That’s most of what we do today.

Every web app you use right now - which is most of your day for most users - is just a dumb terminal UI hitting some API on some foreign computer.

Plan 9 uses the file system as a way of interacting with apis. Linux took this idea directly by copying in the/proc filesystem from 9, which are not bytes on a disk but are instead the kernel presenting its running processes in the format of files and directories in your file namespace, and with which you can interact to control those processes.

It also took this idea and created FUSE - file systems in user space - so that you can do the same thing on Linux as a user, but with not quite the same ease you have on plan 9 - and notably, fuse file systems are not naturally network file systems, and so you can’t export them as easily to the network as you can with nine machines, where it’s implicit.

Last, Linux took the idea of per-process namespaces from 9, setting the stage for all of the docker, snap, etc. tools we use today.

In short, a lot of nine already is mainstream because it’s been adopted by Linux. However, using plan 9 and then returning back to Linux feels like putting on bulky gloves, because Linux did not start with these concepts in mind, but bolted them on after.

/Tinyrant

I absolutely loved my apartment, but I pulled myself out of it because it was just far too much money and I knew that nearly all of that money was going into a hole.

Lived with a buddy for 2 years to save up a down payment, and got a house that’s nice - but honestly the renovation bit that I couldn’t do with an apartment that I really like is that I put solar panels on it. I wouldn’t have that option if I was still in my apartment.

And of course I pay people to mow the lawn, so some money still goes in a hole for sure, as it is with paying mortgage interest. But I have way more control now over how much, and whenever I plan to move I can trade a lot of that money going into the mortgage for wherever I go next, or pass it on.

Yep, and notably - add 15 minutes, because that’s about how long it takes to fall asleep on average. You can use sleepyti.me as a calculator if you’re lazy like me and want to know when to go to bed

I’d roll with calling it a cacographic puzzle, maybe?

Your hypothesis is an intuitive and common fear, and so has been studied before and found insubstantial, with Canada’s “Mincome” experiment being one of the most notable: in the 70s Canada targeted members of a town with a minimum income for five years, and saw results like people opening businesses with loans they could get now that they could cite the income. Where they saw people leaving jobs, it was often for education - their high school enrollment hit 100% for the senior year for the first time ever, due to the kids not needing to help bring in money. It was ended during a fiscal crisis when the government was looking for places to tighten belts. This BBC article is a good read on it, focused on the positive health impact.

It’s convenient. Can’t hurt to get used to it, for sure, in that it’s useful to not have to go through dependency hell installing things sometimes. It’s based on kernel features I don’t see Linus pulling out, so I think you’ll only see it more.

As someone who runs nix-only at home, I mostly use its underlying tech in the form of snaps/flatpaks, though. I use docker itself at work constantly, but at home, snaps/flatpaks tend to do the “minimize thinking about dependencies and building” bit but in a workflow more convenient for desktop applications.

take the Globular Condor or whatever the Westbound train is called to Altoona"

Lol, it’s the Pennsylvania 43, I’ve been taking it a lot recently - but their site may have been upgraded since you last tried it, because they told me basically that exact thing in reverse for how to get to Jacksonville from Pittsburgh when I was poking at it last week, so it might be worth giving it a go again if it’d be helpful.

Edit: lmao, I gave it a go, and nope, it says “we do not have any travel options.” Taking a look, I’d bet it’s because the Pennsylvania 43 leaves at 11AM, and the Silver Star arrives at 7:10PM, so maybe it has rules requiring same-day departure between arrivals to be consider “the same trip”? The Pittsburgh->Jax route has much shorter connections. Also you could connect in Philly if you’d like, if I’m tracking the Silver Star’s path correctly - the 43 goes NY->Philly->Altoona

Edit 2: yeah, it seems like it just doesn’t consider taking the Silver Star to the Pennsylvanian as an option when going to West PA from SC - like, even getting to Pittsburgh the only option it gives is heading to Washington DC then using the Capitol Limited from DC - which is completely reasonable, but means missing out on the extra stations you get with the Pennsylvania 43 like Altoona. I wonder if these routes between places are hand-written?

Seconding The Player of Games as the place to start in the Culture novels, although there is notably a lot of space travel in the Culture series overall which might be why people are avoiding them for this request. But 100% worth giving TPoG a read, for sure - and it in particular has no space travel past the opening, iirc.

What are birds? We just don’t know.