Cheer Up, Long Distance Relationships Girl!

I hate smartphones!!!!!!!!! I am a big fan of small and silly electronics but the modern smartphone is a devilspawn consumption machine. it is small and serious and seriously unsilly and seriously EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for a while I've been thinking about what I'd want out of a smartphone replacement device. a seriously silly tiny portable computer of some kind, with support for all manner of communication peripherals. I'm not a hardware person in the slightest so some of this may be talking out of my ass lol. and obviously this whole list is sort of excessive but that's why it's a wish list and not a send it to the build team, David! list

I'm envisioning something modular-ish where there's a central computer unit that can talk to a bunch of peripherals over a bus of some kind.

as far as the main body goes, here's what I'd like:

• physical keyboard, full qwerty. but like a nice one that feels good to type on. digital diary type shit
• multi-line text display. 4 rows minimum? but 8 would be nice. ideally this would be an LCD with togglable backlight, but an e-paper screen with some kind of lamp works too. whatever uses the least power and can be had cheaply
• like I said, pluggable architecture. I want it to be as easy as possible to add peripherals to this thing, or replace them. doing this in a way which avoids a lot of custom fabrication will be difficult.
• very low active power draw. ideally the device would be effectively turned off 99% of the time, but 100+ hours of user interaction per-charge would be great. battery life will obviously be hampered by a cell module or some such, and this does not take that into account
• operating system in some kind of minimal high-level environment, like a forth or j2me. this is primarily to facilitate swapping the CPU or other hardware details at any time. a minimal machine code kernel should take care of details like bootstrapping the system, and provide primitives for hardware interaction. the high-level code should not rely on implementation details of the CPU or kernel.
  • following from this, a complete programming environment. once the device is to a point of bare usability, I want to be able to do all OS development on the system itself.
• around 1mb of RAM. I can't imagine honestly needing more for the purposes of this device
• at least 16mb of primary flash storage. this is for user code. the kernel/interpreter will live on an eeprom or some such and boot from this.
• at least 1gb of secondary flash storage. this is primarily for scrollback, and would ideally be user-swappable (CF or SD card?)
• a reasonable amount of weatherproofing
• decent enough audio hardware, and a fast enough bus, to be able to handle voip and cell calls

and then, the modules themselves!

• the obvious inclusions are bluetooth, wifi, and cell. the reasoning for the second 2 is manifest, the first is primarily for connecting to an earpiece of some kind. after all, this device /will/ do calls.
• lora, specifically for meshtastic purposes. having my own gateway that relays messages from various text protocols over it seems like a good idea, with cell internet and wifi as fallbacks. this is the ideal communication system due to the ultra-low power draw.
• various forms of serial, though this might be better accomplished in software with GPIOs. having the device able to operate as a dumb terminal or UART probe seems extremely handy.
• irda. because i mean. hhghhghgrugnoerungnngnnnnghhhhhh

so yeah that's it! be interested to hear any additions or comments. I'm probably at least a year out from even beginning to make this thing, but it's nice to write down ideas.

I've been ~aleteoryx, toodles

[the next entry] might be in a week or in a month!

how about 2?

I am a computer toucher! sometimes I touch hyperlinks!! here are some hyperlinks I have touched!!!

well if the JVM is so good why isn't there a JVM tw-

Uxn is a specification for a simple stack-based instruction set. how simple? the minimal reference implementation of a VM is 151 lines of C89. it is tiny. the assembly language for it is called Uxntal.

Varvara is a specification for various input and output devices to be used by Uxn programs.

because of how simple it the architecture is, it has been ported to everything from windows to the GBA. the SDL2 emulator barely uses resources on my 9front laptop.

it's cool, and, despite the limitations(64k of RAM, 256b of stack), people have made high-quality software for it. there are multiple images editors and music trackers.

if you're not a technical person:

you can just download an emulator and throw roms at it like it was a retro console. there are a couple of games for $5 on the creators' Itch page, and people in the community have also made other software (some command-line knowledge may be necessary to build them). if you are technical, check out the docs! have fun!

what youtube was made for

Will it Rat? - Tinsel is one of the best things I've seen all week. it's just a guy in front of a camera trying to make a crochet rat out of tinsel. yes, the christmas stuff.

it's great. manifestly. it's the type of ridiculous low-budget casual video youtube was made for, and it's wonderful. give it a watch!

a cat video. it's the internet, after all

they give a kitten a raw steak. if you think this needs more explanation you are wrong. enjoy!

furry porn. it's the internet, after all

alicetherat is a youtube channel archiving auctions for the art of Brian Swords. for a time in the late 80s/early 90s, he would give his art to WITF-TV's Gallery 33, a show auctioning the work of local artists in Pennsylvania.

that's not why I'm including this.

I'm including this because, as the header implies, Swords's art is, in fact, furry porn. it's not bad, either. the auctioneers really don't know what to say, and it's pretty funny.

if this at all sounds familiar, it's probably because John Oliver did a segment on it a bit ago.

a really good blog

ludicity -- no, not lucidity, read it again -- is a blog mostly about the software industry. usually about problems. usually from personal experience. it's probably the best addition I made to my RSS reader last year.

ludicity has strong opinions on the industry, articulates and justifies them well, and tends to voice them in colorful terms. it's really goddamn funny sometimes.

"Why do you think some of the engineers are struggling?", they ask.

"I'm sure you understand exactly how it is," I lie, "it just takes a lot of work to perform at a high level, and sometimes people fall behind."

"Yes, absolutely", they laugh, "I study on LinkedIn for up to two hours a day after work sometimes[1]."

We are not the same.

[1]: This is honest-to-God a real quote from a real human being.

the most recent article, at time of publishing, is Brainwash an Executive Today, and it's a good read.

home of the lucky 10,000

this section draws its title from an XKCD, although, I doubt 100% of the population have an interest in Windows internals, but this blog is critical if you do. I think every competent Windows developer has probably heard of it.

The Old New Thing is a long-running blog by Raymond Chen of Microsoft. it's mostly about C++ and Windows internals (something I have a passing fascination with), and is generally very interesting. most low-level or historical Windows questions have an answer somewhere on that blog.

and that's it!

next post coming eventually idk im busy!

toodles!!

Just a list of some of my favorites! Specifically the ones that are good as a hook, for one reason or another.

• Stories by SAINT MOTEL: Find the meaning of life and kill it
• Taking What's not Yours by TV Girl: I don't know if she cares or not / All I know is she left a lot of stuff in my apartment / that she's never getting back
• Army by Ben Folds Five: Well I thought about the army / Dad said "Son, you're fuckin' high"
• Locals by underscores: I've done the questionnaire like 700 times / to get the same results as my friend / We've been inseperable since 2009 / She just doesn't know 'bout it yet
• Elevator Man by Oingo Boingo: I ride my elevator through the shafts of your heart
• Cuyahoga Canal by The Taxpayers: When you commit / unforgivable crimes / there is a house / in which to hide / at this house / there are guns inside
• Neighborhood Watch by Mike Krol: You better watch your back / Cause I'm coming for you
• The Mariner's Revenge Song by The Decembrists: We are two mariners / our ships' sole survivors / in this / belly of a whale
• DEBT COLLECTOR by Jhariah: It's all catching up to you now, hope you can run / 'cause soon your past will come and drag you / down-down

It was hard picking just one Ben Folds song for this, he has such good opening lines lol. I may be forced to make a Ben Folds-specific list.