Product Release

VCV Rack V2

VCV Rack version 2 was released in the new year and the SDK has also been released. I’m making KRTPluginA available for it (as an update 2.25.27), as it is a simple edit update and making some better documentation. I’m in the process of doing the simple API 2 migration. The text to write though is more of a complex decision.

When the phrase “one line description” bumps into a review platform wanting better and perhaps longer description with “\n” literal line splitting (as there is no tool tip wraping). Basically it’s just adding in tool tips and slightly better description and riddance of some spelling mistakes.

So thinking of what I can do for “Z” as I’m going to call it. Something related to some interesting maths so it gives me a reason to read a bit more.

Ltd. Still and QMK.

Yes the QMK active branch and some news that my accounts are now filed. Zero in/zero out as a boring COVID an low contact availability year. So Ltd. status continues as far as I’m aware. I’ll keep you all informed.

So now the send_unicode_string() function is used for a macro system within the keymap latest coding. This is opposed to how the macro layer emits function key combinations, which is more in line for a tool on the computer handling it. I’ve also added repeated substring compression too. (“\\0” to “\\9”)

So more of a hard baked solution, but does allow more complex multi-character glyphs to be produced instead of just one Unicode code point. So with about 1100 bytes free about, that’s about thirty UTF-8 bytes per key action (over the 37 defined key action macros). Even “\\\\” is defined for emitting an initial backslash, just so backslash can be used as a prefix for more complex macro processing than just print until end of string.

Other macro features like tapping key codes for nested macros? Yes, if the keycode is added to the array so “\\A” will tap the first keycode.

QMK Keyboard Again

Latest 2021-11-22 commit goes for an 10 layer design with the language BQN built in and three further planes of Unicode glyphs. This leaves 2296 bytes of firmware left for further adaptions. Seems the lock key option consumes quite a bit and I don’t need it.

Altering the U’ ‘ defines such that a Unicode glyph is copied between the single quotes would add a Unicode character to the design.

The control iconographs for example:

[IAT] = U'⚠', [IA] = U'⟁', [IB] = U'🗚', [IC] = U'🗐',

[ID] = U'🔖', [IE] = U'🔎', [IF] = U'👍', [IG] = U'🔔',

[IH] = U'⌫', [II] = U'⭾', [IJ] = U'⏎', [IK] = U'⭿',

[IL] = U'📇', [IM] = U'✓', [IN] = U'🗋', [IO] = U'🗁',

[IP] = U'🐧', [IQ] = U'📤', [IR] = U'📥', [IS] = U'💾',

[IT] = U'🌱', [IU] = U'👎', [IV] = U'📋', [IW] = U'🔑',

[IX] = U'🗙', [IY] = U'🗜', [IZ] = U'⎌', [ILBR] = U'⎋',

[IBSL] = U'🌍', [IRBR] = U'☣', [ICAR] = U'⚗', [IUND] = U'☢',

Are picked to represent general principals of the control characters in a modern computer environment. Some of them may be difficult to understand at first but for example the last row could be considered ECO/BIO/CHEM/PHYS, on a atomic building.

Deciding on the extra control layer glyphs as they don’t have ASCII slots but are possible to type is a bit more complicated. I’ll give them a bit more thought.

There’s an interesting VSCode crash 139 development (SEGMENTATION FAULT) just occurred which shouldn’t be happening but is a crash in the rendering process. Obviously some “bad code” in VSCode?

I’ve improved the shift mechanism for some of the extended layers, and filled in the ANSI control code layer to my satisfaction. I’ve finalized the Navigation and Macro layers to final satifaction and added a number lock on the Magenta shift of the Macro Yellow layer.

ANSI 60 Keyboards? And Exception to the Rule?

More of an experiment in software completion. Jokes abound.

A keyboard keymap file for an ANSI 60 custom just finished software building. Test to follow given that cashflow prevents buy and building of hardware on the near time scale. Not bad for a day!

A built hex file for a DZ60 on GitHub so you don’t have to build your own with an MD5 checksum of 596beceaa446c1f1b55ee5e0a738f1c8 to verify for duelling the hack complexity. EDIT: version 1.7.2F (Enigma Bool Final Release). Development is complete. Only bug and documentation fixes may be pending.

It all stems from design and data entry thinking, and small observations like the control keys being on the corners like the thumbs to chest closeness of baby two-finger hackers instead of the alt being close in for the parallel thumbs of the multi-finger secretariat.

The input before the output, the junction of the output to our input. It’s a four-layer main layout with an extra for layers for function shift. Quite a surprising amount can be fit in such a small 60 keyspace.

The system allowing intercepts of events going into the widget yet the focus priority should be picking up the none processed outgoings. Of course, this implies the atom widget should be the input interceptor to reflect the message for outer processing in a context. This implies that only widgets which have no children or administered system critical widgets can processEventInflow while all can processEventOutflow so silly things have less chance of happening in the certain progress of process code.

Perhaps a method signature of super protected such that it has a necessary throws ExistentialException or such. Of course, the fact RuntimeException extends Exception (removing a code compilation constraint) is a flaw of security in that it should only have allowed the adding of a constraint by making (in the code compile protection against an existential) Exception extending RuntimeException.

Then the OS can automatically reflect the event unhandled back up the event outflow queue along with an extra event with a link to the child in, and an exposed list of its child widgets) to outflow. An OrphanCollector can then decide to still show the child widgets or not with the opportunity of newEventInflow. All widgets could also be allowed to newEventOutflowForRebound itself a super protected method with a necessary throws ExistentialException (to prevent injection of events from non administered. widgets).

An ExistentialException can never be caught in user code to remove the throws clause and use of super try requires executive privilege to prevent executive code from being loaded by the ClassLoader. It could run but in a lower protection ring until elevated.

QtAp Getting Better

So the app is getting better. The “interfaces” for the extensions have been defined for now, and just doing the last functions of UTF import to bring it up to the level of building the first view. The command menu has been roughly defined, and changes based on the view.

Qt so far is quite nice to use. I have found as an experienced C/Java coder, much of the learning curve is not so much finding the right classes, but the assumptions one has to make on the garbage collection and the use of delete. In some cases, it is obvious with some thought (local variable allocation, and automatic destruction after use), while in others not so (using a common QPlainTextDocument in multiple widgets and removing the default ones). Basic assumption says pointer classes have to be manually handled.

https://github.com/jackokring/qtap/blob/master/classfilter.h is a category filter based on an extensible bloom filter. The .c file is in the same directory.

N.B. It’s so funny that some “amazing” hackers can bring down this sub $10 server. Way to go to show off your immense skill. A logline 142.93.167.254 – – [19/Jan/2020:08:38:01 +0000] “POST /ws/v1/cluster/apps/new-application HTTP/1.1” 403 498 “-” “python-re$ … etc. I’m dead sure no such thing exists on this server. And the /wp-login automated port 80 hammering for services not offered.

But enough of the bad news, when something along the lines of maximal entropic feature virtualization sounds like something nice (or not). Who knows? What’s involved? Somekind of renormal on the mapping of k-means for a spread which is morphing the feature landscape to focus or diverge the areas to be interpreted?

QtAp Release v0.1.13

GitHub Pages

It’s not great, but quite a nice experience with undo/redo, and Git integration. I even added the translation engine as part of the release, but have done no actual translations. It’s a better app initially as it includes some features that will consume time to add to the example notepad app.

Also in the background there is quite a bit which has been done which is ready as soon as the app develops, such as the interception of the action bar such that right click can show hide which sections are visible, and this is saved as part of the restored geometry.

0.1.13 QtAp Releases and Development

The getting of the greying out of menus and the action buttons depending on state was a nice challenge to learn the signal slot methods Qt uses. The tray is automatically generated too depending on the calls to the addMenu function, and the setting of flags to indicate state response routing.

I’m likely to even build a JavaScript host in there for the user and add in some extras for it, as this seems the most obvious way of scripting in the browser era. There is also possibilities to build new views by QML and so allow some advanced design work under the hood, while maintaining a hybrid approach to code implementation.

I cheated quite a lot by having a dependency on Git and so SSH. I’m not sure I even need the socket interface as long as I do some proxy code in JS to move data to and from C/C++.

Moving on to adding features to the interface, and a command menu which has selections based on the current active view. This could be done by buttons, but actions are better as they have a better shortcut method, and easier automatic accesibility tool interfacing.

The icon set likely needs a bit of a spruce up, and matching with some sensible default. Maybe adding in the cancelation of a bash sequence so that anti-commands can be supplied in a list, and run if it makes sense to reverse. Maybe later, later.

EDIT: The overriding of a class when it is attached to a GUI is slightly complex. I found the easiest way (not necessarily the most efficient as it depends on how the autogenerated setupUi function saves memory when not executed. The super class needs a simple bool stopUi = false with the extending subclass just passing this second parameter as true and putting an if(!stopUi) execution guard before the super class ui->setupUi(this) call in the constructor.

This allows QObject(parent) to be replaced by superClass(parent) to inherit all the “interface”. There maybe other ways using polymorphism, but none as easy.

A New Paper on Computation and Application

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pipeline-Cache-Big-RISC-Computational-ebook/dp/B07XY9RSHH/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=pipeline+cache+big+risc&qid=1568807888&sr=8-1 is a nice paper on some computation issues, and eventually covers some politics and vitamin biochemistry. Not a fan? Still letting your biome let you shout at the bad people not feeding your hunger?

Shovel in the gammon all you want, and load it up with chips as a little survivor from ancient times takes advantage of the modern high carb diet and digs a hole for you.

Joined the Giffgaff Affiliate Program

K Ring Technologies Ltd., can benefit from you switching your mobile telecommunications provider. I, the director, have become not wanting to use my current provider, and have seen that Giffgaff offer controls to prevent premium rate service scams (an option in settings), and offer other good data bundles. Simply order a SIM via the top right link on the page.

After using up the 6GB 4G full speed allowance, the slower speed is sufficient for audio streaming, but video streaming depends on the quality settings, and often needs pausing to stream up the buffer. This is fine for most use, and the connection goes full 4G after midnight until around 7 o’clock. This is good for unsupervised downloads. All in all, looking like an excellent service compared to three, although slightly slower, and has a much better internet interface avoiding the extremely bad three customer service. I mean how many times does one have to ask? The web interface at giffgaff allows via settings to disable all premium rate, to avoid call back scams and such. The community forum is also good.

Now to obtain a PAC code from three. Wish me luck.

Been using it for some days now, and the first problem is a text to kill the always on data. It turns out that they do not perform any dynamic rate limiting to keep you within the 256 kb/s limit after your 6 GB has been used. This is strange and maybe relates to them subcontracting a carrier network. I’m testing out a Windows program NetLimiter to see how that goes.

NetLimiter has a nice feature to schedule rules on band limiting at the peak hours of the giffgaff account, so a minute before, and one minute after, the limit engages. It also has some nice firewall features. It was on beta test offer for registered users, and so for me it was free.

Latest CODEC Source GPL v2+

The Latest compression CODEC source. Issued GPL v2 or greater. The context can be extended beyond 4 bits if you have enough memory and data to 8 bits easily, and a sub context can be made by nesting another BWT within each context block, for a massive 16 bit context, and a spectacular 28 bit dictionary of 268,435,456 entries. The skip code on the count table assists in data reduction, to make excellent use of such a large dictionary possible.

The minor 4 bits per symbol implicit context, has maximum utility on small dictionary entries, but the extra 16 times the number of entries allows larger entries in the same coding space. With a full 16 bit context enabled, the coding would allow over 50% dictionary symbol compression, and a much larger set of dictionary entries. The skip coding on large data sets is expected to be less than a 3% loss. With only a 4 bit context, a 25% symbol gain is expected.

On English text at about 2.1 bits per letter, almost 2 extra letters per symbol is an expected coding. So with a 12 bit index, a 25% gain is expected, plus a little for using BWT context, but a minor loss likely writes this off. The estimate then is close to optimal.

Further investigation into an auto built dictionary based on letter group statistics, and generation of entry to value mapping algorithmicaly may be an effective method of reducing the space requirements of the dictionary.