Notices by Vagrant Cascadian (vagrantc@floss.social)

During the heat waves this summer, here in lovely #Cascadia I have been making great use of #EvaporativeCooling

Works quite well here, as we have dry, hot summers, and reasonably abundant water sources.

Got a used commercially manufactured one plugged into the grid for power...

You have to make sure to exhaust the humidified air, but it uses a tiny amount of power (80-120W) for how much cooling it can provide!

Also built a small #DIY one running directly off #Solar

#PacificNorthwest

@Codeberg
@civodul

Apparently my account on codeberg is taking up 1.2GB for a handful of pull requests ... and my guess is that is nearly entirely the #Guix clone (as a local checkout uses a similar amount of space).

With the plan for #Guix to move to codeberg, this means people who do not have push access to guix.git on codeberg will likely go over the default quota just to be able to submit pull requests, presuming they do not use AGit workflow (which requires a bit of configuration)?

@jas @josch

Have not tested booting #GuixSystem yet, but... probably?

That is my near-term goal, anyways...

@jas @josch

Boot tested #Guix System on the #MNTReform tonight!

After a few fiddly bits getting the right modules into the initrd and successfully running "guix system init" ... much to my surprise... it booted successfully on the first try!

As they say, this is not my first rodeo...

Substitute availability for aarch64 has been quite good the last couple days, otherwise I might still be compiling things!

Will push a fairly minimal example system configuration to the WIP branch tomorrow.

Made a #MNTReform kernel for #Guix ... and used my MNT Reform2 rk3588 to build the kernel and successfully booted to #Debian !

With 32GB of ram, 8 moderately fast arm64 cores and an NVMe disk, it seems quite viable to run Guix.

Probably still missing some functionality, but the screen, mouse, keyboard, ethernet all work, at least!

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-linux-libre-arm64-mnt-reform&id=0756e77da715dc1547458902f291717f7a892a64

Thanks @josch for organizing those patches so nicely for the reform-debian- packages repository!

@skinnylatte

For those on a tighter budget:

https://www.ridecatbus.org/columbia-gorge-express/

You can get a annual pass for $40 that connects with other transit systems in the Columbia Gorge:

https://gorgepass.com/

I think the day rates are maybe about half the annual rates...

Speaking on the half-hour at @pycascades

My first go presenting "Re-Py-Ducible Builds"

So refreshing to be at a conference where everyone is wearing a mask!

#WearAMask #PyCascades2025 #ReproducibleBuilds #Python

Note to self:

I must admit I probably could have used a slide about why #ReproducibleBuilds is important in my talk yesterday.

More and more I would like to stress that reproducible builds are most importantly about being able to say that a given artifact was produced from specific bit of source code, and all of the security and other benefits derive directly or indirectly from that.

Ideally you can recursively make such assertions all the way down, and you end up with #BootstrappableBuilds

@learninglifer

And Oaks Bottom:

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

@learninglifer

I recommend checking out the notated geological core sample at the Washington park MAX stop on your way to or from the arboretum and other things up top.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Park_station_(TriMet)#Underground

@dentangle

I really want to try these. I don't mind other masks for everyday situations, but I thought this might be better for long-term, high-risk situations like travel.

@robin

After much hesitation, I decided to go to #FOSSY2024 and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of voluntary compliance... though I suspect that is unfortunately quite rare. The leadership at #FOSSY also committed to masking up, which I think was significant.

It was also a local conference for me, so a bike commute; I would be a bit more nervous spending long hours on planes or trains or busses.

Good luck and hope you manage to stay safe!

https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/

Must have new housecleaning staff already.

A few #TheyMightBeGiants songs have been on my mind today for some reason... notably:

Kiss Me, Son of God

Sold My Mind to the Kremlin

If Day for Winnipeg

The Shadow Government

An Insult to the Fact Checkers

Upside Down Frown

The Communists Have the Music

The Bells Are Ringing

Aaa

Counterfeit Fake

Au Contraire

Your Racist Friend

Lyrics and commentary on the above to be found on the lovingly fan curated wiki:

https://tmbw.net

#TMBG

Warm up #Aikido pre-seminar class last night with Joel Posluns sensei. A lot of familiar Kanai style techniques, so a bit comfortable.

Tonight the seminar with Yoko Okamoto sensei begins and I exect to be confused and humbled.

It is always good to push a little outside the comfort zone! Part of what makes training at seminars so valuable. Will be nice to both get some familiar and less familiar stuff in this weekend!

Really looking forward to an #Aikido seminar this weekend in #SanFrancisco with Yoko Okamoto sensei:

https://www.sfaikikai.com/2025-winter-seminar

@driusan

Folks at my dojo mostly just post links to videos to each other via email.

We also sometimes share things like test prep videos and videos of our own tests via USB sticks!

I have been following the #Aikido hashtag, so I catch whatever comes my way via the fediverse...

@trashheap

Well, not much different with running Debian stable on the mnt/reform. I have used both the original imx8mq module and the new rk3588 module.

Sometimes the mnt/reform specific kernel updates lag behind Debian a bit, but the vast majority of stuff is just directly from Debian, and most of the stuff from mnt/reform does not change too much.

@trashheap

The stability promises of #Debian stable are that packages will only receive fixes for security or major breakages, and not major changes.

It is not a firehose of new upstream versions, but a trickle of small fixes.

So on the #MNTReform not much different from any other Debian stable system.

That said, I have decades of experience with Debian, so not sure I am the best advocate for someone less familiar!

I did create my own custom barebones image, for example...

@detritus

At least riding around #PortlandPDX I have noticed more and more days where the majority of bikes I see on my frequent bike routes are electric, although on the whole it seems like more bicyclists than before the pandemic hit...

Sorry I have no hard data. :)