I’ll update this post periodically to reflect my current tooling and setup.

Emacs, Nix-Darwin, MacOS, and more <2025-02-28 Fri>

Now that I’ve finished refactoring my entire development and writing environment, why not specify why I’m using, what I’m using and why? Maybe it’ll be useful for you

Hardware

Computer(s): Macbook Air (Apple Silicon) & X1 Carbon (Thinkpad)

I use both mac and linux pretty regularly, I have them both configured using Nix which allows parity between system configurations. New Apple computers are superb, but I can’t let go of my Thinkpad because I love tinkering on it and I’m sure I’ll sell the macbook one day but keep the thinkpad for many more years.

I’m going to show you how to setup Nix-Darwin on your Mac to manage your entire computer, its Homebrew packages and more. By the end of this tutorial, you will have your Mac as close to declaratively setup as possible. Let’s get started, shall we?

Background

What is Nix-Darwin?

Nix is a declarative (explicitly written) package-manager and system-manager. It can also be a standalone operating system that rivals and perhaps even exceeds Arch in its level of capablity and polish (yes, I have had a fully homebaked version of Arch from scratch and it was awesome).

In this post, I’m going to show you how to setup a blogging workflow using Emacs and other free tools. At the end of this, you will have a blog just like this one and be able to create posts in a matter of keystrokes that get published online without spending a dime.

I don’t really know how to write these kinds of tutorial posts, so I’m just going to get right into it.

Intro

We live in a world dominated by the too-quick-to-offend and the offended-too-quickly.

Reality, however, is multi-faceted, each face colored by individual experience.

Our capacity to understand this nuance has lagged behind our access to virtually infinite information.

The result is a breakdown in society, with sects colored by worldviews orchestrated by an unconscious engagement machine, mechanically feeding us whatever data fuels focus and engagement.

In the light, this technologically doped filtering is a godsend – we can find products we love, information we need, people we enjoy, and perspectives we harbor; we become coddled in an instant with whatever cranial comfort we desire.