TangibleLight's recent activity
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Comment on Musings on "Developer Mode" in ~comp
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Comment on What's your current PC wallpaper? in ~tech
TangibleLight (edited )Link ParentI've had heic1502a on my desktop since they published it. I switched to PHAT briefly when they published that, but with 10 years of being accustomed to the core off-center I switched back for...I've had heic1502a on my desktop since they published it. I switched to PHAT briefly when they published that, but with 10 years of being accustomed to the core off-center I switched back for familiarity.
On my laptop for some time now I've had a processed image from Juno "Perijove 8" (Flickr archive link).
For a long time on my work machine I've just had a black screen, but fairly recently I switched to a Cassini image of Saturn's moon Daphnis PIA11571. I have it centered on the screen on black background (although I removed a single star from the background. Here's the actual image file).
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Comment on Could a space traveler accelerate at 1g forever? in ~space
TangibleLight Link Parenthttps://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Rocket/rocket.html This does the math for travel time and also fuel requirements and some of the other strange relativistic effects.https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Rocket/rocket.html
This does the math for travel time and also fuel requirements and some of the other strange relativistic effects.
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Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech
TangibleLight Link ParentI'm a bit confused and curious about this. Are you saying in some way you try to use the machine as a faster keyboard? I'm confused because I don't think I experience any cognitive load in...Which cognitive load are you looking to remove exactly?
The actual putting hands to a keyboard.
I'm a bit confused and curious about this. Are you saying in some way you try to use the machine as a faster keyboard?
I'm confused because I don't think I experience any cognitive load in 'putting hands to a keyboard' while coding. For most coding tasks I type faster than I can think, so all the load is in figuring out the correct approach.
The exception is when I'm working with an unfamiliar API, since there's a lot of effort to simply figure out what tools are available to me. I could imagine reaching for an AI to already 'know' these things, but unfortunately those are also exactly the areas that I don't really trust an AI to be correct. In all those cases I trust my peers, reference documentation, and (if it's available) the source code.
Another exception is writing prose. I can't type as fast as my internal monologue or speech. Sometimes I get ahead of myself and there's some load to remember how I want to phrase a passage as I take the time to write it out.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentThanks for remembering the project, and thanks for the message! I have not been on in quite a while - life has gotten very busy. What free time I have had, I've been digging into technical...Thanks for remembering the project, and thanks for the message! I have not been on in quite a while - life has gotten very busy. What free time I have had, I've been digging into technical redstone more generally, and haven't been so focused on the stasis network itself.
It's one of the situations where perfect is the enemy of the good, and so I don't have a working assembly. I do have lots of partially-working bits, though! And it's been fun!
For example, here's the most dense and featureful wireless receiver I've built. It receives 8-bit messages broadcasted on a 4-bit channel, and has a memory register to get a stable output. It's comparable in volume with double the message size as the previous smallest I showed in my last update, and is much smaller than my much older "behemoth" which receives 8 bits broadcasted on a single channel.
I've also been fiddling with smaller stasis chamber designs. Borrowing concepts from some other folks working on stasis chambers, I built this alignment mechanism which I think is fun to watch. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get it working with an entity separator, and it can't read out how many pearls are in the chamber at a given time.
All this to say, I am working on it, but life is busy and progress is slow. Whenever it's ready, I'd love to collaborate on the exteriors!
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
TangibleLight Link ParentOh, something a lot more similar to Tron that I'd probably classify as "Synth Orchestral" is the Surviving Mars Soundtrack.Oh, something a lot more similar to Tron that I'd probably classify as "Synth Orchestral" is the Surviving Mars Soundtrack.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
TangibleLight (edited )Link ParentFor some reason, seeing it phrased this way reminds me of the Hardspace Shipbreaker soundtrack "tension" mixes. Here's Suthern Gothic (Tension Remix) and The Miners (Tension Remix). It's a...synth orchestral
For some reason, seeing it phrased this way reminds me of the Hardspace Shipbreaker soundtrack "tension" mixes. Here's Suthern Gothic (Tension Remix) and The Miners (Tension Remix). It's a radically different genre than Tron - Appalachian Americana - but it blends acoustic and synth in a similar way.
Some context: Hardspace Shipbreaker is a science fiction game - hence the synth - that takes themes from the labor conflicts in Appalachian company mining towns in the early 1900's - hence the Americana.
The game uses a dynamic soundtrack system where, normally, the soundtrack is only Americana; but in "high tension" situations, like if you're low on oxygen or a nuclear reactor is about to melt down, it blends the synth elements in. As a result the OST doesn't have any synth, it's just acoustic, so they also produced these "Tension Remix" versions of the song that include those synth elements you hear in the game.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight (edited )Link ParentI use Fabulously Optimized with some extra mods on top. Some of these might be already included in FO, but I'm not certain.... here are the highlights that aren't just used for optimization. I use...I use Fabulously Optimized with some extra mods on top. Some of these might be already included in FO, but I'm not certain.... here are the highlights that aren't just used for optimization.
I use MultiMC as my launcher/mod manager.
Utilities and Quality-of-Life
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Accurate Block Placement makes it so when you hold down right-mouse it consistently places blocks while you look around or walk. Much easier and faster than repeatedly clicking the button!
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Mouse Tweaks tweaks how the mouse works in inventories. For example it allows you to click-and-drag on items to collect things a bit more fluidly, or scroll on items to shift them in/out of chests.
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Inventory HUD + shows my inventory, armor, and tools in a little translucent view on the main screen. Gives me some confidence I'm not about to break my elytra or run out of building blocks.
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Xaero's Minimap and Xaero's World Map do what they sound like. The minimap appears in the corner of your screen, and the world map is a full-screen map on which you can place waypoints and view other dimensions. One really nice feature is, while in the overworld, you can view your equivalent position in the Nether or vice versa. Similarly you can place a waypoint in the Nether and have it appear in the Overworld or vice versa. Very helpful for linking portals!
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RoughlyEnoughItems This isn't as useful nowadays since we have the crafting book, but I'm old-school from the days of TooManyItems and prefer to keep it around. The "favorited items" and "recipe tree" features are nice for keeping track of which building materials I need to collect.
Vanity
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LambDynamicLights I think this one is included in FO. It makes torches actually illuminate the area around you - very useful in your off-hand while mining! But be sure to still place real torches, as the dynamic lights do not prevent mobs spawning.
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Distant Horizons well covered by others I think. Produces extremely far render distances, and allows you to set your "real" render distance much lower for better performance.
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Isometric Renders lets you make cute third-person screenshots of your builds.
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Better Clouds I don't like playing with shaders, but this along with Distant Horizons creates some really nice landscapes without losing that Minecraft "charm".
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Better Third Person makes the third-person F5 view actually useful! I really like to use it while exploring.
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Do a Barrel Roll makes flying elytra fun, but also extremely hazardous. Do not use this in the End! Just trust me on that lol. But exploring the overworld is a lot of fun with it. I recommend the "hybrid" control mode, where pressing space the first time enters vanilla-style elytra flight, and pressing space again enters DaBR-style flight.
Technical
Less generally relevant to survival, but useful. Tweakeroo especially has a lot of things let you customize the game to extreme degree.
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MiniHUD a very powerful but not-so-easy-to-use tool that does a whole bunch of stuff. Its namesake feature is to show customizable info in the corner in a "mini-f3 hud", but it also allows you to view spawnable block locations, structure borders, custom borders and overlays, etc. It's very useful for planning out farms and AFK spots.
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Tweakeroo not dissimilar from MiniHUD, but more focused on quality of life changes. For example, it can switch away from your pickaxe if you're about to break it, automatically restock items in your hotbar if you're about to run out, provide a hot-key to let you place blocks diagonally-adjacent to others without scaffolding, and various other things.
Not client-side
But indispensable on my local creative server:
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WorldEdit for quickly editing builds. I think that some of this can be done in vanilla nowadays with commands, but I never learned that and WorldEdit is more powerful. There is also Axiom which is still more powerful and intuitive, aimed more specifically at creatives and designers, but I have not learned it. I am mildly curious if it's any more useful for technical builds than WorldEdit is.
- Edit: After I dug up the link for Axiom I started poking around the documentation for it. It looks like it solves a lot of the issues I have with WorldEdit (specifically when you copy/paste, sometimes redstone components do not paste correctly). So I think I will start learning Axiom for my creative server.
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Redstone Multimeter is frankly over-powered for debugging redstone contraptions. It does not change vanilla behavior at all; it simply allows you to monitor redstone components with an oscilloscope-type view, and step through the timeline to help make sure things update in the right order. Extremely helpful for debugging things.
Edit: I've tried Axiom for a few hours now, and I'm never going back to WorldEdit if I can help it. It is such a good tool, even for technical builds.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentGood grief. I hope you got some good rest since then. I think three lanes of torches/lanterns are the best bet. One row along the road, and one row to either side, concealed with carpet. You can...36ish hours awake
Good grief. I hope you got some good rest since then.
I think three lanes of torches/lanterns are the best bet. One row along the road, and one row to either side, concealed with carpet. You can use moss carpet in forests, and gray carpet on stone.
Do we have a string farm?
The piglin bartering system produces string, but not in huge quantities. I seem to recall a spider spawner farm at some point - but that might have been on the old server - I'd check the lectern at town square to see if there are coordinates. The problem with doing such a large area is you'd need on the order of thousands, and it's hard to tell what's placed already and what's not.
I can't say I recommend it, but If you do go that route, the Vanilla Tweaks resource pack has a "Visible Tripwires" option in the "Utility" section that makes string appear bright blue, much easier to see on the ground. You can also use a mod like "Lighty" or "MiniHUD" to show the light level and which blocks are spawnable to make sure the region is spawn-proofed.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentYou can also block mob spawns with string (mostly invisible with most texture packs), buttons (can look like pebbles), carpet (moss carpet), 2+ snow layers. And any other solid block without a...But how the heck do y'all deal with bulk mobs? I know everyone lights up the areas they hang out in, but that's not practical for building a road, where I'll light the road itself, but mobs will spawn not far away....
You can also block mob spawns with string (mostly invisible with most texture packs), buttons (can look like pebbles), carpet (moss carpet), 2+ snow layers. And any other solid block without a full top face (e.g. stairs, bottom slabs, fences, soul sand, glass, etc).
You can also block mob pathfinding with a carpet on top of a berry bush.
Those will stop things like zombies, creepers, spiders, but skeletons can still shoot players up to 15 blocks away.
So in principle it is possible to light up only the road, and use the blocks listed above to prevent mob spawns out to 16+ blocks, and create a hidden barrier which mobs cannot walk across beyond that. But doing this along the entire road seems unreasonable.
So instead my suggestion is:
Zombies have the farthest sight; they attack players within 35 blocks. So if you illuminate 36+ blocks to either side of the road, and the player stays on the road, no zombie that spawns will attack the player.
The zombie might walk into the lit area, in which case it could see the player. Extending the illuminated area a bit will reduce the likelihood; but the minimum for "safety" is 36.
So if you have a torch at the road, that illuminates ~15 blocks to either side. Put another torch ~25 blocks out, and in total that'll illuminate ~40 blocks to either side of the road (plus-or-minus a bit depending on how frequently you place the torches).
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
TangibleLight Link ParentThe closest thing I ever got to an "elegant" solution was something along these lines: Rough pseudocode-from-memory sci = swapchain create info { ... old_swapchain = .null_handle } sc =...At present the only place I ever create swapchains is right before rendering and it does that if it is flagged as invalid. The two places that seem able to invalidate the swapchain are vkAcquireNextImageKHR and vkQueuePresentKHR, which I currently have approximately at the start and end of my render processes. If the acquire fails on suboptimal I queue the recreate but let the render continue anyway, if the acquire fails on out-of-date I queue the recreate and also abandon the frame. The queue present though is so close to the end of the frame that it frankly doesn't matter what I do with its result (worst case it would handle the issue the next frame, but there aren't any more relevant Vulkan calls during the frame that could be affected), but I do queue a recreate if I get either of those anyway.
The closest thing I ever got to an "elegant" solution was something along these lines:
Rough pseudocode-from-memory
sci = swapchain create info { ... old_swapchain = .null_handle } sc = .null_handle loop { if sc == .null_handle sc = create swapchain (sci) destroy sci.old_swapchain sci.old_swapchain = sc ... try to acquire image; catch: { sc = .null_handle continue (consider frame "dropped") } ... try to present image; catch: { sc = .null_handle continue (consider frame "dropped") } consider frame "complete". Increment frame counter etc. ... }I seem to recall that it worked great on my laptop (XOrg with MESA intel drivers) but it caused some particular issues on my desktop (XOrg with proprietary Nvidia drivers) with certain present modes. I don't rememeber the details though.
At some point I just gave up and simply do not attempt to render if the window is resizing. You still have to handle the invalidated swapchain, but it almost never occurs.
In fact the way they implemented it has serious issues that lead to, potentially unavoidable, application hanging. [...]
I think you are right.
You're not guaranteed anything but FIFO, which is a portability issue in refusing to support it on Wayland.
In most cases FIFO seems just fine; in my amateur usage there doesn't seem to be any reason not to use it unless you are building a microbenchmark. It is a shame that Wayland does this.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
TangibleLight (edited )Link ParentThe best advice I ever got was that smooth resizing is not worth the effort in Vulkan. I'm sure it's possible to do correctly but I never figured it out. I just drop whatever frames during the...Resizing a window invalidates the swapchain, but its not like it reports the desired dimensions when it does that
The best advice I ever got was that smooth resizing is not worth the effort in Vulkan. I'm sure it's possible to do correctly but I never figured it out. I just drop whatever frames during the resize and recreate once it ends.
This talk was a great resource for me: Vulkanised 2024: Common Mistakes When
Learning Vulkan - Charles Giessenit gets stuck blocking when the application is minimized and not exposed
Now that seems bizarre to me. You mentioned you're on AMD with official drivers on one machine and mesa drivers on the other - which drivers do you see that behavior? What display server and window manager/compositor do you use?
Edit: Also, what present mode are you using? If you're in FIFO etc it might be waiting for vblank, and the display server or driver is clever enough to know it's not visible? That's my only guess. Try changing the present mode and see if behavior changes.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentAt some point I mean to share details about how it works in the recurring "What technical projects have you been working on" or making a dedicated post with details in ~comp. But the last couple...At some point I mean to share details about how it works in the recurring "What technical projects have you been working on" or making a dedicated post with details in ~comp.
But the last couple days the technical folks have taught me about "block event delay" which we've been able to combine with my item protocol for a pretty huge leap in compacting the machines. So I want to push that a little further before settling on a design to bring into tildes.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentIt is similar, built on the same principle. However I want to allow anyone to use it, which means I need to transmit a lot more information than Doc does. I've been putting effort into condensing...It is similar, built on the same principle. However I want to allow anyone to use it, which means I need to transmit a lot more information than Doc does. I've been putting effort into condensing things so it's cheaper/easier to build in survival, and does not use so many items and redstone components so it has negligible lag impact.
Mintysaurus is a good destination, they're way out there even on the nether roof. But, like I said, the machines are loud. @mintysaurus do you think it better to put the machine up out of the way in one of the structures at your base, buried deep underground, or just constructed somewhere nearby?
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentI saw that design! By Unhappybean. They posted a revision that reloads a bit faster using infested potions, the same mechanic as the silverfish XP farm in town. https://youtu.be/qk9QAwh4PBcI saw that design! By Unhappybean. They posted a revision that reloads a bit faster using infested potions, the same mechanic as the silverfish XP farm in town.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight (edited )LinkI have gotten sucked into a rabbit hole of wireless redstone technology and, still, not been on the server. My term project presentation went well! I have finals over the next week, and then my...I have gotten sucked into a rabbit hole of wireless redstone technology and, still, not been on the server.
My term project presentation went well! I have finals over the next week, and then my schedule will be much more free. In the bit of free time I did have, I got talked to some of the other folks in the wireless redstone community so have been distracted by that.
Redstone Update
I have been working with a group of people that are constructing a wireless networking card for computational redstone to shrink my design and make it more lag friendly. With some of their feedback, I have constructed the smallest wireless receiver with a channel selector! It is much smaller and easier to build than the behemoth I had before.
It also has an "off" switch now, which is big for server etiquette.
They have given some more feedback on that design and suggested some modifications with pistons that should make it even more compact, simpler, and cheaper to build.
This has a couple benefits: there is no longer really limit to build more of these stations. The maximum would be 31 players across 31 waypoints, and this can be expanded. The only consideration is the lag impact, which is much reduced from the "behemoth," still near zero, but still not nothing. So I still plan to build no more than 5 or 6.
One interesting thing that this allows for is very small personal waypoints. I could build a small receiver with near 0 lag impact at people's bases; you could travel to any of the public waypoints and teleport back home. In principle it is also possible to build additional transmitters, but selectable ones are bulkier and more expensive. The easiest solution would be to choose a "primary" waypoint, and have quick teleportation from base to there. From the primary waypoint, you have access to the full network.
I'm at a point to open discussion: Where do people want these waypoints? How many people would be interested in a personal recall waypoint?
Bear in mind that the receivers are quite loud, as they have pistons and trapdoors running on a clock. The clock may be turned off, but this disables the waypoint. I intended to build these in spires, roughly a 16x16 footprint, so that the receiver can be up off the ground to keep the noise away. They can also be buried deep underground, but I figure a tall spire is a good visual marker of a waypoint anyway.
I figure:
- TildeTown center, near the storage system or transport hub.
- One near the End Portal. Note the teleporters do not work across dimensions.
- Some number of blocks North, South, East, West to service the bases away from TildeTown. How far away from town should these be? Are there clusters of bases that would be good to service?
- A personal route for me so I can quickly do maintenance.
- If they want it, personal routes for other people to/from TildeTown center. Priority to people with a lot of playtime or whose bases are far away.
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Comment on For the atheists of Tildes, do you feel the need to show gratitude for comforts of your life and how do you do it? in ~talk
TangibleLight Link ParentExactly! It is possible to appreciate good fortune without thanking anything for it. And when something is due only to luck, I think it is important to recognize that, rather than attributing it...I think it's kind of an unnecessary conflating or attachment of two things- I can be glad about X without any necessary additional need to "thank a specific person, thing, or force" for its occurrence. I think one can be "grateful" without having to assign that to anything in particular.
Exactly! It is possible to appreciate good fortune without thanking anything for it. And when something is due only to luck, I think it is important to recognize that, rather than attributing it to a higher power.
There's a meme - or webcomic or something I can't recall - about a person coming out of a long open surgery, nearly dying, but making a recovery nonetheless. "Thank the Lord for saving our child!" says the family. Meanwhile the surgeon stands there: ಠ_ಠ
I believe it's important to recognize which things are circumstance, and do appreciate that, but also recognize which things aren't circumstance. Those things are caused by individuals or systems with intent, so you should express gratitude toward those individuals.
It also helps direct the negative emotions when things are difficult. A shitty situation need not be "God testing you" or "the devil's work". To improve the situation, it's important to recognize which things can be controlled and which things are real enemies or adversaries against which you can defend.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight LinkI'll echo the "Sorry I've been away!" sentiment that seems to be the theme this month. I'm currently working full time and also working on a master's degree - it's a lot of time, but up till last...I'll echo the "Sorry I've been away!" sentiment that seems to be the theme this
weekmonth.I'm currently working full time and also working on a master's degree - it's a lot of time, but up till last month it's been manageable. Last month has been a lot and I haven't found time to play much of anything. I did steal a few hours over the weekend to fiddle with the enderpearl stasis network, but I worry I should've spent that time on my term project. Presentations are next week and I don't feel prepared.
Finals are the week after, and then I expect I'll have time to really dig in on the server again mid-May.
A brief update on the stasis network.
I've started to plan out how I'll actually build this thing in survival: what the material cost will be and how practical it is to fit in the footprint. I also did some tests to see what the lag overhead is:
/tick warpshows the time spent on each tick. On my computer, each 9-bit receiver takes about a millisecond each tick. That doesn't seem too bad, but since I'm planning to build several of these and I don't know what the performance on Tildes server will be, I'd really prefer to reduce that. There isn't really an "off" switch on this thing, so I want to make sure it's as low-overhead as I can.In the prior version, all waypoints operate on the same channel, and each message is 9 bits: 1 is a lock signal, 3 identify the waypoint, and the other 5 identify the player.
The lock bit can be avoided by reducing the capacity of the stasis network by 1 player (31 instead of 32). I think that's a fine compromise, so I'll do it and reduce the bit count to 8.
I spent the few hours over the weekend learning to build a channel selector. The receivers aren't much different, but the transmitters are then much more complicated. I haven't quite finished designing a suitable transmitter, but the bones are there. (My selector panel outputs signal strength, but the channel selector needs binary data). So I'll run each waypoint on a separate channel, moving the address out-of-band and cutting the bit count down to 5.
That reduces the per-tick overhead by about half, about 0.6ms per tick per waypoint on my computer. I hope it would be cheap on Tildes server too.
Aside: Redstone Multimeter is truly an epic utility. It's a sort of oscilloscope that lets you monitor the timings and sub-tick ordering of different events like redstone signals and block updates. I have to run my server with Fabric if I want to use it, but I can test parts of it on Paper to make sure things ought to work on Tildes server.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link ParentI tried to abuse the "Exemplary" label a bit here to get your comment at the top, but I misunderstood how it worked. Now I know.. In any case, thanks for sharing the context and link. Pet...I tried to abuse the "Exemplary" label a bit here to get your comment at the top, but I misunderstood how it worked. Now I know..
In any case, thanks for sharing the context and link. Pet emergencies can be extremely emotionally draining. Remember to take care of yourself, too, and please do keep us updated.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Survival in ~games
TangibleLight Link Parent"Then God said, /gamerule doInsomnia false. And God saw that it was good." /gamerule doMobSpawning true I thought there was some verse about how the plants and animals are to provide food and..."Then God said,
/gamerule doInsomnia false. And God saw that it was good."
[1:24] And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so.
/gamerule doMobSpawning trueI thought there was some verse about how the plants and animals are to provide food and materials for people, but reading through it I don't see anything so direct. You could throw in
/gamerule doMobDrops trueand/gamerule doTileDrops truewith some holy flair.[1:26] Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
/publish false survival 25565This isn't how a server like Tildes actually operates, but it's the closest thing in a command.
Could add some flair to the "creating the heavens and the earth" with commands like
/filland/fillbiomeand/worldborderand/setworldspawn.
It's also worth pointing out that developer tools for propriety software almost certainly do exist, created by the developers of the software for their own use. It's just that there's no incentive to publish these tools when they're part of the company's 'secret sauce' unless you're aiming to build a platform where third-party developers can extend the software.