Hacker News: colkassad

New comment by colkassad in "Introduction to Computer Music (2009) [pdf]"

colkassad — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:26:12 +0000

Yes, I have a soundcloud account: https://soundcloud.com/emmets-music

I like to mix electronic and orchestral sounds. Some examples:

https://soundcloud.com/emmets-music/the-seven-hills-of-rome

https://soundcloud.com/emmets-music/dark-matter

I also like piano a lot (I only know how to play guitar badly, I just draw in the notes and work velocity until it sounds good to me):

https://soundcloud.com/emmets-music/life-is-delicate-remixed

https://soundcloud.com/emmets-music/soledad

Do you put yours online? I enjoy listening to other musicians. People give soundcloud a lot of grief but I love the service and the musicians I have met there.

New comment by colkassad in "Introduction to Computer Music (2009) [pdf]"

colkassad — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 03:25:48 +0000

I love the world of music production. I started with Ableton Live six years or so ago and it's been a wonderful hobby. It has such a vibrant cottage industry of plugins (sampled instruments, synthesizers, effects, etc) thanks to the VST standard.

New comment by colkassad in "Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?"

colkassad — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:47:41 +0000

I've found LLMs to be extremely powerful in research projects. A lot of code related to research is very bespoke by its nature. Using Codex, I've been able to iterate on ideas that I would never had the time or courage to explore before. As for code quality/brevity, it doesn't really matter in this context as long as it works. And it's incredible to have this companion that understands broadly every aspect of tangential knowledge required to execute an idea. I do think it helps that I have over 25 years of experience in my domain (geospatial), which helps me guardrail my interactions and get good results in as few shots as possible.

New comment by colkassad in "Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died"

colkassad — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:27:42 +0000

I've had this internet handle since the last century. Most people in here are talking about Hyperion but Simmons was a fantastic cross-genre author. My favorites were his historical fiction that contained a fantastical bent:

Drood: Has Wilkie Collins as an unreliable narrator, depicting the last five or so years of Charles Dickens' life.

Crook Factory: An FBI agent is sent to Cuba to keep an eye on Ernest Hemingway, hijinks ensue.

The Fifth Heart: Henry James and Sherlock Holmes team up to solve a mystery.

The Terror: Tells the story of what happened to the HMS Terror that attempted to make the northwest passage. The Arctic is a character in itself in this amazing story. I thought the TV mini-series was fine.

Abominable and Black Hills: I haven't read these yet but look forward to doing so.

Honestly, I think Dan Simmons is my favorite author. I know his politics became unpalatable but I could never find it in myself to care. My heart sank when I saw this post.

New comment by colkassad in "Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died"

colkassad — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:12:22 +0000

It would make a perfect mini-series. Each episode or two could cover each pilgrim's story, with a finale two-parter to wrap up Fall of Hyperion. A lot from Fall could be trimmed down.

New comment by colkassad in "Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died"

colkassad — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:05:53 +0000

The first person perspective of the old lady at the beginning of the book was so creepy.

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

colkassad — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 15:27:45 +0000

Thank you, I had forgotten about this website.

New comment by colkassad in "Meta Segment Anything Model 3"

colkassad — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:25:24 +0000

Thanks, got it and it's working wonders for my use case.

New comment by colkassad in "Meta Segment Anything Model 3"

colkassad — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:29:28 +0000

Been waiting days to get approval to download this from huggingface. What's up with that?

New comment by colkassad in "Pluribus takes down Apple TV"

colkassad — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 04:02:19 +0000

Doesn't surprise me. I managed to get in the first episode and it's amazing. Highly recommend going in blind.

New comment by colkassad in "A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet"

colkassad — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 01:45:18 +0000

Return of the Obra Dinn!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/653530/Return_of_the_Obra...

New comment by colkassad in "A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet"

colkassad — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 01:42:26 +0000

Hearthstone (while not web-based) is a deck building game that you play against others and you can only communicate with a small set of inoffensive phrases that cover broad sentiments. Makes multiplayer endurable, and you can turn them off if you like.

New comment by colkassad in "Spending on AI Is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off?"

colkassad — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 01:05:16 +0000

Meat-based LLMs trained for billions of years are underrated! Too bad they need healthcare (and sleep).

New comment by colkassad in "Choose Your Own Adventure"

colkassad — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 02:13:06 +0000

Heck yeah. My buddy had Ultima III (Exodus?) on his Atari 800 and I was so jealous.

New comment by colkassad in "Choose Your Own Adventure"

colkassad — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 02:07:17 +0000

Same generation, very insightful. Seeing the old covers makes me remember for a second what it was like to be 10 years old again. Scoring some of those at a school bookmobile was like Christmas. I remember learning about them on a PBS children's book show and being captivated by the idea and implications. I already loved books and the new dimension was fresh, along with D&D. Watching that stuff turn into the video games of today has been quite amazing.

New comment by colkassad in "Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room"

colkassad — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:23:47 +0000

In the FPS space, there used to be only three games worth modding for: Quake, Unreal Tournament, Half Life. You could make a mod back then and get tons of press and players if you could follow through. I was interviewed in popular gaming websites! The games themselves were quite simple graphically so anyone with a drip of talent, time, and motivation could contribute. That specific environment doesn't exist anymore. There are so many games now, it's an ocean, developers have exerted more control over their games, and the talent required to create content for FPS games is too high a bar now.

New comment by colkassad in "Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room"

colkassad — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:07:18 +0000

I loved Urban Terror and Rocket Arena! Rocket Arena was definitely old school, I think I started playing that in '96 or '97 (the Quake 2 version).

New comment by colkassad in "Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room"

colkassad — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:02:23 +0000

I loved the mods for the holy trifecta: Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and Half Life. I consider it the golden age of online gaming. I also spent a lot of time on IRC servers chatting with developers (eventually joining a team myself which lead me to my current career as a developer). My favorite was for Weapons Factory, which was a popular Quake 2 mod at the time. The old dev team moved on with their lives so the community took over...and it was actually released and was even better than the first. High quality, with tons of cool maps, and for an active community of maybe 1000 people? Insane.

New comment by colkassad in "Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room"

colkassad — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:51:45 +0000

Nice to see someone similar. I was into the Weapons Factory mod, first for Quake 2 and then Quake 3. I made a map for the Quake 3 version that it still played this day by a small group of die-hards. I think it took me three days to make that map. Draw a brush, slap a texture on it, keep things neat. All there was too it. It wasn't long before modding just became too hard. I remember reading about static meshes being introduced in the Unreal Engine and I knew I was done.

New comment by colkassad in "Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room"

colkassad — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:40:19 +0000

I would just play as medic and camp the enemy spawn room, infecting them as they spawned and watch as they passively infected their teammates. It was great fun (I have since grown as a person). It wasn't long before the enemy spawn rooms would instantly kill you if you entered.