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whatrocks

1,562 karma · joined August 31, 2010

engineering at https://folio.co | writing at https://charlieharrington.com
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whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
These all look great (esp. Pinball Construction Set!).

Regarding 6502 programming, I've been planning to follow along with Ben Eater's new course and kit on "Building a 6502 Computer": https://eater.net/6502 (once I finish up his previous kit for building an 8 bit computer with breadboards). Amazing that you still have those books in your library!

whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
Yeah, I acknowledged my shame with this decision in the post. I did buy this $15 radio kit to "practice" soldering: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YHZE0G, but I've already somehow oxidized my solder iron's tip to the point that it won't heat the solder anymore. I would love a dummy's guide to soldering (YouTube or books) recommendation if you have one! (Although, I'm sure practice, practice, practice is going to be the top suggestion).
whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
Definitely need to get a copy of The Oregon Trail. And, yes, I've been reading up on LOGO! I just read a great book called Mindstorms written by Seymour Papert (inventor of LOGO and the Turtle robot) about his educational theories behind LOGO and using computers to help children learn how to learn. I highly recommend checking it out - here are my book notes: https://www.charlieharrington.com/mindstorms
whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
Wow, I'll definitely be picking up both of those cards. Thanks for the tips. I had a feeling the serial card would be my ticket to the Internet, rather than the impressive-looking, but clearly past-its-prime modem card.
whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
Will do! Someone also just turned me onto this site: https://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/ where you can connect your laptop or phone's headphone jack with a 3.5mm audio cable to the Apple II cassette-in port, and just play the audio files to transfer over games and other software. This is the magic I was hoping for.
whatrocks··on My New Old Apple IIe Computer
Amazing! Just followed you on Twitter, and I'll DM you there :) Thank you!
whatrocks··on Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?
https://www.charlieharrington.com/

I write about computers, making music, books, and the great outdoors.

Post-mortem on making a podcast: https://www.charlieharrington.com/escaping-web-season-one-re...

Getting started with Arduino: https://www.charlieharrington.com/afternoon-with-arduino

List of novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries: https://www.charlieharrington.com/novels-with-libraries

whatrocks··on Book subtitles are getting longer because of SEO
My favorite college professor was onto this way back in 1988 with the subtitle to his great book `Another Sort of Learning`

`Selected Contrary Essays on How Finally to Acquire an Education While Still in College Or Anywhere Else: Containing Some Belated Advice about How to Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing in Spite of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together with Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else in Captivity to Be Found`

https://www.amazon.com/Another-Sort-Learning-James-Schall/dp...

whatrocks··on Afternoon with Arduino
Great idea. I should look around to see if there's any good articles / tutorials with Arduino and TFLite. Additionally, I really do think that a computer vision app for recognizing electronics components (especially resistors) would be super useful for tinkerers of all ages.
whatrocks··on Afternoon with Arduino
Thanks! I'm definitely an Arduino padawan, so it was important for me to write down what I learned, messed up, and still want to figure out. It just feels good to be combining code with physical hardware, even if its just a tiny little LED. I'm also reading CODE by Charles Petzold at the same time and each chapter is blowing my mind (while requiring several re-reads). Oh, and I'm watching Halt and Catch Fire. So, I'm firing on a lot of hardware cylinders right now.
whatrocks··on Ask HN: Show Us Your Personal Website/Blog?
https://www.charlieharrington.com I've just finished the first draft of my children's novel about robots, so I'm planning to post more about the writing, editing, querying, publishing process here. Right now, most of the posts on my site are about books, ultramarathons, coding, and music.
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Don't worry, that's on the list! Completely agree. I was devastated over lost books after reading this one.
whatrocks··on Building a fashion search engine with deep learning
Not surprising at all! Instagram is probably next for this, then. Every single non-ad post could be a way to sell you the clothes or widgets that your friends are wearing/using in their fabulous lives.
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
That sounds almost too perfect - I'll add it to the list (as well as my near-term reading list).
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
"instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the (“neo-realistic”) novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic."

Chills.

whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Speaking hyperbolically, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood might be the best content across any medium that I've consumed in years. Speaking somewhat less so -- if you're thinking about trying out anime, start here, it's amazing and hilarious with great characters and an intense storyline.
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Thanks -- I'll be adding all these. Can't believe I forgot the Stephenson examples. The Calvino book looks great.

And.. the Disreputable Dog. I'll always be her friend, too.

whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Thanks! I'll pick up "The Colour of Magic" this weekend. I'm now remembering that I've read "Good Omens" that he did with Neil Gaiman, and I made a note back then to start exploring Discworld, but never followed through with it. Time to fix that.
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
I'll add it to the list! I've been on a middle grade / YA tear lately, and this looks excellent.
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Somehow I've never picked up any Pratchett books but, after reading this, I'm in:

  *The Library has endless shelves (some of which are Mobius shelves)*
Which one(s) should I add to the list? And, more importantly, where should I start reading?
whatrocks··on Novels with giant, possibly magical, libraries
Oh, good call! Forgot about that one. I'll add it to the list. I am huge fan of his Zones of Thought books.
whatrocks··on Building a fashion search engine with deep learning
This similar clothing recommender seems like something that Netflix or Amazon Prime will add to their pause screens on their original content - letting viewers purchase similar things to what the characters are wearing right on screen. I remember searching for years for some dumb shirt that Owen Wilson wore in some dumb movie, but I was so happy when I finally found something like it.
whatrocks··on YC 120
Book dust jacket bio might be a better framing of this question.
whatrocks··on Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2019
I took the in-person version of this course in Fall 2018, and it's definitely approachable for someone who doesn't yet know any linear algebra or remembers calculus all that well. You just start doing things with deep learning right away. After these quick wins, you'll hopefully get some more intuitive breakthroughs of what's actually happening. Then and only then do they suggest digging into the math more deeply (I'm still doing this last part).
whatrocks··on Inverting facial recognition models
Me either in 11th grade. I was definitely just playing Ocarina of Time for the millionth time, looking at sketchy forums that claimed you could find the Triforce somehow.
whatrocks··on Generating classical music with LSTM neural networks
There's a short snippet of a jazz composition from Clara near the top of the post.
whatrocks··on Generating six-pack abs with Tensorflow
I'd like to see more about how this deep learning visualization (or any DL project for that matter) was used in context of a user-facing product or app - does the user take a selfie and receive a transformed picture back. I've seen the Prisma style transfer app, and I'm curious to see how others are starting to include DL features inside a customer product.
whatrocks··on Colorizing black and white photos with deep learning
edges2cats is already way too fun. Thank you for the link!
whatrocks··on Colorizing black and white photos with deep learning
I'd like to train this on color comic strips and then run something traditionally black and white like xkcd through it. Seems like it could make the colorization part of hand drawn animation much easier.
whatrocks··on Breaking into startups – podcast to share with your non-tech friends
I found it in Overcast directory this morning. Also on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/breakingintostartups
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