Wikipedia cites a few different sources on what “Unix Philosophy” is. Peter Salus summarizes it as:
Write programs that do one thing and do it well.
Write programs to work together.
Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.
That second bullet point is my favorite: making composable programs rather than monolithic systems. In this way, Unix is designed to be a forge for easily building new tools. The first rule—writing programs that do one thing well—is largely a means to the second. When you have building blocks that take simple shapes, you can compose them easily like Lego pieces.
I just finished watching The Social Dilemma, and here’s my hot take: The Social Dilemma is an emotive, accessible introduction to problems that, without exaggeration, pose an existential threat to life as we know it. If you can, watch it.
In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman argues that our infatuation with technology has insidiously eroded our culture. We gain much through technology, but it comes at a price; all too often we are blind to that price. This book seeks to call attention to the costs of a technology-focused society. I felt this poignantly because I, as a technology worker, know what that infatuation feels like.
DuckDuckGo is a search engine. Like Google Search, you just throw some keywords into a box and get a list of results. Lots of people use Google, but I don’t. DuckDuckGo works better for me, and this is why.
The Duck
## Consistent Results
Did you know that Google will give you different search results, based on who you are and what you have searched for in the past? This is called a filter bubble, and it’s annoying and dangerous. DuckDuckGo doesn’t put you in a filter bubble.
So many notifications come to us in the form of an audible alert, and this can sometimes be inconvenient. Who likes having their phone go off in church? The problem is that sound propagates regardless of the intended target. Touch, on the other hand, is an inherently personal sensation. Setting your phone to vibrate lets you know you’re being alerted, without notifying everyone else in the room as well.
There’s an asterisk there. I’m not going to delete my account, but I’m no longer checking Facebook more than once or twice a month, if that. I’m not trying to be a recluse—below are a few ways to contact me that I do check far more often than Facebook. I want to be your friend, but I’d rather that friendship be through a real connection rather than some online “status”.
Quick note for those who don’t know about Docker:Docker is a program that lets me take packaged-up programs (called images or containers) and run them without having to worry much about dependencies.
Today I decided to upgrade my version of Ghost Blog. I’m using the Docker image on a Digital Ocean droplet. Updating should be simple, I thought. I would take down the blog then spin it back up again after pulling down the latest Docker image. I ran docker stop ghost-blog, removed the container with docker rm ghost-blog then ran docker pull ghost:latest. The container came down without a problem.
