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Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

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Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#151

Post by abyesilyurt »

When I was in college, there was a introductory signal processing course. We were using a LabView based FPGA, called myRIO.

In one of the labs, we were doing audio processing to filter out noise from the audio and listening on the headset. Towards the end of the session, we were messing up with the code to see what else is possible.

Anyways, I accidentally set the gain so high somewhere, while wearing the headphones still and played a tone. I almost got deaf. It still gives me chills to think about it.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#152

Post by mojuba »

Easily. Got ear infection (!) from an unexpected, very loud random noise in my headphones (just one channel) as a result of a bug in my CoreAudio code.

What does CoreAudio do if your floating point audio buffer is filled with random numbers? That's right, it plays random noise at the maximum possible level, bypassing the system volume setting.

Why ear infection? I have no idea, but my GP explained that it's quite possible even if the eardrum doesn't get damaged. Which in my case thankfully it didn't.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#153

Post by ehnto »

fart32 wrote: post #119
theli0nheart wrote: post #112

> Look at an audio file's waveform before playing it at max volume. This is important, but more broadly, practice good sound hygiene: wear headphones them around your neck until you know for a fact that it's safe to put them on your ears. Additionally, never play "new" sounds without remembering to set audio output to a tiny fraction of normal and increasing it after the sample is deemed safe. Musicians have this dri…

And if you have been exposed to a very loud noise, to the point where your ears are ringing (probably not from headphones, but like starting a loud bike in a garage or gun fire), go to hospital, as soon as possible. They can give you medicaments and prevent permanent damage (tinnitus).

I have tinnitus. You don't want tinnitus. Silence is no longer a possibility for me. I got it messing about on computers and with loud cars in my teens, so unfortunately it was just a dumb kid thing that will last a lifetime.

I hate to guess how many kids are giving themselves tinnitus right now. It's just not possible to communicate the seriousness of long term problems to kids, they have no context for what long term really means yet.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#154

Post by fmagin »

arionhardison wrote: post #139
vailprogrammer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with autoimmune issues who rarely checks HN but is very interested in your work, do you have a newsletter I could sign up for or an email address I could reach out to to receive updates on your work?

Yes, I also am dying to just talk to anyone about my work and what I am trying to do. I am very approachable and I CRAVE the most vicious, critical feedback that I can find. You can email me (email on profile) as the newsletter stuff will not be done for at least 1 month.

Well, this was finally the thing that made me get an HN account, because I am really interested in talking with someone about that kind of stuff. I can't see an e-mail in your profile though, and as far as I understand noone can see your email you supplied in the email field, and your about section looks empty to me.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#155

Post by defen »

metafunctor wrote: post #126
inter_netuser wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite robotics, but some of our servers kept powercycling , had to plug in the physical terminal. It was close to lunch, so I kept eating. The finale was a jar of mayo spilled into the guts of a 50k server. Best mayo I ever had.

What kind of server room allows you to bring food?

OP said a jar of mayonnaise spilled into the server, not food.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#156

Post by agustif »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #89
8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are sometimes kind of down on that approach in software, considering it sloppy. Especially in comparison to other engineering disciplines it just looks kinda bad sure. But really I'm pretty sure if for example civil engineers could build a bridge in an hour and load it up consequence-free they'd do it too. The fact that we do it isn't bad at all, but yeah it's easy to not realize when you've exited the realm o…

I wonder how long it will be before we can 3-D print a dam in place.

Those beaver-bots will be ferocious!

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#157

Post by vvillena »

thih9 wrote: post #129

It's extremely easy to hurt yourself with audio, it almost feels like cheating. Just regular audio work provides plenty of opportunities to do that. Here's a random note from Supercollider, a platform for audio synthesis [1]: > CAUTION: macOS system volume doesn’t effectively limit audio applications’ maximum volume. Extra care has to be put in working on this platform, especially with headphones, because programs ca…

After such one experience, I've never played with audio while wearing headphones unless there's a physical volume control in the signal chain.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#158

Post by barrkel »

dharmab wrote: post #80
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything with an actuator, really. I'm a controls engineer, we work with all kinds of hazards and it's my responsibility to run the risk assessment that makes sure no minimum-wage operator gets harmed because of our machine. People are the squishiest, weakest, most sensitive part of just about any shop, so there's a lot of risks to assess! One key observation, though, when working with code is that the machine become…

> A cordless handheld drill is hardly a tool that most people would call 'hazardous'. You turn the trigger, the thing rotates, grab the chuck and you can likely stall it. But that much energy in something driven by code is extremely dangerous, it's waiting for any of who knows how many conditions to take off, a common one is that putting your hands in/on something that seems to be not moving can 'make' a sensor and t…

An impact driver (rattle gun) is much better for speeding up disassembly than a drill. They also don't apply anything like the same feeling of torque to the operator's wrist.

A lower power (e.g. 300Nm max) battery driver is great for when you have to undo lots of lower sized bolts, while it would be a little bit underpowered for wheel nuts or motorcycle fork retaining bolts.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#160

Post by jan_Inkepa »

thih9 wrote: post #129

It's extremely easy to hurt yourself with audio, it almost feels like cheating. Just regular audio work provides plenty of opportunities to do that. Here's a random note from Supercollider, a platform for audio synthesis [1]: > CAUTION: macOS system volume doesn’t effectively limit audio applications’ maximum volume. Extra care has to be put in working on this platform, especially with headphones, because programs ca…

The macOS system volume behaviour is ridiculous. I ... had a really bad time once with puredata. I...it's really unpleasant to remember. I also generally amn't entitled with open source software, but reporting this as an issue to the people at puredata (dsp software), recommending that they put in their own software cap in the pipeline was met with the response that I could always do that myself in my scripts as I'm writing them if I cared about it. For me (as someone who's made audio software), user's physical safety of this avoidable kind must be high priority, and it's more or less unconscionable to leave things like this to chance.
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