asciilifeform: as if it were ever the 'hard part'

asciilifeform: for some reason folks who lived in latinate script all their life are obsessed with typography

asciilifeform: not other than superficially.

asciilifeform: when you borked it, it would display this:

asciilifeform: even had microcode bugs that were 'useful'

asciilifeform was sometimes allowed to borrow one of these: http://rk86.com/frolov/mk61-5.jpg

asciilifeform: think 'lisp-like forth' or 'forth-like lisp' but that doesn't really cover it.

asciilifeform: 'check out our other installments, such as Balanced Trinary Computing and Electrically Induced REM Sleep.'

asciilifeform: 'this has been a production of Orcish Science for the Human Experimentalist (TM). Hope you enjoyed the show.'

asciilifeform: you must also vent (or burn) the H and the O

asciilifeform: but should be clear to the alert reader that such things cannot be overlooked.

asciilifeform: prominently missing from the napkin sketch is a number of necessaries (means for cooling the electrolyte, scrubbing metal out of it, positioning of the head, etc)

asciilifeform: because it has piss-poor ROI in ordinary industry (unless you're the ussr)

asciilifeform: every circuit board you own was created that way.

asciilifeform: alternatively, use a clever electrolyte that is only an electrolyte where illuminated by a laser.

asciilifeform: if clever, emplace a magnetic field of the appropriate geometry around the fluid intake/return channels, so it is propelled entirely electrically. if even more clever, emplace a system in the reservoir to re-separate the metal from the electrolyte.

asciilifeform: ^ for the thick

asciilifeform: but never made the obvious conclusion.

asciilifeform: the funny thing is - they appear to understand exactly why the naive approach results in a putrid mess instead of the desired cut.

asciilifeform: the moving 'cutter' must be a nozzle where only a small area of liquid contacts the place to be cut.

asciilifeform: these unfortunates, who, one can surmise, don't know russian, neglected the detail that one must pump the electrolyte.

asciilifeform: incidentally, for anyone who actually wants to try electrochemical machining, here is how NOT to do it:

asciilifeform: (summary of paper: monkey is taught to solve a puzzle which unlocks a dispenser of tasty food. is placed in a cage of 'uneducated' monkeys. is then reliably beaten into dispensing the food for the 'bosses.')

asciilifeform: decimation: trivially true by mere definition.

asciilifeform: ;;google "call in the lab nigger"

asciilifeform: when and where did 'producers' inhabit anywhere but the 'bottom' ?

asciilifeform: * 'second tour of duty' in undergrad --- ochem << missing punctuation matters

asciilifeform: decimation: they could have, in principle, decreed two sets of chemistry courses, one for med-muppetry, one for would-be chemists. but this did not happen.

asciilifeform did a 'second tour of duty' in undergrad ochem, as adult. and saw this alive.

asciilifeform: with little-to-none attention to principles

asciilifeform: the students are asked to simply memorize the book of, e.g, organic reactions.

asciilifeform: decimation: aside from the unremarkable decay across the board of all things u.s., there is a specific phenomenon at work on chemists. in most u.s. schools, they do not actually teach chemistry. instead, they carry out an eleborate 'hazing ritual' for would-be med school applicants.

asciilifeform: ^ now with english translation!

asciilifeform: TheNewDeal: resources available to an average person of modest means and lukewarm enthusiasm

asciilifeform: but the crystal structure disruption is the bigger deal there.

asciilifeform: (now that we helpfully pointed out how.)

asciilifeform: but he might etch them.

asciilifeform: sintering is only used in 'real life', generally, when there is no other choice (ceramics, and metals that really don't behave well in a mill like tungsten)

asciilifeform: e.g., their only public suggestion thus far for metalwork is laser sintering - cribbed straight from ordinary industry

asciilifeform: the '3d printer' folks are still, by and large, thinking like 'normal' engineers.

asciilifeform: i bring up electrolytic machining to explore a point - that tech meant for 'jungle conditions' is a very different field from what is presently dealt with by 'sane' engineers. ☟︎

asciilifeform: an electrolytic mill could, conceivably, know how much metal was actually removed at time 't'

asciilifeform: (even those are often absent from small machines)

asciilifeform: turing-complete << this brings up another interesting observation - none of today's machine tools give the computer any feedback, beyond slide end-stop sensors

asciilifeform: decimation: g-code << it's just simple coordinate motions, with some commands to specify tool changes, splines, etc. what would you have them use?

asciilifeform: try this with an ordinary drill! (without annealing to destroy knife's temper)

asciilifeform: article suggests a useful 'household' application for the demo - poke a hole in a hardened steel knife where the handle fell off, to bolt on new handle.