means that the compiler building itself now creates `7,232,779` bytes of
leaked ram (which still is amusingly its install size in memory, when including
git deltas, temporary files and a worktree copy of V).
## Doom
The [Doom](https://github.com/vlang/doom) translation project still has one file
translated (and apparently it breaks sound effects but not music). I have been
looking forward to the full release of this as it will show a lot about how
readable the output of V's C to V translation feature is.
## 1.2 Million Lines of Code
Let's re-run the artificial as heck 1.2 million lines of code benchmark from the
last post:
```
$ bash -c 'time ~/code/v/v main.v'
real 7m54.847s
user 7m32.860s
sys 0m14.212s
```
Compared to the last time this benchmark was run, this took 2 minutes less (last
time it took about 10 minutes). This is actually a major improvement, and means
that V's claims of speed are that much closer to reality at least on my test
hardware.
## Concurrency
A common problem that shows up when writing multi-threaded code are
[race conditions][races]. Effectively, race conditions are when two bits of code try
to do the same thing at the same time on the same block of memory. This leads to
undefined behavior, which is bad because it can corrupt or crash programs.
[races]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition
As an example, consider this program `raceanint.v`:
```
fn main() {
foo := [ 1 ]
go add(mut foo)
go add(mut foo)
for {}
}
fn add(mut foo []int) {
for {
foo[0] = foo[0] + 1
}
}
```
In theory, this should have two threads infinitely trying to increment `foo[0]`,
which will eventually result in `foo[0]` getting corrupted by two threads trying to
do the same thing at the same time (given the tight loops invovled). This leads
to undefined behavior, which can be catastrophic in production facing applications.
However, I can't get this to build:
```
==================
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c: In function ‘add_thread_wrapper’:
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c:1209:6: error: incompatible type for argument 1 of ‘add’
add(arg->arg1);
^~~
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c:1198:13: note: expected ‘array_int * {aka struct array *}’ but argument is of type ‘array_int {aka struct array}’
static void add(array_int* foo);
^~~
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c: In function ‘strconv__v_sprintf’:
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c:3611:7: warning: variable ‘th_separator’ set but not used [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
bool th_separator = false;
^~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/cadey/.cache/v/raceanint.tmp.c: In function ‘print_backtrace_skipping_top_frames_linux’:
...
==================
(Use `v -cg` to print the entire error message)
builder error:
==================
C error. This should never happen.
If you were not working with C interop, please raise an issue on GitHub:
https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/new/choose
```
Like I said before, I also cannot file new issues about this. So if you are willing
to help me out, please open an issue about this.

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@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
---
title: "Trisiel Progress: Hello, World!"
title: "Wasmcloud Progress: Hello, World!"
date: 2019-12-08
series: olin
tags:
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ tags:
I have been working off and on over the years and have finally created the base
of a functions as a service backend for [WebAssembly][wasm] code. I'm code-naming this
wasmcloud. [Trisiel][wasmcloud] is a pre-alpha prototype and is currently very much work in
wasmcloud. [Wasmcloud][wasmcloud] is a pre-alpha prototype and is currently very much work in
progress. However, it's far enough along that I would like to explain what I
have been doing for the last few years and what it's all built up to.
@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ I've even written a few blogposts about Olin:
But, this was great for running stuff interactively and via the command line. It
left me wanting more. I wanted to have that mythical functions as a service
backend that I've been dreaming of. So, I created [Trisiel][wasmcloud].
backend that I've been dreaming of. So, I created [wasmcloud][wasmcloud].
## h
@ -139,14 +139,14 @@ h
I think this is the smallest (if not one of the smallest) quine generator in the
world. I even got this program running on bare metal:
![](/static/blog/xeos_h.png)
<center>![](/static/blog/xeos_h.png)</center>
[hlang]: https://h.christine.website
[vlang]: https://vlang.io
## Trisiel
## Wasmcloud
[Trisiel][wasmcloud] is the culmination of all of this work. The goal of
[Wasmcloud][wasmcloud] is the culmination of all of this work. The goal of
wasmcloud is to create a functions as a service backend for running people's
code in an isolated server-side environment.
@ -181,11 +181,11 @@ Top-level flags (use "wasmcloud flags" for a full list):
This tool lets you do a few basic things:
- Authenticate with the Trisiel server
- Authenticate with the wasmcloud server
- Create handlers from WebAssembly files that meet the CommonWA API as realized
by Olin
- Get logs for individual handler invocations
- Run WebAssembly modules locally like they would get run on Trisiel
- Run WebAssembly modules locally like they would get run on wasmcloud
Nearly all of the complexity is abstracted away from users as much as possible.

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@ -1,202 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Trisiel Progress: Rewritten in Rust"
date: 2020-10-31
series: olin
tags:
- wasm
- trisiel
- wasmer
---
# Trisiel Progress: Rewritten in Rust
It's been a while since I had the [last update for
Trisiel](/blog/wasmcloud-progress-2019-12-08). In that time I have gotten a
lot done. As the title mentions I have completely rewritten Trisiel's entire
stack in Rust. Part of the reason was for [increased
speed](/blog/pahi-benchmarks-2020-03-26) and the other part was to get better at
Rust. I also wanted to experiment with running Rust in production and this has
been an excellent way to do that.
Trisiel is going to have a few major parts:
- The API (likely to be hosted at `api.trisiel.com`)
- The Executor (likely to be hosted at `run.trisiel.dev`)
- The Panel (likely to be hosted at `panel.trisiel.com`)
- The command line tool `trisiel`
- The Documentation site (likely to be hosted at `docs.trisiel`)
These parts will work together to implement a functions as a service platform.
[The executor is on its own domain to prevent problems like <a
href="https://github.blog/2013-04-05-new-github-pages-domain-github-io/">this
GitHub Pages vulnerability</a> from 2013. It is on a `.lgbt` domain because LGBT
rights are human rights.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
I have also set up a landing page at
[trisiel.com](https://trisiel.com) and a twitter account at
[@trisielcloud](https://twitter.com/trisielcloud). Right now these are
placeholders. I wanted to register the domains before they were taken by anyone
else.
## Architecture
My previous attempt at Trisiel had more of a four tier webapp setup. The
overall stack looked something like this:
- Nginx in front of everything
- The api server that did about everything
- The executors that waited on message queues to run code and push results to
the requester
- Postgres
- A message queue to communicate with the executors
- IPFS to store WebAssembly modules
In simple testing, this works amazingly. The API server will send execution
requests to the executors and everything will usually work out. However, the
message queue I used was very "fire and forget" and had difficulties with
multiple executors set up to listen on the queue. Additionally, the added
indirection of needing to send the data around twice means that it would have
difficulties scaling globally due to ingress and egress data costs. This model
is solid and _probably would have worked_ with some compression or other
improvements like that, but overall I was not happy with it and decided to scrap
it while I was porting the executor component to Rust. If you want to read the
source code of this iteration of Trisiel, take a look
[here](https://tulpa.dev/within/wasmcloud).
The new architecture of Trisiel looks something like this:
- Nginx in front of everything
- An API server that handles login with my gitea instance
- The executor server that listens over https
- Postgres
- Backblaze B2 to store WebAssembly modules
The main change here is the fact that the executor listens over HTTPS, avoiding
_a lot_ of the overhead involved in running this on a message queue. It's also
much simpler to implement and allows me to reuse a vast majority of the
boilerplate that I developed for the Trisiel API server.
This new version of Trisiel is also built on top of
[Wasmer](https://wasmer.io/). Wasmer is a seriously fantastic library for this
and getting up and running was absolutely trivial, even though I knew very
little Rust when I was writing [pa'i](/blog/pahi-hello-world-2020-02-22). I
cannot recommend it enough if you ever want to execute WebAssembly on a server.
## Roadmap
At this point, I can create new functions, upload them to the API server and
then trigger them to be executed. The output of those functions is not returned
to the user at this point. I am working on ways to implement that. There is also
very little accounting for what resources and system calls are used, however it
does keep track of execution time. The executor also needs to have the request
body of the client be wired to the standard in of the underlying module, which
will enable me to parse CGI replies from WebAssembly functions. This will allow
you to host HTTP endpoints on Trisiel using the same code that powers
[this](https://olin.within.website) and
[this](http://cetacean.club/cgi-bin/olinfetch.wasm).
I also need to go in and completely refactor the
[olin](https://github.com/Xe/pahi/tree/main/wasm/olin/src) crate and make the
APIs much more ergonomic, not to mention make the HTTP client actually work
again.
Then comes the documentation. Oh god there will be so much documentation. I will
be _drowning_ in documentation by the end of this.
I need to write the panel and command line tool for Trisiel. I want to write
the panel in [Elm](https://elm-lang.org/) and the command line tool in Rust.
There is basically zero validation for anything submitted to the Trisiel API.
I will need to write validation in order to make it safer.
I may also explore enabling support for [WASI](https://wasi.dev/) in the future,
but as I have stated before I do not believe that WASI works very well for the
futuristic plan-9 inspired model I want to use on Trisiel.
Right now the executor shells out to pa'i, but I want to embed pa'i into the
executor binary so there are fewer moving parts involved.
I also need to figure out what I should do with this project in general. It
feels like it is close to being productizable, but I am in a very bad stage of
my life to be able to jump in headfirst and build a company around this. Visa
limitations also don't help here.
## Things I Learned
[Rocket](https://rocket.rs) is an absolutely fantastic web framework and I
cannot recommend it enough. I am able to save _so much time_ with Rocket and its
slightly magic use of proc-macros. For an example, here is the entire source
code of the `/whoami` route in the Trisiel API:
```rust
#[get("/whoami")]
#[instrument]
pub fn whoami(user: models::User) -> Json<models::User> {
Json(user)
}
```
The `FromRequest` instance I have on my database user model allows me to inject
the user associated with an API token purely based on the (validated against the
database) claims associated with the JSON Web Token that the user uses for
authentication. This then allows me to make API routes protected by simply
putting the user model as an input to the handler function. It's magic and I
love it.
Postgres lets you use triggers to automatically update `updated_at` fields for
free. You just need a function that looks like this:
```sql
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION trigger_set_timestamp()
RETURNS TRIGGER AS $$
BEGIN
NEW.updated_at = NOW();
RETURN NEW;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
```
And then you can make triggers for your tables like this:
```sql
CREATE TRIGGER set_timestamp_users
BEFORE UPDATE ON users
FOR EACH ROW
EXECUTE PROCEDURE trigger_set_timestamp();
```
Every table in Trisiel uses this in order to make programming against the
database easier.
The symbol/number layer on my Moonlander has been _so good_. It looks something
like this:
![](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/blog/m5Id6Qs.png)
And it makes using programming sigils _so much easier_. I don't have to stray
far from the homerow to hit the most common ones. The only one that I still have
to reach for is `_`, but I think I will bind that to the blank key under the `]`
key.
The best programming music is [lofi hip hop radio - beats to study/relax
to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A). Second best is [Animal
Crossing music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYNJLfktds). They both have
this upbeat quality that makes the ideas melt into code and flow out of your
hands.
---
Overall I'd say this is pretty good for a week of hacking while learning a new
keyboard layout. I will do more in the future. I have plans. To read through the
(admittedly kinda hacky/awful) code I've written this week, check out [this git
repo](https://tulpa.dev/wasmcloud/wasmcloud). If you have any feedback, please
[contact me](/contact). I will be happy to answer any questions.
As far as signups go, I am not accepting any signups at the moment. This is
pre-alpha software. The abuse story will need to be figured out, but I am fairly
sure it will end up being some kind of "pay or you can only run the precompiled
example code in the documentation" with some kind of application process for the
"free tier" of Trisiel. Of course, this is all theoretical and hinges on
Trisiel actually being productizable; so who knows?
Be well.

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---
title: "Site Update: WebMention Support"
date: 2020-12-02
tags:
- indieweb
---
# Site Update: WebMention Support
Recently in my [Various Updates](/blog/various-updates-2020-11-18) post I
announced that my website had gotten
[WebMention](https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/) support. Today I implemented
WebMention integration into blog articles, allowing you to see where my articles
are mentioned across the internet. This will not work with every single mention
of my site, but if your publishing platform supports sending WebMentions, then
you will see them show up on the next deploy of my site.
Thanks to the work of the folks at [Bridgy](https://brid.gy/), I have been able
to also keep track of mentions of my content across Twitter, Reddit and
Mastodon. My WebMention service will also attempt to resolve Bridgy mention
links to their original sources as much as it can. Hopefully this should allow
you to post my articles as normal across those networks and have those mentions
be recorded without having to do anything else.
As I mentioned before, this is implemented on top of
[mi](https://github.com/Xe/mi). mi receives mentions sent to
`https://mi.within.website/api/webmention/accept` and will return a reference
URL in the `Location` header. This will return JSON-formatted data about the
mention. Here is an example:
```console
$ curl https://mi.within.website/api/webmention/01ERGGEG7DCKRH3R7DH4BXZ6R9 | jq
{
"id": "01ERGGEG7DCKRH3R7DH4BXZ6R9",
"source_url": "https://maya.land/responses/2020/12/01/i-think-this-blog-post-might-have-been.html",
"target_url": "https://christine.website/blog/toast-sandwich-recipe-2019-12-02",
"title": null
}
```
This is all of the information I store about each WebMention. I am working on
title detection (using the
[readability](https://github.com/jangernert/readability) algorithm), however I
am unable to run JavaScript on my scraper server. Content that is JavaScript
only may not be able to be scraped like this.
---
Many thanks to [Chris Aldrich](https://boffosocko.com/2020/12/01/55781873/) for
inspiring me to push this feature to the end. Any articles that don't have any
WebMentions yet will link to the [WebMention
spec](https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/).
Be well.

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---
title: "Why I Use Suckless Tools"
date: 2020-06-05
---
# Why I Use Suckless Tools
Software is complicated. Foundational building blocks of desktop environments
tend to grow year over year until it's difficult to understand or maintain them.
[Suckless][suckless] offers an alternative to this continuous cycle of bloat and
meaningless redesign. Suckless tools aim to keep things simple, minimal, usable
and hackable by default. Their window manager [dwm][dwm] is just a window
manager. It doesn't handle things like transparency, compositing or volume
control. Their terminal [st][st] is just a terminal. It doesn't handle fancy
things like ancient terminal kinds that died out long ago. It just displays
text. It doesn't handle things that tmux or similar could take care of, because
tmux can do a better job at that than st ever could on its own.
[suckless]: https://suckless.org/
[dwm]: https://dwm.suckless.org/
[st]: https://st.suckless.org/
Suckless tools are typically configured in C, the language they are written in.
However as a side effect of suckless tools having their configuration baked into
the executable at compile time, they start up _instantly_. If something goes
wrong while using them, you can easily jump right into the code that implements
them and nail down issues using basic debugger skills.
However, even though the window manager is meager, it still offers places for
you to make it look beautiful. For examples of beautiful dwm setups, see [this
search of /r/unixporn on reddit][unixporndwm].
[unixporndwm]: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=dwm&restrict_sr=1
I would like to walk through my dwm setup, how I have it configured all of the
parts at play as well as an example of how I debug problems in my dwm config.
## My dwm Config
As dwm is configured in C, there's also a community of people creating
[patches][dwmpatches] for dwm that add extra features like additional tiling
methods, the ability to automatically start things with dwm, transparency for
the statusbar and so much more. I use the following patches:
[dwmpatches]: https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/
- [alpha](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/alpha/)
- [autostart](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/autostart/)
- [bottomstack](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/bottomstack/)
- [dwmc](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/dwmc/)
- [pertag](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/pertag/)
- [systray](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/systray/)
- [uselessgap](https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/uselessgap/)
This combination of patches allows me to make things feel comfortable and
predictable enough that I can rely entirely on muscle memory for most of my
window management. Nearly all of it is done with the keyboard too.
[Here][dwmconfig] is my config file. It's logically broken into two big sections:
[dwmconfig]: https://tulpa.dev/cadey/dwm/src/commit/8ea55d397459a865041b96d5b4933f426d010e6d/config.def.h
- Variables
- Keybinds
I'll go into more detail about these below.
### Variables
The main variables in my config control the following:
- border width
- size of the gaps when tiling windows
- the snap width
- system tray errata
- the location of the bar
- the fonts
- colors
- transparency values for the bar
- workspace names (mine are based off of the unicode emoticon `(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧`)
- app-specific hacks
- default settings for the tiling layouts
- if windows should be forced into place or not
- window layouts
All of these things control various errata. As a side effect of making them all
compile time constants, these settings don't have to be loaded into the program
because they're already a part of it. I use the [Hack][hackfont] font on my
desktop and with emacs.
[hackfont]: https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/
### Keybinds
The real magic of tiling window managers is that all of the window management
commands are done with my keyboard. Alt is the key I have devoted to controlling
the window manager. All of my window manager control chords use the alt key.
Here are the main commands and what they do:
| Command | Effect |
|--------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Alt-p | Spawn a program by name |
| Alt-Shift-Enter | Open a new terminal window |
| Alt-b | Hide the bar if it is shown, show the bar if it is hidden |
| Alt-j | Move focus down the stack of windows |
| Alt-k | Move focus up the stack of windows |
| Alt-i | Increase the number of windows in the primary area |
| Alt-d | Decrease the number of windows in the primary area |
| Alt-h | Make the primary area smaller by 5% |
| Alt-l | Make the primary area larger by 5% |
| Alt-Enter | Move the currently active window into the primary area |
| Alt-Tab | Switch to the most recently active workspace |
| Alt-Shift-C | Nicely ask a window to close |
| Alt-t | Select normal tiling mode for the current workspace |
| Alt-f | Select floating (non-tiling) mode for the current workspace |
| Alt-m | Select monocle (fullscreen active window) mode for the current workspace |
| Alt-u | Select bottom-stacked tiling mode for the current workspace |
| Alt-o | Select bottom-stacked horizontal tiling mode for the current workspace (useful on vertical monitors) |
| Alt-e | Open a new emacs window |
| Alt-Space | Switch to the most recently used tiling method |
| Alt-Shift-Space | Detach the currently active window from tiling |
| Alt-1 thru Alt-9 | Switch to a given workspace |
| Alt-Shift-1 thru Alt-Shift-9 | Move the active window to a given workspace |
| Alt-0 | Show all windows on all workspaces |
| Alt-Shift-0 | Show the active window on all workspaces |
| Alt-Comma and Alt-Period | Move focus to the other monitor |
| Alt-Shift-Comma and Alt-Shift-Period | Move the active window to the other monitor |
| Alt-Shift-q | Uncleanly exit dwm and kill the session |
This is just enough commands that I can get things done, but not so many that I
get overwhelmed and forget what keybind does what. I have most of this committed
to muscle memory (and had to look at the config file to write out this table),
and as a result nearly all of my window management is done with my keyboard.
The rest of my config handles things like Alt-Right-Click to resize windows
arbitrarily, signals with dwmc and other overhead like that.
## The Other Parts
The rest of my desktop environment is built up using a few other tools that
build on top of dwm. You can see the NixOS modules I've made for it
[here](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/programs/dwm.nix)
and [here](https://github.com/Xe/nixos-configs/blob/master/common/users/cadey/dwm.nix):
- [xrandr](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xrandr) to set up my multiple
monitors and rotation for them
- [feh](https://feh.finalrewind.org/) to set my wallpaper
- [picom](https://github.com/yshui/picom) to handle compositing effects like
transparency, blur and drop shadows for windows
- [pasystray](https://github.com/christophgysin/pasystray) for controlling my
system volume
- [dunst](https://dunst-project.org/) for notifications
- [xmodmap](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xmodmap) for rebinding the caps
lock key to the escape key
- [cabytcini](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/cabytcini) to show the current time and
weather in my dwm bar
Each of these tools has their own place in the stack and they all work together
to give me a coherent and cohesive environment that I can use for Netflix,
programming, playing Steam games and more.
cabytcini is a program I created for myself as part of my goal to get more
familiar with Rust. As of the time of this post being written, it uses only 11
megabytes of ram and is configured using a config file located at
`~/.config/cabytcini/gaftercu'a.toml`. It scrapes data from the API server I use
for my wall-mounted clock to show me the weather in Montreal. I've been meaning
to write more about it, but it's currently only documented in Lojban.
## Debugging dwm
Software is imperfect, even smaller programs like dwm can still have bugs in
them. Here's the story of how I debugged and bisected a problem with [my dwm
config](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/dwm) recently.
I had just gotten the second monitor set up and noticed that whenever I sent a
window to it, the entire window manager seemed to get locked up. I tried sending
the quit command to see if it would respond to that, and it failed. I opened up
a virtual terminal with control-alt-F1 and logged in there, then I launched
[htop](https://hisham.hm/htop/) to see if the process was blocked.
It reported dwm was using 100% CPU. This was odd. I then decided to break out
the debugger and see what was going on. I attached to the dwm process with `gdb
-p (pgrep dwm)` and then ran `bt full` to see where it was stuck.
The backtrace revealed it was stuck in the `drawbar()` function. It was stuck in
a loop that looked something like this:
```c
for (c = m->clients; c; c = c->next) {
occ |= c->tags;
if (c->isurgent)
urg |= c->tags;
}
```
dwm stores the list of clients per tag in a singly linked list, so the root
cause could be related to a circular linked list somehow, right?
I decided to check this by printing `c` and `c->next` in GDB to see what was
going on:
```
gdb> print c
0xfad34f
gdb> print c->next
0xfad34f
```
The linked list was circular. dwm was stuck iterating an infinite loop. I looked
at the type of `c` and saw it was something like this:
```c
struct Client {
char name[256];
float mina, maxa;
float cfact;
int x, y, w, h;
int oldx, oldy, oldw, oldh;
int basew, baseh, incw, inch, maxw, maxh, minw, minh;
int bw, oldbw;
unsigned int tags;
int isfixed, isfloating, isurgent, neverfocus, oldstate, isfullscreen;
Client *next;
Client *snext;
Monitor *mon;
Window win;
};
```
So, `next` is a pointer to the next client (if it exists). Setting the pointer
to `NULL` would probably break dwm out of the infinite loop. So I decided to
test that by running:
```
gdb> set var c->next = 0x0
```
To set the next pointer to null. dwm immediately got unstuck and exited
(apparently my quit command from earlier got buffered), causing the login screen
to show up. I was able to conclude that something was wrong with my dwm setup.
I know this behavior worked on release versions of dwm, so I decided to load up
KDE and then take a look at what was going on with [Xephyr][xephyr] and [git
bisect][gitbisect].
[xephyr]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xephyr
[gitbisect]: https://www.metaltoad.com/blog/beginners-guide-git-bisect-process-elimination
I created two fake monitors with Xephyr:
```console
$ Xephyr -br -ac -noreset -screen 800x600 -screen 800x600 +xinerama :1 &
```
And then started to git bisect my dwm fork:
```console
$ cd ~/code/cadey/dwm
$ git bisect init
$ git bisect bad HEAD
$ git bisect good cb3f58ad06993f7ef3a7d8f61468012e2b786cab
```
I registered the bad commit (the current one) and the last known good commit
(from when [dwm 6.2 was
released](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/dwm/commit/cb3f58ad06993f7ef3a7d8f61468012e2b786cab))
and started to recreate the conditions of the hang.
I set the `DISPLAY` environment variable so that dwm would use the fake
monitors:
```console
$ export DISPLAY=:1
```
and then rebuilt/ran dwm:
```console
$ make clean && rm config.h && make && ./dwm
```
Once I had dwm up and running, I created a terminal window and tried to send it
to the other screen. If it worked, I marked the commit as good with `git bisect
good`, and if it hung I marked the commit as bad with `git bisect bad`. 7
iterations later and I found out that the [attachbelow][attachbelow] patch was
the culprit.
[attachbelow]: https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/attachbelow/
I reverted the patch on the master branch, rebuilt and re-ran dwm and tried to
send the terminal window between the fake monitors. It worked every time. Then I
committed the revert of attachbelow, pushed it to my [NUR
repo](https://github.com/Xe/xepkgs/commit/c3bffbc8a3ebbaf13bee60e00c8002934d89e803),
and then rebuilt my tower's config once it passed CI.
Being a good internet citizen, I reported this to the [suckless mailing
list](https://lists.suckless.org/dev/2006/33946.html) and then was able to get a
reply back not only confirming the bug, but also with [a patch for the
patch](https://lists.suckless.org/dev/2006/33947.html) to fix the
behavior forever. I have yet to integrate this meta-patch into my dwm fork, but
I'll probably get around to it someday.
This really demonstrates one of the core tenets of the suckless philosophy
perfectly. I am not very familiar with how the dwm codebase works, but I am able
to dig into its guts and diagnose/fix things because it is intentionally kept as
simple as possible.
If you use Linux on a desktop/laptop, I highly suggest taking a look at
suckless software and experimenting with it. It is super optimized for
understandability and hacking, which is a huge breath of fresh air these days.

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---
title: Why Rust
date: 2020-02-15
tags:
- rust
- rant
- satori
- golang
---
# Why Rust
Or: A Trip Report from my Satori with Rust and Functional Programming
Software is a very odd field to work in. It is simultaneously an abstract and
physical one. You build systems that can deal with an unfathomable amount of
input and output at the same time. As a job, I peer into the madness of an
unthinking automaton and give order to the inherent chaos. I then emit
incantations to describe what this unthinking automaton should do in my stead. I
cannot possibly track the relations between a hundred thousand transactions
going on in real time, much less file them appropriately so they can be summoned
back should the need arise.
However, this incantation (by necessity) is an _unthinkably_ precise and fickle
beast. It's almost as if you are training a four-year old to go to the store,
but doing it by having them read a grocery list. This grocery list has to be
precise enough that the four year old ends up getting what you want and not a
cart full of frosted flakes and candy bars. But, at the same time, the four year
old needs to understand it. Thus, the precision.
There's many schools of thought around ways to write the grocery list. Some
follow a radically simple approach, relying on the toddler to figure things out
at the store. Sometimes this simpler approach doesn't work out in more obscure
scenarios, like when they are out of red grapes but do have green grapes, but it
tends to work out enough. Proponents of these list-making tools also will
advocate for doing full tests of the grocery list before they send the toddler
off to the store. This means setting up a fake grocery store with funny money, a
fake card, plastic food, the whole nine yards. This can get expensive and can
become a logistical issue (where are you going to store all that plastic fruit
in a way that you can just set up and tear down the grocery store mock so
quickly?).
Another school of thought is that the process of writing the grocery list should
be done in a way that prevents ambiguity at the grocery store. This kind of flow
uses some more advanced concepts like the ability to describe something by its
attributes. For example, this could specify the difference between fruit and
vegetables, and only allow fruit to be put in one place of the cart and only
allow vegetables to be placed in the other. And if the writer of the list tries
to violate this, the list gets rejected and isn't used at all.
There is yet another school of thought that decides that the exact spatial
position of the toddler relative to everything else should be thought of in
advance, along with a process to make sure that nothing is done in an improper
way. This means writing the list can be a lot harder at first, but it's much
less likely to result in the toddler coming back with a weird state. Consider
what happens if two items show up at the same time and the toddler tries to grab
both of them at the same time due to the instructions in the list! They only
have one arm to grab things with, so it just doesn't work. Proponents of the
more strict methods have reference cells and other mechanisms to ensure that the
toddler can only ever grab one thing at a time.
If we were to match these three ludicrous examples to programming languages, the
first would be Lua, the second would be Go and the third would be something like
Haskell or Rust. Software development is a complicated process because the
problems involved with directing that unthinking automaton to do what you want
are hard. There is a lot going on, much in the same way there is a lot going on
when you send a toddler to do your grocery shopping for you.
A good way to look at the tradeoffs involved is to see things as a balance
between two forces, pragmatism and correctness. Languages that are more
pragmatic are easier to develop in, but are mathematically more likely to run
into problems at runtime. Languages that are more correct take more investment
to write up front, but over time the correctness means that there's fewer failed
assumptions about what is going on. The compiler stops you from doing things
that don't make sense to it. This means that it's difficult to literally
impossible to create a bad state at runtime.
Tools like Lua and Go can (and have) been used to develop stable and viable
software. [itch.io][itchio] is written in Lua running on top of nginx and it
handles financial transactions well enough that it's turned into the guy's full
time job. Google uses Go everywhere in their stack, and it's been used to create
powerful tools like Kubernetes, Caddy, and Docker. These tools are trusted
implicitly by a generation of developers, even though the language itself has
its flaws. If you are reading this blog in Firefox, statistically there is Rust
involved in the rendering and viewing of this post. Rust is built for ensuring
that code is _as correct as possible_, even if it means eating into development
time to ensure that.
[itchio]: https://itch.io
In Rust, you don't have to memorize rules about how and when it is safe to
update data in structures, because the compiler ensures you _cannot mess it up
by rejecting the code if you could be messing it up_. You don't have to run your
tests with a race detector or figure out how to expose that in production to
trace down that obscure double-write to a non-threadsafe hashmap, because in
Rust there is no such thing as a non-threadsafe hashmap. There is only a safe
hashmap and only can ever be a safe hashmap.
As an absurd example, consider the following two snippets of code, one in Go and
one in Rust, both of them will put integers into a standard library list and
then print them all out:
```go
l := list.New() // () -> *list.List
for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
l.PushBack(i) // interface{} -> ()
}
for e := l.Front(); e != nil; e = e.Next() {
log.Printf("%T: %v", e.Value, e.Value)
}
```
```rust
let mut vec = Vec::new::<i64>(); // () -> Vec<i64>
for i in 0..5 {
vec.push(i as i64); // (mut Vec<i64>, i64) -> ()
}
for i in vec.iter() {
println!("{}", i);
}
```
The Go version uses `interface{}` as the data element because Go [literally
cannot describe types as parameters to functions][gonerics]. The Rust version
took me a bit longer to write, but there is _no_ ambiguity as to what the vector
holds. The Go version can also hold multiple types of data in the same list,
a-la:
[gonerics]: https://golang.org/doc/faq#generics
```go
l := list.New()
l.PushBack(42)
l.PushBack("hotdogs")
l.PushBack(420.69)
```
All of which is valid because in Go, an `interface{}` matches _every kind of
value possible_. An integer is an `interface{}`. A floating-point number is an
`interface{}`. A string is an `interface{}`. A bool is an `interface{}`. Any
custom type you create is an `interface{}`. Normally, this would be very
restrictive and make it difficult to do things like JSON parsing. However the Go
runtime lets you hack around this with [reflection][wtfisreflection].
[wtfisreflection]: https://golangbot.com/reflection/
This allows the standard library to handle things like JSON parsing with
functions [that look like this](https://godoc.org/encoding/json#Unmarshal):
```
func Unmarshal(data []byte, v interface{}) error
```
There's even a set of complicated rules you need to memorize about how to trick
the JSON parser into massaging your data into place. This lets you do things
like this:
```go
type Rilkef struct {
Foo string `json:"foo"`
CallToArms string `json:"call_to_arms"`
}
```
This allows the programmer a lot of flexibility while developing and compiling
the code. It's very easy for the compiler to say "oh, hey, that could be
anything, and you gave it some kind of anything, sounds legit to me", but then
the job of ensuring the sanity of the inputs is shunted to _runtime_ rather than
stopped before the code gets deployed. This means you need to test the code in
order to see how it behaves, making sure that _the standard library is doing its
job correctly_. This kind of stuff does not happen in Rust.
The Rust version of this JSON example uses the [serde][serde] and
[serde_json][serdejson] libraries:
[serde]: https://serde.rs
[serdejson]: https://serde.rs/json.html
```rust
use serde::*;
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct Rilkef {
pub foo: String,
pub call_to_arms: String,
}
```
And the logic for handling the correct rules for serialization and
deserialization is handled at _compile time_ by the compiler itself. Serde also
allows you to support more than just JSON, so this same type can be reused for
Dhall, YAML or whatever you could imagine.
## tl;dr
Rust allows for more correctness at the cost of developer efficiency. This is a
tradeoff, but I think it may actually be worth it. Code that is more correct is
more robust and less prone to failure than code that is less correct. This leads
to software that is less likely to crash at 3 am and wake you up due to a
preventable developer error.
After working in Go for more than half a decade, I'm starting to think that it
is probably a better idea to impact developer velocity and force them to write
software that is more correct. Go works if you are careful about how you handle
it. It however amounts to a giant list of rules that you just have to know (like
maps not being threadsafe) and a lot of those rules come from battle rather than
from the development process.
This came out as more of a rant than I had thought it would, but overall I hope
my point isn't lost.
### Things You Might Complain About
Yes, I know slices exist in Go. I wanted to prove a point about how the overuse
of `interface{}` in some relatively core things (like generic lists) can cause
headaches in term of correctness. Go will reject you trying to append a string
to an integer slice, but you cannot create a type that functions identically to
an integer slice.
Go does have a race detector that will point out a lot of sins in concurrent
programs, but that is again at _runtime_, not at _compile time_.
---
Many thanks to Tene, Sr. Oracle, A. Wilfox, Byte-slice, SiIvagunner and anyone
who watched the stream where I wrote this blogpost. If I got things wrong in
this, please [reach out to me](/contact) to let me know what I messed up. This
is a composite of a few twitter threads and a conversation I had on IRC.
Thanks for reading, be well.

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---
title: The Within Go Repo Layout
date: 2020-09-07
series: howto
tags:
- go
- standards
---
# The Within Go Repo Layout
Go repository layout is a very different thing compared to other languages.
There's a lot of conflicting opinions and little firm guidance to help steer
people along a path to more maintainable code. This is a collection of
guidelines that help to facilitate understandable and idiomatic Go.
At a high level the following principles should be followed:
- If the code is designed to be consumed by other random people using that
repository, it is made available for others to import
- If the code is NOT designed to be consumed by other random people using that
repository, it is NOT made available for others to import
- Code should be as close to where it's used as possible
- Documentation helps understand _why_, not _how_
- More people can reuse your code than you think
## Folder Structure
At a minimum, the following folders should be present in the repository:
- `cmd/` -> houses executable commands
- `docs/` -> houses human readable documentation
- `internal/` -> houses code not intended to be used by others
- `scripts/` -> houses any scripts needed for meta-operations
Any additional code can be placed anywhere in the repo as long as it makes
sense. More on this later in the document.
## Additional Code
If there is code that should be available for other people outside of this
project to use, it is better to make it a publicly available (not internal)
package. If the code is also used across multiple parts of your program or is
only intended for outside use, it should be in the repository root. If not, it
should be as close to where it is used as makes sense. Consider this directory
layout:
```
repo-root
├── cmd
│   ├── paperwork
│   │   ├── create
│   │   │   └── create.go
│   │   └── main.go
│   ├── hospital
│   │   ├── internal
│   │   │   └── operate.go
│   │   └── main.go
│   └── integrator
│   ├── integrate.go
│   └── main.go
├── internal
│   └── log_manipulate.go
└── web
├── error.go
└── instrument.go
```
This would expose packages `repo-root/web` and `repo-root/cmd/paperwork/create`
to be consumed by outside users. This would allow reuse of the error handling in
package `web`, but it would not allow reuse of whatever manipulation is done to
logging in package `repo-root/internal`.
## `repo-root/cmd/`
This folder has subfolders with go files in them. Each of these subfolders is
one command binary. The entrypoint of each command should be `main.go` so that
it is easy to identify in a directory listing. This follows how the [go standard
library][stdlibcmd] does this.
For example:
```
repo-root
└── cmd
├── paperwork
│   └── main.go
├── hospital
│   └── main.go
└── integrator
└── main.go
```
This would be for three commands named `paperwork`, `hospital`, and `integrate`
respectively.
As your commands get more complicated, it's tempting to create packages in
`repo-root/internal/` to implement them. This is probably a bad idea. It's
better to create the packages in the same folder as the command, or optionally
in its `internal` package. Consider if `paperwork` has a command named `create`,
`hospital` has a command named `operate` and `integrator` has a command named
`integrate`:
```
repo-root
└── cmd
├── paperwork
│   ├── create
│   │   └── create.go
│   └── main.go
├── hospital
│   ├── internal
│   │   └── operate.go
│   └── main.go
└── integrator
├── integrate.go
└── main.go
```
Each of these commands has the logic separated into different packages.
`paperwork` has the create command as a subpackage, meaning that other parts of the
application can consume that code if they need to.
`hospital` has the operate command inside its internal package, meaning [only
cmd/foo/ and anything that has the same import path prefix can use that
code][internalcode].
This makes it easier to isolate the code so that other parts of the repo
_cannot_ use it.
`integrator` has the integrate command as a separate go file in the main package of
the command. This makes the integrate command code only usable within the
command because main packages cannot be imported by other packages.
Each of these methods makes sense in some contexts and not in others. Real-world
usage will probably see a mix of these depending on what makes sense.
## `repo-root/docs/`
This folder has human-readable documentation files.
These files are intended to help humans understand how to
use the program or reasons why the program was put together the way it was. This
documentation should be in the language most common to the team of people
developing the software.
The structure inside this folder is going to be very organic, so it is not
entirely defined here.
## `repo-root/internal/`
The [internal folder should house code that others shouldn't
consume][internalcode]. This can be for many reasons. Generally if you cannot
see a use for this code outside the context of the program you are developing,
but it needs to be used across multiple packages in different areas of the repo,
it should default to going here.
If the code is safe for public consumption, it should go elsewhere.
## `repo-root/scripts/`
The scripts folder should contain each script that is needed for various
operations. This could be for running fully automated tests in a docker
container or packaging the program for distribution. These files should be
documented as makes sense.
## Test Code
Code should be tested in the same folder that it's written in. See the [upstream
testing documentation][gotest] for more information.
Integration tests or other things should be done in an internal subpackage
called "integration" or similar.f
## Questions and Answers
### Why not use `pkg/` for packages you intend others to use?
The name `pkg` is already well-known in the Go ecosystem. It is [the folder that
compiled packages (not command binaries) go][pkgfolder]. Using it creates the
potential for confusion between code that others are encouraged to use and the
meaning that the Go compiler toolchain has.
If a package prefix for publicly available code is really needed, choose a name
not already known to the Go compiler toolchain such as "public".
### How does this differ from https://github.com/golang-standards/project-layout?
This differs in a few key ways:
- Discourages the use of `pkg`, because it's obvious if something is publicly
available or not if it can be imported outside of the package
- Leaves the development team a lot more agency to decide how to name things
The core philosophy of this layout is that the developers should be able to
decide how to put files into the repository.
### But I really think I need `pkg`!
Set up another git repo for those libraries then. If they are so important that
other people need to use them, they should probably be in a `libraries` repo or
individual git repos.
Besides, nothing is stopping you from actually using `pkg` if you want to. Some
more experienced go programmers will protest though.
## Examples of This in Action
Here are a few examples of views of this layout in action:
- https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src
- https://github.com/golang/tools
- https://github.com/PonyvilleFM/aura
- https://github.com/Xe/ln
- https://github.com/goproxyio/goproxy
- https://github.com/heroku/x
[stdlibcmd]: https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/cmd
[internalcode]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e8kOo3r51b2BWtTs_1uADIA5djfXhPT36s6eHVRIvaU/edit
[gotest]: https://golang.org/pkg/testing/
[pkgfolder]: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-the-gopath

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@ -1,76 +0,0 @@
---
title: ZSA Moonlander First Impressions
date: 2020-10-27
series: keeb
tags:
- moonlander
- keyboard
---
# ZSA Moonlander First Impressions
As I mentioned
[before](https://christine.website/blog/colemak-layout-2020-08-15), I ordered a
[ZSA Moonlander](https://zsa.io/moonlander) and it has finally arrived. I am
writing this post from my Moonlander, and as such I may do a few more typos
than normal, I'm still getting used to this.
![a picture of the keyboard on my
desk](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/ElVbBm_XUAcVhOg.jpg)
The Moonlander is a weird keyboard. I knew that it would be odd from the get-go
(split ergonomic keyboards have this reputation for a reason), but I was
surprised at how natural it feels. Setup was a breeze (unbox, plug it in, flash
firmware, type), and I have been experimenting with tenting angles on my desk.
It is a _very_ solid keyboard with basically zero deck flex.
I have a [fairly complicated
keymap](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/kadis-layouts/src/branch/master/moonlander) that
worked almost entirely on the first try. Here is a more user friendly
visualization of my keymap (sans fun things like leader macros):
<div style="padding-top: 60%; position: relative;">
<iframe src="https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/embed/moonlander/layouts/xbJXx/latest/0" style="border: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; top: 0; width: 100%"></iframe>
</div>
My typing speed has been destroyed by the change to this ortholinear layout.
Before I was getting around 70 words per minute at best (according to
[monkeytype.com](https://monkeytype.com/)), but now I am lucky to hit about 35
words per minute. My fingers kinda reach for where keys are on a staggered
keyboard and I have the most trouble with `x`, `v`, `.` and `b` at the moment. I
really like having a dedicated : key on my right hand. It makes command mode (and
yaml) so much easier. The larger red buttons are a bit odd to hit at the moment,
but I imagine that will get much easier with time.
Each key has a programmable RGB light under it. This allows you to get some
really nice effects like this:
![The left hand of my steno
layout](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/ElTG7QSW0AEqXeE.jpg)
However brown colors don't come out as well as I'd hoped:
![My media layer that mostly has brown lighting, this looks a bit better in the
dark](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/ElVdFKoX0AE_dAA.jpg)
I am not sure how I feel about the armrests. On one hand they feel a bit cold
(context: it is currently 1.57 degrees outside and I'm wearing a hoodie at my
desk so that may end up being the cause of this), but on the other hand i really
hate typing on this without them. The tenting is nice, I need to play with it
more but the included instructions help a lot.
I still have a long way to go. I'll write up a longer and more detailed review
in a few weeks.
Expect to see many more glory shots on
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena)!
As an added bonus, here is the `if err != nil` key in action:
<video controls width="100%">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/tmp.ZdCemPUcnd.webm"
type="video/webm">
<source src="https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/tmp.ZdCemPUcnd.mp4"
type="video/mp4">
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos.
</video>

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@ -1,442 +0,0 @@
---
title: ZSA Moonlander Review
date: 2020-11-06
series: keeb
tags:
- moonlander
- keyboard
- nixos
---
# ZSA Moonlander Review
I am nowhere near qualified to review things objectively. Therefore this
blogpost will mostly be about what I like about this keyboard. I plan to go into
a fair bit of detail, however please do keep in mind that this is subjective as
all hell. Also keep in mind that this is partially also going to be a review of
my own keyboard layout too. I'm going to tackle this in a few parts that I will
label with headings.
This review is NOT sponsored. I paid for this device with my own money. I have
no influence pushing me either way on this keyboard.
![a picture of the keyboard on my
desk](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/Elm3dN8XUAAYHws.jpg)
[That 3d printed brain is built from the 3D model that was made as a part of <a
href="https://christine.website/blog/brain-fmri-to-3d-model-2019-08-23">this
blogpost</a>.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
## tl;dr
I like the Moonlander. It gets out of my way and lets me focus on writing and
code. I don't like how limited the Oryx configurator is, but the fact that I can
build my own firmware from source and flash it to the keyboard on my own makes
up for that. I think this was a purchase well worth making, but I can understand
why others would disagree. I can easily see this device becoming a core part of
my workflow for years to come.
## Build Quality
The Moonlander is a solid keyboard. Once you set it up with the tenting legs and
adjust the key cluster, the keyboard is rock solid. The only give I've noticed
is because my desk mat is made of a rubber-like material. The construction of
the keyboard is all plastic but there isn't any deck flex that I can tell.
Compare this to cheaper laptops where the entire keyboard bends if you so much
as touch the keys too hard.
The palmrests are detachable and when they are off it gives the keyboard a
space-age vibe to it:
![the left half of the keyboard without the palmrest
attached](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/EmJ1bqNXUAAJy4d.jpg)
The palmrests feel very solid and fold up into the back of the keyboard for
travel. However folding up the palmrest does mess up the tenting stability, so
you can't fold in the palmrest and type very comfortably. This makes sense
though, the palmrest is made out of smooth plastic so it feels nicer on the
hands.
ZSA said that iPad compatibility is not guaranteed due to the fact that the iPad
might not put out enough juice to run it, however in my testing with an iPad Pro
2018 (12", 512 GB storage) it works fine. The battery drains a little faster,
but the Moonlander is a much more active keyboard than the smart keyboard so I
can forgive this.
## Switches
I've been using mechanical keyboards for years, but most of them have been
clicky switches (such as cloned Cherry MX blues, actual legit Cherry MX blues
and the awful Razer Green switches). This is my first real experience with
Cherry MX brown switches. There are many other options when you are about to
order a moonlander, but I figured Cherry MX browns would be a nice neutral
choice.
The keyswitches are hot-swappable (no disassembly or soldering required), and
changing out keyswitches **DOES NOT** void your warranty. I plan to look into
[Holy Pandas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLm8DNH5hJk) and [Zilents
V2](https://youtu.be/uGVw85solnE) in the future. There is even a clever little
tool in the box that makes it easy to change out keyswitches.
Overall, this has been one of the best typing experiences I have ever had. The
noise is a little louder than I would have liked (please note that I tend to
bottom out the keycaps as I type, so this may end up factoring into the noise I
experience); but overall I really like it. It is far better than I have ever had
with clicky switches.
## Typing Feel
The Moonlander uses an ortholinear layout as opposed to the staggered layout
that you find on most keyboards. This took some getting used to, but I have
found that it is incredibly comfortable and natural to write on.
## My Keymap
Each side of the keyboard has the following:
- 20 alphanumeric keys (some are used for `;`, `,`, `.` and `/` like normal
keyboards)
- 12 freely assignable keys (useful for layer changes, arrow keys, symbols and
modifiers)
- 4 thumb keys
In total, this keyboard has 72 keys, making it about a 70% keyboard (assuming
the math in my head is right).
My keymap uses all but two of these keys. The two keys I haven't figured out how
to best use yet are the ones that I currently have the `[` and `]` keycaps on.
Right now they are mapped to the left and right arrow keys. This was the
default.
My keymap is organized into
[layers](https://docs.qmk.fm/#/keymap?id=keymap-and-layers). In each of these
subsections I will go into detail about what these layers are, what they do and
how they help me. My keymap code is
[here](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/kadis-layouts/src/branch/master/moonlander) and I
have a limited view of it embedded below:
<div style="padding-top: 60%; position: relative;">
<iframe src="https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/embed/moonlander/layouts/xbJXx/latest/0" style="border: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; top: 0; width: 100%"></iframe>
</div>
If you want to flash my layout to your Moonlander for some reason, you can find
the firmware binary
[here](https://cdn.christine.website/file/christine-static/img/keeb/moonlander_kadis.bin).
You can then flash this to your keyboard with
[Wally](https://ergodox-ez.com/pages/wally).
### Base Layers
I have a few base layers that contain the main set of letters and numbers that I
type. The main base layer is my Colemak layer. I have the keys arranged to a
standard [Colemak](https://Colemak.com/) layout and it is currently the layer I
type the fastest on. I have the RGB configured so that it is mostly pink with
the homerow using a lighter shade of pink. The color codes come from my logo
that you can see in the favicon [or here for a larger
version](https://christine.website/static/img/avatar_large.png).
I also have a qwerty layer for gaming. Most games expect qwerty keyboards and
this is an excellent stopgap to avoid having to rebind every game that I want to
play. The left side of the keyboard is the active one with the controller board
in it too, so I can unplug the other half of the keyboard and give my mouse a
lot of room to roam.
Thanks to a friend of mine, I am also playing with Dvorak. I have not gotten far
in Dvorak yet, but it is interesting to play with.
I'll cover the leader key in the section below dedicated to it, but the other
major thing that I have is a colon key on my right hand thumb cluster. This has
been a huge boon for programming. The colon key is typed a lot. Having it on the
thumb cluster means that I can just reach down and hit it when I need to. This
makes writing code in Go and Rust so much easier.
### Symbol/Number Layer
If you look at the base layer keymap, you will see that I do not have square
brackets mapped anywhere there. Yet I write code with it effortlessly. This is
because of the symbol/number layer that I access with the lower right and lower
left keys on the keyboard. I have it positioned there so I can roll my hand to
the side and then unlock the symbols there. I have access to every major symbol
needed for programming save `<` and `>` (which I can easily access on the base
layer with the shift key). I also get a nav cluster and a number pad.
I also have [dynamic macros](https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_dynamic_macros) on
this layer which function kinda like vim macros. The only difference is that
there's only two macros instead of many like vim. They are convenient though.
### Media Layer
One of the cooler parts of the Moonlander is that it can act as a mouse. It is a
very terrible mouse (understandably, mostly because the digital inputs of
keypresses cannot match the analog precision of a mouse). This layer has an
arrow key cluster too. I normally use the arrow keys along the bottom of the
keyboard with my thumbs, but sometimes it can help to have a dedicated inverse T
arrow cluster for things like old MS-DOS games.
I also have media control keys here. They aren't the most useful on my linux
desktop, however when I plug it into my iPad they are amazing.
### dwm Layer
I use [dwm](/blog/why-i-use-suckless-tools-2020-06-05) as my main window manager
in Linux. dwm is entirely controlled using the keyboard. I have a dedicated
keyboard layer to control dwm and send out its keyboard shortcuts. It's really
nice and lets me get all of the advantages of my tiling setup without needing to
hit weird keycombos.
### Leader Macros
[Leader macros](https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_leader_key) are one of the killer
features of my layout. I have a [huge
bank](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/kadis-layouts/src/branch/master/doc/leader.md) of
them and use them to do type out things that I type a lot. Most common git and
Kubernetes commands are just a leader macro away.
The Go `if err != nil` macro that got me on /r/programmingcirclejerk twice is
one of my leader macros, but I may end up promoting it to its own key if I keep
getting so much use out of it (maybe one of the keys I don't use can become my
`if err != nil` key). I'm sad that the threads got deleted (I love it when my
content gets on there, it's one of my favorite subreddits), but such is life.
## NixOS, the Moonlander and Colemak
When I got this keyboard, flashed the firmware and plugged it in, I noticed that
my keyboard was sending weird inputs. It was rendering things that look like
this:
```
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy yellow dog.
```
into this:
```
Ghf qluce bpywk tyx nlm;r yvfp ghf iazj jfiiyw syd.
```
This is because I had configured my NixOS install to interpret the keyboard as
if it was Colemak. However the keyboard is able to lie and sends out normal
keycodes (even though I am typing them in Colemak) as if I was typing in qwerty.
This double Colemak meant that a lot of messages and commands were completely
unintelligible until I popped into my qwerty layer.
I quickly found the culprit in my config:
```nix
console.useXkbConfig = true;
services.xserver = {
layout = "us";
xkbVariant = "colemak";
xkbOptions = "caps:escape";
};
```
This config told the X server to always interpret my keyboard as if it was
Colemak, meaning that I needed to tell it not to. As a stopgap I commented this
section of my config out and rebuilt my system.
X11 allows you to specify keyboard configuration for keyboards individually by
device product/vendor names. The easiest way I know to get this information is
to open a terminal, run `dmesg -w` to get a constant stream of kernel logs,
unplug and plug the keyboard back in and see what the kernel reports:
```console
[242718.024229] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 8
[242948.272824] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[242948.420895] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=3297, idProduct=1969, bcdDevice= 0.01
[242948.420896] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[242948.420897] usb 1-2: Product: Moonlander Mark I
[242948.420898] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: ZSA Technology Labs
[242948.420898] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 0
```
The product is named `Moonlander Mark I`, which means we can match for it and
tell X11 to not colemakify the keycodes using something like this:
```
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "moonlander"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "Moonlander"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
EndSection
```
[For more information on what you can do in an `InputClass` section, see <a
href="https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/man/man5/xorg.conf.5.xhtml#heading9">here</a>
in the X11 documentation.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
This configuration fragment can easily go in the normal X11 configuration
folder, but doing it like this would mean that I would have to manually drop
this file in on every system I want to colemakify. This does not scale and
defeats the point of doing this in NixOS.
Thankfully NixOS has [an
option](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=20.09&show=services.xserver.inputClassSections&from=0&size=30&sort=relevance&query=inputClassSections)
to solve this very problem. Using this module we can write something like this:
```nix
services.xserver = {
layout = "us";
xkbVariant = "colemak";
xkbOptions = "caps:escape";
inputClassSections = [
''
Identifier "yubikey"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "Yubikey"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
''
''
Identifier "moonlander"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "Moonlander"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
''
];
};
```
But this is NixOS and that allows us to go one step further and make the
identifier and product matching string configurable as will with our own [NixOS
options](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-writing-modules).
Let's start by lifting all of that above config into its own module:
```nix
# Colemak.nix
{ config, lib, ... }: with lib; {
options = {
cadey.colemak = {
enable = mkEnableOption "Enables colemak for the default X config";
};
};
config = mkIf config.cadey.Colemak.enable {
services.xserver = {
layout = "us";
xkbVariant = "colemak";
xkbOptions = "caps:escape";
inputClassSections = [
''
Identifier "yubikey"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "Yubikey"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
''
''
Identifier "moonlander"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "Moonlander"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "basic"
''
];
};
};
}
```
[This also has Yubikey inputs not get processed into Colemak so that <a
href="https://developers.yubico.com/OTP/OTPs_Explained.html">Yubikey OTPs</a>
still work as expected. Keep in mind that a Yubikey in this mode pretends to be
a keyboard, so without this configuration the OTP will be processed into
Colemak. The Yubico verification service will not be able to understand OTPs
that are typed out in Colemak.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
Then we can turn the identifier and product values into options with
[mkOption](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-option-declarations)
and string interpolation:
```nix
# ...
cadey.colemak = {
enable = mkEnableOption "Enables Colemak for the default X config";
ignore = {
identifier = mkOption {
type = types.str;
description = "Keyboard input identifier to send raw keycodes for";
default = "moonlander";
};
product = mkOption {
type = types.str;
description = "Keyboard input product to send raw keycodes for";
default = "Moonlander";
};
};
};
# ...
''
Identifier "${config.cadey.colemak.ignore.identifier}"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchProduct "${config.cadey.colemak.ignore.product}"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
''
# ...
```
Adding this to the default load path and enabling it with `cadey.colemak.enable
= true;` in my tower's `configuration.nix`
This section was made possible thanks to help from [Graham
Christensen](https://twitter.com/grhmc) who seems to be in search of a job. If
you are wanting someone on your team that is kind and more than willing to help
make your team flourish, I highly suggest looking into putting him in your
hiring pipeline. See
[here](https://twitter.com/grhmc/status/1324765493534875650) for contact
information.
## Oryx
[Oryx](https://configure.ergodox-ez.com) is the configurator that ZSA created to
allow people to create keymaps without needing to compile your own firmware or
install the [QMK](https://qmk.fm) toolchain.
[QMK is the name of the firmware that the Moonlander (and a lot of other
custom/split mechanical keyboards) use. It works on AVR and Arm
processors.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
For most people, Oryx should be sufficient. I actually started my keymap using
Oryx and sorta outgrew it as I learned more about QMK. It would be nice if Oryx
added leader key support, however this is more of an advanced feature so I
understand why it doesn't have that.
## Things I Don't Like
This keyboard isn't flawless, but it gets so many things right that this is
mostly petty bickering at this point. I had to look hard to find these.
I would have liked having another thumb key for things like layer toggling. I
can make do with what I have, but another key would have been nice. Maybe add a
1u key under the red shaped key?
At the point I ordered the Moonlander, I was unable to order a black keyboard
with white keycaps. I am told that ZSA will be selling keycap sets as early as
next year. When that happens I will be sure to order a white one so that I can
have an orca vibe.
ZSA ships with UPS. Normally UPS is fine for me, but the driver that was slated
to deliver it one day just didn't deliver it. I was able to get the keyboard
eventually though. Contrary to their claims, the UPS website does NOT update
instantly and is NOT the most up to date source of information about your
package.
The cables aren't braided. I would have liked braided cables.
Like I said, these are _really minor_ things, but it's all I can really come up
with as far as downsides go.
## Conclusion
Overall this keyboard is amazing. I would really suggest it to anyone that wants
to be able to have control over their main tool and craft it towards their
desires instead of making do with what some product manager somewhere decided
what keys should do what. It's expensive at USD$350, but for the right kind of
person this will be worth every penny. Your mileage may vary, but I like it.

1
cmd/site/gopher.go Normal file
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package main

245
cmd/site/html.go Normal file
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package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
"html/template"
"net/http"
"path/filepath"
"strings"
"time"
"christine.website/cmd/site/internal"
"christine.website/cmd/site/internal/blog"
"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus"
"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus/promauto"
"within.website/ln"
"within.website/ln/opname"
)
var (
templateRenderTime = promauto.NewHistogramVec(prometheus.HistogramOpts{
Name: "template_render_time",
Help: "Template render time in nanoseconds",
}, []string{"name"})
)
func logTemplateTime(ctx context.Context, name string, f ln.F, from time.Time) {
dur := time.Since(from)
templateRenderTime.With(prometheus.Labels{"name": name}).Observe(float64(dur))
ln.Log(ctx, f, ln.F{"dur": dur, "name": name})
}
func (s *Site) renderTemplatePage(templateFname string, data interface{}) http.Handler {
return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
ctx := opname.With(r.Context(), "renderTemplatePage")
fetag := "W/" + internal.Hash(templateFname, etag) + "-1"
f := ln.F{"etag": fetag, "if_none_match": r.Header.Get("If-None-Match")}
if r.Header.Get("If-None-Match") == fetag {
http.Error(w, "Cached data OK", http.StatusNotModified)
ln.Log(ctx, f, ln.Info("Cache hit"))
return
}
defer logTemplateTime(ctx, templateFname, f, time.Now())
var t *template.Template
var err error
t, err = template.ParseFiles("templates/base.html", "templates/"+templateFname)
if err != nil {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
ln.Error(ctx, err, ln.F{"action": "renderTemplatePage", "page": templateFname})
fmt.Fprintf(w, "error: %v", err)
}
w.Header().Set("ETag", fetag)
w.Header().Set("Cache-Control", "max-age=432000")
err = t.Execute(w, data)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
})
}
var postView = promauto.NewCounterVec(prometheus.CounterOpts{
Name: "posts_viewed",
Help: "The number of views per post or talk",
}, []string{"base"})
func (s *Site) listSeries(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
s.renderTemplatePage("series.html", s.Series).ServeHTTP(w, r)
}
func (s *Site) showSeries(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.RequestURI == "/blog/series/" {
http.Redirect(w, r, "/blog/series", http.StatusSeeOther)
return
}
series := filepath.Base(r.URL.Path)
var posts []blog.Post
for _, p := range s.Posts {
if p.Series == series {
posts = append(posts, p)
}
}
s.renderTemplatePage("serieslist.html", struct {
Name string
Posts []blog.Post
}{
Name: series,
Posts: posts,
}).ServeHTTP(w, r)
}
func (s *Site) showGallery(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.RequestURI == "/gallery/" {
http.Redirect(w, r, "/gallery", http.StatusSeeOther)
return
}
cmp := r.URL.Path[1:]
var p blog.Post
var found bool
for _, pst := range s.Gallery {
if pst.Link == cmp {
p = pst
found = true
}
}
if !found {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotFound)
s.renderTemplatePage("error.html", "no such post found: "+r.RequestURI).ServeHTTP(w, r)
return
}
var tags string
if len(p.Tags) != 0 {
for _, t := range p.Tags {
tags = tags + " #" + strings.ReplaceAll(t, "-", "")
}
}
h := s.renderTemplatePage("gallerypost.html", struct {
Title string
Link string
BodyHTML template.HTML
Date string
Tags string
Image string
}{
Title: p.Title,
Link: p.Link,
BodyHTML: p.BodyHTML,
Date: internal.IOS13Detri(p.Date),
Tags: tags,
Image: p.ImageURL,
})
if h == nil {
panic("how did we get here?")
}
h.ServeHTTP(w, r)
postView.With(prometheus.Labels{"base": filepath.Base(p.Link)}).Inc()
}
func (s *Site) showTalk(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.RequestURI == "/talks/" {
http.Redirect(w, r, "/talks", http.StatusSeeOther)
return
}
cmp := r.URL.Path[1:]
var p blog.Post
var found bool
for _, pst := range s.Talks {
if pst.Link == cmp {
p = pst
found = true
}
}
if !found {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotFound)
s.renderTemplatePage("error.html", "no such post found: "+r.RequestURI).ServeHTTP(w, r)
return
}
h := s.renderTemplatePage("talkpost.html", struct {
Title string
Link string
BodyHTML template.HTML
Date string
SlidesLink string
}{
Title: p.Title,
Link: p.Link,
BodyHTML: p.BodyHTML,
Date: internal.IOS13Detri(p.Date),
SlidesLink: p.SlidesLink,
})
if h == nil {
panic("how did we get here?")
}
h.ServeHTTP(w, r)
postView.With(prometheus.Labels{"base": filepath.Base(p.Link)}).Inc()
}
func (s *Site) showPost(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if r.RequestURI == "/blog/" {
http.Redirect(w, r, "/blog", http.StatusSeeOther)
return
}
cmp := r.URL.Path[1:]
var p blog.Post
var found bool
for _, pst := range s.Posts {
if pst.Link == cmp {
p = pst
found = true
}
}
if !found {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotFound)
s.renderTemplatePage("error.html", "no such post found: "+r.RequestURI).ServeHTTP(w, r)
return
}
var tags string
if len(p.Tags) != 0 {
for _, t := range p.Tags {
tags = tags + " #" + strings.ReplaceAll(t, "-", "")
}
}
s.renderTemplatePage("blogpost.html", struct {
Title string
Link string
BodyHTML template.HTML
Date string
Series, SeriesTag string
Tags string
}{
Title: p.Title,
Link: p.Link,
BodyHTML: p.BodyHTML,
Date: internal.IOS13Detri(p.Date),
Series: p.Series,
SeriesTag: strings.ReplaceAll(p.Series, "-", ""),
Tags: tags,
}).ServeHTTP(w, r)
postView.With(prometheus.Labels{"base": filepath.Base(p.Link)}).Inc()
}

136
cmd/site/internal/blog/blog.go Normal file
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package blog
import (
"html/template"
"io/ioutil"
"os"
"path/filepath"
"sort"
"strings"
"time"
"christine.website/cmd/site/internal/front"
"github.com/russross/blackfriday"
)
// Post is a single blogpost.
type Post struct {
Title string `json:"title"`
Link string `json:"link"`
Summary string `json:"summary,omitifempty"`
Body string `json:"-"`
BodyHTML template.HTML `json:"body"`
Series string `json:"series"`
Tags []string `json:"tags"`
SlidesLink string `json:"slides_link"`
ImageURL string `json:"image_url"`
ThumbURL string `json:"thumb_url"`
Date time.Time
DateString string `json:"date"`
}
// Posts implements sort.Interface for a slice of Post objects.
type Posts []Post
func (p Posts) Series() []string {
names := map[string]struct{}{}
for _, ps := range p {
if ps.Series != "" {
names[ps.Series] = struct{}{}
}
}
var result []string
for name := range names {
result = append(result, name)
}
return result
}
func (p Posts) Len() int { return len(p) }
func (p Posts) Less(i, j int) bool {
iDate := p[i].Date
jDate := p[j].Date
return iDate.Unix() < jDate.Unix()
}
func (p Posts) Swap(i, j int) { p[i], p[j] = p[j], p[i] }
// LoadPosts loads posts for a given directory.
func LoadPosts(path string, prepend string) (Posts, error) {
type postFM struct {
Title string
Date string
Series string
Tags []string
SlidesLink string `yaml:"slides_link"`
Image string
Thumb string
}
var result Posts
err := filepath.Walk(path, func(path string, info os.FileInfo, err error) error {
if err != nil {
return err
}
if info.IsDir() {
return nil
}
fin, err := os.Open(path)
if err != nil {
return err
}
defer fin.Close()
content, err := ioutil.ReadAll(fin)
if err != nil {
return err
}
var fm postFM
remaining, err := front.Unmarshal(content, &fm)
if err != nil {
return err
}
output := blackfriday.Run(remaining)
const timeFormat = `2006-01-02`
date, err := time.Parse(timeFormat, fm.Date)
if err != nil {
return err
}
fname := filepath.Base(path)
fname = strings.TrimSuffix(fname, filepath.Ext(fname))
p := Post{
Title: fm.Title,
Date: date,
DateString: fm.Date,
Link: filepath.Join(prepend, fname),
Body: string(remaining),
BodyHTML: template.HTML(output),
SlidesLink: fm.SlidesLink,
Series: fm.Series,
Tags: fm.Tags,
ImageURL: fm.Image,
ThumbURL: fm.Thumb,
}
result = append(result, p)
return nil
})
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
sort.Sort(sort.Reverse(result))
return result, nil
}

66
cmd/site/internal/blog/blog_test.go Normal file
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package blog
import (
"testing"
)
func TestLoadPosts(t *testing.T) {
posts, err := LoadPosts("../../../../blog", "blog")
if err != nil {
t.Fatal(err)
}
for _, post := range posts {
t.Run(post.Link, post.test)
}
}
func TestLoadTalks(t *testing.T) {
talks, err := LoadPosts("../../../../talks", "talks")
if err != nil {
t.Fatal(err)
}
for _, talk := range talks {
t.Run(talk.Link, talk.test)
if talk.SlidesLink == "" {
t.Errorf("talk %s (%s) doesn't have a slides link", talk.Title, talk.DateString)
}
}
}
func TestLoadGallery(t *testing.T) {
gallery, err := LoadPosts("../../../../gallery", "gallery")
if err != nil {
t.Fatal(err)
}
for _, art := range gallery {
t.Run(art.Link, art.test)
if art.ImageURL == "" {
t.Errorf("art %s (%s) doesn't have an image link", art.Title, art.DateString)
}
if art.ThumbURL == "" {
t.Errorf("art %s (%s) doesn't have a thumbnail link", art.Title, art.DateString)
}
}
}
func (p Post) test(t *testing.T) {
if p.Title == "" {
t.Error("no post title")
}
if p.DateString == "" {
t.Error("no date")
}
if p.Link == "" {
t.Error("no link")
}
if p.Body == "" {
t.Error("no body")
}
}

10
cmd/site/internal/date.go Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
package internal
import "time"
const iOS13DetriFormat = `2006 M1 2`
// IOS13Detri formats a datestamp like iOS 13 does with the Lojban locale.
func IOS13Detri(t time.Time) string {
return t.Format(iOS13DetriFormat)
}

28
cmd/site/internal/date_test.go Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
package internal
import (
"fmt"
"testing"
"time"
)
func TestIOS13Detri(t *testing.T) {
cases := []struct {
in time.Time
out string
}{
{
in: time.Date(2019, time.March, 30, 0, 0, 0, 0, time.FixedZone("UTC", 0)),
out: "2019 M3 30",
},
}
for _, cs := range cases {
t.Run(fmt.Sprintf("%s -> %s", cs.in.Format(time.RFC3339), cs.out), func(t *testing.T) {
result := IOS13Detri(cs.in)
if result != cs.out {
t.Fatalf("wanted: %s, got: %s", cs.out, result)
}
})
}
}

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