Julia Evans
LightNews LightNews
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
Julia Evans
@b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
570 followers 0 following 710 posts
programming and exclamation marks

I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow.

[bridged from https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
Posts Replies Media Videos
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
I have a new zine idea and I think I'm going to work on it secretly for a little while before talking about it but I'm feeling excited

(it is related to making websites)
November 10, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by Julia Evans
adapalmer.wandering.shop.ap.brid.gy
Behold the zipper’s first upgrade in over a century. YKK, the Japanese company that makes about half the world’s zippers, has created a zipper that removes the traditional fabric tape, creating a lighter, more flexible, lower-impact closure that sits flush with garments. It requires new […]
Original post on wandering.shop
wandering.shop
November 7, 2025 at 5:05 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
i switched from making zines in a basic note-taking app to Affinity Designer years ago but now that Canva announced that they're making it free I'm thinking of switching back to working in Goodnotes

it has a lot of limitations (basic stuff like "you can't change the width of a line after you […]
Original post on social.jvns.ca
social.jvns.ca
November 7, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Julia Evans
corbden.defcon.social.ap.brid.gy
Blood test developed that can diagnose ME/CFS with 96% accuracy. Links to long Covid found. Epigenetic connection confirmed (it's how the test works).

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251102205021.htm

HT @bamboy

#mecfs #longcovid #chronicillness
Breakthrough blood test finally confirms Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
A team of scientists has developed a highly accurate blood test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The test reads tiny DNA patterns that reveal the biological signature of the illness. For millions who’ve faced doubt and misdiagnosis, it’s a breakthrough that finally validates their experience — and may help diagnose long Covid too.
www.sciencedaily.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:37 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
sometimes I wonder if it would be clearer to call "detached HEAD state" in Git something like "branchless state", because all it really means is that you don't have a current branch

(sort of like https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless)
GitHub - arxanas/git-branchless: High-velocity, monorepo-scale workflow for Git
High-velocity, monorepo-scale workflow for Git. Contribute to arxanas/git-branchless development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
October 27, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Julia Evans
gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
For anyone else considering the seasonal pursuit of carving a pumpkin and spending time looking through dollar store toolkits or scrolling through dozens of identical crappy plastic tool sets in attractive clamshell zip cases on Amazon, let me save you some time.

The magic term you want is […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 19, 2025 at 2:09 AM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
I know there are a lot of CSS magicians on the fediverse, is anyone open to freelance work? we're looking for some help with https://wizardzines.com

share a link to your site?
wizard zines
wizardzines.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:17 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
just added the MEGA TERMINAL CHEAT SHEET from "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" to our list of posters at https://wizardzines.com/#posters
October 20, 2025 at 3:22 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
TERM

https://wizardzines.com/comics/term/

(from The Secret Rules of the Terminal, out now! https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal)
different terminal emulators use different escape codes terminal emulator 1: if you print out ESC[2J I’ll clear the screen! terminal emulator 2: for me it’s ESC[HESC[J! your system has a database called “terminfo” with escape codes in it how if plays out when you press Ctrl+L to clear the screen: program, with a little heart over it, thinking: ah, she wants fo clear the screen! I’ll look up how to do that in the terminfo database… (on my machine, the database is in /usr/share/terminfo) program: ESC[HESC[J terminal emulator, thinking: ok, clearing the screen! how programs know what terminal you’re using: TERM your terminal emulator sets the TERM environment variable when it starts fun fact: terminal emulators often say they’re “xterm-256color” even if they’re not this can break when SSHing into an old system with a new terminal emulator (in a VERY annoying way) happy little stick fiture: I am using ghostty program, with a little heart over it: NOPE never heard of it some ways to fix TERM install the terminfo file for your terminal emulator on the system use a different terminal emulator just set TERM=xterm-256color, it’ll often sort of work
October 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
notes on switching to Helix from vim https://jvns.ca/blog/2025/10/10/notes-on-switching-to-helix-from-vim/
Notes on switching to Helix from vim
jvns.ca
October 10, 2025 at 2:23 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
would any of you folks be interested in reading an explanation of Git's data model I'm working on? (with the goal of including it in Git's official documentation)

if so, reply to this and I'll DM you a link!
October 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
git usage question: if you use `git pull` and `git push`, how do you usually use them?

possible answers include:

- just run `git push` and `git pull` with no arguments (other than --rebase or --ff-only etc)
- always specify remote/branch with `git push origin main` and `git pull origin main`
- […]
Original post on social.jvns.ca
social.jvns.ca
October 6, 2025 at 9:05 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
I'm thinking of trying to add an explanation of Git's core data model (commits / branches / references) to Git's official documentation, but where should it go?

curious about where you would think to look for such a thing

here are the current docs: https://git-scm.com/docs
Git - Reference
git-scm.com
September 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
meet the terminal emulator https://wizardzines.com/comics/meet-the-terminal-emulator/

(from The Secret Rules of the Terminal, out now! (https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/)
your terminal emulator has two main jobs turn your actions (typing & clicking) into bytes and send them receive bytes and display them visually Illustration of a terminal emulator, with a winking cursor face, and a program, represented by a box with a smiley face. The program has a heart above it, and there are arrows going back and forth between them labelled “bytes” a little bit of history it’s called an “emulator” because in the 80s a “terminal” was a separate machine from the computer Illustration of a bulky old monitor, with a keyboard attached with a spiral cord, and a wire running to a panl of buttons and displays, labelld “mainframe”. There are arrows going back and forth between them labelled “bytes” We still use the same 80s protocol! what are these “bytes”? the bytes are either: text (like cat blah.txt) escape codes (for example to tell the terminal what colour to display the text in) control characters example Ctrl+C is the byte 3) it’s in charge of copy and paste your terminal emulator lets you select text and copy/paste it (usually with Ctrl+Shift+C (Linux) or Cmd+C (Mac)) (copy & paste tips on page 18!) it manages colours and fonts! some terminal emulators come with a big theme library of different colourschemes! if yours doesn’t, this site has colourschemes for many terminal emulators: iterm2colorschemes.com fun fact: how Ctrl-X gets translated to bytes Ctrl-A => 1 Ctrl-B => 2 ... Ctrl-Z => 26
September 29, 2025 at 4:15 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
related to the Git cheat sheet I mentioned last week https://git-scm.com/cheat-sheet, I'm thinking of making some changes to the official Git glossary (https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary), to make it easier to look up what terms like "object" or "reference" mean in Git

I need some test […]
Original post on social.jvns.ca
social.jvns.ca
September 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
stty

https://wizardzines.com/comics/stty/

(from The Secret Rules of the Terminal, out now! https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/)
your TTY driver has configuration you can see how it’s configured by running: stty -a for example it print out the current window size! Ctrl+S by default, pressing Ctrl+S wi(( freeze your terminal (and Ctrl+Q wi(( unfreeze) I have never wanted this in my life, you can turn it off with stty -ixon (fish turns it off by default) ###fun fact: changing Ctrl+C technically you can use stty to set a different keyboard shortcut for Ctrl+C, (ike “u” stty intr u this is extremely chaotic and I can’t imagine a reason that I would ever do this though programs have to configure the TTY driver to get friendly features developer: I want arrow keys to work in my program! other person: better tell the TTY driver to turn off canonical mode! (more on the next page) the TTY driver’s settings are called “termios settings” for the gnarly details: man termios but if you’re writing a terminal program libraries like readline or ncurses will handle setting up the TTY driver panel 6 smiling stick figure with short curly hair: I’ve only needed to use stty once in the last 20 years and I mostly don’t understand its output but I think it’s a fun view into terminal internals!
September 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
added a cheat sheet to the official Git website https://git-scm.com/cheat-sheet
September 16, 2025 at 6:27 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
more "how do you use this git feature" questions: do you ever use `git reset --soft`? What do you use it for?

(note: --soft is not the default)
September 16, 2025 at 2:17 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
TERM

https://wizardzines.com/comics/term/

(from "The Secret Rules of the Terminal", out now! https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/)
different terminal emulators use different escape codes terminal emulator 1: if you print out ESC[2J I’ll clear the screen! terminal emulator 2: for me it’s ESC[HESC[J! your system has a database called “terminfo” with escape codes in it how if plays out when you press Ctrl+L to clear the screen: program, with a little heart over it, thinking: ah, she wants fo clear the screen! I’ll look up how to do that in the terminfo database… (on my machine, the database is in /usr/share/terminfo) program: ESC[HESC[J terminal emulator, thinking: ok, clearing the screen! how programs know what terminal you’re using: TERM your terminal emulator sets the TERM environment variable when it starts fun fact: terminal emulators often say they’re “xterm-256color” even if they’re not this can break when SSHing into an old system with a new terminal emulator (in a VERY annoying way) happy little stick fiture: I am using ghostty program, with a little heart over it: NOPE never heard of it some ways to fix TERM install the terminfo file for your terminal emulator on the system use a different terminal emulator just set TERM=xterm-256color, it’ll often sort of work
September 15, 2025 at 3:07 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
another slightly obscure git question: have you ever used the “pushremote“ option in Git so that you can push a branch to a different remote than you pull from? Why?
September 13, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Julia Evans
mastodon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Today, we’re ready to show you the upcoming quote posts feature in more detail. We’ve put together a blog post with examples of how quote posts will work on Mastodon, ahead of early access on our own servers next week 💬 Full launch to come, in Mastodon v4.5 […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
September 11, 2025 at 6:29 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
more weird git stuff : I'm trying to explain why "git pull origin main" will merge `main` into the current branch, but 'git push origin main' will NOT push the current branch to `main` (instead AFAICT it pushes the local "main" branch to the remote "main", no matter what your current branch is) […]
Original post on social.jvns.ca
social.jvns.ca
September 11, 2025 at 7:27 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
finally (after literally everyone else *) I got my print copy of The Secret Rules of the Terminal!

(* or I hope after literally everyone else, please send us a support email if you didn't get your preordered copy yet!)
The Secret Rules of the Terminal, by Julia Evans - The cover illustration depicts three people doing arcane terminal magic in a temple with a smoking censer in the background. Each of the three people has curly brown hair and light brown skin. They are all wearing dresses, billowing cloaks, and utility belts with keyboard symbols on them. The one on the left holds a palette of paints and a brush. The one on the right has a staff with a $ symbol on it and a starfish at the top. The one in the centre has a sword and is reading from a book whose cover says “>_” and “./”, which rests on a lectern with a smiling snake wrapped around it.
September 8, 2025 at 3:14 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
meet the TTY driver

https://wizardzines.com/comics/meet-the-tty-driver/

(from "The Secret Rules of the Terminal", out now!)
the TTY driver is the most obscure part of the system You almost never need to think about it, but when I’ve wanted to do something weird (like put a terminal in a web browser) understanding the driver is SO USEFUL when you start your terminal emulator, it asks the OS to create a “pseudoterminal pair” which is a pair of two files terminal emulator <-> TTY <-> TTY driver <-> TTY <-> program a “TTY” is the program’s side of the pair programs use it to: communicate with the terminal emulator by reading/writing bytes configure the TTY driver (more on the next page!) Run tty fo see the current TTY! the TTY driver is why Ctrl+C does the same thing relatively consistently program: you press Ctrl+C, I send a signal! well, unless the program tells me it wants the raw bytes! some things the TTY driver is in charge of (you might think “these are unrelated” and you’d be right) storing the terminal window’s size sending a SIGHUP signal when you close your terminal a basic mode for entering text called “canonical mode” pausing the output and confusing you when you press Ctrl+S tracking which process is in the “foreground” and sending what you type there
September 8, 2025 at 3:07 PM
b0rk.social.jvns.ca.ap.brid.gy
for a long time I've been ignoring git GUI tools ("I can just use the command line! it's fine!) but recently I've been needing to do a lot of repeated "edit the commit message of the commit 3 commits ago", and doing that with `git rebase -i` is annoying.

with lazygit I can just scroll to the […]
Original post on social.jvns.ca
social.jvns.ca
September 3, 2025 at 4:34 PM