Hacker News: ben_

New comment by ben_ in "KORG phase8 – Acoustic Synthesizer"

ben_ — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 19:15:05 +0000

This website is horrific I love it

New comment by ben_ in "Roc Camera"

ben_ — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 08:14:46 +0000

> for an image feed website I used to be shocked at how poorly images were downscaled, maybe that's changed

It has not, still garbage.

New comment by ben_ in "Discworld Rules"

ben_ — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 16:34:40 +0000

> Their ideology is something like the Wokism of Discworld, a deadening, stifling, faceless force of intersectional lifelessness.

What? Do words even have meaning anymore? How is that anything to do with being "woke"?

New comment by ben_ in "OpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon Transport Tycoon Deluxe"

ben_ — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 12:27:19 +0000

Recently played on the yearly Jingle Jam charity stream, great game! https://www.jinglejam.co.uk/

New comment by ben_ in "Make It Yourself"

ben_ — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:51:27 +0000

As cool as this is, it seems a bit bare? Titles/descriptions are hidden away at the bottom of each page and all the renders are plain black and white (which makes me ask why pdf anyway?) without detailing purpose or use (where not obvious)

New comment by ben_ in "Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels"

ben_ — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:44:06 +0000

Very cool, I like the old school feel of watching whatever is on. That said I immediately noticed the lack of volume control, which IMO is essential.

New comment by ben_ in "The Typeset of Wall·E (2018)"

ben_ — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 10:54:58 +0000

Cool article but this first bit threw me off

> The interpunct is still in use today—it’s the official decimal point in British currency (£9·99)

When the linked wiki specifically points out that it isn't:

> In British typography, the space dot was once used as the formal decimal point.

New comment by ben_ in "ESP32 Drum Synth Machine"

ben_ — Fri, 10 May 2024 12:43:52 +0000

Look Mum No Computer[1] is the most creative and inspirational guy in this space IMO and he goes through much of his projects in further detail on his site.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER

New comment by ben_ in "ESP32 Drum Synth Machine"

ben_ — Fri, 10 May 2024 12:41:59 +0000

If you're looking for an open source version of the PO-33 (without the nifty little screen) there's the recently released zeptocore[1].

[1] https://zeptocore.com

New comment by ben_ in "ESP32 Drum Synth Machine"

ben_ — Fri, 10 May 2024 12:38:31 +0000

The delly is in an incredible piece of kit, especially now with the community firmware!

New comment by ben_ in "Launch HN: Soundry AI (YC W24) – Music sample generator for music creators"

ben_ — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 10:57:38 +0000

It really takes the soul out of making music. Why would you want a computer to design the sound for you? You don't learn anything, you can't honestly claim you made it or expressed yourself, and it won't truly be novel because the model is spewing out stuff based on what already exists.

New comment by ben_ in "Show HN: Improve cognitive focus in 1 minute"

ben_ — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:53:08 +0000

True, but this isn't really something the page author can address

New comment by ben_ in "[dead]"

ben_ — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 11:29:06 +0000

Love the pricing references

New comment by ben_ in "Fixing a broken smart cat feeder with ESP32"

ben_ — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 23:33:51 +0000

They're pretty great and compatible with most things. ESPHome [1] is a great resource for getting ESP32's working nicely with HA and you can find lots of projects using it to learn from.

You'll likely need to do soldering if you want to connect sensors, batteries and the like.

Personally I really like what SEEED Studio [2] does with their ESP32 boards and they have nice docs.

1. https://esphome.io/ 2. https://www.seeedstudio.com/home-assistant

New comment by ben_ in "Nothing works, everyone's mad, society is a pile of kindling waiting for a match"

ben_ — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 22:16:17 +0000

“If being woke means being worried about economic inequality, and racism, and discrimination against gay people, then I’m in. If it means being authoritarians, and policing language, and shutting up other people, then f*k that.”

This is a typically shallow take from Gervais

New comment by ben_ in "Firmware of Hardware DAW Synthstrom Deluge Is Now Open Source"

ben_ — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:49:34 +0000

Can't wait to see what the community builds, exciting times!

New comment by ben_ in "Retro Computer Museum"

ben_ — Wed, 17 May 2023 18:09:31 +0000

I suppose if someone was en route to visit Stonehenge or Avebury it could be tied in!

New comment by ben_ in "Deluge – sequencer, synthesizer and sampler – goes open source"

ben_ — Tue, 16 May 2023 13:08:22 +0000

As someone who owns a deluge and seems to know about this music community quite well, what do you think the prospects are for this to get a lot of active contributors? Do you see there being a lot of exciting improvements made?

Recently bought mine so very happy to hear this news!

New comment by ben_ in "Get started making music"

ben_ — Mon, 15 May 2023 22:12:49 +0000

You have anything to back this up? Seems like a stretch to say a weekend of training is all it takes

New comment by ben_ in "Recreating macOS’s Drift Screensaver with Rust and WASM"

ben_ — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 09:05:09 +0000

Was hoping someone had remade this for windows, great work!