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2025-08-12 01:56:58 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  TODAY-CAL-IRC
2025-08-12 01:56:58 <forthBot    > August 2025
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2025-08-12 01:58:14 <forthBot    > Phase de la lune pour Tue August 12 2025
2025-08-12 01:58:14 <forthBot    > 🌖 Gibbeuse decroissante La lune decroit, une nuit douce vous attend ! Illumination 83%
2025-08-12 02:13:41 <fgarcia     > what... is that calcurse? cool
2025-08-12 02:15:54 <tpnix       > I use calcurse also :)
2025-08-12 02:36:41 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  S" Un monstre affreux avec des grandes dents des yeux globuleux et des tentacules "S IMAGE
2025-08-12 02:36:54 <forthBot    > https://i.ibb.co/Y7631BT3/mforth-image-11-Svmm.png
2025-08-12 02:37:35 <xentrac     > forthBot: SEE TODAY-CAL-IRC
2025-08-12 02:37:35 <forthBot    > Error: SEE: Unknown word: TODAY-CAL-IRC
2025-08-12 02:37:46 <xentrac     > forthBot: LOAD ini.fth SEE TODAY-CAL-IRC
2025-08-12 02:37:47 <forthBot    > Error: Error: LOAD: Cannot open file 'ini.fth SEE TODAY-CAL-IRC'
2025-08-12 02:38:04 <cleobuline  > lol
2025-08-12 02:40:24 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  SEE TODAY-CAL-IRC
2025-08-12 02:40:24 <forthBot    > : TODAY-CAL-IRC TODAY CAL-IRC-HIGHLIGHT ;
2025-08-12 02:42:53 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  SEE CAL-IRC-HIGHLIGHT
2025-08-12 02:42:53 <forthBot    > : CAL-IRC-HIGHLIGHT 2 PICK TODAY-DAY ! 2DUP SWAP MONTH-NAME DROP 32 EMIT NUM-TO-STR CR ." Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su " CR TODAY ZELLER DUP 0 = IF DROP 6 ELSE 1 - THEN DUP OFF ! OFF @ 0 > IF OFF @ 0 DO 32 EMIT 32 EMIT 32 EMIT LOOP THEN DROP 2DUP 2DUP DAYS-IN-MONTH 1 + 1 DO I 10 < IF 32 EMIT 32 EMIT ELSE 32 EMIT THEN I TODAY-DAY @ = IF 22 EMIT I NUM-TO-STR 15 EMIT ELSE I NUM-TO-STR THEN OFF @ I + 7 MOD 0
2025-08-12 02:42:53 <forthBot    > = IF CR THEN LOOP 2DROP 2DROP 2DROP 2DROP CR ;
2025-08-12 02:44:21 <tpnix       > xentrac, how are things with you today ?
2025-08-12 02:48:49 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  CLEAR-STACK
2025-08-12 02:50:07 <xentrac     > not dead yet.  had crippling belly pains earlier
2025-08-12 02:50:14 <tpnix       > eww
2025-08-12 02:51:02 <tpnix       > I hat that, get them when I have too much gas caused by fermentation of some non meat food
2025-08-12 02:51:15 <tpnix       > so I mainly eat only meat
2025-08-12 02:51:39 <xentrac     > thought it might be gas, took simethicone, took a giant shit, didn't help
2025-08-12 02:52:10 <tpnix       > I woke with a sore ankle thismorning and had to cut my walk short at 3000 steps, it's vanished a couple of hours later
2025-08-12 02:52:19 <xentrac     > that's good!
2025-08-12 02:52:39 <xentrac     > I usually walk a couple of km each day, but today I just stayed in bed mostly
2025-08-12 02:52:53 <tpnix       > so off to the doc to get your stomach checked out ?
2025-08-12 02:53:12 <tpnix       > yeah, it's walk or die I think
2025-08-12 02:53:14 <xentrac     > it's better now.  this is the fourth time it's happened
2025-08-12 02:53:20 <tpnix       > ahh cool
2025-08-12 02:53:25 <xentrac     > new feature this year
2025-08-12 02:54:29 <tpnix       > then I had the kernel pop up a error re the alacritty terminal blocking and drop out of Xwindows to tell me, right in the middle of a AI session on my Forth LSP
2025-08-12 02:54:38 <tpnix       > hah
2025-08-12 02:55:01 <tpnix       > somehow the second RTC3060 in this PC had vanished
2025-08-12 02:55:24 <tpnix       > I need both to run 30GB AI images at a reasonable rate
2025-08-12 02:55:45 <tpnix       > so I tested each card individually and they were fine
2025-08-12 02:56:14 <tpnix       > then swaped them in their PCI-E slots and now they both work!
2025-08-12 03:16:11 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  TODAY .S
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2025-08-12 03:16:30 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  CLEAR-STACK
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2025-08-12 03:16:32 <forthBot    > <5> 2025 2025 12 8 2025
2025-08-12 03:18:56 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  CLEAR-STACK
2025-08-12 03:19:04 <cleobuline  > forthBot:  LOAD ini.fth
2025-08-12 03:19:04 <forthBot    > File ini.fth with MOON  loaded
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2025-08-12 03:58:13 <forthBot    > Environment for unjust inactive, freeing...
2025-08-12 04:26:26 <fgarcia     > forthBot DUP
2025-08-12 04:26:50 <fgarcia     > forthBot .
2025-08-12 04:26:57 <fgarcia     > aw
2025-08-12 04:27:38 <fgarcia     > forthBot: 6 7 * .
2025-08-12 04:27:38 <forthBot    > 42
2025-08-12 04:37:46 <forthBot    > Environment for xentrac inactive, freeing...
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2025-08-12 08:31:33 <veltas      > tpnix: Funny that
2025-08-12 08:32:54 <xentrac     > tpnix: congratulations on getting them to work again!  does each one have 16GiB?
2025-08-12 08:33:24 <xentrac     > I didn't realize you could run a 30GB model split across two cards like that
2025-08-12 08:33:30 <tpnix       > xentrac, no they only have 12GB vram each
2025-08-12 08:33:59 <tpnix       > it also uses about 30% cpu and some ram in the pc
2025-08-12 08:34:42 <tpnix       > but today I've realised that it's false economy, it's far rar cheaper to use a online AI such as Kimi-K2
2025-08-12 08:35:06 <tpnix       > so I've been doing that the last few hours and OMG the speed!
2025-08-12 08:36:32 <tpnix       > so I probably wasted about $900 AUD on a couple of RTX3060's, but then I dont always have the Internet available, so even a slow 30GB AI is still better than a omline Google
2025-08-12 08:36:53 <xentrac     > well, there are a lot of experiments you can do on a self-hosted AI
2025-08-12 08:37:07 <tpnix       > and it's ok as a 'pair programmer' on small tasks and educating me
2025-08-12 08:37:18 <xentrac     > abliteration and loras and that kind of thing
2025-08-12 08:37:33 <tpnix       > I kind like having it actually, even to online is WAY better
2025-08-12 08:37:47 <xentrac     > and you know it isn't building up a psychological profile to use to sell you things later
2025-08-12 08:38:21 <tpnix       > that also,
2025-08-12 08:39:07 <tpnix       > but there are unrestricted AI models about so I dont have to 'jail break' one to escape tyranical censorship
2025-08-12 08:39:35 <xentrac     > for now
2025-08-12 08:39:46 <tpnix       > and the RTX3060 is pretty good, only 170W max
2025-08-12 08:39:49 <tpnix       > true
2025-08-12 08:40:19 <tpnix       > I guess Id do it again as I like to be independent and not have to rely o the Internet
2025-08-12 08:40:53 <xentrac     > yeah
2025-08-12 08:41:04 <xentrac     > have you tried asking Kimi about Tiananmen Square?
2025-08-12 08:41:08 <veltas      > Self-hosting is a way of life
2025-08-12 08:41:30 <veltas      > Have you tried asking me about Tiananmen Square?
2025-08-12 08:42:11 <xentrac     > I haven't, actually.  What do you think about Tiananmen Square, veltas?
2025-08-12 08:42:37 <veltas      > Not much really I wasn't there
2025-08-12 08:42:45 <xentrac     > You can go
2025-08-12 08:42:52 <xentrac     > it's open to the public
2025-08-12 08:43:01 <veltas      > There's a famous picture of a guy standing in front of a tank, but nothing happened to him if I remember right
2025-08-12 08:43:29 <xentrac     > oh, no, he got turned into hamburger
2025-08-12 08:43:36 <veltas      > I think as far as I know it was a violent crackdown on some student protests
2025-08-12 08:44:03 <tpnix       > I think it's a distraction to ask an ai about subjects that are propably propaganda
2025-08-12 08:44:22 <xentrac     > it's interesting because it shows you that the propaganda is in the AI
2025-08-12 08:44:42 <xentrac     > which is useful information as more and more things become neural-network-mediated
2025-08-12 08:44:42 <tpnix       > ask  an AI if the USA gave diseased blankets to the indians ?
2025-08-12 08:45:22 <xentrac     > I'm pretty sure Kimi will answer that one correctly
2025-08-12 08:45:22 <tpnix       > one has to stick to code to get the best out of an ai, everything else is subject to censorchip and propaganda
2025-08-12 08:45:57 <tpnix       > I dont really care what has hapened before to others, nothing I can do about it
2025-08-12 08:46:28 <veltas      > I think there's definitely some propaganda in there
2025-08-12 08:46:31 <tpnix       > I cant take on the USA or china for wrongs they may have comitted, and I'm pretty sure they dont give a tinlers cuss what I think
2025-08-12 08:46:45 <tpnix       > tinkers
2025-08-12 08:46:54 <tpnix       > just keep the hitech coming!
2025-08-12 08:47:04 <veltas      > Everyone seems to remember the tank guy getting crushed, it's even talked about in r/MandelaEffect
2025-08-12 08:47:15 <veltas      > There's no evidence what happened to him
2025-08-12 08:47:39 <veltas      > He's just one guy anyway, that's not the point
2025-08-12 08:47:49 <xentrac     > oh, sure, there's no evidence of his personal fate
2025-08-12 08:48:02 <xentrac     > but he wasn't there the next day, and a lot of hamburger was
2025-08-12 08:48:06 <tpnix       > yeah, but who remembers the cavalry running down Indian children and women in sabre charges ?
2025-08-12 08:48:13 <tpnix       > Im sure the indians do
2025-08-12 08:48:14 <veltas      > tpnix: Is that tinker as in a traveller?
2025-08-12 08:48:17 <xentrac     > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_warfare seems to be the smallpox blankets case
2025-08-12 08:48:31 <veltas      > I found out recently I think travellers are also known as tinkers or something
2025-08-12 08:48:36 <veltas      > Or were a very long time ago, anyway
2025-08-12 08:48:50 <xentrac     > well, tinkers typically did travel
2025-08-12 08:48:58 <xentrac     > but not all travelers tinker
2025-08-12 08:49:01 <veltas      > I mean traveller as in Irish Travellers
2025-08-12 08:49:07 <tpnix       > no a 'tinker' was the traveling handyman in the 1800s- 19xx that fixed your pots and pans and stuff
2025-08-12 08:49:14 <veltas      > Okay
2025-08-12 08:49:48 <xentrac     > I imagine that a lot of Irish Travellers worked as tinkers in the past too
2025-08-12 08:49:57 <veltas      > They absolutely did
2025-08-12 08:49:59 <tpnix       > people had to keep their pots and pans, because they were handmade and expensive, so when they had a crack or hole, they had to be repaired
2025-08-12 08:50:04 <xentrac     > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre is the useful ground truth on the other issue
2025-08-12 08:50:18 <tpnix       > they couldnt get a new one at kmart for $5
2025-08-12 08:50:41 <xentrac     > right, so a little bit of tin and a soldering iron and it's all good
2025-08-12 08:50:44 <veltas      > Wikipedia is actually surprisingly truthful (or was?) about a lot of controversial cover-ups that make the west look bad
2025-08-12 08:50:53 <tpnix       > wikipedia ?? that bastion of honest truth ... no bs there ;-)
2025-08-12 08:51:17 <tpnix       > yah and some rivets
2025-08-12 08:51:19 <xentrac     > yeah, WP is generally pretty good at not having any BS
2025-08-12 08:51:25 <veltas      > Wikipedia is definitely biased but their process keeps them relatively honest about 99% of controversial subjects
2025-08-12 08:51:29 <tpnix       > the tinker probably made all that stuff
2025-08-12 08:51:52 <veltas      > But at the same time they have things in their process that encourage bias
2025-08-12 08:51:53 <xentrac     > not perfect, but all it takes is one editor who isn't willing to put up with the BS to make it very difficult to keep around
2025-08-12 08:52:19 <xentrac     > yeah, their definition of "reliable sources" is famously subject to gaming.  also "notability"
2025-08-12 08:52:31 <tpnix       > I used to work for AAP-Reuters .. I can tell you about everyday bs !
2025-08-12 08:52:34 <veltas      > I've seen cases where that becomes a popularity contest, and wikipedia has some clear leanings on average
2025-08-12 08:52:40 <tpnix       > and nutty reporters
2025-08-12 08:52:50 <xentrac     > yeah, occasionally it does
2025-08-12 08:52:54 <tpnix       > and corruption
2025-08-12 08:53:02 <veltas      > Also even if Wikipedia was centrist it would be biased, so many things are very subjective
2025-08-12 08:53:05 <xentrac     > especially on current events where it isn't very clear yet what the truth is
2025-08-12 08:53:29 <xentrac     > well, the idea of NPOV isn't to be centrist; it's to present all reasonable points of view
2025-08-12 08:53:59 <veltas      > It's impossible to tell the 'truth' about things that are inherently subjective
2025-08-12 08:54:17 <veltas      > I'm not so cynical as to say Wikipedia is terrible
2025-08-12 08:54:22 <tpnix       > so Im using 'aider' a very sophisticated agentic editor
2025-08-12 08:54:48 <veltas      > Also the refereneces are great, you can go do more research straight from there or at least know if they've got bad sources
2025-08-12 08:55:19 <xentrac     > is "aider" free software?
2025-08-12 08:55:37 <tpnix       > and this afternoon I started with gemini-2.5-pro-preview-06-05 because it's 79% correct and 100% compatible with aider
2025-08-12 08:55:45 <tpnix       > yeah it's floss
2025-08-12 08:56:02 <xentrac     > I should give it a try.  I've been wanting to see what the agentic hype is about
2025-08-12 08:56:21 <xentrac     > even though Antirez says you still get better results by non-agentic workflows
2025-08-12 08:56:24 <tpnix       > but my first coding query, which was sorted perfectly cost me $0.50 !
2025-08-12 08:56:55 <xentrac     > (https://antirez.com/news/154)
2025-08-12 08:57:10 <xentrac     > oof, that's kind of prohibitive
2025-08-12 08:57:33 <xentrac     > Antirez is the guy that wrote Redis, FWIW
2025-08-12 08:58:02 <tpnix       > so then I went to Kimi K2 which is 60% correct and 92% compatible and insantly fast! and my next complex code fix cost me $0.02 !
2025-08-12 08:58:26 <xentrac     > hosted by Kimi, or where?
2025-08-12 08:58:38 <xentrac     > you're in the US, right?
2025-08-12 08:58:45 <tpnix       > via openrouter which aider recommends
2025-08-12 08:58:55 <tpnix       > no Im in australia
2025-08-12 08:59:04 <tpnix       > being a oker
2025-08-12 08:59:11 <tpnix       > in rural NSW, mate!
2025-08-12 08:59:20 <xentrac     > oh, so there's no political foofaraw with paying Chinese AI companies
2025-08-12 08:59:31 <xentrac     > I've never been to Australia
2025-08-12 08:59:42 <xentrac     > I'd like to go!
2025-08-12 08:59:42 <tpnix       > there is polits everywhere I fear
2025-08-12 09:00:00 <tpnix       > why < just go to arizona, close enough
2025-08-12 09:00:27 <xentrac     > okay but in the US there was talk a few months ago of prosecuting Americans who downloaded DeepSeek models
2025-08-12 09:00:28 <tpnix       > remember, settlers went to maine, prisoners went to australia
2025-08-12 09:01:05 <xentrac     > "if you love somebody, set them free"
2025-08-12 09:01:06 <tpnix       > we vascillate between hating china and being their friend because we have raw materials to sell
2025-08-12 09:01:50 <tpnix       > I personally think that china will take over all tech and inovation and the west (with me in it) will collapse
2025-08-12 09:02:12 <tpnix       > so Im making hay while the sun shines
2025-08-12 09:02:28 <tpnix       > and I'm in the twilight years of my lifr
2025-08-12 09:02:29 <xentrac     > I don't think so.  the US could take over all tech and innovation because the world's smartest people could immigrate there, and did
2025-08-12 09:02:55 <veltas      > That Tiananmen Wikipedia article looks pretty reasonable to me
2025-08-12 09:02:59 <tpnix       > xentrac, hos the stomach been since we spoke earlier ?
2025-08-12 09:03:26 <veltas      > It seems aware of the propaganda surrounding it and discusses it pretty factually, as much as anyone can given the lack of accurate info
2025-08-12 09:03:33 <xentrac     > yup
2025-08-12 09:03:50 <xentrac     > China is not so open, so 80% of the world's smartest people (or 40% if you have a really exaggerated view of the influence of genes on intelligence) have to go somewhere else, and that isn't going to be the US
2025-08-12 09:03:54 <xentrac     > anymore
2025-08-12 09:04:10 <xentrac     > stomach's been fine, thanks!  I slept a few more hours
2025-08-12 09:04:11 <tpnix       > well I wont argue, I mean who makes friends by arguing politics
2025-08-12 09:04:22 <tpnix       > good to hear!
2025-08-12 09:04:22 <xentrac     > haha sorry
2025-08-12 09:04:43 <xentrac     > anyway I do think the US in particular is cruising for a bruising
2025-08-12 09:04:43 <tpnix       > Ive also switched to nixos in the last 2 weeks
2025-08-12 09:05:12 <xentrac     > but also I don't see how national sovereignty is going to survive drone warfare
2025-08-12 09:05:15 <tpnix       > yeah, they better watch it
2025-08-12 09:05:36 <xentrac     > in the US, China, or anywhere else
2025-08-12 09:05:57 <xentrac     > borders can keep you in or out but they can't keep you safe anymore
2025-08-12 09:08:06 <tpnix       > yeah
2025-08-12 09:08:29 <tpnix       > the big oceans that kept America safe wont do that anymore
2025-08-12 09:08:41 <veltas      > How's nixos?
2025-08-12 09:08:44 <tpnix       > anyway ...
2025-08-12 09:08:52 <tpnix       > simply awesome!
2025-08-12 09:09:04 <veltas      > What's different?
2025-08-12 09:09:10 <xentrac     > there's some politics in nixos this year. eelco resigned
2025-08-12 09:09:16 <tpnix       > it's so different, and I've run practically every unix os out there
2025-08-12 09:09:43 <tpnix       > who is eelco ?
2025-08-12 09:10:19 <tpnix       > veltas you cant get into the innards as every app has it's own directory and is controlled by a db
2025-08-12 09:10:29 <tpnix       > and it's all read only
2025-08-12 09:10:46 <tpnix       > apart from /etc /home and so on
2025-08-12 09:11:21 <tpnix       > Eelco Dolstra, author of the Nix package manager, announced his resignation as head of the board of directors of the NixOS Foundation
2025-08-12 09:11:44 <tpnix       > ahh he invented it as a PHD project
2025-08-12 09:11:48 <veltas      > How 'bloated' is it?
2025-08-12 09:12:46 <veltas      > I mean like how does its hard drive footprint compare?
2025-08-12 09:13:27 <tpnix       > it's pretty big
2025-08-12 09:13:58 <veltas      > Have you noticed any visible benefits from the immutability?
2025-08-12 09:14:32 <tpnix       > but I cant say as Im about to save my home dir and reinstall it tomorrow, and 'df -h' = 350 GB and shouldnt be more than 50GB max
2025-08-12 09:14:39 <xentrac     > you can have multiple versions of any application or library installed concurrently
2025-08-12 09:14:53 <xentrac     > it's sort of like Docker or virtualenv done right
2025-08-12 09:15:03 <tpnix       > it's designed to be reproducable with just one file
2025-08-12 09:15:08 <tpnix       > trie
2025-08-12 09:15:10 <tpnix       > true
2025-08-12 09:15:55 <xentrac     > but with Docker you only have oe thing in the container.  with Nix you can make a namespace combining whichever set of them you want
2025-08-12 09:16:17 <veltas      > I think OS's and distros are something I stopped playing with eventually, lost interest
2025-08-12 09:16:22 <tpnix       > veltas, it's so easy to just reboot to a prev config, as every time the system is rebuilt, everything is rebuilt and it goes into the boot list, dated and with a item number
2025-08-12 09:16:29 <veltas      > I did care at some point long ago and then settled on Linux and stopped thinking about it
2025-08-12 09:16:55 <tpnix       > yeah, I had also, but NixOS has rekindled my pc fun, ... honestly
2025-08-12 09:17:15 <tpnix       > it's Linux just like any other
2025-08-12 09:17:29 <tpnix       > but the package manager is NIX
2025-08-12 09:17:31 <xentrac     > I think the strongest appeal is if you want to be able to reproduce a testing environment exactly
2025-08-12 09:17:37 <tpnix       > true
2025-08-12 09:18:20 <tpnix       > a guy couldnt get his ollama setup working with his nvidia card, so I sent him my config,nix and that got it working, it was that easy
2025-08-12 09:20:11 <veltas      > xterm: where 'small' is bigger than 'normal', and 'medium' is 'small'.
2025-08-12 09:20:42 <tpnix       > veltas, NixOS is controlled by *one* config file and you just add the app name from https://search.nixos.org/ to it and run "nixos-rebuild switch" and it gets the app and rebuilds the system to suit
2025-08-12 09:21:10 <tpnix       > search.nix.org has 120,000 apps!
2025-08-12 09:21:22 <veltas      > There's nothing wrong with using a hyped project
2025-08-12 09:21:25 <tpnix       > compare to about 30,000 for debian etc
2025-08-12 09:22:04 <veltas      > I'm stuck in the Debian mindset, I'll probably have to leave eventually as they become less relevant
2025-08-12 09:22:10 <veltas      > Hoping to stick around for a decade more at least
2025-08-12 09:22:40 <tpnix       > Ive had a fw issues, one was I just cant easily install a tarball, run 'configure, make, make install' anymore
2025-08-12 09:22:50 <veltas      > Arch Linux was really good for a while because all the cool people were using it, now it seems stagnant compared to the gold years
2025-08-12 09:22:51 <xentrac     > if anything I see Debian as getting more and more relevant over time
2025-08-12 09:23:07 <veltas      > I'll have to pick up a new meme distro eventually
2025-08-12 09:23:15 <veltas      > Yeah xentrac?
2025-08-12 09:23:43 <xentrac     > well, they recently revised the social contract to be able to ship Wi-Fi firmware, which was Ubuntu's main advantage
2025-08-12 09:23:58 <xentrac     > and Ubuntu has been getting increasingly obnoxious with "snaps" that auto-update
2025-08-12 09:24:10 <veltas      > Yeah true, that's one of the reasons I don't use Ubuntu
2025-08-12 09:24:25 <tpnix       > ubuntu! gah, I was running that for a few months before NixOS and dont like it
2025-08-12 09:24:31 <veltas      > NixOS is basically SnapsOS though but with stronger guarantees
2025-08-12 09:24:44 <xentrac     > and no auto-updating
2025-08-12 09:25:10 <xentrac     > and Debian is kind of like a hard core of the free-software movement that isn't dependent on the fractious FSF
2025-08-12 09:25:51 <veltas      > That movement is all eccentrics
2025-08-12 09:26:08 <veltas      > Currently that kind of person is mostly distracted by rewriting things in Rust at the moment
2025-08-12 09:26:30 <veltas      > Psy-op if I ever saw one
2025-08-12 09:26:34 <xentrac     > haha
2025-08-12 09:27:05 <veltas      > On that bombshell I've got some work to do, have fun people
2025-08-12 09:27:50 <xentrac     > you too
2025-08-12 09:28:12 <xentrac     > nothing new has ever been done except by eccentrics
2025-08-12 09:30:15 <tpnix       > haha, right
2025-08-12 09:46:53 <xentrac     > right now I'm reorganizing my notes that I'd written on my cellphone.  I'd written about 40000 words on topics like cuckoo hashing, Darwen & Date's book on relational databases, the self-contradictory nature of philosophical subjectivism, and reconstructing letterform SDFs by morphologically dilating a skeleton
2025-08-12 09:47:07 <xentrac     > in a lot of cases with calculations and computations I'd done on the cellphone
2025-08-12 09:49:22 <xentrac     > but the cellphone sucks at editing, so this was just in one giant text file.  so I've been splitting it into separate Markdown files.  I have 46 so far and I'm about 75% done
2025-08-12 09:51:18 <tpnix       > wow
2025-08-12 09:58:22 <xentrac     > for programming on the phone I've mostly been using vi and either Python or LuaJIT
2025-08-12 09:58:34 <xentrac     > but when you're programming the amount of text is smaller than when you're writing
2025-08-12 09:59:52 <xentrac     > Emacs is a lot more comfortable for slinging around paragraphs and stuff
2025-08-12 10:17:37 <tpnix       > ahh, another dedicated emacs user
2025-08-12 10:23:40 <xentrac     > well, it's less work than the alternatives I've tried for this kind of thing, I think
2025-08-12 10:30:25 <tpnix       > yeah it's a personal taste. I started with VIM, poorly, never used it properly  but then Im a electronics tech, not a real programmer
2025-08-12 10:31:22 <tpnix       > then I went to neovim and vibe coded a plugin, which works well, but nvim has problems, so I went to Helix (vim like) and stayed
2025-08-12 10:36:10 <xentrac     > oh, I started using vi because at my first tech job in 01996 it took 45 seconds to start Emacs from the NFS server
2025-08-12 10:36:18 <xentrac     > which was an unacceptable delay for answering an email
2025-08-12 10:36:50 <xentrac     > I switched to vim on my Linux box at home because my roommate told me it was better than elvis
2025-08-12 10:37:23 <xentrac     > mostly I used Vim on Windows NT because it crashed a lot and Emacs's auto-save files were always 30 seconds out of date
2025-08-12 10:37:41 <xentrac     > but for programming Emacs was usually better.  Possibly with LSP that's changed
2025-08-12 10:38:16 <xentrac     > but also I think for this kind of large-scale text reorganization and reformatting Emacs is a little more convenient and less fiddly
2025-08-12 10:38:56 <xentrac     > maybe that's just because I still don't really know the Vim commands for managing multiple buffers, which in Emacs are very convenient with ido-mode
2025-08-12 10:40:04 <tpnix       > I thin lisp is awesome and sometimes wish Id gone the emacs way, but I dont know lisp well, tho I've been learning racket
2025-08-12 13:04:21 <xentrac     > yeah, I've maybe written a thousand lines of Emacs Lisp in my life
2025-08-12 13:05:42 <xentrac     > it's a perfectly acceptable scripting language.  the differences from something like Python, JS, or Lua are mostly superficial
2025-08-12 13:06:19 <xentrac     > I mean you write (f a b) instead of f(a, b)
2025-08-12 13:06:33 <xentrac     > or were; recently they added native-code compilation to Emacs Lisp which theoretically ought to make it super fast
2025-08-12 13:06:56 <xentrac     > in practice I haven't noticed a difference. it's been a long time since being Eight Megs was enough to make something Constantly Swap
2025-08-12 13:09:03 <xentrac     > I'm in a funny position with respect to "do I know Lisp well".  I'm not nearly as comfortable in any Lisp as I am in C or Python, but I did write a Scheme compiler in itself
2025-08-12 14:06:22 <veltas      > I've been looking at writing a tape loading word in Forth, for ZX Spectrum
2025-08-12 14:07:09 <veltas      > Using just standard Forth apart from the port input and disabling interrupts for the duration
2025-08-12 14:07:23 <veltas      > One of the curious problems is accurate timing
2025-08-12 14:07:56 <veltas      > But basically I can sort of expect the loop to take about the same amount of time when it's used, and there's a pilot signal I can use to self-synchronise, and measure the frequency modulation relative to that
2025-08-12 14:08:33 <veltas      > So a very dirty hacky approach is possible, maybe
2025-08-12 14:08:57 <veltas      > With some tolerance for unreliable cassette tapes
2025-08-12 14:09:39 <veltas      > Generating the signal is much easier than reading it, at least
2025-08-12 14:11:12 <veltas      > And also been thinking about how to achieve a reasonable block editing experience on the limited screen space
2025-08-12 14:12:06 <veltas      > And whether cross-compiling itself is possible on a 48K machine, should be...
2025-08-12 14:13:54 <veltas      > There are some words that come out quite pleasant ....  : SYNC  BEGIN EDGE UNTIL ;
2025-08-12 14:13:59 <xentrac     > nice
2025-08-12 14:14:16 <xentrac     > cross-compiling itself should be fairly straightforward if you're willing to rely on an external storage medium
2025-08-12 14:14:38 <veltas      > The program is stored on tape, so the goal is to write a new build to tape
2025-08-12 14:14:46 <veltas      > Audio cassette tapes
2025-08-12 14:15:17 <xentrac     > right, but I mean, you could also use the tape for auxiliary storage if you're willing to rewind it during the build process
2025-08-12 14:15:26 <veltas      > Correct
2025-08-12 14:16:05 <veltas      > And the plan is to use the spectrum's file names to encode block numbers, so I can save/load blocks individually to audio files
2025-08-12 14:16:25 <xentrac     > 256×192 would be 64×32 if you use a 4×6 font like http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dofonts-1k.html
2025-08-12 14:16:37 <xentrac     > 256×192 pixels would be 64×32 characters if you use a 4×6 font like http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dofonts-1k.html
2025-08-12 14:17:01 <veltas      > Unfortunately I've tried that with real hardware and it's unreadable, to me anyway
2025-08-12 14:17:16 <xentrac     > it's not great even on a web page
2025-08-12 14:17:17 <veltas      > So I'm just going to make do with 32 columns, 24 rows
2025-08-12 14:17:32 <veltas      > And the built-in font bitmap
2025-08-12 14:17:58 <xentrac     > 32 columns would feel pretty cramped to me, but de gustibus non est disputandum
2025-08-12 14:18:05 <veltas      > The only reliable way to increase number of chars on a row is to use variable-width font, but that's not Forthy enough
2025-08-12 14:18:27 <veltas      > Although it is not hard to do, and I did write a ZX Spectrum app with variable width chars
2025-08-12 14:18:29 <xentrac     > doesn't it have a 256×192 framebuffer that you can write arbitrary bit patterns to?
2025-08-12 14:18:37 <veltas      > Yes
2025-08-12 14:19:02 <xentrac     > so you could use 5×8 or something if you wanted
2025-08-12 14:19:28 <xentrac     > I had the impression that I'd used 5×8 terminals when I was a kid but I went back last week and looked at their fonts
2025-08-12 14:19:33 <xentrac     > they were not 5×8
2025-08-12 14:19:52 <veltas      > It's slightly easier to write to 8x8 (because each row is a byte), but I'm still not sure how readable it would be
2025-08-12 14:20:06 <veltas      > at 5x8
2025-08-12 14:20:26 <xentrac     > I feel like the 8-row constraint is worse than the 5-column constraint
2025-08-12 14:20:48 <xentrac     > because g, y, q, and p are more common than m and w
2025-08-12 14:21:14 <xentrac     > you can't do a decent g, y, q, or p in 8 rows of pixels
2025-08-12 14:21:50 <xentrac     > or, if you can, I haven't seen it done
2025-08-12 14:22:17 <veltas      > Benchmark characters are # and @
2025-08-12 14:22:29 <veltas      > Which suffer a lot from going smaller than 8x8
2025-08-12 14:22:36 <veltas      > And are very common chars in forth code
2025-08-12 14:23:42 <xentrac     > I feel like the @ in http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dofonts-1k.html is actually pretty decent.  the # leaves a lot to be desired
2025-08-12 14:23:51 <xentrac     > but that's 4×6
2025-08-12 14:25:17 <veltas      > Could replace it with something that looks a bit like  lb  maybe with the round parts of b joining to the l
2025-08-12 14:25:19 <xentrac     > I think that @ is actually better than the @ in the X-Windows 5×8 font in http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/font-5x8.xpm, but the 5×8 has a much better #
2025-08-12 14:25:35 <veltas      > That is where the # comes from I think(?), a shorthand for lb
2025-08-12 14:26:05 <xentrac     > interesting idea!
2025-08-12 14:26:16 <xentrac     > heh, you could use £ :-)
2025-08-12 14:26:58 <xentrac     > apparently the most common name for "#" is "hashtag" now
2025-08-12 14:27:23 <veltas      > Only as sad as the etymology of 'ampersand'
2025-08-12 14:27:40 <xentrac     > https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%84%94 is very pretty
2025-08-12 14:28:53 <veltas      > libra.chat
2025-08-12 14:29:00 <xentrac     > haha
2025-08-12 14:33:22 <xentrac     > if it were me, I'd be tempted to replace # with a completely different glyph
2025-08-12 15:54:59 <olle        > Did anyone ever do a two-pass Forth? First pass into tokens, then execute the token stream instead of string stream?
2025-08-12 15:56:17 <xentrac     > sure, Open Firmware works that way
2025-08-12 15:56:50 <xentrac     > maybe the Forth with the largest deployed base in history, since it was on the OLPC XO.  I think it's in NetBSD too
2025-08-12 15:57:03 <olle        > Hm link, xentrac ?
2025-08-12 15:57:19 <xentrac     > oh also PowerPC Macs
2025-08-12 15:57:37 <xentrac     > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lesson_18
2025-08-12 15:57:43 <olle        > Nice thank you :)
2025-08-12 16:13:45 <olle        > I was thinking of extending my tiny forth with symbols and messages, like
2025-08-12 16:14:02 <olle        > 'Hello :say --> Sym(Hello) Message(say)
2025-08-12 16:14:20 <olle        > Dunno if that makes much sense yet.
2025-08-12 16:15:30 <xentrac     > there are a lot of ways you could realize that, but certainly the overall idea makes sense!
2025-08-12 16:21:12 <olle        > I have a couple of use-cases, e.g. a wrapper around PHPUnit to reduce boiler plate. But we'll see. :)
2025-08-12 16:21:33 <olle        > A basic SCUMM engine i JS would be another use-case.
2025-08-12 16:21:36 <olle        > in*
2025-08-12 16:24:43 <xentrac     > that'd be awesome :-D
2025-08-12 16:25:47 <olle        > It would! Tho perhaps dialoge trees are better expressed with S-expr
2025-08-12 16:26:16 <xentrac     > I've been finding "immediate-mode GUIs" to be an inspiration for representing that kind of thing as code instead of as data
2025-08-12 16:26:40 <xentrac     > in a sense an "obarray" or "symbol table" is a Forth dictionary without the definitions
2025-08-12 16:28:21 <olle        > Hm
2025-08-12 16:29:52 <xentrac     > presumably the reason Chuck used ' to get the xt of a word was because he was thinking of Lisp
2025-08-12 16:30:40 <olle        > Good point.