Technical Notes on The Negation

I Blogged Every Day for a Month – Again

Sat, 31 May 2025 22:06:31 +0000

Today marks the final day of my second month-long blogging challenge. The first was in August last year. This one, in May, felt different – but just as transformative.

Daily Z Reports and Weekly Reviews

Fri, 30 May 2025 23:30:13 +0000

This is not about improving productivity, but rather a simple but bottom-up hack to improve personal awareness and accountability and extend it to the team. Productivity should be a natural byproduct of that.

Cross-Compiling Haskell under NixOS with Docker

Thu, 29 May 2025 23:55:54 +0000

I learned how to cross-compile Haskell projects under NixOS using Docker images for ARM architectures, and how to run them under emulation on x86_64 hosts.

The Terminal State of Mind

Wed, 28 May 2025 21:24:28 +0000

I use the terminal. Not because I am a command-line wizard or particularly efficient with it, but because the GUI has never given me the rhythm and flow I need.

NixOS Rebuilds, Upgrades and Generation Diffs

Tue, 27 May 2025 21:20:42 +0000

Today, I upgraded my NixOS system to the latest version, v25.05. It went smoothly. I just want to report my experience here.

Boring on Purpose: Bold Moves in Internal Tooling

Mon, 26 May 2025 23:56:04 +0000

Boring work is often the most effective work. It is the kind of work that might lead us to understand patterns and solve problems that we did not even know we had.

A Glimpse into My Shell

Sun, 25 May 2025 23:20:42 +0000

A glimpse into my shell history reveals the tools I rely on daily. These are not curated – just raw, frequent commands logged over time.

Data Definitions, Not Flowcharts

Sat, 24 May 2025 23:43:58 +0000

Computer programs are best understood in terms of the data they consume, process and produce. Flowcharts are useful for visualizing control flow, but not for understanding complexity.

Magic JSON in Haskell

Fri, 23 May 2025 21:19:46 +0000

Among all Haskell libraries I have used, the one I reach for the most is autodocodec. I will explain what it is and what freebies it gives you.

Hacking Haskell with Nix: Two Tricks

Thu, 22 May 2025 22:10:37 +0000

I have mentioned a few times in my posts that Haskell is my go-to language. This is true even for small applications which go beyond a simple shell script.

Hacking Haskell with Nix is an easy and fun way to quickly prototype. I want to share two tricks that I use.

Hacking with mdBook

Wed, 21 May 2025 20:35:08 +0000

This post explores how to hack an mdBook project with scripts.

Haskell Project Template with Nix Flakes

Tue, 20 May 2025 21:43:46 +0000

This post introduces my Haskell project template powered by Nix Flakes – a simple setup I use to quickly spin up new Haskell applications.

Deadman Checks in Grafana

Mon, 19 May 2025 22:17:05 +0000

This post is a quick, technical note on how to set up deadman checks in Grafana with InfluxDB as the data source, and how to deal with a peculiar case when the host is not reporting and the alert enters the resolved state.

Stop Feeling Intimidated by Complexity

Sun, 18 May 2025 21:19:54 +0000

Let me tell you the conclusion up-front: Complexity is not inherently bad. The complications are the real enemy.

Choosing A Template Engine: The More Powerful Problem

Sat, 17 May 2025 21:49:05 +0000

Continuing on the topic of template engines, I would like to share my thoughts on the power of template engines, and how it relates to the power of abstractions in programming.

Thinking in Templates

Fri, 16 May 2025 22:30:13 +0000

I believe that there is value in thinking in templates when it comes to programming. I will try to explore the concept of templating in general, how it reveals important patterns in programming, and how it appears in the wild often in the form of template engines.

SDK-Driven Development: A Litmus Test for Good Software Design

Thu, 15 May 2025 18:23:55 +0000

This-driven development, that-driven development, and now you should bother with this other thing?

Why I am Migrating From Zola Back to Hugo

Wed, 14 May 2025 23:45:57 +0000

This post is a summary of my recent decision to go back to Hugo after using Zola. I also report on how LLM assistants with Web access can aid in such decisions, not as an authority but as a research assistant.

Code is Liability

Tue, 13 May 2025 23:55:27 +0000

While programming, we often aim to avoid repetition. Repetition is boring, and ironically, much of programming exists to automate boring tasks in the first place. But repetition is just one symptom of a much deeper problem: Code itself is a liability.

Build a CLI Emoji Picker with fzf and Nix

Mon, 12 May 2025 21:10:27 +0000

In my blog post yesterday, I mentioned fzf. Its simplicity and power make it a good tool for many scripting tasks. In this post, we will see a practical example of how to use it in a CLI program and package it with Nix.

Wayland Application Launchers: Stick with Rofi

Sun, 11 May 2025 23:55:27 +0000

Today is a lazy Sunday, and I did what nobody should do on a Sunday: Spend time trying to replace something that already works. This time, my victim was rofi.

Why and How to Patch a Python Package in Nix

Thu, 08 May 2025 17:24:26 +0000

I bumped into an annoying issue today while upgrading my Python dependencies in a codebase. And I thought it would be a good idea to share the solution with you. Thanks to Nix for making this kind of fix so straightforward.

Nix-Powered Python Development

Wed, 07 May 2025 19:11:06 +0000

After a few years of floating from one hack to another, this is my practical guide to setting up a reasonable Python development environment using Nix flakes with support for testing, linting, formatting, and LSP-based editor integration.

Nix Flake Templates

Tue, 06 May 2025 11:36:39 +0000

Nix is now central to how I structure my workstation setups and manage development and production environments across my projects. Over time, I found myself repeating certain setups. This post is a short note on how I started working with Nix Flake templates to avoid or reduce this repetition.

Working with OpenTelemetry Metrics

Mon, 05 May 2025 21:17:22 +0000

I have started adopting OpenTelemetry in my workshop to unify metrics, logs, and traces. This post explains why –and how– I took the first step.

Hold My Data

Sun, 04 May 2025 20:20:29 +0000

This post is about data snapshots, backups and archives, why we create and keep them, and how this entire exercise can be seen from top-down and bottom-up in a business setting.

Vectorized Data Pipelines

Sat, 03 May 2025 23:04:29 +0000

This post shows how to use Vector to capture and persist webhook events – like those from SendGrid – into a PostgreSQL database with minimal setup.

Ruff and Ready: Linting Before the Party

Fri, 02 May 2025 14:32:07 +0000

In this post, I share why I value linters and formatters, and how I migrate from traditional Python tools to ruff.

Grafana Webhook Integration with ntfy

Thu, 01 May 2025 11:16:05 +0000

This post explains how to integrate Grafana alerts with the ntfy notification service using Grafana’s Webhook integration, notification templates, and ntfy’s templating capabilities.

OpenResty on NixOS for an API Gateway

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 11:45:40 +0000

Are you using an API gateway? Do you really need one? If you are using NixOS and feel comfortable with some Lua, you may want to consider OpenResty on NixOS as an API gateway.

Running NixOS Guests on QEMU

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 14:41:19 +0000

Once in a while, I want to test some NixOS configuration without affecting my main system or launching new hosts on the cloud.

Running NixOS on a virtual machine (VM) is a safe and reproducible way to test such configurations. As for VMs, I have used VirtualBox, Vagrant and lxd in the past. However, I have found QEMU to be the simplest and most flexible solution for my needs.

This guide is a quick reference to create and run NixOS guests on QEMU.

Archiving PostgreSQL Backups on NixOS

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 09:18:10 +0000

This is a technical note on how to archive PostgreSQL backups on NixOS to one or more targets using rclone.