@danderson@hachyderm.io
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

danderson

@danderson@hachyderm.io

Software developer by day, other kinds of nerd the rest of the time. ADHD says current hobbies are 3D printers, building CNC machines, old computers in space, and general shitposting on whatever grabs my interest.

Nazis, TERFs, other terrible people: please go away, there's nothing for you here.

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danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Reading a book about an old computer, and it's a very cozy vibe. Before getting properly started, it needs to explain what a silicon transistor is, because it's very newfangled and the reader may not be aware of the knock-on benefits of the NPN topology in silicon, compared to the more traditional germanium devices.

Also, section titles that sound like shitposts:

A. JUSTIFICATION FOR LARGE COMPUTERS

jacob, (edited ) to random
@jacob@jacobian.org avatar

edit: this use to be a link to a fake story about MS buying Valve. It was fake. https://mastodon.social/@ThePlant/112486469559854730

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@jacob oh so this is how I stop playing videogames that aren't nethack, okay then.

Hopefully that remains a rumor, because fucksake.

swetland, to random
@swetland@chaos.social avatar

So, been trying duckduckgo for search for a few days, and it's been, well, okay-ish... until this evening when all my queries spin for a while and then result in:

Sorry, we ran into an error displaying these results. Click here to try again.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@swetland according to the Internet bing is/was down. And ddg gets most of its output from there

danderson, (edited ) to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Wow firefox makes it hard to add custom search engines. If you're using google and want it to default to the quietly launched "web results only no AI shit" view:

Open about:config, set the pref "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to true. You may have to create the pref, or it may exist and be false.

Open about:preferences#search, scroll to bottom, you can now add a search engine (that's what the pref above does)

Add engine for https://www.google.com/q=%s&udm=14, save, make default.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Alternatively you could add the extension someone published to the addon store 20 hours ago that allegedly does this but whose source code link doesn't seem to be a firefox addon and also has 0 installs.

Or you could visit http://tenbluelinks.org/ and install the search engine that way, but be aware the site sets itself as an auto-update source for said engine and so could silently update itself to something unexpected later.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

(note I have no reason to believe tenbluelinks has malicious intent, I just don't know who runs it and who might own or pwn the domain in future and get the ability to siphon search results)

(also please don't suggest kagi, while I would gladly pay for a decent search engine kagi is more than a little fash and also drinking the AI koolaid as fast as it can be dispensed)

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@julian I don't know of anything egregious. They're also breathlessly running into AI and trying to make a thing that answers questions instead of trying to be the best index of the web, and that's a shame. They also get most results from Bing, but again that's pretty par for the course for smaller engines.

So 🤷 if you can turn off the AI dross, or you like the AI dross, seems plausibly okay?

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@julian Oh and I guess given how things went with chrome and edge, I get a little bit of a sinking feeling when a company decides it wants to have both a browser and a search engine, and it represents another split in focus from trying to be the best possible search engine. I understand why they're doing it, but it suggests some misalignment with what I (think I) value personally.

If I could pay a subscription in lieu of ads... I might consider their search, maybe. Dunno.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

I've also been pointed to https://udm14.com/ , which after loading the site you can right-click the URL bar and add a "udm14" search engine, which you can then make the default. At time of writing this, I've verified that the OpenSearch engine definition (https://udm14.com/search.xml) sends queries straight to google with no intermediary, and also does not come with an auto-update configuration that might silently change that later.

robpike, to random
@robpike@hachyderm.io avatar

My occasional reminder that I once used a ROM burner that, upon power-up, announced on its bright red LED display: "RELF-TEST PASSED".

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@robpike okay well that's going right into the next homebrew nonsense I make

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Me, a deeply unserious person: "you just can't get the good ferrite mixes any more"

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Last few days: okay sure an eeprom is the best way to implement this without a programmable microcontroller, but what if logic gates

Today: okay so logic gates is annoying but doable, however consider this: core rope memory

It's extremely silly and pointless, but it's okay therapy tbh

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@sgf Yeah diode ROM was the other silly plan! Another was trying to figure out some kind of one-hot decoding with a 4:16 demux, combined with some open drain drivers... But I think that ends up being more chips than other options no matter what

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@sgf ... or rather, to make the chip count reduction work, I end up needing to sprinkle diodes into things... And now I've reinvented diode ROM with extra steps 😅

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

As a sibling to the "making fun of AI being shit" thread, I will also say that yosys is really quite lovely. Even tackling a synthesis problem outside of its comfort zone (synthesizing discrete logic vs. for FPGA LUTs and hard blocks), and even with an idiot like me at the controls, it's a remarkably rich toolkit to explore and play with circuitry.

Plus the shortcomings for my application aren't structural, it's just that it rightfully focuses on more impactful goals.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

And I suspect with a little more work from me, I could get a lot fancier. But also it does okay, completely hands-off synthesis of my silly little problem gives me a ~40 gate solution, where human-optimized golfed circuits achieve 24-30 gates.

I did just discover I was holding opt_demorgan wrong, which may have hidden some available optimizations from other passes.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

I suspect also that if I wrote a techmap from gates back to muxes, iteration between muxtree optimization and functional reduction/extraction at the gate level might do useful things... Or maybe not, I don't "see" the optimizations well enough to know if that would sidestep some blockers to lower gate counts.

I suspect also that if I learned to wield ABC directly, I could get it to do direct combinatorial optimization, and get access to better theory tools for my problem.

mjg59, to random
@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer avatar

This is art (from https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/COPA-v-Wright-Judgment.pdf)

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@mjg59 Thank you for pointing me at this, it's been an incredible read. My favourite so far:

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Fitness watch I use to monitor vitals since my ER adventure the other week: omg you're so stressed, all the time!

I mean for one yeah, literally had a life threatening thing happen and am still recovering, can't imagine why that would be stressful.

But also this led me to learn how these stress trackers work, and the relation to ADHD! 🧵

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@palats This is not a controlled study, but I was hooked up to 24x7 heartrate/SpO2/respiration monitoring in the ICU recently, and empirically the data I get from my watch is comparable. Obviously very different situations, but the actual medical device showed sitting HR of 90-100 most of the time, and the watch says the same thing. Same deal for SpO2 and respiration.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@palats The ICU didn't measure HRV, so I don't know how that compares. But people have compared the optical HR sensors to chest sensors (which use EKG measurement, much higher accuracy for HR and HRV), and found that the measurements are pretty accurate generally - although they get less accurate with intense physical activity, which is why all the fitness vendors also sell addon chest sensors for workouts :)

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@giflian Yeah, whooole lot of variables and everyone's body reacts differently. When I started on methylphenidate (ritalin/concerta), I was instructed to monitor my blood pressure and heartrate for several weeks to make sure there was no adverse effect. I got mostly lucky (HR and BP increased slightly but stayed in the normal range), but that was 100% something the doctor wanted monitored.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@giflian otoh while literally in hospital with a cardiovascular emergency, I asked if I should maybe stop taking stimulants because surely that doesn't help, and three different docs looked at my vitals and went "nah, won't make a difference so might as well keep your brain working", which I found very confusing 🤷

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@vaurora Look at you with your fancy HRV, I'm sitting at 49ms average resting variability 🙃

Albeit again just from wrist optical sensing, which has its limitations compared to electrical sensing. Annoyingly this watch has the hardware to run 1-lead EKG, but it's not approved in Canada so the software won't run. And Garmin being primarily a GNSS company, it's remarkably hard to persuade it you're in the US and that it should let you use the EKG 😂

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@vaurora I can't remember ever having that sharp of a response, mostly a caffeine-ish buzz for a few days and then a feeling of the fog clearing and having an executive function. My depression and anxiety self-evals did improve drastically and have stayed good, but I don't think I ever felt a strong physical change. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention though, I could do with more mindfulness generally!

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@giflian Yeah I'm stuck with no family doctor and similar situation (hi from Vancouver island!). I ended up with an online adhd clinic after several failed attempts at treatment elsewhere, and bought a blood pressure monitor to be able to record data for them. Not great compared to being able to see a doctor in meatspace, but... :/

With my new spicy issues, I'm going to have to monitor again when I start exercising again, but right now just a little light walking is enough to set off alarms :(

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