UmbralRaptor changed the topic of #kspacademia to: https://gist.github.com/pdn4kd/164b9b85435d87afbec0c3a7e69d3e6d | Dogs are cats. Spiders are cat interferometers. | Космизм сегодня! | Document well, for tomorrow you may get mauled by a ネコバス. | <UmbralRaptor> … one of the other grad students just compared me to nomal O_o | <ferram4> I shall beat my problems to death with an engineer.
<bofh>
Ηλεκτροσυγκόλληση Τόξου for the curious who can read Greek :P
* egg
still unreasonably amused by Xí Jìnpíng being called Tập Cận Bình in VN
<bofh>
Like I'm not that surprised, but still.
<egg>
bofh: cantonese reading is Zaap6 Gan6-ping4 so there's that
<egg>
bofh: add to that that with the southern pronunciation Bình is [ɓɨn], not [ɓï̤ŋ] like in hanoi
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<egg>
also the second word is [kəŋ] rather than [kə̰ʔn] :D
<egg>
bofh: so overall you get [təp˨˩˨ kəŋ˨˩˨ ɓɨn˨˩] in saigon, there's an expanding brain meme to be made here
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<bofh>
egg: I did say I'm not surprised for a reason :P
<Qboid>
0d 18h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
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<egg>
!wpn bofh
* Qboid
gives bofh a Teller-Ulam cerium eidolon which vaguely resembles a [DATA EXPUNGED]
<egg>
!wpn UmbralRaptor
* Qboid
gives UmbralRaptor a lanthanum ТП-82
<egg>
!wpn whitequark
* Qboid
gives whitequark a diglossic heisenbug-like asura
e_14159 has joined #kspacademia
<bofh>
a [DATA EXPUNGED], my favourite! :D
<UmbralRaptor>
It's a /Teller-Ulam eidolon/. The effects would totally be in the form of "[DATA EXPUNGED], ███ casualties…"
<UmbralRaptor>
Iskierka: okay, a little bit too relatable.
<egg>
!wpn UmbralRaptor
* Qboid
gives UmbralRaptor a calcium vector
<UmbralRaptor>
!wpn egg
* Qboid
gives egg a ferromagnetic photon
<egg>
!wpn Fiora
* Qboid
gives Fiora a torx isobaric Brand New Photoneutronic Engine
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* Ellied
scrolls up
* Ellied
sees transuranic ibuprofen
<Ellied>
#me
<Ellied>
also AAAAAAAA
<SnoopJeDi>
all the NSAID relief, with added vigor!
<awang>
Oh hey, the most useful computer crash report ever
<awang>
"No samples for the specified time interval"
<Ellied>
TIL about how easy it is (was, depending on platform) to bypass most desktop operating systems' physical security via RDMA
<Ellied>
plug into the firewire, run incept, whack, now you can log in with any password
<Ellied>
or just dump the RAM and acquire encryption keys
<Ellied>
whose idea was RDMA anyway
<awang>
Doesn't that apply to most forms of DMA?
<awang>
Security and DMA doesn't seem like they'd mix easily
<Ellied>
well I mean, aren't most forms of DMA not generally accessed via convenient standard external connectors?
<Ellied>
s/accessed/controlled
<Qboid>
Ellied meant to say: well I mean, aren't most forms of DMA not generally controlled via convenient standard external connectors?
<awang>
Uh
<awang>
That I don't know
<Ellied>
like sure I guess if you're gonna dismantle the whole computer on your workbench and hook up to various JTAGs you're probably in, one way or another
<Ellied>
but firewire RDMA is the sort of thing you can practically just sneak up and do nonchalantly in public without attracting a lot of attention
<awang>
True
<awang>
Hmmm
<awang>
Doesn't Thunderbolt also use DMA?
<Ellied>
yup
<awang>
I'd imagine USB doesn't otherwise we'd be having a heck of a lot more security issues given
<Ellied>
some systems and interfaces, not sure which, actually have whatever that thing is (IOMMU?) that controls which bits of the memory can be slurped
<awang>
Thought I remembered reading about a Thunderbolt attach a few months ago
<Ellied>
I imagine that must impact that ultra-low latency you presumably get from no-questions-asked RDMA though
<awang>
Thunderstrike and Thunderstrike 2
<awang>
Man these exploits are getting some fancy names
<awang>
Performance over security
<awang>
Story of computer development
<Ellied>
I'm still surprised that RDMA stuff allows *writing* to memory asynchronously, though. Like, reading it is bad enough, but you can also inject payloads? Wouldn't that cause worlds of trouble if the remote host and the local processor tried writing to the same bit of memory simultaneously?
<Ellied>
I guess I don't know enough about how computers are put together to understand that
<awang>
idk, I'd imagine there'd be some kind of synchronization mechanism in place
<awang>
Undefined behavior galore if it isn't used
<awang>
I think both reading and writing both directions would be really useful for high-bandwidth applications
<awang>
idk how many of those the average person uses though
<Ellied>
it's not uncommon to have multiple DMA... thingies operating on the same memory space at once, right? surely there must be queueing and such already
<awang>
I think?
<awang>
I'd be surprised if there wasn't
<awang>
Although it could also come down to the programmer
<awang>
Like race conditions in "normal" programs?
<Ellied>
I feel like this is the sort of thing that OEMs are going to use to justify horrifying hardware lockdowns later on. "Everyone loves RDMA, but blah blah security, so we added this completely proprietary coprocessor that won't let any Unapproved code access memory at all"
<UmbralRaptor>
[Coprocessor has at least one set of hardcoded credentials]
<kmath>
<NZClarke> OMG so he told vet it did seem to be acting strange so vet prescribed it anti-anxiety meds. MY MATE HAS KIDNAPPED A… https://t.co/G1yDMEsyq7
<kmath>
<NZClarke> a mate spent $130 at vet on his cat then had to lock it in his bedroom for 5 days recovery, and JUST NOW HIS ACTUAL… https://t.co/0vqNzQ9qBT
<awang>
End users hear "Here's something that will make your computers slower and more expensive, and may break some applications. Enjoy!"
<Ellied>
well I mean we already swallowed the IME and nobody seems to want to do anything about that
<awang>
Does that actually have a runtime cost though?
<Ellied>
No, it just has the potential to completely fuck everyone over privacy-wise
<Ellied>
I was being improperly specific about that hypothetical coprocessor, it could easily be something different and worse but without much or any real runtime cost
<awang>
Well, it's gotta have *some* runtime cost if it's sitting between a program and memory
<awang>
But your point is still valid
<awang>
Hmmm
<Ellied>
once the companies that control all/most software are the same as the ones that control silicon design, hardware-authenticated processes will be way easier for them to pull off
<awang>
I mean, there's still the Clipper Chip
<awang>
but that doesn't have anything to do with DMA
<kmath>
<ObservatoryCats> Meet María: she showed up before the hurricane at @NAICobservatory in PR. Had four kittens four days after the stor… https://t.co/gf4r0P7jw2
<awang>
Ah
<awang>
I've seen it referenced a few times on HN whenever the law enforcement crypto thing came up
<Ellied>
oh yeah, that came up again very recently didn't it
<Ellied>
"responsible encryption" apparently means the categorical opposite of the denotation of those words
<awang>
idk why it's so hard to understand the words "mathematically impossible"
<Ellied>
that article surprised me; first time I saw anything about anyone affiliated with the GOP saying reasonable things in a good minute
<Ellied>
I mean not trump's inner circle of course, but congresspeople at least
<Ellied>
one has to wonder why backdoors are even judicially necessary; can't they still compel you to give keys if they have a warrant?
<awang>
I think that's still in the air
<Ellied>
like the whole iPhone Thing last year was because the phone's owner was *dead* wasn't it?
<awang>
Right to not give testimony against yourself and all
<awang>
IIRC the iPhone thing was to see if there was anyone else involved
<Ellied>
I thought that only applied if they didn't have a warrant
<Ellied>
like, isn't that a big case against fingerprint auth, because the cops can force you to put your finger on the scanner without even needing a warrant?
<awang>
It's still an open legal question, I think
<awang>
Because the crypto keys may be in your head
<awang>
And warrants can't really do anything to enable a search in there
<Ellied>
makes sense, I suppose the fifth doesn't say anything about warrants to your head, yeah
<awang>
But yeah, from what I've read fingerprints/facial scans shouldn't be equivalent to passwords
<awang>
Should be equivalent to usernames
<Ellied>
can they make you type in a password without telling it to them? That seems like an obvious workaround
<awang>
I think that'd definitely be covered by the fifth
<awang>
Since it could be more or less like writing a confession
<Ellied>
ahh yes
<awang>
If it isn't definitely covered by the fifth, it's still going through the courts then
<Ellied>
I use fingerprint auth on my phone because it's convenient and I don't have anything to be worried about on it at the moment, but I also keep a widget on my homescreen that lets me quickly lock it out and require PIN, and it's encrypted
<Ellied>
Next time I go to a protest I'll probably disable fingerprint
<awang>
Yep, security and convenience are difficult to reconcile
<awang>
fingerprint auth is convenient, and secure for the average user
<awang>
Probably more secure than PINs, since you can't shoulder surf
<awang>
Well actually...
<awang>
Both more and less secure
<Ellied>
still trying to figure out how best to manage my laptop, where debian is still being frustrating and flatly refusing to hibernate properly (thus affording me encryption protection of a suspended system)
<awang>
Can't brute-force
<awang>
Can't shoulder surf
<awang>
But you leave your fingerprints *everywhere*
<awang>
That I can't help you with :(
<Ellied>
it wouldn't resume when I had it unencrypted either, I think hibernate is just fucked on debian
<awang>
Typical Linux :P
* UmbralRaptor
sets awang on fire
<Ellied>
I had it working for one golden month (remarkably, the same month I was in China) with Manjaro, but it never worked again after that, and now Manjaro has dropped 32-bit support :D
<Ellied>
(fuck that)
<UmbralRaptor>
(Incidentally, installing Linux on an old laptop so you can do stuff in Python is easier than getting libraries to update on a Mac.)
<awang>
Ellied: Why is dropping 32-bit support bad for you?
<awang>
UmbralRaptor: Libraries are difficult to update on mac?
<UmbralRaptor>
awang: Very yes. The OS takes extra effort to point you at out of date ones. pip doesn't help.
<UmbralRaptor>
Anaconda does, but you need to install homebrew and do some other things to get it running.
* UmbralRaptor
? recursive package managers with apt-get.
<awang>
I don't use Python, so I can't understand the pain you're going through :(
<awang>
virtualenvs and such don't help
<awang>
?
<awang>
Isn't the stuff in apt usually pretty out of date?
<UmbralRaptor>
Anaconda gets you one. IIRC, directly setting up virtualenvs is a big hassle.
<SnoopJeDi>
it sucks a lot less than it used to AFAIK, but Conda is still often more convenient (particularly miniconda!)
<UmbralRaptor>
…and stuff on apt usually seems fairly up to date? Probably depends somewhat on choice of repositories.
<awang>
All I know about conda is that it had pre-compiled numpy/scipy packages
<awang>
but didn't have some other packages on pip
<awang>
So I had to use *both* managers to get a program working
<awang>
:(
<awang>
Dependencies and versioning is something that the CS community should have been thinking about from the start
<awang>
idk, guess I'm too spoiled by wasting time compiling things myself to get bleeding-edge features
<kmath>
<diodelass> THE SINGULARITY: merges all humans into an eternal unified consciousness THE SINGULARITY PRO [$4.99]: pro version without ads
<awang>
pls no
<FluffyFoxeh>
[00:00:01] <@Ellied> No, I am, I was just born in 96
<FluffyFoxeh>
hey me too
<FluffyFoxeh>
also I don't know how they'd "compel" someone to give up keys. I'd sooner kill myself and they can't prevent that
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: I think the way it works is that if whatever is in your head doesn't fall under fifth amendment protection you get jailed for contempt of court until you do
<FluffyFoxeh>
ah
<FluffyFoxeh>
anyway this "responsibile encryption" thing is why we need open source software
<FluffyFoxeh>
(one of the many reasons actually :p)
<awang>
Open hardware would be nice too
<awang>
I think there was actually someone who turned it into a first amendment issue as well
<awang>
took the source code for OpenPGP or something, printed it in a book, and published it
<FluffyFoxeh>
nice :p
<awang>
In any case, it's emotion vs reason
<FluffyFoxeh>
I don't know what the solution is to unbreakable encryption making it impossible for evidence to be obtained.
<FluffyFoxeh>
But weakening the encryption cross the board isn't it
<FluffyFoxeh>
across*
<FluffyFoxeh>
that option should be considered with the same weight as banning encryption altogether. because the consequences in the long run are the same
<awang>
Disclaimer: I'm not a mathematician nor computer scientist
<awang>
But from what I can glean, there is no good answer, due to the way the math works
<awang>
The math is inherently agnostic to who uses it
<awang>
So if encryption is theoretically unbreakable, it's unbreakable for everyone
<FluffyFoxeh>
I'm an undergrad CS student. I don't know anything special. but I know that there's no way to make a system that can be broken, but only by the "good guys"
<awang>
Yeah, that's pretty much it
<FluffyFoxeh>
if someone can break it anyone can break it
<awang>
And that's the problem
<awang>
People want to believe that there's something for the good guys only
<awang>
I half want it to happen just because I want to see how badly it plays out
<awang>
I'd also highly prefer that it didn't happen so that we don't have to suffer through it
<FluffyFoxeh>
the worst part is, when something goes wrong it will probably go unnoticed for years
<FluffyFoxeh>
as is the case with most instances of shit getting hacked
<Ellied>
huh, Micah Scott apparently deleted her reply to my video of the neon tube thing and also unfollowed me
<Ellied>
kinda wish I had some idea of what that's about
<FluffyFoxeh>
o.o
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: And then someone's going to get mad over an issue that had been raised ages ago
<awang>
Ellied: ?
<Ellied>
re: 32-bit, I use an old Panasonic toughbook CF-30 as my main driver and it happens to be i686
<awang>
Oh wow
<Ellied>
it's built to last a good while and I'm very frustrated that so many distros are picking right now to abandon 32-bit forever
<awang>
Why haven't you upgraded yet?
<awang>
Just no need?
<Ellied>
no need and no money
<Ellied>
if I had either one I would have found the other, I suppose
<awang>
I mean, the biggest reason I can think of for moving to 64-bit is memory
<awang>
What do you normally use your computer for?
<Ellied>
4GB is plenty for my purposes. All I do is write code and use various websites that my machine is just barely fast enough to handle without problems. Anytime I need to do big number crunching or something I just use a department-owned machine
<Ellied>
I have a 2014 HP with 8GB, but its construction is so unbelievably shitty that I can't even take it anywhere without risking damage. It's already been in for insurance-covered repair twice because it can't handle regular trips in a padded backpack.
<Ellied>
the toughbook is, of course, very overkill for that purpose, but the alternative is the same distance in the wrong direction
<FluffyFoxeh>
what part of the laptop broke?
<awang>
...For some reason I find it hard to imagine coding on 4GB and i686
<awang>
I think I've been spending too much time with C++ developers
<FluffyFoxeh>
coding is not memory intensive
<FluffyFoxeh>
:p
<awang>
C++ with templates can be
<FluffyFoxeh>
unless you use really heavy IDEs or something
<awang>
And either way, C++ on i686 probably isn't fun
<awang>
Especially with more modern C++
<FluffyFoxeh>
yeah, maybe, just turn down the threads when compiling
<awang>
Since more and more things are getting into templates
<awang>
And then take a coffee break while waiting for your next error :D
<Ellied>
I use vim and command line whatever, memory for the editor is a non-issue for me
<awang>
Same here
<Ellied>
I'm also a physics student, not a software engineer, so the code I write is small, informal, and crappy by any serious comparison
<awang>
Editor memory is only an issue if you're using one of the Electron-based editors of the day
<Ellied>
lol electron
<FluffyFoxeh>
electron is trash
<awang>
But it's single-platform! /s
<Ellied>
"what will I ever do with all this extra memory and CPU cycles?? Oh, I know, squander it in the most unnecessary fashion that can be passed off as reasonable!"
<awang>
Ellied: Getting to skip the AbstractFactoryFactoryBeans? Lucky
<Ellied>
my department is officially an exclusively MATLAB shop. we have no standards for code quality at all.
<Ellied>
I understand one of the things you pay for in a 2-kilobuck MATLAB license is some kind of magic that automatically optimises and multiprocesses loops for you, so you don't even have to write fast code for it to run fast
<awang>
Oh nice
<awang>
I haven't used MATLAB in ages
<Ellied>
Octave (syntactically equivalent, mostly) understandably doesn't do that because it's a small open-source project, and code my classmates wrote on the deparment machines was running *at least two orders of magnitude* faster there than on my machine. I mean sure, I've got a 1.6 GHz C2D and they have a 2.5 GHz i5, but that's not a difference of like 500 times
<FluffyFoxeh>
Parallelism in number crunching is very useful
<Ellied>
absolutely
<Ellied>
the actual GPU-accelerated rendering of 3D figures is about proportional, so my animations looked about as good as theirs, except that they were getting away with crunching and plotting at the same time and I was having to pre-generate and then plot
<awang>
Ellied: Just making sure I'm understanding this right, you're on Octave, but the department machines have MATLAB?
<Ellied>
yes.
<Ellied>
I didn't feel like paying for a $50 student license unless I actually needed it, and it turned out I didn't actually.
<awang>
Ah
<awang>
You don't get free MATLAB licenses?
<Ellied>
no lol
<awang>
Unfortunately, I don't either
<awang>
But my brother does, so I know they exist
<FluffyFoxeh>
even if you did you'd probably end up paying for it anyway
<FluffyFoxeh>
fees
<Ellied>
the prof I've had for all the classes where we used code for anything serious was more than happy to let me write python, so I just did that. The alternative was raspberry pi GPIO access using system calls to wiringpi, which... No.
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: True... But it's always nice having it hidden away in your tuition
<FluffyFoxeh>
AFAIK GPIO has a sysfs interface
<awang>
Ellied: ....ewww
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: Actually, I take that back. It'd be nice to have it in your tuition as long as you can see how much of your tuition actually goes towards it
<Ellied>
it does have a sysfs interface, but that's also pretty ugly in octave and I don't know how to make sysfs GPIO accessible to non-root
<FluffyFoxeh>
ah. me neither. my first guess would be udev
<Ellied>
I'd love to have it hidden away in tuition, tuition is covered by the tuition remission thing for me :P
<Ellied>
oh good, Micah responded to my DM; says both aforementioned actions (deletion of tweet, unfollowing of me) happened by accident.
<awang>
Ellied: Tuition remission?
<awang>
...How does that happen by accident?
<Ellied>
"maybe something cat/keyboard/phone/pocket related" she says. I'm inclined to buy it.
<Ellied>
tuition remission; my mother works at a university in my hometown, and I could go there for free, but there's a system set up where participating universities can exchange faculty kids
<Ellied>
lucky for me, the stars lined up and DePaul had a slot open for me
<FluffyFoxeh>
it's rare but I've certainly has instances of multiple keyboard fails chained together
<awang>
Oh nice
<awang>
I'm jealous :( It's debt for me
<egg|mobile|egg>
!wpn
* Qboid
gives egg|mobile|egg an acid-sensing ellied parabola
<Ellied>
probably still going to be debt for me one way or another, living in chicago sure as fuck ain't free
<FluffyFoxeh>
my parents pay half of mine
<FluffyFoxeh>
I work in the summer for the other half
* egg|mobile|egg
ellies the parabola
<FluffyFoxeh>
And I live at home. That's really quite excellent
<Ellied>
my parents were planning on taking out equal student loans for my sister and me since most of their savings went to housing me for my first couple years (not covered by tuition, and dorm rates are pure highway robbery) but then she went and got a full ride
<Ellied>
so yeah, I'm just the expensive child, whatever
<UmbralRaptor>
whee, power flicker
* FluffyFoxeh
buzzes at 60Hz
<awang>
!wpn -add:adj elided
<Qboid>
awang: Adjective added!
<awang>
Something really should be done about the tuition thing
<Ellied>
and the rent thing
<awang>
Multi-generational loans shouldn't be a requirement
<Ellied>
I feel like the overwhelming majority of the cash flow I experience in everyday life is from people who really need it to people who really don't deserve it
<Ellied>
e.g. overworked students -> landlords, or same students -> university who already has most of their money
<awang>
I mean, statistically speaking the less income you have the higher percentage of it you spend, so...
<awang>
You're right
<FluffyFoxeh>
What do you use C++ for awang?
<Ellied>
my landlord has his name on the paper that says whose building this is, so that somehow entitles him to over four times what I make working well over 100 hours/week on research and TAing. That, while true, sounds worse than it is, because I'm only being asked to work 10 hours per week as a TA and none for research, but I'm young and sprightly and have too much passion for the work for my own
<Ellied>
good.
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: On the practical side, used it as part of a numerical simulation tool for work
<awang>
On the completely impractical side, plan on eventually writing bits of an OS with it
<awang>
That or Rust
<awang>
Or Idris
<awang>
Or whatever the interesting language of the day is
<FluffyFoxeh>
ah
<FluffyFoxeh>
I use C for most things that I don't use Python for
<FluffyFoxeh>
But I find C++ fascinating
<Ellied>
I've started dabbling in Rust because I have no attention span for C and want to pick up a "real"er language than Python
<awang>
Ellied: That's obviously because you're not pulling on your bootstraps hard enough :P
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: I'm one of those academic people
<awang>
So I see "type-unsafe" and run screaming
<FluffyFoxeh>
I hate dynamic typing. I use languages that have it in spite of, not because of it
<awang>
Same here
<awang>
Ellied: Hey, Python is plenty real!
<awang>
I thought Python is actually used a decent amount for physics codes
<FluffyFoxeh>
with numpy maybe
<Ellied>
oh, it is, I just hang out with too many CS majors who constantly blather about how fake it is
<awang>
Yeah, definitely not on its own
<Ellied>
They're wrong about almost everything else they say so I'm not sure why I occasionally catch myself believing it
<UmbralRaptor>
numpy/scipy/astropy are awesome.
<awang>
Ellied: Python is fake? TIL
<FluffyFoxeh>
Python's a solid language, dunno what they're talking about :p
<awang>
UmbralRaptor: TIL about astropy
<UmbralRaptor>
As for C… ask egg|zzz|egg about my misadventures trying to get Principia to build.
<FluffyFoxeh>
It's very high level but that's not a good or bad thing
<Ellied>
these are the same CS majors who think that Windows 10 is reasonable in any way, so their assertions can be taken with a mine of salt
<awang>
Ellied: Do you have any particularly interesting stories?
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: It needs sum types
<Ellied>
uh, yes, about what though?
<awang>
Then again, every language that doesn't have sum types needs sum types
<FluffyFoxeh>
Ellied: lol touché
<awang>
About what the CS majors say?
<Ellied>
oh, just that I hang out with them in robotics club, and that I'm actually grouping game dev and IT security majors in with CS
<awang>
Even better
<Ellied>
they know how to use Eclipse to write Java in very specific circumstances and are otherwise apparently completely ignorant of programming. They know how to download arduino sketches that other people wrote and then gripe when they don't work
<Ellied>
I've taught them all a little bit of python just so they can get an LED blinking themselves on an RPi
<FluffyFoxeh>
are these people really CS majors
<Ellied>
I mean they claim so, I've never actually background checked them
<FluffyFoxeh>
lol
<awang>
This sounds like it can turn either very entertaining or very frustrating very quickly
<FluffyFoxeh>
awang: I imagine that depends on whether you have to work with them or not :p
<Ellied>
some of both. I came in with expectations that turned out to be way too high and it got a lot more fun when I let them drop
<awang>
Ellied: Fun as in fun to work with or fun as in fun to watch?
<Ellied>
I don't *have* to work with them on anything, which is probably a big part of my continuing sanity
<awang>
Sorry, I'm being a bit cynical
<Ellied>
um, both
<Ellied>
our meetings this year so far have mostly consisted of the board members arguing, the new members building a robot arm out of downloaded 3-D printed parts, and me fiddling around with various pet projects while listening with half an ear
<FluffyFoxeh>
last year I did the most feared course in CS where you have to write a substantial program using OOP principles, in a team of 4 people. I decided to do it alone. The prof got really salty and told me it was impossible and I was doomed to fail the course
<FluffyFoxeh>
I kicked that project's ass and got an A
<Ellied>
nice
<awang>
Ellied: That's quite the robotics team
<awang>
What's the big project/competition/etc. you're working towards?
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: Do you have the writeup? I'm half inclined to try it
<FluffyFoxeh>
if my CS peers are anything like yours I think I dodged a bullet as well by not joining a team :p
<FluffyFoxeh>
awang: I'll see if I have it anywhere convenient
<Ellied>
they occasionally ask me if I can get wireless communication working with them, and my answer is always some variant of "yes, but only if you agree to learn it along with me" and then they go some variant of "ehhh but why can't we just download someone else's arduino sketch for that"
<Ellied>
to which I always answer "because you already tried that and it didn't work"
<awang>
I already have a bajillion projects piled up from previous semesters of other classes, but hey, why not more
<Ellied>
that's the spirit
<Ellied>
I have so many projects going right now, it's nuts
<FluffyFoxeh>
awang: nope I think it's on my NAS which is turned off and I'm in bed
<Ellied>
RPi frequency counter (the big one), RPi TDC (the next big one), dirt-cheap light-to-frequency converter, assorted high-voltage converters, extremely-high-gain photodiode amplifier for a spectrometer, fighting said spectrometer into being calibrated correctly, and something about "grad school applications" or whatever
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: :(
<awang>
Ellied: Why so many projects?
<Ellied>
because they're all fun and awesome
<Ellied>
oh and I'm TAing two and a half classes
<Ellied>
only one of which I've actually been hired to TA
<awang>
Wait wat
<awang>
I'd love to do that
<awang>
But my department is pretty strict on TAing only one class if you're an undergrad :(
<awang>
Are these for-fun projects?
<Ellied>
one is sound & acoustics (that one), the other whole one is electronics for physics majors, which only has six people in it so they wouldn't let me be the official TA, but the prof is my research professor and I know all the students and they love having me around and say so all the time, so he let me stay
<FluffyFoxeh>
awang: oh wait I do have it on my server after all
<Ellied>
the department will only pay you to TA one class as an undergrad, but there aren't any hard-and-fast rules about hanging out in classes that you're not TAing. Officially I'm just a sit-in (prof's discretion) who happens to be really helpful.
<FluffyFoxeh>
I think this stuff is not allowed to be public btw - and it isn't; the parent directory has no listing - but keep that in mind
<FluffyFoxeh>
huh apparently I didn't put the source code for what I wrote in there. The windows binary was something I made for my bf who's a windows user..
<Ellied>
mostly for-fun, yeah, but under some general direction from prof. The counter was his first assignment for me, which instead of doing it quick-and-mediocre like I think he was expecting, I learned most of what I know now about electronics and designed something that actually works well
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: Yeah, I don't intend on distributing this
<awang>
Hmmm
<awang>
Interesting
<Ellied>
turns out counters are kinda crap at low frequencies though, so I want to make the reciprocal of one (a TDC, or basically a very fast stopwatch that measures how much time elapses between two consecutive pulses) to give more accurate measurements for slower sources
<Ellied>
plus the potential to be able to get a correlation function
<awang>
Ellied: I think I'm going to steal that strategy to TA multiple classes
<Ellied>
it's great if you can get away with it
<Ellied>
I suppose it works best if you know the prof and the class is small/you know people in it, lol
<awang>
Hmmm
<awang>
I know a small class
<awang>
But the professor changes
<awang>
On the bright side, looks like the projects stay the same
<awang>
But yeah, seems like it may be difficult to pull off
<awang>
I barely know anyone around here
<awang>
Wait, counters are bad at low frequencies?
<awang>
Why?
<awang>
I would have expected them to be bad at high frequencies due to pulses coming in too fast
<Ellied>
that too, but at low frequencies you just have to count for way too long
<xShadowx>
if you have a dream about sex, does it count as watching porn?
<Ellied>
like, if you have an LFC in very low light that's oscillating at 10.0000 Hz and you want to measure a slight increase in light that brings it up to 10.0001 Hz, a counter just won't do that for you, you'll have to sit there and count for hours to measure that
<Ellied>
with a TDC, on the other hand, you can easily sample 10 pulses per second and get plenty of data to average up
<FluffyFoxeh>
xShadowx: no
<Ellied>
the counter chip I'm using (the venerable and rare LS7366R) will go up to 40 MHz on the input and 5 MHz on the serial bus, so in the ideal case I could get it to act as a TDC with a resolution of 1/(40MHz) and a rep rate of a few hundred kHz, which is very decent for the class of budget
<UmbralRaptor>
xShadowx: If you cam come up with a convoluted reason for it to be a sin, it's a sin.
<awang>
Ellied: ah, that makes sense
<Ellied>
straight from LSI and in quantity, the chips are about 6 bucks a pop, so with some cheap logic chips, a printed board from OSHPark, and a couple of the cheapest BNC bulkheads we could find ($4) the board comes to like $30
<Ellied>
for the counter. I think the TDC will be comparable if I also do two channels.
<FluffyFoxeh>
UmbralRaptor: which sounds bad until you go one step further realize that the concept of sins is all in your head ^^
<xShadowx>
more like the concept of sin is in a priests head, not mine :P
<awang>
FluffyFoxeh: This project sounds like the one I had to do for my OO course
<awang>
Main difference being persisting data
<FluffyFoxeh>
xShadowx: yee
<Ellied>
I'm doing it with single-gate ICs for now, but FPGAs are much closer than the horizon now. My prof's been working with some and thinks we can get a workflow going to program them for stuff.
<awang>
Ellied: Then you have to suffer with Verilog :(
<Ellied>
There's a fairly exciting CPLD I found on mouser that claims to be able to go up to 400 MHz and costs like $3, and has 64 macrocells. Still trying to figure out what that last metric actually means, but I think the worst-case interpretation (1 macrocell == 1 2-input gate) still makes it big enough to be useful for this project.
<FluffyFoxeh>
!weather cyow
<FluffyFoxeh>
.weather cyow
<FluffyFoxeh>
dammit
<awang>
Ellied: That sounds wonderfully inexpensive for those specs
<Ellied>
there has to be a catch but I can't find it yet
<Ellied>
I saw $3 and 400 MHz and was like whoa, what's wrong with it
<xShadowx>
FluffyFoxeh: i dont see anything as 'sin', theres morally good that helps human civilization, and morally bad that provides entertainment when darwin/karma/fate/whatever form you believe the universe takes when they catch up with em :P
<Ellied>
ugh, I accidentally picked up a hot soldering iron tip I'd just dropped out of the iron today. Not properly burned, but there's enough melted tissue on my fingers that I feel like I've got tape stuck to them
<Ellied>
at least it's done hurting now
<awang>
Ellied: :(
<awang>
Better get that sanitized and patched up
<Ellied>
I got lucky, a second more and I'd have burns on my fingertips that would take five ever to heal
<FluffyFoxeh>
sanitized?
<Ellied>
no broken skin, it'll be fine
<Ellied>
it's not even a first-degree burn, it's just the outermost layer that got a little fried
<FluffyFoxeh>
if you pick up something super hot I think that will self sanitize
<Ellied>
I've heard that called pyrolyzed tissue, but that sounds a little like bullshit
<FluffyFoxeh>
not that I have an informed clue
<awang>
Isn't that cauterized?
<UmbralRaptor>
^
<UmbralRaptor>
Also, ow
<Ellied>
yeah, cauterized sounds like a good word for that
<Qboid>
0d 12h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
<Ellied>
I still have some marks on my wrist from a soldering iron incident last spring. It was just a glancing touch, but it was a very hot iron. Those might end up being scars, I scar way too easily for some reason
<awang>
You should stop doing that :P
<Ellied>
I firmly maintain that my injury rate with soldering irons is only slightly above average for my demographic, it's just that I use them many times more frequently
<awang>
Just wait
<awang>
I'm going to be in here a few months from now complaining about burns
<awang>
:P
<awang>
Man
<awang>
So many interesting things to do in college, and so little time
<Ellied>
soldering iron burns are, like, the one thing everyone in freenode/##electronics has in common
<Ellied>
i know right
<awang>
I'm still on solderless breadboards, so got a bit of catching up to do
<Ellied>
I only have a little over two more quarters left before I graduate, there's not enough time
<Ellied>
oh, I still use solderless breadboards every day
<FluffyFoxeh>
aw
<FluffyFoxeh>
I used to hang out in ##electronics
<FluffyFoxeh>
good times
<Ellied>
every project has to start somewhere, and I'm a long way from being badass enough to go straight from blueprint to PCB without actually building the thing first
<Ellied>
that's like writing an entire novel in an email to a publishing company
<awang>
I haven't even touched a soldering iron yet
<Ellied>
don't worry, soldering's a lot easier than it looks
<awang>
I wanted to try making a computer Ben Eater-style first before moving on to soldering
<FluffyFoxeh>
Ellied: is there anyone who can do that? I still don't understand the prototyping process for RF stuff because you *can't* breadboard it
<Ellied>
FluffyFoxeh: most Professionals are content with advances simulations, I understand
<FluffyFoxeh>
not if you want it to behave predictably anyway
<FluffyFoxeh>
hm
<Ellied>
I don't into RF though so I don't really know
<Ellied>
RF is scary compared to everything I do
<FluffyFoxeh>
it's too far into the realm of magic
<FluffyFoxeh>
things just stop behaving the way you're taught things behave
<Ellied>
with DC you can just draw a line and expect it to go there, but with RF suddenly you have to ask persuasively, which means you need a much firmer grasp of the language than I have
<FluffyFoxeh>
good analogy :p
<Ellied>
the extent of my RF considerations is "keep these tracks straight and out of the way because they carry 4 MHz" which is kind of nothing compared to actual radio circuits
<Ellied>
my counter design uses rail-attached fill zones on each side of the board which helps keep self-interference down a lot
<Ellied>
I could probably get away with much worse than I have been
<Ellied>
the SPI bus is actually way more of a high-frequency concern than the 4 MHz oscillator, since the tracks are necessarily much longer and the frequency can potentially be many times higher. I just made sure all four wires were separated from their neighbors by fill zone and prayed, and I guess it worked
<Ellied>
once you get into the realm of differential signalling, I'm over my head for now
<Ellied>
SPI is easy
<FluffyFoxeh>
what's a fill zone?
<Ellied>
a copper region that fills up all the available non-track space on a board
<Ellied>
most PCBs have them somewhere
<FluffyFoxeh>
and they create an RF buffer when grounded?
<Ellied>
to some extent, yeah
<Ellied>
in some ways there's rarely much point in *not* including a fill zone because the etching process is subtractive and all that copper would just have to be taken off with acid anyway
<FluffyFoxeh>
yeah
<Ellied>
so having the ground flood the board is useful for a number of reasons (grounding chips is easy, EMI block, subtracting graphics from the soldermask makes it look awesome, etc) and including it is literally easier than not, so it's understandably common :P
<FluffyFoxeh>
makes sense :p
<Ellied>
I just put a ground fill zone on the front and a +5V fill zone on the back, so attaching chips to power is as simple as telling kicad to add a thermal relief on the front side and and a via to the back zone to the Vcc pin
<FluffyFoxeh>
kicad <3
<Ellied>
I'll be releasing the counter board designs under a CC license soon, and hopefully starting a small kickstarter to get a short production run made if people are interested in buying them
<Ellied>
my parents keep talking about patents, but that would be silly, patents are expensive and the concept is hardly new
<FluffyFoxeh>
indeed
<Ellied>
I figure my chances of success with a kickstarter are better than even since I already have a fully operational product sitting on my desk and it's not very expensive, it would just be a "hey, preorder this, I don't have enough money to have them made and then sold, so I have to do it in the other order" type of thing
<Ellied>
ok it's 3 AM, I gotta snooze
<FluffyFoxeh>
4am here and same
<FluffyFoxeh>
night
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<Qboid>
0d 9h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
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<egg|work|egg>
!wpn whitequark
* Qboid
gives whitequark a gatling gazebo
<APlayer>
!wpn egg
* Qboid
gives egg an osmium scale with a GIF attachment
<APlayer>
LOL
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<Qboid>
0d 6h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
<bofh>
gatling gazebo, lol.
<egg|work|egg>
!wpn bofh
* Qboid
gives bofh a rho python with a sickle attachment
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<egg|work|egg>
!u ॰
<Qboid>
U+0970 DEVANAGARI ABBREVIATION SIGN (॰)
<UmbralRaptor>
aaaaaa
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<bofh>
that's basically U+00B0 DEGREE SYMBOL as far as I'm concerned
<bofh>
actuallt
<bofh>
actually*
<bofh>
!u °
<Qboid>
U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN (°)
<bofh>
okay so move it down slightly.
<bofh>
also lol I got the codepoint right.
<UmbralRaptor>
!u ˚
<Qboid>
U+02DA RING ABOVE (˚)
* APlayer
sometimes curses Unicode
<APlayer>
More characters than can be learned in a lifetime
<UmbralRaptor>
egg|work|egg: how goes latin-greek-cyrillic unification?
<UmbralRaptor>
APlayer: also, emoji getting all the hype, despite nice things like ☉?♃♂☽ etc being in it.
<egg|work|egg>
UmbralRaptor: it amuses that colleague with whom I discuss hieroglyphic cats and cuneiform LGTMs at least
<UmbralRaptor>
It feels like a good April 1st RFC.
<egg|work|egg>
UmbralRaptor: well it seems like a good pedagogical tool at least, otherwise you get people who say "but unicode solves that, right?" "it's just glyph variations like 7 with and without the middle bar", etc. etc.
<egg|work|egg>
UmbralRaptor: I now have a mac with M31 seen by SPIRE and PACS
<egg|work|egg>
!acr -add:EPIC European Photon Imaging Camera
<Qboid>
egg|work|egg: I already know an explanation for EPIC! (Update it with !acr -update:EPIC European Photon Imaging Camera)
<egg|work|egg>
EPIC?
<Qboid>
egg|work|egg: [EPIC] => Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera
<egg|work|egg>
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
<UmbralRaptor>
Hah
<UmbralRaptor>
Also, Yay for IR imagery.
<APlayer>
Uh, I need some kOS help once more, but I think it boils down to regular vector maths. So, there is a function that creates a vector from a compass heading and a pitch above horizon value. I also have a vector pointing straight at zenith and one pointing retrograde. How would I rotate the vector from the compass/pitch function so that a pitch of 90 would not point at zenith anymore, but at retrograde?
<APlayer>
I think I'd subtract zenith and add retrograde? But that seems wrong
<egg|work|egg>
UmbralRaptor: so now I have GALEX FUV+NUV (chromebook background), Hubble ACS F475W+F814W (desktop background), Spitzer MIPS 24 µm (desktop keyboard), Herschel SPIRE+PACS (mac background)
<egg|work|egg>
UmbralRaptor: unsure which filters of SPIRE/PACS were used though
<egg|work|egg>
!acr -add:HELGA Herschel Exploitation of the Local Galaxy Andromeda
<Qboid>
egg|work|egg: I added the explanation for this acronym.
<APlayer>
Exploiatation?
<APlayer>
Exploitation*
<egg|work|egg>
"Hi-GAL: Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey"
<APlayer>
NASA acronyms
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<Qboid>
0d 4h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
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<APlayer>
BTW, UmbralRaptor, are you currently online?
<UmbralRaptor>
ping
<APlayer>
I wanted to thank you for the internship link you sent me, and also ask, what does "at least 50 semester hours of credit to experience" mean?
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<UmbralRaptor>
I don't recall the details of that program, but presumably that you've gotten at least half way to your degree.
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<APlayer>
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpiintern/ here are the details. Also, if that's indeed what that means, then I can forget that for now :-(
<APlayer>
I am stuck in high school for this and the next year :P
<UmbralRaptor>
Yeah, doh. Undergraduate == college
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* APlayer
sucks at the American school system
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<APlayer>
Also, while an US internship at a bigger company still remains my goal, I am currently shifting my attitude to saying that I better start with, say, two to three smaller internships here in Germany and just get some experience with that stuff to maximize my future chances. Also, apparently summer internships are much harder to get than something "outside of the rush hour", so that's another reason to do
<APlayer>
something smaller at first
<Qboid>
0d 3h 0m 0s left to event #12: 무궁화 5A호/Falcon 9 v1.2 [at 2017-10-30 19:34:00]. Say '!kountdown 12' for details
<Ellied>
APlayer: are internships in germany going to be paid? My eyes are still clouded with American nonsense on that one
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<APlayer>
They can, although one should not expect that. But really, I don't have much of a financial problem, so that is not an important factor for me.
<kmath>
<NCSox> Writer: "Is it 'firsthand' or 'first hand'?" Editor: "Either one is fine." https://t.co/36xHxrG9q1
<Ellied>
I get the idea that internships in physics around here tend to be paid, but that might only hold for my particular area and university
<APlayer>
I am struggling to find any sort of internship for which I am eligible and which even makes sense for me, so I have kind of ignored the money aspect so far
<bofh>
SnoopJeDi: https://twitter.com/bofh453/status/925106852664356865 ahh, nothing like being a once-ffmpeg dev, my reactions to the code golf bit above: "AAAAAAAAAAA", "okay, that's kinda cool", "wait, didn't swscale use to do this once in their runtime-generated horizontal scaler?", "yep, it did and they still do this", "libswscale fhtagn, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
<kmath>
<bofh453> @daemon404 Yeah, I was looking for that bit then got sidetracked by the previous commit. Also this joyous line: https://t.co/lCTvC2WXuw
<SnoopJeDi>
oh neat I didn't realize you'd worked on ffmpeg
<bofh>
I barely do anymore, sort of got sidetracked around 2011 and actually didn't do anything for it until this year when I offloaded some fft code to @atomnuker.
<bofh>
Keep meaning to get back to it but time is hard and attention span doubly so. Plus my interests shifted somewhat and my memories of the community are... I think it's improved since but let's just say it wasn't the most welcoming of places way back.
<SnoopJeDi>
yea, I regret how easy that is to imagine
<rqou>
TIL "finance" people do really weird things with probability
<SnoopJeDi>
They're just a little more honest about how weird and made-up it is
<rqou>
i guess they would probably say "EE people" do really weird things with probability :P
<bofh>
egg|zzz|egg: "Your search - sportpuddingzeit - did not match any documents.
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<Ellied>
!tell APlayer er, unless you're quite sure, you almost certainly do *not* want to buy something in the SOT-23 outline, that's like 2mm across and really hard to solder without a custom PCB with a pad to accept its shape and hot air station
<Qboid>
Ellied: I'll redirect this as soon as they are around.
<Ellied>
!tell APlayer using SOT-23s on a solderless breadboard is basically impossible without first soldering them to a suitable breakout board, those things are *tiny*
<Qboid>
Ellied: I'll redirect this as soon as they are around.
<Ellied>
!tell APlayer That being said, those parts *do* look well-suited to the task, so if you are up for trying to mount such a small thing, they'd work. I think you'll find this is a common problem with component shopping; all the good stuff is microscopic. :P
<Qboid>
Ellied: I'll redirect this as soon as they are around.
<rqou>
um, putting a SOT-23 on perfboard is totally doable
<rqou>
breadboards suck though
<rqou>
solution: stop using breadboards :P
<bofh>
Ellied: so my technique is tiny drop of cyanoacrylate to affix the SOT-23 in the correct place resp. the solder pads, wait for that to dry, then solder it.
<Ellied>
I find with soldering there's "doable" and "reasonable". Sure, I could sit there and solder small wires tip-to-tip with a SOT-23's leads, or so something silly with standard-pitch perf, but none of that is as fast as just reflowing it to a properly-made breakout board
<Ellied>
I usually just use tweezers, my hands are steady enough to hold it while I solder the first pin