Two years and 44 days after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I caught it.
I haven't felt this sick since at least January 2013 (probably longer), and
I therefore spent an entire week lying on my couch.
Which is ironic considering that, as I lay there "looking half dead"
(not my words), Germany was scraping almost all protective
measures.
What happens when you get sick right as the country is ready to move on?
In my experience you get sent back and forth between different services who
haven't yet noticed that there's a pandemic going on, you rage against "Corona
test centers" who don't test sick people, and eventually someone takes pity on
you and takes care of it.
My first difficulty was the PCR test:
quick tests are not accepted by my employer, my girlfriend's employer,
nor my soon-to-be-ex-doctor's office.
But getting a PCR test while sick is bafflingly difficult:
the test centers suggested by the 116117 Patient service
only offer quick tests, and the multiple other test centers that sprung up these
years don't accept customers with symptoms. The only choice is a 20 minutes
ride to the nearest Hospital, meaning you need either a car (have fun driving
while sick!), a driver (ideally someone who is willing to get sick by being in
contact with you), or a moderately-full public bus. Fun fact: do you know which
kind of people takes a bus on a working day during working hours?
Answer: Old people! Have fun at night wondering how many of them
you'll put in an intensive station next week.
I then tried to use the Corona Warn-App to
tell anonymous people they should get tested, but that didn't work either.
The app doesn't let you self-declare as sick, offering only the
possibility of scanning your official code. The problem is that I started
exhibiting symptoms on Wednesday, got my PCR results on Friday, and yet as of
this writing (one week later) the results are still not uploaded and
probably never will be.
I said it before and I'll say it again: when security researcher Bruce Schneier
said that contact tracing apps have no
value,
he was right.
And finally, the sickness certificate: my soon-to-be-ex-doctor has not yet
learned that they are allowed to extend certificates per telephone, but won't see me in person either.
I tried calling the 116117 people again for a referral, but they entered a loop
and got me nowhere. I guess no one asked them for a doctor before?
I next gave the health services of my employer a try, but they were as
useless as always.
And as I started going through a list of other possible doctors to call my
girlfriend lost her patience, took time off work, and went to my
soon-to-be-ex-doctor's office in person to get me the stupid certificate.
People, it's been OVER TWO YEARS since we canceled Karneval the first time,
and yet we are still in the same spot where we started.
I know that Germany is a bureaucratic place, but that's not the issue - if
anything, the fact that there is a protocol to follow is a bit of a consolation.
But when EVERY.SINGLE.STEP of that protocol is broken, it really makes you
wonder what else might be FUBAR and waiting for you to discover it.
So you want to use my PC? Sure, no problem, it's right there. But real quick,
before you start, there's a couple small tips that you should keep in mind.
If you turn it on and nothing happens, that means the KVM switch is listening
on the wrong input. Just press the black button behind the screen to switch it
back. Can't find it? Maybe it fell down - it has a short cable and sometimes the
other cables pull it back. Or maybe it's underneath all of my drawing stuff.
Either way, search for it behind the desk and press it.
The screen should turn on.
You may also notice that the computer chair has been relegated to the side and
that I'm using a regular wooden chair instead. You can use the fancy one if you
want - after a couple weeks it may cause some completely unexpected health
issues, but on a short enough scale it's fine.
Now, this computer runs Linux. Technically it runs Windows too, but the screen
for choosing a different operating system goes away before the monitor has time
to turn on, and we lost too much time to spam the arrow keys anyway.
But that's probably for the best: given that I haven't booted Windows in a long
time, that Windows loves mandatory updates,
and that the computer has a mechanical hard drive,
there's a good chance that you would have to wait at least an hour before
being able to use it.
Why haven't I upgraded to an SSD, you ask?
I have considered it, but Windows won't let me for complicated reasons.
So Linux it is.
You may see a bunch of text scrolling by. That's fine. If the text stops
scrolling for a long time you may want to consider pressing the NumLock key
several times. I'm not entirely clear on the details, but something about
interruptions and IRQs sometimes keeps the PC from starting if it doesn't
detect activity. And since the NumLock key doesn't do anything bad, it is the
safest key to spam-press.
Once you've made it to the login screen it is going to ask you for a username
and password. That one should be easy - I have been using the same combination
for over 20 years, so you probably know it already. Need a hint? It's in the
same league as my network name plus my favorite number. It's not exactly
hunter2, but it's close.
You may have a bit of trouble reading the letters on screen. Don't worry, the
screen works fine - I just keep my brightness and contrast real low,
and even the smallest hint of natural light turns them invisible. You could
adjust the brightness using the monitor's crappy touch controls, or you could
do what I do and close the curtains. I'm not going to tell you which one is
right, but I am going to vouch for the one that has kept me glasses-free for
more than 25 years of extensive computer use.
If you want a graphical interface, type startx
and my
Mate Desktop Environment will start.
Ignore the error about sticky notes - I have been meaning to fix it for some
time, but there's always something else and it doesn't bother me anyway.
But before you type anything, a word of caution: the interface is in English,
but the keyboard is German and the key mapping is Spanish. That means that
regular keys are where you expect them to be (except for Z
and Y
, which are
inverted), but if you want to type a single quote you need to add a space
afterwards or you'll get an accented letter otherwise. If you have a password
with more than just letters and numbers then you may want to type it in a
text editor first and copy-paste.
You probably need a web browser, in which case the Firefox icon is right there.
But you probably don't want that: the script blockers almost
guarantee that whatever website you are trying to open will not work. For those
cases I recommend using the super-outdated Chrome browser instead - the icon
is right next to the Firefox one. It won't play Netflix because I didn't
install the DRM stuff, but everything else should work fine. If you want
audio, remember to plug the headphones first. And that reminds
me: I have set the browser to auto-delete all history when closing the browser.
So don't close the window until you're done, or you'll have to login again.
I hope you didn't close the text editor with your password!
Now, I'll be honest with you: at this point most people give up and resort to
their phones. And it's okay, I get it. That's what happens when you keep your
tools exactly like you want them to be and suddenly you are asked to share.
But most people tend to blame Linux for it, which I think it's unfair - if
anything, I'd like to see Windows offer even half the flexibility to do
things my way.
Now, let's talk about that WiFi password.
But first, one question: do you know how to type the "¿" symbol on your keyboard?
Inspired by this article
An article titled Don't talk to Corp
Dev has recently showed up in my feed
and the HN discussion around it
reminded me of this anecdote.
To clarify: this story is based on something that happened in real life,
as told to me by someone who witnessed it first-hand. Time has blurred some of
the details and I have changed others. So feel free to dismiss the details, but
please keep the main point in mind.
Once upon a time there was a small wine producer we'll call Dave. He kept a
small shop and was doing well by himself, selling his wine at $15 a bottle.
One day a big supermarket chain contacts him -- the chain
needs a new wine supplier, and they heard good things about Dave. They have
just one condition: they will take care of distribution and advertising, but
Dave has to provide them with one month of free wine in return.
Dave is ecstatic: the supermarket chain can spread his brand across the entire
country and turn his small operation into a national contender. Sure, giving up
one month of profit is not ideal, but the supermarket representative convinces
Dave that he'll recover his lost income in no time. Hands are shaken, contracts
are signed, and Dave provides them with one free pallet of wine to start the
week.
Week two arrives, and the supermarket chain requests two pallets of wine.
"Looks like my wine is selling well", Dave thinks, and increases his production
targets for the week. But this is not enough: when Dave is asked for five
pallets of wine the next week he is forced to hire a new assistant and buy new
machinery to keep up. Predictably, week four closes with an even larger
order of ten pallets. The loss of 18 pallets of wine is a tough pill to
swallow, but at least the month is over and from now on he will get paid.
A new month begins and Dave receives his weekly order: he is asked to
deliver a grand total of one pallet of wine. "This must be a mistake", Dave
thinks, and calls the supermarket representative. "Last week I gave you ten
pallets of wine. So why are you only asking for one today?".
"That's easy", says the representative, "up until last week we were selling your
wine for a dollar a bottle. This week we will put the price back at $15 and
therefore we are not expecting it to sell as well as before".
Facing a large loss of inventory and having invested both in employees and
machinery that are no longer needed, Dave goes broke. The supermarket chain
finds a new naive wine supplier, and the cycle starts again.
A wise man once taught me that it's not a good idea
to enter into negotiations with someone much bigger than you. This is arguably
the reason why South American countries
formed Mercosur
instead of joining theFTAA agreement with North America,
but it's also true for simpler activities like office politics.
For the record, I would have totally fallen for this. The first time I heard
this story I didn't even consider that someone could do something like this on
purpose. Then I started reading news about startups and learned that it happens
relatively often.
Consider yourself warned.
Last time I talked about Rust I mentioned
that I wanted to like the language but I couldn't find a good reason for
using it. Luckily for me, the last Advent of Code
gave me the perfect reason for doubling down on Rust, and here's my updated report.
In case you never heard of it, Advent of Code is an online competition that
takes place every year in December. It is structured as an Advent calendar
where you get a puzzle every day, and where the puzzles get harder and harder every day.
Plenty of people use this competition as the perfect excuse for learning a new
language, which is how I ended up programming lots of Rust in my spare time.
So here they are: in no particular order, these are the things I like, dislike,
and feel mildly uncomfortable about Rust.
Things I like
The one thing I like the most about Rust is the power of the match
operator
combined with enums
. Unlike in Python, where the implementation of the match
statement is pretty dangerous,
Rust makes it easy to program the type of code that's easy to write, read, and
maintain:
:::rust
let mut pos = 0;
let mut depth = 0;
for instruction in orders {
match instruction {
Instruction::Forward(meters) => pos += meters,
Instruction::Up(meters) => depth -= meters,
Instruction::Down(meters) => depth += meters,
}
}
Then, there are the compiler errors. While not true for external crates
(we'll get to it), compiler errors in Rust are generally helpful, identify the
actual source of the problem, and sometimes even give you good suggestions on
how to solve the issue. Gone are the days in which a compiler error meant
"I know an error happened 50 lines above, but I'll complain about it here instead".
And finally, as someone who has been doing mostly Python for the last years, it
feels so good not to have to worry about indentation anymore. This doesn't mean
that I'll stop indenting my code - instead, it means that I can finally move a function
around without worrying about pasting it one indentation to the left and turning
a class into a class and multiple pieces of code that don't compile.
Things I hate
I am puzzled by how aggressively unhelpful arrays are. The puzzle for day 25 could
be easily solved (spoilers!) by writing
horizontal_row = horizontal_row>>1 && !(horizontal_row || vertical_row)
but I ended up having to implement it with Vectors of booleans instead. Why?
Because I didn't know how many bits horizontal_row
would have at compile time,
and Rust refuses to create arrays with dynamic size.
I am sure there is a way to keep a large binary in memory and manipulate it at
the bit level - otherwise, you wouldn't be able to use Rust for serious game development.
But whatever the method is, it is well hidden.
And on the topic of that puzzle, I come back to one of my main complaints
from last time: popularity is not the correct way to decide which library is
the best one for the job. Do you know the difference between the bitvec
,
bit-vec
, and bitvector
libraries? Can you add either of them to your code
without worrying about the developer going
rogue?
How about the fact that the first result
that comes up for rust bit vector
is an accepted StackOverflow answer
suggesting bit-vec
... which is no longer maintained?
Minor annoyances
I still can't make sense of the module system. I mean, sure, I know how to put
functionality in sub-directories, but that doesn't really explain why I would
choose between lib.rs
, day24.rs
, or day24/vm/mod.rs
. The
book
could use some improvements on this topic.
If I'm doing something like u16 = u16 + u8
(or even better, u16 += u8
),
the compiler should cast the last value automatically.
u8 += u16
? Sure, I get it, that's an overflow waiting to happen.
But there is no need for me to get in there and write u16 = u16 + u8 as u16
when we all
know the data fits just fine.
The collect
function is very finicky. This is a function that I used quite
often in constructions like .map(|x| something(x)).collect.to_vec()
, but more
often than not it will complain about not knowing the type required for collect
even though there is only one type that would make sense.
And since we are talking about the compiler, one of the crates I needed (it was
either nalgebra
or ndarray
, where I suffered the same problems I had
with bit vectors) had a nasty side effect: if one of your instructions
failed to compile, they all stopped compiling. Good luck finding the one
line that needs fixing!
And finally, I ran a couple times into functionality that
had been deprecated in favor of functionality that doesn't currently
exist.
Not cool.
Conclusion
Would I use Rust again? Yes.
Is it my most loved language? No.
But under the right circumstances I could see it happening.
What is it good for? Last time I jokingly said "writing Rust compilers", and
I wasn't that far: it's the right programming language for apps that need
performance and memory safety, and where we are willing to spend some time
calculating who is borrowing from whom in order to get code with fewer bugs.
So it's pretty much C++, only with borrowing replacing memory allocations.
I like the idea of giving my original project another try, but I can't make
any promises. The Advent of Code has already pushed forward the date of my
next project by a couple months, and the time it's taking me to migrate my
infrastructure to Ansible is making everything
worse.