Author: Neil Mather

Trying to keep my software social (https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2019/06/the-blog-and-wiki-combo/), so I’ve started tagging articles that I save to Wallabag for reading later with a couple of new tags – ‘wbaf’ and ‘sbaf’ – short for ‘written by a friend’ and ‘shared by a friend’ respectively. (Where ‘friend’ is the A and B channels of my discovery strategy – https://doubleloop.net/2019/10/05/discovery-strategy/.)

When I have some spare time to read something, I go to wbaf and sbaf first. Should be good for building bonds, and a win against filter failture, possibly a loss against filter bubble, but let’s see how it pans out…

Booo, got the following error when installing Guix:

error: '/gnu/store/dzr35fc1wvgkgz2d4qp3xzhn6wg313c-grub-efi-2.02/sbin/grub-install --boot-directory /mnt/boot --botloader-id=Guix --efi-directory /boot/efi' exited with status 1; output follows:

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
/gnu/store/dzr35fc1wvgkgz2d4qp3xzhn6wg313c-grub-efi-2.02/sbin/grub-install: error: failed to get canonical path of '/boot/efi'.

guix system: error: failed to install bootloader /gnu/store/kcimndl2hncnng4vhyylipabdxk7f0r9-bootloader-installer

On the plus side, I feel like I’m installing GNU/Linux 20 years ago again, kind of nostalgic in a way

Steve Ballmer running around a stage, but shouting ‘LIBERATORY TECHNOLOGY’ instead of ‘DEVELOPERS’

Would be good to have an overall progress indicator during #Guix install. There’s indicators for each individual package, but no clue as to how far is left in the overall install process.

Can you install Guix (the OS) on just a single partition? I tried going through the graphical installer and mounting a single existing free partition as /. Thinking that all of Guix would then go on that partition. But the next step in the installer said ‘We are about to format your hard drive, is that OK?’. So I bailed out at that point… Presumably you don’t *have* to format the whole disk? – what’s the way to use just a single partition?

If you look at Wigan (my hometown) it’s part of the picture of why Labour’s never taken a strong leave or remain stance. Wigan’s been a safe Labour seat since 1918 but voted 64% for Brexit.

You can see the reason for the argument that if you’re stuck at the bottom of the pile, you’ll take whatever slim possibility of change is on offer.

The galling thing is though is that the hardline Tories couldn’t give less of a shit about the people who need the change the most. It’s criminal of them to pretend they speak for the people.

I was subscribed to the Mozilla newsletter with two difference email addresses, and getting the exact same mailshot but with a different subject line for each. Kind of interesting, I guess they must do A/B testing on which subject gets more opens.

This was a good piece by Lisa Nandy I thought.

Some of the calls for individual action on climate crisis don’t take into account daily life for a lot of people in working-class towns in the UK. e.g. guilt shaming about driving a car, when public transport systems have been neglected for years.

Green new deal and green jobs could be a good positive framing I think.

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/yes-we-need-climate-action-but-it-needs-to-be-rooted-in-peoples-daily-reality/

At the moment, my view is something along the lines of:

– Do what you can as an individual, to the best of your ability
– Don’t be overburdened by guilt if you can’t do it all
– Be very conscious that not everyone is in a position to do what you think is ‘doing the right thing’ (including yourself)
– The system is pretty rigged against doing the right thing, so ultimately the system is the one that needs to change
– Individual behaviour change is probably a part of bringing about system change