Hacker's Diary

A rough account of what I did with Emacs recently.

March 17

Getting mod_wsgi with a relatively modern Python (3.8...) running on the crunky old Mac Mini (MacOS 10.13.6) turned out to be surprisingly straightforward: use the package from the Python website to install the interpreter, then upgrade pip (not strictly necessary), then install mod_wsgi, then use mod_wsgi-express to print out the necessary config, then update /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/httpd_server_app.conf with that config. I did wrap the WSGIPythonHome config line in a check to verify that mod_wsgi was loaded, and used the Server app to turn the module off and on a few times to verify that it doesn't break.

This is, of course, preliminary yak-shaving for some other hacking about.

I have reinstated a long-ago hack which approximates a CI/CD pipeline: a file monitor on a git repository of WSGI apps which, when it detects changes, tests them and then installs them and reloads the server. It's cheap and cheerful and terribly inefficient, but it does the job.

March 16

Did I mention 11.22.63? I don't think I did. It was very good. I was slightly disturbed by recognising Dealy Plaza when it first showed up, and being able to pick out specific witnesses from the reconstruction of the motorcade; I definitely went into a JFK wormhole at some point but I didn't realise how much of it stuck. I've not read the book - herself has - but apparently the ending deviates fairly significantly from it. So I guess that's going on the reading list.

March 10

Oh, one funny bit about Un Asunto Privado: the theme music is this sort of ethereal Julie Cruise number, and when I looked it up I discovered it was a Joan Jett cover, and the original is... well, very different.

March 9

I've more or less given up on Twitter at this point: I open the app every couple of days at best, and scroll through accumulated things, but frankly it's not really holding my interest. Funny thing being I've not transferred that interest to some other venue: Mastodon is a much slower (for me) source of snippets, so I don't hit that up much either. And updates to this site have become something of a trickle. At the rate I'm going I'll be a digital hermit before the year is out.

March 7

Been a bit lax about updating here. Some recent viewing:

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: really enjoyed this for the most part - it's light, a bit silly, and even the heavies are nice guys. Midge's attitude is annoying at times: it's kinda like watching Mikey in Swingers leaving the series of messages on the girl's answering machine - impending doom brought about by the character themselves and it's just kinda cringey. Anyway, that aside, I'm looking forward to more of this showing up.

Picard, Season Three: man, people are really ripping into this. I dunno. I'm enjoying it, but I was never much of a Trekkie, so maybe I'm missing the obvious fanservice, or I'm just not sufficiently dedicated to the veracity of the characters to care that they're upending things a bit.

Un Asunto Privado: this was pretty random. "Leon", er, I mean Jean Reno, playing a butler to a family whose deceased patriarch was the local head police guy, a position his son has inherited and his daughter covets. She investigates, Reno helps, and etc. 8 episodes, a bit of fun, and while I figured out who did it before we got there it was more through lack of other candidates for the role than unlocking the plot.

Night Sky: started this. Gave up after two episodes which covered about five minutes of storyline in two hours. No thanks.

11-22-63: just started watching this. One episode down: looks pretty good.

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