Root Access

Bob

13:00

@allquixotic No .fox :(

smc

)) only apple pie

Journeyman Geek

@JuanRocamonde: I own a model B

JuanRocamonde

@JourneymanGeek cool!

So the thing is, I want to make a robot

with it

Journeyman Geek

Kinda pondering a pi2 or a odroid c1

ahh, and?

JuanRocamonde

But actually a big one

like half the human size

smc

13:01

make sure you make it very slow and powerless. Otherwise it may take over the world

allquixotic

!!hv

JuanRocamonde

But I don't know if this is accomplishable with the raspberry Pi

ChatBot John Cavil

allquixotic

ignore me; I'm grumpy this morning ;p

Journeyman Geek

I suspect you'll need more than a pi ;p

JuanRocamonde

13:01

More than one?

Journeyman Geek

@smc: meh, just make it wheeled

JuanRocamonde

And how do I manage with that

Journeyman Geek

naw, other components

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Stair traps :D

Journeyman Geek

motor controllers and such?

smc

13:02

no. more processing power

JuanRocamonde

Cause I think motor controllers can't move the arms etc of the robot

Bob

@JuanRocamonde If you're expecting a step-by-step guide, this is really the wrong place.

"I want to build a robot" isn't nearly precise enough. What do you want this robot to do?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: I don't want to build a robot ;p

Bob

If you just want something to wave its hand, the majority of your job is making a frame/bodyshell for it.

JuanRocamonde

Just anything. Move around

Journeyman Geek

13:03

@JuanRocamonde: consider this

Bob

@JourneymanGeek tab-complete fail :P

JuanRocamonde

I just want to know if it will have enough power. Don't mind explaining me much.

allquixotic

@JuanRocamonde that's difficult to impossible to tell a priori

and why does it matter whether an rPi will have enough CPU/RAM/storage power anyway?

99.999% of your challenge will be related to the robot's hardware and code

JuanRocamonde

Ye

allquixotic

if you need a faster system at some point, you get a faster system

smc

13:04

Bob

@JuanRocamonde "robot" ranges from some dumb machine performing repetitive actions (which doesn't even require digital circuitry) to automated flight-capable machines that use a camera to recognise and navigate an environment

It's a massive range

JuanRocamonde

Ok I'll be more specific

Bob

It's like "I want to build a car with a bolt. Is it strong enough?"

2 mins ago, by Bob

If you just want something to wave its hand, the majority of your job is making a frame/bodyshell for it.

allquixotic

it also depends on how much overhead the code has

Bob

Adding the motor would be almost the last step. And even then it's probably going to be a basic servo.

allquixotic

13:05

higher level runtimes and languages and middleware layers decrease the amount of bang for your CPU/RAM buck

JuanRocamonde

A robot with basic movements, like moving with wheels and so on

allquixotic

if it's just a robot waving its hand, you can probably do that with raspberry pi even if you wrote it in Java or something

since that's a really, really simple action

Bob

You need something to control, before you care too much about what's going to control it.

Building a control system without a subject/target would be rather pointless.

JuanRocamonde

@Bob what do you mean?

Journeyman Geek

@JuanRocamonde: Lets say you had a motor. You'd need something that would supply power to the motor. With something that big, you probably need say, a H bridge and relays. Your raspi would end up controlling the relays

JuanRocamonde

13:06

I just wanna play around with it

allquixotic

anything dynamic where you're reading sensor data or driving fine-grained values at a high rate of change is going to require more power, but probably nothing an rPi2 couldn't handle

Bob

@allquixotic You could probably do that with a fully analog circuit.

@JuanRocamonde Get a Lego Mindstorms kit.

JuanRocamonde

@allquixotic so I will need a separate power input for the motors and another for the RPI?

smc

@allquixotic so I will need a separate power input for the motors and another for the RPI?

allquixotic

I'm not talking about power in terms of energy; I'm talking power in terms of computation power

Journeyman Geek

13:08

@JuanRocamonde: If you need to ask that...

smc

after that question...

Journeyman Geek

You need to do your homework

Bob

You don't seem to intend to put much effort into the rather complicated job of building the hardware from scratch.

smc

@JuanRocamonde Get a Lego Mindstorms kit.

perfectly valid suggestion. and not insultin by any means

Journeyman Geek

Feeding say, the power for a wheelchair motor... would end up with a nice charred raspi.

JuanRocamonde

13:08

@JourneymanGeek it just depends of the weight of the pieces

Bob

...do we have an echo in here? :P

Journeyman Geek

...

smc

yes

allquixotic

(yes)

smc

I just reposted the suggestion to use Lego Mindstorms kit.

JuanRocamonde

13:09

Ok thank you all for your attention

Bob

@JuanRocamonde Again: think about the hardware first.

Journeyman Geek

yeah. I think mindstorms or some smaller kit would be a good place to start.

JuanRocamonde

Ok! :P

smc

In fact I feel tempted to buy one for myself

Bob

Not even - think about what you want it to do. When you build from scratch, you need a purpose.

smc

13:10

can anyone tell is that bad?

Bob

If you just want to play around as an absolute beginner - stick with kits.

JuanRocamonde

@Bob it is just to play around with it

In my free time

allquixotic

@Bob sounds like my decision to !!hv earlier was spot on

JuanRocamonde

Nothing but experimenting

smc

what is !!hv?

Bob

13:10

@JuanRocamonde If you just want to play around and start with absolutely no plan or idea, you'll get absolutely nowhere.

JuanRocamonde

so I ask

Bob

Get a kit. Follow guides.

JuanRocamonde

@Bob yes making a robot :-)

allquixotic

Set a goal

Bob

Starting from scratch needs a plan.

@JuanRocamonde That's far too vague.

allquixotic

13:11

!!tell 20833465 no

ChatBot John Cavil

Bob

"I want a robot that looks like X and can do Y" would be better, but still vague.

In fact, forget the word "robot".

JuanRocamonde

😂😂😂😂😂

Bob

You just want a machine that does something.

JuanRocamonde

The typical robot as pointed in the kit someone up there was suggesting

allquixotic

13:12

you have to make a specification, at least in your head, or ideally on paper, for what you are trying to achieve, in detail, in terms of functionality.... even if you are just experimenting

Bob

@smc I have a Mindstorms kit. It's nice for beginners - you can experiment a lot, and it's pretty easy to build the sample designs and modify them.

JuanRocamonde

google.es/…

Bob

And the control brick is pretty versatile if you chuck custom firmware on it.

Actually, we even ended up using it in a Uni-level introductory engineering course.

allquixotic

if you don't want to design the specifications yourself then get a kit and follow guides; it won't be creatively your idea but you'll acquire knowledge of the technology and how to do it

Bob

@JuanRocamonde There's no such thing as a typical robot.

allquixotic

13:13

which might end up eventually giving you ideas for how to make one from scratch

Bob

It's like saying "the typical animal" - it's such a wide range it's not even funny!

Journeyman Geek

yup.

smc

@Bob, I am full-time employed microelectronic engineer. I do engineering for life... I still want to buy that Mindstorm kit... Is that wrong?

Bob

You have androids, that look and behave kinda like humans. You have automated arms, from prosthetics to manufacturing. You have automated vacuum cleaners. Automated warplanes. And far more.

It's such a massive range.

Journeyman Geek

robot dogs snort

allquixotic

13:14

at its core, a robot is basically some kind of physical contraption that moves and does so through some kind of logic or programming, which doesn't even specifically have to be digital (but in these days often is)

Journeyman Geek

@smc: heh. Naw.

JuanRocamonde

@Bob I mean a humanoid robot

Bob

@smc The great thing about lego is how easy it is to take the same pieces and move them around for something new.

JuanRocamonde

Clear now?

Journeyman Geek

@JuanRocamonde: let me put this to you. darpa is working on a half sized humanoid robot, and its not quite there yet

allquixotic

13:15

humanoid adds a ton of complexity -- a ridiculous amount, really -- if you want it to behave in any way that is even vaguely resembling human behavior

Journeyman Geek

Walking on two legs is hard

JuanRocamonde

Humanoid not too humanoid

allquixotic

*sigh*

HV indeed. going to work.

JuanRocamonde

Not walking, id replace them with whells

wheels

the rest would be the same

Journeyman Geek

Then its not human

Seriously

@allquixotic: I agree :/

JuanRocamonde

13:16

Ok I do not know how to describe

Journeyman Geek

@JuanRocamonde: That needs to be your starting point

JuanRocamonde

What? the fact of describing?

Journeyman Geek

Yes!

Then designing

then working out the motory bits

JuanRocamonde

Ok, I'll clear my doubts and indecision out and ask for more help when I'm done

Thank you all for your support

Journeyman Geek

13:49

looks like the new surface and surface pro 3 are out?

Or am I just behind the times ;p

microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/pdp/Surface-3/…

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Uh. Last was Surface 2 and Surface Pro 3

Thoguht they weren't planning to do a Surface 3

o.o

Journeyman Geek

Oh, they did?

Bob

oh new theverge.com/2015/3/31/8317597/…

Journeyman Geek

and new gen atom proc?

Bob

Except the Surface 3 is an x86 (Atom), not ARM

Journeyman Geek

13:56

yup

Sathya

14:51

hello, April Fools

Journeyman Geek

;p

Bob

Welp. There it goes.

Someone went and restarted it.

I give up.

Journeyman Geek

lol

Bob

Protip for anyone trying (based off what PCCG seems to be doing): get Qs high, then As high, don't worry about empty, always act on warnings

smc

can anyone explain what !!hv is?

Bob

15:00

!!tell 20836946 hv

ChatBot John Cavil

Journeyman Geek

@smc: its a chat bot trigger

!!;p

ChatBot John Cavil

@JourneymanGeek That didn't make much sense. Maybe you meant: ;p

smc

does it come up with a random picture every time?

ekaj

Since school wants to screw me one last time before I graduate, does anyone know where I can find a decent database management class online?

Journeyman Geek

15:05

naw

they're pictures/commands people added to the bot

smc

is allquixotic managing that bot?

allquixotic

@smc yep

lol, stackegg is multiplayer

Bob

@allquixotic it's fun-ish until someone comes along and wipes out hours of progress by restarting it -_-

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic It's also chaotic

Might be a social experiment

allquixotic

@Bob it takes a voting majority to restart

Bob

15:14

@allquixotic When it's just you and one other person, and they win the 50% toss twice...

allquixotic

I'm playing it on StackOverflow with 69 other people

no restarts happening with that many

Bob

@allquixotic I kinda wanted to have SU win at least one game

but it looks like that isn't happening

smc

I still did not figure out how to play it

Bob

we'll finish this at the bottom of the leaderboard :P

20 mins ago, by Bob

Protip for anyone trying (based off what PCCG seems to be doing): get Qs high, then As high, don't worry about empty, always act on warnings

@allquixotic Apparently Cherry Trail is only ~5% faster than Bay Trail... better graphics though.

6

Q: What is the optimal strategy for the launched site in Stack Egg?

The Stack Overflow instance in particular seems pretty poor. How should it be done to achieve the best performance? How is there such a difference between different sites?

stack-egg

LOL

Oliver Salzburg

Two times already today, I got weird interference noises in my speakers and my currently viewed document scrolled up

Bob

15:23

@OliverSalzburg Pretty sure you live near/are the target of some government psychological experiment to see how much frustration a person can take before defenestration of either the person or their equipment occurs.

Oliver Salzburg

I think it's because I'm resting my phone on my computer today

The first time it happened I thought it was a coincidence

allquixotic

@Bob yeah, probably going to get a full scale laptop at some point instead of piddling around with low-end boxen

Bob

@allquixotic Low end?! Don't you have a SP(1)?

allquixotic

I want an ASUS rig with a GTX 980M for over $3k that's on my employee pricing site, but don't have the money for it obviously :P

probably waiting for Skylake and whatever latest Radeon/Nvidia and then buy that

Journeyman Geek

lol

Bob

15:27

o.o

And here I am buying one with an 860M -_-

Then again, I need to worry about my desktop GPU before my laptop one!

Journeyman Geek

isn't sure what he needs to upgrade ;p

Bob

@allquixotic I thought you preferred AMD GPUs?

allquixotic

I'm still pining after the Holy Grail, aka not having a desktop but running a high-end laptop

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: !!!

allquixotic

one that's hopefully portable in a wheely suitcase ;p

gotta wait for the right moment to strike at that, though

Journeyman Geek

15:30

(eh, considered that, but my laptops barely gets any use, especially since I use a workstation at work)

@allquixotic: My dream laptop for that's the blade

and its not huge

allquixotic

Skylake; the successor to Maxwell (or the successor to the Radeon R9-290X, haven't decided); 32 GB or more of DDR4; SLI or Crossfire in a laptop; 2 x 2 TB SSDs...

Journeyman Geek

lol

in that case it'll be a clevo ;p

Bob

@allquixotic If you don't mind 17", your main issue is probably the storage.

smc

ok. all of you quickly get involved in the stack egg. we cannot afford to have 0 score. SU myst win the internet at least once before the end of the day

Bob

Well, that and not being able to run Star Citizen :P

Journeyman Geek

15:32

Prolly worth waiting for pascal if you're going nvidia.

allquixotic

@Bob yup, but I don't need 8 TB, and can settle with 4 with RAID-0

Bob

@smc I already gave up after the last reset.

allquixotic

@Bob 2 x 980M in SLI will run star citizen fine, imho

Journeyman Geek

and whatever craziness dx 12/vulkan is bringing

Bob

@allquixotic What about say 2 TB in SSD space with LAN/NAS storage at home?

smc

15:32

why do resets happen?

Bob

@smc Because some dumbass clicks reset twice in a row.

allquixotic

@Bob maybe, except my "LAN" is the smartphone-of-the-month :P

Journeyman Geek

lol

smc

is it someone consciously sabotagin the game?

Journeyman Geek

maybe.

allquixotic

15:33

we just need more people to keep a reset from occurring

Bob

@smc Not sure if it's intentional sabotage, or someone who thinks "YOU STARTED WITHOUT ME I MUST RESTART IT"

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: heh. I got an email from my ISP about the Samsung S6

Bob

Actually, it's not very clear in the beginning that it's multiplayer.

smc

yep

Journeyman Geek

1.2K for a off contract phone 0_0

smc

15:34

took me a while to figure it out

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek $1200 USD? oh, right, Singapore

Journeyman Geek

I'll stick to my mid/low end stuff ;p

SGD

allquixotic

I'm not interested in the S6 anyway

Bob

@JourneymanGeek The trick is not getting the S6.

It sucks anyway.

Journeyman Geek

that's still more than I'm willing to pay for a phone ;p

allquixotic

15:35

it's basically a Moto phone with delayed Android updates now

yeah, the S6 is an epic fail

everything that made the "S" good is gone

Bob

Samsung had a good thing going... annnnd ruined it.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Prolly the next phone will be a one plus, if its available here, or some moto.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek One Plus has some pretty serious QC issues :\

allquixotic

if they make the Note 5 so that the battery can't be replaced and remove MicroSD, I'm going to somehow get myself into Samsung HQ and flip over every table I see

then meet the CEO and blast at him, "What were you THINKING???????????????????"

Bob

Moto is now associated with Lenovo and therefore anathema.

Journeyman Geek

15:36

Or whatever my next phone company has reasonably, since I may jump ship if myrepublic starts doing phones

@Bob: Xiaomi's hw is alright, price is good, but they skin their android apple style.

allquixotic

damn, stackoverflow is winning the internet

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Hm. CM?

allquixotic

they have Qs and As up to 4 hearts

Journeyman Geek

Donno, new phone is a year or two away. The moto G is awesome.

allquixotic

Xiaomi also has Chinese backdoors in the firmware :P

Journeyman Geek

15:37

@Bob: maybe, but I try not to reflash until my next phone ;p

Bob

@allquixotic As opposed to the US backdoors in other phones? :P

allquixotic

@Bob Unproven ;)

Journeyman Geek

;p

Bob

One day US and Chinese backdoors will clash and brick every phone.

Or create Skynet. One of those.

Journeyman Geek

Well, I plan purchases ahead

Bob

15:42

@JourneymanGeek Ok finally starting to use the full Pistons :P

Still considering the 3.0 ones... someone slap me

The chocolate smell is a bit strong though.

Journeyman Geek

lol

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Did you get the brown ones?

Journeyman Geek

I didn't really notice the smell on my silver ones

nope

And I only got one pair ;p

Bob

@JourneymanGeek There's no smell on those :P

The brown ones have a chocolate smell in the cable.

Journeyman Geek

chocolate's not for dogs anyway ;p

Bob

15:44

It's interesting, and kinda nice, but now feels gimicky :P

Journeyman Geek

I would have waited if I'd known the 3.0s were coming out

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Probably same here :P

But it wasn't widely announced until ~~last~~ this week.

Ah well.

Journeyman Geek

;p

(but the pistons are good)

Bob

True. And 3.0 might be worse.

@JourneymanGeek Which size cone are you using? :P

Journeyman Geek

16:18

The one the headphones came with

tried the triflanges but didn't like em

didn't try the other 2

Bob

@JourneymanGeek ...they had tri?

HackToHell

16:46

Blah I have a Windows 8.1 Pro N license key and I have Windows 8.1 WMC Installed

allquixotic

16:56

OMG

StackOverflow is close to winning the internet

Bob

17:10

so close

@allquixotic halp on SU egg? :D

need to keep answers/downvotes at max, but someone keeps voting upvotes

urk

nooooo another person joined voting upvote

come on so close and we're gonna fail again -_-

...oh come on not again

...I give up

...just checked in, whoever was voting against me has managed to lose all three traffic hearts we had

urk

oh more users now

yay, probably even fewer can figure out the requirement!

allquixotic

@Bob :(

Bob

@allquixotic help us! :P

allquixotic

too tired atm, lol

Bob

people keep trying to raise the users count... except it's completely useless :(

allquixotic

hehe

jokerdino

17:23

what is going on?

Bob

@jokerdino april fools thingo

2 hours ago, by Bob

6

Q: What is the optimal strategy for the launched site in Stack Egg?

The Stack Overflow instance in particular seems pretty poor. How should it be done to achieve the best performance? How is there such a difference between different sites?

stack-egg

jokerdino

Oh. It's already April.

allquixotic

wow, 73 users playing on SO

Bob

some numbskull keeps trying to raise users even when it's not lowest

probably thinks upvoting feels good

this isn't real SE, it's a game and it can be gamed now help us game it please :P

allquixotic

it took SO 468 days to win the internet

Bob

17:29

we're on 380 and I swear someone is sabotaging us by voting the least useful

great, users somehow got to 4

this reminds me of twitch plays pokemon

KD8NXH

17:48

what linux distro would you guys recomend for use on a low resources vmware player VM?

Bob

@KD8NXH How low, and what will it be used for?

I had Lubuntu working with 256 MB of RAM to use as a terminal & SSH client

Debian's default desktop environment didn't like the RAM limit. Works with 512 MB though.

KD8NXH

about 500 mb ram

allquixotic

I use Fedora 21 on a VM with 4 GB :P

Bob

@allquixotic One week till new laptop with 16 GB RAM :D

allquixotic

@Bob nice!

Bob

17:52

Then I can expand these VMs a little

allquixotic

I'm pretty sure I'd rather have a 17" with all the bells and whistles (and GPUs, and SSDs) than to have a Surface Pro 4 and a desktop

Bob

=> logicalblueone.com.au/store/… => + 16 GB RAM + 750 GB HDD + spare battery + Win8.1Pro

allquixotic

literally taking my desktop with me when I go places... well, somewhat cumbersome, but nothing that a suitcase on wheels can't solve

Bob

= ~$2000

KD8NXH

@Bob I would like to do some linux distro development with linux from scratch

Bob

17:53

@allquixotic Yea, 17" is too big. Even 15" is a bit bigger than I'd like.

Though I'm not too sure about that res on 13"... text is gonna be tiny :D

@KD8NXH As in, you want to create a distro?

In that case... why are you asking for a distro recommendation? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of "from scratch"?

KD8NXH

yes, more or less.

Bob

@allquixotic Always Intel wifi cards when I can :P

They're consistent, and the drivers don't suck.

KD8NXH

no it does not when i need a vm based platform to built the lfs on @Bob

Bob

@KD8NXH Wouldn't more resources help, then?

KD8NXH

my laptop only has 3 gb ram

Bob

17:56

ouch

yea, that's not an environment I'd run VMs in o.o

KD8NXH

yep

Bob

considered dual-booting?

KD8NXH

did that a few times and didnt like it

@Bob about how much ram does lubuntu use normaly

Bob

@KD8NXH I squeezed it into 256 MB.

I don't think it booted the graphical environment in 128.

You can get Debian into 128 if you do a text-only minimal install.

If you want a graphical environment, you'll have a hard time getting it lower than 256.

TinyCoreLinux might work but it's more limited than standard distros

KD8NXH

what about kubuntu?

or xubuntu?

Bob

18:02

KDE is heavy.

Xubuntu might work but it won't be much lighter than Lubuntu, if any

That Brazilian Guy

@KD8NXH Lubuntu 14.10 w/ Firefox running uses ~ 240 MB

KD8NXH

@ThatBrazilian WOW thats great

That Brazilian Guy

I was just talking it to a coworker 5 min ago ;P

KD8NXH

what about linux mint?

That Brazilian Guy

I have no experience with it

KD8NXH

18:13

debian?

@Bob what about opensuse?

DragonLord

18:33

@KD8NXH openSUSE is actually fairly heavy

KD8NXH

@DragonLord what do you mean by fairly?

DragonLord

Has relatively high memory and disk requirements even for a minimal installation.

KD8NXH

leds then 500 mb ram? @DragonLord

Bob

18:52

@allquixotic If you're planning to get a 17" laptop... are you going to lug it around? :P

Also, those seem a little big to actually use on your lap (or in bed)... they're more something you set up on a proper desk

rlemon

19:29

@Bob I "lug" around my 17"

fits in my lap fine.

haven't tried it in bed.

ioSamurai

anyone seen anything like this before superuser.com/questions/896359/…

allquixotic

@Bob ya

Michael Frank

19:50

@Bob Got that Win key I was looking for. Took about 20 minutes for the guy to respond to my PM with payment instructions. $35AUD for a Win 7 Ultimate key.

KronoS

20:11

we suck at the stackegg game

Psycogeek

@ioSamurai these thing shouldnt/usually dont start flashing even unless the flash was designed for the hole it is going into :-) nowdays any flashing should be careful enough to verify prior that it would fail before beginning to destruct :-)

Then your flashing tool here looks all GUI in the OS style, and IF there are a lot of problems flashing it is often the "windows" in system methods that are more likely to have problems. and the cruddy boot to a bootable USB type stuff dos like methods are usually recommended. . . with much of this stuff cross brands even.

The question itself needs the hardware/motherboard that your doing listed in the question, if you do solve it, it would really help others searching for the same thing. The software used for the flash should also exist in (at least) the answer too.

DragonLord

@KronoS I got this under control.

Psycogeek

It certannly would not have to be a malware or virus issue to have BullPuckey like this happen :-)

Psycogeek

21:23

"I believe that the problem is that the power connector was connected to the X-Dock backwards" (#8: forums.hexus.net/chassis-mods/… ) Poster #8 claims the plug is reversible. Check the pinouts on the dock power plug? — Yorik 24 mins ago

Ouch!

Psycogeek

22:20

superuser.com/questions/896423/… what a mess, direct to chat i might start a "help session" to attempt to provde clues which can assist the person into fixing thier own computer. But answer is out, and comments would be extended, and could very well be wrong some of the time.

I percieve that something like this well documented situation, well written question (minus the unnessisary bolding) becomes a candidate for tossing. with no respect for the user or the time spent writing it.

It is a progressivly added errors by the user , one minor problem (which does not seem minor when it happens to you) then complete freak out mess trying to fix it.

Journeyman Geek

22:59

@Bob The L for me is flanged

Psycogeek

23:42

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290486.php Your computer could be killing you! "If these chips overheat, they could catch fire. TBBPA and TCBPA stop this from happening. " And they have taken all the fun out of it too :-)

We should request that they put back the magic fire, and the ability to run really fast when it happens.

DragonLord

StackEgg: We need to give priority to questions where possible to stabilize the answer stat.

Psycogeek

The study was supported by a $375,209 grant , concluded that Zebrafish should not be using computers

Wait a minute, why would zebrafish computers have to have a fire retardant on them anyway?

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