
Pipe Logic (2011) - Tomte
http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/pipelogic/index.php
======
jihadjihad
This sort of post is why I love HN. At first while reading it I thought, "is
this guy for real?", and then proceeded to be amazed at what he wrought with a
very simple but elegant idea. A+

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anitil
I've fallen in to a hole on his website. Not sure if I'll ever emerge

~~~
userbinator
Numerous other articles by him have appeared on HN, some multiple times (such
as the TTY one.) He's amazingly talented.

One of the things I like about his site is he has a section titled "Obfuscated
Programming", and another "Sane Programming".

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nabla9
Check out this other mind blowing hack from him.

He sent 256 byte C64 demo to Oldskool 4K Intro compo and he won.
[https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-
born/](https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/)

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aj7
My first boss, at Spectra-Physics, was a brilliant guy named Joe Hawkins, who
had temporarily taken the job as manufacturing engineering manager, having
been forced out of a startup he helped found by some other asshole founders.
He posed the question, “In heat transfer, what is the equivalent of
inductance?,” and claimed to know the answer, Fermat margin-of-the-page style.
Maybe you can take a crack at that.

~~~
nabla9
> “In heat transfer, what is the equivalent of inductance?,”

It's the aptly named thermal inductance (change in objects temperature induce
a change in convection current surrounding the object). Heat -> kinetic energy
transfer. (unit is thermal henry). You can even create thermal mutual
inductance by putting two wires next to each other in a fluid.

Electrical-analog method is well known for heat transfer analysis. Heat
transfer equations are identical to electric recruits with passive components.
Thermal inductance is almost never needed, so it may be little unknown. Back
in the old times some even constructed electronic devices to solve transient
flow problems using analogous resisistance-capacitance electrical networks.
[https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/61/jresv61n2p105_A1b....](https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/61/jresv61n2p105_A1b.pdf)

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slawoo
Here's another creation of this guy - check out this synth based on SID chips:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpa7AQsx7Xw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpa7AQsx7Xw)

~~~
catbird
And if you want to make chiptunes on the go, check out the Pocket Operator
synthesizers that he designed [0]. They're a ton of fun, and people on the bus
will ask you why you have headphones plugged into your calculator.

[0]
[http://www.linusakesson.net/music/po-2x/index.php](http://www.linusakesson.net/music/po-2x/index.php)

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combatentropy
One of the unusual things about this is that he built a layer of abstraction,
but it resembles a lower level of abstraction. It's like he's abstracting in
the opposite direction that you normally abstract.

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userbinator
Somewhat related hack by the same author, a "virtual machine" implemented
entirely as symlinks:
[http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/symlinks/index.php](http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/symlinks/index.php)

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tzahola
From the title I thought it would be this stuff:
[http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/TechZone/PneumaticVa...](http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/TechZone/PneumaticValves/Article/False/6455/TechZone-
PneumaticValves)

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signa11
> In this model, a UNIX pipe acts like a wire, that is, a conductor with
> parasitic capacitance.

can someone please explain why / how the 'parasitic capacitance' comes into
play here ? thanks !

from my very faint memories of ee courses, iirc, 'parasitic capacitance'
happens due to proximity of two parts of circuit e.g. one signal-line and
another, signal-line -> earth etc. unwanted coupling causes unwanted effects
(duh !) f.e. interference, attenuation, distortion etc.

how does this behavior gets observed here ?

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cristoperb
I think the analogy to parasitic capacitance is meant to refer to the fact
that the pipe is a buffer: if you connect it to a source of zeros or NULLs its
value doesn't immediately change until it is full.

~~~
signa11
> ... its value doesn't doesn't immediately change until it is full.

ah ! that's vanilla impedance (i.e. Z) in play then, nothing parasitic about
it afaik :)

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chatmasta
Cool stuff. Are there any cryptocurrencies that take advantage of this
property? Seems like a good area for exploration, implementing
cryptographically verifiable logic gates over p2p transports.

~~~
jahabrewer
You might be interested in this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_computing)

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skykooler
This is very cool! I like seeing projects like this on here, that don't
necessarily have a practical use but are a way to learn more about how a
system works.

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virgil_disgr4ce
Oh my god I love this. Magnificent. <3

