[Arm-netbook] first prototype microdesktop casework

[David Niklas]

On Mon, 8 May 2017 06:15:10 +0100

I apologize for DOS'ing the list, I can only get online about once a
week.
On Sat, 29 Apr 2017 12:42:29 +0100

On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 6:08 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/micro_desktop/news/

ok, ouch, onto the fourth revision of the corner-pieces already, and
some minor changes to the plywood are needed as well. this really
would have been awkward if someone else did it.
the anycubic 3d printer is holding up well. the higher-quality PLA
from the company i found on aliexpress seems reasonable so far (the
"standard" quality definitely isn't: it literally crumbles under
pressure).

<snip>
Luke, (I can call you Luke, since you sign your name that way, right?)
PLA stands for Poly-Lactic-Acid and if they are selling you something
else you can complain, if not sue for false advertising. That's why we
label things, so that we know what they are, right? So one PLA aught
to be the same as any other. Aluminum is aluminum, titanium is
titanium, why is PLA not PLA?

it's partly down to where the lactic acid comes from: like any
chemistry you get a different yield and a totally different
composition depending on the process, the purity and the ingredients.
most companies use corn for the raw materials, and they don't process
(purify) it properly. the result is that the PLA gives off acrid
fumes, deforms under pressure, does not adhere properly (to itself...
which is kinda important) and is generally completely fucking useless
for well... everything to do with 3D printing.

Is there a way to tell how good a company is with their PLA? Price would
not seem to make a big difference since companies can just charge lots of
moo-la even with a poor product.

<snip>

ok, i'd like you to do a test. take a small piece about 5cm long and
bend it very very fast, as quickly as you can, making the loop as
small as you can (8mm or less if you can).
good PLA will snap.
shit-quality PLA will discolour, going light-coloured.
another test - a really really important one - is to make a long
rectangle (35mm high x 5mm x 10mm would probably do) - the height is
important - then clamp one end to a desk. on the other end suspend a
weight tied with string as close to the end as possible. make the
weight... let's say.... 0.5kg or so. not very much. now leave it for
a month.

<snip>

Like this?

+-+ <--- Rectangle
| |
+DESK++-+W <--- Weight
| |
| |
| |


Thanks,
David

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[David Niklas]

On Mon, 8 May 2017 18:51:21 +0100

I own a Reach3D printer. It's an all aluminum housing and z axis gear
printer. I'm still in the construction phase, but if me and my caliper
(it's auto-calibrating but I want it perfect :) work well together
then I should be printing sometime around the 21st. I could help you
with my printer at limited expense (unless something big happens in
my life :)

one piece of advice: buy some printbite, stick it to the aluminium
plate (after cleaning it - do follow PRECISELY the instructions for
printbite installation). better, get a MK3 (aluminium) bed plate,
because having a MK2 not in full contact with the aluminium is a pain
(uneven heat distribution and transfer). i've currently stacked some
cardboard underneath to make the MK2 stop bowing downwards...
*sigh*...
printbite will stop a world of pain in both making prints stick and
also getting them off. but *read and follow the instructions*.
l.

Actually, I was thinking of using a lokibuild sheet (another kickstatr?
thing (seems I have lost the link...)):
here is one of the right size?
https://shop3duniverse.com/collections/accessories/products/3d-universe-lokbuild-3d-print-build-surface

Thanks,
David

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by David Niklas
Actually, I was thinking of using a lokibuild sheet (another kickstatr?
here is one of the right size?
https://shop3duniverse.com/collections/accessories/products/3d-universe-lokbuild-3d-print-build-surface

looks like it's worthwhile investigating - but it is still new.
printbite has been around for years and is a known proven quantity.

interestingly in the comments of the kickstarter it looks like the
particular properties of printbite are down to thermal expansion.
i.e. the surface expands and contracts, having thermal characteristics
that lead it to contract at well below the glass point of PLA (or
other material).

thus, as it cools it shrinks enough to "pop" the object off the bed.

which is kinda cool.

l.

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[David Niklas]

On Tue, 30 May 2017 03:41:07 +0100

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by David Niklas
Actually, I was thinking of using a lokibuild sheet (another
here is one of the right size?
https://shop3duniverse.com/collections/accessories/products/3d-universe-lokbuild-3d-print-build-surface

looks like it's worthwhile investigating - but it is still new.
printbite has been around for years and is a known proven quantity.
interestingly in the comments of the kickstarter it looks like the
particular properties of printbite are down to thermal expansion.
i.e. the surface expands and contracts, having thermal characteristics
that lead it to contract at well below the glass point of PLA (or
other material).
thus, as it cools it shrinks enough to "pop" the object off the bed.
which is kinda cool.
l.

Well, I might get a little of both and tell you how it works out.

David

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[David Niklas]

On Mon, 8 May 2017 16:38:22 +0100

Is it common to do something like this against a person?

in the unethical business world? of course it is! mostly you don't
get to hear about it, but software libre developers are different.
they're not beholden to anyone, they're not corporate slaves, they're
not controlled and they are entitled to speak their mind.
consequently they get attacked. especially if some fucker deems that
their "profit" is threatened.
for example: there was some discussion back in 1999 as to whether
microsoft would ever take out a contract on my life, when i was doing
the reverse-engineering of NT domains. consequently i decided that
the research that i was doing had best be presented responsibly to
them as "security vulnerabilities", presented PRIVATELY to them (as a
responsible security researcher does) and only later disclosing them
if they didn't fix the problems in a reasonable timeframe.
and that's why ISS hired me. the strategy that i deployed worked.
one microsoft employee actually called ISS up asking them to fire me.
ISS declined, pointing out that i was quite likely to get very pissed
off, and would they prefer me inside pissing out or outside pissing
in? they're absolutely right: i would have worked really really hard
to release one devastating public zero-day security vulnerability -
with full exploit code - every few days for several months, if they'd
fucked with me.

<snip>
I am just a tad confused.
1. You started a reverse engineering project on NT domains.
2. You presented your success to MS as a security problem.
3. You were hired.
4. Someone in MS complained.

So, the FLOSS folks never saw your work anyway?

Thanks,
David

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by David Niklas
I am just a tad confused.
1. You started a reverse engineering project on NT domains.
2. You presented your success to MS as a security problem.

and also a collaboration and interoperability opportunity (which
worked extremely successfully).

and it also galvanised them to do a proper documentation effort.
basically there wasn't any. at all. the code had been organically
develeped by engineers that were getting on for retirement age. as
they were the only ones left who understood the security implications,
they began a rather urgent process called the "CIFS Initiative" to
document the protocol so that their *own engineers could understand
it*.

frickin funny, really.

Post by David Niklas
3. You were hired.
4. Someone in MS complained.

some fuckwit in the brain-washed marketing department, yes. what's
hilarious is that microsoft's own employees - the ones with good
reputations and standing - had to tell this particular specimen of
brainwashed fuckwittery, "you _do_ realise what this one individual
could do to our company if you ever pissed him off??"

:)

Post by David Niklas
So, the FLOSS folks never saw your work anyway?

they did.... and they resented it, very very badly. the so-called
leaders of the samba team *really* did not like the fact that i knew
more than them about MSRPC, and that the work that i spearheaded
increased the codebase of samba at the time by a whopping THIRTY
PERCENT.

so they engineereed a way to get me out.

by 2003 someone in the FLOSS community tracked my work on Exchange
5.5 reverse-engineering, copied it, reimplemnted it, and did not tell
anyone that i was the one who had done the reverse-engineering.

20 years later samba is considered to be a failure. samba 4 was
something like 10 years in the making, and yet failed to deliver.
companies that had held on to samba 3, which the samba developers
STOPPED work on because they didn't understand it properly, were
struggling to keep it up and running and were totally incensed when
samba 4 was finally released and was even worse and even harder to
configure.

they pushed me out and FLOSS has suffered as a result, because the
complexity is so high it's beyond their ability to cope.

l.

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Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by David Niklas
I am just a tad confused.
1. You started a reverse engineering project on NT domains.
2. You presented your success to MS as a security problem.

and also a collaboration and interoperability opportunity (which
worked extremely successfully).
and it also galvanised them to do a proper documentation effort.
basically there wasn't any. at all. the code had been organically
develeped by engineers that were getting on for retirement age. as
they were the only ones left who understood the security implications,
they began a rather urgent process called the "CIFS Initiative" to
document the protocol so that their *own engineers could understand
it*.
frickin funny, really.

Post by David Niklas
3. You were hired.
4. Someone in MS complained.

some fuckwit in the brain-washed marketing department, yes. what's
hilarious is that microsoft's own employees - the ones with good
reputations and standing - had to tell this particular specimen of
brainwashed fuckwittery, "you _do_ realise what this one individual
could do to our company if you ever pissed him off??"
:)

Post by David Niklas
So, the FLOSS folks never saw your work anyway?

they did.... and they resented it, very very badly. the so-called
leaders of the samba team *really* did not like the fact that i knew
more than them about MSRPC, and that the work that i spearheaded
increased the codebase of samba at the time by a whopping THIRTY
PERCENT.
so they engineereed a way to get me out.
by 2003 someone in the FLOSS community tracked my work on Exchange
5.5 reverse-engineering, copied it, reimplemnted it, and did not tell
anyone that i was the one who had done the reverse-engineering.
20 years later samba is considered to be a failure. samba 4 was
something like 10 years in the making, and yet failed to deliver.
companies that had held on to samba 3, which the samba developers
STOPPED work on because they didn't understand it properly, were
struggling to keep it up and running and were totally incensed when
samba 4 was finally released and was even worse and even harder to
configure.
they pushed me out and FLOSS has suffered as a result, because the
complexity is so high it's beyond their ability to cope.

You're sounding like libv here ;-)

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
l.
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[David Niklas]

On Tue, 30 May 2017 03:36:24 +0100

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Post by David Niklas
I am just a tad confused.
1. You started a reverse engineering project on NT domains.
2. You presented your success to MS as a security problem.

and also a collaboration and interoperability opportunity (which
worked extremely successfully).
and it also galvanised them to do a proper documentation effort.
basically there wasn't any. at all. the code had been organically
develeped by engineers that were getting on for retirement age. as
they were the only ones left who understood the security implications,
they began a rather urgent process called the "CIFS Initiative" to
document the protocol so that their *own engineers could understand
it*.
frickin funny, really.

Post by David Niklas
3. You were hired.
4. Someone in MS complained.

some fuckwit in the brain-washed marketing department, yes. what's
hilarious is that microsoft's own employees - the ones with good
reputations and standing - had to tell this particular specimen of
brainwashed fuckwittery, "you _do_ realise what this one individual
could do to our company if you ever pissed him off??"
:)

Post by David Niklas
So, the FLOSS folks never saw your work anyway?

they did.... and they resented it, very very badly. the so-called
leaders of the samba team *really* did not like the fact that i knew
more than them about MSRPC, and that the work that i spearheaded
increased the codebase of samba at the time by a whopping THIRTY
PERCENT.
so they engineereed a way to get me out.
by 2003 someone in the FLOSS community tracked my work on Exchange
5.5 reverse-engineering, copied it, reimplemnted it, and did not tell
anyone that i was the one who had done the reverse-engineering.
20 years later samba is considered to be a failure. samba 4 was
something like 10 years in the making, and yet failed to deliver.
companies that had held on to samba 3, which the samba developers
STOPPED work on because they didn't understand it properly, were
struggling to keep it up and running and were totally incensed when
samba 4 was finally released and was even worse and even harder to
configure.
they pushed me out and FLOSS has suffered as a result, because the
complexity is so high it's beyond their ability to cope.
l.

I'm shocked.
I've met so many nice people, like you, working on FLOSS projects...
Just out of curiosity, did you ever consider developing a new version of
samba that works right, just for fun and kicks?

Sincerely,
David

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
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Post by David Niklas
I'm shocked.

yehh don't be - that's people for you.

Post by David Niklas
I've met so many nice people, like you, working on FLOSS projects...
Just out of curiosity, did you ever consider developing a new version of
samba that works right, just for fun and kicks?

i did... but with so much mindshare invested, and how much effort it
takes (3 years to correctly implement the network neighbourhood for
example and that's *just one sub-system*) i figured i had better
things to do.

l.

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[David Niklas]

On Mon, 8 May 2017 09:42:36 +0200

I apologize for DOS'ing the list, I can only get online about once a
week.
On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 13:58:57 +0100

<snip>

I think/hope FPGA's are more efficient for specific tasks then
CPU/GPU's

you wouldn't give a general-purpose task to an FPGA, and you
wouldn't give a specialist task for which they're not suited to a
CPU, GPU _or_ an FPGA: you'd give it to a custom piece of silicon.

I always thought that FPGA's were good for prototyping or small fast
tasks... But that's just how I learned about them.

Don't think of what you were thought. Think of what you can do which has
not been thought.
The world outside the box is bigger than the on inside the box ;-)

Don't I know :)

Linux Linux
+-------+ Linux
| | Linux
|WINDOWZ| Linux
| | Linux
+-------+ Linux
Linux Linux

in the case where you have something that falls outside of the
custom silicon (a newer CODEC for example) then yes, an FPGA would
*possibly* help... if and only if you have enough bandwidth.
is... an insane data-rate. it's 470 MEGABYTES per second. that's
what the framebuffer has to handle, so you not only have to have the
HDMI (or other video) PHY capable of handling that but the CODEC
hardware has to be able to *write* - simultaneously - on the exact
same memory bus.

<snip>
1920*1080*60*4 ==
497,664,000
You're off by almost 30 MiB.

497,664,000 ~= 498 MB (Units of 1000)
497,664,000 ~= 475 MiB (Units of 1024)

<snip>

\me embarrassed.

Sincerely,
David


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[David Niklas]

On Mon, 8 May 2017 06:24:08 +0100
<snip>

important to avoid, because mixed analog and digital is incredibly
hard to get right. also note that things like HDMI, SATA, and even
ethernet are quite deliberately NOT on the list. Ethernet RMII
(which is digital) could be implemented in software using a minion
core. the advantage of using the opencores VGA (actually LCD)
controller is: i already have the full source for a *complete*
linux driver.

Considering that analog was around *long* before digital I'm surprised
that it is "Hard to get right",

analog isn't "hard". digital isn't "hard". specifically *MIXING*
them is ultra-hard.

is there a reason for this?

completely different processes and design criteria. the restrictions
(design rules) placed on digital ASIC layouts have to be adhered to in
the *analog* areas: you can't just change the stack to suit the analog
areas. i don't know the full details, but i know someone with 30
years experience of working with ASICs who does.

Isn't there a chip for just this kind of thing?

no. not a custom one... and we're taking custom ASICs.

Forgive me for contradicting you again, but don't all computers that have
a MIC in jack using some sort of analog to digital converter?
And vice-versa with Headphone out?
I think they all use PCM.
Would such a converter be suitable? Why?


Thanks,
David


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Post by David Niklas
On Mon, 8 May 2017 06:24:08 +0100
<snip>

important to avoid, because mixed analog and digital is incredibly
hard to get right. also note that things like HDMI, SATA, and even
ethernet are quite deliberately NOT on the list. Ethernet RMII
(which is digital) could be implemented in software using a minion
core. the advantage of using the opencores VGA (actually LCD)
controller is: i already have the full source for a *complete*
linux driver.

Considering that analog was around *long* before digital I'm surprised
that it is "Hard to get right",

analog isn't "hard". digital isn't "hard". specifically *MIXING*
them is ultra-hard.

is there a reason for this?

completely different processes and design criteria. the restrictions
(design rules) placed on digital ASIC layouts have to be adhered to in
the *analog* areas: you can't just change the stack to suit the analog
areas. i don't know the full details, but i know someone with 30
years experience of working with ASICs who does.

Isn't there a chip for just this kind of thing?

no. not a custom one... and we're taking custom ASICs.

Forgive me for contradicting you again, but don't all computers that have
a MIC in jack using some sort of analog to digital converter?
And vice-versa with Headphone out?
I think they all use PCM.
Would such a converter be suitable? Why?

Crosstalk

Plug in your headphones in a laptop and listen to computer hard at work.

The speed of current digital signals makes them behave like analog signals.
And as such analog signals interfere with the digital signals.

With cables you can use shielding to mitigate that. On PCB's and inside IC.
That's a lot harder because of their stacked nature.

Post by David Niklas
Thanks,
David
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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

another test - a really really important one - is to make a long
rectangle (35mm high x 5mm x 10mm would probably do) - the height is
important - then clamp one end to a desk. on the other end suspend a
weight tied with string as close to the end as possible. make the
weight... let's say.... 0.5kg or so. not very much. now leave it for
a month.

<snip>
Like this?
+-+ <--- Rectangle
| |
+DESK++-+W <--- Weight
| |
| |
| |

no. like this:

+-+++++++-W <--- Rectangle with Weight attached to the end
| |
+DESK++-

l.

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