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Rumours are swirling in Linux circles that some prominent distributions are preparing to remove the Open Source Chromium web browser from their archives.

This appears to have come about because of a change being made by Google, which reduces functionality in third party chromium-based browsers. Chromium (perhaps unsurprisingly) falls into this category. While the proprietary Google Chrome is built on the same technology as the open source Chromium browser, they’re not the same.

I’m not a fussy eater, I’ll eat pretty much whatever is put in front of me. I used to quip that the only thing I wouldn’t eat is celery, but even that now features on my plate now and then. It’s an especially good vehicle for getting melted cheese into my gob. Being an unfussy eater means I’m also a pretty unfussy drinker.

“I fancy a coffee!” at home usually results in a spoon of instant coffee granules, sugar or sweetener, milk and hot water being mixed in a cup and guzzled shortly after. I have, of course had a fair amount of ‘proper’ coffee over the years. Mostly in restaurants or while travelling for work. I also really like McDonald’s coffee 🤷‍♂️

It’s just a month into the new year and we have our first controversy in the Linux community for 2021. In a recent update to Raspberry Pi OS, the official operating system for the diminuative computers, a new repository was added to the default install. This change means new and existing Raspberry Pi devices, running the officially maintained and blessed Operating System will check in with an additional software repository when updated, which will offer more software to the consumer.

I am not a fan of rebooting my computers. As you can see:

alan@robot:~$ for host in $(cat computers.txt); do ssh "$host" "uptime"; done
 20:24:53 up 117 days,  5:06, 10 users,  load average: 5.85, 6.07, 5.48
 20:24:55 up 113 days,  4:56,  7 users,  load average: 0.95, 0.68, 0.72
 20:24:56 up 66 days,  9:05,  5 users,  load average: 1.06, 0.58, 0.51
 20:24:57 up 2 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.60, 1.09, 0.51
 20:24:58 up 4 days,  7:05,  3 users,  load average: 1.83, 1.22, 0.77
 20:24:58 up 18 days, 21:31,  9 users,  load average: 1.86, 1.86, 2.00
 20:25:35 up 374 days,  1:18,  6 users,  load average: 1.01, 1.01, 1.11

One is a desktop, two are laptops and the others are headless servers. The servers tend to be left up mostly because I don’t see any need to reboot them. However I’m also a little scared to, in case they don’t come back and I end up having to faff about to fix them.

Last year ( 😄 ) I wrote an article called Snap Along With Me in which I detailed how I approached snapping a rust application called t-rec. Well, I’m back with another “Snap Along”, this time we’re snapping an application written in Golang.

During a meeting to on-board a new member of the team at work today, I went through a similar process as my last blog post. This time I chose a different application, so I thought I’d write it up here. I’ve previously explained how I browse the various GitHub Trending pages for each language. Today was no different, we browsed the trending rust projects then moved on to trending Go projects.

I recenlty finished reading listening to Jon Sopel’s book, “UnPresidented: Politics, Pandemics and the Race That Trumped All Others” (affiliate link). I have enjoyed Jon’s reporting over the years for the BBC, but this is the first of his books I’ve picked up. I grabbed it as an audio book because I’m a terrible reader. It was narrated by the author, which made it all the more appealing for me as I find Jon pleasing to listen to.

January 2021 was my first intentional Dry January - a month-long annual alcoholic abstinence. After the typical excess of Christmas, Dry January can make for a good mind & body rest and recuperation.

Personally I sleep better, get up more refreshed in the morning and feel a bit more “with it” when I’m not drinking. I wouldn’t say I drink heavily, most of the time, but I imagine many people who drink feel the same way. What’s a bottle of wine or two after work between friends, huh?

I was recently interviewed by Joe Ressington for Late Night Linux Extra episode 14. Here’s a transcription I typed up, which may be useful. I used an automated tool to create the transcription, then tidied it up myself. If you spot anything which doesn’t match the audio, and is materially important, do feel free to propose an edit on GitHub (link at the top of the page).

Joe: This episode is about snaps, quite the controversial topic in some circles, and who better to talk about it than Alan Pope - “popey” as he’s affectionately known by almost everyone. According to his twitter bio he is a Developer Advocate at Canonical working on Snapcraft and Ubuntu. Now, in case you don’t know popey is a good friend of mine and I’ve done many podcasts with him over the years, but this, he’s Alan, he’s Alan Pope of Canonical, he’s not my friend. It’s a work thing for him, because you know, I wanted to ask him some fairly difficult questions and try and clear up some of the misapprehensions and just get to the bottom of what is going on with snaps.

TikTok - the popular social video platform - is my new recipe discovery engine of choice. When bored or idle I might browse through my “For You” page until I stumble upon a recipe. I’ll then like (❤️) or bookmark (🔖) and come back to it later.

Yes, that’s right boomer, I’m explaining TikTok to you in a blog, like from 2004.

See, the thing is, I really love TikTok, despite being outside their likely target demographic. The platform has a tremendous blend of creativity and culture which triggers something fuzzy in me. I enjoy watching other people’s pets or a new dance craze as much as the latest viral sea shanty, comedy duet, news update or recipe.

I’ve mentioned before that I ‘suffer’ from xkcd 386. I’m trying to improve, and maybe writing this post will help me. If it helps you, that’s awesome too. Let’s work on this together. 🤝

There’s a strong prevalence among some in the Linux community for people correcting others. Specifically correcting pronunciation. I have been guilty of this in the past, but I’m trying to be the change I want to be. It’s a struggle!