• 5 Posts
  • 66 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: December 2nd, 2022

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  • Between Elixir and Erlang. Erlang is what’s used in telecom right? Is Elixir as well? Is Elixir like a new improved Erlang? I’ve heard so much about Elixir recently.

    You have piqued my interest, I’ve recently gotten back into programming (I do “devops” for work) and don’t really consider myself a programmer, but I find languages fascinating. I was lucky enough to join a study group on compiler design with an Apache project leader and while it was over my head, I learned a lot and enjoyed it.

    (I know I could look this up, but enjoying the conversation :)






  • I think this is where “compartmentalization” comes in. Similar in concept to how you are forced to wall off sadness when a loved one dies so that you can continue to live your life, I think there are mentally competent right wingers, but they wall off the logic and reasoning so that it applies only to machines. They do this because if those ideas of logic and reason get beyond the wall/outside of the compartment, the meaning of their lives falls apart.


  • The easiest way to think about it that is kinda right, and what got me into is “It’s like compiled Ruby and nearly as fast as C”.

    Crystal is a language with syntax modeled after Ruby, which is considered one of the most human friendly languages (it’s way easier to understand than C and most others). Ruby and Crystal are “object oriented”. Like if you wanted to know what I had for lunch using Crystal you’d ask me, an “object” last_meal = kool_newt.stomach_contents, as where in C, you’d cut me open and look.

    Where Ruby is a dynamically typed (it figures out whether things are Strings or Arrays, etc on the fly as needed, handy but very slow) scripting language, Crystal is statically typed, so you have to be conscious of types while you code. And where with ruby you end up with a script, Crystal code is compiled into a binary.

    Where Ruby is good for small/medium websites with a modest traffic, or for prototyping ideas in an easy language, or making smaller utilities, Crystal can handle massive traffic, and make fast production level apps and tools without the difficulty of C or Java.

    I’m using Crystal and Kemal (Kemal is akin to Ruby’s Sinatra) for web dev, and trying to make my own DNS utils (I want dnsip, not a fan of drill, dig, and other tools).

    If you know Ruby, Crystal is an easy jump.





    • Political pressure comes in part from people like me who live around here and where they’d look for other sites. I don’t want trucks full of nuclear waste constantly being trucked through my area (and your area!), I don’t want to be viewed as a bomb target by enemies. I don’t want trucks of nuclear waste around the country being viewed as dirty bomb targets.

    • Even without the political pressure, how is nuclear power clean when massive massive holes in the ground have to be created and maintained with huge trucks and cranes using fossil fuels so we have a place to store waste that will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years? Yucca Mountain has taken decades to approve and build, any other sites will likely also. Spent nuclear fuel having to be trucked across the country using fossil fuels and tires, at best can be converted to battery power.

    • Nuclear plants take a decade or more to build, we don’t have that kind of time when it comes to climate change.

    • Nuclear power makes nuclear disarmament that much less likely

    • All of this is also assuming our current civilization continues for tens of thousands of years unbroken. If for some reason 500 years from now civilization broke down or was taken over and the average person couldn’t read English anymore, how would we transmit the idea of everlasting danger in a geographic region to those who may see things very differently?