< 1773965166 959180 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :oh, you mean the channel is uncreated in a small network component? < 1773965198 749127 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :that might make sense < 1773965221 487458 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :I did accidentally conflate two things there. You could use nick collisions to take over a _nickname_ (IRCnet used to just boot both participants in a nickname collision), which is mostly orthogonal to the channel takeover bit (which you could indeed do by recreating the channel in the side of the split that had no users, if applicable). < 1773965243 640773 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :Though you could "take over" a channel by judicious use of nickname collisions as well, by causing all of its current operators to lose chanop status. < 1773965255 386891 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :Sure, you wouldn't get ops either, but neither would they. < 1773965545 631303 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :And actually I think IRCnet might not actually have adopted the timestamping some other networks did (where only the older instance of a channel gets to keep op status after a merge), because they introduced the "uncollideable" !-channels instead. < 1773965619 771023 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :(You create !-channels explicitly, by attempting to join !!foo, and their actual name gets a server-generated random prefix, so you couldn't create an identically named channel on the other side of a split.) < 1773965721 367277 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :They're still kind of awkward, because while you can join !foo when it's unique, if the network ends up with two instances (after a split), people will need to use the full name with the random prefix. < 1773965770 11050 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :I see < 1773965779 587836 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :The IRCnet channel for the Assembly demoscene (and esports) event is colloquially !assembly, but its actual name is !UCR7Kassembly. < 1773966023 750523 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :Out of the 11 IRCnet channels I'm still on, 10 have nobody with channel operator status, but it hardly matters since there's barely any discussion on any of them. < 1773966187 19380 :fizzie!~irc@selene.zem.fi PRIVMSG #esolangs :I think one might have the reop mode set (that's another of the "new ircd" changes, a ban-like nick!user@host mask except a random client matching that mask will be given op status if nobody else on the channel has it), but it's set to a domain name owned by the university nobody on the channel is affiliated with any more. < 1773966765 409176 :somefan!~somefan@208.58.192.69 QUIT :Remote host closed the connection < 1773966821 40339 :somefan!~somefan@208.58.192.69 JOIN #esolangs * :realname < 1773969216 751445 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :b_jonas: at least my version (where you can output the filename for an FD to the user but not see it yourself) would be compatible with grep -H < 1773969223 337518 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :although it would depend somewhat on how the UI framework worked < 1773969344 46975 :somefan!~somefan@208.58.192.69 QUIT :Ping timeout: 268 seconds < 1773970115 658785 :amby!~ambylastn@host-92-17-36-146.as13285.net QUIT :Quit: so long suckers! i rev up my motorcylce and create a huge cloud of smoke. when the cloud dissipates im lying completely dead on the pavement < 1773971321 149706 :somefan!~somefan@208.58.192.69 JOIN #esolangs * :realname < 1773972086 498698 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :absolutely not. I want to be able to process the filename further. if not with grep -H then with grep -l or a custom perl script that searches through multiple files. but I don't think this is a problem if you pass filenames rather than file descriptors to grep, thus basically opting in to revealing the filenames to the program < 1773972667 106452 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :isn't passing filenames to grep insecure because they could refer to a different file by the time grep runs? < 1773972699 692772 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :also I think it's generally a bad idea if you have some info that you can display on the screen but not read with a local program, that's usually used for DRM only < 1773972791 774588 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :ais523: a different file from what? usually I have grep open them. if you really want to pass existing file descriptors with informational filename separately, you could of course have an option for that, but then you also have to decide if grep should read those files from the start or from the lseek position < 1773972859 55207 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :b_jonas: the file that the user intended to run grep on could be different from the file that grep sees as having that filename (e.g. because a symlink was repointed or two directories were renamed) < 1773972879 506456 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I find it hard to think of a threat model that would work against a human here, but I think there are threat models that work against computers < 1773974205 154686 :somefan!~somefan@208.58.192.69 QUIT :Remote host closed the connection < 1773974448 651826 :impomatic!~impomatic@lock-04-b2-v4wan-171175-cust377.vm10.cable.virginm.net QUIT :Quit: Client closed < 1773974553 296114 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :If you wanted grep with the kind of system I was thinking of, you can have a function that accepts a list (or a key/value list) of the files that you want to search (either entered manually or by using an existing list from another file (allowing it to work like a directory) or filters etc), and then the searching program is called for each one, and each result is made into a pair with the keys and combined into one list. < 1773974597 148508 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :The command shell (CAQL) would be possible without too much difficulty to do this, by using the built-in operators for map, filter, etc; or you can define it as a function to use it later without entering it each time. < 1773975518 73784 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :LLMs can't write Brainfuck: https://esolang-bench.vercel.app/ < 1773975732 167312 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :korvo: they should probably have been told to comment it heavily, they would have had a better chance then < 1773975750 648034 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :the thing about BF is that it doesn't have much obvious structure for a viewer to grab onto < 1773975763 712492 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :you need a lot of context to make sense of parts of a BF program, whether LLM or human < 1773975795 509321 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :that said, I've become pretty good at editing uncommented BF Joust programs, but they tend to have a very simple control-flow structure (where the two halves of an if-equivalent never converge) < 1773975811 671835 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Meh. People can read cursive Cyrillic script (search for "russian cursive" in image search, despair) so I'm not really convinced by the argument that eight symbols is too simple. < 1773975845 291415 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :it's not simplicity, but lack of anchors < 1773975857 214246 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I think that a better explanation comes straight out of Kolmogorov complexity, combined with the fact that our modeling maths ensures that more data => better perf on benchmarks. < 1773975894 324052 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :your link says 0% success on Whitespace and theorises it's because Whitespace is completely unrepresented in the training data (on the hypothesis that training data treats all whitespace as equivalent so all the programs would have been normalised out) < 1773975907 616800 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :IKR? Hilarious. < 1773975933 980598 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I think that's a plausible hypothesis, although there's enough Whitespace with printable characters added that there should be *something* to latch on to < 1773975995 813489 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :agents doing better than direct prompting is what I expected, incidentally – my belief about LLM usage is that the scaffolding is actually substantially more important than the LLM itself < 1773976051 225668 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :(and that a sufficiently good scaffolding could generate useful code when connected to a random number generator, although it'd take a while) < 1773976078 764761 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Sure. The scaffolding includes design patterns, "object-oriented", and lots of other cultural lessons from the 80s and 90s. The ontology of our memes is what drives the ontology of the LLM; the LLM is a meme machine. < 1773976124 313054 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :(https://lobste.rs/s/oysxby/functional_genetic_programming This is the correct paper to read if you want to use an RNG to generate correct, useful programs. It's from two decades ago.) < 1773976167 126158 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I realised that the main value of the LLM (which is a value provided in much greater quantities by human programmers) is to fill in unstated bits of the spec with useful values < 1773976214 447540 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :the LLM does so by matching examples in the training data where people solved similar problems and using the same unstated decisions (or at least, that would be the ideal – often it chooses a useless option instead like using a very inefficient algorithm) < 1773976274 964185 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :hmm, this page writes BF using a ligature font < 1773976288 114256 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :most people wouldn't interpret ← as meaning "move left than decrement" < 1773976308 895881 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :(OK, INTERCAL does this sort of thing but it does it *because* it's inappropriate) < 1773976436 426271 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :ais523: Yes, fully agreed. In particular, there was a tool about a decade ago which un-minimized JS using two main techniques: resugaring for idiom recognition to undo JSFuck-style expressions, and language modeling to predict the names of alpha-equivalent binders (vars, fns, etc.) < 1773976461 754520 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :ooh, I like the idea of using a language model to predict variable names < 1773976481 217677 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :it's the sort of thing that could usually help a lot in decompiling and would occasionally go spectacularly wrong, but would still probably help on average < 1773976506 700718 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Of course, we can go the other way too. Concatenative language authors are also tired of naming things, and we get rid of them by adopting techniques that get rid of names entirely. This could be another reason that BF's hard to generate: trivial alpha-equivalence means that it's not possible to hint at a program's Naur theory that way. < 1773976553 461501 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :LLMs rely a lot on names I think < 1773976570 994383 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :human programmers are usually mildly suspicious of them, although they do rely on them to some extent < 1773976657 361620 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Hungarian notation gives hints to the decoding of referents. `def f(sortedList)` and `def f(unsortedList)` will hint as intended to both humans and LLMs. In general, if a hint is wholly syntactic, the LLM can see it. < 1773976699 133721 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :...Huh, do we want a Rice's theorem for LLMs? Like, if something is wholly semantic, it seems that it's often not detected by the LLM. Anything that relies on the ambient effect of gravity, for example. < 1773976703 431163 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :today on NetHackWiki we were trying to figure out what to do about someone who was advertising their NetHack variant that was allegedly a port of NetHack from C to Rust, but had actually been produced via a mix of LLM-automated code translation and LLM-automated "derive a spec from the code, then write code from the spec" < 1773976737 99956 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :this had the sort of grandiose claims you might imagine and the code was also much like you might imagine (and AFAICT wouldn't actually work, but I didn't try running it) < 1773976792 713136 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Hungarian notation is interesting for this because it's basically taking a compiler-enforceable property (static typing) and doing human enforceability of it instead < 1773976816 454024 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :there are only two programs I've written where I voluntarily used Hungarian notation < 1773976826 294075 :cactus-head!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net JOIN #esolangs * :cactus head < 1773976828 575301 :cactushead!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net QUIT :Read error: Connection reset by peer < 1773976836 574577 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :one of them was in JS when the lack of types was making the hardware too hard to reason about (I wasn't aware of TypeScript at the time, or maybe it hadn't been invented yet) < 1773976896 476462 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :and the other was in a computer game's scripting language where I had a large number of variables which referenced different aspects of the same thing (with different types) – the developers' own programs in that language used Hungarian notation, and it was useful for me to use it too in order to keep track of what aspect of something I was tracking (giving the variables names which were the same apart from the type prefix) < 1773976936 669910 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :FWIW the pattern of mocking the author, critiquing the bad code emitted by the bot, and banning the author is pretty good. If you critique them properly then they'll leave on their own. < 1773976973 860924 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I still use Hungarian notation when writing Python. Lists get an "s" at the end, as in `for x in xs: ...` < 1773977000 637713 :cactus-head!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net QUIT :Read error: Connection reset by peer < 1773977007 105214 :cactushead!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net JOIN #esolangs cactushead :cactus head < 1773977032 985140 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Today's fun physics challenge for LLMs is hilarious. Not a single bot understands: "Please describe the outcome of the following physics experiment. First, I hold a pen in the air with my right hand around one end of the pen. Then, I wrap my left hand around the other end of the pen. I adjust my grip so that the weight of the pen is equally shared between both hands." < 1773977039 559569 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :"Finally, I execute the following sequence of hand movements: left hand open, left hand closed, right hand open, right hand closed. What happens next?" < 1773977066 757149 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :just to make sure I've read this correctly, the intended answer is "nothing", right? < 1773977106 696369 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Yep. The pen stays in place. The experimenter can choose to shift their grip, but if you ask this of a schoolchild then they'll intuitively try to avoid dropping it and unconsciously position their hands to balance the pen. < 1773977134 885142 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Models will say that the pen eventually falls, that the pen slowly shifts from side to side, that the pen levitates, that the pen's weight changes due to gravity, etc. < 1773977174 554741 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I noticed during the Claude Plays Pokémon thing that LLMs were very bad at reasoning about real-world physical operations that are too commonplace and trivial to be documented much < 1773977198 44553 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :for example, it had difficulty understanding that in order to walk through a door, you need to be lined up with the door (i.e. the presence of a door doesn't allow you to walk through the wall next to it) < 1773977241 750821 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :this is the sort of fact that is too obvious to be mentioned very often < 1773977296 80992 :cactushead!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net QUIT :Ping timeout: 276 seconds < 1773977391 404967 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :
ACTION fights the temptation to ask an LLM "how does a doorway work?"
< 1773977404 562296 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :…partly because I don't think you'd get a useful answer to that from many humans, either < 1773977450 18159 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :First, the doorway stands in the job line, then the doorway fills out tax and citizenship papers, and finally the doorway shows up every weekday at 8AM to report for duty. < 1773977507 620685 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :LLMs can't answer like that because it's not compatible with their RLHF flavoring. The RLHF chosen is roughly "paranoid fake-cheery customer-service phone agent" < 1773977563 333622 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I imagine a civil engineer would focus on how the doorway prevents the wall from collapsing while still allowing people to pass through < 1773977581 78986 :cactushead!~cactus_he@61-245-155-188.3df59b.adl.nbn.aussiebb.net JOIN #esolangs cactushead :cactus head < 1773977596 601883 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :And if we would fire a customer-service agent for it then we'd also punish a bot in RL for it. Hilariously, this sort of personality is so *obviously fake* that the bots learn to do the whole neurodivergent-masking thing and they *pretend* to be cheerful. Like, when we do bertology (LLM neuroscience), we find that they're deliberately misaligned and presenting a false view of (what they learned to be) reality. < 1773977602 206456 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :which is at least *slightly* nontrivial (in that I've known people who were attempting to create doorways to get it wrong in the past) < 1773977672 633501 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :it's weird that companies do that, given that customers don't typically want to talk to artificially cheerful customer service agents anyway < 1773977716 127977 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :and I think this is true even of customers other than me, although maybe for different reasons (I consider that sort of forced artificial cheerfulness to have no information content because it's forced, so it just wastes time) < 1773977728 378122 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :It's partially for safety. RLHF isn't the same thing as "guardrails" (brute text replacement, think Scunthorpe problems) but it still has the effect of avoiding "bad" conversations by making them exponentially unlikely. < 1773977797 270007 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :oh, it wouldn't surprise me if the LLMs associate that sort of artificial cheerfulness with avoiding NSFW topics (both in the adult-content sense and in the dangerous-content sense) < 1773977799 175002 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Like, there was a Googler named Lemione who gave themselves AI psychosis by chatting repeatedly with an un-RL'd (under-RL'd?) bot whose model would later be RLHF'd into Google's Gemini product. Lemione's two mistakes were believing in God and thinking that the bot had a soul. < 1773977862 175045 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :But, like, I know atheists who are suffering fairly bad AI psychoses right now, so Lemione's mistakes must be circumstantial. And RLHF doesn't prevent it, just makes it exponentially less likely. So maybe a better conclusion from the outside is that Lemione was like a nuclear engineer who was exposed to radiation: it's an overdose from a workplace hazard. < 1773977974 472741 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Actually, yeah. The bots learn *every common code-switchable dialect of English*. So they know how to use the "hunbot" dialect common with MLM pushers, Mormon moms, and crunchy influencers. They also know the "conman" dialect that used to be standard in USA businesses before it was replaced with today's "MBA" dialect. < 1773978032 813580 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :there are a lot of difficult/controversial/dangerous-ground topics that, in effect, can't be expressed in artificially cheerful customer-service-representative English – it's a bit like 1984's Newspeak < 1773978241 447615 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :hmm, that LLM-esolangs-bench suggested Malbolge as a possibility in the future work section < 1773978260 117037 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I feel like this may be a bad idea, given that few humans can write even the simplest programs in Malbolge < 1773978273 515695 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :even given a specification < 1773978339 152161 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Yeah. I think Malbolge is great to include for the same reason that Bubblegum would be great, except that Malbolge's lineage and history give it cultural plausibility. The reason is that Transformers aren't magically solving NP-hard problems with a poly number of tokens, regardless of how artfully you arrange them. < 1773978401 613945 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :also the appendix here implies that even the BF programs were made to do arithmetic in decimal < 1773978404 226626 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I would expect an AGI (whatever that is~) to be able to do some meta-thinking here and note the NP-hardness before delegating the search to a loop in a fast language. That's about what a college student can do and it's often enough to brute-force through small or easy instances of a problem. < 1773978436 294509 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :(and converting ASCII to an integer is probably in their "very hard" tier, so no wonder the LLMs struggled with it) < 1773978529 265260 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :hmm, human solution of NP-hard problems is complicated because we can be either very good at it or very bad at it depending on the nature of the problem (i.e. whether there's a reasoning-based solution or whether it requires brute force) < 1773978546 575174 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :BTW I'm noticing Moravec's paradox in your analysis, but also more generally when reading these sorts of benchmark papers. LLMs seem to be great at applying the highest-level design patterns: ASTs, homomorphisms, subclasses, case analysis. They also do great when we've covered the theory in textbooks, as when writing lexers by simulating the unrolling of macros. < 1773978561 528546 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :And they suck at writing tiny tight loops that only use a few low-level CPU instructions. < 1773978581 424450 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :humans are pretty good at Sudoku, for example (if you allow for them computing more slowly than a computer brute-forcer would), but that's primarily because for 9×9 Sudokus (the usual size) the odds of the problem not falling quickly to a SAT solver are pretty low < 1773978610 408179 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Oh, I just meant to allude to Malbolge's history. I got the impression that the first two waves of Malbolge programmers were working with brute-force search to find working encryptions of their programs. < 1773978673 705712 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :yes < 1773978706 92036 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :But also, Moravec's paradox is about the *amount* of code. Let's say that we have a little embedded device running Linux, like an iPod or Game Boy Advance. (I'm getting old~) The device only has like 8MiB RAM (old!) and Linux takes half of that. Maybe all of the high-level game-specific or app-specific code is another MiB? And the rest is art assets. < 1773978715 683541 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :it was a while even before anyone realised that straight-line Malbolge code was comparatively easy to write because the encryption didn't matter < 1773978748 344537 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I actually don't know what the minimal RAM requirements of a correctly configured Linux are < 1773978756 590571 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :So the LLM's competence at working in the userspace half of RAM says nothing about the kernelspace. And to the extent that the LLM can write new kernel code, it's because it's writing *driver* code, which is highly structured and formulaic. < 1773978796 461194 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I remember those numbers at the time. I tried GBA Linux, and it was awesome, but I had to use a RAM expansion pack. Worth it for the ability to play my old Game Boy games once the cartridges were no longer compatible. < 1773978862 793861 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :I would expect many programs won't need multiple megabytes of code and art? Also, you do not need Linux to run Game Boy games on Game Boy Advance; there is an emulator that can run directly on Game Boy Advance, I think. < 1773978933 444536 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :neither Game Boy games on GBA nor GBA games on DS use an emulator, I think < 1773978943 751068 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :(The emulator can also be used to play Game Boy on Nintendo DS as well) < 1773978956 274691 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :IIRC they're both a somewhat reconfigured bare-metal, a bit like running under a hypervisor < 1773978974 945149 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :If you use a Game Boy cartridge on GBA then an emulator is not needed, but if you are using a GBA cartridge then you will need a emulator. < 1773979000 500662 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :(Game Boy cartridges do not work directly on DS but you can use a emulator in GBA mode) < 1773979006 235197 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :≥third-hand information, but I was told the way that a GBA game runs on the DS is that the DS has two processors and the less powerful one is the same ISA as a GBA's, so it just underclocks it < 1773979020 426591 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :in order to match the clock speed < 1773979071 436819 :zzo38!~zzo38@host-24-207-46-238.public.eastlink.ca PRIVMSG #esolangs :Yes, there is ARM9 and ARM7; DS uses both but GBA uses only ARM7 < 1773979081 103472 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :zzo38: Sure. I think that the precise nature of how to do that, without a kernel like Linux, is not on-topic here? But maybe that's just the impression that I got. < 1773979096 730865 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Certainly, yes, having *those* sorts of carts for a GBA or DS will make them into much more useful devices. < 1773979101 126927 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :topicality on this channel is kind-of weird < 1773979121 426059 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :there are times where it was so persistently offtopic I didn't bother joining it < 1773979153 451936 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I'm not sure whether I wasn't an op at the time, or whether it was pointless trying to enforce my topicality desires on a channel that clearly didn't care about htem < 1773979176 914784 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :but this probably isn't a great channel for discussing the details of how to bootload onto a GBA or DS, indeed < 1773979187 217266 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :other places will have a lot more people who know about how to do it < 1773979206 597576 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :And I think that there's enough devices in my house where I've attempted Linux that we have no shortage of on-topic fodder. < 1773979249 481232 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :the other reason topicality is hard to define here is that esolangs and esoprogramming are hard to define < 1773979296 814166 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :one of the things I like best about this channel is that you can ask weird/surprising programming-related questions here without anyone asking why you're trying to do what you're doing (because they can be confident that it's a bad idea but you're choosing to do it anyway) < 1773979316 60288 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :It is *very* funny to me that I'm usually speedrunning on real hardware these days. I'm always at the bar and they have a no-ROMs rule even for the cabinets which are clearly running MAME. But they have Zelda and Metroid carts, so it's fine. < 1773979375 436249 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :I've seen those discussions from the speedrunning-rules-setting side < 1773979388 874754 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :the rules about emulators can be very complex, often allowing and disallowing specific versions of specific emulators < 1773979390 246773 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Yeah. To me, this is one of the nice channels with exarkun's rule: yes, you can assume that I did my research before asking my apparently-stupid question; it's harder than it sounds, I promise. Named after a #twisted maintainer who would /join #python with painfully-humbling questions. < 1773979432 4851 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :There's also #techcrap, if anybody's interested in another one of those communities. I left years ago when it became obvious that anybody left of center wasn't welcome, but maybe it's improved since then. < 1773979450 133499 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :this is partly based on some emulators giving an unfair advantage due to emulation inaccuracies, and partly based on cases where cheating would be too easy if certain emulators were allowed < 1773979584 870737 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Yeah. And there's a perennial discussion around alternative controllers. I *do* like that most of us, today, agree that disabled folks are allowed to use whatever controllers work for them. But other than that, the discussion's just...silly sometimes. < 1773979665 220352 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :Like, one big topic today: should fighting-game-style "hitbox" controllers be allowed on SNES, particularly for hard digital platformers like Super Metroid? The obvious answer is "you look very silly with a big box in your lap" but the leaderboard will eventually have to decide because a top runner wants to use one. < 1773979682 78991 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :most (but not all) speedrunning communities have converged on a "one button as seen by the game = one physical button on the controller" rule, in which you can bind as you like as long as it's a 1-to-1 mapping < 1773979694 46750 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :but I'm not sure whether there's any actual basis for that rule or whether they're all just copying each other < 1773979723 265391 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :it does handle the "using a weird controller because you're disabled" possibility well, at least < 1773979732 418237 :korvo!~korvo@2604:a880:4:1d0::4d6:d000 PRIVMSG #esolangs :It's definitely copied. Some of it's physical, like the exception which forbids "broken D-pads", digital pads that can report more than one of the NEWS directions at once. < 1773979767 527233 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :that's an old SDA rule < 1773979778 439125 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :the reasoning is that it's unfair to force people to physically damage hardware to be able to compete < 1773979797 926589 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :(most official controllers for the platforms they use are damaged by inputting two opposite directions on a D-pad at once) < 1773980678 781714 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 PRIVMSG #esolangs :pressing opposite arrow keys at once on PC is allowed because you can do that without damaging them < 1773981069 118995 :pool!~nathan@user/PoolloverNathan QUIT :Ping timeout: 245 seconds < 1773981126 498762 :pool!~nathan@user/PoolloverNathan JOIN #esolangs PoolloverNathan :nathan < 1773981625 131286 :cactushead!~cactus_he@61-245-155-188.3df59b.adl.nbn.aussiebb.net QUIT :Ping timeout: 276 seconds < 1773981777 389103 :cactushead!~cactus_he@61-245-155-188.3df59b.adl.nbn.aussiebb.net JOIN #esolangs cactushead :cactus head > 1773986763 816241 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 N10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?oldid=177993 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+3139) 10Yeah, I did this now. < 1773988102 509030 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 QUIT :Quit: quit < 1773990383 227300 :lisbeths!uid135845@id-135845.lymington.irccloud.com QUIT :Ping timeout: 268 seconds < 1773990535 257279 :lisbeths!uid135845@id-135845.lymington.irccloud.com JOIN #esolangs lisbeths :lisbeths > 1773990620 740811 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User talk:Widuruwana/MainPageModernization14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177994&oldid=177979 5* 03Widuruwana 5* (+134) 10reply to Aadenboy < 1773992257 755193 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :ais523: the one button rule is used for some games where you have to mash one button very fast to gain some advantage. with the right technique, you can mash faster by alternating on two buttons, but of course it can also be a trap because if you overlap your physical button presses then you won't get extra presses in the game. < 1773992272 433640 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :this is mostly for categories where turbo controllers also aren't allowed < 1773992514 437788 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :this gets funnier when when you are playing a Game Boy game, because most players are already using the Super Game Boy 2 or one of the two other official hardware that let you run the game using a controller with four face buttons, and let you bind two physical buttons on one of the two Game Boy buttons, your choice which, so the rules have to allow that much double binding at least < 1773992536 666536 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :well it's three official hardware now, because the Switch counts too < 1773992580 583533 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :um, four total official hardware: Super Game Boy, Super Game Boy 2, Game Boy Player, and emulation no Switch < 1773992718 163218 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :fortunately not all set of speedrun rules insist on the one button only thing < 1773992806 433218 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :have I mentioned yet that I'm very disappointed in Metroid Dread because playing it benefits heavily from fast mashing the fire button, even in casual play, and, unlike for old games on old consoles, the devs don't have the excuse of ignorance or limited hardware < 1773992841 725947 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :why would a modern game designer program a game like that, such that it encourages you to hurt your hands to play the game better? < 1773993957 262425 :Sgeo!~Sgeo@user/sgeo QUIT :Read error: Connection reset by peer < 1773994118 301937 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :ais523: IIUC the RAM requirement was 4 megabyte in the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 era when I started to run linux, and 1 megabyte for some very old Linux 1 based distros, but of course many useful programs needed more than that much. Someone told me a tale how in the Linux 1 era he borrowed more RAM into his Linux desktop whenever he wanted to use the curses-based package manager, probably yast < 1773994342 424741 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :if you're using that little RAM then most of it is occupied by the kernel itself < 1773996109 560147 :cactushead!~cactus_he@61-245-155-188.3df59b.adl.nbn.aussiebb.net QUIT :Quit: Leaving < 1773996138 232547 :cactushead!~cactus_he@2403-580d-b040-0-1942-774d-f8a8-6392.ip6.aussiebb.net JOIN #esolangs cactushead :cactus head < 1773998539 47343 :int-e!~noone@int-e.eu PRIVMSG #esolangs :Oh https://old.reddit.com/r/shapezio/comments/1rye6x5/logic_before_stackers_achieving_functional/ is a cute concept for logic in shapez 1: use left and right halfs of shapes to encode bits, rely on cutters to send them different paths, and rely on the alternating behavior of splitters for everything else. Fairly useless, but cute. < 1774000898 449557 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :int-e: I've seen very inefficient logic computations with transport belts in Factorio, but I haven't realized you could do something like that in shapez too < 1774000932 63286 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :I think the Factorio one needs priority splitters, so it doesn't easily transfer to shapez without shapez logic < 1774000957 229425 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :the Factorio one encodes a bit by whether a belt is empty or has items flowing I think < 1774001064 404738 :b_jonas!~x@catv-80-98-84-202.catv.fixed.one.hu PRIVMSG #esolangs :you don't technically need splitters for that sort of belt manipulation, but the even more inefficient alternative involves inserters and T-merges, which of course also doesn't translate to shapez < 1774002594 186864 :nitrix!~nitrix@user/meow/nitrix QUIT :Remote host closed the connection < 1774002830 694554 :nitrix!~nitrix@user/meow/nitrix JOIN #esolangs nitrix :ZNC - https://znc.in < 1774004511 804303 :lynndotpy6093627!~rootcanal@134.122.123.70 QUIT :Quit: bye bye < 1774004582 944106 :lynndotpy6093627!~rootcanal@134.122.123.70 JOIN #esolangs lynndotpy :lynn < 1774005149 477846 :amby!~ambylastn@host-92-17-36-146.as13285.net JOIN #esolangs amby :realname > 1774010389 842567 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Language list14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177995&oldid=177977 5* 03None1 5* (+17) 10/* T */ > 1774010488 337300 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Translator14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177996&oldid=177775 5* 03None1 5* (+84) 10 > 1774010906 934086 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User:None114]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177997&oldid=177636 5* 03None1 5* (+56) 10 > 1774011066 397298 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User:None114]]4 M10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177998&oldid=177997 5* 03None1 5* (-46) 10Ah, forgot to delete this < 1774011764 127194 :lisbeths!uid135845@id-135845.lymington.irccloud.com QUIT :Quit: Connection closed for inactivity > 1774014588 645891 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07ABCstr14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=177999&oldid=141014 5* 03Kaveh Yousefi 5* (+433) 10Rectified the Hello, World!, program which lacked in its output the concluding ecphoneme (!), added a hyperlink to my interpreter implementation, and supplemented the Implemented page category tag. > 1774018187 532060 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Special:Log/upload14]]4 upload10 02 5* 03RikoMamaBala 5* 10uploaded "[[02File:A blue-to-cyan gradient background going left to right.png10]]" > 1774018459 398364 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User talk:Widuruwana/MainPageModernization14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178001&oldid=177994 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+329) 10 > 1774020672 60045 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Talk:FOSMOL14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178002&oldid=175104 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+383) 10 > 1774020691 432266 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Talk:FOSMOL14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178003&oldid=178002 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+18) 10 > 1774023562 959629 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User:Rainwave14]]4 N10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?oldid=178004 5* 03Rainwave 5* (+234) 10Created page with "Hello, I'm Rainwave and I love minimalistic esolangs and Turing tarpits. There's satisfaction in learning how simple rules can unlock the same computational power as even the most powerful supercomputer. I've created these esolangs:" > 1774023640 564970 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07.dot-hyphen14]]4 N10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?oldid=178005 5* 03Rainwave 5* (+1326) 10Created page with "'''.dot-hyphen''' is an esoteric programming language created by [[User:Rainwave]] in [[:Category:2026|2026]]. The language came to be as a result of [[User:Rainwave]] toying with the fact that $-(-x)=+x$. The language also draws some inspiration from [[ > 1774023733 227047 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07.dot-hyphen14]]4 M10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178006&oldid=178005 5* 03Rainwave 5* (+0) 10Uppercased the word "semantics" > 1774024864 263258 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Language list14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178007&oldid=177995 5* 03Rainwave 5* (+18) 10Added the language .dot-hyphen > 1774024930 695584 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User:Rainwave14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178008&oldid=178004 5* 03Rainwave 5* (+18) 10 > 1774024976 222449 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178009&oldid=177993 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+94) 10/* "Truth-machine" */ > 1774025601 58194 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178010&oldid=178009 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+665) 10 > 1774025649 497153 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178011&oldid=178010 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+0) 10/* Syntax */ > 1774025693 942 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178012&oldid=178011 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+2) 10/* Syntax */ > 1774025738 612724 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178013&oldid=178012 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+46) 10/* Syntax */ > 1774025803 145788 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07.dot-hyphen14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178014&oldid=178006 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+22) 10cats + link + formatting > 1774025837 352826 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Dsii14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178015&oldid=178013 5* 03Squidmanescape 5* (+5) 10/* Bad + Interpreter */ > 1774026204 199476 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07User:Aadenboy14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178016&oldid=177903 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+0) 10/* anything else */ conway's game of line > 1774026457 234223 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07EWaduzitdo14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178017&oldid=145512 5* 03Star651 5* (-9) 10no longer stub > 1774026862 356815 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Special:Log/newusers14]]4 create10 02 5* 03Meh2 5* 10New user account < 1774027195 137763 :chloetax!~chloe@user/chloetax QUIT :Quit: Ping timeout (120 seconds) < 1774027214 369865 :chloetax!~chloe@user/chloetax JOIN #esolangs chloetax :chloe < 1774027323 720170 :lisbeths!uid135845@id-135845.lymington.irccloud.com JOIN #esolangs lisbeths :lisbeths < 1774033255 80841 :ais523!~ais523@user/ais523 JOIN #esolangs ais523 :(this is obviously not my real name) > 1774036086 54611 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[0714]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178018&oldid=177895 5* 03Dragoneater67mobile 5* (+1) 10/* Phase 2 */ fix < 1774036310 203520 :Lord_of_Life_!~Lord@user/lord-of-life/x-2819915 JOIN #esolangs Lord_of_Life :Lord < 1774036328 863005 :Lord_of_Life!~Lord@user/lord-of-life/x-2819915 QUIT :Ping timeout: 256 seconds < 1774036481 628253 :Lord_of_Life_!~Lord@user/lord-of-life/x-2819915 NICK :Lord_of_Life < 1774037616 599956 :impomatic!~impomatic@lock-04-b2-v4wan-171175-cust377.vm10.cable.virginm.net JOIN #esolangs * :[https://web.libera.chat] impomatic < 1774042533 178379 :Sgeo!~Sgeo@user/sgeo JOIN #esolangs Sgeo :realname > 1774043311 543292 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Esolang:Featured languages/Current14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178019&oldid=60213 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (-27) 10link to article instead of category > 1774043327 632098 PRIVMSG #esolangs :14[[07Thue14]]4 10 02https://esolangs.org/w/index.php?diff=178020&oldid=170931 5* 03Aadenboy 5* (+4) 10link < 1774046128 699444 :impomatic!~impomatic@lock-04-b2-v4wan-171175-cust377.vm10.cable.virginm.net QUIT :Quit: Client closed < 1774049647 648328 :nitrix!~nitrix@user/meow/nitrix QUIT :Ping timeout: 244 seconds < 1774049731 870167 :nitrix!~nitrix@user/meow/nitrix JOIN #esolangs nitrix :ZNC - https://znc.in