Hey, thanks for replying! I had missed the static binary detail, and it is by far the most sensible solution.
Regarding the packages, those are very respectable numbers... But who is maintaining them? It takes a lot of effort to maintain a repo up to date, with patches both functional and security related. This is in most distros a full time job for a group of people. For comparison pkgsrc has 19444 packages, and it takes a substantial effort to keep up to date.
Regarding 4... I am not sure about your angle there... "Running random binaries" is risky. Technically hysp is a random binary itself, from a random source. I don´t know who you are, and even in that case any certification of authority is best efforts. You can´t certify that the code you built has not been compromised... This is a tough problem, good ideas are still needed!
OTOH, maybe you could leverage the work of the pkgsrc team to increase the number of available packages, traceability, and portability!
Join forces!
Synergy!!!!
The aquilles heel of package managers isn´t consistency, but lack of packages.
I appreciate the benefit of distro-agnostic package management, but unless you rely on a portable toolchain, or distribute statically linked binaries exclusively, we fall short from the panacea of portability (many other options available, yes, but packages are needed!)
I have personally leveraged pkgin[1] for consistency. I can simply drop pkgsrc[2] in my home directory and use the same tools in *bsds, smartos, linux, macos and cheese.
Gentlepeople! Remeber people have opinions, like they have fingers to type them...
These could be red flags for the author, I respect that. These are not universal, yet they could be good conversation starters.
Consider that if you don't hear the answer that you expect, maybe you can contribute something of great value to the company... Or receive a lesson on the complexities of a particular business.
Also, language-itis itself can be a problem. We love the shiny, and forget the old... I am not saying that punch cards and FORTRAN are the tool of the future, but maybe FORTRAN is the right tool for a specific problem...
I don't know if you have noticed... But programming languages could potentially mean very little, soon.
Saying "apprehension towards containers is a red flag" is as subjective as the apprehension itself. I like to work with professionals that have a justified opinion, rather than knee jerk reactions.
I am old, I've seen it all, sometimes I use containers. Are they useful? Sure! Are they "the final form"? No!
Tools are just tools, don't get obsessed about them... They only matter when used properly to solve the right problem. Obsession about tooling generates so much waste... and burnout!
While I can imagine such a scenario, and there is a resting area with coffee and food in many datacenters... You weight the same when you get into the cage with coffee in your belly, and when you are getting out because it percolated to your bladder.
Having said that, I've seen some places where the security measures are placed due to a listed requirement, but miss the point that they have.
Finally, data is definitely THE most valuable good, but also confidential hardware, that fits in your pocket!
edit: saw a typo!
I agree with the intention. This has been part of the design constraints of a plant for at least 30 years... I reckon it is possible older plants didn't take steps to cool down the open water loop, but it is indeed relatively straight forward to tackle: cooling towers, open air reservoirs, and again heat exchangers...
Yes, thermal power plants need a cold and hot end to operate, and they are designed to operate within the thermal "range" that its location can provide + some error. Now, this is not really a limitation, rather an engineering constraint. Thermal cycles can be stretched with multiple devices such a HRSG, in the case of combined cycles.
About powerplants in France shutting down because of cooling during the summer... I find it hard to believe this is a widespread issue, if an issue at all. Many of the existing nuclear reactors are reaching an age where massive maintenance schedules need to be executed. If the problem is extending the thermal range, that's relatively easy to fix.
I am just stopping by to say that this is actually a thing. It is called hesiod and works great in small, maybe air-gapped networks.
As a side note, anything security related exists in the reality of uncertainty. It is expected that sharing properly secured secrets is reasonably safe, but day after day we discover "we didn't know". Sometimes simplicity for a particular application is worth certain amount of risk.
Sometimes, you need to take the server out of its box, out of the bunker, and plug it to both the power distribution network, and of course... a LAN...
I have children, and I enjoy them. Both my wife and I have well paid jobs in the tech industry.
Having children requires sacrifices. As with any decision, there is an inevitable cost of opportunity, but what we get from caring for these loved little human beings... Is priceless!
I understand the narrative of the author. This is a narrative of an individual whose core values are "success", material accumulation as proof of it, and individual freedoms. It is true, having children will require a lot of "operation expenses", and much of the time available for "yourself" needs to be invested into your children. I respect that for some people it is not a sacrifice that they are willing to do, and I don't think people should have children because it is the next step.
But I see a problem in this narrative, and it is that it describes having children as a mistake. Again, it is a mistake for the author, but I can hardly see how it is a "universal mistake". It reminds me a bit of game theory, and the idea of "Nash's equilibrium": Players are the society as a whole, some choose to have kids, some choose not to have kids, both have a penalty, yet in the long run they both benefit from their choices (individually and mutually).
I am also concerned about empathy. Daily I realize how difficult it is for some people without children to understand my choice, and the sacrifices it requires. Yes I am happy with my choice, but lack of empathy makes it particularly difficult to avoid choices with a larger cost than it should: Should I stay with my kids when they are sick? Or go to that meeting that is (as most meetings) better done as an email ;). My kids need me, emotionally. If I am with them, I am making a world of a difference for them... and in the future for society, because they will have safe attachment!
The reality is Humanity needs people to choose to have children, not all of us, some of us. We, having children, need empathy, recognition, and help from society. I don't think science and technology are going to solve the need for childhood anytime soon.
But I understand, you don't want to have kids. Good for you! Some people will even thank you, don't succumb to the pressure to have them "because it is next", and most importantly... Please don't forget you are here because someone did the best they could to bring you to this world (and probably made some mistakes, but mostly, they just wanted the best for you).
PS: It also comes to mind "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Harari... Not so much on topic, but I like the door it opens for empathy via the understanding of different narratives, and how they are just constructs.
Many OS out there take advantage of RAM Disks. Alpine Linux for instance allows you to boot your root device on ram as a default. SmartOS runs a boot image completely on RAM, and keeps your storage free for a few configs and VMS.
Virtually all network booted computers run their OSs from RAM. If you have never pxe booted a machine, it is a beautiful experience once you overcome a few challenges: easy upgrades and rollbacks, being able to use a machine with different contexts/platforms by just rebooting, and having your servers cleaned up just by cycling (assuming you don't have local storage)
If you enjoy the idea of RAM root devices, please try pxe/ipxe to boot your computer from a network. Also, if you have a sufficiently fast network... it is probably faster than booting from disk!
EDIT: I missed the word "all" on the second paragraph, and another typo... sorry!
Gentlepeople... the time to try Haiku is now! get an image, and boot it. Out of 10 machines with different ages, all but one get to desktop in a few seconds.
For the one that gets to a blank screen equally fast, make sure to press <space> on boot and choose vesa.
Browsers? Usable for the focused mind, lots of wip... For me, I have text editors, compilers, a terminal, and aws cli... I can wish for more, but I am happy with this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeskola_Buzz