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“So, what was the issue?”

Engineering, Software Development, Thoughts on Thoughts

So, we were debugging a common ground issue today at a in the amazing Helios Makerspace in Montreal.

We got as far as we could ourselves (debugging one common ground problem, and tracking the data signal through one board and on to the second), then we got stuck. We tried a bunch of things, but it was only when the came in, and determine it was two problems: A second common ground problem, combined with the first (Arduino) board having too many outputs and so not outputting a high enough voltage.

The really interesting part (aside from learning again how important common grounds are) was watching the engineers in the room (the people who were building things, perhaps or perhaps not engineers) all run over as soon as the problem was solved and someone asked the question “So, what was the issue?”

Anytime someone is agonizing over a problem for hours, there is bound to be some learning for those around…Thinking about this from a min/maxing perspective, someone spends hours solving the problem, then you spend 2mins learning about the solution, and then you add it to your list of things to try/check when debugging, taking maybe 30s to possibly reduce your own debugging time by hours.

Moisture Levels

Analysis, Idle Speculation

Some different moisture levels, ranked in order.

Dry:

Dessicated
Bone Dry
Super Dry
Dry
Wit
Not Dry
Dampish

Slightly Moist:

Damp
Slightly Moist
Firedamp
Moistened

Moist:

Moist
Slightly Wet
Wettish
Humid
Steamy
Slick
Muggy
Glistening
Clammy
Dank
Oozy
Dewy

Wet:

Drizzly
Wet
Drippy

Very Wet:

Dripping
Irriguous

Apres Moi:

Rainy
Sodden
Water-logged
Deluge

Flavour Text I:

Character Classes, Fiction, Games!

“Nard was born with golden horns on her head. Mocked because of this throughout her childhood, she retreated into herself. Later in life, she credited this ability to focus for her success as a summoner.”

“Sven’s indomitable will was only challenged once, when he heard of the untimely passing of Boo, while saving his partner Minsc.”

“Elim has always been a shadowy character, especially since his pact with the Daedra caused his eyes to glow red at night.”

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Fantasy_Empires_1993 (CharGen)

Dinorama

Idle Speculation, Puns

“It is well known that ‘Diorama’ is a portmanteau of ‘Dinosaur’ and ‘Rama’, from a story about a model made to describe an unusual visit to places near lake Couchiching.”
“‘Portmanteau’ being a French portmanteau of ‘Door’ and ‘Coat’, similar to ‘Dovecoat’ (or ‘Dovecote’ as it is sometimes written).”

BoF III: Keybeards and Bagpopes:

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Music, Puns

S Writes:
“But see, if they play the pipes near other people, they’ll be arrested.”
“Arrested? By whom?”
“… by the Scottish bagpipe police?”
“Piffle! No such thing! In fact, there is a Scottish bagpipe brigade whose job it is to ensure that the pipes are played often and loudly. They must conform to the exacting standards set forth by the…”
(at this point, B blows up my pantleg, and I pause.)
“… Bagpope.”

“The Bag Pope?”

“Imagine the mass! Every parishioner plays the pipes, and the church has to be burned to the ground after every service.”
“Wait, why? Does it seep into the stones?”
“IT IS RUINED.”

BoF II: Some one-liners from 2014

Character Classes, Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Puns, Thoughts on Thoughts

(Along with some selected* comments.)

“Chaotic Justified. That’s my alignment. -S”
J: “Do you tab indent every third line?”
Me: “It’s more that I tab indent a number of spaces equal to the strange attractor?”

“Church bells: A peal to authority.”
Me: “Perhaps more specifically: ‘Church Bell Arguments’.”
Me: “http://mzonline.com/bin/view/Python/ChurchBellsSketch/”

Almost a Koan:
“Is Evening Performance when you balance something on top of an evening?”
M: “or light the evening on fire and spin it around”
K: “Every response merely encourages him!”

“New idea: Name one of the rooms in your home ‘Metonymy’.”
S: “That’s where we’ll store the literary theory!”
K: “Based on the amount of my mortgage that I’ve paid off, I figure that I own whichever room of my house that I am currently occupying.”
K: “I get metonymy and synechdoche mixed up.”
L: “The only example I can remember from highschool english re: metonymy is breadwinner. Does the aforementioned room provide earnings and sustenance for the rest of the domicile?”

“Sometimes unceasing horrible noise is its own reward.”
J: “That would explain your presence in bands in high school. Har har.”

*Generally from those who were playing along. If you have issues with my editing, tell me! 😀

BoF I: “The Zero-Body Problem”

Science!, Space!

The zero-body problem:
29 October 2010 at 18:58

“It might be noted here, for the benefit of those interested in exact solutions, that there is an alternative formulation of the many-body problem, i.e., how many bodies are required before we have a problem? G.E. Brown points out that this can be answered by a look at history. In eighteenth-century Newtonian mechanics, the three-body problem was insoluble. With the birth of general relativity around 1910 and quantum electrodynamics in 1930, the two- and one-body problems became insoluble. And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many!” — Richard D. Mattuck, A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1845884&cid=34068552