@MxVerda @ArchiteuthisFlux oh, the thing that controls how open the chimney is. maybe it's a colloquialism, sorry.

to describe the device that I may have the wrong name for, you limit the amount of new air that the stove gets, limiting the burn rate of the fire, which is how you control how hot your stove heated house gets.

I've only seen it on wood burning stoves.

@bipolaron @ArchiteuthisFlux No worries - it sounds like a technical term, but I honestly forgot about chimneys for a second (need caffeine)

@MxVerda I just speed-scrolled through all our captains' Facebook just to check if any have a ship cat right now and I don't see any, a bit over half have a dogs though. I've known a few ship cats who basically act like dogs. So yeah, animals that live on boats are always the coolest.

@MxVerda @ArchiteuthisFlux honestly I couldn't even tell you where I learned the word. my parents must have called it that when I was a kid.

@MxVerda @bipolaron Or you need to open the flue on your fireplace because that'll fuck you up

@ArchiteuthisFlux @bipolaron We do have one, but we don't use it. Do we still need to open it? And how pls

@ArchiteuthisFlux SMASH INTO THE NAVIGATIONAL AID. DO IT. DO IT.

@MxVerda @ArchiteuthisFlux if it's an open fireplace, the flue is a piece of metal fixed into the chimney and you can use a handle above the fireplace to open and close it.

if it is closed, smoke would pour into the house. if it is open your house is venting hot air. fireplaces aren't great.

a stove is fully enclosed and much more efficient, and you can limit the burn rate so that a log or two can go all night and is designed from the ground up to heat the house through the chimney.

@bipolaron @ArchiteuthisFlux errr, it's gas? But like, there's a chimney with an electric (???) fireplace thingy in front of the tile facade on the wall...?
*confused bi noises*

@ArchiteuthisFlux This really reminds me of the old joke/story about the battleship captain who wanted the lighthouse to get out of his way.

Lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

(I also grew up on and around sailing vessels, and this image has made my brain itch.)

@rune @ArchiteuthisFlux you're still not supposed to aim AT the lighthouse. You tack into the wind, but the goal is to be in the channel/deep water near the navigational aid.

@ArchiteuthisFlux @Khyrie if it's the middle of the night and the wind is head on in that direction and you're 2+ hours away sure you just aim at the lighthouse as best you can. Not like you're gonna accidentally hit a giant building

@MxVerda @ArchiteuthisFlux

Well, at this speed, the glass would have to be in outer space, and properties of amorphous solids at such low temperatures (less than 3K) are not well understood. So, who can say?

@ArchiteuthisFlux now this version i can get behind

@MxVerda @johnnythan @ArchiteuthisFlux

A 2-word comment is not very helpful. You want example code of a stimulus-seeking automaton, is that what you are asking?

@lproven @johnnythan @ArchiteuthisFlux I meant as a joke like "show feet" but yes please if you're willing.

(No guarantees I'll understand any if, for, when, or in functions though.)

@MxVerda @johnnythan @ArchiteuthisFlux Oh right!

Dear gods. When I said I'd done it in BASIC and Fortran, that's a clue to how long ago it was.

@MxVerda @johnnythan @ArchiteuthisFlux

Google failed me. Here is some pseudocode:

Variables
bug location x, y
food location x, y

100x100 grid

Bug location x = rnd * 100
Bug location y = rnd * 100

Calculate distance from bug to food, using Pythagoras
https://byjus.com/maths/distance-formula/

The faint smell excites the bug: the _more_ excited the bug, the _slower_ it moves. More excitement = shorter stride

Stride = 1/distance

Search:
Pick a random direction
Move 1 stride that direction
Sniff
Calculate new stride length: if the smell is stronger, move shorter
If bug(x,y) = food(x,y) exit
Otherwise, go search
End

@MxVerda @johnnythan @ArchiteuthisFlux

The result of this is that the bug, *which can't sense the direction of the food*, usually finds it in about 10 paces or so.

It's fascinating to watch, and it looks just like the lighthouse seeking run, which conservatively using an LLM in the cloud, would run several _trillions_ of lines of code to get there, counting Linux distros in VMs, an orchestrator, and some language models.

@blotosmetek @hypostase @_thegeoff @ArchiteuthisFlux I think it has, but with Donald Trump in place of the Navy.