2023-03-01 08:24:19 <KipIngram   > So, does anyone know what's typically done in multi-threaded Forth systems to ensure that disk blocks one thread has BLOCKed in don't get kickedout by some other thread unexpectedly?  I've always felt like the idea with BLOCK is to make sure you re-BLOCK each block of data you use anytime it might have been swapped out.  Which you can do strategically re: your own other disk activity.
2023-03-01 08:24:42 <KipIngram   > But in a multi-thread situation a block could get swapped out immediately by another thread, so even the first access would be at risk.
2023-03-01 08:24:49 <KipIngram   > Of course blocks could be locked.
2023-03-01 08:25:05 <KipIngram   > Or each thread could have its own buffers.
2023-03-01 08:25:19 <KipIngram   > Just wondering if there's a "common practice" on that front.
2023-03-01 08:28:03 <KipIngram   > The downside of individual thread buffers is that if two threads both needed the same block it would get loaded twice.
2023-03-01 08:28:21 <KipIngram   > I guess one could differentiate between loading a block with the intent of modifying it vs. loading it read-only.
2023-03-01 09:44:41 <KipIngram   > With separate buffers the thing I'd have to watch out for would be two threads modifying the same block; they'd both read the "old" one and then whoever wrote last would overwrite the other guy's write.
2023-03-01 09:45:07 <KipIngram   > So one central set of buffers solves that problem handily.
2023-03-01 09:45:58 <KipIngram   > And if I knew for "application reasons" that no two threads would ever update the SAME DATA in a page, then there would be nothing wrong with them both modifying it in parallel.  The only problem then is making sure the block sticks around for each thread to complete its work.
2023-03-01 09:48:59 <KipIngram   > I guess what seems simplest to me is just to lock the block into the buffer until everyone using it "releases" it; then it would be allowed to sre-use the buffer.
2023-03-01 09:49:51 <thrig       > "lock the blockbar" -- The Clash
2023-03-01 10:07:46 <veltas      > KipIngram: I think in most cases only one thread would need disk I/O
2023-03-01 10:08:04 <KipIngram   > Well, that would certainly solve the problem, wouldn't it?
2023-03-01 10:08:10 <veltas      > So probably design to optimise that case and the programmer can write some system to negotiate access themselves if they need it
2023-03-01 10:08:17 <KipIngram   > And in any kind of focused application I expect you're right.
2023-03-01 10:08:39 <veltas      > If you try to write an OS you will end up writing an OS
2023-03-01 10:09:05 <veltas      > To be tautological about it
2023-03-01 10:09:05 <KipIngram   > Well, you're very right there too.  Problem is that often I feel like that may be what I want.
2023-03-01 10:09:36 <KipIngram   > I imagine writing a system that I can use for... everything I do in the future, and one of those things is a "from scratch" general use computer.
2023-03-01 10:10:00 <KipIngram   > From scratch as in FPGA-based processor cores and NAND flash chip based mass storage.
2023-03-01 10:10:18 <KipIngram   > FPGA-based graphics hardware.
2023-03-01 10:10:45 <KipIngram   > Maybe I relent and use an off-the-shelf networking chip or something.
2023-03-01 10:10:50 <KipIngram   > Maybe.
2023-03-01 10:11:22 <KipIngram   > Part of the appeal of that is the "intellectual knowledge" that I've got a completely back-door free system, and the network hardware would be one of the first places those might come in.
2023-03-01 10:11:56 <KipIngram   > I don't know if i attach a very big chance to the prospect of me actually getting that done, though.
2023-03-01 10:12:14 <KipIngram   > My other project thoughts are much more "targeted" things.
2023-03-01 10:13:03 <thrig       > someone wrote a paper on trusting trust
2023-03-01 10:13:20 <KipIngram   > Yeah, slippery slope there.
2023-03-01 10:13:29 <Zarutian_iPad> lastname King iirc
2023-03-01 10:13:42 <KipIngram   > I mostly function by just believing that no one has enough rerason to care about my activities to be paying too much attention to me.
2023-03-01 10:14:04 <KipIngram   > Not that I think none of my data is gathered - I just reason my data will never be of any interest to them and will just lie fallow in their databases.
2023-03-01 10:14:42 <KipIngram   > I figure all of us are monitored to some degree, but most of us are down in very low "interest tiers."
2023-03-01 10:14:56 <Zarutian_iPad> one concrete idea I have is to use SecureMultiPartyComputation to run more trusted vm ontop of trust dodgy hardware from diffrent vendors
2023-03-01 10:15:19 <KipIngram   > Yeah, encryption tech allows some really interesting things like that.
2023-03-01 10:15:44 <thrig       > I don't know, I use OpenBSD and a developer of that made some unkind remarks about a certain "war" and some DARPA funding got pulled
2023-03-01 10:15:45 <KipIngram   > I've got a book upstairs on a whole bunch of different facets of trustworthy peer-to-peer technology.
2023-03-01 10:16:09 <KipIngram   > yeah - like I said, I figure they're actually all over us from a lmost every direction.
2023-03-01 10:17:02 <Zarutian_iPad> one idea for a technothriller I saw was oblivious conspiracy where each unwitting party did just enough to further the goals of the conspiracy yet staying below the saliency threashold of three letter agencies
2023-03-01 10:17:18 <KipIngram   > It actually crossed my mind that the mere act of building a system they couldn't peer into and deploying it online might cause them to move me up a tier or two.
2023-03-01 10:17:25 <KipIngram   > I expect it would get noticed at least.
2023-03-01 10:18:55 <KipIngram   > My guess is that anytime a new device appears online it gets immediately "scanned," and if that scan failed I think it would raise a red flag somewhere.
2023-03-01 10:19:05 <Zarutian_iPad> but such conspiricy needs sort of robust emergent behaviour design
2023-03-01 10:20:11 <Zarutian_iPad> KipIngram: plenty of crappy IoT devices to emulate and use as disguise
2023-03-01 10:20:16 <KipIngram   > One of the more sinister things I read about some years back was that some guy in Canada was developing a peer-to-peer based distributed file system, and one of the big "perks" of that system was that it would likely result in much more participation in the TOR network.
2023-03-01 10:20:29 <KipIngram   > Well, that guy was "accidentally" killed in a wrong-address police raid.
2023-03-01 10:21:08 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I've always figured that the best way to mount clandestine communication would be to run it underneath the cover of normal Facebook / Twitter / whatever traffic.
2023-03-01 10:21:19 <KipIngram   > The goal would be not only to be secure but to be NOT EVEN NOTICED.
2023-03-01 10:21:34 <Zarutian_iPad> the guys name?
2023-03-01 10:21:57 <KipIngram   > Let me think about it a while - this was years ago.  If I am able to produce that it will be by remembering the name of his file system thingie.
2023-03-01 10:22:12 <KipIngram   > And of course that might have just been disinformation to start with.
2023-03-01 10:23:00 <Zarutian_iPad> well, there are architectures like freenet, tahoe-lafs, eris, ipfs, and such
2023-03-01 10:23:03 <KipIngram   > There was also a guy who was working on a peer-to-peer Facebook replacement called Diaspora, and I heard somewhere along the way he offed himself.
2023-03-01 10:23:38 <KipIngram   > Freenet is scary.  I brought up a node once, but took it down after a few hours.  Just too much stuff I wasn't comfortable with.
2023-03-01 10:23:46 <KipIngram   > That really is the "darkweb."
2023-03-01 10:24:10 <KipIngram   > I took it down and formatted the whole drive.
2023-03-01 10:24:16 <Zarutian_iPad> oh, yeah. Heard of Diaspora. But it might just been general shittyness of $8chaners and heavy depression that did him in
2023-03-01 10:24:42 <KipIngram   > Absolutely - that one didn't seem as suspect as the other one.
2023-03-01 10:24:50 <KipIngram   > That's an edgy crowd of people to start with.
2023-03-01 10:25:46 <Zarutian_iPad> as some Mastadon nodes/servers are stopping due to Tumbler/Twitter-esque Drama (TM)
2023-03-01 10:27:10 <KipIngram   > It's a moral dillema for sure.  There's all kinds of good stuff to be said for freedom/privacy/etc., but to whatever extent such things exist they will be abused by nasty people.
2023-03-01 10:28:27 <Zarutian_iPad> like heard recently around that the person that got cloudeflare to kick farms-whatever of their service checked into rehab as they, the person, blew all the gofundme funds on cocaine or such
2023-03-01 10:28:55 <KipIngram   > :-|
2023-03-01 10:29:07 <Zarutian_iPad> KipIngram: heard of the swordsmaker dilemma?
2023-03-01 10:29:15 <KipIngram   > Well, I guess "wickedness" and "weakness" are distinct things, but yeah.
2023-03-01 10:29:24 <KipIngram   > No - sounds interesting though.
2023-03-01 10:29:35 <KipIngram   > I could guess about it.
2023-03-01 10:29:45 <KipIngram   > Enabling badness and so on.
2023-03-01 10:29:52 <Zarutian_iPad> ostensibly from japan but it might just been painted with a Sensei ish brush
2023-03-01 10:29:55 <KipIngram   > Gun companies.
2023-03-01 10:30:49 <Zarutian_iPad> the swordsmaker dilemma is thus: each sword I make could be used against me or my friends and family, does the world need another sword?
2023-03-01 10:30:55 <KipIngram   > I saw a statistic back in 2015 or so that indicated around 1 gun in every 10,000 actually gets used in a violent crime.
2023-03-01 10:31:19 <KipIngram   > I didn't support an all-out ban even before that, but particularly after learning that I lost all use for the idea.
2023-03-01 10:31:44 <KipIngram   > I just can't get behind punishing 10,000 people because of one bad one.
2023-03-01 10:31:58 <KipIngram   > There's gotta be a better way.
2023-03-01 10:32:17 <Zarutian_iPad> I am though for punishing improper gun storage
2023-03-01 10:32:34 <KipIngram   > Yes, owning such a thing brings a responsibility.
2023-03-01 10:33:55 <KipIngram   > My biggest heartache on that front, though, is that we've got these words in our Constitution that are very strongly worded, and I *really* can't get behind just humming and looking the other way while we ignore that document.
2023-03-01 10:34:12 <KipIngram   > The right way to proceed is to amend it, with something more balanced.
2023-03-01 10:35:06 <Zarutian_iPad> ah, USA Constitution,
2023-03-01 10:35:14 <KipIngram   > Yeah, sorry.
2023-03-01 10:35:26 <KipIngram   > The problem, though, is that neither of the trenched in sides wants a "compromise."
2023-03-01 10:35:35 <KipIngram   > They both want their own total victory.
2023-03-01 10:35:59 <Zarutian_iPad> result of the First Past The Post voting
2023-03-01 10:36:17 <Zarutian_iPad> is a borked two party system
2023-03-01 10:36:19 <KipIngram   > Yeah - something of that sort is at the middle of a lot of our problems over here.
2023-03-01 10:37:31 <Zarutian_iPad> plus laws that only get voted on bulk that is, the whole bill passes
2023-03-01 10:37:32 <KipIngram   > I tell myself (and really, REALLY hope) that there is a fairly large group of "middle thinkers" in the US that just are too busy going about their lives to be all vocal about this stuff.
2023-03-01 10:37:48 <KipIngram   > I hate to think that the picture painted by the media is really how things are across the board.
2023-03-01 10:38:24 <KipIngram   > Oh yeah - I absolutely hate thes big "integrated bills."
2023-03-01 10:38:26 <Zarutian_iPad> from what I recall from media literacy classes, USA media is rather crappy
2023-03-01 10:38:30 <KipIngram   > Omnibus, I think is the word they use.
2023-03-01 10:38:39 <KipIngram   > I think a bill should be required to have a certain focus.
2023-03-01 10:38:50 <thrig       > it works if the parties are more or less the same and more or less okay with making compromises
2023-03-01 10:38:57 <Zarutian_iPad> in one parliment somewhere, they vote on each clause
2023-03-01 10:38:59 <KipIngram   > I don't even think they deserve the word "journalists" anymore.
2023-03-01 10:39:26 <Zarutian_iPad> ”clickbaiters” is often more apt term
2023-03-01 10:39:31 <KipIngram   > Yes.
2023-03-01 10:40:00 <KipIngram   > There's a movie that was made a couple of decades back, with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck - Crowe plays an investigative reporter.
2023-03-01 10:40:13 <KipIngram   > And man, I wish that real journalists were like HIM in that movie.
2023-03-01 10:41:18 <KipIngram   > "State of Play."
2023-03-01 10:41:25 <Zarutian_iPad> funny thing re Faux News. Here locally you can get access to it via microwave rebroadcast. And in the listings for channels on that system it was and is listed as ‘fictional entertainment’
2023-03-01 10:41:59 <KipIngram   > lmao
2023-03-01 10:42:17 <KipIngram   > This has all gotten so much worse in the last 20 years or so.
2023-03-01 10:42:35 <KipIngram   > I guess there was probably always an element of the problem around, but I just have no use whatsoever for them anymore.
2023-03-01 10:42:46 <Zarutian_iPad> has it? or is it just more visible now?
2023-03-01 10:42:58 <KipIngram   > I hardly ever pay attention to them, unless there is some very specific thing I want to find out about.
2023-03-01 10:43:21 <KipIngram   > And in those cases I look at a BUNCH of sources, across the board, and try to just suss out what I *might* be able to believe as best I can.
2023-03-01 10:43:37 <Zarutian_iPad> frettagattin.is is what I use when I am mildly curious what is going on in the world
2023-03-01 10:43:56 <KipIngram   > I didn't know about that one - I will take a look.
2023-03-01 10:44:17 <Zarutian_iPad> automatic newslink agregrator for local Icelandic news media
2023-03-01 10:44:17 <KipIngram   > My wife reads the Wall Street Journal, and seems to have at least a decent opinion of it.
2023-03-01 10:44:32 <KipIngram   > But I do think all of these outlets lie in a "spectrum.'
2023-03-01 10:44:50 <thrig       > paper WSJ or online opinion WSJ
2023-03-01 10:45:24 <Zarutian_iPad> Der Spiegel and The Gurdian Weekly is the least tabloidty imo
2023-03-01 10:46:20 <Zarutian_iPad> but I do occasationally take a look at Bild and Verdens Gang
2023-03-01 10:48:21 <KipIngram   > Online.
2023-03-01 10:49:38 <Zarutian_iPad> I been hearing of something called Ground News that agraigates sources on news and tries to boil away some of the biases
2023-03-01 10:52:21 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I once thought of maybe trying to write my own.  I've done a fair bit of machine learning stuff for my job-related continuing education.
2023-03-01 10:52:28 <KipIngram   > Seemed like it might be a good target application.
2023-03-01 10:53:46 <thrig       > let's hear from both sides--Einstein, and an Ewok
2023-03-01 10:54:39 <Zarutian_iPad> both sideism does not work in that kind of context
2023-03-01 10:56:23 <Zarutian_iPad> you see the Ewok is right on jungle ecosystem dynamics
2023-03-01 11:03:09 <Zarutian_iPad> 
ACTION continues to reread the SmartMessage paper he has been reading

2023-03-01 11:12:03 <KipIngram   > Well, I think the way I will approach the block buffer situation is to have a user count associated with each resident block.  When a thread calls BLOCK on some block number, it will get loaded if necessary and in any case its count will be incremented.  And threads will have to announce when they're done with a block (decrement the count).  As long as that count is >0, the block will be locked in that
2023-03-01 11:12:05 <KipIngram   > buffer.
2023-03-01 11:13:01 <Zarutian_iPad> refcounted blocks at the granularity of threads basically?
2023-03-01 11:16:40 <KipIngram   > Yeah.
2023-03-01 11:16:49 <KipIngram   > As a starting point, at least.
2023-03-01 11:17:11 <KipIngram   > My general strategy (being as I'm on a "generous RAM" system) is to have lots of buffers.
2023-03-01 11:17:26 <KipIngram   > So sticking blocks around in them for a while shouldn't cause too much of a problem.
2023-03-01 11:28:27 <KipIngram   > There is a bit of a tradeoff in there, though - one of my goals is to know as FAST AS  POSSIBLE when a requested block is already resident.
2023-03-01 11:29:02 <KipIngram   > But to do that, the number of buffers any given block is "allowed to use" needs to be limited.  And that's the tradeoff - limit it too much and that means fewer "same buffer blocks" can be resident at once.
2023-03-01 11:29:31 <KipIngram   > Fastest is only having to check a single buffer.
2023-03-01 11:30:10 <KipIngram   > But I guess if I do it right the long delay would only happen worst case scenarios.
2023-03-01 11:31:15 <KipIngram   > John Wick FOUR???
2023-03-01 11:31:30 <KipIngram   > Weird how certain things just "catch on."
2023-03-01 12:23:34 <KipIngram   > Wow - I didn't know that Isaac Newton believed light was affected by gravity.
2023-03-01 12:23:52 <KipIngram   > He published that, though - and he was RIGHT, hundreds of years before Einstein.
2023-03-01 12:24:07 <KipIngram   > Astronomical data was just not good enough then to prove it, though.
2023-03-01 12:24:51 <thrig       > about those problems with the orbit of mercury
2023-03-01 14:32:09 <KipIngram   > Yeah - same there.  Up until the late 1800's our data was such that the mis-predict of Mercury's motion was still inside the measurement errors.
2023-03-01 18:22:27 <veltas      > KipIngram: Yeah "Dark Stars"
2023-03-01 18:23:09 <veltas      > Very different to black holes without the general relativity
2023-03-01 18:23:46 <veltas      > But I think it's reasonable to say it's part of the history of "black holes"
2023-03-01 18:24:51 <veltas      > I'm trying to find solutions for elderly people getting up after falling down, does anyone here know anything about this?
2023-03-01 18:25:26 <veltas      > Amazing how big a deal falling over is to living independently after a certain age and yet we don't have an awful lot of tech to deal with this
2023-03-01 18:25:41 <thrig       > if they fall into a black hole they probably have other problems
2023-03-01 18:27:02 <thrig       > pretty sure the Japanese are aiming for mecha, otherwise
2023-03-01 18:28:06 <veltas      > Unfortunately there's no consumer tech for this, as far as I know. What is there costs like £60k and I don't think it's even intended for the elderly
2023-03-01 18:28:55 <veltas      > Exoskeletons for elderly will hopefully be a thing before I'm old, God willing
2023-03-01 18:29:43 <thrig       > maybe without the singing guitar battles or SDF
2023-03-01 18:35:11 <veltas      > Too busy trying to sell fake AI
2023-03-01 18:36:12 <thrig       > time for another AI wintermute?
2023-03-01 18:58:33 <KipIngram   > veltas: What type of actions are allowed?  Do we assume they can scooch along the floor from one part of their home to another, or are they stuck in the exact spot they fell?
2023-03-01 19:00:00 <KipIngram   > If they could scooch, I could envision something like a wench attached to the ceiling or above a door, with a floor level switch and a harness; they'd scooch over, slide into the harness, and then trigger it to hoist them up?
2023-03-01 19:00:17 <KipIngram   > I've never thought about this before - if I've been offensive in some strange way I apologize.
2023-03-01 19:01:09 <veltas      > KipIngram: lol no I don't think you've offended anyone
2023-03-01 19:01:22 <KipIngram   > Well, sometimes such things are... unexpected.
2023-03-01 19:01:30 <veltas      > Well they had to scooch today and they were a bit sore from that
2023-03-01 19:01:55 <KipIngram   > the problem gets a lot harder if you need to handle it anywhere in the house.
2023-03-01 19:02:02 <veltas      > I have seen a few videos and techniques on getting up so I might try some of that with them to see if they are able to get up on their own
2023-03-01 19:02:32 <veltas      > Well one annoying problem is being able to get help anywhere
2023-03-01 19:02:37 <KipIngram   > I do say, though, that this would be a good problem to solve - it's not wonderful that there's nothing out there already.
2023-03-01 19:02:55 <veltas      > They are being provided with a button that will call a nurse, this is probably with a huge wait
2023-03-01 19:03:23 <veltas      > Yeah I do think this is not a 'hot' problem and yet it's very important and probably very solvable
2023-03-01 19:03:27 <KipIngram   > Yeah, most likely, and it's hard for me to see my mother-in-law doing that, because it would mean someone had access to her house.
2023-03-01 19:03:32 <KipIngram   > She's not a very trusting person.
2023-03-01 19:03:58 <veltas      > I have an idea to buy a cordless phone set with many handsets, put the handsets about the place
2023-03-01 19:04:13 <veltas      > So if she falls she can speeddial family who are close, which is more useful
2023-03-01 19:04:17 <KipIngram   > Yeah, phone access is certainly a good idea.
2023-03-01 19:04:23 <KipIngram   > And a good starting point.
2023-03-01 19:04:36 <KipIngram   > Good low-hanging fruit.
2023-03-01 19:04:58 <veltas      > Yeah I want to help her if she wants to stay in her home, because it's a lot cheaper and I know I would also want independence
2023-03-01 19:05:03 <veltas      > if I was in that position
2023-03-01 19:05:32 <KipIngram   > Yes - I imagine if I'm ever on my own I'd prefer to endure a lot vs. moving into a community of some kind.
2023-03-01 19:05:41 <veltas      > Because putting her in a home is being discussed and I don't want to just force her down that route without thinking properly about the problems
2023-03-01 19:05:54 <KipIngram   > I'm not into that part of my life yet, but it's close enough to be worth thinking about.
2023-03-01 19:07:13 <veltas      > Don't dwell about it but do invest a bit of time planning this stuff
2023-03-01 19:07:39 <KipIngram   > Yeah - definitely.
2023-03-01 19:08:04 <KipIngram   > I do a fairly good job of not dwelling on negative things.  I'm a fairly upbeat person, fortunately.
2023-03-01 19:08:24 <veltas      > Much less common in my agegroup
2023-03-01 19:09:26 <veltas      > I'm not upbeat, I'm just too darn busy to care about stuff like that lol