Hacker News: _spduchamp

New comment by _spduchamp in "'8647' etched into grass on the National Mall"

_spduchamp — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:54:39 +0000

How was this done? It is dot matrix.

'8647' etched into grass on the National Mall

_spduchamp — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:54:39 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/11/politics/8647-grass-national-mall

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48497524

Points: 14

# Comments: 8

New comment by _spduchamp in "Raspberry Pi 5 – 16GB RAM"

_spduchamp — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:46:43 +0000

I've never minded paying more at Adafruit to help support them. The support they have provided, with documentation, examples, libraries, etc. has been immensely valuable to my hobbies and work.

New comment by _spduchamp in "Show HN: Infinite canvas notes in the non-Euclidean Poincaré disk"

_spduchamp — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 16:01:14 +0000

Ah, just found the node that says that "there is no up/down/left/right".

I do not understand this space.

New comment by _spduchamp in "Show HN: Infinite canvas notes in the non-Euclidean Poincaré disk"

_spduchamp — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:57:28 +0000

I really like this, but moving around a bit I find that things kind of seem to rotate which is disorienting. When this loads, the photo is to the right of the cake. After zipping around a bit in this space, the photo is then to the left of the cake. Is that a rotation? Is there a way to lock the orientation?

New comment by _spduchamp in "75 years of the Fender Telecaster: 12 guitarists who defined the Tele"

_spduchamp — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:49:32 +0000

F Fender.

https://youtu.be/OU7RUpkXsV0

New comment by _spduchamp in "What I've learned about the trombone"

_spduchamp — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:11:21 +0000

One of my favourite albums is Stuart Dempster's Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel.

A group of trombonists all playing in a giant underground water tank with incredibly long reverb.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4tvMp4XDICU

New comment by _spduchamp in "Loopmaster – Livecoding Music IDE"

_spduchamp — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:05:10 +0000

I'm just going to mention Pure Data here, because I'm always surprised when people don't know about it. https://puredata.info/

I use it in my art and music practice to interface with hardware like a GameTrak controller, and to control drone motors for bowing/drumming physical things for computer controlled electroacoustic music. I also use it at a university lab for the development of assistive musical instruments for disabled musicians. It is both an extremely useful tool, and an incredibly fun musical playground for the mind.

The Plugdata variant of Puredata is particularly handy. https://plugdata.org/

Plugdata can run as a plugin in your DAW, compile to a standalone plugin, and compile and load sketches onto a Daisy Seed (https://electro-smith.com/products/daisy-seed).

New comment by _spduchamp in "Cursing the government does not fix potholes. Spray-painting them does"

_spduchamp — Sat, 16 May 2026 14:23:58 +0000

Here is a really inspiring book that touches on this sort of citizen led activism and democratic change. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/533225/teardown-by-d...

It was also turned into a short documentary series. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgBne2KTlDUzDQasv65PtT9Lq...

New comment by _spduchamp in "Canadian fiddler sues Google after AI Overview claimed he was a sex offender"

_spduchamp — Sat, 09 May 2026 14:48:38 +0000

If you build something and put it on the internet and have it doing it's thing by default then yes you need to be responsible for the consequences of releasing that. That's moral rights, and law needs to keep that intact.

Shoving unwanted experimental AI down everyone's throat is a bad idea and absolutely should have consequences.

Having AI peppered everywhere that can hallucinate or amplify damaging falsehoods is dangerous. AI results really should be something one specifically requests and not supersede search results as a default.

I also worry about the possible side effects of an overcorrection, like if AI companies embed a "Don't say any bad things ever" rule which would suppress critical perspectives.

Back when studying top-down AI in the 90s, everything we did was examined through a precautionary principal and liability was rule #1. It blows my mind how far we have moved away from those principals.

New comment by _spduchamp in "Flickr: The first and last great photo platform"

_spduchamp — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:00:06 +0000

Anyone reading this who was part of the Toronto Flickr Meetups, just sayin Howdy! Long time, no see.

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

_spduchamp — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:09:41 +0000

Yup, I've seen some of their stuff. They mostly make conventional music with unconventional instruments which is cute but doesn't quite interest me. I prefer music that is a bit more experimental and works with the texture of the sound more than melodic structure.

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

_spduchamp — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:00:43 +0000

Thanks! I have some albums that were made using the electroduochord.

This one was created autonomously using a feedback algorithm controlling the speed of the rotary magnetic bow. https://stefanpowell.bandcamp.com/album/autonomous-drone-lul...

It's an album meant for falling asleep.

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

_spduchamp — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:22:00 +0000

I build weird experimental instruments and then play them at the local electronic music open mic nights.

My main instrument is the electroduochord, a stereo two-stringed instrument played with a drone motor rotary magnetic bow. https://youtu.be/G1ftvw-Y6pk

I've also hooked up audio jacks to small solar panels to convert vibrations in light into sound. https://youtu.be/ZF2Rn5YfBC8

Now I'm working on cybernetic drumming and rhythm synthesis. https://youtu.be/oJZeP4Naqxo https://youtu.be/NwNrJLvHuAE

New comment by _spduchamp in "LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation"

_spduchamp — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:35:44 +0000

This post seems yo raise speculation, not end it.

Is LibreOffice at risk?

New comment by _spduchamp in "I wanted to build vertical SaaS for pest control, so I took a technician job"

_spduchamp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:17:03 +0000

I like this idea of building your own software to run your own business rather than trying to sell software.

My wife and I run a small chain of second-hand clothing stores that buy from the public, and we run it on our own custom software built on top of a rails e-commerce engine. (Solidus) We don't do anything online, but instead use the engine to run our point-of-sale and credit system. We have one part-time developer who works from home and occasionally comes and works directly with the staff in the stores, and now she leans a little on Claude for assistance.

I would never want the hassle of trying to make our system work for other companies. I love that we have a system that can adapt and change based on our needs without being beholden to some else's SaaS.

If we were to rebuild it all today, we'd probably lean even harder on Claude, but still work using a good open source e-commerce framework.

New comment by _spduchamp in "VitruvianOS – Desktop Linux Inspired by the BeOS"

_spduchamp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:56:45 +0000

BeOS had the BEST icons.

New comment by _spduchamp in "VitruvianOS – Desktop Linux Inspired by the BeOS"

_spduchamp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:53:47 +0000

This is me. It's like a super power.

New comment by _spduchamp in "A Japanese Glossary of Chopsticks Faux Pas"

_spduchamp — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:37:53 +0000

What a coincidence... I was just in my backyard shed playing with my robot chopstick. https://youtu.be/BhBXliscj0I

New comment by _spduchamp in "MIDI 2.0 (and enhanced MIDI 1.0) comes to Windows 11"

_spduchamp — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 02:21:11 +0000

Yup, has been for a while but it seems a lot of people were waiting for the dust to settle with Windows support. With that now released and the APIs locked down, there are some things starting to happen, such as JUCE now supporting MIDI 2.0.