Links for 2020-03-06: Async Rust, Leadership, Firefox removing old cookies, X-Windows, Linux distributions, PC cases

Interesting things going on the internet, 2020-03-06.

async/await on embedded Rust

Not production ready yet, but the guys from Ferrous Systems are working on a way to embbed async/await on embedded systems. While this may sound strange ("What? But Rust doesn't support async/await already?"), the fact is that most async/await runtimes use Glibc functions and do not work without it. They even have a repository with some code.

This is huge.

Taking someone aside

Some tips on how to talk to someone when you want them to stop doing something.

Purge site data when site identified via old tracking cookies

This is a direct link to a Firefox "bug" (actually, a feature) for removing cookies older than 30 days if you don't interact with the site in 30 days.

"My logins!", you may be thinking. But this will also remove any tracking site as long as you don't interact with the site anymore (goodbye Google tracking sites, if you use DuckDuckGo, ProtonMail, Invidio.us, and so on).

The X-Windows Disaster

This is a piece of hate on XWindows -- you know, the thing that first was XFree86, then turned to X.org, then was completely scratched and is slowly being replaced by Wayland.

But the curious part is not the hate, but the fact that it tells the story behind X-Windows, how it came to be and how it works -- and the steps people made to make it actually work.

Try Linux

Not using Linux yet? Wondering which the myriad of distributions you should use? Not really getting into that distribution that you Linux-fan friend suggested?

This page has a list of distributions and their knowledge required.

Even if you already use Linux, you may pick something more "advanced", just to explore new things.

The beautiful machine

I'm not running desktops anymore, but heck if that isn't a pretty case!