#robotics Logs

Aug 18 2017

12:00 AM rue_house: I wonder if I should start doing electronics stuff in my room again too
12:32 AM anniepoo: this is a nuisance for us - there's an old computer used to drive the 3D printer in the electronics lab
12:32 AM anniepoo: but the lab's a less pleasant place to work on programming than my desk
12:32 AM anniepoo: and I have a good computer at my desk
12:33 AM anniepoo: so I find my desk getting cluttered with electronics projects
12:33 AM orlock: anniepoo: i have the same issue
12:33 AM orlock: except swap electronics lab for "the shed outside"
12:33 AM anniepoo: well, what I should do is buy a good computer for the electronics area
12:34 AM SpeedEvil: Or what limits the computer
12:34 AM SpeedEvil: perhaps just various remote acess
12:34 AM orlock: hmm i cannnot pick the lock on the IT filing cabiner
12:34 AM anniepoo: but even then, all my 'stuff' is on this compputer
12:34 AM anniepoo: yes, Speed
12:37 AM orlock: anniepoo: i have some crap pictures of my latest project
12:37 AM orlock: http://en.crypt.net.au/Controller/IMG_2134.JPG http://en.crypt.net.au/Controller/IMG_2135.JPG
12:38 AM anniepoo: right now I have the test rig for the touch sensor, pomatia's innerds - and an extra monitor for the RPi3, and a work related board all up at my desk
12:38 AM anniepoo: whoo!
12:38 AM orlock: DIY quadrature encoder wheel and optical sensors i never used in my printer
12:38 AM orlock: and a pot for throttle
12:39 AM orlock: arduino collects the encoder and pot data, and sends it via serial to the ESP8266
12:39 AM anniepoo: I see bluetooth enaled whatsits mcu, and some anodized or 3d printed parts
12:39 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:39 AM orlock: which then streams the data via UDP to a python script, which will then use it to control a sumo bot
12:39 AM orlock: It's wifo, not bluetooth
12:39 AM orlock: wifi
12:39 AM orlock: but, easy mistake
12:39 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:40 AM anniepoo: well, I see annio-tennas
12:40 AM anniepoo: and 2nd piccy shows 3D printed parts
12:40 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:40 AM orlock: yup. It's hard to tell, but that bolt runs through the middle of an encoder wheel
12:40 AM orlock: the two red PCB's are the optical pickups
12:41 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:41 AM anniepoo: yup, that I got
12:41 AM anniepoo: 8cP spending all my time on work project - building a visualization system for the anomalometer
12:41 AM orlock: anomalometer?
12:41 AM orlock: anemometer?
12:42 AM anniepoo: yes, anomalommeter. I'm annie and I'm an anomalometrist
12:42 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:42 AM anniepoo: ok, you know the phenomenon where your car 'sounds different' and even though you don't know why
12:43 AM orlock: bearings fucked, wheels about to fall off
12:43 AM anniepoo: you know you need to head to mechanic, or next week you'll be having it towed in
12:43 AM orlock: yup
12:43 AM anniepoo: you're realizing your car is operating anomalously
12:43 AM anniepoo: turns out there's algorithms that are a heck of a lot better at this than humans are
12:44 AM anniepoo: 8cD my boss invented said algorithm
12:44 AM anniepoo: 8cD this is my day job
12:44 AM anniepoo: we tend to install it on ginormous machines on offshore oil rigs and stuff
12:45 AM anniepoo: we also use it to watch a lot of sand for the Saudi's
12:46 AM anniepoo: 8cD that's my day job
12:47 AM anniepoo: =8co
12:49 AM anniepoo: Oh I'm Annie the anomalous anomalometrist, I'm anomalously enameling my enanthate...
12:49 AM anniepoo: I make lots of anomaly metrics, and always in Oregon state!
12:49 AM anniepoo: ba dum
12:54 AM orlock: anniepoo: isnt that what Palantir does?
12:54 AM orlock: or something similar
12:56 AM anniepoo: 8cD
12:56 AM anniepoo: Shhh.....
12:56 AM orlock: anniepoo: actually i think we (and by that i mean the parent company of my direct employer) are doing that as part of an IoT push
12:56 AM anniepoo: yup, they're basically an NRO contractor
12:56 AM anniepoo: Oooh
12:56 AM orlock: so they can examine all sorts of device metrics and determine which ones are indicative of an impending failure
12:56 AM anniepoo: 8cD we do that
12:57 AM anniepoo: 8cD We're experts at doing just this
12:59 AM anniepoo: Palantir does a lot of looking for cyberwarfare stuff
12:59 AM orlock: we make things ranging from printers to centrifuges, lots of rotating/moving parts
01:00 AM orlock: Yeah, also finance and other things.
01:02 AM orlock: Somehow two kids i went to school with ended up there
01:02 AM anniepoo: palantir's a place I could be working.
01:02 AM anniepoo: I'd rather not be, but this sort of spy stuff is a constant in logic programming
01:02 AM orlock: They are pretty picky about applicants - i remember seeing the job ad, to even bother applying they wanted a degree in maths with a distinction or whatever
01:02 AM orlock: but not just ANY degree
01:02 AM orlock: it had to be from one of the top ranking universities in your country
01:02 AM orlock: the way they work, they actually have the mathematicians/engineers deployed working on site with the clients
01:03 AM orlock: to interface with the software, normalise the data input, etc
01:04 AM anniepoo: 8cD some of these places don't like that I have a record. I'm one of the 'Moscone 3'
01:06 AM orlock: anniepoo: eh, i got turned down for a previous job largely due to associations with Certain People that would have prevented me from getitng clearance
01:06 AM orlock: that once-known as SAIC, now Leidos
01:07 AM anniepoo: wait, SAIC's a CIA contractor?
01:08 AM anniepoo: Reston, VA?
01:08 AM orlock: Well, i'm in a different country.. but from what i understand they are a major intelligence/defense contractor
01:09 AM orlock: but here they have similar contracts i think
01:09 AM anniepoo: 8cD
01:09 AM anniepoo: yup - why's that a negative?
01:10 AM orlock: anniepoo: because i'd been in contact with somebody who is notorious for not keeping secrets
01:11 AM anniepoo: ah
01:11 AM anniepoo: hmm
01:11 AM orlock: anniepoo: Google doesnt know about the moscone 3, or anything it does know is overwhelmed by Harvey Milk, etc
01:11 AM anniepoo: yah
01:12 AM anniepoo: three of us were arrested for graffiting the Moscone Center during the 1993 APA convention
01:13 AM anniepoo: HBIGDA (organization for shrinks who "provide care" for trans people - assholes)
01:13 AM anniepoo: was having it's annual meeting about 6 weeks after. After all the disruption, they got the message that what they were doing needed reexamining
01:14 AM anniepoo: and while it's still far from ideal, it's much better
01:14 AM anniepoo: I understand the lead slide of the keynote at HBIGDA that year had my handwriting on it, about 4 ft high
01:15 AM SpeedEvil: the psych field is so broken in many ways
01:15 AM anniepoo: So, this was known as the 'Moscone 3' for years.
01:17 AM anniepoo: ok, I'm headed home
01:17 AM anniepoo: and yes, psych's incredibly broken
01:17 AM orlock: but not an evil death cult!
01:17 AM SpeedEvil: Damn near in some places.
01:18 AM SpeedEvil: They've been gaslighting my disease for 30 years now in the UK, and effectively killing people. (through bad science causing them to worsen to the state of being house or bed-bound)
01:19 AM orlock: hmm i think it must vary greatly from country to country then
01:22 AM SpeedEvil: Also - yay - large pillar drill almost setup, so I can get going making shop-frame.
01:24 AM SpeedEvil: (first revision of shop will not have aforementioned robotic legs alas)
01:25 AM orlock: here we usually cause those a drill press
01:25 AM SpeedEvil: yeah
01:25 AM orlock: i got a crap one for my 40th
01:26 AM orlock: and a mitre saw thing
01:26 AM orlock: havent used either :-\
01:26 AM orlock: (its been 6 months)
01:29 AM orlock: i should have bought a telescope instead :-\
01:30 AM SpeedEvil: If you want clouds.
01:30 AM orlock: yeah, i know all about that
01:31 AM orlock: 2 weeks of clour for every inch of aparture i think the rule of thumb is
01:31 AM SpeedEvil: Add a suitable quadcopter is the alternative :)
01:34 AM orlock: hmm quadcopter as an equatorial mount would be interesting
03:25 AM Jak_o_Shadows: rue, like the connection. How am I going to have the repgorammable nice in a case?
03:28 AM Jak_o_Shadows: I feel somewhat productive
03:29 AM Jak_o_Shadows: I uploaded somebody elses Matlab code (*shudders*) to github so it's easier to find.
03:29 AM Jak_o_Shadows: (It's LGPLv3).
03:29 AM Jak_o_Shadows: That way future people won't spent a couple of days searching for it
05:23 AM Luminax-Work is now known as LuminaxWk
10:06 PM * Jak_o_Shadows tries to do i2c
10:07 PM * Jak_o_Shadows doesn't put the pullup resistors in