yaymukund’s weblog

February 18, 2022

Scoring an animation with Orca

In this post, I’ll demonstrate how to score an animation using Orca.

What is Orca?

Orca is an esoteric programming language for composing music. An Orca program is somewhere between a circuit diagram and an ASCII roguelike. But you don’t need to know either of those things to get started— in an interview with its creator Devine Lu Linvega of the programming duo Hundred Rabbits:

I was always kind of aiming, I guess, at children. I was like, if you can just open the page and put that in front of a kid, could they figure it out? It wouldn’t take that many keystrokes until they figure out which… like [the operator] E will start moving, and through the act of playing they’ll find their way without having to read the documentation.

— from Devine’s interview on the Future of Coding podcast

Some resources to get started:

The final score

The completed score, consisting of all the techniques described in this post.

Although it might seem complicated— especially if you’re not familiar with Orca— this program is actually the result of building on a few core ideas. As you read this, I hope it will feel like a natural progression to go from one step to the next.

Ok, now let’s start at the beginning.

What is a score?

Scoring an animation requires timing sounds to events on screen. For example, when a piece of glass shatters in the animation, there should be a crash sound. Let’s say this happens on frame 21. Using Orca, how do you play a sound on the 21st frame and then never again?

The answer to this was not obvious to me. Most Orca compositions, at the time of writing this, consisted of loops. I could not find any examples that did what I wanted. But since we have access to the clock frame using the C operator, this feels like it should be possible.

Here’s one way to do it:

Learning how to wait

Note: Throughout this post, I will refer to hexadecimal numbers using the prefix 0x. For example, 0x10 is decimal 16.

Note 2: I will refer to the last digit in a hexadecimal number as the “ones’ digit” and the second-to-last digit as the “sixteens’ digit.” For example, 0x10‘s ones’ digit is 0 and its sixteens’ digit is 1.

Ok, let’s begin.

First, use a pair of hexadecimal clocks Cf and fCf:

  • The frame count is at the bottom right, a monotonically increasing number.
  • Cf mods the frame count by 0xf, or 16, to output the ones’ digit, a number from 0x0 to 0xe.
  • fCf also divides the frame count by 0xf, or 16, to output the sixteens’ digit.

Next, check the outputs using F. The F operator will output a bang (*) if their inputs on either side are equal.

Finally, AND the outputs of both the Fs into a single *:

  • Y, the ‘yumper’ operator, just copies the input horizontally.
  • f here is a lowercase F that only operates on a bang.

On frame 0x15, the f outputs a bang.

Note: If the f were uppercase, it would incorrectly output a bang when both inputs are empty (i.e. when neither ones’ nor sixteens’ digits matched.)

At this point, I posted my timer to the Orca thread on lines, asking the community if there was a simpler way to do this. Devine responded, suggesting this condensed version that uses one fewer operator.

Limitations

Here, it is important to note that this timer does not actually “bang once and then never again” as originally promised. Since the timer only checks the ones’ and sixteens’ digits of the frame number, it will bang at 0x015, 0x115, 0x215, …— every 0x100 or 256 frames. This ends up being about 25 seconds at 120 bpm.

My animation happens to be 15s long, so this was not a problem for me. If anyone finds an elegant solution to the original problem as stated, I’d love to see it.

Wiring up sounds

Now, the fun part. Use this timer to schedule different sounds.

Playing a note

This can be used to play a single midi note.

Toggling a loop

First, consider a simple drum loop.

Then, use an X to set the note’s velocity, effectively turning the loop on or off. Here, it sets the velocity to 0x7.

It’s a bit silly to use X to set a constant value like this, but it should make sense in the next step.

Finally, automate this using timers:

  • The drum loop begins muted, its velocity 0x0.
  • The first timer at frame 0x15 turns on the drum loop by setting its velocity to 0xa.
  • The second timer at frame 0x28 turns it off again by setting the velocity to 0x0.

Timing a sequence of notes

Play a sequence of notes by combining operators Z and T:

  • The Z counts up from 1 to 5, exactly once.
  • This determines the note output by T.
  • The output of T is fed to :, the midi operator.

Use a timer to control when the sequence plays:

  • Z starts at 5, unlike the previous example, so it doesn’t immediately play.
  • The timer fires at frame 0x15 to activate x.
  • x sets the Z back to 0 and causes it to play.

Timers in practice

At this point, if you go back to the beginning and see the final composition, you may notice some differences from the examples. I omitted details to keep the examples small and easy to understand:

Conclusion

Here’s the completed looping animation:

A hand reaches to water a plant but drops the cup, which shatters. The plant droops, the mug pieces rise and hover in the air above the plant, before falling into the pot which we now see contains a worm. The worm is sliced in half by a piece of mug, its worm blood spreading around the dirt, before gathering and traveling up the stalk of the plant. Zooming in, we see a new stem emerge. Its bud sprouts, revealing it has grown pieces of the same mug fragments. Zooming out all the way, we see the plant is standing up once again. It has an extra stem, which the hand plucks. A worm squirms out of the pot and offscreen, and the entire animation loops.

(If you want to see more of my art, please follow my instagram.)

This is only a small taste of what Orca’s capable of doing, but I hope it’s a fun read. If you notice any mistakes in this article or want to share feedback, please reach out. I’d like to do more of these in the future.

October 18, 2021

Restic + Backblaze B2 on NixOS

While NixOS fully supports making restic backups using Backblaze, I couldn’t find documentation for it. From browsing configs on GitHub, many people seem to also use rclone but I’d rather not introduce another dependency.

Here’s how I did it:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.restic ];

  services.restic.backups.myaccount = {
    initialize = true;
    # since this uses an `agenix` secret that's only readable to the
    # root user, we need to run this script as root. If your
    # environment is configured differently, you may be able to do:
    #
    # user = "myuser
    #
    passwordFile = config.age.secrets.my_backups_pw.path;
    # what to backup.
    paths = ["/home/myusername"];
    # the name of your repository.
    repository = "b2:my_repo_name";
    timerConfig = {
      # backup every 1d
      OnUnitActiveSec = "1d";
    };


    # keep 7 daily, 5 weekly, and 10 annual backups
    pruneOpts = [
      "--keep-daily 7"
      "--keep-weekly 5"
      "--keep-yearly 10"
    ];
  };

  # Instead of doing this, you may alternatively hijack the
  # `awsS3Credentials` argument to pass along these environment
  # vars.
  #
  # If you specified a user above, you need to change it to:
  # systemd.services.user.restic-backups-myaccount = { ... }
  #
  systemd.services.restic-backups-myaccount = {
    environment = {
      B2_ACCOUNT_ID = "my_account_id_abc123";
      B2_ACCOUNT_KEY = "my_account_key_def456";
    };
  };

}
June 2, 2021

Overriding packages in NixOS

In NixOS, it’s sometimes desirable to override a package in order to extend or modify its behavior. For example, I override my Neovim to add plugins so they get all the benefits of being in the nix store. Here’s how I do it.

# in configuration.nix
nixpkgs.overlays = [
  (import ./overlays.nix)
];

# in overlays.nix
self: super: {
  neovim-mukund = self.callPackage ./packages/neovim-mukund.nix {};
}

# finally, in packages/neovim-mukund.nix
{ pkgs }:
  neovim.override {
    vimAlias = true;
    viAlias = true;
    configure = {
      packages.mukund-plugins = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
        start = [
          ale
          fzf-vim
          # ...
        ];
      };
    };
  }

# putting it all together
environment.systemPackages = [
  neovim-mukund
];

Bonus: Installing a single package from main

If you need to install a single package from the main branch but keep the rest of your code on your nix channel (usually the main channel or nixos-unstable), then try this:

# in packages/neovim-mukund.nix
let neovim-master = (import (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz") {}).neovim
in
  environment.systemPackage = [
    neovim-master
  ]

This time, I’m fetching and installing from the master.tar.gz file. This is handy if there’s an update upstream that you want to use immediately. For example, I often use this when Discord releases an update. Nixpkgs usually merges the version bump fairly quickly, but it doesn’t reach the release channels for many days during which Discord is unusable.

References

February 2, 2021

Rust Magic

This is a list of places in Rust where implementing a trait or using a struct affects the syntax of your code. I think of these features as “magical” because using them can change the behavior of very basic Rust code (let, for-in, &, etc.).

What follows is a small list of (hopefully) illustrative examples, and a short epilogue pointing you to more articles if this topic interests you.

Contents

struct Foo {
    text: String,
}

impl Drop for Foo {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        println!("{} was dropped", self.text);
    }
}

fn main() {
    let mut foo = Some(Foo {
        text: String::from("the old value"),
    });

    // this calls the drop() we wrote above
    foo = None;
}

struct MyCustomStrings(Vec<String>);

impl IntoIterator for MyCustomStrings {
    type Item = String;
    type IntoIter = std::vec::IntoIter<Self::Item>;

    fn into_iter(self) -> Self::IntoIter {
        self.0.into_iter()
    }
}

fn main() {
    let my_custom_strings = MyCustomStrings(vec![
        String::from("one"),
        String::from("two"),
        String::from("three"),
    ]);

    // We can use for-in with our struct
    //
    // prints "one", "two", "three"
    for a_string in my_custom_strings {
        println!("{}", a_string);
    }
}

use std::ops::Deref;

struct Smart<T> {
    inner: T,
}

// You can implement `DerefMut` to coerce exclusive references (&mut).
impl<T> Deref for Smart<T> {
    type Target = T;

    fn deref(&self) -> &Self::Target {
        &self.inner
    }
}

fn main() {
    let text = Smart {
        inner: String::from("what did you say?"),
    };

    // The `impl Deref` lets us invoke the `&str` method
    // `to_uppercase()` on a `&Smart<String>`
    println!("{}", &text.to_uppercase());
}

use std::fmt;

struct Goat {
    name: String,
}

impl fmt::Display for Goat {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter) -> fmt::Result {
        write!(f, "a goat named {}", self.name)
    }
}

fn main() {
    let goat = Goat {
        name: String::from("Yagi"),
    };

    // This invokes our `Display`'s `fmt()`
    println!("{}", goat);
}

#[derive(Clone, Copy, Debug)]
struct Point {
    x: usize,
    y: usize,
}

fn main() {
    let point_a = Point { x: 1, y: 2 };
    let point_b = point_a;

    // point_a is still valid because it was copied rather than moved.
    println!("{:?}", point_a);
}

// Notes:
// * This works very similarly with Option<T>
// * We need to derive(Debug) to use the error in a Result.
//
#[derive(Debug)]
struct SomeError;

fn uh_oh() -> Result<(), SomeError> {
    Err(SomeError)
}

fn main() -> Result<(), SomeError> {
    // The following line desugars to:
    //
    // match uh_oh() {
    //     Ok(v) => v,
    //     Err(SomeError) => return Err(SomeError),
    // }
    //
    uh_oh()?;

    Ok(())
}

Epilogue

When I first started compiling this list, I asked around in the Rust community discord. scottmcm from the Rust Language team introduced me to the concept of lang items. If you search for articles on this topic, you get some fantastic resources:

So what is a lang item? Lang items are a way for the stdlib (and libcore) to define types, traits, functions, and other items which the compiler needs to know about.

– Rust Tidbits: What is a Lang Item? by Manish Goregaokar

Not all lang items are magical, but most magical things are lang items. If you want a deeper or more comprehensive understanding, I recommend reading Manish’s article in its entirety.

November 11, 2020

How to configure API Gateway v2 using Terraform

Here’s how you wire up an AWS lambda into an HTTP API using Terraform and AWS’s API Gateway v2 resources.

When you terraform apply this, it’ll spit out an API URL. You can GET / against that API URL to run your lambda:

resource "aws_iam_role" "plants" {
  name = "iam_plant_api"

  assume_role_policy = <<EOF
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": [
          "lambda.amazonaws.com"
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}
EOF
}

# This presumes you have a zip file get_water_level.zip
# which contains a get_water_level.js file which exports
# a `handler` function
resource "aws_lambda_function" "get_water_level" {
  filename = "get_water_level.zip"
  function_name = "get_water_level"
  publish = true
  role = aws_iam_role.plants.arn
  handler = "get_water_level.handler"
  source_code_hash = filebase64sha256("get_water_level.zip")
  runtime = "nodejs12.x"
}

resource "aws_apigatewayv2_api" "plants" {
  name          = "http-plants"
  protocol_type = "HTTP"
}

resource "aws_apigatewayv2_stage" "plants_prod" {
  api_id = aws_apigatewayv2_api.plants.id
  name = "$default"
  auto_deploy = true
}

resource "aws_apigatewayv2_integration" "get_water_level" {
  api_id = aws_apigatewayv2_api.plants.id
  integration_type = "AWS_PROXY"
  integration_method = "POST"
  integration_uri = aws_lambda_function.get_water_level.invoke_arn
}

resource "aws_apigatewayv2_route" "get_water_level" {
  api_id = aws_apigatewayv2_api.plants.id
  route_key = "GET /"
  target = "integrations/${aws_apigatewayv2_integration.get_water_level.id}"
}

resource "aws_lambda_permission" "get_water_level" {
  action        = "lambda:InvokeFunction"
  function_name = aws_lambda_function.get_water_level.arn
  principal     = "apigateway.amazonaws.com"
  source_arn = "${aws_apigatewayv2_stage.plants_prod.execution_arn}/*"
}

output "api_url" {
  value = aws_apigatewayv2_stage.plants_prod.invoke_url
}

Notes

  1. Anyone with the URL will be able to invoke your lambda. If you want access control or rate limiting, you’ll need to add that.

  2. Without the aws_lambda_permission, your API Gateway won’t have permission to invoke the lambda and it’ll 500.

  3. The aws_apigatewayv2_stage is a staging environment (e.g. development, production, test). You must have at least one stage, or else calls to your API will fail with “Not Found”.

  4. The aws_lambda_permission lets any route on your API’s $default stage invoke the lambda. If you want to restrict it to a particular route, you can make the source_arn more specific.

Resources

June 9, 2020

What's in a name?

I decided to catalogue examples of engineers– primarily software developers– being asked to change a name to avoid being racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise bigoted. About half of these examples come from responses to my AskMetaFilter question.

Note: This list is not any sort of exhaustive or representative sample. I offer it as a starting point for anyone interested in reading more about how tech communities respond. If you find any links that should be added, please don’t hesitate to send me an email.

There’s a TON of 2020 Pull Requests about this, so I am going to pick some of them.

2020

May 30, 2020

Panicking, unsafe, and you

In Jon Gjengset’s Demystifying Unsafe Code talk at Rust NYC, he gives a very interesting example of unsafe code. Here’s the link– please go and watch it– but I’ve transcribed it here along with my paraphrased explanation.

impl<T> Vec<T> {
  /// apply `f` to every element of `us`, and extend `self`
  /// with the result. for example:
  ///
  /// names.extend_map([user1, user2], |u| u.name())
  ///
  fn extend_map<U, F>(&mut self, us: &[U], mut f: F)
  where F: FnMut(&U) -> T {
    // reserve capacity in the Vec all at once, for perf (?)
    self.reserve(us.len());

    // set the length() manually.
    let cur_len = self.len();
    unsafe { self.set_len(cur_len + us.len()) };

    // insert the items by writing to the memory location
    let into = unsafe { self.as_mut_ptr().add(cur_len) };
    for u in us {
      unsafe { std::ptr::write(into, f(u)) }; into += 1;
    }
  }
}

If f panics, then Rust will unwind the stack and drop every item in Vec before dropping the Vec itself. However, since you’ve unsafely set its length with set_len(), it will try to call drop on array indices that you haven’t written to yet! In other words, it will just call garbage memory. Apparently, this is why it can be challenging to write Vec::drain() implementations.

May 16, 2019

A Few Things Like These (Ippatiyum Cila Vicayankal)

Among birds, I like crows very much.
It's true; it is a thieving creature
tactfully snatching away the eats from the hands of children.
In deed, it is a foolish creature
visiting and perching on the compound wall of the house
and caws at the oddest hours.
Even then
isn't it my friend
who looks at me and calls out to me
in my village where I crawled as a baby and grew up
and also in this city planted from elsewhere?

– Cinnakkapali (Translated by Nirmal Selvamony)

There were three or four crows standing on a branch in the trees outside our balcony, so this poem feels very timely.

Source: Oikopoetrics and Tamil Poetry by Nirmal Selvanomy

March 1, 2019

How to spy on your Rust code

In the following code, how can you test that Player is making the correct API calls?

struct Player<'a> {
  api: &'a Api,
}

impl<'a> Player<'a> {
  pub fn new(api: &'a Api) -> Player<'a> {
    Player { api }
  }

  pub fn play(&self, song: &str) {
    self.api.sing(song);
  }

  pub fn stop(&self) {
    self.api.shush();
  }
}

The answer? Make it generic!

struct Player<'a, T> {
  api: &'a T,
}

impl<'a, T> Player<'a, T>
where
  T: PlayerApi,
{
  pub fn new(api: &'a T) -> Player<'a, T> {
    Player { api }
  }

  // ...
}

trait PlayerApi {
  // Default trait implementation uses `Api`
  fn sing(&self, url: &str);
  fn shush(&self);
}

impl PlayerApi for Api {
  fn sing(&self, url: &str) {
    Api::sing(self, url)
  }

  fn shush(&self) {
    Api::shush(self)
  }
}

Then you can easily spy on it:

#[cfg(test)]
module Test {
  struct ApiSpy {
    pub invocations: Vec<String>,
    api: Api,
  }

  impl ApiSpy {
    pub fn new() -> ApiSpy {
      ApiSpy { api: Api::New() }
    }
  }

  impl PlayerApi for ApiSpy {
    fn sing(&self, url: &str) {
      self.invocations.push('play');
      self.api.sing(url)
    }
  }

  #[test]
  fn test_play() {
    let api = ApiMock::new();
    let player = Player::new(&api);
    player.play("my_url");
    assert_eq!(api.invocations[0], "play");
  }
}

That’s it!

How can I assert that I passed the correct arguments?

You can store the arguments in the ApiSpy. For example, here’s how I mocked the mpv api and used it in a test.

I don’t want to define a trait for my API just for tests!

Defining a trait for your external APIs is good for reasons beyond testing. But if you still still don’t want to make your API generic, then you could use conditional compilation instead..

What if I don’t want to execute API code in tests?

If you want to mock instead of spy, you have a couple options:

February 3, 2019

Wireless printers on swaywm

Here’s how you add a wireless printer to Sway. You’ll need the following tools:

  1. CUPS, the “standards-based, open source printing system”
  2. Avahi for wireless support
  3. nss-mdns, so we can refer to the printer as <hostname>.local (e.g. myprinter.local)
# Install the packages
$ yay -S cups avahi nss-mdns

# Start the cups service
$ systemctl start org.cups.cupsd.service

# Ensure you can see the CUPS web interface at localhost:631

# Start the Avahi daemon
$ systemctl start avahi-daemon.service

Now, enable hostname resolution in Avahi by following the instructions on the Arch Wiki.

# Find the printer on the local network
$ sudo lpinfo --include-schemes dnssd -v

# You should see something like:
# network dnssd://Canon%20MG5700%20series._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=<some uuid>

# Add the printer to CUPS
$ sudo lpadmin \
  -p short-name-eg-canon-md5750 \
  -D "Full Name (e.g. 'Canon MG5750 Laserjet')" \
  -L "Location (e.g. 'Living Room') (Optional)" \
  -v dnssd://Canon%20MG5700...

If you did everything right so far, you should be able to see the printer in the CUPS web interface (localhost:631). If you click on the printer’s name, it should say “Idle, Accepting Jobs.”

Now, you can try to print your document. You can track your print job from the CUPS web interface. If something goes wrong, you can see the error there.

Bonus! Add custom printer drivers

To access advanced features of your printer, you may need to install a custom driver. First, find the relevant drivers by searching the AUR for your printer model. For me, it was the cnijfilter2-mg7700 package.

Once you’ve done that, tell CUPS to assign the custom driver to the printer:

# Find the driver's ppd file
$ lpinfo -m
# It will be something like lsb/usr/canonmg5700.ppd

# And assign it in CUPS
$ sudo lpadmin -p canon-md5750 -m lsb/usr/canonmg5700.ppd

That’s it!

Troubleshooting

My printer in CUPS is listed as disabled or not accepting new jobs

Make sure you run:

$ sudo cupsenable $short_name
$ sudo cupsaccept $short_name

You may be able to do this from the web interface, but I was getting permission denied errors.

My print job fails because it can’t find ghostscript

You need to install ghostscript. In Arch, it’s just yay -S ghostscript.

References