10 files changed, 488 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/.skip-subtree b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/.skip-subtree
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..3a9dbd4d2b60
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/.skip-subtree
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subdirectories contain blog posts and static assets only
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/default.nix b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d87b714b6fe1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+{ depot, lib, pkgs, ... }:
+
+with depot.nix.yants;
+
+let
+  inherit (builtins) hasAttr filter readFile;
+  inherit (depot.web.blog) post includePost renderPost;
+  inherit (depot.users.wpcarro.website) domain renderTemplate withBrand;
+  inherit (lib.lists) sort;
+
+  config = {
+    name = "bill and his blog";
+    baseUrl = "https://${domain}/blog";
+    footer = "";
+  };
+
+  posts = sort (x: y: x.date > y.date)
+    (filter includePost (list post (import ./posts.nix)));
+
+  rendered = pkgs.runCommandNoCC "blog-posts" { } ''
+    mkdir -p $out
+
+    ${lib.concatStringsSep "\n" (map (post:
+      "cp ${renderPost config post} $out/${post.key}.html"
+    ) posts)}
+  '';
+
+  formatDate = date: readFile (pkgs.runCommandNoCC "date" { } ''
+    date --date='@${toString date}' '+%B %e, %Y' > $out
+  '');
+
+  postsHtml = renderTemplate ./fragments/posts.html {
+    postsHtml = lib.concatStringsSep "\n" (map toPostHtml posts);
+  };
+
+  toPostHtml = post: readFile (renderTemplate ./fragments/post.html {
+    postUrl = "${config.baseUrl}/posts/${post.key}.html";
+    postTitle = post.title;
+    postDate = formatDate post.date;
+  });
+in
+pkgs.runCommandNoCC "blog" { } ''
+  mkdir -p $out
+  cp ${withBrand (readFile postsHtml)} $out/index.html
+  cp -r ${rendered} $out/posts
+''
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/.skip-subtree b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/.skip-subtree
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..e69de29bb2d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/.skip-subtree
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/post.html b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/post.html
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..44593094ecdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/post.html
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<li class="pb-6 md:pb-10">
+  <h2 class="text-bold text-xl">
+    <a class="font-bold text-blue-600 hover:underline" href="@postUrl@">
+      @postTitle@
+    </a>
+  </h2>
+  <p class="text-gray-500">@postDate@</p>
+</li>
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/posts.html b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/posts.html
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..a85a4b71101e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/fragments/posts.html
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+<div class="max-w-sm md:max-w-prose mx-auto">
+  <section class="pt-8 pb-14">
+    <p class="font-bold pb-3 text-xl">
+      Personal blog by <a class="font-bold text-blue-600 hover:underline" href="@homepage@">Bill</a>.
+    </p>
+    <p class="text-gray-500">&gt; Half-baked musings lossily encoded.</p>
+    <p class="text-gray-500">&gt; - misc reviewer</p>
+  </section>
+  <ul>@postsHtml@</ul>
+</div>
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts.nix b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..5a58c9309ce5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# To format the date, run:
+#   $ date -d "today" +%s
+[
+  {
+    key = "cell-phone-experiment";
+    title = "Cell Phone Experiment";
+    date = 1585800000;
+    content = ./posts/cell-phone-experiment.md;
+    draft = false;
+  }
+  {
+    key = "quassel-google-vm";
+    title = "IRC, GCP, and NixOS";
+    date = 1640404800;
+    content = ./posts/quassel-google-vm.md;
+    draft = true;
+  }
+  {
+    key = "send-mail-as-2fa";
+    title = "2FA and Gmail's \"Send mail as\"";
+    date = 1641497483;
+    content = ./posts/send-mail-as-2fa.md;
+    draft = false;
+  }
+  {
+    key = "auto-reboot-nixos";
+    title = "Automatically Reboot NixOS";
+    date = 1643666914;
+    content = ./posts/auto-reboot-nixos.md;
+    draft = false;
+  }
+]
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/auto-reboot-nixos.md b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/auto-reboot-nixos.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..24474e6dfe48
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/auto-reboot-nixos.md
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+## Show me the codes
+
+Regularly rebooting machines can be a useful, hygienic practice, but quite
+frankly I cannot be relied on to remember to regularly reboot my machine.
+
+Let's free-up some wetware-RAM by automating this with Nix. The following
+addition to your `configuration.nix` will schedule daily reboots at `03:00`:
+
+```nix
+systemd.timers.auto-reboot = {
+  wantedBy = [ "timers.target" ];
+  timerConfig = {
+    OnCalendar = "*-*-* 03:00:00";
+    Unit = "reboot.target";
+  };
+};
+```
+
+If you want to fiddle with the date format, `systemd-analyze` is your friend:
+
+```shell
+λ systemd-analyze calendar '*-*-* 03:00:00'
+Normalized form: *-*-* 03:00:00
+    Next elapse: Tue 2022-02-01 03:00:00 PST
+       (in UTC): Tue 2022-02-01 11:00:00 UTC
+       From now: 12h left
+```
+
+After calling `nixos-rebuild switch`, you can verify that `systemd` started the
+timer with:
+
+```shell
+λ systemctl list-timers auto-reboot
+#  output omitted because I'm writing this from a different machine
+```
+
+## That's all, folks!
+
+I wanted to keep this post short-and-sweet, to build the habit of posting more
+regularly. Hopefully someone out there found this useful.
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/cell-phone-experiment.md b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/cell-phone-experiment.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c289954a58f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/cell-phone-experiment.md
@@ -0,0 +1,274 @@
+### TL;DR
+
+I will not use my cell phone during March to learn more about how much I depend
+on it.
+
+### Explore/Exploit
+
+Ever since I read Charles Duhigg's book, [The Power of Habit](poh), I try to
+habituate as many aspects of my life as I can.
+
+Making my bed every morning is an example of a habit -- so too is flossing at
+night before bed.
+
+The *exploit* axis of the [explore/exploit tradeoff](exp-exp) endows habits with
+their power. Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths explain this concept more clearly
+than I can in Chapter 2 of their exceptional book, [Algorithms to Live
+By](algos).
+
+Habits are powerful, but if I overly exploit an activity, I may settle on a
+local optimum in lieu of settling on a global optimum; these are the opportunity
+costs of exploiting (i.e. habits) versus exploring (i.e. spontaneity).
+
+But what if it was possible to habituate exploration?
+
+### Monthly challenges
+
+Every month since October 2018, I challenge myself to try something new. In the
+past, monthly challenges have been things like:
+- sign up and take Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes
+- buy a guitar and learn [Freight Train](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK8emiWabU)
+- study Italian
+- learn a handstand
+
+Typically for an activity to qualify as a challenge, I must spend *at least
+fifteen minutes* working on it *at least five days* each week.
+
+This month (i.e. March) I'm challenging myself to avoid using my cell phone.
+
+My parents gave me a cell phone when when I was a freshman in High School; I was
+14 years old. I am now 28, so I have been using a cell phone semi-daily for over
+a decade.
+
+While I enjoy the convenience that my cell phone provides me, I am curious to
+suspend my usage to more clearly understand how much I depend on it...
+
+### April
+
+Now it is early April, and I completed March's challenge. So how was it?
+
+Below I outline the parts of using a cell phone that I missed and the parts that
+I surprisingly did not miss. I will also mention the two times that I used my
+cell phone and why.
+
+The first three things that I missed all relate to time.
+
+#### Timekeeping
+
+On the first day I realized that unless I was near a computer, I did not know
+what time it was.
+
+I exclusively use my cell phone as my watch; I do not wear a watch. To adapt, I
+started looking for clocks around my office and while I was taking public
+transportation. Thankfully London posts the current time on the digital train
+schedules. This oriented me while I was traveling, which was also when I needed
+to know the time the most.
+
+Most of the month, however, I never precisely knew what time it was.
+
+#### Alarm clocks
+
+While I anticipated living without an alarm clock prior to the experiment, I
+decided against buying a substitute. Prior to this month, I theorized that
+morning alarms probably disrupt the quality of my sleep. If I'm tired, shouldn't
+I keep sleeping?
+
+As the month progressed and my 24 hour day morphed into a 25 hour day, I learned
+that I would prefer waking up at a set time every day and synchronize my
+schedule with the rest of my timezone.
+
+I am still unsure if alarm clocks are helpful in the long-term. I would have
+slept with the curtains drawn to allow the morning sun to wake me
+up. Unfortunately, I live on the ground floor nearby a brightly shining street
+lamp that spills into my bedroom.
+
+If I lived somewhere more remote (perhaps even a suburb would do) I would like
+to repeat an experiment where I live for a month without an alarm clock.
+
+For now, I must return to the Temple of Chronology and supplicate until Father
+Time restores my sanity.
+
+#### Timers
+
+Using timers motivates me to do a bunch of short tasks like cleaning my flat for
+fifteen minutes, stretching, or reading before bed. Thankfully, I already owned
+a physical timer that I keep in my kitchen. This replaced the timer on my phone
+without disrupting my routine.
+
+#### Maps
+
+Speaking of being disoriented, what about living without maps software?  On the
+few occasions where I traveled somewhere that was unfamiliar to me, I had to
+memorize the directions from my computer before I departed.
+
+At least I didn't need to visit gas stations or museums to buy trifold tourist
+maps...
+
+I once left my office mistakenly assuming that I would download the directions
+to my destination while commuting. As I awaited the office elevator, I realized
+that I had no clue where I was heading.
+
+Thankfully I wasn't far from the safety, comfort, and familiarity of my desktop
+computer -- with its fatty WiFi connection. In no time I was studying Google
+Maps in my web browser and memorizing the directions.
+
+Overall this was hardly an inconvenience, and I think I even enjoyed
+stress-testing my memory: a job that I so often outsource to hardware.
+
+#### Rendezvouses
+
+A couple of times I met friends in various parts of the city. Organizing these
+particular rendezvouses was a novel (read: anachronistic) experience. For all
+you young whippersnappers reading, take out your stone tablets and chisels. I'm
+going to explain how this works:
+
+First I would tell my friends where and when to meet me. I emphasized that I
+would be quite helpless to any changes they might make to the plans once I began
+commuting, which made the commitments unusually more binding.
+
+On one occasion my friend -- who is characteristically prompt, and even chides
+me for when I'm late -- was twenty minutes late for our engagement. My friend is
+German, so I figured I should do my civic duty of alerting the German embassy
+that my friend had broken German code, is obscenely late, and should therefore
+hand-in his passport and renounce his citizenship. After awhile my conscience
+advised me to reconsider.
+
+It was fortunate for both of us that I did not fully understand how late he was.
+Remember: I didn't know what time it was.
+
+I decided this would be a useful opportunity to test my patience, so I loitered
+for twenty minutes outside of our meeting point. He couldn't text me to tell me
+that he was late. I couldn't listen to music, call family or friends, or partake
+in any of the other rituals that modern-day loiterers observe to pass the
+time. In the end he showed up, and it was scarcely a big deal.
+
+This experience made me wonder what the policy for abandoning plans is when
+someone is running late. Before smart phones, how long did people wait? Maybe
+the proper etiquette is to wait long enough for you to absolve yourself of the
+guilt of flaking in the unlikely event that your friend arrives shortly after
+you leave.
+
+So... thirty minutes? I'll call my grandma tomorrow and ask her.
+
+#### Boredom
+
+My phone couldn't entertain me while I queued at the grocery store. Same too
+when I commuted.
+
+I also found myself listening to less music than I usually do. I decided to read
+to occupy the void when I could; this helped me progress towards completing this
+year's [GoodReads challenge][gr-annual].
+
+### Cheating
+
+I used my phone twice during March.
+
+1. Once to use my bank's mobile app to internationally transfer money from my
+   U.K. account to my U.S. account. I could have used [TransferWise's][tw]
+   website, but I didn't.
+2. Another time I used my phone to take pictures of an item that I wanted to
+   sell on [CraigsList][cl]. I could have and perhaps should have used my laptop's
+   webcam, but at the time, I didn't want to. I am accustomed to using my phone
+   to take pictures, and I wanted to sell something.
+
+In both of these cases, prior habits eroded my resolve to stay the course. These
+are useful reminders that habits don't distinguish between helpful and hurtful;
+they just exist.
+
+In total I would estimate that I spent somewhere around fifteen minutes using
+my phone in March. While not perfect:
+
+> Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without (Confucius)
+
+### Substitution = Dilution
+
+While the explicit goal of this challenge was to avoid using my cell phone for a
+month, the implicit goal was to disengage from many of the
+[nonessential][essentialism] activities that compete for my attention.
+
+There were some activities that I didn't miss while living without a cell
+phone. This wasn't because I don't value these activities, but rather because I
+can adequately replace them with alternatives.
+
+For texting and making phone calls, I used [Telegram][wtf-telegram]. Telegram
+helped me sustain a healthy relationship with my girlfriend while still honoring
+the constraints of the challenge.
+
+While I appreciated the convenience Telegram provided, I felt that I remained
+about as [available][wtf-availability] during March as I was in February. If I
+ever experiment with drastically reducing my availability, I will be more
+explicit about my objectives.
+
+### Distraction displacement (whack-a-mole)
+
+Because cell phones and other electronics have conditioned my behavior, I
+habitually avoid boredom and seek entertainment. On its face this may not sound
+like a harmful practice. My generation drills the aphorism "you only live once",
+suggesting that we may want to embrace a Hedonistic lifestyle.
+
+Hedonism may or may not be a wise way to play the game of Life. All I know is
+that living a life in which I am often stimulated but proportionately distracted
+appeals increasingly less to me as time progresses.
+
+During March I noticed that once I freed my attention from sending/receiving
+texts, my brain quickly reassigned my attention to maintaining a vigil over the
+other social media outposts that I maintain.
+
+I should also admit that I habitually checked Telegram now that it served as my
+new cell phone. Didn't see that coming...
+
+In another case, once I discovered that I could use Instagram in a web browser
+instead of on my phone, I filled my newfound time and attention on
+[Instagram.com][ig] (don't click!): displacing the time that I spent on an app
+on my phone to time that I spent on a website in a web browser.
+
+Holy whack-a-mole!
+
+Halfway through the month, I wrote a [program to block websites][url-blocker] on
+my computer. Surprisingly this worked and forced me to more deliberately fill
+this hard-fought, foreign time with other activities.
+
+### Easy come, easy go?
+
+As the saying for making friends goes, "easy come, easy go", implying that
+friendships that you easily form can just as easily be destroyed.
+
+Habits invert this creation/destruction relationship. In my experience "easy
+come" implies "difficult to go".
+
+For example, I could easily form the habit of eating chocolate around 15:00 at
+work; curbing this habit would require more effort. When I compare this to the
+difficulty I experienced habituating a meditation practice, and how easily I
+can dislodge my meditation practice, it seems to me that the laws of habits
+dictate "easy come, difficult go; difficult come, easy go".
+
+I suspect that while my cravings for using a cell phone have temporarily ceased,
+they will return shortly after I start using my cell phone. And as if nothing
+happened, I return to where I was at the end of February just before I decided
+to curb my cell phone usage.
+
+Because of this, I'm planning on keeping my cell phone in my closet where I
+stored it during the month of March. As noted, enough substitutes exist for me
+to live a mostly normal life: one where I am not unnecessarily straining the
+relationships of my friends and my family. After all these are the people who
+matter most to me and those who drive me to explore new ways to improve.
+
+I recognize that the "self" in self-experimentation is a misnomer. Can you truly
+conduct an [N of 1 trial][nof1]? My decisions impact the people in my life, and
+I want to thank everyone who tolerates my eccentric and oftentimes annoying
+experimentation.
+
+Thank you for reading.
+
+[pod]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit
+[exp-exp]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit
+[algos]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by
+[gr-annual]: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/19737920
+[cl]: http://craigslist.com
+[tw]: https://transferwise.com
+[url-blocker]: https://github.com/wpcarro/url-blocker
+[wtf-telegram]: https://telegram.org
+[wtf-availability]: https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/chapters/availability-table
+[essentialism]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077875-essentialism
+[ig]: https://instagram.com
+[nof1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_of_1_trial
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/quassel-google-vm.md b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/quassel-google-vm.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..dd74387f8bf0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/quassel-google-vm.md
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+# IRC, GCP, and NixOS
+
+- "cannot read /var/lib/acme/wpcarro.dev/full.pem"
+- `sudo stat /var/lib/acme/wpcarro.dev/full.pem` exists
+- `sudo -i`
+- `su quassel` # denied
+- `sudo --user=quassel stat /var/lib/acme/wpcarro.dev/full.pem` exists
+- `groups quassel` quassel
+- `usermod -a -G nginx quassel` exists
+- `groups quassel` quassel, nginx
+- `sudo --user=quassel cat /var/lib/acme/wpcarro.dev/full.pem` exists
+
+# Firewall
+
+- `nmap localhost`
+- `nmap wpcarro.dev`
+- Update `configuration.nix` firewall
+- `nmap localhost`
+- `nmap wpcarro.dev`
+- Edit cloud.google.com Configuration (VPC > Firewall > 6697)
+
+# Quassel
+
+- Test connecting, disconnecting, persisted logs?
+- Change `~quassel@253.253.209.35.bc.googleusercontent.com` -> `~quassel@wpcarro.dev`
+  - cloaking?
+  - rDNS?
+    - `dig wpcarro.dev`       -> `35.209.253.253`
+    - `dig -x 35.209.253.253` -> `253.253.209.35.bc.googleusercontent.com`
+    - From within GCP https://stackoverflow.com/a/47060002 (create the PTR record)
+- `/msg hostserv take hackint/user/$account` add cloaking
+- disconnect/connect from hackint for changes to take affect
+- `/msg hostserv drop` remove cloaking
+- Test can I log-in from another machine?
diff --git a/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/send-mail-as-2fa.md b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/send-mail-as-2fa.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..5d18935c7aef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/users/wpcarro/website/blog/posts/send-mail-as-2fa.md
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+## Prelude
+
+This is a short story about how I configured myself out of my own email. Posting
+this as an exercise in humility, a tutorial for my future self in case of
+amnesia, and penance for my sins.
+
+## Background
+
+-   I have 2x Gmail accounts: **work** and **personal**.
+-   I configure **work** to send emails as **personal**.
+-   I configure **personal** to forward incoming emails to **work**.
+
+This allows me to use **work** and manage both of my inboxes as one. I recently
+added two-factor authentication (2FA) to **personal**, forgot about it, and
+spent a few days unable to send **personal** emails from any **work** device.
+
+## Symptoms
+
+Whenever I tried to send emails on behalf of **personal**, I'd receive the
+following error message as a reply:
+
+> You're sending this from a different address using the 'Send mail as' feature.
+> The settings for your 'Send mail as' account are misconfigured or out of date.
+> Check those settings and try resending.
+
+Useful error message if you ask me (especially in retrospect), but because I had
+*forgotten* that I setup 2FA for **personal**, I naively assumed this issue
+might magically disappear given enough time... kind of how restarting your
+device resets the state and causes the symptoms of a certain class of bugs to
+disappear.
+
+After a few days of mounting frustration, I decided to take a closer look...
+
+## Solution
+
+-   Create an "App Password" for **personal**:
+    [instructions](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en).
+-   Login to **work** and delete **personal** from `Settings > Accounts > Send
+    mail as`.
+-   `Add another email address` for **personal** using the "App Password" you
+    just created.
+
+And now I'm back in business!