Hacker News: JoeDaDude

New comment by JoeDaDude in "The Overtom Chess Computer Museum"

JoeDaDude — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:26:04 +0000

I realize this museum is more about hardware but software that implements the game also deserves its place in history. To that effect, here is a writeup on Microchess made for the Kim-1 microcomputer:

https://www.benlo.com/microchess/index.html

New comment by JoeDaDude in "The Overtom Chess Computer Museum"

JoeDaDude — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 01:12:32 +0000

Very cool! Wouldn't it be even cooler if the museum could score a couple of the very oldest machines? I'm talking about the El Ajedrecista machine (1912)[1] and Caissa [2][3] (named after the goddess of Chess[4]) built by Claude Shannon.

[1]. https://www.chessprogramming.org/El_Ajedrecista

[2]. https://www.computerhistory.org/chess/stl-430b9bbe92716/

[3]. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/2007.030.005?qu...

[4]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%AFssa

Technically, these electro mechanical machines may not qualify as computers, but still, what a scoop it would be to get them!

New comment by JoeDaDude in "MemPalace, the highest-scoring AI memory system ever benchmarked"

JoeDaDude — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 02:52:02 +0000

One more meme: Missed the chance to call it Multi-Pass

New comment by JoeDaDude in "AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart"

JoeDaDude — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:14:37 +0000

This "human connection" is over rated IMHO. We tend to create an image of what a human musician is like and we forget that they are, well, human. Too often human musicians have disappointed fans because of their lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason) or because some do not agree with the social and political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out in some way, like their style changes to achieve greater mass appeal, or the sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar. I think it is best to appreciate their creation and admit the person creating it may not be someone to place undue adulation on. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".

New comment by JoeDaDude in "We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do"

JoeDaDude — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 13:53:12 +0000

I've seen a huge amount of videos of sports fans having melt downs when their team/player loses, to the point of destroying their own TVs and attacking their guests. I have to believe gambling is a factor in this behavior.

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Eniac, the First General-Purpose Digital Computer, Turns 80"

JoeDaDude — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 15:32:37 +0000

For a while I worked at what was then the Sperry Rand Corporation (now Unisys) which had some pride in their heritage as the descendant of the Univac Corporation founded by ENIAC inventors Eckert and Mauchly. In a glass case there was a vacuum tube circuit said to be a memory unit of the original ENIAC. No one seemed to know much about it, casting doubt on the claimed provenance of the device.

The tube circuit resembled the ones shown in the photo linked below (although none of those in the photo are from ENIAC).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Women_holding_parts_of_th...

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Learning Creative Coding"

JoeDaDude — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 01:24:58 +0000

Did any other old timer like me get reminded of Creative Computing magazine?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Computing_(magazine)

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Show HN: A real-time strategy game that AI agents can play"

JoeDaDude — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:05:53 +0000

How about opening up the game for humans to play? Can you beat your AI?

New comment by JoeDaDude in "A practical guide to observing the night sky for real skies and real equipment"

JoeDaDude — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 16:55:00 +0000

Yes, he is the same author. You will recognize his drawings in the Stars book.

New comment by JoeDaDude in "A practical guide to observing the night sky for real skies and real equipment"

JoeDaDude — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:32:19 +0000

Even if you don't have a telescope or binoculars, you can still enjoy naked eye star gazing. The book that got me started and which I highly recommend: The Stars: A New Way to See Them by H. A. Rey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars:_A_New_Way_to_See_Th...

https://archive.org/details/stars00hare

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production"

JoeDaDude — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 21:18:30 +0000

Just to get your nostalgia juices flowing again, someone recreated the Defender sound engine in the browser.

https://www.zapspace.net/defender_sound/

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Television is 100 years old today"

JoeDaDude — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 20:44:05 +0000

I don't care to start a debate about who first invented television when, but I remember hearing (conformed by wikipedia [1]) that Leon Theremin, inventor of the musical instrument named after him, demonstrated mechanical television at roughly the same time.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Clawdbot - open source personal AI assistant"

JoeDaDude — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:35:14 +0000

Making AI companions is becoming a widespread little hobby project. Many have created them and shared instructions on how to do it. My preference would be to use local resources only (say, with ollama), they can even be made with voice recognition, TTS, and an avatar character.

While I have not interfaced my AI with all the services that Clawdbot does (WhatsApp, Slack, etc.) I don't think that is too much of a stretch from my very simple build.

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Level S4 solar radiation event"

JoeDaDude — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:44:22 +0000

There is a video update from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. (I could only find this on Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/reel/1190509063198524

New comment by JoeDaDude in "AI Slop Report: The Global Rise of Low-Quality AI Videos"

JoeDaDude — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 13:41:35 +0000

I'd be more concerned about just slop, whether AI or human created. And the fact that Youtube content is overwhelmingly slop - regardless of creator type - is not news at all.

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Paperbacks and TikTok"

JoeDaDude — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 02:12:03 +0000

And yet, penny dreadful editions and pulp magazines that existed before pocket books... did they have the same effect? Or did they only produce pocket book writers?

New comment by JoeDaDude in "NOAA deploys new generation of AI-driven global weather models"

JoeDaDude — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 18:55:04 +0000

I know someone pursuing a degree in meteorology at well known university for the subject and I asked that person if they are being taught about these and other AI weather models, about how they work, how to evaluate them for effectiveness, etc.

The answer: AI is not even covered, at least at the undergrad level. This is just a sample of one, so are any other universities educating future meteorologists on this subject?

New comment by JoeDaDude in "How Charles M Schulz created Charlie Brown and Snoopy (2024)"

JoeDaDude — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:33:30 +0000

For the dedicated fan, the complete collection of Peanuts strips is available in several volumes.

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/the-complete-peanu...

New comment by JoeDaDude in "How Charles M Schulz created Charlie Brown and Snoopy (2024)"

JoeDaDude — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:27:44 +0000

I remember my grandmother saying that Peanuts characters look like children but spoke like adults and that was what she liked. Apparently, kids saying "good grief" was unheard of back in that time, as were kids generally being disappointed and sad.

New comment by JoeDaDude in "Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter"

JoeDaDude — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:17:13 +0000

Cool! Reminds of the Music From Outer Space synth in which the designer makes the claim that it "can actually get a child away from a television" and includes a video to prove it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6M_KrZByz4

MFOS Weird Sound Generator

https://musicfromouterspace.com/index.php?CATPARTNO=WSG001&P...