<glowcoil>
devyn: seems like the collective accent of lojban has ended up as what sounds "exotic" to english speakers ;)
<glowcoil>
:p
<glowcoil>
but yeah sounds cool
<devyn>
well it's actually closer to how the CLL recommends, but the CLL also allows for variants of the sounds which meant that it sounded pretty terribly anglicized
<devyn>
glowcoil: anyway, the major problem with lojban at the moment is that it's undergone some big changes but the tutorials don't reflect that, and PR is basically dead now
<devyn>
glowcoil: selpa'i thinks he can help out by offering these lessons
<glowcoil>
yeah
<glowcoil>
PR?
<glowcoil>
oh just like PR
<glowcoil>
:p
<devyn>
yes PR PR
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
<devyn>
glowcoil: anyway I'm really enjoying it and it's encouraging me to write essays in lojban which is a pretty great thought exercise
<devyn>
sort of like doing logic problems
<glowcoil>
yeah
<glowcoil>
i've been developing some ideas for a conlang for the past semester and a half
<glowcoil>
and one of the things that transformed them quite a bit was the experience of 25i-nbome
<glowcoil>
and lsd
<devyn>
I'd never heard of 25i-nbome before
<glowcoil>
it's a designer drug
<glowcoil>
similar to lsd
<glowcoil>
but if you take both you'll realize that while they're more similar than most other drugs, they're very different
<glowcoil>
anyway it really made me realize some things about scale
<devyn>
interesting
<glowcoil>
like, everyone is aware of like, the universe is 10^30 times as big as us and we're 10^-30 times as big as the smallest things
<joelteon>
n-boom
<glowcoil>
give or take a a lot of orders of magnitude :p
<devyn>
so it just allowed that sense of scale to really sink in
<glowcoil>
but not a lot of people talk about timescales as they're relevant to perception
<devyn>
hm
<glowcoil>
but it felt like 25i stepped in and changed the way my sensory information was getting to me
<glowcoil>
so i was aware of it on different scales
<glowcoil>
so for instance, while I was having a conversation with someone, it would feel like we were all acting exaggeratedly slowly
<glowcoil>
i was talking really really slowly to fit into the timescale of everyone around me
<glowcoil>
and then
<glowcoil>
as soon as a moment passed, I realized it had been normal speed
<devyn>
huh
<glowcoil>
another thing was, it felt like things would begin as a tiny detail of what i was experiencing, then expand dramatically to fill my whole experience, then pass by to be replaced by the next thing
alexgordon has quit [Quit: My iMac has gone to sleep. ZZZzzz…]
<devyn>
so how does this fit into conlang ideas?
<glowcoil>
so it really made me aware of how
<glowcoil>
everything is made up of the same patterns, on different scales
<glowcoil>
and the world has such a vast amount of variation in scale
<glowcoil>
to the point that the same pattern will not immediately look like the same because it's so zoomed out or zoomed in
<glowcoil>
picture an ant walking through grass and seeing a forest
<glowcoil>
while a satellite looking down on the earth just sees a mass of green made up of all the plants
<glowcoil>
so i wanted to provide a unified vocabulary for expressing patterns independent of scale, as well as for embracing scale's role and expressing the patterns involving scale
<glowcoil>
does that make any sense at all?
<glowcoil>
up until that experience, my conlang had some limited tools for dealing with scale, e.g.:
<glowcoil>
the set of what were effectively declensions, that played the role of prepositions etc.
<glowcoil>
included things like, A happened at the beginning of B, or in the middle of B, or at the end of B, or before or after B
<glowcoil>
so that embraces that B can either be viewed as a discrete point in time, or broken apart into a full process with many components
<devyn>
like ZAhO aspect/contours in lojban?
<glowcoil>
probably
<glowcoil>
i think i remember looking at them a bit
<glowcoil>
i have one part of speech, you could call predicates or nouns or whatever
<glowcoil>
and so i wasn't fully satisfied with the ambiguity inherent in this syntax but:
<glowcoil>
a clause is [clause]* head
<glowcoil>
a sentence has particular modifiers to describe the utterance as a whole, applied to the head
<glowcoil>
and then each head of a subclause of a sentence has modifiers to describe both the role it plays in the superclause as a whole, as well as what aspect of the predicate it refers to
<glowcoil>
for instance
<glowcoil>
say there is a word for the activity of running
<glowcoil>
one modifier states that this clause's referent is a specific instance of the activity, viewed as a point event, in the past of the superclause
<glowcoil>
and the other modifier states that this clause plays the role of being the physical/mechanistic cause of the event/state described by the superclause as a whole
<devyn>
hmmm
<glowcoil>
so I had a set of modifiers I was pretty proud of, but I want to entirely rework them to make them aware of scale
<devyn>
http://dag.github.io/cll/ look through chapter 10 and see whether you see anything similar... this feels familiar, but I feel like lojban only has the extent of "short" "medium" and "long" scale and nothing particularly more absolute than that
<alexgordon>
glowcoil: tbh pot itself is fine, but I would never smoke
<whitequark>
(incidentally I wonder whether mythbusters would be (self-)censored with such material)
<glowcoil>
lately i'm not a big fan of pot tbh actually
<alexgordon>
whitequark: I dunno they did two tests, the first is that guard dogs can be subdued by meat, the second is that you can't outrun a sniffer dog (following your scent)
<gq>
last time i smoked a whole bunch i ended up stealing the person i smoked with's keys because i was afraid he'd try to drive under the influence
<whitequark>
lol the second one is obvious
<purr>
lol
<glowcoil>
for various reasons i've gotten in a state of mind where i'm a dangerous amount of sentimental/existential/aware of mortality, and marijuana makes it way way worse
<alexgordon>
I was saying the other day, the only drug that I'd seriously consider would be mdma. the rest are either too dangerous or too pointless
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: what?! mdma is definitely more dangerous than any of the drugs i've tried
yorick has quit [Ping timeout: 245 seconds]
<glowcoil>
like i anticipate that i will probably try it at some point in my life but
<glowcoil>
mdma is definitely more scary than weed or even psychedelics like lsd
<alexgordon>
glowcoil: prof david nutt (the guy who got sacked) famously said that horseriding is more dangerous than ecstasy
<glowcoil>
also, I cannot recommend lsd, 25i and similar drugs enough
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: well it probably is
<glowcoil>
:p
<glowcoil>
just saying, I can think of many, many drugs less dangerous than ecstasy, and with more point
<glowcoil>
not that it doesn't sound way sweet
<alexgordon>
really?
<glowcoil>
and a big part of the scariness is not being sure that what you have is pure
<alexgordon>
well yeah I'm talking about pure mdma
<glowcoil>
like from what i've heard, mdma tends to be distributed impurely more than a lot of drugs
<devyn>
it's hard to guarantee that what you have is pure mdma though
<glowcoil>
and in that case it's fucking scary
<devyn>
dealer might say it's pure but it's not
<alexgordon>
would never trust random stuff off the street, so I'll probably never take it :P
<glowcoil>
but yeah if i had guaranteed pure mdma i wouldn't be scared, i'd just take the proper precautions like with any other drug
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: haha yeah
<glowcoil>
but like, stuff like lsd is a lot easier to trust that it's at least not dangerous to take
<glowcoil>
though often you'll want lsd and get 25i or another similar designer drug
<alexgordon>
but who knows, the world is changing
<devyn>
one of my friends bought a lot of MDMA for cheap off SR... he says it's good quality, but I'm not so sure considering how cheap it was
<alexgordon>
I foresee some country will legalise it at some point
<glowcoil>
yeah
<glowcoil>
god drug policies are so fucked
<glowcoil>
welllll i'm gonna go get food
<glowcoil>
be back in a bit
<alexgordon>
o7 glowcoil
<alexgordon>
devyn: lol it's so stupid, because the actual substance itself is not very dangerous. the only thing banning it achieves is people being duped into taking *actually dangerous* substances
<purr>
lol
<alexgordon>
IMO there's a stronger argument for legalizing it than pot, because it's a matter of public health
<devyn>
"2) Do we care what porn sites you visit? Oh, dear god, no. My brain just melted."
<devyn>
hahaha
<alexgordon>
devyn: wait so they actually admit to sending back a list of the sites you visited?!
<whitequark>
a list of hashes of dns entries
<devyn>
alexgordon: they admit to searching through the DNS cache to see whether the DRM phoning-home sites had been accessed for particular sites
<whitequark>
chrome does exactly same thing for antiphishing for like years
<alexgordon>
do they persist this information?
<whitequark>
well, not exactly, they send URL hashes
<devyn>
cheats*
<devyn>
alexgordon: I'm going to reread this but I think Gabe said it was only temporary while the cheats were detectable by the DNS cache... these are really complex kernel module level cheats
<devyn>
the cheats have since modified the DNS cache, so this is no longer an option
<alexgordon>
yeah but I don't really give a shit about their computer games, I want to know if they're violating my privacy!
<devyn>
I don't see how sending hashes of DNS entries is really a big deal
<whitequark>
don't use steam then *shrug*
<purr>
¯\(º_o)/¯
<whitequark>
there are ways to get drm-free games and such.
<alexgordon>
I don't use steam because it's a buggy piece of shit
<devyn>
unfortunately I think Valve kind of had to do that here... VAC has a reputation for being extremely good anti-cheat software, and it doesn't surprise me that they take extreme measures
<devyn>
VAC is *so good* that cheat developers are turning to fucking KERNEL MODULES
<devyn>
like
<devyn>
wow.
<alexgordon>
as long as they're not doing anything illegal...
<whitequark>
I dunno, think the easiest next thing is to subvert the windows kernel into a hardware vm container
<devyn>
that is something that they could have easily have you sign away in their EULA
<whitequark>
it's a bit complex but doable
<devyn>
so no, I don't see how that's illegal
<whitequark>
devyn: eula cannot subvert law, though
<alexgordon>
devyn: usually consumer protection laws cannot be signed away, for obvious reasons
<whitequark>
I mean, you can't make an illegal thing legal by adding a paragraph to EULA.
<devyn>
> If they were detected VAC then checked to see which cheat DRM server was being contacted. This second check was done by looking for a partial match to those (non-web) cheat DRM servers in the DNS cache. If found, then hashes of the matching DNS entries were sent to the VAC servers.
<alexgordon>
I dunno if that applies to data protection laws, I would think so though
<devyn>
read that
<devyn>
they didn't send an entire list or anything
<devyn>
just matches, if there were any
<devyn>
I stress, "hashes of the matching DNS entries"
<whitequark>
I really wonder how could you subvert a hardware vm container
<alexgordon>
as long as they're not sending hashes of the websites I visit to their servers and storing it in some database, it's ok
<whitequark>
well, detect, in this cas
<devyn>
no, they're not, only sending hashes that match cheat sites
<whitequark>
*case
<alexgordon>
whitequark: there are ways of detecting whether you're in a VM
<devyn>
the language seems to imply that they're not even doing that anymore
<whitequark>
alexgordon: if the VM is done right, there are not
<whitequark>
the top answer, I mean. the rest are garbage
<devyn>
yeah, device driver signatures could be forged
<alexgordon>
depends what level of false positives you want to accept
<whitequark>
devyn: malicious containers don't change your drivers or anything
<whitequark>
they just allow the OS to access almost all hardware directly
<devyn>
...yes, there's that :p
<devyn>
right
<devyn>
this seems to suggest that the ITLB check would allow even a very simple hypervisor to be detected
<glowcoil>
hi
<purr>
glowcoil: hi!
<whitequark>
well
<alexgordon>
hi glowcoil
<glowcoil>
right, legalizing mdma would make it absolutely not scary
<alexgordon>
surely you can do some kind of timing attack
<devyn>
let's just legalize all the drugs and have proper addiction counselling programs
<devyn>
and infrastructure
<devyn>
well maybe not ones that are kill-you-instantly-even-at-tiny-doses drugs
<devyn>
:p
<alexgordon>
I know nothing about VMs but I at least know that there's quite a few instructions that have to be emulated, if you time it relative to "native" instruction you should be able to tell?
<devyn>
surely the VM clock can be manipulated, alexgordon, so no
<whitequark>
it's both right and not quite right
<whitequark>
alexgordon: first, modern CPUs with hardware virt execute almost every instruction non-virtualized
<whitequark>
there's basically just an another level of memory indirection (VT-x), and sometimes even one for DMA (VT-d), and all that works almost entirely transparently and is incredibly hard to detect with any level of reliability
<whitequark>
it is true that the ITLB trick described *could* work, but the paper he linked doesn't actually contain its description...
<whitequark>
then, timing. see, modern machines already contain a level -2 hypervisor (VMM is level -1), that is SMM
<whitequark>
and SMM likes to steal cycles as well, which complicates your job
<whitequark>
oooh, the ITLB trick is described in the wayback machined page he linked too.
<prophile>
was that a british empire joke? you decide
* alexgordon
scrolls down to see if it's our fault
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: farsi is not semitic, it's indo-european
<glowcoil>
even though it uses the arabic alphabet and has quite a few words from arabic
<alexgordon>
glowcoil: does that make it anti-semitic?
<glowcoil>
lolol
<purr>
lolol
<glowcoil>
devyn: so basically, every root in my language refers to a region of the space of ideas
<glowcoil>
devyn: and modifiers reshape it in different dimensions
<glowcoil>
devyn: and some of those dimensions can be size
<glowcoil>
devyn: and so i want to have modifiers that talk about scale relationships, and optionally directional relationships if those are relevant to a particular dimension
<alexgordon>
interesting
<glowcoil>
some dimensions go on forever in both dimensions, some have a 0 point, etc.
<glowcoil>
and some have weird relationships with others
<glowcoil>
directions*
<whitequark>
like your mom
<glowcoil>
ya
<glowcoil>
here's something:
<glowcoil>
your brain puts things into convex regions in idea-space
<glowcoil>
convex, because if two things are both in the same region ("category"/"concept"), then a point directly in between them will also be in that region
<whitequark>
appendices in css2 specification are listed in alphabetical order
<alexgordon>
glowcoil: unrelated, I wonder how much information you can cram into phonetics
<whitequark>
then click on appendix G and then "next"
<whitequark>
:p
<alexgordon>
glowcoil: most languages do not really use the space effectively
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: yeah i've thought about doing things like, this point of articulation means greater than and this point of artilation means less than, and then voiced means the future and unvoiced means the past
<glowcoil>
horrible examples but you get the idea
<glowcoil>
alexgordon: in the end, there's a reason for that
<glowcoil>
there's a great deal of redundancy necessary in human speech
<alexgordon>
yeah, I'm not saying it's a _good_ idea, I mean look at APL :P
<glowcoil>
and in the end, every language tends to ahve the same rate of information-theory entropy per second
<glowcoil>
APL isn't really that good of an example since programming langauges don't have the constraint of having to be spoken in potentially noisy environments and encoded into audio signals and then decoded
<glowcoil>
and some definitely have higher information densities than others and that doesn't mean they're inherently unspeakable, since we sit and stare at code in any language
<devyn>
Yaohan Centre is mostly just racist chinese people
<alexgordon>
also our richmond is original ;)
<mcc>
wait which richmond is the nice one
<devyn>
the one in GB
<devyn>
alexgordon: that's very pretty
<devyn>
I like your buses
<devyn>
they have character
<devyn>
ours just look either a) old, or b) weirdly futuristic
<alexgordon>
devyn: pretty much one of the most exclusive places in london, although I would say that
<mcc>
oh ok
<mcc>
i assumed we were comparing Richmond, VA and Richmond, CA
<alexgordon>
mcc: haha
<devyn>
no, Richmond, BC and Richmond, UK
<devyn>
:p
<mcc>
...probably either are classier than the richmond's i'm thinking of i gues
<alexgordon>
mcc: WE FOUNDED YOUR COUNTRY AND ALL YOU DID WAS GO TO WAR WITH US -_-
* alexgordon
assumes mcc is american, because internet
<devyn>
it's funny, because everyone always assumes everyone else is american on reddit, until it actually comes up and we discover that quite a lot are secretly canadian
<alexgordon>
woah the street view car went to richmond on a really nice day
<devyn>
and I'm not surprised to see a lot of Swedish redditors, but I am surprised that there are more from Japan
<devyn>
haha according to this 21.26% of Canada's population is on reddit
<devyn>
obviously skewed
<glowcoil>
oh hi mcc
<mcc>
hi glowcoil
<mcc>
alexgordon: i'm from Texas :(
<glowcoil>
i was in texas for a week once
<mcc>
how was it
prophile has quit [Quit: The Game]
<alexgordon>
mcc: oh right, well I don't think that was one of the british bits
* alexgordon
has no knowledge of american history
sharkbot has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
sharkbot has joined #elliottcable
alexgordon has quit [Quit: My iMac has gone to sleep. ZZZzzz…]
<devyn>
I don't really either, but I believe Texas was originally Mexican, then its own country, and eventually joined the union after a while or something
<devyn>
alexgordon: looks like the French colonized it first, then the Spanish, then the Mexicans, then it was its own
<devyn>
heh the original french settlement was destroyed by the Karankawa people because they took their canoes
<glowcoil>
mcc: very hot and humid :p
<mcc>
devyn: right. "six flags over texas"
<glowcoil>
also, it was for some high school technology conference that was run very poorly, so it was kind of frustrating
devyn changed the topic of #elliottcable to: no.
eligrey has quit [Quit: Leaving]
jesusabdullah has quit [Ping timeout: 245 seconds]
<devyn>
glowcoil: I'm brainfarting. Is a sentence like this grammatical? "The scared, squawking chickens dashed and the startled, chirping starlets flew under the porch"
<devyn>
with two verbs like that
<devyn>
anyone else?
<devyn>
please
<devyn>
?
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
jesusabdullah has joined #elliottcable
<glowcoil>
devyn: yes, it's just a compount sentence
<glowcoil>
compound
<glowcoil>
devyn: two independent clauses joined with a conjunction
<glowcoil>
lol
<purr>
lol
<glowcoil>
devyn: wait unless you ean "under the porch" applies to both, then I would say it's prooooobably grammatical but irrelevant becasue that doesn't come across
<glowcoil>
you can definitely do things like that though
<devyn>
"under the porch" should apply to both
<glowcoil>
for instance:
<glowcoil>
i ate the apples and he the oranges
<glowcoil>
you can do like, hierarchy-cutting stuff like that
<glowcoil>
but the main constraint is that it comes across, not that it's "correct"
<devyn>
how about more simply and closer to the structure of this sentence, "I ate and he danced under the porch"
<devyn>
I suppose "under the porch" doesn't apply to both
<glowcoil>
yeah the easiest parsing of it only has it on the second one
<glowcoil>
you should establish that both are under the porch in some other way
<glowcoil>
yknow
<devyn>
well the sentence is intentionally structured in that way; I'm testing the parsing
<glowcoil>
i mean if you use commas it's still awkward but more clear
<glowcoil>
i ate, and he danced, under the porch
<glowcoil>
parentheses conveys extra things you might not want to but works even better
<glowcoil>
i ate (and he danced) under the porch
<devyn>
yeah, but the goal is *not* to mutate it like that
<devyn>
:p
jesusabdullah has quit [Ping timeout: 252 seconds]
<glowcoil>
devyn: yes i know, what i'm saying is you preserve the exact meaning you need to factor it out
<devyn>
which gives me all I need to know
<devyn>
so thank you
<devyn>
I just needed to make sure it wasn't okay the way it was
<whitequark>
hmmm, my dream this time is about an almost legendary thing: "Tigran"
<whitequark>
Tigran is a middle-aged woman who initially appears almost normal, it may attempt to make a conversation with you, or stumble around doing simple actions--turning on the light, for example, or interacting with your pets
<whitequark>
however, don't be deceived. she has fangs, is venomous and wants to drink your blood. also, people are somehow mesmerized by her speech, so while you cry for help standing in her headlock, they try to Google a peaceful solution or something like that.
<whitequark>
she's pretty sturdy too. your best bet to stay alive is to take something sharp (a knife?) and tear her throat open while she hisses and tries to bite you. however, even that isn't guaranteed to stop her.
<whitequark>
"Tigran" isn't a given name either, it's the name for species, or rather, for the creature. I think it's demon-like or something, in that it does not reproduce traditionally.
<yorickpeterse>
Stop doing drugs
<yorickpeterse>
PUT THAT ACID DOWN
<yorickpeterse>
NAOW
<whitequark>
yorickpeterse: funniest part, never did drugs in my entire life
<whitequark>
well, I drank alcohol like thrice (and didn't like it too much.)
<whitequark>
I'm just like that naturally.
<yorickpeterse>
well, while we're at it
<yorickpeterse>
I had a pretty fucked up dream that involved family members getting stapped and me driving people over with a jumbo jet
<yorickpeterse>
* stabbed
<yorickpeterse>
that might be a bit worse than weird anime fueled dreams
<whitequark>
nah that's ordinary. I wouldn't even write something like that here
<yorickpeterse>
show-off
<whitequark>
oh, absolutely.
<whitequark>
while I was five or something, I dreamed (and it was *really* vivid; took me a while to realize it's a dream) that I accidentally pulled out all my intensines out of my stomach while in bed
prophile has joined #elliottcable
<whitequark>
and I was furiously thinking about a reply to relatives, because I was *really* afraid they would scold me hard for that
<whitequark>
apparently sepsis was not really a concern
<whitequark>
or, you know, the torn open fascii--how else would internal organs just dangle outside like that?
<whitequark>
I still remember that pretty well
<yorickpeterse>
dem russians
* whitequark
. o O ( prophile must be puzzled, not having any context for the above )
<yorickpeterse>
The fucked up dreams I have usually touch some moral/mental issue opposed to gore
<whitequark>
why do you keep calling them "fucked up"? I think it's really fascinating
<yorickpeterse>
They are fucked up in the sense that they are rather disturbing
<whitequark>
I mean, normally I'd put on a TV show to watch stuff like that. And now it's right inside my head
<yorickpeterse>
The concept as to why they happen indeed is interesting
<yorickpeterse>
More importantly, being able to trigger them myself is also really interesting
<yorickpeterse>
That is, find ways to trigger certain types of dreams
<whitequark>
watch more dismemberment?
<yorickpeterse>
Gore doesn't do anything to me
<yorickpeterse>
except when I'm at the vet with my cat
<yorickpeterse>
then it somehow nearly makes me feint
<yorickpeterse>
which I still have to investigate as to why and how I can reproduce it
<yorickpeterse>
it wasn't expected behaviour
<yorickpeterse>
So I suppose I either need to fix the specs or look into the internals
<whitequark>
"Problem: I exhibit undefined behavior while looking at someone dismembering my cat"
<yorickpeterse>
Stick their finger in a wound in this case
<yorickpeterse>
To clean it up but hey, my brain was already like "WOOOOW WOOOOW WHAT THE FUCK"
<whitequark>
"Solution: committee vote decided unanimously that undefined behavior in this case helps to optimize the process"
<yorickpeterse>
"THAT SHIT AINT NATURAL"
<whitequark>
so yorickpeterse, now your behavior is defined by committee vote.
<whitequark>
be happy
<yorickpeterse>
what is this, ECMA?
<whitequark>
no, WG21
<yorickpeterse>
you're a monster
Willox has joined #elliottcable
<whitequark>
I am.
prophile has quit [Quit: The Game]
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
prophile has joined #elliottcable
<devyn>
that was interesting to read
* devyn
claps
alexgordon has joined #elliottcable
<joelteon>
man, technology sure is weird
<joelteon>
places can subscribe me to their email list instantly, but it may take up to a week to remove me from it
<joelteon>
must be on write-once, read-many memory
<whitequark>
just add them to your spam filter
<whitequark>
as a bonus point, if you're using gmail, it means they're getting spam-filtered globally
<joelteon>
hmmm
<joelteon>
good idea
<devyn>
I kept getting emails from some art mailing list
<devyn>
I don't remember why
* whitequark
re-reads the log above about Tigran
<whitequark>
okay, now it does sound fucked up to me
<devyn>
haha
<devyn>
whitequark: does Tigran have an SCP number?
<whitequark>
it does look like something that should
<joelteon>
<devyn>
yeah
<devyn>
it does
<joelteon>
i can't believe you can't name a github project
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
alexgordon has quit [Ping timeout: 240 seconds]
gozala_ is now known as gozala
<glowcoil>
who was it in here that was talking about the original of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind?
<glowcoil>
they might not be here anymore
<glowcoil>
bindly googling for logs didn't work :p
<glowcoil>
this book is hilarious
Willox has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer]
eligrey-space has joined #elliottcable
eligrey-space has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
aki_ has quit [Ping timeout: 272 seconds]
aki_ has joined #elliottcable
prophile has quit [Quit: The Game]
alexgordon has joined #elliottcable
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
electronics people:
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
If AC is, well, alternating … i.e. it has no polarity (which is what I understand, so far?),
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
then why do wall-sockets (U.S.) have a “hot” and “cold” side?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i.e. why are there small (hot) and large (cold) blades on a plug?
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: "cold" is connected to ground somewhere.
<whitequark>
i.e. the potential between "cold" and "ground" is in range of a few volts. between "hot" and "ground" it's your mains voltage.
<whitequark>
you can also take your mains AC from between two phases of a 3-phase supply. for example, if you have 3-phase 380V supply, you can tap between *any* two phases and get normal 220V
<whitequark>
in such a setup, both of them would be considered "hot"
<whitequark>
a bit more specific: "ground" is a huge-ass conductor buried in the literal ground somewhere next to you (under your house)
<whitequark>
"cold" is exactly same thing, except it is buried in the literal ground at the transformer station somewhere further from you (perhaps a few hundred meters)
<whitequark>
the difference between them is due to resistance of the "cold" conductor, meaning there is a measurable potential on your ("near") side of it, even if it's zero on the "far" one
<whitequark>
oh by the way, all the details are for EU system of grounding. IIRC, US uses some inscrutable bullshit instead, as usual.
<whitequark>
oh, hm. apparently US uses TN-C-S too.
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: does that make sense to you?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
totes just blew a fuse
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i've used my dmm exactly four times, and on the fifth, blew my fuse.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I'm clearly TERRIBLE at this. :P
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I spent two days researching how to do this, 'cuz I'm batshit terrified of mains-voltage, and I STILL fucked it up
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
wat
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
not even a LITTLE
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I mean, it totes makes sense,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but then why the fuck are there three plugs?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I mean, I intuited all of this, but I assumed I must be wrong.
<whitequark>
mains isn't really as dangerous as you may have led to believe. first, if you have an RCD (and you *must* have one), you won't be dead even if you just stick various parts of your body into the holes.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
'cuz I've always been told the third prong is for grounding, and … that it's super-dangerous not to have it (some idiots apparently remove it manually? idk)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
RCD?
<whitequark>
residual current device
<whitequark>
there's two main types of circuit breakers:
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
so, circuit-breaker?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
fuse and yeah I remember
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
three, actually, right?
<whitequark>
1) overcurrent. if something eats more than, say, 20A, it means there's a short
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
there's the equipment-protecting AFCI, and human-protecting GFCI, right?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
or sommat like that?
<whitequark>
but, if you stick your fingers into a socket, it won't draw 20A, but it will still draw enough to kill you (about 20mA iirc)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
one's hugely faster than the other, and thus safer for humans.
<whitequark>
2) residual current device, which compares how much goes in (hot) and how much goes out (cold)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
nah, 100mA is the line for guaranteed lethality
<whitequark>
and if there's a mismatch, it breaks.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
10mA is where it starts hurting, 20mA is where it starts fucking with your heart
<whitequark>
well, gfci, yes. nfc about afci.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
30mA is muscular (can't let go), and I think 50mA starts to be possibly-lethal?
<whitequark>
so.
<whitequark>
grounding.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
then over 200mA, it's no longer lethal (which is insane. oh my god I love science).
<whitequark>
it's very simple here. the ground prong is guaranteed to have ground on it
<whitequark>
whereas "cold" prong... several things could happen
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
'cuz it spasms your heart so hard, that if you get immediate medical assistance / resuscitation, it's protected from its own spasms.
<whitequark>
one thing is someone reverses hot and cold.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
reading
<whitequark>
another thing is, no one reverses hot and cold, but the connection between N and PE breaks somewhere...
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
… does nobody ever reverse ground and hot? o_O
<whitequark>
which means your equipment works fine, but N has lethal voltage on it.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway. I'm somehow perversely heartened by the fact that I already blew a fuse and watched my shit go up in smoke, and didn't get hurt, 'cause I wasn't being dumb.
<whitequark>
(ground and hot) well, it's possible, of course, but I imagine that would be much quicker to detect
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I feel like mains-voltage is *doable*, if you're paranoid.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yeah. everything you plug in starts smoking. best detection system.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
until your house burns down.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
side-note:
<whitequark>
well, I know a guy who had his scope plug broken, so he just pushed the prongs with his bare fingers into the socket
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
thanks for being awesome, whitequark
<whitequark>
he's still alive somehow
<whitequark>
so really, mains isn't instadeath.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I've spent days, months, years of my life contributing to the education of those who know *nothing*. It's difficult and largely thankless work. and this is the first time I've been truly Noob in years and years, so …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
feel like I should say something. (=
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
oh my god russia
<whitequark>
(house burns down) if you have zero circuit breakers, duh, sure
<whitequark>
then your house should burn down, because you're a moron.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
even geeks there are insane
<whitequark>
lol, I know a german guy who likes the same
<purr>
lol
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
wait, you *have* circuit breakers in Russia?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I just assumed they had, I don't know, canaries or donkeys or something.
<whitequark>
wat
<whitequark>
of course we have circuit breakers. of course circuit breakers made in russia don't work, so sane people just buy imported shit
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
LOL
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
can't breathe laughing
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
OKAY
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
oh the off chance I didn't mention it in here,
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I finally unpacked my Form 1.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
it's a goddamn dud.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ddids ಠ_ಠ
<purr>
Let it be known that ELLIOTTCABLE disapproves of ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ddids ಠ_ಠ.
<whitequark>
dud?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
-diaptoval
<purr>
ELLIOTTCABLE: diaptoval, diaptoval forever
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yeah. won't turn on.
<whitequark>
ah
<whitequark>
disassemble and fix it
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
plug it in, the single button lights up momentarily, then immediately dies.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
lolno
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
it's very much a “NO USER-SERVICABLE PARTS” item.
<whitequark>
that's what I'd do, replacing most of the insides in the process
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
really?
<whitequark>
at least that's what I did with my CNC
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
with precision-aligned optics and lasers and shit?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
the thing was shipped in this *insane* plastic suspension system.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
like, I've never seen anything like it.
<whitequark>
whoever gives a fuck about that. s,USER,MORON,-serviceable
<whitequark>
yeah, you'd need to understand it quite well in order for it to work again
<whitequark>
so just reverse-engineer it
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
several different arrangements of taught-plastic wrapped around cardboard frames, and then the actual printer (with no other, rigid, packaging touching it) suspended amongst them like a spiderweb
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
well. I'm doing what I can to the limit of my current abilities.
<whitequark>
oh, it's more "postal service is fucked up", rather than "omg this is really precise"
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
which is sticking the prongs of my multimeter into the power-supply to see if it's that.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
<,<
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
>,>
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
well, I've never seen any other “precision technology” shipped like that
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
then again I'm not a government fab. :P
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
omg russia
<whitequark>
I'm sure USPS would do the same on occasion
<whitequark>
hahahaha at 1:02 it's awesome
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: anyway. your laser printer has precise optics and shit
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I'm easily daunted. :P
<whitequark>
like it takes it several milliseconds to scan a line, and it provides repeatable positioning accuracy of about .045mm
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
wat
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
english, you dunce
<whitequark>
well
<whitequark>
600dpi means the dot size is .045mm
<whitequark>
and it can always place the dot in the exact same horizontal position across the entire page, hence "repeat positioning accuracy"
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
here's one for you.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you're russian, so I hesitate to ask this
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
you probably ground yourself with a hemp rope around your waist tied to your chair
<whitequark>
and it takes like five seconds to print a page, and the page is 297mm long, hence... 6600 lines per page
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
but:
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
grounding setup?
<whitequark>
so 0.7ms per line
<whitequark>
wow, that is much lower than I expected
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I've got a mat. Haven't figured out what to attach it to yet, frankly. Also curious about grounding my chair, which seems to generate unreasonable quantities of static electricity (i.e. it shocks *me* regularly, not to mention sensitive electronics.),
<whitequark>
think about it, it turns the laser on and off about 5k times per 0.7ms it takes to print a line.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and more curiously, I need some sort of *common* grounding system, no? shouldn't my DMM's ground, my grounding mat, my power-supply's ground, etc, all share a common electrical path?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
page?
<whitequark>
a line
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
talking about 3D printer, not laser printer. confused.
<whitequark>
I'm talking about a laser one :p
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
meant “laser-based 3D printer,” not “laser-based paper printer”
<whitequark>
it's incredibly intricate tech we take for granted
<whitequark>
I understand.
<whitequark>
I was comparing it with another, very common and relatively durable, yet precise technology.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
OH
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
oh i'm dumb
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
confusing definitions of “laser printer”
ChanServ changed the topic of #elliottcable to: laser printers are fucking awesome
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I was following along until you said ‘page’
<whitequark>
so. grounding.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway brb blowing more fuses
<whitequark>
first figure out where exactly does the ground terminal in your socket goes.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
oh? okay, go on …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
how can I *test* the ground?
<whitequark>
I mean, it's *not* Russia, so probably it doesn't fly in air
<whitequark>
I mean, my previous flat had that.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I don't trust my cheap-o powerstrip, nor do I really trust my apartment complex …
<whitequark>
it just dangled there
<whitequark>
well, don't trust, verify.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
exactly.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
how?
<whitequark>
trace the grounding in your socket to your circuit breaker box.
<whitequark>
they should be connected.
<whitequark>
similarly, trace it from circuit breaker box to grounding in your house.
<whitequark>
it should be easily visible in a distribution box somewhere near the stairs, the yellow-green wiring.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
not a house. apartment building. don't have access to that shit.
<whitequark>
then... if it's connected to a bus bar, or maybe the distribution box itself, you're likely fine.
<whitequark>
I'm in apartment building too, yet I have.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
no way for me to *test* for grounding? I feel like there should be some electrical method to do so.
<whitequark>
hrm
<whitequark>
it's hard to test, given no reference point.
<whitequark>
so, idk, throw a wire out of the window, drive it into ground outside, then test.
<whitequark>
it's *probably* not feasible (well, *I* would easily do that in my apartment building, because I don't give a fuck and like shoveling frozen ground at evening)
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: anyway. after you've verified that the earthing in your apartment indeed works, you just connect the mat, equipment and all that to the earth electrode in your socket.
<whitequark>
simple as that.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hm
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
wonder if my apartment management (or neighbors.) would get pissed at me for dropping seven stories of wire downstairs, digging into the snow on the flower-bed, and driving a spike into the ground …
<whitequark>
someone is going to report you
<whitequark>
as "suspicious"
<whitequark>
then you'll get beaten by the police and spend several days in jail.
<whitequark>
or, that's what the news from US made me believe. ;)
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: anyway. so far all the testing methods I could find involve a reference earthing rod.
<whitequark>
which makes sense, if you think about it.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
yeah … hm …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
hm.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
electricity is stupid. why can't I just store that value in a temporary voltage variable?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
we should turn all electricity into programming.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I feel mildly like everything I'm learning is useless; because we're *already* at the point where much of the useful spectrum of electronic/digital advancement is VLSI shit, that you can't work on without a fab … and we're getting close to the point where instead of MEMS, that shit's all gonna be NEMS, and be more chemical/nano-physical instead of “plain
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
electrical” *anyway*
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
maybe I should be focusing on learning to design logic circuitry for cell-based design, or perhaps FPGA shit. that's actually *approachable* without fucking exchanging my living-room for a clean-room …
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
meh. what do I know. BACK TO THE GRINDER.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I have a date tonight. I don't want to go. I want to fucking fix my 3D printer, or continue reading Horowitz & Hill.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
(thanks for that recommendation, btw whitequark. It's *excellent* so far, even though I'm only into the first chapter.)
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
general question, whitequark, and anybody else … devyn, alexgordon, audy, glowcoil … when learning / reading-up / textbook'ing, do you *do the exercises*?
<alexgordon>
nope
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
i.e. if self-teaching, do you treat it as a classroom setting, and ‘do homework?’ Or do you just read, cover-to-cover?
<alexgordon>
what's the subject?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
possibly excluding programming manuals. because everybody knows you just fuck around in the REPL, and leave the exercises for people stupid enough to take CS courses from a backwards-ass university.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
alexgordon: Electronics, right now.
<purr>
Let it be known that ELLIOTTCABLE hearts purr.
<alexgordon>
there's exercises and _exercises_
<alexgordon>
i.e. easy and hard
<alexgordon>
depends on the quality of them
<alexgordon>
generally I'll read the questions, if they're difficult I'll think about it, but if it seems like I would be able to solve it, then I just move on
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: it's both. I don't bother with obvious and most common stuff, because I'd be forced to deal with it anyway...
<whitequark>
but if there's an area which I understand really poorly (eg analog design), I do force myself to do exercises
<whitequark>
since it's unlikely I can think of anything workable to learn on myself.
<whitequark>
(everything you're learning is useless) well, two things
<whitequark>
there's VLSI stuff, it's tiny but really really "loud" part of the overall picture
<whitequark>
I mean, the contemporary electronics is spearheaded by smartphone and tablet boom. if it's in smartphones or tablets, it's insanely advanced and really cheap. otherwise, it's often not advanced much since 1980s
<whitequark>
then, the VLSI stuff is absolutely built from the same concepts and circuits you're learning. they're just, well, smaller. there's no fundamental difference between an opamp made from discrete elements, opamp in a single IC, or opamp in a hugely integrated SoC.
<whitequark>
then, how do you think those VLSI engineers get to learn, work with, design those VLSI chips? by learning the same things as you initially ;)
<whitequark>
MEMS & NEMS are hugely overrated
<whitequark>
I mean, it's pretty cool, but rather narrow in scope. there's MEMS accelerometers, they look just like all other ICs
<whitequark>
then there's the fact that when MEMS becomes hugely popular, as a consequence, it will be much, much easier to work with it
<whitequark>
such as it happened with VLSI
<whitequark>
I mean, an ASIC run is pocket money for you.
<glowcoil>
ELLIOTTCABLE: usually no, but if I will ever have a test I do the problems because I need to know what I didn't learn
<glowcoil>
ELLIOTTCABLE: but if I'm just curious and reading books and shit, probably not
<whitequark>
you know what I hate more than javascript, facial hair.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
MEMS already exists, no?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
isn't MEMS the current state of VLSI?
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I thought it went …
<whitequark>
uh
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
small-scale integration, large-scale integration, and then very-large-scale integration (which encompasses the later MEMS, and now NEMS.)
<whitequark>
VLSI is "let's pack more transistors per mm² of silicon"
<whitequark>
MEMS is "let's make micrometer-sized mechanics"
<whitequark>
VLSI is Cortex-A11.
<whitequark>
MEMS is the accelerometer next to it.
<whitequark>
that's not how the terminology is used.
<whitequark>
NEMS doesn't even have commercial application yet, who put them into '10s ?
<whitequark>
is that from Wikipedia?
<glowcoil>
hi
<purr>
glowcoil: hi!
* ELLIOTTCABLE
shrugs
<purr>
¯\(º_o)/¯
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I consider the current tech what we *can do*, not what we *do do*.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
do-do is sooooooo boring.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
as far as I know, MEMS definitely encompasses VLSI.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
I mean, it's micro *electro*-mechanical systems. Include micro electrical systems without much in the way of non-electrical micromechanics.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
whatevs, not important, right? pedantry.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
anyway, point is, it's hard to believe that through-hole soldering, or designing PCBs, has any “future” or interesting applications.
<whitequark>
wat
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
probably wrong.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
just *feels* that way as a beginner, right now.
<whitequark>
through-hole still is and will be used for foreseeable future for power electronics
<whitequark>
PCBs are the way you connect interchangeable, self-contained components for your particular application.
<whitequark>
even those fancy BGA PoP chips, current peak of "can do" in mass-produced miniaturized electronics, have PCBs inside them.
<whitequark>
anyway. electronics advances much slower than, say, programming, and even for programming, skills received 40 years ago are still valuable.
<whitequark>
(we had C and structured programming and FP and RDBMS and GUIs and ...)
<whitequark>
so. whatever you learn today, is going to stay relevant in 50 years. likely in 100 years.
<whitequark>
mechanical engineering from 100 years ago is still very much relevant for all but most demanding of applications
<whitequark>
hell, think about it. GPS is 1980 stuff. designed even earlier. today, we can't, to my best knowledge, do significantly better than GPS
<whitequark>
we can make it a bit smaller and a bit cheaper and a bit more precise, but that's evolution, not revolution.
<whitequark>
1970 stuff, even.
silentbicycle_ is now known as silentbicycle
<whitequark>
TIL: "Though Selective Availability capability still exists, on 19 September 2007 the US Department of Defense announced that newer GPS satellites would not be capable of implementing Selective Availability"
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
what's the point of a raspberry pi?
<whitequark>
excellent marketing ploy by broadcom
<whitequark>
I mean, the point is to sell out stock of outdated CPUs phone vendors no longer want to put on their boards.
<silentbicycle>
they're not even open source hardware
<whitequark>
they cannot even run fully open source software stack
<whitequark>
OSHW is... an audacious goal, and it makes sense to stop somewhere. I mean, most projects are perfectly fine, on all grounds, using off-the-shelf closed-source patented ARM chips. but whatever Broadcom makes and how they sell it is a disgrace.
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: (bench multimeter) for convenience. it may happen that your apartment socket doesn't have proper grounding. or, it may happen that it does, and then you could screw the wiring of your mat there.
<whitequark>
(dissipating triboelectric potential) you'd usually not want to introduce that to your circuits at all. so, a mat is a convenient big thing to touch with your hands, tools, etc to make sure none of it ever reaches the circuits.
<alexgordon>
ELLIOTTCABLE: raspberry pis are awesome
<silentbicycle>
whitequark I basically agree, I don't know that I'd say "disgrace" but whatever
<alexgordon>
ELLIOTTCABLE: e.g. plug one in, set up ssh, then use it as socks proxy for when you're away
<whitequark>
yeah it's rather strong wording. ignore as you want :)
<joelteon>
i think a basic yesod site has over 200 package dependencies
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: (at all times) all modern chips have integrated ESD protection. so, while it's kinda important, especially if your setup tends to accumulate static charge (my new chair is *awful* at it), it's more of a convenience than requirement today.
<whitequark>
back in 80s or 90s though you had electronics that died if you looked angry at it.
<silentbicycle>
there are enough other weird mystifying bugs, no need to add ESD to the mix
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
whitequark: wat.
<purr>
beep.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
COMPLETELY UNRELATED question:
<whitequark>
silentbicycle: sure, just clarifying the real extent of the problem.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
SIM-ejection slot on Nexus 5 is too large for a standard paperclip.
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
and I can't, amongst my HUGE COLLECTION of tools and shit,
<whitequark>
ELLIOTTCABLE: tweezers
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
find a single goddamn item that fits in that tiny hole.
<alexgordon>
ELLIOTTCABLE: lube
<ELLIOTTCABLE>
any suggestions for tiiiiiiiiny household items? /=