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alanjay

36 karma · joined April 6, 2020

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alanjay··on The Evolution of Lego Sorting (2001)
As a building toy, using the properties of how we build, i.e. stud counts on top and bottom, made sense to me

https://marquisdegeek.com/lego_organisation

alanjay··on Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
I've seen my own work in that museum. I felt super old!
alanjay··on New Lego smart-play system
+1 for the "why not extend the existing range" brigade

Also, another chance to post this old school version:

https://youtu.be/oPqRwCILbmU

alanjay··on Writing Programs with Ncurses
Nothing like curses to build an ascii pacman!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wZorbnsFeHQ

alanjay··on Ray Tracing in One Weekend
If you'd like to see it unfold, step by step, there's a javascript version at

https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/six_hour_raytracer

Plus, it comes with a live demo on

https://marquisdegeek.github.io/six_hour_raytracer/

alanjay··on What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
Not quite, but this emulates her program.

https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/Ada-Origins

alanjay··on I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them
And then pave paradise, put up a parking lot.
alanjay··on What we can learn from vintage computing
If you look at how these machines were programmed, rather than used, you'll learn a lot
alanjay··on Ask HN: Can we blame Windows for CrowdStrike outage?
Yes.

MS provided a kernel-level entry point that other OSes didn't need.

MS have an aggressive auto-update policy that is anti-best practise.

MS have a signed binary agreement that doesn't catch the things it is meant to.

alanjay··on The US Ruler
Hahahaha!
alanjay··on What Is Generative Art? (2022)
Should the definition of generative _art_ include music and sound?

If so, there's several ideas at NodeMusic.com

alanjay··on Show HN: I made a programmable computer from NAND gates
Isn't this just https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/gates ?
alanjay··on I can't stand using VSCode so I wrote my own
It's now eighty megabytes ;)
alanjay··on I can't stand using VSCode so I wrote my own
Microsoft don't have internal testing. They get the devs, who already know the code, to see if it makes sense. And woe betide you if you disagree with the PM!
alanjay··on The Longest Joke in the World
What's the tl;dr? :)
alanjay··on Suno, an AI music generator
Does anyone know if Suno is responsible for the AI album https://nodemusic.bandcamp.com/album/co-written?
alanjay··on John Deere Announces Strategic Partnership with SpaceX
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Dave: What's the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?

HAL: This support contract is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize the cash cow weve built up here.

alanjay··on Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires
And about time, too!
alanjay··on 100 Lines of C, in a Closet (2020)
Sorry, that was unuseful! I looked it up, its called ultra.

https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/ultra

Maybe it'll inspire someone!

alanjay··on 100 Lines of C, in a Closet (2020)
Building a tiny Web server, with dB and stuff was the subject of an old FOSDEM talk.
alanjay··on Maybe getting rid of your QA team was bad
But Microsoft fired their entire qa department, and their software is rock solid. Right! Right?
alanjay··on Text adventure ported to social media
AIUI, the book "20 Goto 10" also avoids referring to itself as CYOA, despite its similarities for the same legal reason.
alanjay··on Sony sends copyright notices to TV Museum about shows 40 to 60 years old
This the problem with YouTube- they're judge, jury and executioner.

If you dispute the claim its judged by checks notes the person who claimed copyright.

Even if the original work is 120 - yes, 120 - years old!

See first comment on

https://youtu.be/HFq7XpFmYo4

alanjay··on Kraftwerk issued their own pocket calculator synthesizer (2019)
Who needs a calculator, when you have an Arduino!

https://hackaday.com/2020/11/27/hes-the-operator-of-his-pock...

alanjay··on Unloop: A generative music looper that doesn’t repeat itself
Seems a popular pastime these days. According to https://nodemusic.com/

"In "8 Bits of Grey" we ... can therefore generate a continuously changing melody that always sounds similar to its starting point, despite every bar being unique."

So is mathematics and grey codes finally cool?

alanjay··on Most FOSDEM 2023 videos have been uploaded
Pretty much everything from the emulator room. Squeezed myself in at the start, and stumbled out at the end!
alanjay··on Where Is the AI Music?
I've seen/heard it used to supplement existing compositions (a la NodeMusic. com) but not used unsupervised. As the site suggest, how will an AI know it's written good music?
alanjay··on March 5, 1981: Timex Sinclair ZX81 Launched (2018)
That's recently been ported to work as a lichess AI

https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/retro_chess/

(by the same author as the book 20 GOTO 10)

alanjay··on Show HN: Micro HTTP server in 22 lines of C
Reminds me of ultra:

https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/ultra

alanjay··on How to build emulators without code
So, you create a DSL for computers (describing the CPU, memory, peripherals) and let the magic tool build all the code (in the language of your choice) in one go.
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