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Author of this silly project here! Sharing a bit of backstory on why I decided to work on this; Firstly, “for fun” but primarily because I felt like I started

Author of this silly project here! Sharing a bit of backstory on why I decided to work on this; Firstly, “for fun” but primarily because I felt like I started losing the childlike wonder/whimsy I once had with programming. So I started this new hobby where I ask myself “can I hack on this?” upon getting/seeing something. For instance, I got this new Aula F75 keyboard (really good keyboard for the price btw, it sounds good too!) and it only has dedicated control software for Windows. So I downloaded the driver files, software executable, and manual sheet and reverse engineered the full protocol/packets and rebuilt it for my Mac. Then played snake with the backlights. Fun. Anywho, happy to see my blog on the front page. Would love to hear if anyones going through something similar or working on silly little projects! :)

chocochunks 6mo ago
Does this work with real candy?
- mufeedvh 6mo ago
  Yes! Just make sure to take a photo on a plain white surface is all. With: uv run mnm decompile path/to/photo.png --mode photo
berlinquin 6mo ago
Fun project! I had a similar project a while back, but my medium of choice was the Uno card game. I called it UnoScript [1] and it had similar mechanisms as color was an important factor. I also ended with a stack as the main part of the language, where different colors/combinations of cards could read from/modify the stack. Interesting how similar constraints can lead to some similar design choices! [1](https://github.com/berlinquin/UnoScript https://github.com/berlinquin/UnoScript)
AdieuToLogic 6mo ago
Great post, thanks for sharing it! When I saw the title, I thought of Lambda Calculus[0] and SKI combinators[1]. Given that there are "only six useful colors", I wonder if M&Ms could be used to implement them. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus
- mufeedvh 6mo ago
  Funny you mention that, because yes, a combinator-style encoding is probably a cleaner fit for the “only six colors constraint than my stack machine. I hacked together a tiny SKI-flavored M&M reducer as a proof of concept: B=S, G=K, R=I, Y=(, O=), and N... is a free atom, so `B G G NNN` reduces to `a2`. Gist: https://gist.github.com/mufeedvh/db930a423fdce8c1d8e495c7a3ffdcdb https://gist.github.com/mufeedvh/db930a423fdce8c1d8e495c7a3f...
  - AdieuToLogic 6mo ago
    That is too cool, thanks again for sharing your exploration. I suppose the only question remaining is if peanut M&Ms are higher-kinded when contrasted with the chocolate-only nullary type. :-D
pkaral 6mo ago
This makes the world a better place. I got a little oxytocin hit just from the thought that somewhere on this world, someone is working on this problem. Now I'll be kinder to old ladies and give those poor puppies a pass.

chocochunks 6mo ago

Does this work with real candy?

mufeedvh 6mo ago
Yes! Just make sure to take a photo on a plain white surface is all. With: uv run mnm decompile path/to/photo.png --mode photo

berlinquin 6mo ago

Fun project! I had a similar project a while back, but my medium of choice was the Uno card game. I called it UnoScript [1] and it had similar mechanisms as color was an important factor. I also ended with a stack as the main part of the language, where different colors/combinations of cards could read from/modify the stack. Interesting how similar constraints can lead to some similar design choices! [1](https://github.com/berlinquin/UnoScript https://github.com/berlinquin/UnoScript)

AdieuToLogic 6mo ago

Great post, thanks for sharing it! When I saw the title, I thought of Lambda Calculus[0] and SKI combinators[1]. Given that there are "only six useful colors", I wonder if M&Ms could be used to implement them. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus

mufeedvh 6mo ago
Funny you mention that, because yes, a combinator-style encoding is probably a cleaner fit for the “only six colors constraint than my stack machine. I hacked together a tiny SKI-flavored M&M reducer as a proof of concept: B=S, G=K, R=I, Y=(, O=), and N... is a free atom, so `B G G NNN` reduces to `a2`. Gist: https://gist.github.com/mufeedvh/db930a423fdce8c1d8e495c7a3ffdcdb https://gist.github.com/mufeedvh/db930a423fdce8c1d8e495c7a3f...
- AdieuToLogic 6mo ago
  That is too cool, thanks again for sharing your exploration. I suppose the only question remaining is if peanut M&Ms are higher-kinded when contrasted with the chocolate-only nullary type. :-D

pkaral 6mo ago

This makes the world a better place. I got a little oxytocin hit just from the thought that somewhere on this world, someone is working on this problem. Now I'll be kinder to old ladies and give those poor puppies a pass.