Hacker News: JKCalhoun

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons"

JKCalhoun — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:40:19 +0000

If they were listed by Restitution or Fines Abandoned, there is a clear winner, ha ha.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons"

JKCalhoun — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:38:34 +0000

The numbers suggest that 94% of all Fines Abandoned were just from Trump's first term.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "One neat trick to end extreme poverty"

JKCalhoun — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:33:56 +0000

"…around 60% of rich-world respondents say they would be willing to give up 0.5% of their income if that were enough to end extreme poverty."

That really is sad. We're talking 0.5% and only 60% were okay with that?

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Bitcoin miners are losing on every coin produced as difficulty drops"

JKCalhoun — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:27:09 +0000

If "difficulty drops, costs go down" so ought the price? Isn't that basic economics? Or are they chasing the "phase difference", lag, between supply demand?

New comment by JKCalhoun in "White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets"

JKCalhoun — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:20:44 +0000

Kind of what I was thinking. If it is essentially InsidrBetz.com why bet at all? This is the kind of thing that could (should, anyway) kill the industry.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Audio Reactive LED Strips Are Diabolically Hard"

JKCalhoun — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:24:35 +0000

No, I have not.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

JKCalhoun — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:36:45 +0000

That's pretty niche!

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

JKCalhoun — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:27:22 +0000

Six months deep now into analog computing. (I have a modular, hobbyist analog computer wrapping up—just writing the manual).

Going to have to do something on the other end of the spectrum after this. Maybe RISO printing…

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Audio Reactive LED Strips Are Diabolically Hard"

JKCalhoun — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:23:14 +0000

"3 hardware filters…"

The classic "Color Organ" from the 70's.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Audio Reactive LED Strips Are Diabolically Hard"

JKCalhoun — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:20:15 +0000

I made a decent audio visualizer using the MSGEQ7 [1]. It buckets a count for seven audio frequency ranges—an Arduino would poll on every loop. It looks like the MSGEQ7 is not a standard part any longer unfortunately.

(And it looks like the 7 frequencies are not distributed linearly—perhaps closer to the mel scale.)

I tried using one of the FFT libraries on the Arduino directly but had no luck. The MSGEQ7 chip is nice.

[1] https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/d/4/6/0/c/MSGEQ7.pdf

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Lunar Flyby"

JKCalhoun — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:52:50 +0000

Not all of those are discretionary spending? Maybe not equivalent to include, for example, Social Security.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown"

JKCalhoun — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:22:00 +0000

Thank you.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

JKCalhoun — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:05:52 +0000

"…much focus is given on rifles, specifically big black scary looking rifles"

Military-style rifles designed primarily for killing humans? That's called a low hanging fruit. If the U.S. can't even restrict those I expect everything else to be a wasted effort.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

JKCalhoun — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:03:29 +0000

Yeah, pretty sure it's not expected to be funny. If at all, it has entered absurdist territory.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

JKCalhoun — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:58:41 +0000

The joke is of course that they are hoisting the 'No Way to Prevent This' all the time. The (new) punchline is that nothing has changed.

To be sure it became gallow's humor sometime after the 2nd or 3rd run. And, no, I don't think it is intended to be funny at all anymore.

Show HN: Moon simulator game, ray-casting

JKCalhoun — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:09:40 +0000

Did this a few years ago. Seems apropos. Sources and more here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47663743

Points: 113

# Comments: 25

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]"

JKCalhoun — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:20:09 +0000

In fact a trip to the Moon gives me hope for our species—that not everything is shit.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown"

JKCalhoun — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:51:10 +0000

Why not allow the upload of an arbitrary image?

New comment by JKCalhoun in "US deploying nearly all stealthy long-range JASSM-ER cruise missiles to Iran war"

JKCalhoun — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:57:05 +0000

> The US isn't done depleting its inventory yet

Yes, reading articles like this one, I suspect it's going to be the lack of firepower that causes this administration to finally back out of the conflict. And with these number it sounds like it might be sooner than later.

New comment by JKCalhoun in "Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general"

JKCalhoun — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 02:38:09 +0000

Apparently there is a tight connection between Bondi and Eric Swallwell.