=================
 On dependencies
=================

Since I keep dumping digests of events once a month or so here, it was
tricky to pick a title, but finally gathered multiple news on software
dependencies, so they will dominate this digest.

I updated my primary system to Debian 12, after updating a few other
systems. Most of the others updated fine, except for awkward
adventures with updating UEFI firmware on a laptop, but that was not
related to the update: I just noticed during the update that it is not
charging, and then the basic UEFI update procedure was broken, but in
the end it worked out fine, using Windows PE (which was tricky to
acquire, too). As for the primary system, found that my GTX 660 is not
supported by the proprietary NVIDIA driver anymore, and nouveau still
leads to the system freezing with this card, so switched to integrated
graphics instead (and then had some issues with booting, after
accidentally disconnecting the system disk, but managed to boot via
grub console from a live USB stick, and then grub-install and
update-grub helped, even though efibootmgr did not).

Some minor software configuration fixes were needed following the
update, some tweaks to the work-related programs to build on Debian 12
while still supporting Debian 9, and in particular had to give up on
libsystemd-journal (a Haskell package), finally switching to hsyslog,
since it had a constraint for base < 4.15, while Debian 12 has
4.15.1.0, even though it builds fine with 4.15. In addition to
switching, I reported the issue, and it was actually updated today,
but now it is constrained to base >= 4.16, while it would still build
with 4.15 and lower versions if it was allowed to, it seems (update:
the dependencies were relaxed afterwards, so now it can be used with
GHC from Debian 12). Glad that I switched and did not wait; also was
reminded that I submitted a pull request to relax those dependencies
last summer. Had some trouble with incompatibilities of Aeson
versions, too, and postponed updating one program because of that for
now.

While web developers have it even a little worse (though perhaps more
amusing): they ran into JS "protestware". Mostly harmless if you are
not in public here, but potentially dangerous beyond damage to a
computer if you are, playing the Ukrainian anthem.

These are all reminders that dependencies are best to reduce, or at
least to be picky about those.

In other news, I keep using Mastodon; Emacs 28 appears to leak as
well, but only up to 1 GB or so. The Mastodon web interface still has
even Page Down functionality semi-broken, but it is manageable if you
learn where to click to put the invisible focus on something that
makes it to work as expected, without accidentally triggering some
other event by that click, at least sometimes. Despite the UI
awfulness, the discoverability and interactivity are neat, placing it
between a blog (or a phlog) and a chat (which now reminded me of my
old project to make a mixture of a blog and a forum engine, since
those have similar structures). But federated and with a keyword-based
discovery.

I learned about hummus there, tried some store-bought hummus, then
made it at home; it is nice. Also tried making cheesecakes, a key lime
pie, yogurt, maybe something else. And just cooked some of the things
I tried before, but slightly adjusting the recipes, occasionally
experimenting. Thinking of trying clafoutis next: it seems simple
enough, using just a few common ingredients, and I expect it to be
tasty. Spotted it via Mastodon, too, since I follow "food" and
"cooking" hashtags, among others.

Also tried halloumi and nectacot, both are nice.

The rest goes mostly as usual: slowly practicing piano, doing physical
exercises (including almost 7 months of doing an aerobic routine
without missing a day), reading.

Thought of merging this phlog and the Mastodon microblog (that is,
mirroring one into another, or posting into both from a single
source), and maybe my website as well, but not sure if it can be done
nicely. Sometimes thought of merging just the Gopher site and the
website, but there is a risk of bugs, and perhaps little benefit in
doing so. I intentionally tried to keep the website devoid of overly
personal and insignificant blog-style writings like here or on
Mastodon, actually.


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:Date: 2023-08-17