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authorSadeep Madurange <sadeep@asciimx.com>2025-12-27 17:36:09 +0800
committerSadeep Madurange <sadeep@asciimx.com>2025-12-27 18:36:05 +0800
commit15ab870972f3fbeeec24ae70f1eb2ad19bc0be11 (patch)
tree72cecf1e031b1bfcc3a615743e1b9be192705cd7 /_site
parent023ea62a08492d9dda680cee3e706a988b1ae6f0 (diff)
downloadwww-15ab870972f3fbeeec24ae70f1eb2ad19bc0be11.tar.gz
Bumblebee.
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-rw-r--r--_site/feed.xml2
-rw-r--r--_site/log/bumblebee/index.html64
-rw-r--r--_site/posts.xml2
3 files changed, 32 insertions, 36 deletions
diff --git a/_site/feed.xml b/_site/feed.xml
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+++ b/_site/feed.xml
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-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.4.1">Jekyll</generator><link href="/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2025-12-27T13:04:53+08:00</updated><id>/feed.xml</id><title type="html">ASCIIMX | Log</title><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><entry><title type="html">Matrix Rain: 2025 refactor</title><link href="/log/matrix-digital-rain/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Matrix Rain: 2025 refactor" /><published>2025-12-21T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-12-21T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/matrix-digital-rain</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[The 2022 version worked but had some loose ends. Unicode support was inflexible–couldn’t mix ASCII with Katakana; Phosphor decay was stored in a separate array when it should’ve been packed with RGB; Code was harder to read than it needed to be.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Fingerprint door lock (LP)</title><link href="/log/fpm-door-lock-lp/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Fingerprint door lock (LP)" /><published>2025-08-18T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-08-18T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/fpm-door-lock-lp</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Second iteration of the RF door lock. Old version worked but drew too much quiescent current. Sensor and servo pulled 13.8mA and 4.6mA idle. Linear regulators were a disaster. Battery didn’t last 24 hours.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">High-side MOSFET switching</title><link href="/log/mosfet-switches/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="High-side MOSFET switching" /><published>2025-06-22T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-22T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/mosfet-switches</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Needed low-power switching for the fingerprint door lock. Servo and FPM draw high quiescent current–had to cut power electronically during sleep. MOSFETs can do this.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">ATmega328P at 3.3V and 5V</title><link href="/log/arduino-uno/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="ATmega328P at 3.3V and 5V" /><published>2025-06-10T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-10T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/arduino-uno</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Quick reference for wiring ATmega328P ICs at 5V and 3.3V. 5V uses 16MHz crystal, 3.3V uses 8MHz.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Fingerprint door lock (RF)</title><link href="/log/fpm-door-lock-rf/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Fingerprint door lock (RF)" /><published>2025-06-05T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-05T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/fpm-door-lock-rf</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Wanted to unlock door with fingerprint, wirelessly to avoid drilling.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Bumblebee: browser automation</title><link href="/log/bumblebee/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Bumblebee: browser automation" /><published>2025-04-02T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-04-02T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/bumblebee</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Bumblebee is a tool I built for one of my employers to automate the generation of web scraping scripts.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">ATSAM3X8E bare-metal programming</title><link href="/log/arduino-due/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="ATSAM3X8E bare-metal programming" /><published>2024-09-16T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2024-09-16T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/arduino-due</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Notes on programming ATSAM3X8E chips (Arduino Due) without bootloader. Tested on OpenBSD.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Etlas: e-paper dashboard</title><link href="/log/etlas/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Etlas: e-paper dashboard" /><published>2024-09-05T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2024-09-05T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/etlas</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Etlas is a news, stock market, and weather tracker powered by an ESP32 NodeMCU D1, featuring a 7.5-inch Waveshare e-paper display and a DHT22 sensor module.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Experimental e-reader</title><link href="/log/e-reader/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Experimental e-reader" /><published>2023-10-24T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2023-10-24T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/e-reader</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[This project features an experimental e-reader powered by an ESP-WROOM-32 development board and a 7.5-inch Waveshare e-paper display built with the intention of learning about e-paper displays.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Neo4J A* search</title><link href="/log/neo4j-a-star-search/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Neo4J A* search" /><published>2018-03-06T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2018-03-06T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/neo4j-a-star-search</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Back in 2018, we used Neo4J graph database to track the movement of marine vessels. We were interested in the shortest path a ship could take through a network of about 13,000 route points. Graph theoretic algorithms provide optimal solutions to such problems, and the set of route points lends itself well to graph-based modelling.]]></summary></entry></feed> \ No newline at end of file
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.4.1">Jekyll</generator><link href="/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2025-12-27T18:35:47+08:00</updated><id>/feed.xml</id><title type="html">ASCIIMX | Log</title><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><entry><title type="html">Matrix Rain: 2025 refactor</title><link href="/log/matrix-digital-rain/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Matrix Rain: 2025 refactor" /><published>2025-12-21T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-12-21T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/matrix-digital-rain</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[The 2022 version worked but had some loose ends. Unicode support was inflexible–couldn’t mix ASCII with Katakana; Phosphor decay was stored in a separate array when it should’ve been packed with RGB; Code was harder to read than it needed to be.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Fingerprint door lock (LP)</title><link href="/log/fpm-door-lock-lp/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Fingerprint door lock (LP)" /><published>2025-08-18T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-08-18T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/fpm-door-lock-lp</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Second iteration of the RF door lock. Old version worked but drew too much quiescent current. Sensor and servo pulled 13.8mA and 4.6mA idle. Linear regulators were a disaster. Battery didn’t last 24 hours.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">High-side MOSFET switching</title><link href="/log/mosfet-switches/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="High-side MOSFET switching" /><published>2025-06-22T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-22T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/mosfet-switches</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Needed low-power switching for the fingerprint door lock. Servo and FPM draw high quiescent current–had to cut power electronically during sleep. MOSFETs can do this.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">ATmega328P at 3.3V and 5V</title><link href="/log/arduino-uno/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="ATmega328P at 3.3V and 5V" /><published>2025-06-10T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-10T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/arduino-uno</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Quick reference for wiring ATmega328P ICs at 5V and 3.3V. 5V uses 16MHz crystal, 3.3V uses 8MHz.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Fingerprint door lock (RF)</title><link href="/log/fpm-door-lock-rf/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Fingerprint door lock (RF)" /><published>2025-06-05T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-06-05T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/fpm-door-lock-rf</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Wanted to unlock door with fingerprint, wirelessly to avoid drilling.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Bumblebee: browser automation</title><link href="/log/bumblebee/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Bumblebee: browser automation" /><published>2025-04-02T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2025-04-02T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/bumblebee</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Built with Andy Zhang for an employer. Tool to automate web scraping script generation.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">ATSAM3X8E bare-metal programming</title><link href="/log/arduino-due/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="ATSAM3X8E bare-metal programming" /><published>2024-09-16T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2024-09-16T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/arduino-due</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Notes on programming ATSAM3X8E chips (Arduino Due) without bootloader. Tested on OpenBSD.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Etlas: e-paper dashboard</title><link href="/log/etlas/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Etlas: e-paper dashboard" /><published>2024-09-05T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2024-09-05T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/etlas</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Etlas is a news, stock market, and weather tracker powered by an ESP32 NodeMCU D1, featuring a 7.5-inch Waveshare e-paper display and a DHT22 sensor module.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Experimental e-reader</title><link href="/log/e-reader/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Experimental e-reader" /><published>2023-10-24T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2023-10-24T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/e-reader</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[This project features an experimental e-reader powered by an ESP-WROOM-32 development board and a 7.5-inch Waveshare e-paper display built with the intention of learning about e-paper displays.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Neo4J A* search</title><link href="/log/neo4j-a-star-search/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Neo4J A* search" /><published>2018-03-06T00:00:00+08:00</published><updated>2018-03-06T00:00:00+08:00</updated><id>/log/neo4j-a-star-search</id><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author><summary type="html"><![CDATA[Back in 2018, we used Neo4J graph database to track the movement of marine vessels. We were interested in the shortest path a ship could take through a network of about 13,000 route points. Graph theoretic algorithms provide optimal solutions to such problems, and the set of route points lends itself well to graph-based modelling.]]></summary></entry></feed> \ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/_site/log/bumblebee/index.html b/_site/log/bumblebee/index.html
index 7fabd41..2aebc2f 100644
--- a/_site/log/bumblebee/index.html
+++ b/_site/log/bumblebee/index.html
@@ -44,45 +44,41 @@
<h2 class="center" id="title">BUMBLEBEE: BROWSER AUTOMATION</h2>
<h6 class="center">02 APRIL 2025</h5>
<br>
- <div class="twocol justify"><p>Bumblebee is a tool I built for one of my employers to automate the generation
-of web scraping scripts.</p>
+ <div class="twocol justify"><p>Built with Andy Zhang for an employer. Tool to automate web scraping script
+generation.</p>
<video style="max-width:100%; margin-bottom: 10px" controls="" poster="poster.png">
<source src="bee.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
-<p>In 2024, we were tasked with collecting market data using various methods,
-including scraping data from authorized websites for traders’ use.</p>
-
-<p>Manual authoring of such scripts took time. The scripts were often brittle due
-to the complexity of the modern web, and they lacked optimizations such as
-bypassing the UI and retrieving the data files directly when possible, which
-would have significantly reduced our compute costs.</p>
-
-<p>To alleviate these challenges, I, with the help of a colleague, Andy Zhang,
-built Bumblebee: a web browser powered by C# Windows Forms, Microsoft Edge <a src="https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2" class="external" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WebView2</a>, and
-the <a src="https://github.com/desjarlais/Scintilla.NET" class="external" toarget="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scintilla.NET</a> text editor.</p>
-
-<p>Bumblebee works by injecting a custom JavaScript program that intercepts
-client-side events and sends them to Bumblebee for analysis. In addition to
-front-end events, Bumblebee also captures internal browser events, which it
-then interprets to generate code in real time. Note that we developed Bumblebee
-before the advent of now-popular LLMs. Bumblebee supports dynamic websites,
-pop-ups, developer tools, live manual override, event debouncing, and filtering
-hidden elements and scripts.</p>
-
-<p>Before settling on a desktop application, we contemplated designing Bumblebee
-as a browser extension. We chose the desktop app because extensions don’t offer
-the deep, event-based control we needed. Besides, the company’s security
-policy, which prohibited browser extensions, would have complicated the
-deployment of an extension-based solution. My first prototype used a C# binding
-of the Chromium project. WebView’s more intuitive API and its seamless
-integration with Windows Forms led us to choose it over the Chromium wrapper.</p>
-
-<p>What began as a personal side project to improve my own workflow enabled us to
-collectively improve the quality of our web scripts at a much larger scale.
-Bumblebee predictably reduced the time we spent on authoring scripts from hours
-to a few minutes.</p>
+<p>Manual script authoring took hours. Scripts poorly optimized, CPUs maxed
+constantly, cloud costs excessive.</p>
+
+<p>Initially considered browser extension. Desktop app won—extensions don’t give
+deep event control. Company policy blocked extensions anyway.</p>
+
+<p>First prototype: C# Win Forms + CefSharp.</p>
+
+<p>Second prototype: C# Win Forms + WebView2. Packaging and distribution more
+complex, but the API is well-designed; integrates well with Win Forms.</p>
+
+<p>Microsoft Edge required. Portability not a concern, only need to target
+controlled Windows environments. Choosing WebView2 over CefSharp.</p>
+
+<p>Embed <a href="https://github.com/desjarlais/Scintilla.NET" class="external" toarget="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scintilla.NET</a> editor for
+overriding generated script.</p>
+
+<p>Code generation sequence: Inject JavaScript to intercept client-side events.
+Capture internal browser events (pop-ups, file downloads). Event
+raised → parsed into a token → insert to list → interpret event → look up
+instruction from a table → form instruction with event args → insert text to a
+parallel list → run both lists through optimizer → update Scintilla editor.</p>
+
+<p>Problem: manual overriding via Scintilla editor mid-session causes the code
+list to go out of sync with the event list. Optimizer can’t handle this yet.</p>
+
+<p>Note to self: need to rethink the event/text list data structures in the
+context of the optimizer–look to compilers for inspiration maybe?</p>
</div>
<p class="post-author right">by W. D. Sadeep Madurange</p>
diff --git a/_site/posts.xml b/_site/posts.xml
index 043fc0d..c92221f 100644
--- a/_site/posts.xml
+++ b/_site/posts.xml
@@ -1 +1 @@
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.4.1">Jekyll</generator><link href="/posts.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2025-12-27T13:04:53+08:00</updated><id>/posts.xml</id><title type="html">ASCIIMX</title><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author></feed> \ No newline at end of file
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.4.1">Jekyll</generator><link href="/posts.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2025-12-27T18:35:47+08:00</updated><id>/posts.xml</id><title type="html">ASCIIMX</title><author><name>W. D. Sadeep Madurange</name></author></feed> \ No newline at end of file