#qi-hardware IRC log for Friday, 2013-07-26

wpwrakhmm, trying the latest net-next (after not touching the ben kernel for a few months). the kernel loses usb once again :-( doesn't even seem to try to initialize it03:14
larscworks fine on 3.10 for me06:17
whitequarkhahaha, i just found an android application which is basically delphi for touchscreen devices15:22
whitequarkit's sad and miserable. people using it clearly want shell scripting but they don't know it15:23
whitequarkinstead they have an incredibly limited, action list based language, er, "language", and GUI editor like this: https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/360779649913085952/photo/115:23
Action: whitequark is using this to autodisable GSM in presence of WiFi: at my place there's almost zero cellular coverage so that eats battery pretty fast15:24
whitequarkand I use SIP anyway.15:24
biotit's the old "in the future, we'll all be programming by dragging graphic blocks around" gag15:24
biotbeen hearing that one since the '80s15:24
whitequarkthough I will _sometimes_ rewrite this in Java, because the thing's all strange proprietary stuff installed on my system partition. don't like that, but in short term it works15:24
whitequarkbiot: which alternatives do you have for touch devices?15:24
whitequarkit's horrible, but it does the job, and I don't really see a way to do it better15:25
viricI always say that technology improvements go in the direction of providing the kind of devices only disabled people had, to a broader audience.15:28
whitequarkviric: oh. I will quote you on that, be sure.15:29
viric:)15:29
virica normal person now has the tech that only disabled people had 10 years ago15:29
viric:)15:29
whitequarkthat's... so deliciously double-edged15:29
viric;) yes15:29
wpwrak(alternatives) get a keyboard ? :)15:31
viricthere is a very good spanish film from the 50s, on the topic of disabled people, and devices that assist them15:31
viricI was shocked by seeing a person without arms drive a motorbike15:31
whitequarkwpwrak: annnd what do I do with it?15:31
viricit's a very short scene; let's see if someone put that on youtube15:32
whitequarkinterestingly, Android supports keyboard surprisingly well. for example, it handles F-keys, Esc, and Tab automatically works in every single UI form or widget in it15:32
whitequarkI think Android initially was developed for devices with keyboards, Blackberry-like, but it's nice to see this wasn't lost.15:32
whitequarkstill, almost none apps are suited for users with keyboards.15:33
whitequarkand if I have to write stuff myself, I can as well get my Eclipse on my notebook and just implement what could be three lines of a shell script in several pages of Java boilerplate15:33
whitequarkthat would surely be faster and easier than doing essentially the same, but on the phone itself.15:34
virichttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw-CraEap-0 it's this film; about an elder, whose friends all have some kind of motorbikes because they can't walk anymore. He can walk, hasn't such a vehicle, and feels out of the friend gang. :)15:34
wpwrakwhitequark: then you're all set for proper development, and can use a language that's designed to get things done :)15:34
whitequarkwpwrak: like what? :D15:34
whitequarkI mean, it's hard to believe that you have just called Java a "language designed to get things done"15:35
whitequarkmore like "designed to wear out your keyboard", amirite? :D15:35
wpwrakwhitequark: you know the answer is C :)15:35
whitequarkha15:35
whitequarkI guess I would need to toss out Android then, as it only provides Java APIs for the stuff I want15:36
wpwrakcan't they have wrappers and such ?15:36
whitequarkthen I would need to write like two times the boilerplate just to expose the interfaces to C, *and* the C code15:37
wpwrakwrite the wrapper once, use it forever15:37
Action: whitequark nods15:38
whitequarkthat may actually be a good idea. not in order to use C, of course, but in order to enable things which can use the C ABI15:38
whitequarki.e. just about everything.15:38
whitequarkan Android port of Common Lisp recently made news. I've looked into the code. it's hilarious.15:38
wpwrakwell, common lisp is a bit of a practical joke :)15:39
whitequarkinstead of using the incredibly overpowered GPU on board, they let you either: render *all* graphics with a rasterizer written in CL, or just implement GUI in Java and business logic in CL15:39
wpwrakdon't get me wrong. i love the language. but it's not the kind of thing i'd burden myself with when straying outside the ivory tower15:40
whitequarkhmpf15:40
whitequarkthe technical aspects of that CL application *itself* (apart from android bridge) are satisfying15:40
whitequarkfast enough, etc, etc15:40
whitequarkbut social, I agree with you15:40
Action: whitequark glares at the OCaml source code of his compiler15:41
whitequarkfrom what I understand, there's a significant cost of going from Javaland to Cland on Android.15:42
whitequarkI've looked into it myself a while ago15:42
whitequarkit doesn't seem to make that much sense unless you're just tossing an OpenGL context to C and drawing some kind of game-like stuff in it15:43
whitequarkit has rudimentary built-in capabilities for handling input events and that's it. everything else you have to wrap yourself, and it's not easy nor cheap15:44
whitequarkso, unless your language can compile to Java bytecode, you're having a hard time.15:44
whitequarkbut! there's a lot of languages which compile to Java. Scala (the C++ of FP!), Clojure, OCaml, just from the top of my mind, work on it already15:45
whitequarkhm.15:45
whitequarkI may as well look into running ocamljava on android. That at least sounds like fun, unlike writing JAva15:46
wpwraki just wish those nand file systems didn't have that self-destruct-on-mount-failure feature :-(16:09
whitequarkdid you just kill something?16:10
wpwrak(tried to run a kernel on the ben that didn't have the nand layout change -> rootfs gone)16:10
whitequarkI'm sure you have an initrd with a shell handy :)16:11
wpwraknaw, it's usbboot time ..16:13
whitequarkyup, usbboot to a kernel with a shell, restore stuff16:15
whitequarkthat's how I did it on xz003216:15
wpwrakat least it's an idbg-equipped ben. no fumbling with the USB_BOOT contacts16:16
wpwrakhow do i restore a ubifs that's so badly damaged that it doesn't even mount ? and even if it's possible, do i really want to waste time on that ? :)16:28
whitequarkby restore I meant wipe and reimage :)16:32
pcercueiwpwrak: mkfs16:32
pcercueiheh16:32
wpwrakyeah, that's what i'm doing. reflash_ben.sh :)16:32
whitequarkwhat the hell, now Ubuntu supporters spam freenode with requests for donations16:41
pcercueifor their phone?16:42
whitequarkyes16:43
whitequarkhttp://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge ’ Risks and challenges16:44
whitequarkthat really reads as "we have no idea what we are doing. at all."16:44
lekernelwhitequark, what spam?17:13
lekernelI didn't see it17:13
whitequarkwasn't on this channel, sec17:32
whitequarkhttp://irclog.whitequark.org/ruby-lang/2013-07-26#4501362;17:32
lekernelI'm a bit skeptical of those claims that such projects "divert resources" from more interesting OSHW projects17:36
lekernelRPI = > 1 million units sold, and the software is not impressive17:36
lekernelthe resources such projects divert are probably not worth much anyway17:36
lekerneland I would not call this ubuntu gadget uninteresting. I'm not excited about the hardware of course, but if someone could make an embedded free software GUI with a great design, I'd call it progress.17:39
paul_boddiewhitequark: I guess that's the "Ubuntu Edge Referral Contest" in action.17:41
whitequarklekernel: they already made it18:13
whitequarkit's essentially regular desktop/netbook ubuntu running in an android chroot.18:13
whitequarkor do you mean th ephone GUI?18:13
whitequarkany of you seen a board like this http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/100-meggyjr, but in form of an arduino shield (yes, I know)18:15
whitequarkso, led matrix, buttons, possibly a speaker.18:15
whitequarkI found shields with any one of these but not with all of them.18:15
rz2k(yes, I know) - lol18:26
rz2k:)18:26
--- Sat Jul 27 201300:00

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